Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

  He came inside the spacious circle of Joba’s hearth; Shateel brought him one of the best mats to sit on, woven of reeds, with a design set into it of red and yellow. Before he sat, he stooped and put a bit of wood on the cold fire, and he took a handful of meal from a pouch on his belt and sprinkled it over the ground before the two women.

  “Heaven protect and exalt you, Joba-el, greatest of women, daughter of the daughter of the daughter of my ancestor.”

  Joba’s mood was much uplifted; she enjoyed nothing more than a discussion of genealogy, and to match her memory against a kinsman’s. Besides, from the elaborate ceremony Fergolin was offering, he had important business with them. She arranged herself on a mat with due attention to the amenities, and sent Shateel to fetch clean water to share with their guest.

  For once the girl was obedient; as she went off, supple of body and pliant of manner, Fergolin watched her keenly, and Joba knew that it was her daughter who had enticed this kinsman here.

  She said, “Take a mother’s blessing, Fergolin, for your first meat—long has it been since I heard news of the village of great Opa-Ladon.”

  “We have no news, Joba-el—all goes as it should among us. We heard of Mashod’s dying with heavy hearts, and souls that wept.”

  “The earth trembles when a chief such as Mashod goes into the Overworld,” Joba said. She had hated her brother, as everyone knew, but it was only prudent to speak well of one in a position to do mischief.

  Shateel came back with fresh water, and the two women brewed a tea of herbs for Fergolin, and served him in a fine painted jug, and gave him cakes and nutmeats to eat, arranged in several baskets, to show off their handicraft. Fergolin put out a hand to take a bean cake from one of the shallow baskets, then withdrew his hand.

  “What excellent work is this! I dare not touch it, for fear of disturbing the beauty.”

  Joba straightened, puffed up with pride, and glanced sideways at her daughter. “My child is a novice at the work of women’s hands.”

  Shateel sat down behind her mother and a little to one side, and was still; Joba glanced at her once, hoping to see her interested, but the girl was staring off into the empty air, and curling a tress of her hair around her finger. Joba sniffed, annoyed.

  Fergolin was saying, “Never have I tasted such an excellent cake, Joba-el, and the manner of serving it is a greater pleasure yet.” He went on in the same way, making extravagant praises and tasting everything, while Joba sat enjoying the compliments; she knew where he was heading. She stole another look at Shateel but the girl was half-asleep.

  “As women,” Joba said, “we have only one wish, which is to serve men, Fergolin-on.”

  They bowed together over this falsehood, and Fergolin sat back, his hands on his stomach.

  “You have made me replete, most excellent of mothers.”

  Joba spread her hands. “Forgive my poor resources—I can only hope that my delight in offering them makes up for their plain poverty.”

  “No other hearth among all the People rivals yours, Ana-Joba-el.”

  “Heaven takes pity on a poor old woman and her humble family.”

  “Heaven itself would delight at your hearth, most wonderful Joba-el.”

  “I am utterly beguiled by your kindness, Opa-Fergolin-on.”

  They went on this way for some time, each one trying to outdo the other in lavish compliments, while Shateel nodded in the shadows. Then at last, Fergolin put his hands down on his knees, and came to his point.

  “Ana-Joba-el, who has everything, whose wealth is limitless, will you hear the plea of one who comes to ask a favor of you?”

  “What poor possession of mine could I offer to a kinsman?”

  “Not I, but one who fears even to come before you in person to ask.”

  “If my eye cannot see, yet my ear can hear.”

  “It is for Ladon that I speak first, Ana-Joba-el, and for his son, who comes of age this year and who is tall and strong as an oak tree, the joy of all his village, and who will enter into manhood alone, unless there is one who would deign take his hand and become his mate.”

  “Ah.”

  “Well is it known that at your hearth there is one whose beauty rivals that of Heaven in the glory of the stars, and whose accomplishments are the envy of all.”

