“…even as she has commanded, step into her day! Go forth!”
The song ends as all morning songs end, when light lies on the feet of the singer. Hah-Hallach, songfather of Cochim-Mahn, turns and steps forward onto daylight, seeing the way clearly. The musicians on the roof of the song-study house have been waiting for this. The bone flute shrieks, the panpipes make their breathy sound, the gongs tremble, the little drums, with a final flourish, tum-te-tum into silence. Only then the poisoned doorskins are set aside by careful hands, and people pour from the hive, the sound of day voices bubbling up like water in the spring. Now are talking voices, voices for the light, stilled since dark came. They speak of planting maish and melons. They ask who left a water bowl outside all night. They rise in annoyance at children, and children’s voices respond after the manner of children.
And I? I wait until songfather sees me standing there, where I have been since before light, my head bent down, trying not to tremble, for it would not be fitting for song-father to see me tremble.
“Songfather,” I murmur.
“Girl,” says Hah-Hallach, who until yesterday called me Saluez, sweet Sally-girl, who until yesterday was Grandpa, who until yesterday would have put arms about me, holding me.
Am I different today from yesterday? I am still Saluez, granddaughter of his heart, so songfather has said to me, manytime, manytime. Am I changed? Am I not still myself, the self I grew to be? Until yesterday, I knew who Saluez was. Until yesterday, when Masanees told me it was certain:
“You are with child,” she said, gripping my shoulders to help me control my shaking.
I cried then. I was too proud to scream, but I cried, and Masanees wiped my face and cuddled me close as only women will cuddle me close now, only women who know. I had not wanted to be this way. I was not ready for this. Some say there are herbs one can take, but such things are only whispered. The songfathers do not allow it; they say we were made for fecundity, such is the purpose of the pattern, so the Gracious One has spoken. They tell us how all nature is made the same, every tree with its fruit, every blossom with its bee. So every girl must take a lover, once she is able.
I said no, no, no. My friend Shalumn said no, no, no. We were enough for one another, she and I. But this young man said yes, yes, yes. And that young man said yes, yes, yes. And Chahdzi father looked at me beneath his eyebrows, so. So, I picked the one who was least annoying, and it was done. I had a lover. If all went well, soon I would have a husband. When the seed sprouts, Dinadhis say, then the gardeners join their hands and dance. Their hands, and other parts as well. I take no great pleasure in that thought. First loving is, as the old women say, fairly forgettable. Nor is there any pleasure in the thought of what comes between.
So, now I am with child and am no longer favorite anything to Hallach, songfather. Now I become part of the promise, part of the covenant, part of the choice. For this time between the planting and the dancing, only that. Nothing more.
“A day has been appointed for you,” says songfather, not looking at me.
I feel myself shake all over, like a tree in wind, like a newborn little woolbeast experiencing the coldness of air for the first time. Is it fear I feel, or is it anger at their pushing me so? “Soon you will be old enough. Soon you will have a lover. Soon you will have a husband. It is the way of Dinadh.” I learned these words when I was first able to talk. Now it is all I can do to stand until the shudder passes, leaving me chilled beneath the sun.
“You are prepared?” It is the ritual question.
“Songfather,” I say, “I am prepared.” The words are the correct words. I have been trained since babyhood to say those words, but no amount of training has made them sound sincere, not even to me! What is it I am supposed to be prepared for? No one will say. They whisper. They hint. But no one ever says!
“You were made for this,” he says solemnly. “As the Gracious One has told us, you were made for the giving of this gift. Who will go with you?”
I say, “Masanees, sister-mother.” Masanees has done this thing before, several times, successfully! She is of my mother’s generation, though my mother is gone.
Hah-Hallach knows all this. “She will watch over you,” he says, approvingly.
“Yes, songfather.” I suppose she will.
“Attend to the day. Soon you will go and our songs will go with you.” He strides past me, toward the song-study house.
So. The Gracious One has been mentioned in passing. I have fulfilled my destiny and said my words. The song-father has said his words. Sweet-Sally and Grandpa have said no words at all. The thing is resolved upon, whatever the thing is, and all Dinadhi know their parts in the pattern. They are they, and I am Saluez, who turns and goes back into the hive, for there is much preparation to be made.
Still I cannot keep my head from going back, far back to let my eyes look high, there, among the rimrock, among all
