Cybele's Secret - Juliet Marillier - Cybeles Secret
It must have been a daunting journey for Stoyan’s mother—all the way from Bulgaria by cart or on horseback, with not a word of our language or of any other that was common currency in this northern land. She was surely not equipped for such an adventure at her age. I made a picture of her in my mind as we walked down to the castle and indoors; I imagined her as frail, weary, and lost. It would be hard to make her feel at home when we had no common tongue. Holding Stoyan’s hand tightly, I opened the kitchen door.
The kettle was steaming on the stove, and the room was full of a tempting smell of baking. Several pieces of Florica’s best weaving were spread out across the well-scrubbed table. Our housekeeper was explaining that the flower border was based on a pattern her mother had taught her and that she had invented the dye for the gentian blue herself. As she spoke, her hands were busy illustrating her meaning.
Seated at the table admiring the weaving was an extremely imposing woman. She was younger than I had expected—a good ten years my father’s junior, I thought. Her hair was as dark as Stoyan’s, the braids pinned in a no-nonsense style atop her head. She was a big woman, tall and solidly built, and she sat bolt upright. I felt she was the kind of person who would tap me on the shoulder and correct me if I did not hold myself well. Her jacket was of black felt covered with multicolored embroidery, an intricate pattern of flower and leaf, vine and fruit. Under it she was clad in a linen blouse, a practical riding skirt with a slit up the side, and good though mud-spattered boots.
As we came in, she turned, then rose to her feet, looking me up and down. Her gaze was not unfriendly, but she was definitely assessing me. Perhaps she was deciding my hips were too narrow for childbearing. Perhaps she was thinking that if Stoyan was going to drag her all the way to Transylvania, he could at least have chosen a beauty. I swallowed nervously, then said in Greek, so that Stoyan, at least, could understand, “Welcome. I am very happy to meet you.”
Stoyan said something with Paula in it, a translation, an introduction, and I stepped forward nervously to kiss my future mother-in-law on either cheek. She took my hands in hers, looked me in the eye, and said something to Stoyan in Bulgarian.
“For pity’s sake, Paula, let the poor lady sit down,” Florica said. “Stela, will you run and call your father again? And get that dog out of here. I’m not putting my pastries on the table while he’s within range.”
We sat. Stoyan’s mother spoke again, nodding in my direction.
“My mother says she did not expect me to choose such a slight girl,” Stoyan said apologetically. “She is a farmer, you understand; the women in our part of the world are of robust build. She says you remind her of the mountain flowers, small and pale but strong. She bids you welcome to our family.” A flush rose to his cheeks. “She adds, she hopes you are aware of what a fine man you are getting. I think mothers are fond of making such remarks.”
“Please tell your mother I know I’m getting the best man in the world,” I said. “She must be very proud of you. Now perhaps I’d better make the tea, just to show reading and writing are not my only skills.”
After that, the kitchen filled up with folk. First was my father, who threw his arms around Stoyan and was embraced in return. He engaged Stoyan’s mother in conversation, with her son as interpreter, while I brewed tea and Florica set out the walnut pastries, cheese, little spiced sausages, and bread rolls, as well as a jug of fresh milk from our cow. Then Petru came in, taciturn as ever in company but clearly unable to curb his curiosity. The smell of Florica’s baking drew in Dorin as well and then Father’s secretary, Gabriel. Stoyan and his mother, whose name was Nadezhda, did not seem at all overwhelmed by this crowd, despite the constant need for everything to be rendered into Greek and then into Bulgarian and back again.
At a certain point, when fresh tea was being prepared and the pastries were almost finished, Stoyan spoke quietly to Father and the two of them went out together. They were gone awhile; long enough for me to begin to worry. Not that I believed it likely Father would refuse Stoyan permission to marry me, but I thought he might set conditions. He might want us to wait awhile so we would be sure we were making the right decision. Or perhaps he would think we should find our house and land first. My stomach churned. We’d waited a whole year already, a year in which both of us had been lonely and miserable. Now that Stoyan was here, I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.
The door opened. Not Stoyan, not Father, but Jena and Costi with little Nicolae.
“We’re on our way down to the village—” Jena began, then saw we had an unusual visitor. “Oh, I didn’t realize—Paula, will you introduce us?”
