Gathering Blue. Lois Lowry

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СКАЧАТЬ the Ruin, the end of the civilization of the ancestors. Verses told of smoky, poisonous fumes, of great fractures in the earth itself, of the way huge buildings toppled and were swept away by the seas. All of the people were required to listen each year, but sometimes mothers protectively covered the ears of their smallest tykes during the description of the Ruin.

      Very little had survived the Ruin, but somehow the structure called the Council Edifice had remained standing and firm. It was immeasurably old. Several windows still contained patterned glass of deep reds and golds, amazing things, for knowledge of the way of making such remarkable glass had been lost. Some remaining windows, ones in which the colored glass had shattered, were now paned in a thick, ordinary glass that distorted the view through bubbles and ripples. Other windows were simply boarded over, and parts of the building’s interior were darkly shadowed. Still, the Edifice was magnificent in comparison to the ordinary sheds and cottages of the village.

      Kira, reporting near midday as she had been ordered by the messenger, walked alone down a long hallway lit on either side by sputtering flames from tall sconces fed with oil. She could hear the voices of the meeting ahead, behind a closed door: men’s voices in muted arguing. Her stick thumped on the wooden floor and the foot of her flawed leg brushed the boards with a sweeping sound, as if she dragged a broom.

      “Take pride in your pain,” her mother had always told her. “You are stronger than those who have none.”

      She remembered that now and tried to find the pride that her mother had taught her to feel. She straightened her thin shoulders and smoothed the folds of her coarsely woven shift. She had washed carefully in the clear stream water and had cleaned her nails with a sharp twig. She had combed her hair with the carved wooden comb that had been her mother’s and which she had added to her own small storage sack after her mother’s death. Then she had braided her hair, using her hands to interweave the thick dark strands deftly, tying the end of the heavy plait with a leather strip.

      Steadying her apprehensions with a deep breath, Kira knocked on the heavy door to the room where the Council of Guardians’ meeting was already in progress. It opened a crack, spilling a wedge of light into the dim hall. A man looked out and eyed her suspiciously. He widened the opening and gestured her inside.

      “The accused orphan girl Kira is here!” the door guard announced, and the muttering subsided. In silence they all turned to watch her enter.

      The chamber was huge. Kira had been there before, with her mother, on ceremonial occasions like the annual Gathering. Then, they had sat with the crowds on rows of benches, facing the stage that was furnished only with an altar table holding the Worship-object, the mysterious wooden construction of two sticks connected to form a cross. It was said to have had great power in the past, and the people always bowed briefly and humbly toward it in respect.

      But now she was alone. There were no crowds, no ordinary citizens, only the Council of Guardians: twelve men who sat facing her across a long table at the foot of the stage. Rows of oil lamps made the room bright, and each of the men had his personal torch behind him, illuminating stacked and scattered papers that lay on the table. They watched her as she made her way hesitantly up the aisle.

      Quickly, remembering the procedure that she had seen at every ceremony, Kira arranged her hands in a reverent position, cupped together, fingertips below her chin, as she arrived at the table and looked respectfully toward the Worship-object on the stage. The guardians nodded approvingly. Apparently it had been the right gesture. She relaxed a bit, waiting, wondering what would happen next.

      The door guard responded to a second knock and announced a second entry. “The accuser, Vandara!” he called.

      So: it was to be the two of them. Kira watched as Vandara strode rapidly toward the table until they were side by side, facing the Council of Guardians. It gave her a small feeling of satisfaction to notice that Vandara’s feet were bare and her face dirty; the woman had made no special preparations. Perhaps none was necessary. But Kira felt that possibly she had gained a small bit of respect, a small advantage, with her cleanliness.

      Vandara made the worshipful gesture with her hands. So they were even there. Then Vandara bowed, and Kira saw with a twinge of concern that the Guardians nodded their heads toward her.

       I should have bowed. I must find an occasion to bow.

      “We meet to pass judgment on a conflict.” The chief guardian, a white-haired man with a four-syllable name that Kira could never remember, spoke in an authoritative voice.

       I had no conflict. I only wanted to rebuild my cott and live my life.

      “Who is the accuser?” the white-haired man asked. Of course he knew the answer, Kira thought. But the question seemed to be ceremonial, part of the formal proceedings. It was answered by another of the guardians, a heavy-set man at the end of the table who had several thick books and a stack of papers in front of him. Kira eyed the volumes curiously. She had always yearned to read. But women were not allowed.

      “Chief guardian, the accuser is the woman Vandara.”

      “And the accused?”

      “The accused is the orphan girl Kira.” The man glanced at the papers but didn’t seem to be reading anything.

      Accused? What am I accused of? Hearing the repetition of the word, Kira felt a wave of panic. But I can use it as a chance to bow and show humility. She inclined her head and upper body slightly, acknowledging herself as the accused.

      The white-haired man looked at the two of them dispassionately. Kira, leaning on her stick, tried to stand as straight as possible. She was almost as tall as her accuser. But Vandara was older, heavier, and unflawed except for the scar, the reminder that she had fought a beast and escaped alive. Hideous though it was, the scar emphasized her strength. Kira’s flaw carried no illustrious history, and she felt weak, inadequate, and doomed beside the disfigured, angry woman.

      “The accuser will speak first,” the chief guardian instructed.

      Vandara’s voice was firm and bitter. “The girl should have been taken to the Field when she was born and still nameless. It is the way.”

      “Go on,” the chief guardian said.

      “She was imperfect. And fatherless as well. She should not have been kept.”

      But I was strong. And my eyes were bright. My mother told me. She wouldn’t let me go. Kira shifted her weight, resting her twisted leg, remembering the story of her birth, and wondering if she would have an opportunity to tell it here. I gripped her thumb so tightly.

      “We have all tolerated her presence for these years,” Vandara went on. “But she has not contributed. She cannot dig or plant or weed, or even tend the domestic beasts the way other girls her age do. She drags that dead leg around like a useless burden. She is slow, and she eats a lot.”

      The Council of Guardians was listening carefully. Kira’s face felt warm with embarrassment. It was true, that she ate a lot. It was all true, what her accuser was saying.

      I can try to eat less. I can go hungry. In her mind, Kira prepared her defense, but even as she did, she felt that it would be weak and whining.

      “She was kept, against the rules, because her grandfather was still alive and had power. But he is long gone, replaced by a new leader with more power and wisdom—”

      Vandara oozed compliments СКАЧАТЬ