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Back Daughter of Eden
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

Soon after we arrived, a guard came to bring some meat and flowercakes for Mary, and to ask her to come and meet the guard leader so he could discuss with her the messages she was going to give to the people in Veeklehouse. This had happened a couple of times before when we arrived in a new place: guard leaders wanting to discuss what the shadowspeaker was going to say in her show. After all, it was their guards that kept us safe when we were travelling round. And this time, of course, it was Leader Hunter, guard leader of Veeklehouse and Strongheart’s third son: the same one who received our buckskins and starflowers and boys when I came to live at Michael’s Place.

Mary told the guard that me and her had just arrived after travelling all waking. Would it be alright if he came back for her a bit later when she’d had a chance to wash her feet and put on another wrap? As he headed off, she glanced round at me, and seemed to see something in my face that made her uneasy.

‘I’m not here to speak for the high people,’ she told me. ‘I hope you know that, Angie. I’m here for everyone, but I do need the high people’s help and support, and if they want things from me that Mother Gela wants too, there’s no harm in helping them out. Meet me in a half waking by the Veekle Gate, and we’ll get ready for our show.’

I wondered what expression she’d seen on my face. All I’d really been thinking at that moment was that I didn’t fancy being on my own in Veeklehouse just then. It was only now she mentioned it that it struck me as interesting that the guard leaders thought they could tell the shadowspeakers what to talk about. And it was interesting too to discover that Mary imagined me watching her and judging her, when I still saw her as the teacher who knew almost everything and myself as the helper who knew hardly anything at all. I really hadn’t noticed that before. Yet now I had noticed it, I remembered a few other times when she’d glanced at me uneasily in that same way, like she thought I wouldn’t approve of what she was doing.

While Mary was busy with Leader Hunter, I walked round the trading shelters for a while, looking at the feather hats and the earrings, the wraps and rings and spears and boats. Then I went to see the Veekle, and after that, I filled in some time by watching a little group of guards and traders playing a game called toss-up that men like to play right across the Davidfolk Ground, where they all chuck trading sticks into a heap, and then throw little wooden dice to decide who gets the lot.