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Zulrav announced the coming of summer with a roaring laugh that echoed across the Sea of Grass and jolted Arandia awake. It was a few bells before dawn and the world was dark, quiet except for the startled lowing from the small herd of Zibri stirring under their tarps. She could have closed her eyes for a few more precious moments of sleep, but the lightning must have struck her heart; Arandia awoke restless and full of a strange longing. She dressed in the dark, relishing the rare, languid feeling of being awake before anyone else; the quiet of the pavilion, the rustling of leaves, and the dew tickling her feet as she stepped out on to the grass.
A bit of dark blue had already begun to throb behind the black of the night sky. The stars were out in full pageant, Arandia saw, and the constellations spun over Mizahar's sleepy head. It would be a hot day, Arandia predicted. The sky was clear and the air was crisp and sharp. Gulping it in was like chewing mint leaves in the back of her mouth.
She lit a lantern, finally, and made her way to where her Zibri calf, a weaner she named Karnia, was tied to a tree beside her stallion, Beloved. The Strider and the weaner were both on their feet, Karnia shifting her weight nervously around as she made high-pitched, almost bleating noises in her throat. "Ya, ya," Arandia murmured soothingly, putting her free hand on the calf's muzzle. "Did the lightning frighten you?" Beloved nickered at Arandia in greeting and put his nose in her hair, huffed her scent of bed roll and grass. Arandia put her lamp down to free both of her hands and give a hand to each animal. "Are you hungry? We need to eat a lot today. There's much work to do."
The Ankal, Drehkos Reddawn, had three wives, all of them younger than the first. When Ioanis Reddawn passed on to the next life, Ehileen, his first wife and a woman from the Opal Clan, married Drehkos and became his third. Ehileen at twenty-two was a healer, and kind, and whenever she was in the kitchen with the first wife, Sarai of the Emerald Clan, Ehileen would slip Arandia a small extra piece of something to eat. They were careful not to be caught by Sarai who was a large woman with biceps the size of Arandia's head. Not fat, but bulked up with muscles from hunting, butchering and cooking. She was stingy in her portions except when it came to her two young sons who at eight and ten were already two times larger than Sarai and four times larger than Arandia.
The second wife, Juniper, was from the Diamond Clan and a fierce young woman who was around Arandia's age. She already had twin daughters and a son who she was raising to be as fierce as she was. Arandia steered clear of Juniper; the third wife was the most openly contemptuous of Arandia, often calling her "foreigner" and telling Arandia not to touch her children. That wasn't uncommon, almost all of the women in the pavilion told their children to avoid touching her or they would catch her foreignness, but most of them did that when they thought Arandia couldn't see or hear them.
The Ankal's mother, Grewilde of the Topaz Clan, was the oldest woman in the pavilion. She had had the most children and borne the most sons, most of them already grown. It was said that Drehkos listened to her counsel the most when settling disputes within the pavilion.
And then there was Maya, the Ankal's eldest daughter. The most beautiful of all the women in the pavilion, married to an animal handler named Dakarai, the Ankal's youngest brother. Despite the sun always bearing down on the Sea of Grass her skin was like milk, her hair like golden wheat. Her bright blue eyes were fringed with thick, curled eyelashes. Her hair was always done up in the most intricate braids, five colored wraps decorating her hair, one for each child that she had given Dakarai. No one knew how old she was, but she always seemed to be in an endless summer of youth.
From his three wives The Ankal had seven sons and eight daughters. From those sons and daughters came children of their own. From The Ankal's cousins came more sons, more daughters, more children. The Reddawn pavilion was going twenty-five members strong and Arandia, the twenty-fifth, an anomaly in a pavilion of mostly cousins and distant relatives, was childless and unmarried at sixteen. And she was rolling into her first summer without her mother to laugh about Sarai's screaming with her, or Ioanis to shield her from Juniper's temper.
"Arandia!" Sarai hollered for her at the first blush of dawn. "Hurry up with that water! Watch the pot! What are you doing just standing there watching the pot? Go find something else to do!"
