by neetha Napew
“But sometimes the time of blood is a
thing of whim. Lonit could say that it is so with me, and perhaps the old women would not seek to check the truth of my words.”
“But if they did?”
“It would not be a good thing. They would be angry.”
His face worked with frustration. “And then, if their precious mammoths do not come, they will lay the blame upon you, for having offended the spirits.” He shook his head. “Who knows what would happen then? Lorak is not exactly in love with Torka or his band. No, it is not worth the risk—not for the sake of my pride.” Her smile faded. He had not said “my love.” He had said “my pride.” Her heart sank. She was one of his women, a possession; and Torka always looked out for his possessions. “You will dance .. . with Sondahr?”
“I must dance. Lorak has told me that if I do not, it is finished for us here.”
“We have much meat and many hides. With the dogs to hunt as men beside us and Karana to help .. . We have been alone before.” His voice was sharp. “This man will not live with that fear again, Lonit.”
She hung her head. “This woman was not afraid.”
“And what of Aliga or lana and the children? They are happy in this camp. They are safe in this camp. Even Karana has stopped his endless complaining!” He wanted to draw her close and hold her, to kiss her, to speak assurances of the love and pride that filled his heart whenever he looked at her. But surely she already knew this. And among their people it had always been considered unmanly to speak of such things to a woman. So he put his hand beneath her chin and turned her face up to his. “We have survived the humiliation of the plaku before. We will survive it again for the sake of our children. We will dance. We must dance, and tomorrow nothing that has happened tonight will matter .. . except that we will have assured the future.”
“Help!”
Coming from Pomm, it was a thoroughly uncharacteristic word. Lonit looked up from where she sat dejectedly outside her pit hut, to see the fat woman gesturing pathetically through the deepening shadows of evening from her own little pit hut.
“Come, Lonit, yes? Help make Pomm beautiful for the plaku?”
It was not the sort of request she could easily refuse, even though no amount of help could achieve what Pomm requested. That would require the forces of Creation.
She rose, still in her berry-stained picking apron, and entered Pomm’s pit hut.
Stark naked, looking very much like a wide, soft, fleshy mushroom that has forgotten to stop growing after a bounteous rain, Pomm sat cross-legged upon a neatly stacked pile of furs with a bladder flask in her lap. “Come, good friend of Pomm. We will drink together before we prepare ourselves for the plaku.”
Lonit knelt across from her, accepted the flask, and took a sip. Not much liquid passed her tongue into her throat, but it was enough to make her gag and choke. “What is this?” she sputtered, wide-eyed.
“Just a few berries, roots, blood, and herbs from last year’s camp. It is good, yes?”
Lonit had had fermented berry juice before, but nothing that came close to the fiery sweetness of Pomm’s drink. “It is good,” she agreed, sipping again, carefully. “But it is also very strong.” “Without heat, what good is the flame, yes? Drink! It will make Lonit dance better at the plaku.”
“Lonit does not want to dance at the plaku.”
“Lonit must dance!”
“Yes, Lonit must dance.” She took another sip. It was sweet and it was fire, but now that she was used to it, it no longer burned. She drank deeply.
Pomm reached out and took the flask from her. “Drink it quick like that, and you will not dance at all. You will sleep for days! And when you wake, sorry will you be!”
“No,” responded Lonit, suddenly angry and frustrated. “I would not be sorry! I would be glad.”
Pomm sipped and shook her head sadly. “Strange it is that the woman of Torka is sad to be a part of the plaku. Many men are no doubt hoping that she will dance for them, and here sits Pomm—fat Pomm .. . old Pomm—wanting so badly to dance, but only for one man. For Karana, and because he knows this, he has run away.”
“Karana is only a boy, Pomm.”
“To one who had been as a mother and sister to him, yes. But trust this woman to tell you that to the eyes of any other woman than Lonit, he is a man.”
“A very young man, then.”
“That is the best kind.”
They sipped in silence for a while, slowly but steadily. Lonit had never seen Pomm in such abject misery. It was as though she had suddenly looked into clear ice and, seeing her own reflection for the first time, knew at last what time and the forces of Creation had made her: an old, ugly woman, whom no youth in his right mind would lie with. Lonit felt great pity for her and wished to lessen her pain.
