Glory murmured, “Then I’m glad I wasn’t Mama’s baby, really, but I’m glad I’m her child.”
I broke down then and cried, while Bamber and Glory tried to comfort me, though every now and then Glory would mutter that it would have made so much more sense if we’d just admitted it to one another instead of trying to keep it secret. Perhaps later I could explain that both Grandpa Doc and I had been from an older time on Earth, when things like that couldn’t be talked about at all. Maybe he had been ashamed of it. I had been ashamed of it. Maybe he’d had dreams of his family going on, down the generations, and he just couldn’t admit to the world that they wouldn’t. And then, too, I knew Bryan hadn’t struggled to keep life in some of those babies, when he’d seen how awful their lives would be. Like Lou Ellen. That poor baby had whispered to me that she prayed to die, so the pain could stop. Glory had just been so generously accepting that she’d never realized how dreadful Lou Ellen’s life really was…
Glory stood up, her jaw set. “I think I’ve had about all the emotions I can take for one day.” She took a deep breath and helped me get to my feet. “If we’re going to find someplace to sleep by sundown, we’d better get started.”
I Am Margaret, with Hayraiders on Fajnard
We reached the gate of the Howkel Farm at nightfall. While Falija and I waited at the gate, Glory and Bamber went to the door and knocked politely. Dame Howkel answered the knock.
“So you’ve arrived!” she said. “Good enough. I always say to Lafaniel, that’s my husband, Lafaniel, that he truckles too much to them umoxen. Nice creature, true, polite in their habits, but set on having their way! Beckon your folk in, now, and we’ll see about supper.”
The two beckoned as instructed, I thinking meanwhile that I’d never imagined anyone quite so round, green, and cheerful as Dame Howkel. Once inside, however, I forgot about the probability of eating hay, for the aroma was of something very savory. Dame Howkel bobbed a curtsy toward Falija.
“Welcome, ma’am and Gibbekotkin. Howkel’l be along shortly. Our young have had their supper, us oldsters waited for you.”
She showed us the way out back, where a washbowl sat on a table next to the well beside a stack of towels and a steaming kettle. Once back inside, we were given mugs of fragrant green tea, and by the time Lafaniel Howkel showed up, we were deep in conversation with the Dame concerning the plight of Fajnard.
“I was speaking of the Frossians,” said the Dame to her husband. “I was telling how the Gibbekot planted those acid trees all along the valleys to stop the Frossians coming.”
“I would’ve warned you of the same,” Howkel said, pouring himself a mug of tea. “They smell very pungent, so they’re easy to avoid. You’d think the Frossians’d learn to look at the trees to see which ones do it to ’em, but they never do.”
He turned toward me and said pointedly, with a sidelong glance at Falija, “Since you’re Ghoss, you’ll be going to the Gibbekot, won’t you? They’ll be wondering where that child is, wanderin’ off and findin’ the comp’ny of strangers.”
“I’m not from Fajnard, and they’re not Ghoss,” said Falija, in a lofty tone. “We came through a way-gate from Tercis.”
“Not Ghoss? Then what are they?” demanded Howkel.
“Same race,” said Falija. “Not the same…talents.”
“You say a way-gate,” breathed the Dame. “I didn’t know we had a way-gate anywhere near here.”
“Never seen fit to mention it to you,” Howkel said, fixing Falija with a doubtful eye. “We have a pair of ’em, one that comes in from Tercis, and one that goes out to Thairy. And right now, there’s gizzardiles lyin’ both ways like sentries!”
“We saw one,” said Bamber. “Very ugly.”
“Supper,” said Dame Howkel in a peremptory tone. “Let’s not upset ourselfs with gizzardiles right afore supper.”
We sat down at the long, wide table, the Dame at one end, Howkel at the other, his feet neatly crossed so his toenails curved inward before him, making floor space for the feet of those at his sides. Each place held a large bowl of stew, which had a certain verdant leafiness about it, but also bits that crunched or melted. We talked about food, the Dame ticking off many kinds of nuts and roots and seeds that made up hayfolk meals. “Along with hay,” she said, listing the kinds of hay, each with its own taste and texture.
“Have you always been hayraiders?” Gloriana asked.
“Hayfolk,” said Howkel. “Not raiders ’til the umoxen came, and they was brought from the plains below by the Gibbekot. They was the ones started cuttin’ hay from the grasslands, not knowin’ we was countin’ on it for winter food for ourselfs. Generally nice folk, the Gibbekot. We told ’em we needed it, and they worked it out right away. We get first cut. After that, we cut hay for the umoxen, and we get umox wool from the Gibbekot in return. Hayraidin’s just doin’ what we always did.”
“You always cut the hay at night?” asked Bamber Joy.
“Oh, sure. Nicer, cooler at night, and there’s usually a moon, since Fajnard has five of ’em.”
“Did you always have those remarkable toenails?” I asked.
“Our people say we always did,” said Dame Howkel. “Course, I cut mine, now I’m past dancin’ the hay, and we all cut ’em off after the hay’s in for the season and sell ’em in the market for sickle blades. No better edge nowhere than Hayfolk toenails. Besides, it’s warmer in the winter if you can keep your feet under the blanket ’stead of lettin’ ’em hang out the foot of the bed. Now, suppose you tell us where you’re headed. We can tell you the safest roads, depending on where
