Stone Spring Part 9

Novu wondered how much of that was true. That coughing might have something to do with it. n.o.body wanted a sick man around their kids.

'Their women aren't bad, if you can stand the smell. I'll swear they sweat fish oil. There's one in there I had my eye on last time, a niece of a niece of Cardum's, I think, plump little thing-'

'Just how you like them,' Novu said dryly.

'Got the impression she was willing to trade a little comfort for a jade bead or a pretty sh.e.l.l . . . Well. She'll be ripe for a couple more summers. How's that fish doing?' Without waiting for a reply he lifted the fish off the fire and cracked open the baked-hard clay. The flesh, tender and steaming, fell apart in the clay fragments, and Chona took healthy handfuls.

Even when he had done there was plenty for Novu, and he ate, ravenous as he always was after a day of travelling.

'So,' Chona said around mouthfuls of food. 'Think you'll sleep well tonight?'

'Why shouldn't I?'

'You've been dreaming, the last couple of nights on the road. You came near to a punch in the head a few times.'

'Sorry.'

'You were worse when we left Jericho, you know. Have to be deaf not to hear you. Thras.h.i.+ng and muttering. All that anger at your father.'

Novu felt resentful at being probed like this. 'Look - you're going to sell me. You take the very food out of my mouth. Have you got to poke at my spirit as well?'

Chona laughed. 'You're developing a bit of fire in the belly, aren't you? That might help when I sell you on. Tell me why your father hated you that much. I mean, the thing about the thieving was just the final excuse, wasn't it?'

'We never got on,' Novu said. 'I wasn't like him. Vain and greedy. And on the other hand I wasn't a tough hunter type, like some of my cousins. I played alone a lot-'

'Making bricks.'

'As I got older we started having fights. I'd challenge my father in front of my mother, his brothers. Once he took me to a meeting of his friends. Maybe you know some of them. I think, looking back, he was trying to help me. If I could get to know these people, maybe I could be accepted by them. Be like them some day.'

'Be like him.'

'Yes. But they were just a bunch of stupid fat old men to me, with their sea sh.e.l.ls and bits of jade and obsidian and gold dangling from their necks and ears. Well, I made a fool of my father. I made them laugh at him.'

Chona grunted. 'He won't have enjoyed that.'

'That was over a year ago. Since then he's been harder on me. You saw it. In turn I played up more. It just got worse and worse. I was stupid to steal from him. Now I can see that he was making plans to get rid of me. Just waiting for the chance.'

'And waiting for the right bit of obsidian to exchange you for.' Chona belched, and lay back on a skin. 'I can see how it went. He feared that you'd become a rival. Position is everything to your father, position among all those other jostling idiots in Jericho. Like goats in a herd, but not as intelligent. That's what I use to sell him stuff, you know. Impress your friends! He feared you were going to undermine all that.'

'I probably would have,' Novu admitted. 'I'd have enjoyed doing it.'

'Well, there you are. So he got rid of you. Brutal, but effective. Bad luck for you.' He settled his head on his arm. 'I've eaten too much. Well, we don't have to walk for a couple of days.' And with that he rolled on his side, loosed a fart that filled the cave with the essence of fish, pulled another skin over his body, and wriggled to make himself comfortable.

Novu leaned back against his wall once more. He tried to ignore the uneven, unsleeping breath of the trader, and listened again to the crackle of his fire, the rush of the river.

The last daylight was all but gone, and as his eyes opened to the dark, he saw more detail in the roof carvings. There were oval shapes, like eggs, chipped into the rock, each about the size of his own head. He thought he saw what looked like a face carved into each egg, circles for eyes, a crescent for a downturned mouth. But surrounding the face and running down the body were overlapping circles and plates that looked like scales. Half-human, half-fish. Maybe that was how the people of the Narrow saw themselves, their very spirits mingled with the fish that gave them life.

Chona coughed and stirred. He squirmed, his back to Novu, and pushed one hand inside his skin leggings. Novu saw his upper arm working. Novu had seen this before. The trader was a man who, so contained and controlled, hid a powerful l.u.s.t. He had probably been dreaming of this niece of a niece of Cardum's for days, and was now denied her.

It wasn't long before the trader's body shuddered, and relaxed. Then, at last, Novu was left alone, with the river, and the fish-people of the cave.

17.

More than a month after the Spring Walk, Ana had the idea that they should take a party up the valley of the Little Mother's Milk to the old summer camp.

