Soldier at the Door(23)

Hycymum glanced around as if someone could have been hiding in the bedroom. “It’s about your great-great-grandparents, Kanthi and Viddrow. About the time King Querul the First was asking for the family records. I don’t know if you remember that time—”

“Mother, I teach history,” Mahrree interrupted. “Three hundred twenty years is a lot to remember, but I do know about the family records collection. The goal was to create a complete family histories, everyone’s father and mother. They wanted to trace their lines to the original Five Hundred Families to put into The Writings. It should have happened right before the division.”

“Supposedly that’s what they planned,” said her mother flatly.

Mahrree had to grin. She’d never seen her mother like this before.

Sly. Cynical. Mysterious.

If only she didn’t still have bits of sugar in her eyebrows that made them look frosted, she would have been quite alarming.

“Why do you say that, exactly?”

“That’s not what my great grandfather Viddrow believed,” Hycymum said, glancing around again for extra ears.

Mahrree couldn’t help herself. Ludicrously she peered out the window.

“I never told you this,” Hycymum continued, feeling sure the Administrator of Loyalty wasn’t in the wardrobe, “but he had a dream. Quite vivid. The next night he had the dream again.”

Dreams!

Mahrree felt the familiar warmth seize her above her heart. Someone in her family dreamed! And she didn’t even know about it until now. There were dreams, unrevealed to the world.

“It was only days before the king sent his official for the festival,” Hycymum told her. “There was a festival in every village, with food and songs and a great presentation ceremony where the head of each family walked up to the visiting official and handed him all the copies of their family papers.”

Hycymum huddled in closer, nearly crowding Mahrree off the bed.

“Viddrow told Kanthi to secretly make a copy of their lines,” she whispered. “Kanthi questioned why, since all of it would be compiled and she’d not only have their records but the records of everyone else. This was before paper was being produced so cheaply, so all they had was expensive parchment, and they didn’t have much silver to their names. But he insisted. ‘Copy the records, and tell no one about them.’ They hadn’t been married very long, and Kanthi wasn’t about to doubt her new husband. So she made a copy and secured it in her collection of recipes.”

Mahrree gasped. “Where are they now? Do you have our family lines? You know who our first father and mother were?” Chills of delight ran up her arms.

“Yes, I do!” Hycymum whispered. “And what a blessing that was, considering what happened. Great grandfather Viddrow never believed the fire that destroyed all the records was an accident. In the dream he saw the fire, knew all records would be destroyed, and it was all because of a design fashioned by men who wanted to control the population, in many different ways. My great grandmother told me this when I was just a child, before she showed me the copy kept in my mother’s recipe book.”

“I knew it!” Mahrree whispered back, clapping her hands. “Everything that was destroyed was intended to keep us in the dark! So we forget who our parents are, where we came from, what we once were.”

Almost immediately, her enthusiasm faltered. Maybe her mood shifts were a result of The Drink, but she reflected on the fire with a new feeling of poignancy, feeling as if it had just happened. She closed her eyes in distress remembering all that was lost.

The additional writings of the guides not yet included in The Writings. Scientific surveys of surrounding lands. Theories of past civilizations. Evidence of natural phenomena not witnessed by anyone alive. Maps. Stories.

All the important writings of the day in one secured stone vault, and engulfed by one mysterious fire. An intentional fire.

Her heart ached.

Fortunately her mother broke into her thoughts before she thought too much more. She already felt dehydrated from too much weeping.

“Mahrree, did you know that your great-great-great—” She paused to count on her fingers, shrugged, then said, “A grandmother long ago had thirteen children? Her mother before her had nine. Kanthi and Viddrow had seven. Your father’s line was prolific too! He knew that his great-great—” Again she hesitated, lost in the greats. “Well, one his grandmothers had at least eight. Expecting didn’t destroy those women. Losing babies didn’t mean they were defective or deformed. Yes, some women struggled to have only one. And some mothers died in birthing. But rarely. And no one—no matter what that silly Administrator claimed in his report—went crazy from having babies!”