The Motherling

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.”

The softly spoken words carried to the back of the hall. The rustling of the woolen robes and the anxious whispers stilled.

Lydia looked out over the people and sighed. The light coming through the large windows high up on the walls was tinged with the pink of an early spring sunset. It has been a long day. The effort to speak those words had tired her more than she expected. She motioned the Law Giver over.

“It is time,” she said. The Law Giver nodded. Turning back to the people, Lydia again spoke softly.

“Tonight, you will hear the truth I have been given. May the gods grant you understanding.”

The Law Giver gently pulled down the soft grey cowl that covered Lydia’s head. Stepping carefully over the chains that ran from Lydia’s ankles to rings in the raised platform, the tall woman pulled her knife from the sheath hanging on her waist. She slowly pulled free a handful of Lydia’s thick, reddish-brown hair and positioned the knife to slice it off near the scalp.

The crowd gasped; some rose as if in protest. Others, not a few, had tears running down their faces. Lydia raised her left hand slowly and said, again softly, “Be at peace.”

The hall was once again silent, and Lydia lowered her hand. The Law-Giver’s knife cut through the first locks of hair smoothly. The woman laid the long locks of hair in a stone brazier.

As the sunlight grew ever more crimson, the Law Giver methodically, gently, cut off Lydia’s hair, a handful at a time. With each slice of the knife, Lydia’s face visibly relaxed. As the Law Giver added the last locks of hair to the soft dark pile, the rays of the setting sun shone created a soft, pink halo around her head and shoulders.

The Law Giver lit a brand from a candle on the platform and laid it in the hair, which soon caught fire and ignited the incense that lay beneath the hair. The sweet smell filled the air.

The Law Giver stood facing the audience and said slowly and formally, “What is done cannot be undone.” Then she faced Lydia and said, “It is done. Now is the time for your telling.”

At those words, the sunlight vanished, and deep black lined the windows and filled the hall. Lydia waved her hand, and the lamps placed every few feet along the walls of the great hall lit simultaneously.

The gasps of the crowd were audible, and mothers pulled their children closer, while men fingered their swords and scythes. Only her children did not flinch, and she was glad for that.

“Be at peace,” Lydia said, this time more loudly and firmly. She had found strength as the burden of her hair was lightened. She continued. “It is the time for truth-telling.”

She paused and found the eyes of her daughters and son, who sat in the front row. She touched a silver locket hanging from her neck and said, “I am a motherling.”

***

“They say that they found me in a cave and that when they pulled me out I was kicking and screaming like I was coming out of my mother’s womb. I was nine months old at most and covered from head to toe in rich red clay.” Lydia said the familiar words in a soothing sing-song voice as she wrapped the new baby boy tightly in a blue-striped blanket. “Your mother, too, kicked and pushed until my womb gave way to her persistence. You, grandson, have done me proud, the way that you fought to be born,” she said, kissing his forehead.

She laid the baby in the arms of her exhausted daughter, Leah, who looked at her son with apprehension and said, “Is he okay?”

The midwife leaned over and patted Leah’s arm, saying, “Absolutely. He is perfect. He is as solid as the earth and as beautiful as the sky.”

Leah stroked her son’s chin and, according to ritual, kissed his forehead and each cheek. She said, “I name you after your uncle, Ciel.” She looked up at her partner, who stood at the end of the bed, and he nodded his agreement. She looked to her mother, who stood with tears streaming down her face. Lydia, too, nodded her agreement. Ciel began to cry and root for his mother’s breast, and the midwife announced it was time for the baby’s first feeding and pushed Lydia and her son-in-law out of the room.

“Can you tell if he shares your gift?” her son-in-law said brusquely. Lydia could not ignore his tone and replied even more brusquely, “Can you not just rejoice that he is born healthy and that your wife survived such a difficult birth?” She strode through the sparsely furnished great room, out the open front door, and across the yard to her small cottage.

She began to brew some tea, but her hands shook, and tears blurred her eyes so that she could not see. She stumbled out the back door of the kitchen and to the ancient oak tree in her garden. Lydia turned and dropped to the ground, pushing her back into the trunk of the tree and sinking her fingers into the loose black dirt around the thick roots exposed at the base of the tree. Her hands and arms slowly sank into the dirt until she was doubled over, her chest heaving with sobs against her thighs. Slowly her breathing subsided, and she sat back up, her upper arms and hands sliding out from the dirt.

Her mind embraced her children and her grandson, and she recited the birthing blessing:

“May you find sustenance in the earth.

May you welcome the energy of the sun.

May you be revived in the rain.

May you live surrounded by those who love you.

And may your children and your children’s children always speak your name with reverence.”

The leaves above her began whispering in a light breeze. As she watched the sunlight flickering through the old oak’s thick branches, she closed her eyes to rest for a while.

“Ciel, my son,” she said. “I will find you soon.”