Essalieyan Chronicles 04 - The Weapon Read Free Page A

hand; she was not gentle. Not with the child, and not with the slightly anxious men and women who gathered around her, almost afraid to touch her unless she had finally exhausted herself and lay sleeping.
“You’d think the lot of you had never laid eyes on a child before!” It was custom to lower voices when exposed in the cloisters. Melanna often flouted custom when in the grip of disgust, and as she had come late to the Novitiate, she was often forgiven this flaw. “I can understand her, at least—she’s just been abandoned by her only living parent. The rest of you?”
“It’s not our custom—”
     
“And when the Mother grants us her child, what then? Will you leave all the cleanup to me?”
“Melanna—” Iain began again. He retreated just as quickly, his hands before his chest and palm out in the universal gesture of placation.
“You’re a man,” she snorted.
     
He had the grace to roll his eyes when she wasn’t looking, and she the grace to pretend she wasn’t actually looking. “Damn you all. I’ll take her.”
* * *
     
Daughter of the Mother, and not daughter of the god of Wisdom, Emily Dontal observed. It had taken two weeks, a mere two weeks, before Melanna intervened. Emily had intended to allow it, for she wanted Veralaan to feel isolated, and she could think of no better guardian than Melanna in that respect.
And for a while, it worked. But it was a short while.
     
* * *
     
She came upon Melanna in the smallest of the chambers used by the Novitiates for quiet contemplation and prayer. As Melanna was no longer a Novice, she was surprised to come upon her there, but not nearly as surprised as she was when Melanna looked up, and the dim lights of the brazier shone across her wide cheeks.
Even in the darkened shadows of the room it was clear that her eyes were reddened. She lifted shaking hands and made to rise, and the Mother’s Daughter gentled her by lifting her hands in denial.
“Why are you here, Melanna?”
     

Melanna said nothing.
     
The Mother’s Daughter waited, and after a moment, she drew closer. Melanna was upon her knees; she had surrendered the advantage of height. Of more.
She said, “I wanted the Mother’s guidance.” Emily nodded.
“The child—Veralaan—” “I know it is difficult—”
“No, Mother’s Daughter, you don’t .” Her voice broke. “My son was older,” she added. “Older than Veralaan. I thought—” She lifted her hands to her face again, callused hands.
“If it is too difficult a task, Melanna—”
     
But the woman shook her head and rose. “I can manage her. She’s just a child.” Her tears had dried.
The Mother’s Daughter watched her go.
     
* * *
     
But she came to understand, as the days passed, what the difficulty was. It was not in caring for the child of the man she most hated; it was the child herself. Although Veralaan was still quiet, sullen and easily frightened, she understood that Melanna had been appointed her caretaker, and she clung to Melanna whenever they were together. Melanna would extricate herself as she could, bending to free the folds of her robes from the three-year old’s fingers.
But she would stop, spine curved, as the child spoke; no one else could hear what Veralaan said. Melanna would speak harshly in reply; harshly and loudly. The child would cringe. But she would not let go; once dislodged, she reached, again and again, for the comfort of this angry
attachment.
     
* * *
     
When Melanna almost missed dinner for the first time—and it would have been a disaster, because the Priestess supervised the chaos that was the kitchen—Emily Dontal knew .
Melanna came late to the kitchen, Veralaan in the crook of her right arm. It was the first time that she would carry the child with her in her many headlong rushes from one place to another, but it was not the last. She tossed young Ebrick off his stool without ceremony, paused to criticize him for removing half the potato along with the peel, and then