Arandia and Ehileen exchanged a complicit look as Arandia scurried out of the kitchen room and out to the makeshift enclosure to where the rest of the pavilion were busy rolling up their tents and belongings on to the backs of their Striders or into covered wagons. A young girl skipped into Arandia's path, making sure to keep at least an arms' length of distance between the two of them. "My mother says it's summer time and you still haven't got a husband yet," the girl said.
"That's true," Arandia said, wiping her hands on the front of her pants.
"She says I've almost got my moon blood and soon I'll be ready to be married."
"That's good!" Arandia walked on, and the girl followed.
"She says that my valatia will make any man want to be my husband and I'm going to give him plenty of sons."
"I hope so," Arandia said.
"When are you getting married?" the girl asked.
"I don't know," Arandia told her.
The girl crinkled up her freckled nose and looked at Arandia for a moment. Arandia smiled. It was then that the girl's mother called for her, and the girl ran back into the bustle of packing and cleaning. Again Arandia heard Sarai calling her name. It was time to feed everyone for the long journey ahead.
After everyone had been served and the bits of pottery that the pavilion owned had been washed, Grewilde came into the kitchen tent and told Arandia to go see to the Zibri; to check if there was a sick one, or one that might not make the journey. "Look at their hooves," she said, speaking slowly, but not unkindly, as if she thought Arandia were simple. "If there are thorns, pluck them out. If there is too much dirt in the hooves, clean them. Dakarai will take over when he is finished with his tent."
Arandia did as she was told. For the next bell or so she chased around Zibri and looked at their hooves, at their horns, checked their skin to see if there was anything that needed to be fixed before the long journey ahead. As she lifted the hoof of one Zibri, it tried to kick her in the arm and hit her in the face with its swishing tail.
“Ay, Lailita, why would you do that?” she exclaimed. She heard laughing from behind her, from the children who had gathered to watch her fumble around and chase the Zibri, and Arandia didn’t turn so they wouldn’t see that her face was burning. “Lailita, stay still,” she muttered, making the Grassland sign for frustration, and the Zibri seemed to settle if only for a moment or two before it wandered away again.
Nine bells into the day, the Reddawn camping site was no more. Everyone had been fed and everything had been packed, and true enough Dakarai had come to relieve Arandia of the Zibri with a laugh and a, “You have mud on your face, girl! It suits you!” She rushed to roll up her tent, which anyway was too big for her, and all of the little she had in the world before she struggled to pack it on to her Strider’s capable back and on a borrowed old Seme from the pavilion.
“Hurry before we leave you, girl,” Axil joked gruffly as Arandia struggled to climb on to Beloved’s back. Her cheeks were burning again, from exertion and embarrassment. Sometimes she wished a smaller stallion or even a mare, maybe even a pony, had chosen her. It was strange to watch her on his back, laughable even: a diminutive girl on a giant, six year old stallion. But she couldn’t have asked for a better caretaker.
It was evening when the Ankal finally decided to stop and make camp. They had covered much ground between spring and were well on their way to the summer camps, and the children were getting restless. A few of them lagged behind where Arandia and three others had taken up the rear. Arandia had chased them on Beloved and threatened to touch them, and they scattered and laughed and dashed back into the line with their mothers, but they soon tired of the game and one or two had begun to complain, and loudly.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Drehkos said. “I need to stretch my legs as well.”
Within a bell, tents were set up and people were fed. Arandia sat in the peripheries of the camp with some bread and a small bowl of stew, content to watch the nightly rituals of singing and dancing from afar. Her tent was under a tree, right under an arbor with small white flowers and what Arandia thought was a bird’s nest in one of the high branches.
In the Sea of Grass, there wasn’t much time for self-pity. The day was always filled with things to do and people to take care of, and sometimes, like on nights like that one, the children with their infinite curiosity came by twos or threes to listen to one of Arandia’s stories.
“Halah,” she said, putting her bowl down by her crossed legs. Playing up the role of foreigner for their entertainment. “I know you want a story.”
The children looked at each other shyly, and then back at her. They nodded, they wanted a story, but they kept their distance.
“Ya,” Arandia intoned. “This is a story that my mother used to tell me. It’s about a man named Jezraeel, and how he came to have a Tsana for a wife.”
