Marion Zimmer Bradley s Ancesto by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

By the time they caught up with the others, it was past midday. The marsh women clustered, softly gossiping as they poked into the dense reeds around the lakeside. Hearing Damisa and Selast approach, one of the women gabbled excitedly and pointed; then, as the two girls clearly did not understand, the woman flapped her hands, and cupped them, as if she were cradling something between her palms.

“Eggs?” asked Damisa. After two years, all of the acolytes had made some progress in learning the Lake folk tongue, but Iriel and Kalaran were the only ones who could actually speak it. Damisa herself had not yet progressed beyond a limited vocabulary. The small woman grinned and simply crooked her hand in a summoning gesture.

As she followed, Damisa took the precaution of kirtling up her skirts, and she was glad she had: their destination was the nest of some strange duck, which had evidently thought itself well hidden among the reeds.

It would have been hard to say who was less happy with the encounter, the duck or the acolyte, as it degenerated into a furious mix of swearwords and squawking. She left each mother duck at least one egg to hatch, but that didn’t seem to soothe them. Damisa would not have thought a duck could bite, but she had nicks and scratches on both hands before they moved off toward higher ground to search for spring greens.

The tender new leaves of chickweed and goosefoot and mustard could be eaten raw, and there were lilies whose bulbs would provide more solid fare. Nettles were edible too, stewed as greens or steeped to make tea, but the native women always laughed when the acolytes tried to harvest them, for there was no way not to get stung, which made the girls curse in a manner most unbecoming to future priestesses.

Selast sucked her sore fingers and sulked, even after they turned toward home. “It could be worse,” Damisa said, taking the other girl’s hand and kissing the reddened stings. “Kalaran had to go out with the hunters. Nettles sting, but you don’t have to chase them. And they don’t sneak up on you. And they don’t have claws and big teeth!”

“I’d rather be hunting,” Selast growled, “except then I’d have to be with Kalaran.”

Damisa sighed, wracked with conflicting emotions. She had long ago come to terms with the fact that what she felt about having lost her own destined husband was mainly relief. But Selast and Kalaran were still officially betrothed and would be expected to marry some day, even though they had about as much interest in one another as a couple of rocks. Why is it, she thought, that however often somebody tells us the rules have changed, that things are different here—she felt her face warm as she remembered the events of the afternoon—why is it we still have to keep doing pretty much whatever we would have done in Atlantis? If they could have kept the splendid ways of old

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