Cybele's Secret - Juliet Marillier - Cybeles Secret
Our eyes met in the lamplight as he put a glass of tea in my hand. He was calm, as always, but there was something different in his expression, a wariness I had not seen before. I did not bother trying to interpret it. I was just intensely glad he was there to sit with me and help keep the dark things at bay.
“I don’t want to talk about the dream,” I said. “I want to forget it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hate being out of control like this. I think someone’s trying to warn me. To show me what might happen if I get it wrong, if I can’t work it out.”
“What is it you must work out, Paula?”
I made a snap decision. “I want to show you something, Stoyan. I need your advice. Hold this for a moment.” Giving him back the glass, I went inside to fetch my notebook.
“I will not be able to help you,” he said flatly when I returned. His gaze was on the book.
“You might.” I was looking for the page on which I’d transcribed the little symbols. “Someone’s given me a puzzle, something to do with Cybele’s Gift. If you look—” I glanced up and was shocked by the expression on his face, which was suddenly as guarded as if we were total strangers. “What?” I asked.
“It shames me to tell you, kyria, but I cannot read. In your world, all men are scholars. I am not part of that world.” He had to force this out, and my heart bled for him.
“I don’t need you to read, Stoyan,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “just to look at something. Most people can’t read, you know. Most people aren’t given the opportunity to learn.”
“I have no wish to talk of this.”
I had really upset him. “Stoyan,” I said in a different tone, “we are friends, aren’t we? Be honest. Forget that we hired you as a guard and speak from the heart.”
His lips twisted into a self-mocking smile, but his tone was warm. “We are friends,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “It is not difficult to learn to read, provided you have a little time and a good teacher. I am a good teacher. I taught my younger sister, and she’s becoming quite a scholar. This is something I could help you with, if you want to learn.”
Stoyan hunched his shoulders and looked at his feet. “I cannot learn,” he muttered.
“Cannot? I don’t believe it.”
“I am a man of the land, kyria. In my village, even the elders do not possess this skill. Only the priest has any knowledge of letters.”
“What about a wager? I would lay odds on my ability to teach you successfully.”
His lips curved in a sweet smile, taking me by surprise. “I have nothing to wager,” he said. “Unless you are in need of a sharp knife or a pair of too-large boots.”
I was silent for a moment. “You said you would breed dogs one day. I’ll have a pup from the first litter, one that you don’t want for breeding stock. A…a Bugarski Goran. Do I have it right?”
“That is an item of more value than perhaps you realize, Paula.”
“If it’s anything like our farm dogs at home, I have a fair idea of its worth.”
“And what if you fail? What should be set against a creature of such price?”
“I won’t fail.”
“Nonetheless, you must wager something of equivalent value, Paula.”
I thought about this. It seemed to me there was only one thing I could give him that he really needed. “I suppose, when Father and I leave for home, you will take up the search for your brother again,” I said. “If you had funds, you could do so straightaway, without having to spend more time working as a guard. Once we’ve bought Cybele’s Gift, I can reasonably ask Father for some money of my own—”
“No.” Stoyan did not let me finish. His features had tightened and his eyes had lost their earlier warmth. “I will not take your charity, Paula. Finding Taidjut is my quest, my mission. I must earn the means to undertake it by my own labor. You insult me with this offer.”
“Insult?” Clearly I had made an error of judgment, but I had not thought he would be so offended by my suggestion, which seemed to me perfectly practical. “Pride is all very well, Stoyan, but sometimes we have to be practical about these things—”
“I will not discuss this with you,” Stoyan said. His voice was unsteady; I had really upset him. “You cannot understand.”
Now I was the one who was insulted. “Cannot? I thought you said I was a…a grown woman with a good head on my shoulders.”
“When I said so, I spoke the truth,” he said, his tone once more calm and even. His ability to control his temper was much better than mine. “But this is a matter beyond your comprehension. Perhaps beyond any woman’s.”
After a moment I said, “I see.” My heart was thumping; I realized I very much didn’t want to have an argument with him. “I suppose it’s immaterial anyway. I intend to win the wager.”
“From what Master Teodor tells me,” Stoyan said, “in one month you return to Transylvania and we part company. What can you teach me in a month?”
