The Dollmage

It was none of these things that made her love you, her people, though she loved all these things. No. What was most precious to Annakey was that her people kept their promises. This, she recognized, was their worship. What they spoke became what was. Bagger Cornfield once promised Annakey the best melon from his garden. When harvest time came, Bagger, who was never the smartest one in the village, realized he could not tell which melon was the best. Though Annakey released him from his promise, he would not be released. He cut every ripe melon in two to see which was the pinkest and the sweetest and the most succulent. Of course the melons had to be eaten right away, so he held a melon party for the village.You remember? For a little while he regretted his promise, all his lovely melons eaten. But after the party — is it not true?—everyone loved him a little better than before. It is always best to keep one’s promises.

Annakey loved the way the old women cared for their old husbands long after they had stopped being of any use to them — because they had promised. She loved you for the way you raised your children and fed them, even when they were ugly babies, which seldom happens, and even when they became ugly adolescents, which often happens. This is why Annakey loved her people, and why, when she heard the robber people had taken Follownot, she was sick with fear and shame. She knew now the power in her hands, and she knew she was responsible.

Some of you nod your heads now and stroke the stones at your sides .You are right to stone her, you say. You do not care that she loved you, her people, that even now she loves you enough not to hate you for binding her, for dragging her to be executed. Look, look into her eyes.Yes, that is good. Look, and see, and remember.

Now I have told you two things that Annakey loved. The third I shall tell you shortly. The children say, “The story, the story.” They are right. What matters but the story? I continue.

“Leave her be, Oda,” Manal said when Oda accused Annakey. “It is not her fault.”

“Perhaps it is, Manal,” Annakey said softly. She propped the shovel and came closer. “I made a sheep. Yesterday. I called him Follownot.”

I looked at her long in silence. The skin at her throat was quivering and goose-fleshed. I said, “Bring me this sheep.”

Annakey began to walk away. Manal went with her. He followed her silently, without thinking, and she accepted his presence silently, without thought. As they walked I knew a thing.

I knew the third thing Annakey loved was Manal.

How can I tell you the strength of their love? Would my silence tell the matter more? How strange are words to both give and take away meaning. But you see him at her side now, willing to share her fate. That will tell you more than words will.

Annakey and Manal had befriended each other as only children can since they had herded the sheep together. But now Manal had come to love Annakey as a man loves a woman. I will tell you how.

Manal had been hunting the day Annakey ran to her secret place to bathe away the chicken manure from her body. The hunt had been unsuccessful. He decided to return home by the river way, tired of climbing over rotting timber and slogging through scummed pools in the bog forest. Just as Annakey emerged naked from the water, her hair gleaming wet and long down her back, her skin shining in the sun, Manal came to the bank on the opposite side of the river and saw what he thought was a wood nymph. A moment later he knew it was not a wood nymph, but that it was Annakey. Manal had thought Annakey the gentlest soul of all the village girls, and fair of face as well. He had cherished her as his childhood friend and was on her side whenever there was a side to be on. Now he saw her new, a wild thing, like the forest animals, and beautiful as the river.Though as a boy he had always cared for her, now as a man he desired her.

A lesser man might have taken advantage of Annakey then, far away as she was from the village. He might even have waited and watched as long as he could, or he might have come and spoken to her. But Manal was a fine hunter, wise in the knowledge that every footprint left in the virgin forest takes a winter to vanish, and that a misfired arrow will chase away the animals for an entire season. No, instead Manal walked in the woods along the riverbank until he was far from Annakey. Then he took his big boots and stomped through the cold, rushy river until his groin stopped tormenting him and the cold water made his fingernails blue and the cold sweat ran out of his long, dark hair. The next morning he was up at dawn, still thinking of Annakey, and that is when he heard Oda crying for her sheep.

How Manal glares. He does not want his story told. And yet, Manal, I must. It is no longer in my hands. If Annakey is executed, I know you will lose your life trying to defend her. Your story must be told, just in case.