  Joba sneaked another look at Shateel, and saw, pleased, that the girl was watching them with a new interest. She said, “I have indeed a daughter, Fergolin-on.”

  “A daughter!” Fergolin shook his head. He avoided looking at Shateel; rote praises tumbled from his lips. “Such plain words to describe one whose beauty and womanly skill already overwhelm the whole world!”

  He went on like that for a while, and Joba smiled, delighting in the flow of compliments; beside her, Shateel crept a little closer, and leaned forward.

  “As for Ladon’s son,” Fergolin said, “I have watched over him from his babyhood, and for fear of arousing the jealousy of the Overworld, I cannot praise him overmuch, but I make assurances to you that such a match as we propose will bring together two of equal lineage, equal beauty, and equal skill.”

  Also, Joba thought, she is the sister of the chief, and her son will be a chief. She smiled at Fergolin, but her simple pleasure in this was curdling a little. She remembered Karelia’s boy. There was more to this than a husband for her daughter; a little late now, she considered Ladon’s place in this. For the first time, she turned and stared full at her daughter.

  Fergolin said, “Let me take to him who waits with a pining heart the only words that can salve the ache of love.”

  Joba now regretted indulging herself in the warmth of his compliments; she wished she had kept a cool mind and wondered if she had gone too far to back out. But Shateel looked eager. She crept a little closer.

  “Ladon’s son? Is he not the tall boy, the fair-headed one?”

  “As handsome as a red deer when the leaves turn,” said Fergolin. “Manly beyond his years. He will enter the Bear Skull, and someday, perhaps, he himself will be a chief.”

  “What?” Joba said, blankly. “How can that be?”

  Shateel murmured, “I saw him yesterday, with his father—he is very fine-looking.”

  Joba turned on Fergolin. “A chief! How can he become a chief?”

  Fergolin colored up in his face, and a pleading look shone forth from his eyes. Certainly Ladon had told him what to say. He spoke in a low voice. “Who can tell the things to come? He is fit to sit above any village of the People.”

  “He is not—”

  Joba stopped; she had been about to say, He is not the son of the chief’s sister, but then she remembered who was the son of the chief’s sister, and she saw suddenly how tangled this was becoming. She would have to talk to Karelia. Her daughter plucked at her arm.

  “Mother. I would like to be married, and he is very fair.”

  “The words of the daughter of Joba will ravish his heart, and bind them together forever,” Fergolin said.

  Joba pressed her lips together. She should not have let Fergolin get as far as this—among the People, if a proposal was even entertained to the point of being spoken, then the acceptance was all but certain—and she reproved herself for indulging in pretty speeches. Shateel was whispering to her, pushing her, urging her to agree. Still Joba held back. Fergolin smiled at her, not the ready, gentle smile of one wearing his own face, but a stiff-lipped grimace like the expression of a mask. Joba thought, They will use my daughter to make his son great.

  It was too late now to say no. And they would live here, anyway, in Joba’s village; she told herself that here they would be out of Ladon’s reach. He was a handsome boy, she had seen him herself.

  Even so, she could not bring herself to say yes. Instead, she said, “They are both young yet. Perhaps—if Ladon wills—we might wait a year.”

  Fergolin’
s smile was wooden. He did not like that. “I shall convey your answer to my chief and to him who waits with a wounded heart.”

  He gave them more compliments, all sounding the same, and with due addresses he left them. Joba sank down into a brooding posture, her hands in her lap.

  “Mother!” Shateel pulled on her arm. “Mother, why did you not say yes? How can you do this? Now he will ask some other!”

  “He will ask no other,” said Joba, in a harsh voice. “What a fool, Shateel! It is you he must have.”

  At that the girl smiled and preened herself and seemed content now to wait a little. Joba turned her head away. She saw little hope for a match made for Ladon’s purposes. Again and again her mind turned to Karelia and Karelia’s strange new campfellow. What had she seen in the boy’s face? She hardly remembered now; all that came to mind was the memory of his wide black eyes.

