by Diana Rivers
“Alyeeta,” I said slowly, “I love Alyeeta, but she can chill me to my soul. My head still hurts from that hum.” I suddenly remembered the look of compulsion on Kazouri’s face when she had handed my writing to Alyeeta. It made my stomach clench with nausea.
Zheran was watching me intently, her large dark eyes fixed on my face. “You were ready to sacrifice your writing for my safety,” she said softly. There was amazement in her voice that anyone could value her so highly.
“Zheran, it is only words on paper. They came from my head. I could have written them all again. That little pack of paper is certainly not worth your life.” Even as I said those words, I knew I would never have written that part of my account again and I was very glad it had been rescued. “But you, Zheran, to save my writing, you were ready to risk your life and put yourself in the hands of the man you fear.” She shivered. At that same moment, I shivered too. Struck with wonder at her bravery, I sat up and put my arms around her. “You are safe here with us. I think he will not come back. If he does, we can always send Alyeeta after him.”
With a moan, Zheran reached out and clung to me for comfort. I clung to her too, more relieved than I could have imagined that she was still with us. For a while, we held each other in silence. Then I felt her body begin to shake. I thought it was fear until I heard her laughter. Suddenly we were both laughing, remembering together the look on Rhomar’s face. “Yes, send Alyeeta after him,” she said, choking out the words. “Send Alyeeta after him. She does have her uses, after all.”
In a moment or so, she drew away and grew serious. Her eyes on my face made me shiver. I could hardly credit what I was sensing in her mind. When she stroked my cheek again with a featherlight touch, I took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. She was struggling for words. “Tazzil, you are so beautiful. I thought so from the first moment I saw you. Do they all tell you that, all your women?”
I shook my head. No one had ever told me before that I was beautiful, not any of my lovers. I had never even thought of myself in that way. In truth, I hardly ever saw my own face and had little concept of my appearance. Aside from that one time in Hamiuri’s hut, when I had played with my image in her mirror, I had only caught fleeting glimpses of my reflection in a bowl of water or the surface of a pond. Dhashoti was beautiful and Lhiri and Tama and Yolande and Shalamith. I was just Tazzia, dirt-child, daughter of Nemanthi. Suddenly, in Zheran’s eyes, I had become something else.
How could I have lived with this woman for so long and not known what she was feeling? On some level, of course, I must have known. But I was not ready, so I had bought peace with head-blindness. I had blocked her out; closed myself off from her; shut that door as hard as I could. How else could we have done our daily dance of domestic intimacy in that tiny space without all of that intensity exploding in our faces? Now the pretense was gone, stripped away by our moment of shared fear and those few words Zheran had spoken.
I leaned forward and touched my lips to hers, very lightly. I could feel her hesitating, waiting, waiting to see if I was sure. Then an urgent heat rose between us and with it a terrible hunger. It seemed to fill the room and make everything else meaningless. We were both caught in that hunger. Suddenly we had hands all over each other’s body, hard and insistent. All the hesitation was gone. We struggled with clothes to reach through to flesh. With a groan, we fell over on the bed together and ripped away the remains of our clothing. I only hope we did not wake the children, but I have to confess that for that moment, we did not even think of them. We were much too busy with each other.
* * *
I love Alyeeta as much as my own life, yet I must confess there are moments when I cannot bear to be near her. After those times when she displays her powers, I want to be out of sight of her, as far away as possible. For the next few days, even a glimpse of her rounding a corner on the path ahead of me or the flicker of her face across the fire circle was enough to make me turn and go the other way. If I found myself near her cave, my skin would crawl and my steps would quickly take me elsewhere.
One evening, a few days after Rhomar’s “visit,” Zheran walked in and laid a bundle on the table. I recognized it instantly as my written account. She avoided looking me in the eye and said quickly, “Alyeeta put this in my hand to give to you. She said you have been hiding from her. She told me she read it all and that it is very well written and that you must write the rest as you have promised.”
