12. Pell Becomes the Seventy-Sixth Yarrow and Arnica Has Something to Say

12. Pell Becomes the Seventy-Sixth Yarrow and Arnica Has Something to Say

The Mother of Grey House? But I'm too young, Pell almost protested. But would you argue with a woman who thought she was dying? No, Yarrow must be spared that debate. Even if she would never walk again, she could teach songs and anatomy from her bedside or from a chair. The role of Mother was not dependent on the use of one's legs. It might still be all right.

Then again, Yarrow was not given to exaggeration or overreaction.

"Ar—" Pell swallowed and began again. "Arnica?"

"Arnica is an Arnica, and a good one. But of all the people in this house, you are the only one who can become a Yarrow."

"Why?"

"Only you care as much about Grey House as I do."

Pell doubted that was true—no one could care as much as Yarrow—but even at the best of times there was no point in arguing with Yarrow. And it all felt like her fault, as if she had somehow made the woman fall by wishing to become the next Yarrow. She took one of the woman's nerveless hands in her own and smiled. "You've spoken. I'll obey."

Arnica arrived, holding a small white cup half-full of dark liquid. "Drink up," she said brusquely, holding it to Yarrow's lips.

The poppy took effect almost immediately, and Yarrow fell into a stupor. Arnica pulled back the coverlet and began feeling around Yarrow's body with less delicacy than she had used in the courtyard.

"Spine cracked, of course," said Arnica. "Two or three ribs snapped, probably." She lifted Yarrow's shift a bit. There was a large, dark bruise all along Yarrow's right side, and the sharp quills that covered the woman's back had been broken or driven into the flesh. Even to Pell's less experienced eye there was clearly something wrong with Yarrow's rib cage. "Feel her skin, girl."

Yarrow was cold and clammy to the touch.

"That's bleeding inside, that is," said Arnica. "Poor Mother. North, I wish we still had a doctor about. Us women in grey are just for birth and death, not life."

Us women . Despite the horror and grief of the day, Pell felt a small thrill of pleasure and pride at Arnica including her in that statement.

"Can't we do anything?" said Pell.

"Keep her dosed with poppy and wait, is all," said Arnica. "If we had a bit of mellified man we might fix this right up, but it's been ages since any man went into the casket for another."

"Aren't there doctors in other courts?" said Pell. "Apothecaries, even?"

"Ain't an apothecary alive who could fix this," said Arnica. As she resettled the shift and coverlet, she added, "Ain't you or I know the way to one, either. Like as not we'd find an apothecary but get back to find Yarrow three weeks dead."

"You don't know how to find one?" said Pell. That couldn't be right.

"We're called to the outer cloisters as needed, girl," said Arnica. "We do our job, we come back. Ain't wandering around in the halls looking for anyone."

Pell stared at Yarrow, feeling the same sense of helpless shock she'd had when the mask broke. "So Yarrow dies."

"Don't pity her too much," said Arnica, using the corner of the sheet to mop Yarrow's brow. "She gets to leave all this mess behind." Her other hand made a gesture that took in, not the injured woman as Pell might expect, but the wall, the window, the white-shrouded roofs.

Yarrow grunted as if in assent.

Arnica left to find some water for her. Pell stood by the bedside and waited to be dismissed. The dismissal never came, not from Yarrow. Arnica sent her off to eat much later, and then the two of them traded off standing vigil by Yarrow's still form.

The old woman lasted about seven days. It was a dreadful thing to watch, and far fouler than Pell had any notion of. Yarrow seemed better on the third day, but then some illness set in that made her flushed with fever; she tried to toss and turn, injuring herself further until Arnica used an old sheet to tie her down. The bed itself was soiled frequently: Yarrow's stool turned black with blood then vanished entirely, as she was unable to eat anything more than broth or the thinnest of gruels. The air in the small bedroom was nearly unbreathable, and Arnica came there less and less, either unable or unwilling to watch her old friend disintegrate.

Pell stayed. She owed Yarrow everything, and though she could not claim to be fond of the stern woman, she was accustomed to her as to a tricky step in a stairwell. Looking at the dying face in its nest of spines, she regretted much: not thinking better of Yarrow, or gossiping about her with the girls, or her tiny everyday disobediences that did not become a girl of Grey House. How pitiful Yarrow looked. How much better a girl Pell should have been to her. On the fifth day she began to hold Yarrow's hand.

Yarrow herself wandered in and out of consciousness. She was kept well-dosed with poppy, and even when awake her eyes seemed to be looking through a film of jelly. But she talked more than Pell had ever heard. There was so much to impart to her successor, and Yarrow knew that there was practically no time for it. The songs and lore inside her seemed to know it as well, for even when she was not fully conscious Pell heard her singing, in a voice now weak and tuneless, the proper verses for a dead crofter or a new child, as if the traditions she contained yearned for release.

