After she was gone I stood throwing rocks furiously at the shenn, watching them run in stupid terror around and around the field.
And because of it, when I had worn out my rage, I discovered one of my shenn had disappeared. Searching and cursing, I finally found the stubborn old ewe up on the scarp at the field’s end. She was scrabbling clumsily over the ragged black boulders, cutting her tender feet and leaving tufts of her silky wool on every rock and thorn bush. I caught her with my crook at last and dragged her back down by her flopping ears, while she butted at me and stepped on my bare feet with her claws out. I cursed her mentally now, not having a hand to spare, and cursed my own idiocy, but mostly I cursed the Mother Herself, because all my troubles seemed to come from Her.
Scratched and aching all over, I got the ewe down the crumbling hill to the field at last, whacked her with my crook, and watched her trot indignantly away to rejoin the flock. I started toward the stream to wash my smarting body, but Etaa was ahead of me, going down to drink. Afraid that she would see me for the fool I was, I threw myself down in the shade of the hillside instead and pretended to be resting. I couldn’t tell if she was even looking at me, though I squinted and stretched my eyes with my fingers.
But then suddenly she was on her feet running toward me, waving her arms. I got up on my knees, wondering what crazy thing—
And then a piece of the hill gave way above me and buried me in blackness.
I woke spitting, with black dirt in my eyes, my nose, my mouth, to see Etaa at my side still clawing frantically at the earth and rubble that had buried my legs. All through her life, though she wasn’t large even among women, she had strength to match that of many men. And all through my life I remembered the wild, burning look on her face, as she turned to see me alive. But she didn’t make a sign, only kept at her digging until I was free.
She helped me stand, and as I looked up at the slumped hillside the full realization of what had been done came to me. I dropped to my knees again and rubbed fistfuls of the tumbled earth into my hair, praising Her Body and begging Her forgiveness. Never again did I question the Mother’s wisdom or doubt Her strength. I saw Etaa kneel beside me and do the same.
As we shared supper by my tent, I asked Etaa how she’d known when she tried to warn me. —Did you see it happening?
She shook her head. —I felt it, first ... but the Mother didn’t give me enough time to warn you.
—Because She was punishing me. She should have killed me for the things I thought today!
—But it was me who made her angry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have said that about your parents. It was awful, it was—cruel.
I looked at her mournful face, shadowed by the greening twilight. —But it was true. I sighed. —And it wasn’t just today that I have cursed the Mother. But I’ll never do it again. She must have been right, to let my parents die. They hated staying together; they didn’t appreciate the blessing of their fertility, when others pray for children but can’t make any.
—Hywel…maybe they’re happier now, did you ever think? She looked down self-consciously. —To return to the Mother’s Womb is to find peace, my mother says. Maybe She knew they were unhappy in life, so She let them come back, to be born again.
—Do you really think so? I leaned forward, not knowing why this strange girl’s words should touch me so.
She wrinkled her face with thought. —I really think so.
And I felt the passing of the second shadow that had darkened my mind for so long, as though for me it was finally Midsummer’s Day and I stood in the light again.
Etaa insisted on staying with me that night; her mother was a healer, and she informed me that I might have “hidden injuries,” so gravely that I laughed. I lay awake a long time, aching but at peace, looking up past the leather roof into the green-lit night. I could see pallid Laa Merth, the Earth’s Grieving Sister, fleeing wraithlike into the outer darkness in her endless effort to escape her mother, the Cyclops, who always drew her back. The Cyclops had turned her lurid Eye away from us, and the shining bands of her robe made me think for once of good things, like the banded melons ripening in the village fields below.
I looked back at Etaa, her short dark curls falling across her cheek and her bare chest showing only the softest hint of curves under her fortune-seed necklace. I found myself wishing that she would somehow magically become a woman, because I was just old enough to be interested; and then suddenly I wished that then she would have me for her man, something I’d never thought about anyone else before. But if she were a woman, she would become our priestess and have her pick of men and not want one without the second sight…I remembered the look she’d given me as she dug me out of the landslide, and felt my face redden, thinking that maybe I might have a chance, after all.
* * * *
Through the summer and the seasons that followed I spent much time with Etaa and slowly got used to her strange skills. I had never known what it was like to feel the Mother’s touch, or even another human’s, on my own soul; and since I had few close friends, I didn’t know the ways of those who had the second sight. To be with Etaa was to be with someone who saw into other worlds. Often she started at nothing, or told me what we’d find around the next turn of the path; she even knew my feelings sometimes, when she couldn’t see my face. She felt what the Earth feels, the touch of every creature on Her skin.
Etaa’s second sight made her like a creature of the forest (for all animals know the will of the Mother), and, solitary like me, she spent much time with only the wild things for company. Often she tried to take me to see them, but they always bolted at my coming. Etaa would wince and tell me to move more slowly, step more softly, breaking branches offends the Earth…but I could never really tell what I was doing wrong.
