Travellers #1

by Jack Lasenby

  I tried to tell Rose all that had happened since we were parted by Karly Campy, how Bar had brought his precious load to me; and Rose told me her life. At one point she ran out and returned carrying a bundle. I saw a baby’s head, its eyes closed. They opened, the little face screwed and turned red. The mouth pursed and squealed like Tor.

  “I named him Ish. I have two others. My husband is kind. He is the man who captured you. He says I must go now.”

  I kissed Rose’s baby, put the chain around her neck with the other disc and its pictures of Bar and me. A voice outside said something. Rose took the baby, kissed me, and was gone. “Remember me, Ish,” I heard.

  Next morning I looked around but could not see Rose amongst the women who stood and drew scarves over their eyes at the sight of Tor’s cage.

  “Servants of the Falcon,” said their leader, “be thankful and go.” The same men led us back to where they captured us. Everything was returned. As they left the men asked for one more glimpse of Tor. She cried when I removed her cover and wanted to get out, but I dared not free her. The men flung themselves down and crawled away. Later their shout echoed dim between bony hills.

  Chapter 22

  Seeds, Scythe, Potatoes

  We fled south. I wanted to paint Rose and her baby before they became vague like my earlier memories. I knew just how the pictures would look: the wondering Falcon People, eyes hidden from their goddess then raised to watch her flight; Rose entering our tent; her baby’s waking face querulous as Tor’s.

  We climbed in rain through trees, quick to beat rabbits and deer for the springing herbs and roots. North the sky was a bronze cauldron. I hoped Rose had got back to the edge of their huge bitter lake, safe from that incandescence.

  The animals put on condition as we crossed the mountains. I flew Tor, talked to Nip and the younger dogs, and told the animals my plans. We would never again have to work the Whykatto’s thin feed nor risk recapture by the Falcon People.

  Perhaps it was because they were the people who had killed her son. Hagar’s hands still worked her spindle, but she wandered in her mind. She dwelled more and more in another time.

  I collected leaves, herbs, bark, sheared some sheep, spun and wove while the animals grazed. Hagar was happy to sit spinning, mumbling, thoughts afar. And so we crossed and descended the mountains to the hot springs, and travelled around the lake, to the Hawk Cliffs.

  I dyed the wool, grateful Hagar had been so generous with her knowledge. She needed me, now. Nip never left her. The other dogs were easily able to guard the animals on their own. Jess’s first pups were growing, and I had chosen two for training, two for Dinny. There was rich rain. The grass was fat. The animals thrived. When wild dogs pestered, I hunted them with Jak, trapped them in snares and deadfalls.

  I set up the big looms. With so many dogs to feed I needed all my skill with the bow. I kept the net in the stream, smoked row upon row of fish, and checked the snares each morning before Hagar awoke.

  She liked to sit by the fire, on a wool-stuffed seat covered with our best rugs, one warped old hand on Nip’s neck. Sometimes I helped her down to soak in a hot pool.

  Tor killed her own meat, but it was more and more difficult to find time to fly her. One day I took off her leashes. “A happy hawk’s life!” I raised my hand, and she lifted between the stone turrets of the Hawk Cliffs, up and up, out of sight. When I told Hagar her mouth pursed as if pulled tight by a drawstring.

  “She saved our lives,” Hagar croaked. “You must let her have hers.” I hoped Tor flew with the wild hawks, but a selfish part wanted her return.

  Nip missed her in the inconsolable way of animals. I tried telling her we had been lucky to have Tor’s company for a while, what Hagar had once said about Dragon, but Nip lay by the perch several days. I wondered again at how little I understood the animals, their way of thinking.

  I came to remember Dragon and Tor as one. When I thought of Rose I thought of my hawk as well, two rare things that had passed through my life, forever gone. And then I thought of Tara and winced. Just her picture in my mind was enough to stop my breath.

  “You don’t need a lot of new metal things,” Hagar said one day as I passed the shuttle. “Why work so hard? The Metal People will be happy to swap anything for blankets.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “They used to depend on all the Travellers,” said Hagar. “Our few blankets and lengths of material are even more valuable. They’ll want to learn how to weave. They’ll want to know how to look after the animals, how to shear, spin, dye. Don’t give away our secrets cheaply. They need you as much as you need them.”

