The Woman of Delven - Chapter 1
The Woman of Delven - Chapter 1
The first of three novellas from the world of The Shattered Moon
For the full background to these novellas see the Introduction to Three Kinds of Now.
"Rodal," she said. "Somewhere, in another life, we—"
"Besure. But, well, that's another life."
The Sundering Wall.
Now
Jerya
Jerya stirred slowly, savouring the unaccustomed calm. She knew that Rodal had planned to leave early, possibly to be already at the edge of the forest before Dawnsong. He had left a candle burning, and in its glow she could see Kellion still slumbering peacefully in his niche. Nessim and Lerieth had presumably left with their father, no doubt to pester the women preparing the hunters' breakfast.
After a few more luxurious moments, she climbed off the sleeping shelf, stretched herself, and leaned over the baby's cot. He was starting to wake up, making vague motions with his tiny chubby fists. He would be ready to feed soon enough, but with a little luck she'd have time to feed herself first.
The washing-water had no doubt been warm when it was fetched; had Rodal done it or had he sent the girls? Either way, it was cool now. For some reason, that made her think of the tarn in the forest. How long had it been since she had swum there? A few times when Ashlenn was small, she'd left her with an aunt, or Rodal's parents, but she'd always known they didn't truly approve. And when Dorith came along, and then there seemed to be a baby every few years, there was never a chance.
Cold smoked trout, good rye bread, and the last of the pot of butter made a good breakfast. She was even able to enjoy without haste, before Kellion started to demand attention.
She walked round and round the chamber as she fed him. Half the women in the village had told her 'boys are twice as much trouble as girls'. Unless it was 'five times' or even 'ten times'. So far, it hadn't proved out that way. Of all her children, he'd been the easiest sleeper, almost from birth. Even now, as his first birthing-day drew near, it was still true.
He was clean and dry, too, though she thought that must be to Rodal's credit rather than Kellion's. Had he enlisted the girls' help, perhaps as the price for allowing them to come down so early with him? Very likely, but he was quite capable of doing it all himself. She sometimes wondered how many of the other fathers were so helpful in their private chambers. Probably more than admitted to it in public.
When Kellion was sated, she laid him down again while she brushed out her hair and wound it into her headcloth, then got him settled in his sling in front of her. She pushed aside the door-screen of felted goat's-wool and made her way down the passage. At the breach, she looked up; the rock-bridge to the maidens' level was half-lost in shadow, two figures passing across it silent and half-seen like an owl in the night of the forest. They might be her own second and third daughters, or they might not.
She came into the hearth-chamber, which always seemed day-bright at this time of the morning, though its 'daylight' was only reflected off sandstone. Here she found her first-born, and—she sensed at once—not by coincidence. Ashlenn came quickly to meet her. "Ma," she said, pausing only for the briefest admiration of her baby brother. "I've summat to tell you."
"You're expecting."
Ashlenn pouted. "Pa telled you already?"
"No, I haven't seen him this morning. And it's told, not telled."
Ash ignored the grammatical rebuke. "Then how d'you know?"
"You were waiting for me and you couldn't keep the grin off your face. What else was it going to be?"
Privately, Jerya found it hard to be altogether delighted. Ashlenn wasn't yet eighteen. I wasn’t a whole lot older, but I'd seen a sight more of the world than you ever will, likely. But that was all long past, and Ash's husband, a few years older, was a steady enough fellow. She kept her reservations to herself, hugging her daughter as best she could with a baby slung before her.
And here I am now, she thought as she walked on towards the true daylight. Not far off forty, soon to be a granma, and still nursing. At least she could reasonably expect this to be the last. It was what everyone had said, when Kellion arrived after she'd had five girls in a row: a boy at last.
By the base of the steps was a niche, and in the niche today a white stone, a flake of quartz the size of her thumbnail. She kept walking; she doubted even the most observant of watchers would have detected that she had seen the stone. There was no great reason to keep her meetings with the Dawnsinger secret; in fact she suspected most of the village knew that they met from time to time, but she thought few would realise just how frequently.
At the fork by the rock-pillars, she took the right-hand path.