“Truly, Pomm, he is only a youth. A woman of your .. . uh . maturity would be better served by a more experienced man.”
“A more experienced man will turn his back on this woman at a plaku unless he is drunk on his own woman’s berry juice. And then he would be no good to anyone at the plaku.”
Once before, within the Valley of Songs, Lonit had sipped too much of her own fermented berry brew and grown slightly giddy on it; but never before in her life had she been fully intoxicated. She was intoxicated now. The liquor was so sweet and flavorful that it was difficult to stop sipping it. It tingled in her blood and put a strange edge to her mood and tongue. She found herself speaking more freely, although her words sounded a bit slow and slurred. For a few moments a delicious sleepiness swept through her, then passed, leaving her blinking and suddenly feeling bold and angry.
“I do not like this plakul I do not want to dance or lie with any man but my man!” Her thoughts drifted through a warm haze, and from somewhere within that haze the form of a man in white took shape to name her Liar. She had not invited Navahk into her thoughts. He made her feel guilty. She did not want to feel guilty. With a blink she banished him. Torka took his place. Torka, the one man she had ever truly loved or desired. Torka! He was the best man of all. And he was her man. Possessiveness ignited anger within her.
“If any woman, especially Sondahr, dances for Torka, I will” She paused. What would she do? She was Lonit. Sondahr was Sondahr, and a magic woman. But she was not afraid of her. She felt very brave, very much in control. “Sondahr will see what this woman will do! Do you know, Pomm, that Lonit can throw a spear as far as any man and use a spear hurler? Yes! It is so! Lonit has hunted beside Torka and taken much game! Man meat too! Not just fish and fowl, scales and feathers! And Lonit would wager that Sondahr could not say that!”
Pomm belched, sighed, and belched again. Then she daintily lifted a fat little finger to cover her mouth as it puckered into a thoughtful knot. “Sondahr should not know of this, I think. Or Lorak, either, or any of the magic men. Truly .. . Lonit has used a spear?”
“Truly so, against wolves and bear and all kinds of man meat. And maybe now against Sondahr if she tries to take my Torka from me!”
“Sondahr ...” The fat woman’s thoughts slid into oblivion for a moment, then returned blearily to Lonit. “Pomm will tell Lonit that the magic woman is not prettier than Torka’s woman. Same height, same body shape—slim, but not skinny—breasts big, but not too big .. . men like that. Naked with your faces behind a feather mask and a few ashes streaked in your hair, no one could tell the difference.”
The words were almost sobering to Lonit. “Sondahr could tell the difference.”
“But she will be naked too. Her face will be hidden behind a feather mask.” Pomm shrugged, took her turn at sipping from the flask, and followed a long swallow with a loud burp. “Pomm says that men at this plaku would very happy be if two Sondahrs danced at their fire. Then Torka’s woman could dance before her own man, and no one would know—maybe not even Torka—and if she danced better than Sondahr, he would turn his back upon the magic woman and take Lonit. It would be a big joke on everyone, yes? And on
ly the spirits would know.”
“It is not a good thing to make jokes on the spirits.”
Pomm’s little eyes narrowed into slits of resentment. “Maybe not, but look here at young Pomm trapped in the flesh of an old woman. The spirits make jokes on me! They make jokes on all of us in time. But come now, the night will soon be upon us, and the men will light the plaku fire. We must be ready to dance. Help me to be beautiful, Lonit. Help me to be young and unashamed for this one night.”
Night. Stars. Fire. And heat.
The world burned. Torka burned—with frustration at have ing to endure the night, and with a basic, sensual anticipation of it. No man, no matter how he might claim to be averse to the ceremony, could long remain cool and aloof on the night of a plaku. They had laid out the great ceremonial fire and cleared a broad circle around it for the dancers and viewers; this done, men and women began to gather and jostle for the best places, until Lorak called the hunters to join with the magic men in the council house of bones.