  Unsure what Hagar was saying, just delighted she was talking again, I poured boiling water on dried mint leaves and honey, a drink that comforted her.

  “You have been better than a son, Ish,” she said. “Now you are going to have to learn to live on your own.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “My time has come. You must leave me behind.”

  “I will never leave you behind, Hagar!”

  “I feel winter coming. The Travellers must move on or the animals will die.”

  “I’ve been cutting grass with the slashers. Two or three days in the sun and it’s dry. It’ll feed the animals in winter.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “There’ll be rabbits and deer and fish. And I can spend any spare time weaving. I’ll drag down firewood behind the donkeys. And I’m making a garden.”

  “We pick our herbs as we go.”

  “I planted the seeds Dinny and Tara gave me. We’ll soon be eating them.”

  “You might. I never will.”

  “The Whykatto will be a desert this winter, sand and the sun’s rage. The Falcon People won’t let us go a second time.”

  Hagar shook her head.

  “We need more seeds, a bigger garden. I could ride to the Swapping Ground and back. The dogs will look after the animals. If you’re here they will take them out and bring them back each day.”

  “How long have you been planning this?”

  “Ever since we left Tara and Dinny last year. The Journey is over, Hagar. Here the cave and hot springs will keep you warm.”

  “We are the Travellers. We make the Journey.”

  “We can’t go on.” I began to say it again, but Hagar had retreated into that other country in her mind. I had to see Tara and Dinny. I went around the sheep, checked the goats, and told the dogs what good guards they were. I told them we were starting our plan.

  “The animals will eat dried grass, and we’ll eat meat and fish – you like eating fish, don’t you!” They snapped their mouths and dribbled. I always used the word when giving them fish to eat. “Fish!” I said. “Fish!” Dogs remember a lot of words. They listened, one eye on the animals, and laughed, lolling red tongues between white teeth.

  “When I was little,” I said to Jak and Jess, “I used to wonder how you could do that without tearing your tongues to bits. Now I still don’t know.” They listened to me but watched the animals.

  A few days later I rode off leading two loaded donkeys. Each morning Hagar would send off Jak, Jess, Trick, and Het with the animals, and they would guard them on the grass near the cliffs, shepherding them home in the evening. The goats tried to beat the dogs during the day, but they liked to settle at night near us. They liked to see Hagar.

  Smoked fish hung in the cave. There was several days’ supply of rabbits and hares hanging, pots of food cooked. I did not like leaving Hagar behind, but she could not ride. I needed more seeds, more advice from Dinny on gardening. Most of all I had to talk to Tara.

  “Take the animals with you,” said Hagar. “When you have seen Dinny and Tara, you will come to your senses and go north. Leave me behind. I have had my life.”

  “Look for me in a few days.”

  “You are a fool!” she spat. In a bad mood I rode off but looked back, and she had come to the mouth of the cave and was looking after me. I ran back and
hugged her, kissed her old mouth. Her breath stank. “I will never leave you behind,” I said.

  She shoved me away, hobbled into the cave. Fog hid the lake as I remounted.

  I changed the loads around and rode a different donkey morning and afternoon. “You can rest at the Swapping Ground,” I told them. “You’ve been doing nothing but eat and grow fat.”

  They trotted, swivelling their ears to my voice. I missed not having a dog. Once or twice I saw a dot in the sky, a dart over the heave of a hill, and wondered.

  At last I smelled the sulphurous air, saw the steam. I was spreading our goods on the Swapping Ground when Dinny and Tara appeared. “Where is the old woman?” asked Dinny. Again I was struck at how like my father he looked, but I stared hungrily at Tara.

  “Hagar is too old to travel,” I said. “We are going to settle at the Hawk Cliffs.”

  “What about the animals?”

  “I’m going to cut and store grass.”

  “Wait here.” Dinny disappeared through the scrub.