It was a suggestion born out of desperation, after another night of arguments in the house, another night of four-way stresses between herself and her sister and the Pretani brothers, in a house that, despite being the largest in Etxelur, seemed much too small. Ana didn't even understand what was happening any more. Did Gall still want Zesi, or not? And what about his brother? Zesi and Shade barely spoke to each other in the house, but Ana saw the looks that pa.s.sed between them - looks of guilt and l.u.s.t, or so she read them. Would Gall stand by and let his little brother have Zesi? It seemed unlikely. And where did Ana herself fit in? She had thought Shade was attracted to her, not Zesi. Did Shade still feel anything for her - if he ever had? Did she care if he did or not? Ana could hardly bear the baffling tension.

What made it worse was that it was still more than a month and a half to the summer solstice, and the Giving celebration. That seemed to be emerging as a major landmark in everybody's mind. It was always the summit of the year anyhow, the longest day, after which the slow run-down to another winter began. And at the Giving the question of her father would come to a head. Although the solstice would be less than a year since Kirike's disappearance, everybody seemed to feel that if he wasn't back by the time of the feast, and Zesi, defying custom, took over his role as the Giver, it would be a kind of closing of Kirike's story.

Ana didn't want to face that. But another part of her longed for the day to come, for the Pretani were going home after the Giving.

A month and a half was too long to wait. And so she suggested a trip up-river as a way to use up some energy. The idea was greeted with a snarl from Zesi, but a day later, after a quiet word from the priest, her sister grudgingly accepted that it was a good idea after all, and the word was pa.s.sed around.

Not long after dawn, the people gathered around Zesi's house, a few adults and many children, and with soft murmurs and laughter they set off.

It was a short hike from the Seven Houses to the estuary of the Milk, across scrubby gra.s.sland carpeted with b.u.t.tercups. Ana walked with Arga and Lightning, neither of whom seemed troubled by the atmosphere among the adults. The sun rose, the mist burned off with the last of the dew, the birdsong was loud, and Ana was soon warm through. Given all her problems, she felt unreasonably happy.

But it didn't help that both the Pretani boys had decided to come along.

Zesi seemed in a foul mood from the beginning. Burdened with a heavy pack, she set a tough pace, as if the walk was something to be got over with, not to be enjoyed. Some weren't capable of keeping up the pace: the kids, and a young flint knapper called Josu, cousin of a cousin of Ana's, who had been born with a withered leg. Soon the group was strung out, and a couple of the older men quietly moved to the back of the group, keeping an eye on the stragglers.

They reached the river, and by the early afternoon they were following a narrow valley that cut through sandstone bluffs, heading roughly west. Zesi led the tramp upstream, following a well-worn path by the bank of the river.

In places the forest, birch and hazel scrub, came pus.h.i.+ng close to the water's edge. The bank itself was crowded with willows, which could grow as much as a hand's length in a month at this time of year, and old alders, trees that liked the damp. The alders' branches were heavy with catkins, some of them as long as Ana's hand. She could see the scars left where wood had been harvested in previous years; the cut trees were recovering, new growths pus.h.i.+ng out of their root systems. Alder was useful for the frames of houses, for it stayed supple even after being dried out.

And in the shade of the very oldest trees white windflowers clumped, bluebell carpets shone, and elusive pied flycatchers flitted, spectacular splashes of black and white. People took the chance to gather birds' eggs. It was a rich, charming place.

But Etxelur folk, used to the coast's open s.p.a.ces, weren't comfortable in the confines of the narrow valley, and Ana thought it was a great relief to everybody when they reached the site of the summer camp.

Here the valley opened out to a wide plain, bounded on either side by low, rounded hills cloaked with gra.s.s and forest. The river itself spread out, as if it too was glad to be free of its confinement. The main channel here was shallow and winding, cutting through a floor of turf, heather and scrub, but in places the flow split into two, three or four braids that combined and recombined, and wide marshy areas glimmered in the low sun. All along the valley the green skin of the floor had been eroded back by the changes in the river's course, to reveal bone-white gravel spits.

The old camp itself, set back from the river, had been abandoned since the last visit two years ago. Only one of the houses Ana remembered still stood, a collection of poles leaning against each other with the remains of a covering of skin and thatch. In a few more years, Ana thought, even these ruins would have disappeared into the green, and you'd never know the camp was ever here. People touched the land lightly.

People dumped their packs and began the pleasant work of restoring the camp. Two men chose a site downwind of the houses and close to the forest's edge to dig a fresh waste pit. Another man checked over an old urine pit, lined with stone. He jumped down into it and began raking out dead leaves; later he would seal it up with fat.

Further back was a stand of forest, with an open area where new young trees were sprouting. Ana remembered that this area had been cleared by fire the last time they had camped here, and she thought she saw the pale, wide-eyed face of a deer at the edge of the thicker forest. That was the point of the clearing, to encourage the growth of whippy young hazel shoots and fresh plants, and so to attract the animals.

When Gall saw the deer he immediately sprinted away, spear and club in hand. The deer vanished.