I did my best without language. Stoyan’s mother stood, bowed, kissed Jena and Costi on both cheeks. Then, her strong features softened by a smile, she crouched down to Nicolae’s level and spoke to him quietly, asking him about the toy he was carrying, a little wooden cart. Not much later, she had him sitting on her knee and was sharing her pastry with him. And I had a flash of foresight, or something similar. I saw her with a different child in her arms, a child who would be not my nephew as Nicolae was but my son, mine and Stoyan’s. I could not see him clearly, only that he was big and strong with a fine head of dark hair and that his grandmother held him with a fierce pride. In my vision of the future, there had not been much room for children, but I saw in this moment that we owed her that. And I found, to my surprise, that I quite warmed to the idea myself. With this formidable lady as part of our family, Stoyan and I would juggle running a book business and breeding dogs and raising children quite capably. For we were a perfect team. I had known that in the caves of Cybele. I was even more sure of it now.
“He’s a fine big man, your Stoyan,” murmured Florica in my ear as I went to the stove for more hot water.
“I know,” I said.
“You look after him, now,” she added. “He’ll need good feeding and plenty of love. Don’t get so caught up in your books that you forget that.”
“I love him, Florica,” I said. “I won’t forget.”
At that moment, Stoyan and Father came into the kitchen, Stoyan looking as if he might laugh or cry at any moment, Father smiling broadly.
“A celebration is in order,” Father said in Greek. “I’m gaining another son-in-law. It just goes to show my theory is correct, Paula. A man of true mettle is not deterred by a single refusal. I always believed Stoyan would come back eventually.”
“He didn’t get a refusal,” I felt obliged to point out, as the rest of the household stood about listening with great interest. Stela was providing a running translation for Florica, Petru, and Dorin, none of whom understood Greek; I was proud of her. “Until today, he never asked.”
“All the same, a refusal was what he sensed,” Father said. “I am happy the two of you have sorted things out at last. It’s been a little like having a brooding storm cloud in the house. Stoyan, we must explain all this to your mother.”
Nadezhda appeared delighted with the news. When it was suggested she might come and stay at Piscul Dracului awhile, she was quick to accept. The hostelry where she and Stoyan were lodged was at some distance down the valley. Since he had talked of nothing but me since the day she prized the reason for his unhappiness out of him, she imagined that now he had found me, he would not wish to be too far away. She seemed quite taken by Father, who did indeed have a charming manner developed over years of dealing with fellow merchants and their wives.
Stoyan translated busily. I brought him tea, then sat beside him so I could lean against his shoulder and hold his hand, letting the talk flow around me.
The afternoon passed and faded into evening, and although Dorin, Gabriel, and Petru went back to their work, the rest of us sat on together talking. It had become easier for Stoyan with the arrival of Costi, who was fluent in Greek, and Jena, who knew enough to get by. As for Nadezhda, she did not say much, but her eyes were often on her son and on me, and I saw a quiet contentment in her face that warmed my heart.
Everyone would have to stay the night. Costi and Jena would not walk home in the dark with Nicolae, who was falling asleep on Jena’s knee. Stoyan and his mother had come on horseback. Petru had settled the horses in the barn already, and it was too dark to ride down the valley safely anyway. We sisters offered to prepare bedchambers for our guests and went off upstairs while Florica made a start on supper. Nadezhda had rolled up her sleeves, donned a borrowed apron, and begun to chop vegetables with the casual assurance of a woman who is confident even in another’s kitchen. I had a feeling I might not be called upon very often to prepare those large meals Florica thought Stoyan needed.
When we had made up beds for Costi and Jena, Nicolae, Stoyan, and his mother, we gathered for a moment in our own old bedchamber, the one where all five sisters had once slept and which would soon have only Stela left as its tenant.
“I wish Iulia had come down with us today,” Jena said, flopping onto the bed that had been hers and Tati’s. “I can’t wait to tell her in the morning. She was so certain that if you ever married, you’d choose a weedy little scholar twice your age. You can expect her and Rǎzvan here sometime tomorrow. She won’t be able to resist casting her eye over Stoyan at the first possible opportunity. He seems lovely, Paula.”
“He is lovely,” I said. As I had smoothed the sheet on the bed where Stoyan was to sleep tonight, I had not been able to avoid imagining what it would be like to share it with him.
Stela was over by the indentation in the wall, the place where, long ago, we had found our secret portal. She had set her candle on the table nearby and was making shadow patterns with her fingers across the stones. “I wonder if I’ll ever get a turn?” she mused. “I mean, Tati told Paula her quest was to earn the right for her to visit us or for one of us to go across. It should be me next. You found your true love because of the Other Kingdom, Jena, and so did Tati. And now Paula’s got Stoyan. And it can’t be Iulia next, because she’s already married Rǎzvan. So it’s my turn. Not that I want a true love especially; I just want to go back. I want to so much sometimes I feel as if I could burst.”