The next year on Midsummer’s Eve I was initiated into manhood. During the feast that followed, while I sat dripping and content after my ducking in the sacred spring, Etaa sat proudly at my side. But when midnight came I left the celebration to walk in the fields with Hegga, because for that one could only ask a woman, and Etaa was still a child. Which she proved, by sticking her tongue out at Hegga as we passed. But it made me smile, since it meant she was closer to being a woman, too.
Now that I was a man, Teleth, who was the village smith, asked me to be his apprentice. Smithing is a gift of the Sun to the Fire clan, and a man of that clan is always the smith, whatever clan he marries into. Teleth, my mother’s cousin, had a son who would have followed him, but his son was farsighted, and not much good at the close work smithing required. I was Teleth’s closest nearsighted kin; but he signed that I was good with my hands and quick with my mind too, which pleased him more. And pleased me too, more than I could tell him; because besides the honor, it meant that I’d have a better chance of impressing Etaa.
Though she was still a child, whenever I saw her passing in the village, or watched her sign to the people who came to see her, the grace of her manner and her words left me amazed; especially since for me words never came easy, and my hands showed my feelings better by what they made from metal and wood. But often I saw her, from the smithy, going off alone on the path to the Mother’s Glen, and I remembered the burden she always carried with her, and how she had lightened mine. And then I’d go back to work, and work twice as hard, hoping Teleth would take pity on me and let me go early.
But usually Teleth kept me working every spare minute; he was young, but he had a lung sickness that made him cough up blood, and he was afraid he wouldn’t live long. When I could be with Etaa at last, my hands tangled with excitement while I tried to set free the things I could never share with anyone else. With me Etaa was free to be the child she couldn’t be with anyone else; and though sometimes it annoyed me, and I thought she would never grow up, I endured it, because I saw it was something she needed; and because she would pull my head down and kiss me sometimes as lightly as the touch of a rainbow fly, before she ran away.
We were always
together at the Four Feasts and for other rituals, because until she became a woman she wouldn’t be our priestess. We saw each other in the fields at planting and harvest too, when everyone worked together, and sometimes in the summer she’d come foraging and berry picking with me. Having eyes that saw both near and far, she could choose whatever task she liked; and, she said, she liked to be with me.
Usually our berry picking went crazy with freedom, and more berries got eaten and stepped on than ever went into our baskets. But one windless, muggy day in the second summer after my initiation, we went in search of red burrberries and Mother’s moss for healing. All through the morning Etaa was strangely reserved and solemn, as though she were practicing her formal face in front of me now too. I tried to draw her out, and when I couldn’t, I began to feel desperate at the thought that I’d offended her by something I didn’t know I’d done—or worse, that she was finally losing interest in me.
—Mother’s Tits! I jerked back from a thorn, cursing and fumbling all at once, and lost another handful of berries.
Etaa looked back from the stream bank, where she was peeling up moss, sensing sharp emotions as she always did. —Hywel, are you all right?
I nodded, barely able to make out her signs from where I stood. —Just save some of that moss for me. I’m being stabbed to death.
She came scrambling up the bank. —Let me pick, then, and you get the moss. It will soothe your hands while you work.
—I’m all right. I felt my old sullenness rise up in me.
—I don’t mind. My scratches are better already…Look! There’s a rubit. It’s the Mother’s bird; She wants you to change places with me.
—How do you know what it means? You’re not the priestess yet. I squinted along her pointing finger. —And that’s not a rubit, it’s a follower bird.
—Yes, it is a rubit, I can feel its—
—It is not! I crossed my arms.
—Hywel— She stared at me. —What’s wrong with, you today?
—What’s wrong with you! All day you’ve acted like you barely know me! I turned away, to hide the things my face couldn’t.
At last she touched my shoulder; I turned back, to see her blushing as red as the burrberries and her hands twitching at her waist. —I didn’t mean to ... but I couldn’t tell you ... I thought…Oh, Hywel, will you walk in the fields with me on Midsummer’s Eve? Her face burned even redder, her eyes as bright as the Sun.
Laughter burst out of me, full of relief and joy. I caught her up in my arms and swung her, my body saying yes and yes and yes, while she hung on and I felt her laugh her own relief away. I set her down, and straightened the links of my belt to cover my speechlessness. Then I looked her over, grinning, and signed, —So, brat, you’ve finally grown up?
She stretched her face indignantly. —I certainly have. So please don’t call me “brat” anymore. As a matter of fact, my mother hasn’t cut my hair for nearly six months, and you never even noticed!
I touched the dark curls that reached almost down to her shoulders now. —Oh. I guess I didn’t. I’ll have to make you a headband, to go with your necklace.
Her hand rose to the string of jet and silver beads I had made for her. —My necklace doesn’t hang straight anymore, either.
—I noticed that. I grinned again, moving closer.
She caught my head and pulled it down to kiss me, as she always did; but this time she didn’t pull away, and her kiss was more like fire than a rainbow fly’s wing.
