Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

looked from their warleader to Koro, or to my father, or to Soro inKera. I thought that even Soro’s words had not been enough, generous though his offer had been. Then, just as our king drew breath to speak again, a woman moved.

This was a young woman, hardly older than a girl. She held a baby in the crook of her arm. She took a step away from the other women among whom she had stood. Someone there hissed in shocked disapproval, and one of the other women caught at her, but the young woman pulled away with sudden force. She ducked her head and flinched from the hissing, but she walked quickly to Soro inKera, knelt, and laid her baby on the frozen ground at his feet. The child woke and waved her arms, but did not cry. The woman said, not looking up, her voice hardly audible, “Take her, take her! Surely there is a woman among the inKera who has milk for her. Let her be that woman’s daughter.”

“This child is inKera now,” Soro said gravely. “Does her mother ask to become inKera?”

The young woman looked up. She was not weeping, though tears stood in her eyes. She said, with even more concentrated bitterness than Tano, “The inKera do not want to take in people who have no honor. You will not want me, lord. If any other tribe will take me, I will go to that tribe.” She looked up and around, defiant, and declared, “I would be any man’s second wife, or his third wife. It would be better to be the third wife of any man of any tribe than to be the first wife of the son of the lord of the inTasiyo.”

She was brave, that young woman, but her heart was bitter. Soro must have thought he could manage this woman’s bitterness—or he must have thought his wife could manage her—because he said to her, “Ask.” This was an order.

“Please, lord,” the woman said at once. “Please, I ask to come into the inKera.”

“This woman is inKera now,” Soro said. He added to her, with no change to his tone, “If you lacked honor as an inTasiyo, that will not be so when you live among the inKera.”

That was a warning. But the woman did not hesitate. She gathered up her baby and went to stand among the inKera.

For a moment, it seemed no one else would follow this woman’s example. I looked at the inTasiyo, all of them, gathered in this camp, but then I had better sense and looked at Tano instead. He was on his feet now, standing near my father, his hands resting on his younger brother’s shoulders. He was not looking at Yaro inTasiyo. He was looking at some other inTasiyo people, his gaze intent, urgent. I was not surprised to see someone there, a young man, lift a child into his arms and walk forward. A woman tried to stop him, but he knocked her hand away. The child cried out, reaching for her, but hushed when the young man murmured to him. This young man came to Soro, his pace measured, and dropped to his knees. “I have seventeen winters,” he said, bowing his head. “Perhaps the inKera will not have a place for me. But my brother has only five. Please, lord, accept him as inKera. If you will accept me as well, I will take care of him so that he is no trouble to his new people. I will try to behave properly and bring honor to the inKera.”

Soro nodded to him. “You are both inKera now,” he said.

After that, it was very fast. I was surprised how fast. Another young man, and a woman, not as young. Another young man after that, not as young as the first, closer to my age. Soro took them all, though with a long pause before he accepted that last young man.

My mother had moved aside. I saw her speak to my elder sister. Tasig turned and murmured to another woman, not inGara, who looked around and then made her way through the gathering to speak to another woman. That one tilted her head, considering the words that had been spoken to her. Then she called out, “I am Irana inRasiko. A long time ago, a sister of my mother went to the inTasiyo. This woman’s daughters and granddaughters are my cousins. If my cousins wish to come to the inRasiko, I will speak for them to the lord of the inRasiko.”

A woman took two girls, each by the hand, and hurried forward. An inTasiyo man thought he would stop them, but many inRasiko stood among those watching and their hisses of disapproval made the man hesitate. The woman and the two girls disappeared among the inRasiko, who opened a way for them and then closed up again behind them, laying their hands to their knives in warning to show that they would not permit any inTasiyo to come after them. A different girl, older, and a boy the same age, followed more slowly, each of them first prodding the other and then holding back in turn. The girl said to the inRasiko woman, “Would you speak for my brother? He is also your cousin.”

The woman looked this boy up and down. Finally she said, “Yes, I will speak for him.” Like the mother and her daughters, these two also went among the inRasiko.

By this time, many inTasiyo were going one way and another, too many for me to see everything that happened. I heard one man say to another, “Cousin, will you present me to the lord of the inKoresko?” and a woman say to another woman, “Aunt, do you think your mother might speak for me to Etanig inSorako?”

But I also saw another man had come to Soro, not an old man, but older than those who had