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peoples whose names and locations Tuli didn't know. A culling of girls, the
rebellious, the restless, the pleasure-loving, the pious, some fleeing the
repression of the Followers, some seeking what-ever it was the Biserica seemed
to promise them.
The promise of the Biserica. Tuli began to see how little anyone knew of
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the Valley, they knew the keepers, the meien, the healwomen, they knew
nothing at all about the craftswomen, teachers, fieldworkers and all the rest.
The promise of the Biserica. Whatever else it was, it meant hard work,
accepting responsibility, and in the end a kind of freedom not found
anywhere else in the world, not that she knew anyway, though she was forced
over and over again to realize just how little she did know.
As the day wore on, Tuli grew silent and thoughtful. One moment she was sure
this was what she wanted, that this was what she was born for. The next moment
she missed Teras dreadfully, missed her mother and her father, Sanoni and the
ties and all the familiar and comfortable things she'd grown up with.
A vague nausea floated under her ribs and the revolting taste of the infusion
kept coming up into her throat.
In the middle of the night a hand shook her awake Vesset, with the third dose
of the miska-pierdro. Tuli sat up, scrubbed at her eyes.
"Come, little one, one last gulp." Vesset bent over her, stroked her tangled
hair.
Tuli shuddered. "Must I?"
"Can't leave the job half done." Vesset's high-cheeked face was tender in the
shadowed light from the porcelain lamp sit-ting on the bedside table.
Tuli sighed, took the small cylinder and tossed the liquid it held to the back
of her throat. "Gahh, that's awful."
"Here." Vesset handed her a stoneware mug. "Juice. It'll cut the taste."
Tuli took the mug gratefully and gulped down half the juice before she lowered
it again. "Maiden bless," she said.
Vesset chuckled. "Be you blessed. Listen. In a little while you might
feel some cramps or you might not. This takes different people
different ways. Even if it gets really bad, don't worry. It'll
pass. By morning you'll be sure enough you're going to live."
"Oh marvelous."
Vesset bent down, touched Tuli's cheek, then went quietly out, taking her lamp
with her.
Tuli sat in the quiet darkness, sipping at the juice, aware even more than
before that she was in a strange room in a strange bed. She felt on edge,
uncertain. She touched the sheet beside her, stroked her hand along the
blanket pulled over her knees. Strange smells. Strange feel. Alone. She
shivered, missing the soft night breathing of her family, she'd never slept in
a room by herself before. Defying she didn't know what, she tossed down the
rest of the juice, fumbled the mug onto the little table, wriggled and bounced
herself out flat on the bed, pulled the blanket up over her and lay staring
into the darkness. She was tired but the first hours of sleep had taken away
the urgency of her need. Sleep evaded her. When she forced her eyes shut,
they popped open again. She yawned, stared up at the dark-lost ceiling and
tried to relax.
/
can put off deciding, she thought.
Maybe there won't even be a Biserica when this is over. If I just knew, really
knew, what I want. I need to see Teras. I need to talk to Mama.
But she knew even as she thought it that it wasn't
really so, that Teras wasn't a choice for her anymore, that Rane was right,
she had to let him go his own road, that her
Mama would make her choose for herself.
Still, I've got time now.
She flattened her hand on her stomach. /
can make my own choices, not have them forced on me. Mmrnm. If I go back to
the mijloc I'll have to marry somebody, I wonder who.
She made a face at the darkness.
Not Fayd, aghhh! not that chin).
She began turning over in her mind the boys she knew from Cymbank and
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around, those her age or a little older. As she drifted toward
sleep, the many faces merged, blurred, blended and oddly enough finished up
as Dinafar's laughing face.
About an hour later she woke as cramps like knife blades stabbed into her.
Yael-mri and the stable pria Melit rode with Rane and Tuli as far as the gate.
Outside the protecting bubble, the air was hot and dry though not quite so [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]