I snatched up the packet and gave a roar of anger. “Never,” I shouted, amazed at the depth of my own fury. “Never! Does that Witch think she owns me? That she can order me about this way? I will never set pen to paper again. I will burn my account before I write another word at Alyeeta’s command. Why are you running her errands for her like some little slave girl?” I was shocked. I had never shouted at Zheran that way and certainly had never expected to.
To my surprise, instead of cringing, she matched my anger with her own, snatching the package back from me with surprising strength and pressing it to her chest. “No! I forbid it! You will do no such thing! I will not let you. I will guard it with my life and not let you touch it till you have regained your senses. It belongs to the children now, to our daughters. It is their inheritance. Would you take that away from them? I am going to read it to them, a little every day, and you are going to write the rest of it. You can have this again when you are ready to care for it with respect. You were already careless with it, or it would never have fallen into Rhomar’s hands and caused such trouble. How could you think to destroy it when I have not even read it yet? I would have risked my life for these pages, and you do not have the sense to value them.” Now there was hurt in her voice as well as anger.
I was staring at Zheran in amazement. She was usually so calm and even-tempered, the peace in my life. She stared back so fiercely that I dropped my eyes. “Do whatever you please with it, Zheran,” I muttered. “Read it to the children if it pleases you, only do not ask me to write any more. I cannot do that yet.”
“Thank you for the book, but I make no promises as to what I will or will not ask.”
I saw that the house would not be a place of peace that night and so took my warm shirt from the peg and went to sit by the cookfire. Not even Tama’s lovely voice or Kara’s flute could soothe my heart or lift my spirits much.
The next morning, I was very contrite for my burst of temper, which really was far more for Alyeeta than for Zheran. I apologized so often that Zheran had to beg me to stop.
“How is it that you know how to read?” I asked, looking intently at this woman who was so full of surprises. “That is not common for Kourmairi girls, not even in Mishghall.”
“My father taught me. He was a merchant with a trade route up and down the coast. He even had some dealings with the Zarns’ cities. The man had wide knowledge and much curiosity about the world. There were two boys and two girls in our family and he taught us all together, the daughters along with the sons. He said he would not have his girls grow up helpless and ignorant. My sister was restless and resistant, but I read everything I could find, and so my father encouraged me.
“My mother protested, saying there was nothing between the pages of a book that a girl needed to know on her wedding day. And some of the neighbors were scandalized. ‘Reading will ruin a girl for marriage,’ they told him.” Zheran laughed ruefully. “And look at me, ruined indeed. I have left my husband and my children, and I am not even sorry. Perhaps, after all, it was the reading that made me so hard.” Then tears welled up in her eyes. “Oh, Tazzi, if I could only see my boys one more time. They probably hate me now. I am sure he tells them terrible things about me. And now think what the stories will be like. No doubt they will grow up to despise their mother and be hard, bitter men like Rhomar.”
I came and put my arms around her. “How could your father marry you to such a monster?”
“My father was a kind man and good to us, but he had obligations to Rhomar’s family he could not evade.
”
“Trade goods! We are nothing but trade goods!” I shouted angrily as I turned away and began pacing around the confines of our small hut. “So your father was a good, kind man, but what does it matter? In the end he did as other men do.”
Zheran reached for my hand. “And that is why I cannot turn away the children, not any of them. That is why I teach them. That is why I brought back Ishnu and Ursa and made us a home. It will be different for them here. They will have some choice in the shaping of their lives. Here my girls can grow up proud and free, with no chief over them.”
* * *
After I had spent days avoiding her, Alyeeta caught me in the meeting house, where I had gone to consult with Maireth about some herbs. She followed me back out into the sunlight. “Have you done with hiding from me? How long do you think this can go on? All I did was make that man give up the book without laying claim to the woman. I waited, but none of you seemed able to deal with him. What would you have had me do, turn her over to him? After all, she is your friend.” She made the word friend sound poisonous. Suddenly her face softened and changed. “Tazzi, Tazzi, it hurts when you hide away from me. Do you know how much I love you?” That terrible look of pain came into her face, the betrayal she felt so deeply when I did not trust her, when I distanced myself from her power.