  The words spilled from me. I told Tara how Hagar had got old, how the Whykatto had dried up. I told her of our capture, of Rose and her baby, how Tor saved our lives, of what I had done with the chain and the two discs.

  Dinny returned and said his people still did not want to be seen. I must not see the forges where they worked their metal, but he had permission to show me their gardens. The track took us between boiling pools amongst the scrub and through a fence of tall stakes. In a thatched shelter we ate a meal of stewed venison. And, to my astonishment, I met Tara’s brothers. Sim and Petra were young and stared at me, curious yet afraid like young animals. I remembered Hagar said the Metal People survived by secrecy.

  I enjoyed eating a large vegetable root. “Haven’t you eaten potato before?” asked Tara. “Have another. We grow lots.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “You will,” said Dinny, and he laughed.

  Followed by Sim and Petra, we climbed through a belt of large trees to another high fence of stakes bound with what Dinny called wire. A herd of deer grazed, slow, heavy animals, like those in the swamp at the head of Lake Top. These had little of the alertness that made the wild ones so hard to hunt.

  “We farm them,” said Dinny, “for their meat and skins.” He described the way they moved the herds between fenced enclosures as they ate out the grass.

  The potato gardens were in a warm valley facing north. People had been digging them, storing them in huts built into the hillside.

  “We live by farming the deer,” said Dinny, “by gardening, and by swapping with you and the Salt People for the things we don’t make ourselves. Each summer we grow potatoes to feed us through winter, storing more than we need, as well as enough seed for next year. The deer live outside all winter, and we feed them dried grass.

  “You can last up there at your Hawk Cliffs, if there’s rabbits, hares, deer, and fish. You know the herbs and plants Hagar used to gather.”

  “I’ve made a garden,” I told him, “with the seeds you gave me last year.”

  “You’ll need lots more. I’ll tell you when to plant them. Some won’t grow until spring, but some you can put in now. I’m going to swap you some tools, so you can dig a big garden. You put most seeds in when the wild plants start growing. Anyway, come back and ask us. We will help.” When he spoke, everything seemed simple, everything possible.

  “We want your blankets and woven things,” said Dinny. “You want our metal tools. I’m going to give you some other tools as well, a scythe, a pitchfork, and a grass rake.”

  We returned to the Swapping Ground. My goods had disappeared, and the tools lay in their place. I saw at once what the others would do, but one was a strange, crooked-looking thing. Dinny ran a sharpening stone down its blade, stroking both sides. The metal rang. “Good steel!” he said. “It’s called a scythe.” The curved blade was as long as my arm. The handle was long, two short stubs sticking out from its side.

  “You must keep it sharp,” said Dinny. He took hold by the stubs which I now saw were the real handles. He stepped up to some soft fern, held the blade close to the ground and drew it through so the fern crumpled in a swathe. He moved gracefully, I thought, just like Tara.

  “Make sure the heel of the blade skims the ground. Keep it down. Just a narrow slice at a time. No, don’t knock the grass with it. That flattens it. Swing so the blade runs and cuts along a narrow band, like a moving knife. Now you’re getting it. That’s it! Remember, keep the heel down, the tip up, and cut a narrow swathe. You’ll learn by doing it.

  “If you hold the blade toward you, you can cut yourself badly. Sharpen it this way and be safe.” He turned the point down and sharpened it from behind.

  I liked the feel of the scythe and wanted to get back to the Hawk Cliffs and try it. It would cut so much more than the slashers.

  The most important thing, though, was Dinny’s approval. That was very important to me. “You are doing the right thing,” he said. “You must believe that. Staying at the Hawk Cliffs is the right thing to do!”

  They walked some way with me next morning. Sim and Petra ran ahead, firing arrows from their short bows. They talked more easily, then they would remember I was a stranger and be afraid. Like young dogs, I thought. Before I got on my donkey, Dinny held my shoulder and wished me luck. He repeated the advice about the seeds, the scythe, how to store the grass. I felt his touch and remembered my father touching my shoulder the first time I took my goats across the Narrower Ford.

