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stood there. "And speaking of home, where's my daughter?"
She thought she knew all of the children inEdenValley, but apparently, she had
been wrong. One or two of these were strangers, doubtless from outlying
settlements, children who were often pulled out of classes to work in farm,
barn, house, or stable when their families decided that chores took precedence
over schooling. Goyische kopf, she muttered inwardly. Even after 300 T-years
of coexistence, haBandari
and the original settlers ofEdenstill had their differences; and, wouldn't you
just know it, child-rearing -
the most vital and precarious thing on this whole iceball of a planet! - was
chief among them.
Muttering and hissing rose from the boys and girls who faced her.
Most were near or a little pastEdenValleyadulthood of two Haven
years, a little past Bar Mitzvah age, but it was the rare haBandari
whose child went through that ceremony. Her own daughter had, as she had gone
through the mikveh, the ritual bath that only the very eldest of haBandari
knew how to conduct. There had been need, need to establish clearly that
Chaya was hers, Bandari and Ivrit, but . . . she shook that thought from her
mind. Thirteen or fourteen was the age at which young men and women could own
land, sign contracts, bear arms, and marry. And yet they were children to her,
and they looked younger each year.
"Well? Do you want to tell me why you're all making more noise than a cliff
lion battling for his mate?"
Avi, who sported a fine black eye, looked resigned, opened his mouth, then
shut it, clearly reluctant to betray a classmate. Dvora shivered and sighed.
"Someone tell me what's going on before I call your parents!" she snapped.
The huddle tightened, then divided, leaving two of the strangers standing
before her. Their heavy clothes were wrinkled and torn, and dried blood
still crusted the mouth and nose of the boy who stood between her and the
girl, clearly his sister. He tried to stick out chest and jaw, and quailed as
Dvora glared at him. "I'm Joseph," he said, "and this is my sister Hagar. We
came in for the day. And my father says ..."
"Tell her!" cried another girl. "Tell the Judge that you tried to boss her
daughter, and when Chaya ignored you, you called her a 'breed' and said she
should have been thrown out at birth like a Sauron cull!"
The boy paled beneath the grime and blood, and Hagar's eyes widened, her mouth
opening in dismay.
Her daughter. Dvora shut her eyes in pain that racked her heart as
badly as the pains of her miscarriage, so many years ago.
The shoemaker's child goes barefoot, thought Dvora, the baker's child has no
bread, and the judge's daughter has the story of her birth thrown at her by
strangers.
"That's prejudice," Dvora made herself shake her head. Useless to punish the
children, who doubtless repeated what they heard at home. "Chaya is my
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daughter and your neighbor." She drew on her memories of Bible
quizzes throughout the years of her schooling. " 'For ye were
strangers in thelandofEgypt.' " She intoned impressively. "Who of us isn't a
stranger here?" she demanded. "Who of us can avoid working together if we are
not all to starve, freeze, or fall to bandits or Saurons?
"Think about it!" her voice took on the resonant, lecturing tones that she had
learned gave her verdicts the greatest weight. For this, Ruth bat Boaz
hung from the cross and was lifted down by Piet van
Reenan? For this, a gentle girl had turned general and rebel? So two young
fools on their first visit to town could overturn three hundred T-years of
work?"
What did you expect? One lifetime of work isn't enough - even if it's
yours. Or your husband's.
Memories of Lapidoth, thoughts of how angry this would make him, made her
frown even more deeply.
Even after three T-centuries of coexistence, such fossil memories still
lingered in Eden, as slight, yet as powerful as the Boer or Yiddish oath that
some unwary haBandari might snap out, exasperated by the slow speech and
conservatism of their neighbors.
As often as not, the Edenites still used Bible names. That much the Ivrit
among the haBandari shared with them. But where the haBandari raised sons and
daughters to study and trade as well, among their neighbors, son followed
father into farm or battlefield, while mother raised daughter to tend house,
cook for a small army, and - should they be lucky - bear a small army more,
three or four of whom might survive to adulthood. Joined by force, they were
not yet one people, not wholly - any more than the nomad women forced to wed
with the Saurons were one with their appalling mates.
She waited, holding this Joseph's eyes, outglaring the Cat's Eye with her own
anger, her own fear, until his eyes fell. "And you, Hagar, do you know the
story of your own name? I'd suggest you go home and read about it. And both of
you, keep silent, if you cannot speak decently. Whether or not the girl you
insulted was my own child or not, your childishness weakens the Valley just as
surely as if you sowed a field with salt. Now, get out of here, all of you! I
shall talk to you and your father later."
And she would, too. If that kind of bigotry were springing up in the outlying
settlements, she would have to. The black eye and bloody nose that I saw will
be nothing. They'll use guns and knives next, and we'll have riots, pogroms,
civil war. And if we don't finish each other off, the bandits will.
Hagar and Joseph fled, Hagar's sobs loud in the night air. To antagonize the
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