'Nevertheless, I'll join you,' said Carnelian. He went over and gave Sil her baby. She looked from him to her husband, then back again. He sensed she had become aware of the feelings there were between them. Trying to hide his confusion, Carnelian pushed past Ravan, stepped over the rootbench and walked away.
'Carnie.'
Carnelian turned to see Akaisha following him. He watched her approach. Her voice when she spoke was low and conspiratorial.
'If you're determined to work with the women, then tomorrow you should come with me down to the earthworks.'
He smiled. 'Where I can cause you trouble as I did just now?'
'Don't you worry about Whin, she'll come round. The day after tomorrow it will be the turn of our hearth to work under the Bloodwood Tree. Tomorrow, the women there will be under the authority of Ginkga.'
'She voted for my death?'
Akaisha nodded.
'Nevertheless, my mother, I'm determined to share your son's punishment.' 'Why?'
There was anger in Akaisha's voice. Carnelian stooped and took her hand. 'I'm at least as responsible for Fern's sacrilege as he is himself and owe him many debts of gratitude. How could I let him suffer the punishment alone?'
'Is that all it is?'
Carnelian was glad the twilight hid his embarrassment. Take care where your emotions will lead you.' She gave his hand a squeeze and then returned to her hearth.
* * *
The twilight was thicker under the branches than it had been at the hearth, so that Carnelian had to take care picking his way across the root-ribbed hillside. He could just make out Osidian in their sleeping hollow, his face and hands like patches of moonlight.
The sky here is very deep,' a voice said.
'Are you not hungry?'
'Only to wake from this nightmare.'
Carnelian slipped into the hollow and stretched himself out beside Osidian.
'We can live here,' he asserted.
'I do not believe I can.'
Stars were coming alive in the darkening sky.
'We will have to work with them.'
'A Master shall not be seen to labour,' growled Osidian.
'What will you gain by quoting the Law at me? If we do not work, they will not give us food.'
Then I shall starve.'
Carnelian sat up but found he could not make out Osidian's face. Morning would be a better time for them to talk. He reached for a blanket and shook it open over them. He leaned across Osidian to make sure to cover him. His body seemed carved stone.
Carnelian lay back. Osidian would come round. He had to. Despair began catching at the edges of his mind. A burning vision of Osidian as he had been in Osrakum: a prince among books, music, palaces, slaves; all of such perfect beauty; the exquisite distillation of millennia. All wealth. All power. Osidian was to have been God. How could life among rude barbarians ever compare? There he lay beside him between the roots of a tree. What had he condemned him to?
Carnelian tried to find hope in the stars, but they seemed nothing but ice in a bleak sky. What had he thrown away for the sake of a love that must surely die?
Never again to see his Ebeny. Never to see Tain nor any other of his brothers; not one of the people he had known all his life. For him, all were now dead. His yearning for them was an ache, but there was a deeper grief choking him. His father. The father he had abandoned to Ykoriana's web.
THE BLOODWOOD TREE
Wife, you are the earth
the giver of gifts
the blessed mother of blood.
Come, sate my hunger.
(from a marriage ritual of the Plainsmen)
Carnelian was woken by Fern. 'Do you still want to come with me?'
It was too dark for Carnelian to see his friend's face.
'Yes,' he whispered, his heart still aching, wondering how long it was until dawn. As he made to rise, a hand reached up to pull him back.
'Where are you going?' asked Osidian.
Carnelian was glad of the gloom that hid his face. He explained the decision he had made to share Fern's punishment. Osidian withdrew his hand and turned away. Carnelian stared at his back, trapped between his promise to Fern and his feeling that he was deserting Osidian.
'I brought you some breakfast,' said Fern, pushing something into Carnelian's hand. He peered at the two crumbly discs.
'Rootflour cakes,' Fern said as he gave Carnelian two more. 'Give those to your brother.'
Carnelian leaned over Osidian to put the cakes down on the ground in front of him. 'One of us at least must work,' he whispered.
When Osidian gave no response, Carnelian rose. At least he had been spared having to face Whin. 'Lead the way,' he said, to the shadow that was Fern.
