by Devon Monk
There will be enough thread that I can rest from birthing for a week. One cocoon each week fills our lord’s pockets with coin, and the lands beyond with the finest fabric ever made: birthing fabric, soft and strong as silk and steel.
“Rest now, Favor.” Follow touches my arm again and brings me back into the now. I am standing with my back turned to the pot. I don’t hear the roll of the water, don’t hear Spin’s needles click like pebbles against the side of the pot, don’t hear Work stride out of the room. I don’t imagine my baby’s eyes looking up for me.
The lord doesn’t allow a birthing ceremony for our children. No sweet honey to grace a baby’s lips, no prayers to bless its soul. But he does want to know when the cocoon is in the pot.
I walk to the small console set in the wall by the door and press my hand against the glass pad. The pad is cool, then warms with the hum of electricity as it takes information from me. I know the lord will now trigger sensors in the pot to weigh and measure the cocoon while it bobs in the water. He will know exactly how much thread it will yield.
It takes all my strength and Follow’s hand beneath my elbow to walk through the wooden blind that separates our sleeping chamber from the work room. I fall onto my cot, feeling thin enough the light of the sun could pour through me and I’d give no shadow. There is no blanket to cover me, but Follow’s hand strokes my arm, her fingers strong enough they could dig through me and sew me together at my core if I needed.
I wish Bind were here.
“Honey and blessings,” Follow says. “No birthing tomorrow, Favor, no plucking or spinning. Tomorrow’s for mending. Mending you’ll do. Mending you’ll be.”
Old words. Words that held us, kept us, made us.
I absorb the words, and let them remake what I have undone in myself. I listen to Follow and absorb her strength and begin to think again, to know. But deep within me there is a hollowness growing. Something is not the way it used to be. Change is coming, and change is only another word for pain.
In the night, when Follow and Spin have gone to their own cots and Work has left to serve the lord, I lie awake. The hollow feeling of change is growing. I can taste it in the air, can smell it in the sweet vines that release pollen for the night moths.
I hear babies crying in the wind. I do not sleep.
Morning comes on hot and quick. Like a snap of fingers, darkness is gone and the burning heat of the sun steals away the cool air. We are at the end of summer, the last of the heat. Soon the rains will fall.
“You need to drink.” I am surprised to see Work standing next to my cot. He holds out a tall blue mug and smiles. His face is round, but not soft, each feature: green eyes, hook nose, angled cheeks, square chin, are hard. His shoulders are thick and his hair is pulled back in a fall of brown silk down his back.
“Drink, Favor. You’ve gone too thin now.” His voice is soft.
I think of saying no, but Work is strong and can make me rise even if I don’t want to.
“Have you seen Bind?” I ask as I sit. Work hands me the cup and shakes his head. Work is always at the lord’s call, always at the estate. I hope he would have caught a glimpse of Bind while attending the lord before sunrise.
“Bind is in the cell, I think.”
I shudder at the knowledge — fleeting knowledge Bind has shared with me — of the cell. The cell is empty of the world. No light. No sound. No texture. Nothing to touch. Nothing to learn.
Work sees me shudder and sits at the foot of my cot. His thick fingers lace together. “Bind tried to leave again through the gate, Favor.”
“I know.” I sip the thick, bitter water that will make me whole again, that will make me strong enough to bear another child.
“The lord was enraged.” Work nods, as if approving his choice of words. “He found Bind beyond the gate. Well into the woods. They dragged him back by the hair.”
I sip the water and taste papery bits of Mulberry leaves on my tongue. I try not to show Work my pain.
Work is silent, lets me drink. I wonder why Work has not left me, why he sits on the end of my cot, why he waits. He puts his hand on my foot. I look away from my cup and into his green eyes.
“The lord wants me to mate you, Favor.”
“No,” I say, my voice a whisper of shock. Then stronger, the image of Bind’s death whirling through my mind, “No. Only Bind. Tell the lord, I will only mate Bind. Please,” I reach out for him, touch the hard ropes of his arm and draw back immediately. “Tell him I will not mate you.”