Inside, within the overcrowded gloom, a fire burned somewhere beneath the floor of mammoth bone. Smoke and steam issued upward through the planking. It was hot .. . close . humid. The smoke was so thick, the hunters could barely see as they stripped naked and sat in silence, sweating out the impurities of their spirits, which had accumulated since the last such gathering, ex foliating their bodies with rough, pungent stalks of wormwood, drinking deeply from a flask of ceremonial liquor that they passed round and round. Somewhere along the way someone must have refilled it or substituted another when it went dry, for magically it was always nearly full when it reached Torka. The drink was good, intoxicating, as thick and sweet as blood sucked hot from a recent kill. He drank deeply and passed the flask once, twice, until soon he lost count as the magic men, led by Lorak, chanted to the spirits of Creation and asked that the mammoths come forth to die upon the spears of the assembled hunters.
Torka sat amid the throng, drinking with them, a part of their ceremony but still feeling very much the outsider. He alone had no wish to kill mammoths. It seemed to him that in a camp full of meat, the hunters should be praising the spirits of Creation in thanksgiving, not begging for more. Nevertheless, he understood the reasoning behind their need, even if he did not agree with it. He looked for Karana but could not see him. He worried a little; Lorak would be very angry if he discovered that anyone who sheltered within the Great Gathering of mammoth hunters saw fit to flaunt their traditions.
The chanting of the men droned on. Even Zinkh and his hunters sang as if their lives depended upon the flesh of the great mammoths, not like those whose bellies were full of bison meat. Torka listened. All sang the song, the same prayer, intoned in countless dialects. Somehow they blended into one, as soothing to his ears as the soft summer run of a river—one body fed by many tributaries, gathering its life from the substance of many.
He listened, closing his eyes, letting the mood wash over him. It was good to be a man among men again, a part of a whole—no longer alone, vulnerable, his every hour weighted by the responsibility he had taken upon himself for the lives of his women and children. If his spirit were to fly from his body this very moment, they would be safe, members of Zinkh’s band, and through generations of his children yet to be born, his spirit and his name would live forever.
Suddenly the chanting stopped. Lorak spoke so sharply that Torka looked up, startled, to see the supreme elder, nude and scrawny under a cape of shaggy mammoth hide, strutting and posturing violently as he invoked the spirits with raucous and almost angry intensity. He sounded like a tera torn squawking in pain after a spear had been thrust through its breast. After a moment it occurred to Torka that Lorak was imitating the movement and trumpetings of a bull mammoth .. . not very well, but he was trying, and everyone else seemed very taken with his performance. They began to sing again, and clap, inspiring the old man to an even louder and more aggressive display. Even Torka had to admit that it was a valiant effort, until Lorak whirled and pointed a finger directly at him.
“Torka does not sing!”
“Torka is new to this camp. He does not know the song.”
“Perhaps he makes another song—a silent song—one that will drive the great tusked ones away from this camp!”
The accusation did not surprise Torka. Although he knew that Lorak was wrong, the old man was justified in his suspicion. “The supreme elder is right. This man will not hunt the mammoth. But he would do nothing to keep others from the hunt. He will join in the plaku ceremonies that take place in the hope of awakening the spirits to the needs of the people at the Great Gathering. Torka honors the mammoth hunters among you and is grateful to those who have taken him into their winter camp and offered his women and children a place of refuge.”
Lorak growled, shaking his head. “It is not enough. Torka will sing with us. He will call the mammoth to this camp, or Torka will take his women and children and dogs and leave this camp forever!”
And so he sang with them, no longer an outsider except in the sharp, hot fires of Lorak’s eyes, which continued to burn him until they walked from the council house and were sobered by the cold sting of the night wind as they walked together to the great fire circle. The plaku dance began. His mind thick with drink, it did not seem important at the time. Calling mammoths was not the same as killing them. Life Giver was far away, in another world. And it was good to feel one with a group again. A member of a band again.
The fire burned high. It was comprised of bones and turf, grass and fat and secret offerings from many a man’s and woman’s pouch of little talismans gleaned over many years and upon many a past hunt. These were sacrifices to the fire, gifts to the life spirits of the great mammoths so that they would see the flames, feel the heat, and know that the people at the Great Gathering were summoning them to come and give them life.
