Sect Year 1 · third month · night of day 12 · the fourth life: a valley under a cold peak, his first year
“Ring the bell until the last student comes down.”
“Second Breath.”
Tesh was born in a wool-house at the edge of the lower pasture, in the grey before anyone had lit the fire. The house smelled of wool-grease and wet ash. His mother, Irra, had been carding fleece by the hearth until the pains came on her. Then she had gone on carding with one hand, because the fleece was there and it wouldn’t wait for her. The midwife was a broad woman with grey forearms who had brought half the valley’s lambs into the world as well as its children, and she said so cheerfully while she tied the cord. The boy did not cry much, and he was slow to talk, but he was quick to look. He looked at the roof-beams first, then at his mother’s face, then at the door, as if someone he had been expecting might come through it.
“That one watches,” the midwife said. “He’ll be a shepherd or a thief.”
“He’ll be a shepherd,” said Irra, and went on holding him.