  Tara drew down my head, kissed me on the mouth. Her breasts pressed against me until I felt dizzy and could not see. Sim and Petra laughed and held my donkey while I got on. I turned to wave, but they had vanished. It was lucky the donkeys remembered the way back; I rode not knowing which way we were going, still feeling Tara’s softness.

  The donkeys carried potatoes and lots of different seeds. A spade was for digging the soil, a hoe for breaking it up, a rake for dragging out weeds and making it even finer. Dinny had shown me how to dismantle the scythe and fit a wooden cover along its sharp blade before I lashed it on top of the load.

  I rode seeing Tara’s face, feeling her body imprinted on mine. She and Dinny had given me confidence. I was doing the right thing. Hagar would see the tools, seeds, potatoes and understand how we could live at the Hawk Cliffs for ever. I urged the donkeys on.

  Several days later I saw the animals, white dots on the green grass, the black specks of the dogs. I whistled but my mouth wouldn’t pucker. I licked my lips and tried spitting. Even then I couldn’t whistle properly; I had to shout to let them know we were back.

  Chapter 23

  The Dark Shrub

  Far off the dogs heard my shouts. Young Jokey and Whitey, Old Jokey’s and Whitey’s descendants, led the goats running, bleating, saying they were pleased to see me back, bunting my legs as I greeted them by name.

  Jak, Jess, Trick, and Het barked, jumped, and landed feet together. Heads down, tails up, they leapt, twisted, and whined. I realised how they had suffered my absence. I knew I was going to return, but they couldn’t.

  “Did you think I had left you behind?” I slipped off the donkey, hugging them. They sniffed me all over, as if listening to a strange story.

  Smoke blurred the mouth of the cave. Hagar tottered out, one hand over her eyes. I ran and hugged her. She felt different, as if the flesh had slumped forward from her skeleton.

  “Fool!” she said, the lines deepening around her mouth. “A Traveller never looks back.” I grinned and patted Nip. “Did you look after Hagar?” Poor Nip smelled rank. She was deaf.

  With handfuls of dry bracken I rubbed down the donkeys. They rolled in a sandy patch, kicked up their heels, and tore mouthfuls of grass.

  Hagar had rabbit stew simmering. “I hoped you had come to your senses and kept going.”

  “I will not leave you behind.”

  “Dolt!” Her eyes were haggard among wrinkles.

  “Don’t you want to see
what I’ve brought?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. Her nose stood out from the cheeks; the skull stared through the skin at the temples. Her head looked narrower.

  “You haven’t been eating.”

  “Huh? The dogs took the animals out each day and brought them back. None has been lost.”

  “You’re thinner.”

  “What about Dinny and Tara?”

  I told her their messages, how they looked, everything they said. She looked at the herbs Dinny had sent her. “I’ve never seen this leaf before,” she said.

  “Dinny said to pour hot water on it and let it steep. He said it makes a cordial that will let you sleep. And this one is good for rheumatism, he told me. Tara brought me these plants from their gardens to put into ours. She said their old people chew the leaves. I’m going to plant them in mine.” Hagar sniffed, but she put the dried leaves away carefully.

  I showed her the new seeds, described the Metal People’s gardens and the one I was going to dig. Hagar shook her head.

  She pretended she wasn’t interested but sneaked a look when I put some potatoes in the pot. “Wait till you taste them! We’re going to grow them ourselves. Dinny told me how. We’re going to be Gardeners and Farmers!”

  “We are Travellers,” said Hagar.

  “Dinny says the Salt People told him the Whykatto is desert, burnt dry.”

  “They want it for themselves. Take the animals and leave me behind.”

  “Dinny says the Metal People don’t leave anyone behind. He says they never put babies outside to die.”

  “Oh, Dinny says this, and Dinny says that. Did he tell you to get on with the Journey?”

  “We are staying because there is nowhere to travel to. Hagar, I am not going to leave you behind!”

  “If you were a man you would kill the girl’s father, take her, and go north. That’s what Karly Campy would do!”

  I ladled out one of the boiled potatoes. Hagar sniffed. I mashed it with gravy off the meat. Hagar always liked her food. She swallowed a spoonful, mumbled, and turned away.