For years now she had kept a fragile calm, slathering sentimental oil on every emotional linkage, making her life move like some old cog-and-belt-driven machine, creaking and wobbling from one day to the next. And now, here, all at once, this skinny old fart, this Fastigat servant of the Alliance, this bureaucrat, had thrust an additional duty among her gears, grinding her to a screaming halt!
She abandoned simile and summoned anger, making herself rage at being forced to do the Alliance’s will. Was this a penalty, for having known Leelson? Another one?
The anger wouldn’t hold. It was too hard to hide from herself the anticipation she felt at the promise of somewhere to go, the relief at the idea of someone to help her. The promise of succor and change.
So Lutha planned a journey, even as I, Saluez, planned a journey, though hers was far longer than mine. In a sense, at least, hers was longer, though mine wrought greater changes. For me a night soon came when Shalumn and I wept on each other’s shoulders, I out of fright, she out of fear of losing me. The following morning I bent beneath the brow-strap of my carrying basket and went up the rocky trail with Masanees. High on a shelf above Cochim-Mahn, I panted, waiting for her to catch up with me. Masanees is not as agile as she once was. She has not yet received Weaving Woman’s reward, that comfortable time of life when she need no longer fear conceiving, but she is no longer young. I am young. I am twelve in Dinadh years, twenty standard years. Too young for this, perhaps. But no. Women younger than I, much younger than I have made this trip. If a woman is old enough to conceive, she is old enough for this. So the songfathers say. “Soil which accepts seed is ready for the plow!”
“Whsssh,” Masanees breathed as she came up to the stone where I waited. “Time for a breather. That path gets steeper every year.”
“Have you come up before this year?” I asked, knowing the answer already.
Masanees nodded. “With Dziloch. And last year with Kh’nas.”
“Imsli a t’sisri,” I murmured. Weave no sorrow.
“None,” Masanees replied cheerfully. “They’re both fine. We did it right.”
I tried to smile and could not. I was not reassured. Each year some did not return from the House Without a Name. Each year some went behind the veil, down into shadow. Each time the women no doubt thought they had done it right. Who would go there otherwise?
There was no point in saying it. Saying it only increased terror. I had been told one should, instead, sing quietly to oneself. A weaving song, dark and light, pattern on pattern. Turning away up the hill, I chanted quietly to myself in time with my plodding feet.
The House Without a Name stands on a promontory above Cochim-Mahn. One can see a corner of it from the shelf where the songfather stands, only a corner. One would not want to see it all. One would not want to look at it as part of one’s view of the world. It is easier to ignore it, to pretend it isn’t really there. One can then speak of the choice in measured tones, knowing one need not fear the consequences. As songfathers do.
“That which we relinquished, death and darkness in the pattern.
“That which we took in its place, the House Without a Name…”
That’s how the answer to the riddle goes, the one no one ever asks out loud, the riddle my grandmother whispered to me in the nighttime, as her grandmother had whispered it to her. “What is it men relish and women regret?” Grandma asked, preparing me. Letting me know without really letting me know. Frightening me, but not terrifying me.
It’s the way we do things now. We hint. We almost tell, but not quite. We let young people learn only a little. If they never know it thoroughly or factually, well, that makes the choice easier. If they do stupid things because they don’t know enough, that’s expected.
As a result, ignoring the house becomes habit and I was able to ignore my approach to it until we arrived at the stone-paved area outside the door. Then I had to admit where I was.
“Shhh,” whispered Masanees, putting her arms around me. “It’s all right. We’ve all been through it, child. It’s all right.”
Still I shivered, unable to control it. “I’m scared,” I whispered, shaming myself.
Evidently I wasn’t the only one to have said something like that, for Masanees went on holding me.
“Of course you’re scared. Of course you are. The unknown is always scary. Sooner we get to it, sooner it’ll be over. Come now. Be a good, brave girl.”
She pushed the door open. The house had a pitched roof, but there were wide openings under the eaves where birds had flown in and out and little nut-eaters had scrambled down to make their mess among the other droppings.
“First we had to make all clean,” said Masanees. The brooms were lashed to her pack, and I followed her example as we gave the place a good sweeping and brushing, including the tops of two low stone tables that stood side by side. One table had a stone basin in its center. We wiped it clean and filled it with water we’d carried up from below. Then we emptied the packs at either side of the basin, and I exclaimed at the sight of such bounty! Meal cakes, beautifully colored and baked in fancy shapes. Strips of meat dried into spirals around long sticks of candied melon. Squash seeds
