When I had wakened in the hive, the bandages had already been in place. Veiled women had told me what had happened. No one knew why. It happened sometimes. It was no fault of Masanees or any of the other attendant women. Every detail of the ritual had been reviewed, again and again. Did you do this? Did you do that? Did you lie with your face firmly in the basket ring? Was there plenty of food and drink? Yes and yes, everything had been done as it was supposed to be done, as it had been done over and over for generations of years.
“Welcome,” said an old woman. “To our sisterhood.”
The others bowed and murmured. Welcome. Welcome.
“Are you still with child?” asked the eldest.
I nodded. So far as I knew, I was. I was no longer about to be married; I was no longer considered marriageable; but I was still with child.
“When your birthing time comes, you will come here,” said the woman.
This was a surprise! I looked around the circle, seeking some reason. Those who could, smiled comfortingly at me.
“We have all had the experience,” one of the women said. “Most of us are from Cochim-Mahn, but some are from Dzibano’as and Hamam’n and Damanbi. When the moons are full, we delegates come to offer comfort to our new sister, walking in the day from hive to hive, staying overnight with our sisters who then join our travels the following day. Tonight we have with us women even from Chacosri, around the canyon corner. We all know what you are suffering. Many of us have had children. When your time comes, come here.”
“We are a sisterhood,” said another to me, kindly. “We are a sisterhood of wounds. We must care for ourselves, for the others are afraid of us.”
“Afraid!” I cried. I knew it was so. Walking veiled in the corridors of the hive, I had seen it on their faces, even on Father’s face, Grandfather’s face. I had seen it on Shalumn’s face, though her fear was outweighed by pity. I did not want to believe it. “Why afraid?”
“Because we do not fit the promise made by the Gracious One,” whispered another. “Because we seem to cast doubt upon the choice. Because they are afraid we will bring the abandoned gods among them again.”
And then they put their arms around me, and I wept, and they said soft words and let me weep, and the singing began and went around and around the fire, old songs to fit the designs upon the walls, songs so old the ordinary people of the hives had forgotten them, songs of our former father, our former mother, songs of the time when the shadows had welcomed us and we did not go in fear or hope of the Kachis or the ghosts.
It is time to introduce new color into the robe we are weaving. I have woven Lutha and Leelson and Leely, Saluez and Snark. Now I will fill a new shuttle with heavier threads than ours. I will weave the King of Kamir.
I had never met a king before, and when eventually I did, at first I thought he did not look like much. Still, his pattern would be rich and vivid, a storm design set against our simple stripes of joy and pain. While Lutha Tallstaff was traveling toward our meeting, while I sang in the cave of the sisterhood, he, the King of Kamir, thought mighty thoughts and made the fabric tremble!
Jiacare Lostre, the King of Kamir who had been lost (who had tried desperately and unsuccessfully to stay lost), sat cross-legged on the chalcedony throne of Kamir-Shom-Lak considering with measurable satisfaction the demise of Leelson Famber and all his lineage. Famber’s siblings and their children and all their children. Famber’s parents and their siblings and all their children. Beginning, however, with Leelson himself, with Leelson’s wife or mate, if any, and his offspring.
Despite the burdens of kingship, which had piled up during his absence, Jiacare had found time to recruit and dispatch an appropriate assassination team: Mitigan, a professional killer from Asenagi, a Firster who saw no dichotomy between profession and religion; Chur Durwen, another Firster, a talented youngster from Collis who was well on his way to high professional status; plus the brothers Silby and Siram Haughneep, the king’s own bodymen, sworn servitors to the royal family. Oh, definitely a four-assassin target, the family Famber, all of whom would learn painfully and lengthily that “finding” lost kings who did not wish to be found was not the wisest of occupations.
Words penetrated his preoccupation.
“… and so, Your Most Puissant and Glorious Effulgence, it is no longer possible to reserve the forests of Tarnen, though they are Lostre-family possessions, since they are needed by Your Majesty’s peasantry in Chalc as pastures for their cattle.”
The Minister of Agriculture lowered his databoard and peered over the top of it at His Royal Highness, who stared rigidly past the minister at the tapestries behind him.
“This is a serious question,” murmured the Minister of Agriculture, as though to himself.
“I’m sure,” said His Effulgence from a tight throat. “Too serious to be delayed for my benefit. Why didn’t you just get on with it?”
“The Scroll of Establishment of Kamir-Shom-Lak requires that all matters concerning the general welfare be presented to the king for his approval or advice.”
“Since my advice is invariably ignored, I don’t advise,” said the king.
“The Great Document does not require that Your Effulgence advise. It merely requires that matters be presented in case Your Majesty might choose to do so,” said the minister, with an unsympathetic yawn.
“Take it as written that I do not choose. I neither advise nor approve. Nor will I ever approve of any matter brought before me. Certainly I do not approve of cutting the forests of Tarnen. They are the last