Arga grabbed Ana's hand and Shade's. 'Come on! I'll show you the river, Shade. I bet you don't have rivers like this in Pretani.'

With grudging glances at each other, they both ran with the girl towards the river.

The sun was still high, the summer sky washed out, and the colours of the landscape, blue water and white gravel and green gra.s.s, were bright. Lightning, hot, thirsty but full of life, ran at their heels, yapping. Ahead of them a heron, invisible before it moved, took to the air and flapped away, its narrow head held high.

They came to a gravel bank, and the dog disturbed an oystercatcher from her nest amid the stones. The bird rose, red beak bright, peeping indignantly, and flapped away. The dog splashed into the river, shook himself to make a spray, and his pink tongue lapped busily at the cool, air-clear water.

Shade looked down at the ground, puzzled. 'I know the oystercatcher's been nesting here. I just can't see where.'

Arga got to her hands and knees and poked at the gravel. 'Look! Here it is.' She held up a pale brown egg; the nest was just a collection of twigs in the gravel. 'They're good at hiding. I suppose you have to be if you make your nest on the ground.' She popped the egg into her leather pouch. 'You just take one,' she said seriously. 'The little mothers say you should leave the rest. Come on. I'll show you the lagoon.'

They walked further up the valley. Here a lagoon ran beside the river, a crescent of dense, stagnant water choked with reeds and rushes, and surrounded by gra.s.s and scrub. Arga, seven years old, enjoying having somebody to show off to, told Shade about the different plants here, the watercress and water chestnut and water lily, and how you used them all. Lightning, his tail wagging ferociously, paddled across muddy ground and stuck his head down among the reeds, trying to get to the water.

Ana knelt, filled a cupped palm with water, and raised it to her face. Tadpoles wriggled, tiny and perfect. She carefully dropped them back into the lagoon's sc.u.mmy surface.

A sand martin dipped across the water, right in front of her, its wings swept back, darting and swooping in search of insects too small for her even to see. Watching it she found it hard to breathe, as if the bird was dragging her spirit through the light-filled air with it. All the darkness, the winter nights in the unhappiness of the house, the nagging, unhealed wound that was the loss of her father - none of it seemed real or important, compared to the martin's graceful joy.

Shade came to sit beside her. 'This lagoon,' he said. 'It looks as if the river once ran here. See? It curved around in a loop, and joined up down there, somewhere. But at some point the stream cut across the neck of the loop, and left it stranded.' He pointed to the far bank. 'You can see where it's cutting back into the turf, over there.'

His grasp of the Etxelur tongue was now quite good. And she was always impressed by the way he saw patterns in the world. It had never occurred to her that this moon-shaped lagoon might be a relic of the river's past.

He looked around. 'It's odd, however. As if the valley is too big for the river.'

'So it is.' The priest plodded down to the water's edge. Jurgi had got rid of his pack; bare-chested, he carried only his charm bag. He pulled off his boots, sat on the bank and gratefully lowered his feet into the water. 'Ah, that's good. I don't do enough walking; my feet aren't tough enough. In our story of the world, Shade, ice giants made the world from the first mother's body, the land from her bones, the sea from her blood. Later the little mothers finished the job. But the giants' shaping was crude and rough, which is why the world is such a jumble now, with valleys like this, too big for the rivers that contain them.'

'We have a different story. To do with big trees.'

'Maybe all our stories share a deeper truth,' the priest said.

Shade grunted. 'You're a funny sort of priest.'

'Am I?'

'That's what my brother says about you. The priests back home say there's one kind of truth - their truth. If you disagree you get punished. Gall says you're a genius, or mad, or a fool.'

Jurgi laughed out loud. 'Or all three.' Tentatively, he touched Ana's shoulder. 'And how are you?'

Caught between light and dark, she thought. 'I don't know. I wish I was a sand martin.'

'Even sand martins have work to do,' the priest said. 'Digging holes to build nests. Flying far to their winter homes.'

'A tadpole then. Swimming mindlessly.'

'How do you know they are mindless? Never mind.' He glanced around, at the people playing in the water, or working at the settlement. 'It was a good idea to come here. Etxelur has not been a happy place this winter.'

'It's because of us, isn't it?'

'Ever since the Pretani boys showed up. Brother against brother, sister against sister.' He sighed. 'Frankly, I think most people wish your father would return, Ana. It is as if we are led by wilful children.'

'It's my fault,' Ana said dismally. 'My Other. I'm bad luck.'

'You've had no control over any of this,' the priest said.

'None of us have,' said Shade heavily.

'If only you'd just go home!' Ana flared at him, her anger surprising herself.

'Oh, that's not going to happen,' said the priest. 'Not until this little game of yours is played out, one way or another. Let's hope that these days in the valley will soothe our spirits'

There was a piercing yell. They all looked to the cleared area before the forest. A tall figure emerged, a deer slung over his neck, hand cupped to his mouth.

