“So. Things never fit together as they should. I will tell him.”
“You are certain that you trust Gehnahteh and Choh? You will be at ease leaving the child with them?”
“I trust them. We had our differences when I was with them, but they were kind. Certainly kinder than they had to be to a foreigner.”
“I spoke with them.” Tahneh’s body went white for several seconds. “They were overwhelmed. It was the old story proven true.”
“Old story?”
She brightened more and settled back to tell it as I had known she would. “In the time of the empire a woman, a judge, was charged by her husband with consorting with a nonfighter, an artisan. She insisted that she was innocent, but her husband had more blue and he was very jealous. The artisan, a member of his trade family, was unusually large and possessed some beauty. The husband beat a false confession out of him, then killed him. The council of judges caused the wife to be painted red all over, and given to an artisan family so that she could serve them and get her fill of such people. The artisans treated her kindly—more kindly than they were commanded to treat her. In time, the woman realized that she was pregnant. Everyone assumed that she carried the artisan’s child and plans were made to kill it when it was born. No one but the two artisans showed her any color but yellow. Her husband renounced her completely and began a liaison with another woman. Then the woman gave birth to a child too blue for anyone to dare to kill. And as the child grew, it became, clearly, a young Hao. The woman was vindicated beyond any doubt and she showed yellow to her husband and found a new man. Her child, she gave to the two artisans who had been kind. That child grew to be one of our greatest leaders.”
I smiled. “This might not be quite like the story then. I doubt that Tien is Hao.”
“She may be. But even if she is not, her coloring will place her high—she was bom so dark! And she is Diut’s daughter. There will be honor for Gehnahteh and Choh. And much honor for you, Alanna. The people pester you now, but also, they honor you. If I had borne a child, they would behave this way. Both you and Tien are of interest to everyone—more than interest. Tien might someday be their leader.”
The ceremony was held in a huge gathering room beneath the living quarters. The only people absent were those unlucky enough to be on watch in the mountains outside. Tahneh presided, standing tall and regal. The people fanned out in a wide half circle around her, fighter and nonfighter together, ignoring clan differences for once since no specific clan was welcoming this first child. Everyone welcomed Diut’s child.
I was wearing my usual pants and short tunic made from soft leather and a wide blue-green fur cloak. But all my clothing was new, made for me since Tien’s birth. Diut had given it to me just as I was about to dress for the ceremony. He still gave gifts, but he had been very subdued about giving these. The separation was not going to be easy for him either.
In my new clothing, I knelt beside Diut on a small pallet of fur on the stone floor. Tien slept peacefully in my arms. To my right on a similar pallet knelt Gehnahteh and Choh. Behind them were all the people. Before them stood Tahneh.
“We meet to welcome a first child,” said Tahneh, her strange quiet voice reaching out to the corners of the room.
“May she be the first of many,” replied the people in unison.
“We meet to welcome a fighter.”
“May the young fighter grow strong and increase the strength of the tribe.”
“We meet to welcome a woman-child.”
“May the woman-child be fertile, and in her turn, help to replenish the tribe.”
Tahneh lowered the pitch of her voice slightly. “We are an ancient people. The Kohn empire was the handiwork of our ancestors.”
“We are a new people,” said the many voices. “In each child we welcome, we are reborn.”
“There is a color for welcoming,” said Tahneh.
The people blazed luminescent white.
“And there is a color for life.”
The people glowed a swiftly uniform green—the green of healthy mountain vegetation washed clean by rain.
“And there is a color for strength and honor.”
The people ceased to radiate light at all. They allowed their coloring to settle to normal. Now only Diut and Tahneh blazed forth in brilliant blues.
“We welcome the fighter child,” said Tahneh. “May she have long life, strength, and honor.” Tahneh looked at the two artisans. “May she have the care she will need while she is young.”
Gehnahteh and Choh stood up. Diut and I also stood.
“A fighter child needs two mothers and two fathers to keep her safe,” said Tahneh. “What man fathered this child?”
“I am her father,” said Diut.
“And what woman gave birth?”
“I,” I said simply.
“So. But you are fighters. And you must be free to defend the tribe. Are there others whom you would trust to care for your child?”
Diut answered for both of us. “We ask the artisans Gehnahteh and Choh to be parents to our child when we cannot.”
Tahneh looked at the artisans. “Will you accept the fighter child?”
“She will be as one born to us,” said Gehnahteh softly.
I stepped forward and placed Tien in Gehnahteh’s arms.
Tahneh whitened. “The tribe is one greater now. We will feast and rejoice!”
Dawn.
The Verrick cabin had burned to the ground and was still smoldering. The storehouse had burned even more quickly, but its fire had spread. It was still spreading. The storehouse that had served as a prison for the Tehkohn captives had burned. Now several of the Missionaries’ cabins were on fire. The settlement was full of smoke and ash. But only the buildings were burning. The people had gotten out with their possessions. That was all that mattered.
The Garkohn were scattered, painted, confused, beaten. Most of them had already fled back to their own dwelling. Tehkohn fighters hunted those who were still at the settlement. They found injured ones who had tried to hide, and snapped their necks perfunctorily. The Missionaries first stared, then turned away. It was a kind of killing that they pretended to be shocked at-though unlike Jules and Neila, many of them had advocated using it against wild humans on Earth. Alanna remembered if they did not.
Alanna stood with Diut, watching them prepare to leave. Near her, an old woman-Beatrice Stamp, her name was-and her two recently orphaned young grandchildren struggled to load a heavy sack onto a handcart. Between them, they could drag the sack well enough, but they could not lift it. Since no one else had noticed their trouble, Alanna went to help. Burdened by neither too many years nor too few, Alanna lifted the sack and threw it into the cart. The old woman looked at Diut, then looked at Alanna as though she did not know whether to thank her or not.
Alanna went back to Diut’s side staring at his grotesquely swollen arm. “You need care.” She spoke in English. “When will you let a healer help you?” She had seen two judges who were healers at the settlement.
“When your Missionaries are on their way.” He took a ragged breath and looked down at his misshapen arm. “Soon.”
Alanna saw that the first Missionaries to be fully ready to leave were lining up at the gate with their handcarts. They looked like a miniature wagon train out of pre-Clayark Earth history. But this was a train that used people as draft animals and handcarts as covered wagons.
Jules moved along the lengthening line, checking the carts and the people, seeing that everyone had packed the essentials, seeing that the very young and the very old had help. Alanna saw him order a stocky adolescent boy to help Beatrice Stamp and her grandchildren pull their cart.
“I spoke to him while you were helping your mother to load her cart,” said Diut. “Some of my fighters will guide him across the mountains and help him settle in the next valley.”