“Plenty,” I told him. “All your letters—it will have to be in Greek, since I don’t know your native tongue and you don’t know mine—and how to write your name and a few other things, sufficient to get you started. Enough to write a very short letter to your mother, which the priest can read to her.”
Stoyan said nothing. In his amber eyes I saw his image of his mother receiving such a missive, perhaps with news of the lost brother, Taidjut. The silence drew out.
“I’m sorry I upset you,” I said eventually. “I hate arguing with you.” It had made my stomach tie itself into a tight knot of distress.
“I too, Paula. Tell me, when might such study be undertaken? Your father pays me to guard his daughter, not to be the recipient of her wisdom.”
“We’ll make time. This is important.”
“To prove you are right and win the wager? You like dogs so much?”
“This is not about the dog. I want to prove to you that this is something you can do. I can see you view reading and writing as an arcane mystery, and I know it isn’t.”
“I am not of a scholarly persuasion, Paula. What is easy for you will be difficult for me.”
“Perhaps we should forget the wager, and you teach me something in return. Something that is easy for you and difficult for me.”
A slow smile spread across Stoyan’s face, lighting up his strange eyes. I wondered what I had started.
“I like this idea far better, Paula,” he said. “Let us agree to it.”
“Done,” I said, thinking how much I liked it when he called me by my name. It was not something I could tell him.
“Now, if you wish, I will look at this book,” Stoyan said, “though I cannot imagine I can be of much assistance. Tomorrow I will begin to teach you how to defend yourself against attackers. Unarmed combat. In that, I am expert.”
I put my chin up and tried for a confident look. “All right,” I said, as if lessons in self-defense were the kind of thing I did every day. “I suppose that might come in useful sometime.”
I showed him the page in my notebook where I had copied the little border designs from the Persian manuscript. “I think it’s a code or puzzle,” I told him, “but I can’t work out how to solve it. I thought of letters or numbers, a numeric sequence of some kind or perhaps a cryptic reference to another book. I cannot think what would be sufficiently well known.”
“The Koran?” Stoyan suggested, surprising me. “No, perhaps not. A devout person would not use the holy book in such a way. Why do you believe this puzzle has been set for you? How could anyone know you would be in this library except the Greek lady herself?”
I hesitated. Did I trust him enough to speak of the strange words that had appeared and disappeared? Could I tell him I had seen Tati? I looked at him, and Stoyan looked back, his scarred face pale in the lantern light, his hair a shadowy cascade across his powerful shoulders. I saw trust in his eyes, and honesty, and something else, something that drew me to him, yet made me look away.
“There have been other things,” I said in an undertone. “A woman dressed all in black. I’ve seen her several times now, at the docks, in a boat, in the library. She’s been leading me on a quest, at least I think that’s what it is. Back home, the folk of the Other Kingdom delighted in setting tests and trials. Usually they had reasons of their own, but it was also a way for human folk to learn lessons and become better people. When it happened to us before, it was all about keeping the forest safe, the place where they lived, and making sure our valley was looked after by someone fair and honest who respected the Other Kingdom. That turned out to be our second cousin Costi and my sister Jena. And at the same time, the quest was to help my eldest sister, Tati, and her sweetheart be together. The woman…When I heard her voice and saw her eyes, it was Tati, Stoyan. The sister who went away years ago and never came back.”
“Remarkable,” he breathed. “What is the nature of this quest?”
Somehow, I was not surprised that he had accepted my words without making the sort of remarks other folk would under such circumstances: That’s impossible or How could your sister be here in Istanbul? Stoyan was different. I had known that from the first.
“I don’t know, but I think it’s to do with Cybele’s Gift. That’s why it’s urgent to work out the clues. There was writing on the manuscript, writing that appeared and disappeared. ‘Find the heart, for there lies wisdom. The crown is the destination.’ Then, the next time I was in the library, I found another sheet of the same manuscript, and it had Cybele’s picture on it.”
Stoyan studied the little images awhile, brow furrowed. Then he said, “You spoke of a puzzle to solve. Perhaps it is less complex than you imagine. Put together in the right way, these fragments might make the image of a spreading tree with flowers and leaves, with small creatures at its feet and with birds and insects in its branches. A tree has both a heart, in the center of the old wood, and a crown, a canopy. Do you think?” His voice was hesitant.
“Why break the image up? Why make it so cryptic?” I wondered aloud.