Work is so still, his face so calm and blank, I begin to worry. There is something in his face I should recognize, something I should know. I want to touch him and learn, but he takes his hand from my foot, and leans away.
Work stands. “I will tell him, Favor. I do not know if he will listen.” He turns. His back stiffens and his fingers clench into fists. He touches nothing as he walks out of the room.
I finish the water and go out into the other room. The pot is cold, the fires beneath it dead. Spin and Follow sit close to the windows, already bent to their tasks. Spin’s small hands are filled with wooden bobbins strung with precious threads so incredibly thin they are invisible to even the lords before we bind them together, twist them into strands a hundred thick, that only then the lords regard with wonder and greed.
Follow sits on a stool and pulls a shuttle through a warp and weft, loosely weaving the fabric that the lords will sell, the priceless birthing fabric.
“Should I weave today?” I ask. My own fingers want to be busy, to be filled with forgetting through doing.
Follow looks up at me, her plain face crinkles in thought. I wonder if she touched Work when he left, and understands him better than I.
“Today you mend.” She waves one hand at me, at my empty belly. “Rest and drink. Walk in the shade. Today, even the lord won’t mind.” She holds up one end of the fabric that lays like a river of silver moonlight on the hard wood floor.
“So fine, Favor.” She smiles, proud. “I’ve never seen better.”
It should make me happy, should please me to be serving the lords in such a fine way, but all I can think of is Bind being drug by the hair through the undergrowth of the thick woods, and Work’s strong hands balled into fists.
I murmur a thank you to Follow and walk out onto the estate grounds. The brace of air from the northern sea clears my thoughts, but cannot soothe the tangle of my fears. I need to touch something that does not hurt. I need to learn, to feel something new.
I walk toward the estate, wanting to somehow find Bind in the white marbled halls and grand rooms. The lord may allow me into the hall, but never deeper than that, never into the rooms I have only imaged through Work’s descriptions of them.
Still, I walk toward the estate, the sun warming the top of my head and my back. I begin to feel a little dizzy, and know I should have drunk more than a cup of water. I look up at the estate, glowing white on the slight rise ahead where trees from the deep forest have been brought in and shaped to the lord’s pleasure, offering shade and sweet fragrances near the estate itself. I look up at the glass windows, bright as chips of steel against the blue sky day.
I could ask for a cup of water there. I could say I am confused, turned around in my walking and fatigued from birthing.
And if the lord thinks me confused, too tired to breed again, will he send Work to mate with Follow? Will he be rid of both me and Bind?
No, there is no gain in showing weakness to the lord.
Still, I need water and touching. There is a creek that flows through the southern-most edge of the grounds even in the driest heat of summer. I turn and retrace my steps, walking past the squat brown square of our house. I do not go inside. I do not want to hear the weaving of thread, the clack of wooden bobbins.
My stride grows stronger once I have passed the house and I have an urge to run, to let the burnt grasses rush by beneath my feet, to blindly find a gate in the fence and push through to the other side. To touch every l
eaf, every tree, every stone, and to learn and know more than any of my kind should know.
I place my fingers against my mouth, then my throat. I am shaking from the wild thought of it, vibrating with the hunger for knowledge. These thoughts are insane and yet I want them. They will get me killed, dragged, locked away in the cell like Bind.
I shake my head and push the wildness away, keeping my eyes on my feet. The creek is near. It will give me some taste of difference, will trickle with water that has touched rocks and hills and far away mountains. I hear the creek’s liquid voice just ahead. And I hear something else — breathing. I look up and see a man on the other side of the fence.
The world seems suddenly to fold the wrong way, as if all the corners no longer match.
