Ammonite

But the stones existed; she had been there, And they were impossibly old.

The trance, then, she thought. What about the trance? That was possible; she had not imagined it. Of course sharing a trance was possible. Mass hypnosis was well documented. And what else was a drum but hypnotic? And singing, too. Rhythm, sound, the heat of the fire. Her body was well trained to follow patterns and rhythms; that was essentially the way one learned to control one’s own biofeedback.

“It’s a matter of training, that’s all.” She wished she had not said that so loudly.

“Like being a viajera.” Thenike eyed her speculatively. “Can you drum?”

“No.”

“I’ll teach you.”

The sun had been hidden behind cloud for two days. The fire in Thenike’s room roared; the door hanging was closed. Marghe put the drums aside on the bed, pulled off her felt overtunic, wiped the sweat from her face, and settled the drums back between her knees. She tapped the right drum, the treble, with the tip of her right middle finger, then the left drum with what had been the middle finger on her left hand. She was more clumsy with the left.

Thenike, who had been standing by the fire, listening, came over. She took Marghe’s left hand in her own. “Do these scars still hurt?”

“No.”

”Then stop protecting them. Hit the drum, sharp and swift.” She demonstrated, striking out like a snake: hand from wrist, finger from hand. The drum sang once, perfectly. “Again.”

So Marghe did it again, and again, until both sides of the drum sang with the same depth and the same volume, no matter which hand she struck with. She hit them faster and faster, pleased with herself.

”Now try this.” Thenike played an effortless paradiddle with finger, then palm, both drums. Marghe looked dismayed. “Try it.”

She tried. Over and over. “It’s no good.” She wiped at her sweating face with her forearm.

“Move over, and forward.” Marghe gripped the drums between her knees and shuffled forward awkwardly. Thenike climbed onto the bed and sat behind her, arms snaking around to the drums, stomach pressed up against Marghe’s back.

Marghe felt her nostrils flare slightly and the muscles in her stomach tighten. “Lay your hands on mine. Lightly. Now. Feel what I do.” Thenike tapped out the paradiddle very slowly, beat by beat, then again, and again, getting slightly faster. Marghe tried to concentrate on the feel of muscle and tendon under her hands, to gauge at what angle the heel of the hand came down, at what point the hand swung and the finger took the lead, but all she could feel was the slide of warm skin under her own, the ruffle of Thenike’s breath at her neck. She tried harder.

“Good. Now, on your own.” Thenike laid her arms down on her skirts but stayed behind Marghe. Marghe resisted the urge to lean back into the viajera’s warmth and applied herself to her drum lesson.

Marghe took off her muddy boots and walked barefoot over the warm wooden planking of the bathhouse floor. She loved the Ollfoss bathhouse with its smell of lime and minerals, its high, airy space, and the huge stone tubs that descended in height and water temperature from near the ceiling to close to the floor and were worn smooth by generations of use.

Two women she vaguely recognized, Bejuoen and Terle of Ette’s family, were wringing out a coverlet. Only one more garment floated lumpily in the rinse pool; they would be gone soon. She nodded at them, and pumped vigorously at the wooden lever that forced hot water up from the spring and through stone pipes. When the water was flowing, she slid the wooden stream dam over to the left and watched while water began to flow into a shallow basin set at ankle height. She plugged the hole in its bottom with a stopper and began stripping off her clothes, filthy with the rich garden mud. When the basin was half-full, she pumped up some cold water, setting the flow dam to direct it into the basin. She dropped her clothes into the water, piece by piece, and climbed in after them.

She enjoyed trampling the heavy clothes in lukewarm water, feeling mud slide out from between her toes. When the water began to turn reddish brown, she leaned down and pulled the stopper free. Filling the basin again, she resumed her trampling.

She nodded good-bye to Bejuoen and Terle.

When the water stayed clear, and she could feel the fibers beneath her feet again instead of slippery mud, she climbed out of the basin, took out the stopper, and reset the wooden dams near the pumps. The larger basins began to fill while she wrung out her clothes and transferred them to the laundry basin proper, to soak in the cold, biting mineral water that seeped up from the ground beneath Ollfoss. She would not need to use soap.

The big tub was full. Marghe diverted the hot water to a lower tub and climbed up the short ladder toward the steam. She lowered herself in inch by inch, sighing as the heat slid over her skin and enveloped her aching muscles.

“You sound like you need that.”