“I cannot imagine,” Stoyan said quietly, “unless it is somehow secret. If this quest is indeed for you, Paula, perhaps this message was concealed thus so it would only become apparent when you were ready to read it.”
I was silent. Could Stoyan so quickly have solved a puzzle I had labored for hours to work out without success?
“We could put it to the test,” Stoyan suggested. “A tray of sand in which we can re-create this tree, or some small scraps of paper…I know your Father’s store of writing materials is not to be wasted, but…”
“We’ll need a tray of sand to practice our Greek letters,” I said.
“There is clean sand in the camel compound.” A pause. “I do not wish to leave you here alone, Paula.”
“I’ll be all right if I can keep the lantern.” It seemed wrong to let nightmares and apparitions get the better of me. I had always wanted to be my own woman, independent and brave. “But don’t take too long. Stoyan?” I spoke as he was heading off along the gallery, and he turned his head. “I like it when you call me Paula,” I said, against my better judgment. “And please don’t answer that it’s inappropriate.”
“It is just for the nighttime,” Stoyan said, his voice like a shadow. Then he was gone.
It was a strange thing to say, and I wondered if I had misheard him. I made myself concentrate on the images, putting them together in my mind to make a stylized picture, doing my best to work out what kind of tree it might be—something with broad, heart-shaped leaves, not needles; something with flowers; something much visited by small creatures of one kind or another. The more I imagined this tree, the more I saw the form of the bee goddess in it, the leaves her wild hair, the roots her strong feet, the bulbous trunk and generous limbs a mirror of Cybele’s own body.
Make me whole, her spectral voice whispered. I tried hard not to look along the gallery into the dark recesses at its far corners, where anything might be lurking.
Stoyan came back at a run, balancing a tray filled with damp sand. The lantern light was not ideal for fine work, but we set the tray on the small table, and while I held up the book with my notes, he marked the sand out as a grid with thirty squares, then began to copy the shapes with a twig, filling each square with one of the small patterns, trying to place them in the way he had envisaged would form the trunk, branches, and leaves of a tree. I tried to note which ones he had used so he didn’t double up or leave any out. For a long time, we murmured instructions and suggestions to each other as he crouched by the table, making a line here, rubbing out a squiggle there, doing his best to make it work.
“If this theory proves correct,” Stoyan said, erasing several images with a sigh and examining the notebook page again, “where does it take us?”
“I don’t know. I stumbled on the manuscript at random when I was browsing through a box of bits and pieces that hadn’t been sorted out. It’s too much of a coincidence for me to find these, unless it’s a trail I’m supposed to follow. I’m sure Irene didn’t know what was in the box, nor did her assistant. Neither of them took much interest in exactly what I was studying. Stoyan, when I looked at the little picture of Cybele…” My words died away as he completed the last few pieces of the puzzle. He’d been right. The tiny shapes formed a spreading tree bearing flowers and fruit at the same time, with all sorts of creatures flying and roosting and foraging around the roots. A tree with a heart, for that was the way its sturdy trunk looked, and a crown of verdant foliage. “How was it you saw that so quickly,” I asked him, “and I spent days thinking about it and getting nowhere?”
“Perhaps you were looking for a more complex solution. A simple man sees a simple answer.”
“Simple? You? I doubt that.”
“You did not finish what you were saying.” He regarded me gravely. “When you found this image of the old goddess, something happened.”
“I heard a voice. Not Tati’s; another voice, a deep one. It was like a command: ‘I am the beginning. Make me whole.’ There was another girl in the library, and she didn’t seem to have heard it, nor did she see Tati when she appeared and disappeared. I wonder if you’d be able to see her?”
“I do not know. Paula, your past must make you a perfect choice to be entrusted with such a secret. I am unsurprised that clues have been laid for you to follow. A scholar by nature and training, and already a visitor to this kingdom of the shadows…. So someone has chosen you to be the holder of knowledge. This troubles me. I know you wish to visit Kyria Irene’s library in the morning. I am not content to wait for you outside. Not this time.”
“That won’t work anyway,” I said, impressed by his insight. “I want to show you the manuscript. Perhaps there’s a way around Irene’s rule. Let me think about it.”
“Should you speak of these manifestations to Master Teodor? He fears attack by commercial rivals. He is unaware that other, more unusual forces are also at work.”