As she climbed to meet the Dawnsinger, she had a sudden recall, like a flash, of their first meeting.
Between Then and Now
Jerya
"You are Jerya, I believe?"
"I am, Dawnsinger." Once she would have fled but, even after eighteen years, some lessons remained. She lowered her gaze a little, but even from that quick glance had gleaned that the new Singer appeared about the same age as herself.
"Would you come with me, please? I have something for you; and I have a request."
When they reached the little shelter-seat up by the beehives, the request came first. "They tell me these hives are mine, but I know nothing about keeping bees. And Holdren says you know as much about them as anyone."
"Reckon I might."
After they had discussed how to deal with the hives, which had been sadly neglected in the previous Singer's time, the new Singer turned to the other matter she'd mentioned. From a pocket of her white skirt she drew some folded paper. Jerya had never before had a letter addressed to her, but she had read many for others, even written a few.
She unfolded the sheets, spread them carefully in her lap, and read.
'My dear Jerya,
'I have long been conscious that I did you a great wrong, almost sixteen years ago, but when I was removed from Delven, my successor…'
She raised her head. "This is from the old Dawnsinger? Sharess?"
"Sharess, aye. As soon as she knew I was being sent, she sought me out and begged me to carry this to you."
"Thank you." Though the truth was Jerya had no notion, as yet, whether such a letter would be something to be thankful for.
'My successor was a stern adherent of the Principle of Detachment, which warns us against over-close intercourse with those we serve; in Delven, I mostly found that the people themselves enforced it more zealously than I might have done. By their choice, if not my own, I never knew you, save by those reports that came to me through the headman. I wonder if, had circumstances been different, that would have ever changed. I knew already that you had grown into a young woman of independent mind. And on the one day that we did speak, I remember you saying to me, "I don't want to go, I want to know you."
'Well, I was recalled to the College before you returned to Delven, so we never did speak again. Only now can I tell you of the burden I have carried these eighteen years.
'This will sound like I am making excuses, and perhaps I am, but I do truly believe that I was not quite in my right mind at that time. I’d had a fever, that you knew, and it was all I could do to drag myself to the songstead each morning.
'The truth is that I had always followed your progress as best I could, mostly through Holdren's reports. I cannot but wonder what might have happened if Delven had received regular Visitations of Peripatetics, as every community should—and as I understand it now does.
'I have asked myself many times whether I should have done when you were eleven what I did when you were nineteen. It would still have been irregular for a village Singer to act on her own initiative, but the misdemeanour would not have been compounded by sending a girl so much beyond the usual age.
'Did I wrong you more by not sending you before, or by sending you when I did? The question remains imponderable.
'Well, when I did act, there were swift and far-reaching consequences for me. I can only hope that, in the end, the consequences for you have been less drastic.
'For me, the consequences made themselves felt within six weeks when Delven received its first Visitation in many years. A Visitation which resulted in my removal—not as punishment, I was assured, but so that I might receive appropriate care. I enjoyed the attention of the Healers for more than a month, and continue to see them regularly. You could not have failed to observe that, in addition to my general debilitation and the resulting mental imbalance, my hands were swollen and painful and made some tasks difficult.
'The first two of these have been much improved; I would like to say cured, but the Healers shy away from the word, and not only in my case. I can only say that I feel well.
As for my hands, this, alas, is a chronic condition, but regular therapy has arrested the deterioration and substantially alleviated the pain. I remain limited in my capacity for fine work, and have been obliged to dictate this letter; otherwise it would have taken an inordinately long time to write and even then might have been hard for you to read.
'But enough of me and my complaints. I fear you will think me a querulous old woman. Perhaps I am old, though I hardly feel it, except in my hands. In any case, I did not write to grumble, but to apologise, and to express my fervent hope that you have not suffered permanently from my misconceived treatment of you.
'Singer Marit, my immediate successor in Delven, was—as you must be aware—a strong adherent to the Principle of Detachment, holding herself very much apart and aloof. I believe she had been less stringent in her previous position and felt regrettable consequences had ensued.
