We raced through a group of fish boats between the headlands. The men ignored us as we passed. I wore the clothes of an inlander, and Charm was a woman; they had no reason to acknowledge our presence. Then one tall fellow, in the act of pulling in a taut line, raised a hand and smiled.
“That’s Dad,” said Charm briefly, too occupied with the tiller to wave back. “Hold on tight, now. I’m taking us over the bar.”
Wise sailors skirt the bar with its confused waves that can dump a boat onto hard sand and break its back, but Charm was in too much of a hurry to consider such matters. Besides, I thought glumly, it’s not her boat.
But she knew what she was doing, caught a wave with plenty of body to it, and surfed over the bar into the deep water of the estuary beyond. I breathed a deep sigh of relief; I’d been holding my breath as we’d scooted along, seeing shellfish sitting on the bottom a handbreadth below the surface. “Won’t be long now,” said Charm.
But she was wrong. Our lives were about to change forever.
There came a solid bump, and the boat slewed to starboard. My first thought was that we’d hit bottom. The boat heeled over, then righted itself as I let the sheet fly.
“What was that?” I exclaimed.
“I don’t know.” Charm twisted around, scanning the water in our wake. “Look, there it is. There’s something floating.”
Now I could see it too, at the point where the bubbles of our wake showed a sudden curve. Just below the surface, something dark.
“It’s a dead lorin,” I said. I could see an arm, outflung.
Charm swung the boat around and we drifted slowly with the wind, back toward the object. I was getting a bad feeling about the thing. The closer we approached, the less like a lorin it looked.
Charm voiced my fears. “I… I think it’s a person.”
We drifted alongside. I reached out with the boathook and snagged it. It floated face down, a rounded back just breaking the surface. It wore a dark shirt and pants. It was big enough to be almost certainly male.
And in the center of the back was a wound from which a cloud of pink still drifted.
Someone or something had killed this man. My first thought was that a snorter had gored him; people don’t kill people, on our world. Or at least, hardly ever. But he’d have to be lying down for a snorter to cause that wound. An unlikely scenario. People don’t lie down and let snorters gore them.
I felt sick, and it wasn’t just because we’d found a body. It was something else; something about the size and shape of the body.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
I was thinking: this isn’t Dad. It’s Dad’s size and Dad’s shape but it isn’t Dad. Dad was wearing his negotiating cloak; this person only has a shirt and pants on. It isn’t Dad.
“Roll him over,” said Charm quietly.
I knelt and took hold of the cord around his waist and pulled. He rolled onto his side, then back again, nearly pulling me out of the boat. He was heavy. I tried again and the same thing happened. I worked up a rhythm, hauling at him, then letting go as he rolled back, hauling again, gaining a little each time.
Finally the resistance slackened at the top of a roll, and he kept going, and his head came round, and his eyes were staring at the sky.
And it was Dad. My father. The person who had sired me and taught me and been my friend and companion for most of my life.
I heard Charm say, “I’m so sorry, Hardy.”
And I tried to stifle my feelings, not because I didn’t want Charm to hear me wailing with sorrow and weakness and despair, but because we must have compassion for our descendants, and mine would be visiting this moment down generations without end.
I’d never felt so alone, despite Charm’s presence. We roped Dad’s body to the boat and towed it slowly to the nearest land: the sandy shore below the man’s village. We beached the boat among Noss fish boats, untied Dad and dragged him clear of the water. A few fishermen arrived, staring at the body. One of them tried to help us.
“Get away from him!” I heard myself yell.
He backed off without comment. For all I knew, he might have been the murderer. But I doubted it. I thought I knew who was responsible.
Charm said quietly, “We’re going to need help loading him onto the motorcart, Hardy.”
“I don’t need help from any Noss people, thanks very much!”
“I… I’m a Noss person.”
I looked at her. She was crying.
“Somebody stabbed Dad in the back,” I said.
“It doesn’t have to be anyone from Noss.”
“It can’t be anyone else. And anyway, I know who it is. It’s that freezer Cuff!”
There was a murmur of outrage from the fishermen, who by now had grown into quite a crowd. “Careful what you say there, grubber boy,” someone said.
I looked up at their hostile faces, uncaring. “Cuff quarreled with Dad today. I saw Cuff heading up toward the women’s village in your motorcart. Dad went for a walk on the cliff and he’d have come down that way. Cuff waited for him and killed him.”
“You’re speaking of the manchief’s son,” said a fisherman grimly.
“Please don’t talk like this, Hardy,” said Charm.
Three lorin had arrived, and now they knelt beside Dad, placing their hands on him and sighing. I let them stay; you never know, with lorin.
“I think an apology is due,” said someone.
It was a bad time to lose my temper; but standing there over Dad — killed, I was sure, by a Noss man — among an unsympathetic crowd, and hearing someone asking for an apology from me… . From me! It was too much. I swung round on the speaker.
“You go to Rax!” I shouted in his face.
He must have read the violence in me because he backed off. Others didn’t. My arms were seized. I struggled, getting in a few good kicks before I was overpowered. I was hustled up the beach, grim faces all around me. I was still in the grip of anger, and felt no fear.