I have never seen this man before. He is tall and lean, his hair a shock of white, straying out from beneath a hat. His clothes are as brown as tree bark and fit tightly to his frame. Straps over his shoulder speak of a weight he carries there — a pack — and he has a silver box in one hand, a walking stick in the other. His skin is the lightest brown I have ever seen and creased around his eyes, across his forehead and down his cheeks in such a fascinating way, my fingers itch to touch them, to trace, to know.
He holds very still. Except for his breathing and the blinking of his eyes, I would not know that he was there.
“Hello,” he says. “May I enter this gate?”
He speaks to me and his voice is edged with delicious difference. I feel a warmth grow in me, a need to touch, learn, absorb the knowledge of him.
“Please,” he says. “I am a traveler and mean no harm. Is there shelter I can find here? Is there food?”
I nod, his voice lighting my hunger. I savor the strangeness of his speech, absorb the nuances of a voice unlike the others I have heard since my birth. He does not move, and I realize he is waiting for me to open the gate he stands behind.
I look at the gate, made of wood and iron, no higher than my waist, yet stronger than any wall to keep me in. I have never touched the gates before. That touch, that knowing, is forbidden.
But today I will learn this thing. This one thing: gate.
I reach out and touch the top rail of the gate with my fingertips. It is warm with the day’s heat. It fills me with the knowledge of hinge and latch and swing. I absorb balance, and understand tension of fence and post, strength of post rooted deep in the earth. The knowing is good, but is not enough to ease my hunger.
I push the gate outward and it swings easily, silently. The open space between the fence and the world on the other side is shocking as winter wind. I step back hastily, moving away from the open space, moving away before I fall out into the forest beyond, into a world I both want and fear.
Then the man is there, filling the space, solid, whole. He swings the gate shut behind himself and waits. I look up at him, at the curious humor in his eyes. There is so much I could know if I touched him.
I fold my hands together in front of me and look down at my feet. “Please,” I say, “I will take you to the lord.”
The man makes a sound of such delight, I cannot help but look up at him again. I am caught by his smile, and feel myself returning it.
“Yes,” he says, his pleasure sending joy through me. “I would like to meet the lord of this place.”
We walk, me in front and he behind. His footsteps are heavy, booted. His walking stick taps lightly. We walk up the slight rise. Just ahead is the square of our house.
“What is your name?” he asks me.
“Favor.” I am surprised at the quickness of my answer. Everything within me is clamoring to reveal itself to him. The need to talk to him, to tell, to share my knowledge, this place, my life, is overwhelming. I want him to know all of me, want him to let me know him in return. I have never experienced such a need to spill everything I have known out at a stranger’s feet. But I do not think the lord will approve. I put my teeth against my bottom lip, tucking my words away tight. I walk.
“Is this where the lord lives, Favor?” the man asks as we approach our house.
“No. We live here. The menders,” I say.
We walk past the house and I have to slow because the man has turned to better see it. I wait, and wish he would ask me another question so that I can hear his voice, so that I can tell him more of what I know, of all the things I have learned. So I can learn in turn, from him.
He glances at me. “Menders.” It is not a question, so I do not answer. We begin walking again. It is only a short while before the hill rises enough and the estate comes into view. White and smooth, with roofs made of glittering copper, jade and gold, it is beautiful.
“Ah,” he exhales. “The lord’s house.”
And even though it is not a question, I speak. “Yes. The lord has lived here for hundreds of years.”
“The same lord?” His surprise sends a thrill through my body. He does not have this knowledge. I trip over my thoughts in my haste to give it to him.
“No. There are many lords. Each a son of a son of the first lord. All have lived in this estate. Menders have served them all.”
“And how have the menders served?”
My thrill at speaking to him chills into fear. We are not to speak of our work. Not to speak of the thread, the spinning, the fabric. Not to speak of the babies in the cocoons.
“We do as he asks,” I finally say.
“I see,” the man says. He does not say more, and I fight with fear and hope that he will.
Finally, we are at the door to the estate. It is much like the gate, and I know how to open it, and do so, the smooth metal latch fitting easily in my hand, the door swinging inward at the lightest touch.