'She would not be prevailed upon to send me any news of you, and I doubt she would have interested herself in the fortunes of any individual in any case. I am happy that Singer Hariset, who now replaces her, follows a markedly different interpretation of the Principle, as a growing number of Singers do, and expressed herself happy to convey this missive. She is also quite willing to include a report of you in her periodic dispatches, or to include a letter in your own hand. I hope, but cannot expect, still less demand, that you will feel able to write me a few lines; failing that, that you will at least allow her to convey some news of you.
'Perhaps you are still angry at me. If so, I can hardly blame you. However, if you can bear it, it would greatly ease my mind.
'With warmest good wishes,
'Sharess of the Guild of Dawnsingers.'
She refolded the letter and made as if to hand it back, but Singer Hariset waved it away. "It’s yours, Jerya."
"Thank you, Dawnsinger."
"I hope it’s welcome?"
In truth, Jerya hardly knew yet what she thought of it, but she could hardly say that. "Yes, thank you, Dawnsinger."
The Singer smiled. "My name is Hariset. Perhaps one day you’ll feel like using it."
Now
Jerya
"Amley's not the stuff Dawnsingers are made of. Lerieth, now, she might be." She'd never admit it to a living soul, of course, but she knew very well that most mothers had their favourites, and her fourth child was hers. Everyone expected her to dote on her son, and she did adore him, as she loved all her children; but Leri had something extra about her.She had been very struck, and puzzled, by the way everyone seemed to hail her producing a son as a triumph, as if one boy somehow counted for more than all five of her girls. Dawnsinger Hariset had an answer for that. “It’s something I’ve thought about, and it seems to me a lot of it is our fault.”
“Our fault?”
“The Guild of Dawnsingers. In Choosing we take the brightest and best, the ones who have the potential to shine, to lead. No one takes the best of the boys out of the reckoning in the same way. It’s only when a girl gets missed, like you, that we see what a woman can do even in a place like this.”
Even in a place like this… Jerya had thought much on those words.
She'd begun with her firstborn, only then realising that, having never been taught to read herself, she had no idea how to set about teaching anyone else. Perhaps Ashlenn had suffered as a consequence; she had never seemed to look on reading as a pleasure to look forward to. And now, as far as Jerya could tell, she neither read nor wrote anything at all.
She sighed. If Ash never read, she never seemed to miss it either. She seemed fully content, and often happy. Marriage was fresh—and Arioth was a good man, Jerya knew. She would have argued much more strenuously against Ashlenn's marrying so young if he had not been. And now she was pregnant, and why should she not be thrilled with that? See how she feels after five or six, though…
Anyroad, Dorith had been quicker to pick up the reading, or perhaps Jerya's teaching had improved. Amley had showed about the same promise at first, but soon evinced a far greater appetite for running around outside. Jerya, who’d often done the same herself, could hardly fault her for that; she was only careful to do what her aunts had never done, and ask what Amley had done, what she had seen.
It was Lerieth who took to reading like a fish to water; whether that was because her teaching had improved further, or whether it was something in the child's own nature, Jerya could not say. Still, it had given her enough confidence to broach the subject of starting a class. And now—Jerya could not help smiling at the irony—she frequently found herself having to prise Leri away from a book to get some fresh air.
And, to finish the roster, Nessim was still only four, but making steady progress, and as for Kellion; she could not even know, yet, whether he understood anything when she read to him.
"Leri, I want to talk to you."
Her daughter followed her out of the village and onto the moor-path. When they reached the rocks, Leri scrambled up without fuss. She still wore a child's shorter skirt, of course, which made it easier. Jerya remembered when her aunts had first put her in a long skirt; at first she'd felt she might trip over the hem at any moment. The change of skirts usually happened when a girl turned eleven: she wondered how they'd decided on a day for her. She'd never known her own birthday and she didn't think anyone else did either.
She thought then that if Leri was Chosen for a Dawnsinger, she’d be gone from Delven soon after her eleventh birthing day. And we'll probably never see her again. She felt her resolve faltering. But it's whatever's best for Leri, she thought. That's what we want, if we can work out what that is.