“As I told you at the time, it was not something I had planned.” She hadn’t, and she had no explanation for not having done so. None at all. Against every tenet of her rearing, against every shred of her own resolution, it had simply happened.
Limia went on implacably: “You chose to ignore what I had to say. I explained that Leelson’s child would have a better chance of being valued by his father and by me if born to a Fastiga woman and, if a son, with the Fastigat skills. I spoke from conviction, from concern. As you now admit, you felt my reasoning was not meaningful, not compelling. Why, now, should your conviction be compelling to me? Why, now, should your difficulties or problems be my concern?”
Lutha stared out the window behind the woman, not wanting to look her in the face. Everything she said was true. The only omission from Limia’s account was Leelson’s reaction when Lutha had told him of his mother’s visit. He had been angered, infuriated. Let Limia keep her opinions to herself. If he wanted to father a child on Lutha, that was his business! At that moment Lutha had loved him most, for he had not spoken like a Fastigat but like a lover.
One could not say to Limia Famber, however, that the child had been Leelson’s choice. Limia Famber wasn’t interested in what her son had wanted. Had wanted. Then.
Very well. There was still one final question she needed to ask. Lutha breathed deeply, counting the breaths, holding her voice quiet as she said, “There is an additional possibility. Leelson himself could make this trip far easier than I, and he would have no reason to refuse. Do you have any idea where he might be?”
Limia laughed harshly. “Don’t be a fool, woman! Do you think I would be so grievously upset if I knew where Leelson was? If I knew he was anywhere, alive? If I knew that, I could assume he has time yet to beget another child. If I knew he was still among the living, I would not despair of his posterity.”
The sneering tone made Lutha tremble, only partly with anger. She could actually fear this woman!
“It is early to despair of his posterity,” she said at last. “Leely is only five.”
The older woman regarded her almost with pity. “Leely! Your misbegot provides no posterity, not for our line, not even for yours, if you cared about such things. My kinsmen have seen your Leely, at my request. Believe me, it is because of your Leely that I despair!”
Some weeks after I returned from the House Without a Name, a veiled woman stopped me in the corridor, asking that I meet her behind the hive that evening. I knew her voice. From her veil, I knew she was one like me.
I did as she asked, leaving the hidden quarters in the bowels of the hive and encountering her near the back wall of the cave, whence she guided me through a hidden cleft and along a narrow trail that led downward to a turning behind a rock where there was a dark crevice.
“Puo-toh,” came the whisper from the crevice. Who goes?
“Pua-a-mai etah,” my guide replied. Goes a newly wounded one.
“Enter,” said the whisperer, lifting a foliage curtain from within the crevice. “Follow.”
My guide held the foliage while I went beneath. It fell into place behind me as I went down a path that twisted among great stones. This was a water path, smoothed by the rains of a thousand years, dimly lit by occasional candles on metal spikes driven into the stone. I wondered if the lights were there for my benefit, for my guide did not seem to need them. She moved as easily in darkness as she did in the infrequent puddles of light.
We came to a blanket door, the two blankets slightly overlapping.
“Remove your veil and come in,” she said.
She raised both hands to the flap of her veil, loosing it and thrusting it aside as she went through the blanket and around the draft wall that stops the outside air from blowing in. Behind it was the cave itself. It was dim inside, lit only by the small fire burning upon the central hearth under a metal hood. It was also warm, which meant it was well plastered, with all its holes and crevices stuffed with stone and covered with a layer of mud. As I looked around I realized the walls had been not only sealed, but smoothed. Walls and benches had been painted with white clay to reflect the light, and there were designs drawn there, ones I had never seen before. The mortar chimney that led the smoke away went beneath the lie-down bench, curved with it, and came up against the far wall, where a little door gave access to the shelf where the start-fire is built, to get the warm air rising. Once air is going up the straight chimney, one shuts the start-fire door, and the heated hearth air is pulled under the bench, warming the place we sit or sleep.
It was a warm cave, carefully planned, carefully built, as carefully as any hive cell I had ever seen. The air was fragrant, scented by spices stewing over the fire. I knew there would be breathing holes somewhere, a few at the bottom of the cave, beside the fire, to suck new air in as the warm air rose. We do the same in the hive.
On the curving bench sat a score of women, all with their hoods pushed back, their veils down. Only once had I seen my face in a mirror since my day at the House Without a Name. Once had been enough. Now I stared as though into fifty mirrors, seeing my face again and again, with variations. Here was a missing eyelid, there a ragged lip, there nostrils chewed at