We step into the estate. It is cool here, and clever lights tucked away in hollows of the wall, give the illusion of warmth. I do not walk farther than the entry hall, but the man steps past me, over to the curtains that hang at the large windows to our right. He holds the silver box near the curtain, pressing a button upon it, and I feel a strange tingle tighten my belly. It is as if another mender is touching me, whispering my name, asking to know me. Then the sensation is gone and the man gently rubs the edge of the curtain between his fingers. He lets the curtain drop, and looks over at the rug that stretches from the doorway to the end of the hallway.
“Lovely,” he says.
I look at the rug and agree. The colors variegate from deep orange to pale peach. It is like a sunset spilled upon the floor.
The man kneels with his back toward me and holds his box to the rug. The tingle comes over me again, stronger, and I cannot help but take a step toward him, toward the call from the box in his hand. Then the tingle is gone, and I am left confused. The man runs his fingers over the rug’s fine, but common, fibers.
“Ah,” he says, and I can feel his disappointment.
As he stands, I hear two sets of footsteps approaching. For a moment, I pray it is Bind. Bind who will touch me, who will share in my knowing. I fasten my gaze on my feet, fold my hands. The lord and Work walk into the room.
“Favor,” the lord says in his soft, lilting voice. “What have you done?”
It is a question. I am compelled to answer. “This is a traveler who asked if there were food and shelter. He walked through the south gate. I brought him here.” At each word I wait for the lord to strike. The silence in the room is so heavy, it hurts. I wonder if this is what Bind endures in the cell.
“A traveler,” the lord says. “Where do you hail from?”
The man steps up, and holds his hand out in a curious manner. I can not resist looking, watching as his hand and the lord’s hand meet. The world feels folded wrong again. In all my years, in all the lords I have served, I have never seen them touch or be touched.
I dart a look to Work, who stands stolidly behind the lord. Work gives me a steady, flat gaze, and I wonder how he can not show his shock at the event.
“Jonathan Alceste, my lord. It is an honor to finally meet one of the esteemed Ceive family
,” the man, Jonathan, says.
“Why are you in my private estate, Mr. Alceste?”
“I beg your indulgence.” He bows his head. “I come with what may be of great news to you.”
“I do not care to hear news from a stranger.”
“Please, Lord Ceive. If you would give me even one night. I have traveled the deep forest for three weeks on foot. The nearest navigable waterway was more than the research craft could endure, even with the technology at the Interplanetary Historical Institution’s disposal.”
“Enough.” The lord’s voice is quiet, cold as night.
The man silences. Work and I wait, though I can barely contain these new words: research, technology, institution, interplanetary. I can only taste the barest hint of what they may mean, and they seem familiar to me, like a pattern in fabric I once knew, long ago. The need for more of these words is overpowering. I lean toward the man to touch him.
Work’s eyes flash in warning, and I fight my need, staying my hand.
“Work,” the lord says, “take Favor to where she belongs. Finish the task I have set you to. Mr. Alceste,” he says with obvious anger, “follow me silently.”
As is the way, we obey the words of the lord. But the other words, the words from Jonathan the stranger are gestating inside me. I ache to know their meaning. My fingers rub and rub again against the pattern of my own palm that I know too well. I walk behind Work, and see the anger in his back. It is only once we reach the door to the house that Work speaks.
“Drink, Favor. You will need your strength.” It is all he says before he walks away, off to the east, toward the holding house where fabric is stored before it is shipped into the world.
I duck into the house and am struck with the smallness of it, the salted mulberry scent of it, the darkness, the sameness.
Follow and Spin are where I left them. They are too consumed by the rhythms of their tasks to look up. I walk through the wooden blinds and fill a cup with salty water and boiled mulberry leaves from the kettle that rests above the small fire pit in our sleeping chamber. I drink slowly, refill my cup and refill it again, thinking I will never fill myself.
