Trevya could never understand.
The sun warmed her shoulders, finally loosening the knots that had been there since that late winter day when she’d last held a living daugh- ter of her own blood in her arms. Illyra turned her face upward, eyes closed, imagining an ageless Lillis: child, woman, and friend. She took that predawn vision and changed it until it was her own daughter and she could hear the laughter and the single word: mother, mother, mother . . .
But the laughter, Illyra realized after a blissful moment, was real- echoing within the cloister-not in her imagination. She opened her eyes and gazed upon the passel of children who had invaded her retreat with their games. There were none that she recognized from her visits to the nursery-save that two were clearly Beysib. Both were girls and, by their apparent ages, immigrants like their parents.
“It’s your turn now!”
“And no peeking!”
The designated child, the younger of the Beysib pair, separated reluc- tantly from the group. Her arms and legs, which extended well beyond her fine but dirty and shapeless tunic, were still pudgy with baby fat; her gait was still flat-footed, after the manner of toddlers, rather than rolling. Her face pulled back into a near-bawling grimace as the distance between herself and the others increased but none of the children had as yet noticed Illyra sitting still and quiet on her bench.
The little girl squared her shoulders and put her hands over her eyes.
“Out loud. Count out loud, Cha-bos!” the other Beysib girl com- manded.