With time even this subsided, and Yarrow's eyes became permanently wet with tears as she thought of all the knowledge that would die with her. Pell would sing back to her, at first to repeat what Yarrow passed on, then to soothe her. Surely, among all the songs of the house, there was one that would bring oblivion. But nothing helped Yarrow rest.

"You must swear," said Yarrow suddenly at noon on the sixth day. Though a quivering restlessness had seized her in the morning, she had barely spoken since the previous night, and her voice startled Pell out of a light doze.

"Yes, of course," said Pell in confusion. "Of course I will. Swear what?"

"To me, not to the house. The house takes its own oath. I ask something special of you, girl."

"What should I swear?" said Pell, wiping her sticky eyes with the cuff of her sleeve.

"To save them," said Yarrow. "From winter."

"How?"

Yarrow made a small but fretful movement of her chin. "Send to Black Tower. I was wrong not to. They will know. The Lady there can help. I was too stubborn. Swear to save the house, Pell."

"I do," said Pell. She put both her hands on Yarrow's. "I do."

Yarrow nodded, and with her restlessness calmed, she lapsed into sleep. At some point after sunrise, she was dead.

There were a lot of rituals to perform when a Mother of Grey House passed. Pell went through them at Arnica's instruction; they mostly had to do with cleaning, it seemed. Once clean, the body must be laid on the floor of the great hall and the girls must troop around it singing and waving small boughs of lavender. (The lavender was quite old and shed its leaves troublesomely.) Then it must be moved to the steps outside, and the girls must troop around it in the opposite direction, silently and with empty hands. Then it must be moved to the door of the tower, and once more the girls must troop around it in alternating directions, dropping grains of myrrh and shouting Yarrow's name. (Ban kept getting her directions mixed up and colliding with Grith.) Then the featureless slate mask of the Mothers was strapped over Yarrow's face, and they put her on a bier and carried her up the inside of the tower.

The air atop Grey Tower was as cold and stern as Yarrow herself. A few random flakes of snow fell, giving the mask a ridiculous cockeyed face as they shifted the body up the steps of the Hand. In brief glimpses, Pell could see that winter lay over much of the palace; only Yellow and Black looked to be in summer still. That was something to worry about later.

At the top, Arnica nudged Pell. It was hard to whistle in the cold. Pell's first attempts were more like raspy breaths. But at last she managed the five notes, and soon the crows descended in a flurry of black against the white sky. As they feasted, Arnica drew Pell aside.

"I'm leaving, Mother," she said.

Pell stifled a sob. Was she to lose Arnica, too? The only person who knew what had died with Yarrow?

Arnica put a consoling hand on her shoulder. "Not quite yet," she added. "Ain't that selfish. But I always wanted to see the wide world. Never got to. I'm sorry for you and the girls, but there it is. I won't stay here to be frozen or starved or broken by winter. Rather die in some unknown corridor than here."

"But," said Pell, and found she could manage no other words. Could an Arnica even leave?

"One month," said Arnica. "I'll stay one month to tell you all I know, then I'm gone. What's here anyway but a dead tower and a dying house? Not just now, but for years and years gone. The Mothers ain't let me leave—beat me, even, when I tried. Then they died and she ain't let me leave. Don't be so hard as all them, Mother. Let me be as I am, and that's not a woman in grey. No matter how long I've been one, I won't ever be one. Ain't like you, who's born to it. But only forget to be a woman in grey for just a small moment and say I can go. Say I can, please, Mother."

Pell's mouth pressed into a thin line like a crease in a wimple. Arnica's pleading face embarrassed her. A woman four or five times her own age calling her "Mother" embarrassed her. Yarrow had died and left her with this weak old woman, this problem, and that embarrassed her too, with the knowledge that she was not ready, and that she was more alone than she had thought. The only thing to do was to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

"Go, then," said Pell. "Abandon us, if that's in your conscience."

Arnica smiled in pitiful relief. Her red-rimmed eyes now brimmed with tears of gratitude. She was the happiest anyone had been in Grey House for decades. Pell felt this, and it did nothing to make her friendlier to Arnica. How dare the notion of leaving bring such joy? Did years of dedication mean nothing?

The crows went on their way. Yarrow's bones dropped into the South Passage to lie with her foremothers. No butterflies came; it was too cold for them. Pell and Arnica gathered up the bloody stinking scraps of the shroud and returned to the tower's still heart.