"It was easier to get along with the Helwar if I looked like them. I've fallen in love with one of their daughters, though I don't imagine we have much of a future, if the alliance turns out badly."
"It has turned out as planned," the witch said. "We have the ships we desired and no permanent entanglement in the south."
Ahl considered this remark while looking at the channel's dark water dotted with red-orange flowers. These were not wis, as you might think, but a closely related plant, which had no commercial value, though it was lovely. "What happened to Leweli?"
"You know that five women mated with the men of Helwar. One had a mother who might be called weak. She didn't want her daughter to carry a child for most of a year, then lose it."
"What do you mean?" asked Ahl.
"It had been decided that none of the children would live beyond birth."
"Why?"
"The matriarchs of Sorg do not want this alliance. We are a proud family, also careful. The Helwar live far off and have nothing to recommend them except their skill in building ships. We have the ships now."
"They won't last forever. What if we need more?"
"That problem will be dealt with when it comes forward and can be seen. Our family is proud and careful, but does not always look into the distance."
Ahl considered this information, squatting in dust and heat. No question about what the witch was saying: their relatives had decided to kill whatever children came from the Helwar interbreeding. A contemporary woman would be sick with horror or at least uncomfortable. What did Ahl, a woman of the middle distance in time, feel?
Remember how many children died in the days before modem medicine. Those who were deformed or sickly died at once, of course, as they still do. It is a kindness we owe our kin. But many strong and healthy children died as well, due to illnesses which can now be prevented or cured. As a result, in many cultures,
babies were called "guests" or "visitors" until they reached the end of their first or second year. Often they were not given a permanent name until it seemed likely they'd remain; and women tried to keep from loving these nameless children too much. If they had thought all the little ones they buried were true people, instead of beings who would turn into people in time and with luck, the women might have died of sorrow.
Because of this, Ahl saw the situation differently than we do. The two children who were killed at birth might have died later. How did she know for certain they'd been healthy? The idea was disturbing, but it did not make her sick.
"What happened to Leweli?" Ahl asked again.
"The mother I mentioned told her daughter to pretend pregnancy. The daughter told Leweli what was going on. By this time Leweli was pregnant; and it turns out she is one of those women who can't bear to lose a child. She knew if she stayed in her mother's house and had the child delivered by midwives, it would
die. She came to me."
"She is alive," Ahl said.
"As is her daughter," said the witch. "A fine healthy child, though she has a definite southern look, which I don't find attractive."
"Where?" asked Ahl.
"In the marshes," said the witch after a pause. "I'm not happy about this. The air here breeds too many diseases. As you know, I can foretell the future. The child is important. I knew it the moment I saw Leweli's distended belly. I want the two of them in a place that's safe."
"What can I do?" asked Ahl after a moment.
"Take them to Helwar."
"How?"
"My vision does not see."
AHL LEFT, taking a different route, since she wanted time to think. The day grew hotter. She started panting and remembered an inn at the marsh's edge. With luck it was still in business. She made a detour and found the building, standing in the shade of a good-sized atchul tree.
Secondary roots hung from the tree's branches, forming a greenish-white curtain.
A few had reached the ground and burrowed down, becoming runners that would in time, at a safe distance from the parent tree, send up shoots. This is the atchul's preferred way to grow, though it also flowers and can produce seeds. In youth -- and this atchul was comparatively young, though larger than usual – it is surrounded by a veil of roots, none thick, most ending in midair.
In middle age the roots increase in size; many dig into the earth; instead of a veil of white filaments, they become a sturdy net. Outside the net, beyond the shadow of their mother, daughter trees rise, stretching out their branches, producing their own curtains or veils.
As the tree reaches old age the roots thicken even further, weighing the branches, pulling them toward the ground. Now the tree stands within a cage made of itself. In this cage, in time, it dies.
The tree is fairly common in the southern marshes, though rare elsewhere. Because of its behavior it has several nicknames: the Veil Tree, for obvious reasons, and the Sewing Tree, because of the way it grows, roots descending, then rising as another tree, then re-descending, as if it were stitching its family into the soil, generation after generation.
Finally it is called the Mother Tree, because it reminds people of their mothers: large formidable women who sew or figure their accounts in rooms where gauzy curtains hang and billow.
Ahl pushed through the veil of roots and saw the inn clearly. It was more run-down than she remembered, but a cart stood at the entrance. Brightly painted in a foreign style, it must belong to travelers. Ahl dismounted and led her animal into the courtyard.
Two tsina stood there, old and bony. One was apparently lame as well. A man stood next to it, examining a forefoot. Something there, in the horny pads or the fissures between the three broad toes, disturbed him. He groaned softly, released the foot -- the tsin put it down gingerly --looked up and greeted Ahl in a courteous, despondent tone.
Not her concern. She returned the greeting, tied her animal and went inside.
A man sat there. Like the man outside, he was a foreigner with uncut fur. But the man in the courtyard had been middle-aged, while this fellow was barely more than an boy, slender and graceful, though not --it was obvious to Ahl -- entirely sober at the moment. He lounged on a bench, his back against the rough
trunk of the atchul, which formed one wall of the room. The other walls were plastered and white rather than gray, though almost as rough as the atchul.
The innkeeper was female and a true daughter of Sorg: tall, thin, white and black. Ahl got beer from her. "Is there another place to be?" "There is only the patio," the innkeeper said, her tone apologetic. Anything would be better than sharing a room with an unrelated man. Ahl went out, finding an area paved with
stone, shaded by the atchul's leaves and curtained by its roots.
Hah! Better! There was even a breeze that stirred the hot air, bringing the aroma of summer vegetation to her nostrils.
She sat down, tasted the beer -- it was cool in her mouth and pleasant on her tongue -- then thought about her current situation.
Merhit was asking her to oppose her own mother, as well as all the other senior women of her lineage. No woman did this lightly. Many women -- most women -- would never do it.
But it was wrong to make a contract with the intention of breaking it, and even more wrong to break a contract made solid by children; and to break the contract in such a way!
No one would question the right of senior women to examine newborn children and decide, "This one should be kept. This one should not."
The job had to be done. A decent self-respecting family, one such as Sorg had always been, could not allow any of its members to die slowly. Nor could a decent family let children who had come out badly continue to live. What future did they have? How could they be happy or useful? The children who were killed held no grudge, as was known by the behavior of their ghosts.