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I Summer DXV
Zulrav announced the coming of summer with a roaring laugh that echoed across the Sea of Grass and jolted Arandia awake. It was a few bells before dawn and the world was dark, quiet except for the startled lowing from the small herd of Zibri stirring under their tarps. She could have closed her eyes for a few more precious moments of sleep, but the lightning must have struck her heart; Arandia awoke restless and full of a strange longing. She dressed in the dark, relishing the rare, languid feeling of being awake before anyone else; the quiet of the pavilion, the rustling of leaves, and the dew tickling her feet as she stepped out on to the grass.
A bit of dark blue had already begun to throb behind the black of the night sky. The stars were out in full pageant, Arandia saw, and the constellations spun over Mizahar's sleepy head. It would be a hot day, Arandia predicted. The sky was clear and the air was crisp and sharp. Gulping it in was like chewing mint leaves in the back of her mouth.
She lit a lantern, finally, and made her way to where her Zibri calf, a weaner she named Karnia, was tied to a tree beside her stallion, Beloved. The Strider and the weaner were both on their feet, Karnia shifting her weight nervously around as she made high-pitched, almost bleating noises in her throat. "Ya, ya," Arandia murmured soothingly, putting her free hand on the calf's muzzle. "Did the lightning frighten you?" Beloved nickered at Arandia in greeting and put his nose in her hair, huffed her scent of bed roll and grass. Arandia put her lamp down to free both of her hands and give a hand to each animal. "Are you hungry? We need to eat a lot today. There's much work to do."
* * *
The Ankal, Drehkos Reddawn, had three wives, all of them younger than the first. When Ioanis Reddawn passed on to the next life, Ehileen, his first wife and a woman from the Opal Clan, married Drehkos and became his third. Ehileen at twenty-two was a healer, and kind, and whenever she was in the kitchen with the first wife, Sarai of the Emerald Clan, Ehileen would slip Arandia a small extra piece of something to eat. They were careful not to be caught by Sarai who was a large woman with biceps the size of Arandia's head. Not fat, but bulked up with muscles from hunting, butchering and cooking. She was stingy in her portions except when it came to her two young sons who at eight and ten were already two times larger than Sarai and four times larger than Arandia.
The second wife, Juniper, was from the Diamond Clan and a fierce young woman who was around Arandia's age. She already had twin daughters and a son who she was raising to be as fierce as she was. Arandia steered clear of Juniper; the third wife was the most openly contemptuous of Arandia, often calling her "foreigner" and telling Arandia not to touch her children. That wasn't uncommon, almost all of the women in the pavilion told their children to avoid touching her or they would catch her foreignness, but most of them did that when they thought Arandia couldn't see or hear them.
The Ankal's mother, Grewilde of the Topaz Clan, was the oldest woman in the pavilion. She had had the most children and borne the most sons, most of them already grown. It was said that Drehkos listened to her counsel the most when settling disputes within the pavilion.
And then there was Maya, the Ankal's eldest daughter. The most beautiful of all the women in the pavilion, married to an animal handler named Dakarai, the Ankal's youngest brother. Despite the sun always bearing down on the Sea of Grass her skin was like milk, her hair like golden wheat. Her bright blue eyes were fringed with thick, curled eyelashes. Her hair was always done up in the most intricate braids, five colored wraps decorating her hair, one for each child that she had given Dakarai. No one knew how old she was, but she always seemed to be in an endless summer of youth.
From his three wives The Ankal had seven sons and eight daughters. From those sons and daughters came children of their own. From The Ankal's cousins came more sons, more daughters, more children. The Reddawn pavilion was going twenty-five members strong and Arandia, the twenty-fifth, an anomaly in a pavilion of mostly cousins and distant relatives, was childless and unmarried at sixteen. And she was rolling into her first summer without her mother to laugh about Sarai's screaming with her, or Ioanis to shield her from Juniper's temper.
"Arandia!" Sarai hollered for her at the first blush of dawn. "Hurry up with that water! Watch the pot! What are you doing just standing there watching the pot? Go find something else to do!"
