The Dollmage

Annakey disappeared into the twilight. I heard Manals saw make a long, hard song until past dark.

That night Annakey went to the House of Women. The men endured the House of Women out of long tradition and feared it a little. Men are the bosses. Even I, as Dollmage, have no say as to what crop will go where, or when to build a new plough or who will attend to the hunt and who to the fences. They do not ask me. But we have, in the House of Women, done a thing or two. Once, it came out in the House that Dug Shallowslough was hitting his wife. Each woman went home and did not please her man until he told Dug to hit no one less hairy than himself. Dug was the hairiest man in the village. He became a very peaceful man.

As I said, that night Annakey went to the House of Women. Grandmother Keepmoney sat at the door, stick in hand. She stood up and held the stick out to prevent Annakey from entering.

“You may not enter,” Grandmother Keepmoney said. Annakey stood still, unbelieving. “Why?”

“It is my duty to prevent the unworthy.”

“You never prevent anyone.”

“Tonight I do.”

Annakey swallowed. “How am I unworthy?” Grandmother Keepmoney put her stick down and leaned on it. “Greppa Lowmeadow says that you came to her and said you would not keep your promise to marry her son Areth with whom you have shared your body.”

Annakey’s head bent as if her promise doll were dragging it down. “No. That is why I have come, to ask for justice. I did not share. I was forced.”

Grandmother Keepmoney put up her stick again wearily. “So you say. I hear otherwise.”

“From who?”

“Areth Lowmeadow himself.”

“Have you ever known me to lie, Grandmother Keepmoney?”

“Perhaps you do not know what is real, child.”

Annakey stared. The old woman looked at her and her face drew down and her shoulders sagged.

“I believe you, child. Some will not. It does not matter. I cannot let you in, a promise breaker. Only deny that you have broken your promise, and I will let you in.”

Annakey said nothing.

Grandmother Keepmoney said, “Grave consequences will come of this, Annakey. The people are afraid, and they speak as if they want to take their fear out on you.”

“I will ask Areth to release me from my promise,” Annakey said. Then, because Grandmother Keepmoney still guarded the door, she walked away.

My people.

Now you understand much.

Will you forgive Annakey, free her, ask for her forgiveness? No, perhaps not, but I see you do not touch your stones so lovingly. No matter. Even if you are persuaded, Areth will let fly his stone, and that is enough to kill her. Now that the truth is out and he has lost the respect of his people, he has nothing to lose. You see as I do that he will kill Annakey, and anyone in the way of that rock.You forget, though, that I have a secret still.

Yes, Manal, rub her wrists, and give her bread to eat.

Why, you ask, for she has broken a promise and brought this fate upon our village. What good is bread to a dead girl? That is true.

That I cannot deny.

Nevertheless, listen on.

That night I stared at the sheepcote a long time. How old I felt, how pressed down and part of the earth I felt.Then I saw, in one of the trees of the sheepcote doll, a tiny nest, and in it, three almost invisible eggs. I could not stop the welling tears.

I went to Areth Lowmeadow.

“Will you release her?” I asked, low and in the dark. “No,” he said.

“If you do not, she may die.”

“Let her die,” he said.

“Is this your love?” I asked, and then I grasped his promise doll in my hand. I took my carving knife and slashed it across his doll, once, between the head and the body

“What have you done?” he whined pitifully.

“Only what you have done to another’s heart,” I said.

“But I am within the law.”

“That is not what I hear.”

“She is a liar.”

“Then you need not fear,” I said.

When I arrived home I took my husband’s ghost doll and put it near my house in the village model. Now, now I was ready to die.

Chapter 10

Inscription on the Love doll:

It is God’s plan that love so meant can be eternal covenant.

The next day Manal was early at his house. For days he had hauled logs. He had paced off the size of the house on the ground, and with his spade he dug a shallow hollow along two sides of that space. Into each of the hollows he rolled his biggest logs, the sills. That was when I stopped him, forbade him to do any more until a doll was made of his house. He contented himself with making notches at the ends of the logs with his ax. The villagers plied him with questions. Why would an unmarried man build a house? Which of the rumors were true about Annakey? He ignored everyone, and so they began to question his mother, Norda Bantercross. Norda also ignored them and made a great business about sewing curtains and quilts and cushions for her son’s new house.

That morning, Manal stopped sawing when Annakey came and sat down beside his house with her materials.

“Annakey.” His voice was gentle. Manal, too, was grown wise.