That look tore at my heart, touching me, as always, in ways her anger never could. “Oh, Alyeeta, why do you do this to me?” Everything in me melted and I felt myself about to cry.
Her face changed again and she snapped sharply, “No! Why do you do this to me? That is the real question.” Nothing in her voice reflected the grief that had been in her face only moments before. “I have been searching for you everywhere to tell you how pleased I am with your account, how well you write for an unschooled girl.”
It was amazing how skilled Alyeeta was in wrapping an insult in a compliment. “Thank you, Alyeeta, but I am done with writing, no matter how you flatter me. There is too much else that takes my time here. And if you had really wanted to find me, I am in our little house most evenings after dark when I am not by the campfire.”
“Oh, yes, living with your Kourmairi wife and her two foster daughters. Perhaps I did not want to intrude on your domestic bliss. How was I to know if I would find welcome there.” The way Alyeeta said the word wife, it sounded like a curse or an insult. “Yes, and that wife of yours was the cause of all the trouble and disruption. If not for her, that man would never have come here. Besides, she has come between us.”
I was about to rush to Zheran’s defense and protest the utter unfairness of all this when I suddenly realized that Alyeeta was jealous, that it was jealousy that lay behind her words.
“Yes, I am jealous and not proud of it, either,” she snapped, as if she had picked the thought out of my head. “Look what you have done, look what you have brought me to. And now you have crossed that boundary. No use denying it, I know you are lovers as well as housemates.”
“How did you…?”
“What an idiot. Are you going to ask me how I know when it is written plain as words on your face, in your eyes, in the way your body moves? Do you take me for a fool?”
“Alyeeta, it was only that one time, because we were both so frightened, and we held each other, and so it happened. But Zheran is not like that. She is not that way. Her passion does not lie with women.”
“What sort of garbage is that? You are the fool. Have you never seen how she looks at you? She would lay down her life for your sake. Look how she has made a home for you. I think she came to Mishghall with us because of you.”
I threw up my hands. “Alyeeta, wait…”
“No, you listen now, girl, and listen well. This is the truth I am telling you. There will be many more times between you. That was only the beginning. She is the great love of your life and she will be the last. The others were only an introduction, a beginning, even me, Tazzia, even me, much as I hate to admit it.”
“Alyeeta,” I hissed in annoyance, narrowing my eyes at her. Though she appeared to speak in earnest, I thought this only some new inventive torment to plague me with.
“This is no jest, Tazzia. I know that is hard to believe, since I so often mock and tease and say cutting and malicious things, but believe me, at this moment I speak the truth as I know it. This is the woman you will love for the rest of your life. For your sake, I will try to curb my spiteful tongue, not an easy thing to do after all these years. And she is not so bad, really. She will love you and take good care of you. For that I should be grateful. Besides, I am an old woman; what claims can I make on you?”
As Alyeeta said those words, I really looked at her. I could see how she had changed since we had first met in Hamishair. This was no longer the sturdy woman of middle years who had mocked and challenged us at the entrance to her hut. There were all the signs of sudden age, clear before my eyes. My stomach clenched in fear and I wondered what this meant for the future. How could I not have noticed what was right before my eyes?
* * *
As for the book, Zheran kept it in her care. I did not write in it for several more years. There were many things I would do for those two women I loved so much, but not even for them could I make myself pick up that burden again, at least not yet.