As he followed him down the Blooding rootstair, Carnelian's thoughts remained behind with Osidian. He only became aware he was chewing the cake when it began to flood his mouth with its peculiar, bitter taste.
A breeze was blowing from the indigo east when they reached the foot of the rootstair. A group of shadows were gathered in front of a wicker gate speaking in low tones with women's voices. The gate creaking open let enough light in under the arching cedars to allow the women to notice Carnelian; as he could tell by the raised tempo of their talk. Fern pushed through their midst so that Carnelian was forced to follow. He sensed their wonder as he moved through them.
Crossing the earthbridge with Fern, he was glad the women remained behind. The easterly was ruffling a swell into the ferngarden. Soon they were walking alongside a drainage ditch beneath the dark, overhanging masses of the magnolias. Laughter carrying towards them over the sighing of the ferns seemed to be the cause of Fern redoubling their pace. Carnelian followed him across another, smaller earthbridge over a forking of the ditch, the prongs of which enclosed a meadow dominated by a huge tree with leaves the colour of old blood. As they crossed this meadow, Carnelian snatched glimpses of Fern's face. Its grim expression did not invite conversation.
The meadow ended at a double wall of soaring magnolias between which ran one of the concentric ditches Carnelian had seen from the summit of the Crag. Taking them through the first line of trees, Fern found yet another bridge. As he stepped onto it, Carnelian could see that the roots of the magnolias buttressed the sides of the ditch so thickly they had forced it into a jagged course. Gazing off to the Koppie's outmost ditch, Carnelian was sure the trees defining its edges were not so ancient. It gave him something to ask Fern.
In response to his question, his friend came to a halt and turned. This is the Outditch which long ago defined the limits of the Koppie, before the Newditch was dug out there.'
Fern set off again, through the second line of magnolias into the wider expanse of the outer ferngardens. They were heading directly towards the Newditch, so that Carnelian began to believe they were making for the open plain. Again he wondered what it was he had agreed to.
Before they reached the Outditch, the drainage ditch they had been walking alongside split in two once again. The arms curved off to meet the Outditch, embracing another triangular fernmeadow, though larger than the first, but which had in it another russet tree. Something gigantic lay beneath its branches, from which wafted the sweet beginnings of decay. A wisp of laughter made Carnelian turn to see figures filtering across the earth-bridge they had just crossed. Carnelian turned back and caught up with Fern, who had almost reached the tree. The morning had become bright enough for Carnelian to see that what lay beneath it was a saurian which, with its horns and sweeping crest, was much like those he had seen pulling wagons along the roads of the Guarded Land.
'A huimur.'
'An earther,' corrected Fern, in Ochre.
One whole flank of the creature had been cut away, revealing the grimy architecture of its ribs. A stench was rising from the blood-soaked earth. Boulders as flat as tables were set about in an arc. Upon these, long flint knives lay in rows.
Fern was scowling. 'Well, here we are beneath the Bloodwood Tree.'
Carnelian stared at the tree and spoke his thought aloud. 'Bloodwood?'
For an answer, Fern lifted one of the flint knives, strode towards the trunk and swung a slash into it. The cut began to weep along its length. Drawing closer, Carnelian saw the tree appeared to be bleeding.
About three dozen women and a few girls gathered beneath the Bloodwood Tree. Under the pressure of their scrutiny, Carnelian did not know where to look. Fern hung his head. The girls chattered and pointed. The women laughed, nervously.
'Don't you all have work to do?'
Carnelian recognized the Elder, Ginkga. The crowd dispersed as she came through them. She clamped some bone pins in her lips. As she approached Carnelian and Fern, she twisted her hair into a tress, then wound it tightly around her head. She came to a halt in front of them and looked up into Carnelian's face. One at a time, she took the pins from her mouth and inserted them into her coil of salt-beaded hair. Carnelian tried to hold her gaze, but eventually he had to look away.
