Crow Jane - D. J. Butler Page 0,10

went to the winter pastures, Father would retreat into his own private tent for hours, and then the Messengers would come. Jane knew why they came, because she had crawled as a child under the tent flaps and listened to Father’s rhymes, the names he had given the Messengers in them and the odd words he used to conjure them. And the summoning was not the end of Father’s responsibilities; the Messengers came from the towers in the west bringing lore and learning, but it was Father’s job to make sure his children were prepared and to repeat their lessons with the family over and over until they were taken fully to heart. If his children didn’t learn and live the teachings of the Bearers of the Word, Father told them, then the Bearers of the Sword might come in their stead. All this was well and good, and, Qayna thought, the proper order of things.

Still, it meant long, cold nights for her brother, huddled over a small fire with his flute and his wallet of dried lambs’ flesh.

Qayna, meanwhile, combed the forests and the fields for herbs that were edible, good for body and spirit, and she brought them to the family. As Father taught the children the Way and Mother whispered lessons to Qayna of the Garden, Qayna in turn taught the plants. With example, with firm, dirt-fisted persuasion, with patience and with love she taught them to stand in rows, to grow upright, to be nourishing and cheerful, and to beautify the hillsides above the family’s dwellings of skin and stone. On winter nights, when her grain slept in silent furrows, waiting for the spring to rise and bud, she stooped under the lintel to return to her Father’s fire in the evenings and spared a thought for her brother in the hills, a thought that was loving and compassionate.

Loving and compassionate, but nothing more.

During this most recent winter, a tall Messenger with an expressionless face taught the family about the Bond. The Bond was the tie that connected Father and Mother and all of them together, and the First Precept was that man and woman should enter into the Bond, be fruitful and multiply. Qayna had found it amazing, and though she had shushed the tittering of the younger children, she had found it embarrassing, too, and she was vaguely relieved that Abil wasn’t present. But late at night, when Father and the six-winged Messenger stood on the brow of the hill and recited the names and deeds of the stars above them, Mother whispered to Qayna that it was all true.

Not only was it all true, she confirmed, but Qayna had to prepare herself. She was to be the first woman to enter into the Bond east of the Garden. This was the Way for her daughters to keep the First Precept, ever since Mother’s own choice, a mysterious fork in the path to which she only alluded and only in hushed tones, but which sounded like a decision freighted with dread, rebellion, and regret.

Qayna expressed doubt.

Her body was ready, Mother explained patiently; it was time. In the same way, Qayna prepared the earth before she filled it with seed, enriching the soil with the castoffs from the family’s table, so that the seed could flourish in it and grow into tall stalks of wheat or fruit trees, Qayna had been preparing her own body.

Qayna denied it.

She was outraged. She had participated in no such embarrassing pursuit, and besides, there was no one for her to marry. Would the Messenger take a rib from her side and make a companion for her? Would he form a man from the dust for her convenience and pleasure?

Mother insisted. She had prepared her body without knowing, feeding it and exercising it and making it strong. And Qayna’s body had responded; the changes in her flesh that had sent her once under each moon into Mother’s private, separated tent were a clear sign that her body was ready to fulfill its purpose, to achieve the task designated for it by its creator. Mother had told the Messenger about these changes, she admitted to Qayna, and that was why the Messenger now taught the family about marriage.

Besides, the First Precept was inexorable. There was only the family, and if the family did not multiply, then there would be no more people, only a wide world, empty but for the Towers and the Messengers. And the Bond, cruel as it might