“In the net loft,” someone said.
A door was opened and they threw me inside. I landed on a pile of stinking nets, unhurt. One of the men remained inside the doorway, all ready to make a parting speech which I had no intention of hearing. I threw myself at him, hauled him away from the door and hit him solidly on the nose. It was his turn to fall among the nets. Other faces were grouped in the doorway now, peering in uncertainly. I made a run for them but was brought up short by the sheer weight of numbers. I hit a couple of them, but there were too many hands, and they tossed me back among the nets.
“He needs teaching a lesson,” said the man I’d hit first, feeling his nose gingerly as he joined his companions in the doorway.
It was an ugly situation, and my anger ebbed as I realized what I’d got myself into. There were some twenty fishermen out there, and some of them had picked up the clubs they use for killing fish forced to the surface by the grume. Unlike humans we are not naturally violent people, but there was a queer madness in the air that day and at last I began to feel frightened. They surged into the hut, watching me as I lay there. I don’t think they saw me as a person like themselves. They saw me as a dangerous animal, which made it much easier for them to attack me.
I jumped to my feet, kicked myself clear of entangling nets, and climbed the ladder to the loft. This ran around three sides of the building, a balcony about twice as wide as a stilk is tall. I threw the ladder away, realizing too late that I’d have been better off pulling it up, and stood looking down at them while their combined shouts blended into an animal roar. I remembered hearing about the blood-lust that comes over Noss fishermen during the grume, when they paddle their boats among stranded fish, clubbing and clubbing mindlessly, roaring all the while. They were not people any more; they were predators.
They leaned the ladder against the loft. A burly man began to climb. I let him get near the top, then heaved the ladder backwards. He fell among the others, and the roar
intensified. More men arrived, bringing more ladders. They began to climb in several places.
I was about to dislodge the nearest ladder when I realized the face before me was Charm’s.
She ran up the last few rungs and turned to face the crowd below.
“All right, that’s enough!” she yelled.
The roar died away. “Come down from there, Charm!” came a single shout. “We don’t want to hurt you!”
“Just calm down, will you?” she shouted back. “You’re Noss fishermen! Where’s your pride? You’re behaving like a pack of grume riders!”
This brought some angry muttering; partly because it was true, and partly because Charm was the womanchief’s daughter with no authority over the fishermen. But she had an undeniable status in the village, and those on the ladders hesitated.
“This is a matter for Walleye to deal with!” she shouted.
“Fetch Walleye!” someone yelled, and his shout was taken up by others, and the moment passed and the mood changed, and I was saved.
“Thanks,” I said to Charm, as men began to stretch themselves out on the nets to await the arrival of their manchief.
She gave me an unfriendly look. “Make the most of it,” she said, and climbed down the ladder, and was gone. She was loyal to her people and I’d upset her by accusing one of their number.
For a while I felt guilty about it and considered the possibility that I’d been wrong, but the guilt soon turned to sorrow as I tried to come to terms with the loss of Dad. What would I do without him? What would Yam do without him? As time passed I began to get angry again. My father had been killed, yet these people were holding me prisoner when they should have been out questioning Cuff at the very least. I climbed down the ladder. My guards tensed themselves, ready to deal with this wild young man.
“Let me pass,” I said.
“You must wait for Walleye.”
“Why?”
“Be patient.”
In the end it was Lonessa who arrived. “Come with me,” she said briefly.
One of the guards objected. “We must wait for Walleye.”
“He’s up at the council house,” she told him. “You can’t expect him to walk all the way down here.”
The guards muttered unhappily, but in the end they let us go. On our silent walk to the council house we passed the Yam motorcart and I saw that Dad’s body had been loaded onto the cargo platform at the rear. Water dripped to the road. I could have wept. The last cargo on that platform had been dried fish. My anger was all gone, my sorrow was threatening to cause me to break down. I entered the council house where, earlier that day, Dad had sat and talked and lived and thrown Cuff against the wall.
Walleye and Charm sat there. Cuff was not present. Lonessa and I sat down. The room was terribly dead and empty without Dad.
Walleye spoke first. “I understand you’ve accused my son Cuff of killing your father.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. Charm would not look at me.
Walleye continued. “You’re young and rash.”
“I know that. It doesn’t alter the facts,” I managed to say.
“My son Cuff,” said Walleye in apparent sorrow.
Lonessa lost patience with the old fool. “We’re all very sorry about Bruno,” she broke in. “He was a great man, the greatest man in Yam. You’re going to find it very difficult without him. Stance will find it very difficult. But it’s no good you accusing Cuff or any other Noss villager. You’re an intelligent young fellow. Just think what kind of effect it will have on Yam if you go back with a story like that.”
So that was the line they were taking. It was a good one. Next winter would be a hard one, and Yam needed the goodwill of Noss — and to some extent vice versa. There would be no goodwill if a Noss man was accused of killing the brother of the Yam manchief.
“It’s my father we’re talking about,” I said weakly, having taken the point.
“And my son,” said Walleye.
“Have you spoken to him?” I asked.
“Yes. He denies it.”
“I want to speak to him myself.”
“It’ll do no good. He’ll still deny it.”
