Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) (8 page)

“Lilli seemed
quiet tonight,” he said. “She hasn’t been ill, has she?”

“Not at all. Her
health is fine.
Yanna watches her carefully
,
don’t worry on that account
. She always was a quiet child.
And Yanna says it is part of the training, learning to be silent and listen.
Tis a pity that she can’t teach Marta as well.”

Rowle laughed.
“What has calla Marta done now, wife?”

Ersala sighed.
“Nothing. She just..
.is
. She’s
willful and she does naught but complain from sunrise to sunfall. Usually about
her sister.”

“Tis hard on her,
she’s but a child.”

“Marta has no idea
what her sister sacrifices for us.
For her.
I’m just
sick to death of her whining about clothes and hair combs—I swear,
husband, if she starts in again about that lace collar in the tailor’s shop, I
may strangle her. Don’t laugh! She worries me to death over Bethossian lace
while I’m trying to figure out how we can patch this roof through another
winter.”

“Hush, wife,” he
said, patting her shoulder. “I know, I know.”

Let Marta watch a
three-day old child of her own womb freeze to death for lack of firewood, then
she would understand what hardship was. Let her go without bread for a week so
that her children wouldn’t go to bed with hunger gnawing at their bellies. Let
her bury a son and wonder if she’d failed him somehow. Ersala had known these
things and they had scarred her soul, leaving her little patience for a child’s
ridiculous longings. Bethossian lace, indeed!

Marta had no idea
just how hard life could be, how few options lay ahead of her. It seemed a
lifetime ago when they had hoped to make a match between Lillitha and Prince
Scearce.

But bad luck had
stalked them the way the starving wolves stealthily hunted down the weakest lambs
of the herd. Two of their last three ships had gone down in the worst winter
storm the Far Sea had ever seen, taking with them three summers’ worth of wool
meant for the Modan harbor, where wool still fetched a good price. Then Jonil’s
troubles had begun and the boy’s scrapes were always dear. The gold in the
vidoran chest just kept dwindling until they were bartering with jewelry,
books, lambs, vegetables—anything at all—for any essentials they
could not manufacture themselves or do without.

By Lillitha’s
eleventh summer, it was apparent there would be no dowry for her. Rowle could
not bring himself to offer a dowerless daughter to the king of Jeptalla, friend
or no. In fact, Tullus’ friendship made it worse; Rowle could not bear the idea
of Tullus feeling pressured by that bond into a poor marriage for his only son.

There was no
question of a dowry for Marta. What little they had would be spent to give Paul
his place as vidor. Marta would end up wed to the first man with enough gold in
his pocket not to care that she came with no worldly goods. She’d have little
choice in the matter. Neither would her parents.

Ah, but if
Lillitha became shallana
breda
, everything would
change. Not only would the family gain immeasurable honor,
but
every province in the realm would pay a tribute: crops or livestock, perhaps a
troop of soldiers or even gold. These traditional offerings to the
breda
’s family were made to gain favor with Oman and to make
retribution for what the loss of a fine, marriageable daughter can cost even
the greatest family.

 
Paul would be able to build up the
vidoran that his grandfather had squandered and Rowle had scrabbled to hang
onto. House Kirrisian could sail the seas again as a proper vidoran should. And
Marta would have enough honor and dowry to choose a man she could love,
perhaps. A man who would be kind and gentle, not the first aged widower who
would drag her far away where she would be alone and at his mercy.

“Still, I worry
about Lillitha,” Rowle said lowly. “Have we done the right thing?”

“Tis a bit too
late to ask that now,” Ersala said, more sharply than she intended. She stroked
his chest to soften her words. “One way or the other, either she or Marta would
have to go to the cadia. It’s too much to hope that we could marry them both safely.”

“I do not care to
send either like a poor relation begging charity,” Rowle grumbled. Impoverished
families often sent one or more daughters to the Cadian Sisters when they could
not provide for them, but the Vidor of Kirrisian shuddered inwardly at the
thought. “You are right, wife. This is a better way.”

“It is the only
way.” She sat up in bed and stared at him, barely visible in the moonlight that
came through the windows. “Oman forgive me, but I love Lillitha better than I
ever thought I could love any child—”

Better even than Jonil,
she thought, who had broken her heart in ways
that would never heal.

“I know, I know,”
he murmured.

“I would not allow
Lillitha to chose this path if I did not believe it was best for her. What
happens to us is nothing! We’ll survive somehow, just as we always have. But I
want more for her! In the temple she will know peace and beauty and learning
and....oh, everything that we cannot give her!”

Ersala thought of
her daughter’s beautiful face, but Lillitha was more than lovely: she was
radiant in body and soul. Ersala could not bear the idea of Lillitha wasting
away in some forsaken countryside until life’s hardships ground out the light
in her mind as surely as it would grind out her life, slowly and painfully.
Lillitha was capable of so much more. She deserved so much more.

“But what of love,
wife?” he whispered. “Tell me, is it possible she will know love in the palace
of the shallan?”

“Anything is
possible,” she said, rolling over with her back to him, angry that he’d spoken
her own doubts aloud. “If it is Oman’s will, perhaps she will find love.”

We can’t promise her that even if she does not go,
Ersala thought.
We can’t promise her anything.

Chapter 4: Yannamarie

Yannamarie was
still a young woman, though few people realized it. Because cadia-techas were
usually somewhere between their fortieth and fiftieth summer, everyone assumed
she was much older than a mere thirty-five. It was nearly impossible to tell
with cadia anyway. The ones who passed through Kirrisian all had the bland,
smooth faces of newborns, the same quiet expression. Some said the sisters used
magic potions and salves to remove the lines from their faces; others said they
practiced meditations to keep their faces inscrutable. Under all those clothes,
they looked pretty much alike anyway.