Chapter Eighteen
Children!? That was fast becoming the most heated question among us. We had found a safe place for the Hadra to live, but how were we to go on? Who would take our places as we grew older? Who would live in this wonderful city we were building? And if we were to have children, how was this to happen? And when? And would those children have our powers? It seemed as if we were all taking sides over this; our many discussions kept turning into quarrels. I was as troubled by these questions as anyone. I was also very sure we were not yet ready for children. There was too much still to be done. I wanted us to wait. How could we care for children in this unfinished place? How could we care for children when we could hardly care for ourselves?
Though I certainly did not count myself among them, I understood that many of the Hadra had a longing for children deep in their bodies as well as in their spirits. For them, children were more important than buildings, and they were getting older every day, feeling time slipping by. After all, we were still women, even if we were Hadra. If we had been ordinary village girls, we would have had three or four little ones by now. Lhiri and Kilghari and Ozzet and several others spoke to me of having babies. Of all of them, it was Tama whose pain I felt most keenly. She frequently came to sit in our house on the pretext of a visit, but it was mostly to be with the children. Zheran often gathered the other foundlings there, along with her own two. Then Tama would sit at our little table, drinking tea and holding one of them in her lap. With her eyes full of longing, she would say, “I wish I could have a little girl like you. Maybe the Mother will send me one soon.”
Of Zheran’s two, it was Ishnu, the youngest, who loved to be fussed over. She was gentle and compliant and very fond of Tama, clamoring to sit on her knee or braid her hair or try on her beads. Ursa, on the other hand, was as likely to be scrambling to the top of the newly completed meeting house walls as to be sitting at home being held. Though I myself could not fully comprehend it, still I could feel Tama’s persistent hunger. Yet, at that time in my life, I could not even imagine wanting a child of my own. It seemed as if I already had a hundred hundred children, all clamoring for my care and attention.
Zheran was the one that Tama came to talk with, because Zheran, with her own terrible loss, could best understand. Finally, Tama came to see me one day while I was on Third Hill, directing some building on the Zildorn. I knew instantly what the subject was to be. “Tama, I have no time at this moment,” I said quickly, hoping to escape. “We can talk later. I need to go now and confer with Jhemar about the new horses.”
“No, Tazzil, not this time,” she said in a determined way, blocking my path. “You cannot avoid this anymore. Jhemar can wait. I am at least as important as new ho
rses.”
I threw up my hands. “Well, Tama, have your say, though I already know where the subject lies and have no better answers than before.”
“But I do. Tazzia, you have to call a meeting of the council. Ozzet and I and some of the other Hadra who want children will be there to speak. A way has to be found before we do something desperate or foolish or both. Time is passing fast for us. Soon it may be too late. We have been meeting among ourselves, and we think we have a good plan. Now all we need is your agreement and that of council.”
It came as a surprise that this had been happening without my knowledge. I felt somewhat hurt at not being consulted. Tama easily read my thoughts. “You have been much too busy making buildings to pay attention to such things. You think it unimportant, but in the end, this may matter more to the Hadra than all the rocks you can put together.” Though she said it mildly enough, still I understood that I had been rebuked. I had no choice but to call a meeting of the council. I knew Tama would not go away quietly and let me be.
As chosen leader of the Hadra, I had immense power—or none at all—depending on whether or not the Hadra wished to follow. When we had arrived in Zelindar, a leader had been needed to give direction to this venture and to hold things together at the center. Being chosen, I, in turn, had chosen a council that I thought could help me make wise decisions—if such a thing is possible in the face of so many unknowns. We did not make laws, of course, for the Hadra cannot enforce laws on each other. Instead, we made agreements, sometimes only after long hours of talking. But if the Hadra did not like my way of doing and wished to follow another course, they could gather together and choose a different leader, who in turn would choose a new council. After all, I had no army at my command to enforce my will and certainly wanted none. But sometimes the very idea of such a change frightened me. I really thought I was the best one for this piece of work, at least at that moment. Also, I had so many things I still wanted to do. Nevertheless, there were times when I would gladly have handed over the leadership to almost anyone.
