“It’s a song?” she asked. “How does it go?”
Jean immediately launched into the tune, and Kate joined her, two high-pitched little-girl voices, giddily singing. Nell glanced over to make sure she’d closed the door.
“That was the way they started the day in my class, too,” Kate said. “A girl told me it’s her favorite.”
As Nell had suspected, Mistress Bianna had seen a child and given her a child’s book. Her smile had been as pleasant as the doll’s, and as meaningless. She sighed and made a sound of disgust. But when she tried to turn away, Susan laid a hand on her arm.
“Wait,” she said. “Let’s see.”
She turned the pages of the book. The late-afternoon light blushed through the window, and the west-falling sun sparked and reddened as it dropped toward the trees. The book’s creamy old pages turned faintly pink, under-laced with gold.
Susan stopped at a title printed in large letters: “The Tragedy of Rebellion.” Most of the gilt on the words had flaked away, but a few smudges of shine remained.
“Rebellion,” she said. “That’s something we might want to know more about, after today.”
They began to read and didn’t stop even as evening came, and the light from the window darkened to orange shafts that fell across the beds. A girl entered, holding a taper, and lit the lamps in the sconces. “If you want dinner, it’s downstairs now,” she said. “The hours of mourning are over.”
But they didn’t want dinner. The glow from the window darkened to purple and then a deep blue, and finally was gone, replaced by flickering yellow as they sat listening to Susan read aloud. The story told of a young farmer’s boy who came to be a scholar. He was quick and clever and eager to win praise.
“‘At first, he did,’” Susan read. The beat of the words was different from anything Nell knew, and Susan’s voice embraced the rhythm of it. “‘For cleverness is the first of skills, and the lowest, and there are many who can take in words and rules as a mirror does, reflecting back to perfection while absorbing nothing of the essence of a thing.’”
Susan laughed. “They have a way with insults, don’t they?” She grinned over at Nell. “I think we’re going to like this book.”
Where Susan had been distracted, she was now focused, and Nell settled down, glad that the feeling of wrongness that had clung to Susan since they’d come into the valley was lifting.
Suddenly Nell felt less alone.
Go on,” Jean prompted. “Keep reading!” They sat close together on the bed, leaning over Susan’s shoulder, eyes on the old pages. Susan took up the story again:
“Then the time came for depth, and the quiet, patient climb to wisdom. In this, the farmer’s boy stumbled, and the seed of his arrogance and pride flowered to rage. He brought the elders demands instead of questions, called the old ways foolish, and among the weak willed and the bitter found his disciples. In time his mind grew twisted, and he said the only true genius was to be found in nature, in the unleashing of passions, in the strength of the body and the embrace of the wildness of the world. For he was passionate, and strong, and wild. But unleashed, passion turns to violence, and so he burnt the first house of learning and chased the scholars from its halls. War came.”
Susan paused. The flames writhed in the lamps, making light leap here and there across the paper.
“Well,” Nell said, “we knew there was a war. Even Liyla said something like that. Do you think the rest of it’s true? Is that the Genius they’re talking about?”
Susan shrugged. “Can’t be this one, but maybe a long time ago. Maybe a great-great-grandfather or something.”
“He looked like he was a thousand years old,” Jean said. “Maybe it was him.”
Nell rolled her eyes, but Susan let that pass. She turned the page and continued reading:
“The rebel called instinct wisdom and made virtue of urges, and so with joy the vengeful and the sullied rallied to him and fought, seeking the mindless ease of the animal. And, having called to it, the animal came into them. With animal strength, they fought; with animal fury, they conquered. Unseen within them, the change had begun, and, blind, they called it boon and victory as, unaware and unprepared, the academies fell.”
“They were stronger?” Kate asked.
Susan nodded. “Because they were so angry. At first it just made them strong.”
Jean had moved to the head of her bed. Mention of the Genius had dampened them all a little, and Nell saw Jean look out at the dark fields. The light of the flickering lamps was softer than lights back home, yellow as old paper and smelling of warm oil. The flames behind the glass were reflected in Jean’s eyes when she turned.
“But nobody wants to be angry, do they?” she asked. “That’s no good.”
Nell thought of Zirri, so quick to lash out, and then of the people in the square, turning on the sleepers as the Genius spoke. She wasn’t sure how to answer. But Susan said, “Sometimes they don’t know any other way to be strong.”
Talk like this made Nell jumpy. She tapped the book. “And then?” she prompted.
Susan read: “‘Like sheep, the weak followed the powerful.’”
“You mean they liked the change?” Kate interrupted. Jean pulled her knees to her chest and took up her Barbie again. She half turned away from them, bending her head to the doll, her face hidden.
“No,” Susan said. “Don’t you see? They didn’t know they were changing. It was all on the inside, like the story says.”
She continued: “‘And death emptied the great places, the sacred halls. The rebel had tasted blood; feasted on it; and he hungered for more. He was not sated until the thinkers lay torn on the mountains and the rivers ran red.’”
Jean lifted her head. She was frowning now, all