The men made music on bone flutes and hide drums. They clapped their hands, and the women danced naked in the dark, circling before them, their hair loose, their faces hidden behind elaborate masks of feathers, their bodies adorned with anklets, necklaces, and bracelets of stone, feathers, bones, teeth, and claws. Their flesh was burnished in lines and dots, and swirling patterns made from the juices of the berries they had picked earlier in the day. And fat Pomm was conspicuous-not because she was old and ugly, but because of the long, white, lovely strands of goose feathers that cascaded from the topknot of her tightly plaited hair, disguising her girth and floating down about her aged form like downy mists, actually making her appear to float over the ground with the grace and confidence of a young girl.
Their circle widened, closed, and widened again. And all the while they moved, circling, sliding their bare feet sensuously along the earth, their backs to their men, arms raised to the spirits, drawing down the forces of Creation into themselves.
Sondahr danced with them. She was taller than the rest, more lean and supple than the others. Voices called out to her:
“Sondahr .. . Sondahr .. . dance for me ... for me ...”
There was not a man there who did not lust for her. Including Torka. But she circled with the others, passing the salivating Lorak and a slack-jawed Zinkh. Torka thought that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen as she moved slowly past him, half shadow, half flame. Her contours were so similar to Lonit’s that, along with his passion, jealousy flamed and he found himself looking for his woman in the line of sinuously moving dancers. For whom was she dancing? What man would dare to lie with his woman this night? He could not see her. She had disguised herself well. Or perhaps she had refused to participate, after all?
The line stopped. The women turned as one. Sondahr stood before him, her face hidden behind a mask of owl feathers, her long gray forelock festooned with a roping of white feathers and tiny, vaguely familiar shells. The dance began again. This time the women remained in one place, moving for one man alone. Torka caught his breath, enflamed by fire, smoke, and drink. Sondahr danced for him. She performed the same moveme
nts as the others, a dance of pure sexual provocation. Yet hers was magic. There was a bold, almost angry assertiveness to her motions. With her long arms still raised, knees bent, limbs splayed, she rocked from heel to toe and back again, her hips rolling, inviting, her breasts swaying, nipples circled boldly with paint, like eyes watching him, waiting for him as his eyes looked back. Firelight glowed gold and red between her parted thighs, defining the curves of her hips and sides and soft, entwining arms. He saw that along the pale, velvety skin of one of her forearms, meticulously painted patterns failed to cover a series of impressive scars that looked as though they might have been made by the slashing teeth of a large carnivore. A wolf perhaps. Or His mood shattered. Wolf scars on her inner forearm? Lonit had such scars! Scars inflicted long ago when she had risked her life to stand with him and Umak against a marauding pack of hunger-maddened animals that had nearly killed them all. Incredulous, he squinted through fire and smoke and shadows to see not Sondahr but Lonit—his woman-dancing as he had never seen her dance before, moving as he had never seen her move, with every man in the band looking at her .. . wanting her .. . certain that she was Sondahr, Sondahr the beautiful, Sondahr the wise. But not half as wise as his own woman, and surely not half as beautiful, from behind her owl like mask of feathers. He saw her eyes, Lonit’s unmistakably beautiful eyes, no longer as wide and soft and vulnerable as an antelope’s but as hot with drink and firelight as his own—bold eyes, risking everything so that she would not be forced to lie with another man, so that he might not lie with another woman. Tonight she was Sondahr . for him .. . only for him.
And as he leaped to his feet, inspired by the bravery and daring of her ruse, he danced with her, matching her move for move, and could have thrown back his head and howled her name like a wolf baying to the full, brazen face of the rising moon; he was that filled with pride and love for her. But to speak her name, to acknowledge her identity would betray them to others who were near, choosing partners now, dancing, taking them down in savage, drunken ruttings all around the fire circle. No man was allowed to mate with his own woman on the night of a plaku. But he was Torka, grandson of Umak, and he knew that in new times men must dare new ways.