I jerked away instead. —Hai, I never taught you that! Who have you been with?
—Nobody. Hegga told me you liked that! She danced away, and hands waving wildly, slipped and fell down the bank into the bed of moss.
I leaped down the bank after her, landing beside her in the soft, gray-green moss. —Gossip about me, will you? I signed. And then I taught her a few things Hegga hadn’t told her about.
It seemed to me that Midsummer’s Eve would never come. But it came at last, and I found myself laying my cape out on the soft earth between the rows of wheat. I drew Etaa down beside me, her woman’s tunic still clinging wetly against her. And then we made love together for the first time, asking fertility for the fields and for ourselves, while I wondered if I was dreaming, because I’d dreamed it often enough.
After, we lay together in the gentle warm night, seeing each other’s smiles bathed in green glow, watching the Cyclops like a great striped melon overhead. I gave her the earrings I’d made for her, silver bells shaped like winket blossoms, the symbol of a priestess of the Mother. She took them almost with awe, stroking them with her fingers, and signed that they had a beautiful soul. And I thought of how she would become our priestess tomorrow on Midsummer’s Day, and pulled her close again, wondering what would happen between us then. Etaa wiggled her hands free, and asked if she was really a woman now, in my eyes. I kissed her forehead and signed, —In every way, feeling her heart beating hard against me. And then, proudly, as if she had read my mind, she asked me to be her husband. . . .
We didn’t return to the village until dawn; and the harvest that year was bountiful.
* * * *
But cold drizzling rain falls now, the sky is gray with grief, I lie below the cliff and even yesterday is beyond the reach of my crippled hands. Only yesterday . . . yesterday Midsummer’s Day came again, the Day of Fruitfulness, the greatest of the Mother’s sacred feasts—and the day that should have been our joy, Etaa’s and mine. Yesterday our Mother Earth escaped the shadow of the envious Cyclops, and was united again with her shining lover the Sun, once more defying darkness and barren night. And yesterday the priestess of our village took the Mother’s part in ritual, and a man of the appointed clan was her consort, to ensure a safe passage through the seasons of Dark Noons and a better future for our people. Because the priestess of a village is the woman most blessed by the Mother, each Midsummer’s Day by tradition she joins with a man of a different clan, in celebration, and in the hope of creating a child blessed as she is, who will strengthen the blood of its father’s clan.
This year, as in the past seven years, Etaa was our priestess; but this year my own clan had chosen her consort, and they had chosen me. Etaa’s face mirrored my own joy when I told her; because though I was smith now, and though I was her husband, that highest honor usually went to the clansman most gifted with the second sight.
And then on Midsummer’s Day Etaa shook me awake at dawn, her eyes filled with love. She wore only her shift, and already her Midsummer garlands twined in the wild dark curls of her hair. She smelled of summer flowers. —Hywel, it’s Midsummer!
I felt myself laugh, half a yawn. —I know, I know, priestess! I could hardly forget—
—Hywel, I have a surprise. She glanced down suddenly, and her hands trembled as she signed. I saw her silver earrings flash in the light. —I missed my monthly time, and I think—I think—
—Etaa! I touched her stomach, still flat and firm beneath the thin linen of her shift.
—Yes! Her smile broke into laughter as I pulled her down beside me into the hammock. Eight years of marriage and seven Midsummer’s Days had passed, and we had begun to think Etaa was barren, like so many others; until now—
I held her tightly in the soft clasp of our hammock, swaying gently side by side. —We’re truly blessed, Etaa. Maybe the Mother was waiting for this day. I began to kiss her, pulling at her shift, but all at once she pushed me away.
—No, Hywel, today we have to wait!
I grinned. —You take me for an old man, me, the father of your child? I won’t slight the Mother today—but neither will I slight my wife!
Yesterday was all it could have been, the Sun’s glory dazzling the sky, the bright fields of grain . . . Etaa’s radiant face in the Mother’s Glen, on the day when she became Wife and Mother to us all, and I was her chosen.
But then, this morning, she asked me to let her ride with us when I went to trade with the Neaane. We have traded with the Neaane since we f
irst settled on their border, longer ago than anybody can remember. They are a strange, inward people who have lost all understanding of the Mother. Their lives are grim and joyless because of it; they even persecute their people who are blessed with the second sight, calling them witches. They believe in gods who live in the sky, who abandoned them, and, they say, caused the plague that took the Blessed Time from all people.
We never liked their beliefs, but we liked their possessions: soft-footed palfers to carry burdens or pull a plow, new kinds of seed for our fields—even a way to keep the fields fertile over many years, which gave us a more settled life. They wanted our metalwork and jewelry, and the hides of wild animals, because they like to show wealth even more than we do, especially the ones who have most of it. Settled farming has given them time to develop many strange customs, including setting some people above all others, often for no good reason as far as we could see, not wisdom or courage or even good vision.
Orbit 16 - [Anthology] Page 2
