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."You are the thief."Maara smiled."Will you accuse me before the household, or do you only insult people privately?"Vintel opened her mouth, but she had no answer."Have you run out of insults already?" Maara said.Vintel shut her mouth and glared at Maara.She grasped the hilt of her sword, but before she could draw it from its sheath, my warrior's body changed, like the body of a hunting cat that spies its prey.Vintel hesitated."Yes," said Maara.Her voice was low, and it vibrated with controlled anger."Draw your sword.My sword has been hungry for your blood since you let mine be shed."Although she wore no armor, my warrior's sword hung from her belt.For a time that seemed very long to me, she and Vintel faced each other.Vintel's knuckles went white as she grasped the hilt of her sword, but she made no move to draw it."What's this?"It was a man's voice, coming from somewhere above our heads.I looked up and saw Lorin standing atop the earthworks."Is there going to be fight?" he said.He squatted down and looked at them appraisingly."Vintel is bigger, but I think the stranger may be more angry.If you're going to fight, why not come back inside? It would be a shame for a good fight to go to waste.""I don't intend to fight for your amusement," Vintel replied.Then she faced my warrior."Don't tempt me again." She turned on her heel and went back inside the earthworks.Maara looked up at Lorin and gave him half a smile.I glanced at him just in time to see him wink back at her."Come," Maara said to me, and started down the hill."A storm is coming," I said, as I followed her."We'll go back inside in a little while.Let's give Vintel time to control herself."We walked in silence until we reached the river.The memory of Vintel's contempt and my own fear followed me, and my cheeks burned with anger and humiliation.I thought of several things I wished I'd said to Vintel now that it was too late.I hoped Maara would think it was the cold wind that was making my eyes water and my cheeks red.Maara brushed the snow off the trunk of a fallen tree and sat down on it.She made room for me, and I sat down beside her.I wondered how she felt about her confrontation with Vintel.She was gazing at the river.She didn't seem to be at all upset."Soon our warriors will return from the ravine," she said."What?""Look.The river has begun to freeze."I stared at her in amazement.How could she be thinking about the river? Had she forgotten about Vintel?"Aren't you angry?"She turned and looked at me."No.Why should I be?""Vintel insulted you.""Did she?""She called you a thief." My heart burned with the injustice of it."Yes," Maara said."I suppose she did." She drew her legs up onto the log and turned until she sat cross-legged, facing me.She gave me a long look."You're angry.""Of course I am.""Why?"How could she fail to understand something so obvious?"Because Vintel insulted you.And she insulted me."I turned away from her as I blinked back tears."What did she say to you?""She said I was small.""You are small." Her reply took me aback."Why were you insulted by the truth?""It was the way she said it," I told her."It was meant to be an insult.And she called me a thief, too.""Are you a thief?""No.""So you felt insulted by something that was true and by something that was not true.""I suppose so." I didn't understand what she was getting at."Why do you care about Vintel's opinion?""I don't!" I said."I don't care what she thinks!""Of course you do.Why else would you be angry?"I couldn't think of a good answer."Shall I tell you why?" she said.I nodded."Because you didn't know you had a choice.""What choice?""To be angry or not."It was the silliest thing I'd ever heard."That's not a choice.""Yes," she said."It is." She waited patiently for me to understand."How could that be a choice? When someone insults me, it makes me angry.""If that's true, then your feelings will always be at the mercy of others."That had never occurred to me."Oh," I said.In Maara's face I saw no sign of anger."Did you choose not to be angry at Vintel?""I didn't think about it.I was too busy trying to keep something bad from happening.""Is that how you kept from being angry?""No," she said."I wasn't angry.It took me a long time to learn that I didn't have to feel what someone wanted me to feel, but once I learned it, it became a habit.It's a useful habit.Because I wasn't angry, I was able to think clearly about what was the best thing to do."She saw that I was still confused."Think," she said."A short time ago we were in a difficult situation, one that could have turned out very badly.Now we're safe and sound sitting here by the river.What happened to bring that about?""Lorin showed up.""Think back a little further."Then I knew, and the memory of her words to Vintel chilled me."You challenged her," I said."No," she said."Vintel challenged me.She put her hand on her sword, and I tried to convince her that she was doing what I wanted her to do.""Didn't you want her to draw her sword?""No," she said."That was the last thing I wanted."I was confused again."Vintel wanted to make me feel fear or shame or anger," Maara said."It would have been a victory for her.Instead she allowed herself to be goaded into anger, and her anger made her do something foolish.She knew it was foolish, but she didn't know she had a choice.""What if she had drawn her sword?""She didn't.""But what if Lorin hadn't come along?""She would have found another way not to fight.""But what if she couldn't do that?" I insisted."What if she had made you fight her?""Then I would have called on my anger, and I would have defended myself until someone stopped us.""I thought it was wrong to be angry.""No," she said."Not wrong.I would have used my anger to give me the strength and the courage I needed.Vintel couldn't control her anger, and because of that, it would have been useless to her, just as your anger was useless to you, because it blinded you to what you needed to do to get out of a bad situation."I thought about why I had resisted Vintel."No," I said."I knew what I should do, but my anger kept me from doing it.""What was that?""I should have given her the brooch.That would have satisfied her pride.Then she would have been able to forget that I refused her, and she would have left me alone.""Why didn't you give it to her?""She made me angry."Maara's face grew thoughtful
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