'You two will load the offal onto the drag-cradles,' she said, when her mouth was free. She pointed to where five cradles were laid out in a line well beyond the shade of the tree. It was Carnelian who led Fern off towards them. Carnelian could smell them before he was close enough to see they were caked with gore. Infants screaming drew his attention to the open ground where he saw them chasing each other among rows of frames, many of which were hung with ribbons of flesh adjusting heavily in the breeze.
Carnelian grimaced at the filthy drag-cradles. 'What're we supposed to do?' he asked Fern. His friend gave a shrug for an answer.
The women were painting each other's faces red. Those that were done went to stand around the boulder tables testing the edges of the flints. Some had to be knapped sharp. Blood-faced, two women were appraising the saurian corpse as if it were a house they were about to demolish. Soon they were in among its bones, hacking away with their knives. The hunks of meat they released were caught by other women who lugged them over to the boulders, where they were sheared into slices and then ribbons. Carnelian watched as the girls began knotting these into ropes which they wound around their arms like yarn. Bloody to the armpits, the girls carried the meat away from the tree and draped it over the frames as if it were washing being hung out to dry.
Ginkga's voice carried over to Carnelian and Fern. 'You two.'
They exchanged a look of resignation and went to her. She confronted them arms red to the elbows, face the colour of fresh blood.
'You should take off as much as you can.'
Fern pulled off his robe and, reluctantly, Carnelian followed his lead. They both endured the ribald comments the women made about their bodies.
Ginkga offered them a bowl that appeared to be filled with blood. 'You're here to do penance for your insult to the Mother. You must wear her colour as we do.'
Fern scowled, but took the bowl. He kneeled and put it on the ground and motioned Carnelian to join him. Facing each other, they dipped their fingers in the bowl and smeared the redness over their faces under Ginkga's grim supervision. When they were done, she led them to their work. Shouldering the slimy sag of a lung between them, they struggled to heave it back to the drag-cradles.
Sweltering, they laboured, their torsos and their heads itching with gore. Carnelian had tried to make a joke about their red faces but Fern was not much inclined to humour. The sun had brought with it a plague of flies that swarmed the growing mounds of offal. A constant procession of people came to stare. Worst of all for Carnelian was the mob of jeering children that had collected, who hung around him as he worked, coming as close as they dared. Already weary, past nausea from the stench, their baiting was almost more than he could bear.
Fern gave him a look of sympathy. 'At least their antics are driving away the flies.'
Carnelian frowned. 'I'd prefer the flies.'
Fern chuckled.
'I'm glad at least it amuses you.' Fern looked concerned. 'I didn't mean -' Carnelian cut off the apology with his hand. 'I know you didn't.'
'If I asked her, perhaps Mother Ginkga would send them away.'
Carnelian began to shake his head, then winced as it adhered to the bundle of tendons he was carrying over his shoulder. The children laughed, delighted, and he growled, scattering them.
The Standing Dead haunt their nightmares. To see one of them here, doing this work ...' Fern shook his head, frowning, himself overcome by the wonder of it.
'It's not that I'm blaming them,' said Carnelian. 'I just wish they'd leave me alone.'
They'll tire of it.'
For some time after that Carnelian despaired they ever would, but gradually the gang began to thin until the last few children were wandering back across the earthbridge, making for the shade of their mother trees.
The blaze of the sun managed to enter through Carnelian's slitted eyes to give him a beating headache. The air scorched his lungs. The sun was nearing its greatest height when Ginkga called for a break. Panting, brushing away flies, Carnelian and Fern scrambled for the shade of the Bloodwood Tree as if it were a river in which they might swim. As shadow slipped over them, Carnelian put his head back and groaned with pleasure. A delicious breeze cooled his skin. He saw two girls ladling water out from a jar that lay against the trunk of the tree. Fern called over to them and they came with slow, reluctant steps. They stood uncertain, staring at Carnelian.
Fern grew angry. 'Come on, fetch us some water.'
The girls ran back to the jar.
They shun me,' said Carnelian.
'Both of us. Do you blame them?' Fern opened his arms to display his grimy torso.
Carnelian chuckled. 'I suppose not. You look as if you've been peeled.' He laughed when Fern raised an eyebrow.
