Certain Symmetry Read Free Page A

desperately
against his chest.
    * * *
    MOONHAWK IT WAS who made tea in Veverain's
kitchen that evening, and served it, silently, to the two who faced
each other across the table. She carried her own mug to a
wall-bench and sat, quietly watching and listening.
    "I cannot," the woman was
saying to Lute, "I must not forget. I--Rowan--we swore that neither would ever
forget the other, no matter what else the future might
destroy."
    "Yes," Lute murmured, "but surely Rowan
would not have wanted this--that you lock yourself away from kin,
take from your neighbors' kitchens and give nothing--not even
thanks!--in return. Rowan was never so mean."
    "He was not," Veverain agreed, her fingers
twisting 'round themselves. "Rowan was generous."
    "As you are. Come, Veverain, you must stop
this. Open your house again to your well-wishers. Tend the garden
your niece has started for you, clear the flowerbeds and rake the
gravel. Soon enough, the vines will need you, too. It will not be
the same as if Rowan worked at your side, but--I promise!--these
familiar things will soothe you. In time, you will--"
    "In time I will forget!"
Veverain interrupted violently. "No! I will not forget! Every day, I read his
journals. Every day, I sit in his place in our room and I recall
our days together. Everything, everything... I must not forget a
syllable, the timbre of his voice, the lines of his
face--"
    "Veverain!" Lute reached for her hands, but
they fluttered away from capture.
    "You do not understand!" Her voice was
shrill with agony. "Before you first came to us there was in this
village a woman called Redfern, her man--Velix--and their babe.
That summer, there was an illness in the village--many died, among
them Redfern's man and babe. She grieved and would speak to no one,
though she accomplished all her usual business. In the fall, she
shut up her house and went to her sister in another village. Two
years later, she returned to us, with a new babe and a man she had
taken in her sister's village." Veverain's fluttering hands lighted
on the cooling mug. Automatically, she raised it to her lips and
drank.
    "I saw Redfern in the
street," she continued, somewhat less shrill. "We spoke of her
babe, and of how things had changed in the village in the years she
had been gone from us. I mentioned Velix, and she--she stared at me, as if I
spoke of a stranger. She had forgotten him, Master Lute! It chilled
me to the heart, and I vowed I would never so dishonor my
love."
    "Veverain, this is not the way to honor
Rowan." Moonhawk had never heard the magician's voice so
tender.
    Veverain turned her face away. "You have had
your tea," she said, hardly. "There are houses in the high village
who will be happy to guest you."
    Moonhawk saw Lute's shoulders tense, as if
he had taken a blow. He sat silent for a long moment, until the
woman across from him noticed either the absence of his voice or
the presence of himself, and reluctantly turned her face again to
his.
    "Lute--"
    He raised a hand, interrupting her. "How,"
he said and there was an electric undercurrent in his voice that
Moonhawk did not entirely like. "How if you were shown a way to
return to life at the same time you honor your vow to
remember?"
    There was hesitation, and Moonhawk saw, for
just a instant, the woman Veverain had been--vibrant, strong and
constant--through the diminished, grief-wracked creature who sat
across from Lute.
    "Can you work such a magic?" she asked.
    "Perhaps one of us can," Lute replied and
stood. "Excuse me a moment, Housemother. I must consult with my
apprentice."
    * * *
    "FORGET?" LUTE REPEATED. "But it is the
possibility of forgetting that is terrifying her out of all
sense!"
    "Nonetheless," Moonhawk said, with rather
more patience than she felt, "forgetfulness is all I have to offer.
I know of no spell or blessing that will insure memory. I only know
how to remove such pain as this, which is become a threat to a good
and decent woman's life. She suffers much, and I may ease