Page 36 of Dark Chains: First Link
They believed the tea affected their fertility, reducing the likelihood of pregnancy enough to make a difference over time. Whether it was true or just a sustained collective belief, the women were drinking it deliberately and consistently with theunderstanding that this act of quiet rebellion was never to be discussed with anyone outside the circle.
The collective withdrew from Sullha's mind and analyzed what they had found.
The women had been subtly sabotaging the breeding program in the only way they could. The results were not dramatic enough to draw attention or invite retribution, but whatever small success that had achieved gave them satisfaction. They were resisting by making small choices within the narrow margins available to them.
Did hibiscus tea actually reduce fertility?
It was a question for Dimitri or Petrov, who would know whether it contained any compounds that could affect conception. Most likely, the women were benefiting only from the psychological comfort of believing they were doing something to change their circumstances.
Either way, it didn't matter whether it worked or not. What mattered was the act itself. The fact that these women, who had been told since birth that their bodies belonged to Mortdh and their purpose was to produce children for the Brotherhood's army, had found a way to quietly say no.
There was no reason to challenge her statement. She had no reason to trust him with her small act of rebellion, and his hinting that he knew about her secret would accomplish nothing except alerting her that he'd peeked into her mind.
"Of course," he said, responding to her recitation about Mortdh's will with the same neutral tone she'd used. "Mortdh decrees life and death."
Sullha's shoulders relaxed.
"Where is Tomek now?" he asked.
"In class with the other little ones. Saphira is teaching them their letters and numbers this morning." A hint of the earlier brightness returned. "She's a wonderful teacher. She makes learning feel like playing. Tomek loves her classes."
"Is she teaching them to read as well?"
"The little ones aren't reading yet. The older children are." Sullha shifted, leaning back on her heels.
The position was more comfortable, more casual, the posture of someone settling in for a longer conversation. She wasn't trying to end the interaction. If anything, she was making room for it.
"Did the library get any new books?" he asked.
Sullha's eyebrows rose. "You remember that? It was so tiny when we were growing up."
He nodded. "Four shelves against the wall in the common room. Twenty-three books, most of them falling apart."
"It's better now." She tossed the okra pod she'd been holding into the basket and brushed the dirt from her fingers. "A lot has changed in the last four years. Lord Navuh decided that he wanted smarter soldiers, so the men he started bringing in for breeding have been different. Scientists. Engineers. Doctors. Educated and intelligent men instead of the brutes that we had to endure before."
She said it with clinical detachment, as if discussing a kitchen rotation schedule. The emotional cost of referring to the men who fathered children on her and the other women was hiddenbeneath the same feigned casualness she'd used when talking about the visitors.
"Lord Navuh also wants the boys to get a better education before they're sent to the camp. More books, better teaching materials, animated movies in different languages so the children pick them up early. English, Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, Hindi. The idea is that when the boys are deployed, they'll have an easier time learning the local language."
"That's clever," Number One said.
Navuh's decision was strategically sound. Exposure to multiple languages during childhood made language acquisition exponentially easier later. The Brotherhood's previous approach of drilling languages into teenage recruits through repetition and compulsion was crude and inefficient by comparison.
Luckily, immortals were exceptionally good at acquiring foreign languages, and it took them a fraction of the time it took humans.
"It is clever for the boys," Sullha agreed. "The lord doesn't care what the girls learn, of course. As far as he's concerned, they can draw pictures all day long, but since he's not forbidding us to learn, we take advantage of the new books and read them, and when the language programs play, we listen together with the children whenever we can. The same goes for the teaching materials we receive. We use them for everyone."
She said all of that with quiet pride. The women were educating themselves and their daughters using resources intended for the sons, turning the Brotherhood's investment in smarter soldiers into an investment in smarter women as well.
It was another form of quiet rebellion, but since education wasn't forbidden, she'd felt free to share it with him. Those in charge of the enclave didn't mind the women gaining some basic education because they didn't consider the women capable of utilizing it for anything that could undermine the program, and smarter mothers produced smarter sons.
"The library has many more books now," Sullha continued. "Novels, history, science. Some of them are in English, some in other languages. The selection is still limited, and we don't get to choose what we get, but it's more than we had in the past." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the quick, impatient gesture that Number One remembered from childhood. "I've been reading everything I can get my hands on. It's the only way to know what's out there in the big world."
Her vocabulary confirmed it. The Sullha he'd known at thirteen had spoken like a child raised in an enclosed environment with minimal educational resources. The Sullha sitting beside him now used words like compartmentalize and disassociate.
She had made herself smarter, and she was rebelling.
"Not that we will ever benefit from all that knowledge because we are never going to leave the enclosure, but it's good to keep the brain sharp."
