In the valley, every Family has its Lore. Most are simple histories, but one is much, much more.
 

        The Family Lore was passed down by the men of the Ramara Family not by the women, as is usual even in Outsider families. Why this aberration? You might well ask, and if you pay close attention, you will learn.

          Before I begin there are a few things you need to know about the Ramara Family. The first is that their name is not really Ramara. That is the name they now use, however, though few know why they chose it. Their real names were earned in a far away land of hills and moors and mists, a place they call the Highlands, and you can still hear the burr of it in their speech. How they came to be here in our valley is as much a mystery as how they chose their name. When you ask them, you get nothing but a narrowing of the eyes and a tightening of the mouth, even from the smallest and youngest.

         The second is that when they arrived they were in need of safe haven. We never asked them why, or from what or whom. There were children among them, you understand, and we do not turn away children no matter how badly their elders may have transgressed. They totaled twenty-two in number, and they had nothing, only the ragged clothing on their backs, and that unsuited to the weather even were it not in rags. They were hungry, starved even, and sick from the cold. We took them in for our healers to tend, and sent several of our young hunters to the passes to watch.

         No one ever came looking for them, so after a time we relaxed our guard. We built them three houses and a barn, gave them some animals, and showed them how to plant their gardens. They settled so well that eventually only the eldest of us remembered a time before they came. For the next fifty years, the Ramara Family grew and prospered.

         "Do ya really think so, Davin, or are ya only sayin' that?" A yellow curl brushed my hand as a familiar head bent low over my shoulder. I sighed, laid my writing stick across my inkstone, and carefully elbowed the girl away. She was always doing that, getting too close.

         Pushing back from the table I turned to look at her. She'd been born here, but she talked just like her grandparents, and they still spoke as if they'd arrived only yesterday. "Do I really think what, Santhie?" I asked, trying to sound more tolerant than I felt. Inquisitiveness should be encouraged in a child, but Santhie took it to extremes. It was wearing.

         "Don't call me that." She stamped her foot for emphasis. "Call me Santheanis. I've told ya and told ya, Santhie's a child's name." Watching her sun-colored curls bounce and her sky-blue eyes flash as her mouth curved down into a pout, I had to smile. Eleven years old, and already she knew how to capture a man's heart. Once her appearance would have struck me as odd, even ugly, but over the years I had grown used to it, learned to see the beauty in light hair and skin. It was the eyes I had come to appreciate most. Such clear eyes could not lie. Sometimes I imagined that was how the Mother's eyes might look. Why else would she paint the sky that color? Others of the Ramara brood sported grey eyes, or green eyes. Their hair might have a copper tinge or darken to honey, but none of them were colored brown, like us. There had been marriages between Ramara children and ours. The offspring of those unions all resembled the newcomers. I wondered if in time, every child of our valley would look like Santhie.

         I stood up and pointedly measured from the crown of her head to the corresponding height on my body. She barely topped my belt. I raised my eyebrows. "You are a child," I told her.

         Her face took on the aspect of a thundercloud. "I had my woman ceremony weeks ago," she declared. "Ya know that, Davin. Ya did the blessing. In less than a year I'll be old enough to marry. Maybe I'll pick yer grandson. He's a fine lookin' man, and a good hunter too."

         In theory she was correct. A year after a girl became a woman she was entitled to choose a husband. But it had been many generations since we married our children so young. Now we encouraged them to wait until they had gone at least two years without growing and had mastered some skill or craft to the satisfaction of their teachers. Santhie would not grow much more, the newcomers tended to be short, but she was a long way from mastering her craft. I looked down at her set face and clenched fists. She would make a formidable wife. "You are a child to me, Santhie. I am as old as your grandfather Willam; your mother is a child to me. Now, you interrupted my work to ask something about what I was writing. And please do not read over my shoulder, it's rude."

         She blushed. "I know. I'm sorry. But what you wrote about us settling in so well that people can't remember a time before; do ya think it's true? There're still fights between the boys, an' sometimes the girls fight too. An' people tease poor Laiyon and his brother somethin' terrible for bein' half-breeds. I've heard them say things..." She stopped and scuffed the toe of her boot on my wooden floor, unwilling to repeat what she had heard.