I had not yet told my sisters about last night’s dream. Now did not seem the right time to break the news to Stela that it had sounded as if Tati would be visiting us, not the other way around.
“You can’t apply logic to the workings of the Other Kingdom, Stela,” Jena said. “We already know it has its own rules, and they’re not like ours. Ileana and her kind do set tests for lovers; one of the lessons we’ve all learned is how difficult love is and how hard we have to keep on working at it. But there are other lessons built into these journeys. Hard ones. Ones that make us strong.”
“It’s not fair.” Stela did not really seem to want a sensible answer. She was in a strange mood. After her excitement at Stoyan’s arrival, she had become subdued and thoughtful. Perhaps it was the specter of impending change. Even with Jena living next door and the rest of us within a few days’ journey, it would be lonely for her as the last sister left at home.
“There could be more in store for all of us,” Jena said, her gaze traveling to the embroidery, where we five sisters danced hand in hand. “Just wait, that’s my advice. And don’t worry about it too much; worrying doesn’t make things happen any faster. Paula, why don’t you wear that lovely plum-colored outfit tonight and the veil with the little shells?”
“That wouldn’t be suitable,” I said. “I’ll wear the green.”
On the way downstairs, we met Stoyan coming up to tell us supper was almost ready. His eyes met mine.
Jena seized Stela by the arm. “We’ll see you down in the kitchen,” she announced, heading off without a backward glance and pulling Stela along with her.
The two of us were alone on a landing, outside the chamber where I had made the bed so carefully and set a handful of wildflowers in a little jug by the window.
“That’s your room in there,” I said as we stood with our arms around each other and the rest of the world fast receding. “I wish we were already married, Stoyan.”
“I too, heart’s dearest,” whispered Stoyan against my hair. “Your father said we need not wait long. But I think it will seem long.”
“Mmm,” I murmured, then thought of something. “Stoyan, you know when we were in the cave and the old woman asked me what I’d learned? She never asked you that question. I wonder why?”
“I had not quite achieved my learning, Paula. It took a very long time. I almost lost sight of it. It is interesting that Duarte, whom I blamed for stealing it away, was the one to give it back to me. I should have listened more carefully to your riddles, the third especially.”
“Hope,” I breathed as it all fell into place. “You’d begun to lose hope—hope of finding your brother, hope of making a good future, and hope of…”
“And hope that my dearest might love me as I loved her; that is correct, Paula. There were times when it was almost within my grasp. Those nights we spent together at the han, each such a precious gift…I remember every word you spoke to me. I remember every touch. And when we came across the cavern of the lake, my hope was almost strong enough to let me speak the words of my heart to you. But then, at the dancing, it fled away again and I sank into despair. It was odd that Duarte was the one to lift it. This was a hard lesson, but a good one. I will never forget it. Do you think we should go down to supper?”
“Just one thing first—” I stood on tiptoe, slipped my arms up around his neck, and kissed him.
Time passed: a kind of lost time in which we were in another world, just the two of us alone with the thousand sensations drawn out by the touch of our lips and the beating of our hearts and the warmth of our bodies against each other. It was only Costi’s voice from the foot of the steps that brought us back to Transylvania, and Piscul Dracului, and the landing where we stood folded in each other’s arms.
“Suppertime!” called Costi. His mobile mouth was curved in a droll smile. “Even in this labyrinth of a house, nobody can escape the eagle eye of family. Florica expects everyone to taste Petru’s best plum brandy.”
I unwrapped my arms from around Stoyan’s neck and clasped his hand instead. “Costi’s right,” I said. “There’s no getting away from family. And now there’s a wedding to plan. We’d best go downstairs and fortify ourselves. We’re going to be busy.”
Author’s Note
Cybele’s Secret is set mainly in the Istanbul of the early Ottoman period. While I undertook substantial research, it should be remembered that this is a work of historical fantasy. In some parts of the book, I have taken liberties with time and place in the interests of better storytelling. I received expert advice from several people whom I mention in the Acknowledgments. However, any errors of fact that may occur in the novel are entirely my own responsibility. In particular, if I have offended anyone with my depiction of Islamic culture or religious practice, I offer a sincere apology.
