Crow Jane Read Online Free PDF

monkeys, always on the heels of cheerful young Shet. Abil worked with the herds, which was a labor of long hours. He milked ewes, cared for injured animals, chased away wolves, sheared the flock before lambing every spring, and, when one of the herd was to die to feed the family, it was Abil who chose the animal to make the ultimate gift.
    Abil’s was a lonely work, and Qayna didn’t envy it. Besides the long hours he spent leaning on his staff in the fields, it was Abil who moved the sheep into warmer valleys when the winter winds came. At those times, Father stayed with the family, which was good, because Father’s first task was to oversee the instruction of his children.
    On the same day the herds went to the winter pastures, Father would retreat into his own private tent for hours, and then the Messengers would come. Jane knew why they came, because she had crawled as a child under the tent flaps and listened to Father’s rhymes, the names he had given the Messengers in them and the odd words he used to conjure them. And the summoning was not the end of Father’s responsibilities; the Messengers came from the towers in the west bringing lore and learning, but it was Father’s job to make sure his children were prepared and to repeat their lessons with the family over and over until they were taken fully to heart. If his children didn’t learn and live the teachings of the Bearers of the Word, Father told them, then the Bearers of the Sword might come in their stead. All this was well and good, and, Qayna thought, the proper order of things.
    Still, it meant long, cold nights for her brother, huddled over a small fire with his flute and his wallet of dried lambs’ flesh.
    Qayna, meanwhile, combed the forests and the fields for herbs that were edible, good for body and spirit, and she brought them to the family. As Father taught the children the Way and Mother whispered lessons to Qayna of the Garden, Qayna in turn taught the plants. With example, with firm, dirt-fisted persuasion, with patience and with love she taught them to stand in rows, to grow upright, to be nourishing and cheerful, and to beautify the hillsides above the family’s dwellings of skin and stone. On winter nights, when her grain slept in silent furrows, waiting for the spring to rise and bud, she stooped under the lintel to return to her Father’s fire in the evenings and spared a thought for her brother in the hills, a thought that was loving and compassionate.
    Loving and compassionate, but nothing more.
    During this most recent winter, a tall Messenger with an expressionless face taught the family about the Bond. The Bond was the tie that connected Father and Mother and all of them together, and the First Precept was that man and woman should enter into the Bond, be fruitful and multiply. Qayna had found it amazing, and though she had shushed the tittering of the younger children, she had found it embarrassing, too, and she was vaguely relieved that Abil wasn’t present. But late at night, when Father and the six-winged Messenger stood on the brow of the hill and recited the names and deeds of the stars above them, Mother whispered to Qayna that it was all true.
    Not only was it all true, she confirmed, but Qayna had to prepare herself. She was to be the first woman to enter into the Bond east of the Garden. This was the Way for her daughters to keep the First Precept, ever since Mother’s own choice, a mysterious fork in the path to which she only alluded and only in hushed tones, but which sounded like a decision freighted with dread, rebellion, and regret.
    Qayna expressed doubt.
    Her body was ready, Mother explained patiently; it was time. In the same way, Qayna prepared the earth before she filled it with seed, enriching the soil with the castoffs from the family’s table, so that the seed could flourish in it and grow into tall stalks of wheat or fruit trees, Qayna had been preparing her own body.
    Qayna denied it.
    She was