'Gall's back,' said the priest.

'No.' Ana stood up. 'That's not Gall. That's a snailhead!'

18.

That first night they had nothing to do with the snailheads, though they could see the smoke of their fires around the curve of the river.

Gall's red deer, when he returned with it, was set aside for the morning. That night they fed on birds' eggs and young chicks and smaller game flushed out by the dogs, pine martens and a young beaver. The meat was roasted on a fire of fallen branches collected from the forest, the eggs splashed onto hot rocks to be fried and sc.r.a.ped up with wooden spatulas.

The small children, worn out by the walk and the excitement, started to grow sleepy as soon as the sun had gone down and there was food in their bellies. They were put down in the one surviving house; for tonight the adults would make do with lean-tos. It was still early enough in the year for the night to be cold, and Ana took it on herself to check on the children, making sure they were covered with skins and heaps of leaves. Lightning, meanwhile, curled up close to the fire.

The adults and older children got to work at simple jobs, knapping fresh stone blades, repairing rips in house covers with thread made of plaited, greased bark. They had found antlers, dropped by the deer the previous autumn; now they sat around the fire working at the antlers with flint chisels, making awls and sc.r.a.pers and fish hooks and harpoons with fine, multiple barbs. It was steady, patient, satisfying work, and the priest led them in murmured songs.

They carefully ignored the snailheads.

In the morning, the day began with the butchery of Gall's deer. It was a big beast, a handsome male. Gall had already removed its antlers. The women took the lead in the butchery, picking up tools from a shared heap as they needed them. But Gall looked faintly disgusted when some of the men of Etxelur joined in - and even more so when Shade picked up a stone blade. Ana knew that in Gall's culture the women did such work, with the hunter sitting around and lapping up the praise for his kill. Maybe Shade was curious about learning a new skill. Or maybe he was just trying to irritate his brother.

The animal's head was removed first, and this was the job of the priest, who used an ancient, l.u.s.trous flint tool from his charm bag. He apologised to the deer, closing its lifeless eyes and kissing the lids. Then he cut through the animal's cheek and briskly removed its tongue, severing it at the root; this juicy treat would be his reward.

Then came the skinning. The women made cuts around the hooves and along the inside of the legs; the torso was sliced from throat to crotch. Then the animal was turned over and the skin peeled back, the men hauling, the women crawling around with their blades to chop away sinews and clinging tissue. The skin came away almost intact, and was folded and set aside.

The animal was cut open with heavy blades, and its stomach wall and ribs pulled back. The lungs were torn out and discarded, the guts spilled to the ground. The liver was dug out of the pile of offal and handed to Gall, the hunter, as his prize; he bit into it raw. Then the butchers moved around the carca.s.s, working steadily. The legs were removed and broken at the joints, the ribs put aside, meat sliced from the body. As the animal disintegrated neat piles grew up around it, of meat fillets, big bones to be sucked clean of their marrow, sinews and useful bits of smaller bones, heaps of gut to be chopped up and mixed with blood, salted, fried. Some of the more bitter internal organs would be thrown into the waste pit, which had been placed close to the forest's edge to lure pigs. Only a few scattered fragments were thrown aside, chopped vertebrae, bone fragments.

Before the butchery was finished, Ana went to work with her sister on the skin. They sc.r.a.ped it clean of the last of the blood and fat and sinews, using tools of small stone blades stuck into a bit of bone with resin. It was fine, careful work; you had to get rid of all the waste while not cutting the skin. After they were done here, the skin would be rinsed in the river water and then soaked in the urine pit for a couple of days, after which the hide would be taken out, washed, and put through a process of stretching, rubbing, folding, soaking, until it was quite soft. Meanwhile there were the deer's sinews to work on. These would be sc.r.a.ped with even finer tools. Back at the coast they would be washed in sea water, hung up to dry, and split into fine threads. These would be made soft by working over with sc.r.a.pers, as Ana preferred, or working through your teeth, as others chose.

In this way virtually none of the deer was wasted, and a proper price paid for taking its life.

Glancing up, wiping a b.l.o.o.d.y hand across her forehead, Ana saw that four young buzzards were circling overhead, their round wings and tail easily visible. When the people had gone and the birds and worms were done with their feeding, nothing would be left of the deer but a few fragments of bone and broken flint. And perhaps when the river s.h.i.+fted its course again, even those traces would be washed out to sea, leaving the land as clean as if humans had never come here at all.

This was what was best about life, she thought, a little wistfully. Useful labour hard enough to make your muscles ache and your skin glow with sweat. People building their lives together through one small task after another, while respecting the world and the endless gifts the mother G.o.ds provided for them.