'Red's not your colour, Carnie.'
The girls returned with a bowl of water and some roasted fernroot which they carefully put on the ground in front of them. Fern insisted Carnelian drink first. When they had quenched their thirst, they went to sit with their backs against the tree. As they munched away at the fernroot, they gazed across the sun-bleached fernmeadow to the Newditch and into the wavering mirage of the plain beyond.
Carnelian looked round. Fern's red face was crusted black with blood. He was scratching his head, where the curls were stiff with brown matter. Glancing round, he saw Carnelian looking at him. Carnelian thought his friend's eyes very bright.
'Where did you get that hair?'
Fern frowned.
Carnelian looked away, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the world beyond the shade. 'Perhaps I shouldn't have asked.'
'My mother was travelling through the Leper Valleys on her way back from the Mountain when she became separated from the other tributaries. She was raped.'
The murmur of the women's talk was a buzzing of bees. Carnelian turned his head to look at Fern, whose chin was resting on his chest. His eyes were focusing on the fern-root in his hands that he was snapping into little pieces.
'A Maruli?' asked Carnelian.
Fern's chin dug into his chest. 'Smeared all over with ash, yellow-eyed with a ravener grin.'
'It must have been hard for you growing up here.'
'My mother protected me.'
'And, surely, so did the rest of your hearth?'
Fern turned to look at him. 'When I was born, Whin sided with those who urged my mother to expose me on the summit of the Crag.'
'But you're married to her daughter.'
'My mother claims Whin agreed to that because she shared her passion for reuniting their two matriarchal lines, but I don't believe it. As is our custom, I had tried to find a wife in another hearth. Because of the way I was fathered none would have me. My mother must have begged Whin.'
Seeing the anguish in those dark eyes, Carnelian fought a desire to embrace him.
'What's the matter with you?' Fern asked.
Carnelian did not know what to say. He could hear the women on the other side of the tree returning to work and used it
as an excuse to rise.
'We'd better get on with it,' he said and, without even glancing at Fern, he strode off to the drag-cradles with their heaped, rotting entrails; their clouds of flies.
The Skyfather be praised,' Fern sighed, as Ginkga announced an end to the day's work.
With a grunt, Carnelian dislodged a quivering mass of membranes from his shoulder. They tumbled with a wet thud onto a drag-cradle, splashing him with mucus. He was past caring. Lifting his gaze to the west, he saw the sun was drowning in its own blood. At least the air had cooled.
'You worked well enough,' said a woman's voice. Turning, Carnelian saw it was Ginkga. He could see how hard it had been for the woman to make that admission.
Thank you, my mother,' he said in Ochre, and Fern echoed him.
The Elder came close. 'You may have bewitched Akaisha but don't imagine the rest of us will leave this as it is.'
Carnelian withered. Her eyes lingered on him a while longer before she went off to join the other women washing themselves beyond the margin of blood-stained earth.
Fern's eyes shone bright in his filthy face. 'My mother will protect you.'
'You're a mess,' Carnelian said, trying to make light of it all.
Fern grinned at him.
Carnelian suddenly itched everywhere. 'I'm desperate to get clean.'
'We'll have to wait our turn,' Fern said, indicating the women with his chin.
'I suppose it's forbidden for us to go up there,' he said, looking with longing at the cedars on the hill.
Fern gave him a heavy nod. The mother trees may only drink their daughters' blood.'
They waited, tormented by itching, until they saw the women plodding back towards the Grove. He and Fern ran to take their place. His friend indicated a patch of dry, clean earth on which he wanted Carnelian to stand, then he rushed to fetch water and pluck some leaves from the Bloodwood Tree.
When Fern returned, Carnelian scrunched the leaves into a ball as he saw his friend do, dipped them in the bucket and then used them to scrub away at his skin. When they had done as much as they could unaided, Fern began doing Carnelian's back. Carnelian submitted to this and, when his friend asked, tried to explain how the scars running down either side of his spine showed the blood-taints of his father and mother.
The Standing Dead - Stone Dance of the Chameleon 02 Page 23
