The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped Read Free Page B

p’natti, fairly sure that though Handbright would be upset and worried for a time, she would say nothing about Mavin’s Talent until Mavin told her yes. And Mavin had begun to feel that perhaps she did not want to tell her yes. Not today. Not tomorrow. Perhaps, though she did not know why, not ever.

CHAPTER TWO

    Had it not been for the fact that Assembly time was only days away, Handbright would have worried more over Mavin, would have been more insistent that the Elders be told that Mavin had shown Talent, was indeed shifter, might now be admitted to full membership in the clan Danderbat and begin to relieve some of the endless demands made upon Handbright for the past half-dozen years. Though she was fond of Mavin—and of eight-year-old Mertyn, too, if it came to that—it did not occur to her that Mavin knew no more than Mertyn did about what would be expected of a new shifter girl by Gormier and Haribald, and by the others. Though Handbright had never told Mavin any of the facts of life of shifter girl existence, she assumed that Mavin had picked it up somewhere, perhaps as she herself had done, from another young she-person. In making the assumption, she forgot that there were no other shifter girls to have giggled with Mavin in the corners, that Handbright could have been the only source of this information unless one of the old crones had seen fit to enlighten the child, an unlikely possibility.

    Indeed, if she had had time to think about it, she would have known that Mavin was as innocent as her little brother of any knowledge of what would happen when it became known she was shifter. Who could she have observed in that role except Handbright herself? Who else was there behind the p’natti to share responsibility or provide company? Had there been a dozen or so girls growing up together, as there should be in a clan the size of Danderbat, Handbright herself would have been far less weary and put upon for she would have been sought out by the old man things no more often than she could have found bearable. Part of the problem, of course, was that she had not conceived. If she had been pregnant, now, or had a child at the breast. ... Or better yet, if she had borne three or four, then she could have gone away, have left the keep and fled to Schlaizy Noithn or out into the world. Any such realization made her uncomfortable. It was easier simply not to think of it, so she did not consider Mavin’s ignorance, did not consider the matter at all except to think without thinking that with Mavin coming to a proper age, the demands on herself might be less. When Handbright had been a forty-season child there had been others near in age. Throsset of Dowes. The twin daughters of old Gormier, Zabatine and Sambeline. At least three or four others. But the twins had soon had twin children, two sets of sons, had left them in the nursery and fled. And Throsset had simply gone, with a word to no one and no one knowing where. And all the others had had their children and gone into the world, one by one, so that for four years Handbright had been alone behind the p’natti—alone except for a few crones and homebound types who were too lazy to do else than linger in the keep, and the Danderbat granders who were there to keep watch. That was all except for peripatetic clan members who visited from time to time. Well, at least the last of the babies was now out of loincloths and into trowsies. And Mertyn was eight. And Mavin now would be available to help ... help. So she thought, in the back of her head, not taking time to worry it because Assembly was so near and there was so much to do. Of course more hands were assembled to do it, too, for the Danderbat were beginning to gather. The kitchens were getting hot from fires kept burning under the ovens. Foods were being brought by wagon from as far away as Zebit and Betand. All during the year shifters might eat grass in the fields or meat off the bone, but at Assembly time they