Chapter 59:
The heat of the eternal fire against her back was steady. It kept her warm even as the sun began setting into the line of mountains to her left. Rajani stood on the dais and looked out over the atreola. The lodge mother moot and other interested citizens had gathered there to listen to her proposal.
She drew a long breath and spoke simply. “We must return to the Chronicles, or call ourselves Cursed no more.”
Muttered confusion reached Rajani. “What is she talking about? We haven’t deviated from the Chronicles.”
She cut through the din. “Our Tables have stopped giving our holy portion to Gather.”
The noise halted at once. Encouraged that no one was denying her assertion, Rajani continued. “We are called to endure our hunger together, huntered Cursed and Gather’s Children alike. Yet we refuse to. Do you think the gods don’t notice this?”
“There are too many of them!” Jiat shouted. “It’s not hunger you are asking us to endure, it’s death!”
Rajani and Jiat had practiced this exchange earlier. “You are wrong! There is another way! I propose to the lodge mother moot that we trade our surplus skins to the overbelters in exchange for food from their gardens, to be given to the Gather’s Children – so that all of us can live to see the next dry season.”
“Make your case,” one of the lodge mothers standing in the first row of the crowd said.
Rajani took a deep breath. “The gods command us to embrace the Gather’s Child, both the one in our urb and the one in our hearts. A lodge mother in the Tuk Table Chronicles interpreted this command to mean two things. First, that there are always two halves of a whole, the strong half and the weak half. Second, that the strong half is never to deny or condemn the weaker half.
“Consider a Table. The strong members are the adults, the weak members the children. The adults take care of the children. They don’t deny their shared Tablehood because the children are weak; neither do they condemn the children for their lack of strength. Rather, they accept that the children are weak, and then they care for them anyway.
“The Gather’s Children are our weaker half, it’s true. But they should be recognized as weaker without condemnation. Who among us thinks it’s right to beat a child crying out for food? Helpless though that child may be to put meat on a meal bench, he is still a member of his Table, and deserves food from that Table. In the same way, the Gather’s Children still deserve food as Cursed citizens. Either we must go hungry as we share our food with them, or we must trade with the overbelters to increase our stores. We cannot have the hunters fight the Gather’s Children – our own selves – over and over again.
“I know that trading for agricultural goods may make the moot uneasy. We already trade with the overbelters for bioplastic made from domesticated plant fibers. To trade with them for planted food is not so different. The only difference we will see is in the Cursed lives saved.”
Rajani stopped. It was almost dark. The breathflower leaves would open soon. She could see them in her mind’s eye, their blue and green lights gleaming into the night.
“Very well,” the lodge mother who had spoken earlier said. “We will discuss your proposal. At our meeting next week, we will tell you our decision.”
Rajani bowed her head in acknowledgment. When she looked up, she caught Jiat’s eyes. They were shining.
***
“You said you wanted to be a lodge mother, right?”
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It was later that same eventide. She and Jiat had snuck away to the holy place. The darkness obscured Jiat’s face so Rajani couldn’t see him. Only his voice broke through the shadows.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Jiat’s voice was soft. “If this works out, if they accept your proposal, you won’t have to worry about hunting for your Table anymore.”
He left the words unspoken, but Rajani could hear them anyway. You could become a lodge mother.
Rajani didn’t respond. She had never met anyone who could tell what she was thinking without her having to say a word. It was a little frightening, and a little exciting.
“But if they don’t pass your proposal…”
In the darkness, Rajani sensed Jiat shift towards her. His hand touched hers.
“If they don’t pass your proposal, maybe we can talk again.”
Rajani waited, her heartbeat quickening.
“There is more than one way, after all, to become a lodge mother.”
A vision of the annual betrothal dance shimmered before Rajani. The vines wrapped around the young people’s waists, the joyous, group celebration of commitments made. Then the new dirt lodge, the meal bench, an infant in her arms… Rajani struggled to check the emotion surging through her. Could she really obtain her heart’s desire? Dare she let herself reach for it?
“Maybe,” Rajani whispered. “Maybe.”
***
Once more Rajani stood on the dais. She felt uneasy. The lodge mothers were still talking among themselves. Had they not yet reached a decision? Finally one of them peeled away from the moot and strode up the dais steps.
Dread washed over Rajani. It was Urbiya, Pratap’s lodge mother.
“Last week,” Urbiya began, “we heard a proposal that the Cursed violate its longest-standing Tabu in order to feed overbelters. Lead hunter Rajani speaks of Gather’s Children, but who are the Gather’s Children today? Overbelters, every single one of them. If lead hunter Rajani wants to feed overbelters out of her own Table’s share, let her do so. In fact, she already does. Why does she propose to impose on the rest of us a burden we have not asked for?”
“That’s not –” Rajani started to say, but Urbiya cut her off. “Lead hunter Rajani seems to have forgotten that it was only a short while ago that the overbelters were threatening us, stealing our food, and destroying our urb. Now she wants us to help them?”
Rajani opened her mouth to push back, but it was too late. Urbiya hadn’t even finished, yet the crowd was already clamoring in agreement. “Not only does lead hunter Rajani want us to help overbelters, she wants to destroy Cursed life as we know it. We have learned from other hunters that her true desire is to dismantle the hunterarchy. Yes, she wants to leave us defenseless!”
The crowd was roaring with rage. Painfully Rajani looked at the snarls on her neighbors’ faces. She had not realized until that moment how infuriating her proposal had been to them. Had her single-minded vision for agriculture blinded her so?
“The Jinkari Table is headed by a young lead hunter, but a lead hunter nonetheless,” Urbiya said over the din. “The lodge mother moot rejects her proposal, and I submit a counterproposal, that she and her Table accept official opprobrium for having valued the lives of non-Cursed at a time like this.”
The mob was crowing with delight. Desperately Rajani surveyed the lodge mothers standing in the first row in front of the dais. Mamai’s head was bowed, her gaze averted.
“Very well,” one of the lodge mothers said to Urbiya. Her face was cold and hard. “We will discuss your proposal. At our meeting next week, we will tell you our decision.”
“Go,” Urbiya hissed at Rajani.
Rajani forced herself off the dais and shoved her way through the mob to Lainla and Mayah. There were tears glistening on Mayah’s glasses, and she was holding her left wrist as if it were injured.
“What happened?” Rajani managed to ask.
“Some hunters tried to take her back to the ditch,” Lainla said. “I stopped them, but they were angry.”
Lainla’s and Mayah’s ashen faces tore Rajani away from her own fear. She held out her arms. Mayah stepped into Rajani’s embrace, burying her face into her side. Lainla put one hand on Mayah’s back and the other on Rajani’s shoulder. For a few seconds they were able to push the anger of the crowd away from the edges of their tiny, huddled haven.
“Ni, what are we going to do?” Lainla whispered.
“We’ll – we’ll take care of each other,” Rajani responded haltingly. “We’ll – we’ll find a way.”