Read The Unfinished Song: Taboo for Free Online Page A

young men hunted game, and the Tavaedi Initiates sewed and mended costumes. The brunt of the cooking fell to the maidens. The other teachers also gave the maidens tasks—cleaning fish, grinding and bleaching acorns, weaving baskets and mats for use at the feast.  Brena took upon herself to direct the making of the sugar loaves.
    Once the maidens hauled the sedge grass back to the Tor of the Initiates, plenty of work remained to be done under the eaves of the longhouses. Brena instructed the young women to spread the cane grass on bearskin rugs out in the sun to dry. The next day, the young women whacked the dried grass with wooden beaters. This freed the droplets of honeydew clinging to the tufts of the grass, a sugary dust that had to be scoured with a flint scraper from the hide. The women winnowed the collected dust in a loose basket and poured it into a tight, cooking basket. Next, they added cold water to mix the crystallized substance into a stiff dough. This tough stuff had to be smacked and wrestled into shape. The loaves were finally wrapped in a twined tule mat and left to dry in stacks under the eaves.
    It also fell to Brena to pick the women who would be honored with serving as handmaidens at the High Table. I am not feeling guilty , Brena told herself, as she sought out Dindi. I just feel sorry for the poor young woman.
    Brena almost changed her mind when she saw Dindi. The befuddled young woman looked like she was doing battle with a stork nest. She sat surrounded by reeds sticking out every which way, trying to untangle the mess she’d made of her strands of split juncus. Brena would never have been able to guess what the young woman was trying to do if she didn’t know the juncus reeds were supposed to form a pleasing funnel shaped basket. Dindi’s basket more closely resembled a tumbleweed .
    She’s just not too bright, is she? Brena shook her head, but persevered. “Dindi, we need serving maidens to tend the High Table. Would you accept the honor?”
    “Zavaedi Brena!” As always, Dindi seemed to notice her in the last possible moment with the shamefaced fright of someone caught poaching someone else’s dinner. “Er, certainly.”
    She stood and immediately tripped over the half-formed basket.
    Brena’s head began to ache. I’m going to regret this .
Kavio
     
    Kavio stood in the shadow between two megaliths at the top of a flight of stone steps, scanning the parade of people streaming up the hill to attend the feast. He couldn’t spot Dindi, but he recognized faces from his time as a captive eight years ago.
    The Tor of the Sun was the largest of the hill settlements. A stockade of tree trunks protruded from the outer edge of the hilltop, protecting clusters of dome houses, eggs in a nest. The hilltop was flat except for a raised mound of earth supporting the War Chief’s compound —a longhouse, several beehive houses, a kraal with a dozen horses, and a gold smithy. All these houses were painted yellow with disks of gold embedded in the paint like sequins. Huge sun-and-ladder beaten gold disks tipped the roofs. When the sun reflected off the spangles, the houses sparkled as if they were fae-built.
    Steep rock steps led up to the compound, and the place called the High Table, a huge black basalt slab of stone sprawled across two logs. At the top of the steps, Kavio could view the whole Tor from above. The dais of the Tavaedi dancers was directly below and in front of the High Table. On either side of the dancing platform, and extending well beyond it, were two rows of woven mats for guests. The rows stretched out across almost the entire diameter of the settlement. The more honorable the guest, the later they arrived to settle themselves into their seats, and the closer to the High Table.
    The ordinary tribesfolk had already filed into the outermost rows. The Initiates strutted up to their seats, preening to the appreciative shouts of congratulation from the tribesfolk. Kavio searched the