The villagers were
naturally curious about Yanna because she was the first cadia to live among
them in a very long time. But even after ten summers, few could have described
her accurately if asked. Those who dared to gawk averted their eyes quickly
whenever her sharp gaze turned in their direction. She always seemed to know
when someone was staring. Her stern glare made even grown men squirm.

Her own outward
appearance interested Yannamarie little, so she saw no reason for others to
dwell on it. Tall and lean, she was not exactly pretty, but she was not
altogether unattractive either. Her round face was rather long, but her skin
was clear, her eyes small and dark but alert with a natural intelligence. She was
not, at heart, a cold woman. The precision with which she went about her
duties, the utter lack of humor in her face and the rigid, almost military
straightness of her bearing was misinterpreted as disdain. She would have been
surprised if anyone told her what a forbidding image she cut walking alongside
her young charge. Then she would have shrugged and thought it not such a bad
image for a lone cadia to project.

The cadia walked
with the brisk stride of a soldier. Lillitha found it difficult to keep up. The
two guards—hardly more than boys, really—who followed them at a
discreet
distance
were already puffing, yet Yanna
wasn’t the least bit breathless as she continued her lecture.

“Belah’s sister, Cadia the
First, accompanied him as he rode across the realm recruiting men to fight
against the Tors,” Yanna was saying. “Her parents were furious because she was
betrothed to a young noble at the time. Do you remember what response she gave
them?”

Lillitha took a
deep breath. “Chapter twenty-three, Book Twelve, verse nine: ‘For as much as my
brother and my god require my obedience and service, I cannot surrender my
devotion to any one man while so many others have need of me.’”

Yanna nodded
curtly. Only experience told Lillitha she was pleased.

“And what is the significance
of that verse?”

“It is the creed
of our sisterhood that follows the first Cadia’s example.”

Lillitha was so relieved at giving the right answer
that she stumbled over a rock protruding from the dirt path.

A small furrow
creased Yanna’s brow.

“Honestly,
Lillitha. Is it talking and walking at the same time that makes you so clumsy
or am I walking too fast?”

Lillitha did not
dare agree to either suggestion.

“Goodness, Yanna,
it’s
all these clothes! How do expect me to walk quickly
with all this flapping about me?”

Yanna stopped for
a moment and surveyed the girl with a blank expression.

“Cadia are
expected to move with purpose and agility. As a shallana, it will be even more
important that you carry yourself with dignity. It will become easier with
practice.”

Every other day,
they marched the five and a quarter parsecs around the vidoran. Good health and
physical stamina were prized by the cadia. This was the first such trek for
Lillitha in the full garb of the sisterhood. That morning Yanna announced that
she’d been lax in allowing the girl to wear ordinary clothes inside her tower
for so long; the sooner she got used to the habit she would wear for the rest
of her life, the better.

Such a lot of
clothing, Lillitha thought wearily. Yet Yanna seemed to move as easily as a
fish through water. First, there was the shift: a shapeless under-dress of
heavy linen, worn over a double-layered petticoat and the close-fitting wool
stockings that covered her from ankle to waist. On top of that came the
burlang: a full-skirted robe with long sleeves and a simple rounded yoke that
rose to the base of her throat. The waist was quite high, riding just under the
bosom, and
close-fitting
; Lillitha felt it catch
against her ribs every time she drew a deep breath. The pleated skirt dragged
and puddled around her feet, raising a faint cloud of dust behind her.

“Do stop fiddling
with your buttons,” Yanna said.

“I’m sorry.
They’re just so pretty. I’ve never had real copper buttons before.”

“Of course you
haven’t. The cadia are the only women allowed buttons of metal. When you go to
Omana Teret, you’ll recognize the cadialana by their gold-crested buttons.”

“The cadialana?
That’s the governing council?”

“Yes.”

“They are the ones
who will decide if I am to be chosen?”

“Yes.” The corners
of her thin mouth turned down. This did not escape Lillitha’s notice. “Along
with the bene.”

The older woman
always seemed to frown whenever the Omani priests were mentioned. Lillitha
sighed. She wondered if she would ever understand it all.

“Will all the
other consecratia be dressed this way, too?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I mean
,
will they all wear white, like me?”

The question was
frivolous but Yanna nodded patiently. Her charge’s curiosity was only natural.
Her duty was to prepare the girl for the coming festival; the more Lillitha
knew, the less nervous she’d be. Sometimes, unexpectedly, Yanna caught a whiff
of fear coming off the girl so strong as to be a nearly tangible thing.

“Because you are
still a novice and a virgin, your burlang is white. Were you not a virgin, you
would wear beige—”

Yanna’s sharp ears
heard Lillitha’s barely audible intake of breath.

“I do not mean the
consecratia, of course. But widows do come to us, as do some unmarried girls in
unfortunate circumstances. Don’t make such a face, Lillitha. Prudishness does
not suit a cadia. Our sisters seem to suffer more than our brothers do. It is
our duty to offer succor and aid.”

Lillitha saw the
truth in the cadia’s words and was ashamed of her initial reaction, so lacking
in compassion.

“When you are
initiated, you will wear the color of your branch. If Oman wills it and you are
chosen shallana
breda
, your burlang will be deep
green. Do you remember the significance of that color from your studies?”

“Green symbolizes
the mother earth.” Lillitha smiled. Green was her favorite color.

“And what color
does the shallan wear and why?”

“Blue. It
symbolizes the water of Oman’s isle that brings life to the earth.”