“Do you believe him?” I asked.
“He’s my son,” said Walleye.
“What about you, Lonessa?”
“I don’t know how men think,” she said frankly. “I don’t know what might have been going on in Cuff’s mind after your father attacked him in here. If he were a woman, I’d say Cuff did not kill your father. But Cuff’s a man and a fisherman, and fishermen are strange. Anyway, it’s all beside the point. The real point is, you must not carry your suspicions back to Yam. I say this for Yam’s own sake.”
“Bruno was a great man,” mumbled Walleye. “A great negotiator. It won’t be the same with Stance.”
I’d begun to realize that much of my anger stemmed from fear. With Dad gone I was at the mercy of Uncle Stance and his idiocy, as was all of Yam. I was feeling lonely and threatened. In the past Dad had always been there whatever happened, protecting us, correcting Uncle Stance’s mistakes. It was small consolation that Uncle Stance would probably feel the same as I did, when he heard of our loss. And what about Spring? Of all the people in Yam, she was the one to whom I least wanted to break the news.
Through all this Charm had sat silent, watching me gravely. At last I began to regret my earlier outburst. I should have known better than to accuse the Noss manchief’s son in front of Noss people. Now even Charm was against me. I should have kept my suspicions to myself.
And, in due course, visited retribution… .
I smiled briefly at Charm in the hope she would smile back. She didn’t. Lonessa saw, and said, “You make it very difficult for Charm. The time will come when she and Cuff will get together. They are admirably suited.”
She couldn’t have said anything better calculated to plunge me further into despair.
Surprisingly, Walleye offered me accommodation for the night. By the time we’d finished the discussion it was late, cold and getting colder. The breakdown of the motorcart during the journey from Devon Station was fresh in my mind, and always would be. Night driving was too dangerous for my taste.
So I accepted Walleye’s offer.
It took some time to walk to his cottage; he was a very slow mover. When we arrived I found the interior was much bigger than Uncle Stance’s place, and the sleeping quarters were on the upper floor. This took the form of an open balcony rather like the net loft. Walleye climbed the ladder painfully and showed me to a pile of skins covered with a thick loxhair blanket.
“You sleep here.” He hesitated. “It’s been a long time since a Yam man stayed in this house. Your father used to, from time to time.”
This seemed to be a friendly overture, so I thanked him. I drew on my ancestors’ memories and we chatted of times past for a while; old people like to do that. I wondered how old Walleye actually was. Certainly he was much older that Dad, although the abominable Cuff and I were much the same age. Walleye had left the begetting of his son as long as was feasible.
The abominable one arrived as we were discussing an unusual grume that occurred over a century ago, when the sea was so dense that the skimmers could barely move on it, and the stranded fish decayed in the sun before they could be harvested, and monsters waved ponderous limbs just below the surface, struggling to return to their accustomed deeps.
“What in the name of Rax is this freezer doing here?”
Such was Cuff’s idea of hospitality.
“He’s staying the night,” said Walleye mildly.
“No, he’s not!”
“Calm yourself, Cuff. His father’s dead. I can’t send him back to Yam alone in the middle of the night.”
“I’m gonna smash his face in.” Cuff was a youth of limited ambition. “He accused me of stabbing the old fool in the back. I did no such thing. I’ve been tuning the motorcart’s valve
gear most of the day. And you know what he’s been doing? He’s been hanging around Charm. So step aside, Father. Let me smash his face in.”
“For Phu’s sake, Cuff! You’re going to be manchief one day. Show a bit of maturity, will you?”
“After I’ve dealt with this freezer. And I’ll tell you right now, Father, things will be different when I’m manchief. There’d be no more handouts to Yam, for a start. Those freezers are bleeding us dry.”
“You’ve already made your views clear. But I have to remind you that I’m still manchief.”
Cuff subsided, muttering. My trip down memory lane with Walleye was over. I settled down on my bedding, pulling the loxhair blanket over me.
I lay awake for a long time, reliving my discovery of Dad’s body. The horror of it seemed to grow as the night wore on, and I found myself weeping. At some point in that long night, I realized I would have to put the incident under geas.
I’ve mentioned geas before: the taboo on revisiting certain ancestral memories. I had no right to subject my descendants to the personal sorrow I was suffering as a result of Dad’s death, so I spent the rest of the night imposing the geas by an effort of concentration. As they stardreamed in years to come my descendants would come across the geas. They could ignore it if they so wished, of course; the memory behind it was still there, and ineradicable. But they would assume I’d had good reason for imposing the geas, and out of respect for me, their ancestor, they would obey it. So a veil would be forever drawn over this day and its sorrow.
Except in my own memories, of course.
I awakened early and left Walleye and Cuff still sleeping. Phu had appeared over the hillside, tinting the white cottages pink, but I was in no mood for appreciating Noss’s beauty. The air was fresh and chilly. I stacked tinder and cordwood in the motorcart’s firebox, lit it with a blazing stick from a nearby public heater, and sat shivering in the cab waiting for the boiler pressure to build.
Behind me, a loxhair blanket white with hoar frost covered Dad’s body.
Pallahaxi Page 31
