Stesha Speaks...

As Alina tossed in her fevered dreams, slipping in and out of consciousness, she heard--at times--snatches of song in a twisted tongue.  At times, she was aware of a voice, speaking low and clear, hard to understand with its heavy rising and falling syllables.  But the words formed pictures and ideas, and Alina thought that she had slipped into that space where all language is comprehensible.  In her delerium, this is the story she heard:

My people came out of the North.  If you notice that I'm not like them, there are some among us who are dark--descended from the first people of that cold, icy land.  The little people who lived before taught the newcomers how to hunt and fish, and the tall, fair race brought houses and shipbuilding and written language.  But that was long ago now--our ancient history, recorded in our books, which we take with us on each new expedition.  It is good that you notice my difference--we all do.  And those of us with darker skin and hair, our eyes angled slightly--we are considered less high, less noble.  We are also not considered warriors, because our bones are too small, and we are light and lithe instead of braw and bulky. 

When I came to this place, we were a scouting party.  We sought more land to our East and South.  Some wanted a warmer clime; others were simply seeking adventure.  Most were seeking women.  Most were younger sons, and in our country, only the eldest was allowed to marry--and only the fairest among those.  Most families had more than one son, but only one daughter.  It is a secret among us that daughters are often killed because a daughter carries a burden for her family.  Wives are in demand because of the mandate to reproduce, because they carry status--the most powerful among us have 2 or 3 wives, and because they come with weatlh, no matter how poor the girl's family.  There is a tax on daughters, a part of which her husband collects when they marry.  When she is married, the family no longer has to pay.  But daughters who look--well, like me--are harder to marry off, if they can be married at all.  So the family has to pay for longer, unless the baby dies.  Then there is a death tax to cover the council's losses--or, I should say, the community's losses--and the family no longer has to pay. 

Girls who exhibit the old blood are undesirable wives because they are more likely to produce small, dark children; so they fall victim to an ancient custom.  When children are born, they sleep either outside, in an enclosed porch, or next to an open window, depending on the season.  Every night the temperature dips below freezing.  In winter, our days seldom reach above freezing. The cold is thought to fortify them for life's journey, and there may be some truth in it, because our children neither fear nor succumb easily to the cold.  Girls who have the brown birthmark--the mark of the old blood--are left to sleep unwrapped, and while a child who is a wanted child is often placed with a companion--a twin, another child of the family, a dog--or even kept near the reindeer herds, the marked child is given no companion.  Thus, it becomes not the family's will, but the will of the gods, that the girl should die.

The boys--even those like me--are allowed to live, because boys are not the same burden.  But you must have noticed my eye.  Indeed, I'm sure you were repulsed by it.  All are.  Rarely are we left unscarred--except the ugly and stupid, who pose no threat.  Those who are too pretty, or too clever--we are scarred according to our wit and beauty.  Then we can live, but eldest or not, we cannot marry.  So they took my eye, and slashed my cheek.  And then they tended me, and I was healed in body.  I was 10 years old.  And I was clever.  I worked with the clockmaker, in spite of having only one eye.  But I went beyond what he could teach me.  And I went to the blacksmith.  And the metalworker.  And the glassblower.  And the shipbuilder.  And the stone mason.  And I learned what they had to teach.  Ships I designed took us to other lands without the need for slaves--they rowed themselves.

When the time came, I was permitted to join the scouting expedition.  We passed through your forest to the other side, and when we found a place--here, far to the South--we began to build.  Then, we sent for the others--younger sons of their families who would not be marrying because there were not enough wives, or eldest and only sons, like me, who would not be permitted to marry because of our mixed blood, in which the darker race came out on top.  The decree held that we would still not be allowed to marry, but we would be useful, and might rise in status, and perhaps buy our way out and into another community--one such as yours was--or take to the sea.

But the ones who came after were brash and violent and too full of their own seed.  We found out later--when they came with their new slaves and potential brides--how they had raped your forest and burnt your homes and killed your men... And some of us were sorry, because our memory is one of gentler domination.  But some simply waited for their turn to buy a woman (there were no taxes yet, and the coffers must be filled), and fell into deep resentment that they were not present for the looting and slaughter.  And I am afraid that I am somewhere in between.  I have the resentment, though mine is different, and the sorrow, as I always have.

The narrative came to her in pieces.  Whether its telling was linear, repeated, sequential, or continuous, Alina couldn't say, but her mind captured it, and the voice was Stesha's.