Arandia and Ehileen exchanged a complicit look as Arandia scurried out of the kitchen room and out to the makeshift enclosure to where the rest of the pavilion were busy rolling up their tents and belongings on to the backs of their Striders or into covered wagons. A young girl skipped into Arandia's path, making sure to keep at least an arms' length of distance between the two of them. "My mother says it's summer time and you still haven't got a husband yet," the girl said.
"That's true," Arandia said, wiping her hands on the front of her pants.
"She says I've almost got my moon blood and soon I'll be ready to be married."
"That's good!" Arandia walked on, and the girl followed.
"She says that my valatia will make any man want to be my husband and I'm going to give him plenty of sons."
"I hope so," Arandia said.
"When are you getting married?" the girl asked.
"I don't know," Arandia told her.
The girl crinkled up her freckled nose and looked at Arandia for a moment. Arandia smiled. It was then that the girl's mother called for her, and the girl ran back into the bustle of packing and cleaning. Again Arandia heard Sarai calling her name. It was time to feed everyone for the long journey ahead.
After everyone had been served and the bits of pottery that the pavilion owned had been washed, Grewilde came into the kitchen tent and told Arandia to go see to the Zibri; to check if there was a sick one, or one that might not make the journey. "Look at their hooves," she said, speaking slowly, but not unkindly, as if she thought Arandia were simple. "If there are thorns, pluck them out. If there is too much dirt in the hooves, clean them. Dakarai will take over when he is finished with his tent."
Arandia did as she was told. For the next bell or so she chased around Zibri and looked at their hooves, at their horns, checked their skin to see if there was anything that needed to be fixed before the long journey ahead. As she lifted the hoof of one Zibri, it tried to kick her in the arm and hit her in the face with its swishing tail.
“Ay, Lailita, why would you do that?” she exclaimed. She heard laughing from behind her, from the children who had gathered to watch her fumble around and chase the Zibri, and Arandia didn’t turn so they wouldn’t see that her face was burning. “Lailita, stay still,” she muttered, making the Grassland sign for frustration, and the Zibri seemed to settle if only for a moment or two before it wandered away again.
Nine bells into the day, the Reddawn camping site was no more. Everyone had been fed and everything had been packed, and true enough Dakarai had come to relieve Arandia of the Zibri with a laugh and a, “You have mud on your face, girl! It suits you!” She rushed to roll up her tent, which anyway was too big for her, and all of the little she had in the world before she struggled to pack it on to her Strider’s capable back and on a borrowed old Seme from the pavilion.
“Hurry before we leave you, girl,” Axil joked gruffly as Arandia struggled to climb on to Beloved’s back. Her cheeks were burning again, from exertion and embarrassment. Sometimes she wished a smaller stallion or even a mare, maybe even a pony, had chosen her. It was strange to watch her on his back, laughable even: a diminutive girl on a giant, six year old stallion. But she couldn’t have asked for a better caretaker.
* * *
It was evening when the Ankal finally decided to stop and make camp. They had covered much ground between spring and were well on their way to the summer camps, and the children were getting restless. A few of them lagged behind where Arandia and three others had taken up the rear. Arandia had chased them on Beloved and threatened to touch them, and they scattered and laughed and dashed back into the line with their mothers, but they soon tired of the game and one or two had begun to complain, and loudly.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Drehkos said. “I need to stretch my legs as well.”
Within a bell, tents were set up and people were fed. Arandia sat in the peripheries of the camp with some bread and a small bowl of stew, content to watch the nightly rituals of singing and dancing from afar. Her tent was under a tree, right under an arbor with small white flowers and what Arandia thought was a bird’s nest in one of the high branches.
In the Sea of Grass, there wasn’t much time for self-pity. The day was always filled with things to do and people to take care of, and sometimes, like on nights like that one, the children with their infinite curiosity came by twos or threes to listen to one of Arandia’s stories.
“Halah,” she said, putting her bowl down by her crossed legs. Playing up the role of foreigner for their entertainment. “I know you want a story.”
The children looked at each other shyly, and then back at her. They nodded, they wanted a story, but they kept their distance.
“Ya,” Arandia intoned. “This is a story that my mother used to tell me. It’s about a man named Jezraeel, and how he came to have a Tsana for a wife.”
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