  He came out of the forest. Ladon had got rid of him, but he had come back again, come out of the forest, and in those bold black eyes she had seen ruin.

  All the more reason, perhaps, for Joba now to give Ladon power.

  Shateel said softly, “I shall be married! Mother, let me go to my friends.”

  “Go,” Joba said.

  The girl went off, light-footed, knowing nothing. All she knew was her own will. Joba thought again of Rulon, struggling to hold the great ceremonial club aloft, while no one called his name. She trembled for her children.

  They would live here, in her village; she would keep watch on them, and how could Ladon fulfill his plans when his son would be in another village entirely? Slowly she got up, collecting the baskets and jugs, crowding out her dark thoughts with the business of the day, but still, in a corner of her mind, she was afraid.

  “The paints,” said Harus Kum. “That’s what they like, the bright colors. Give me lots of the paints.”

  The slave Tor came silently at his heels; they went through the enclosure the trader had made, when he came here, to keep his goods and his slaves separate from the savages. Inside the little fence of rolled brush, the other slaves squatted in the sun, waiting to be given work to do, and guarding the leather sacks and baskets in the center of the enclosure. When Harus Kum came in, the three slaves all shrank back, avoiding even his look.

  The slave Tor, on his knees, opened the first of the bulging leather sacks and plunged his hand in, and took out some clay pots full of pigment. The clay pots were made with a plug on top of the stoppers and a matching recess in the bottom, so that several pots could be stacked up together, and Tor took apart one stack, opened each pot to see what color it held, and set it down on the ground beside him. Harus Kum paced up and down, looking around him, over the fence, toward the great sprawling camp of the savages.

  In a few moments he would go down there and come face to face with the kings of these people, men who, he knew, would as soon trample him to death as let him go, men whose help would make his work here easier, men he dared not trust. He had been coming here every year now for three years, since he had learned of the Gathering, and he was beginning to understand the ways of these savages—at first, he had thought to come here and trade!—but he always felt in danger here, and that made him restless and bad-tempered.

  He thumped Tor on the back with his fist, to hurry him up. “Get the cloth, too. Give them that.”

  The slave reached into the sack and pulled out a smaller sack. “What of this, master?”

  “Not yet. Put them back.” Those were for Ladon alone, if things went well.

  The slave fumbled through the leather sacks, accumulating goods that Harus Kum could spread before the savage kings: dyes and cloth, tiny jars of sweet-smelling oil, beads and pins of shell-light, small things, easily carried over long distances. When he had it all together, it did not seem enough. He glanced at the leather sacks again, knowing what lay buried in their depths, tempted to give just a little away.

  If they knew, would they not attack him? He was alone here, with only a handful of stupid cow-like slaves who would not even defend themselves. He turned away from the sacks with their hidden wonders. Tor was squatting down beside the array of gifts, doing nothing, and Harus Kum fetched him a kick on the bottom that knocked the slave face first into the dust.

  “Put it in a basket.” He tramped away, toward the little two-sided shelter at the back of the enclosure, to get his coat.

  A few moments later, wearing his best clothes, his hair and beard combed and oiled, he and Tor left their little fort. Tor carried a basket with the gifts for the kings. Harus Kum walked ahead of him, his head high, his shoulders back, his chest thrust forward, each stride a strut. As he left the relative safety of his enclosure, he strutted all the more. All around the enclosure, in the grass, the savages waited in packs, huddling in the grass, staring at him, peering into his place. One good rush from the bunch of them would take it all, and Harus Kum knew himself in hideous danger. With high steps and an arrogant bearing he made his way down the slope and across the disorder of the camp, toward the stone circles.

  Here in the center, the kings all sat on a wooden high seat piled up with furs. The wind whirled the feathers on the lances stuck in the earth all around them, the sun beat down on them, sitting there in an attitude of swinish pomp. As Harus Kum approached the place, whole masses of people began to close in around him, following him, moving ahead of him toward the throne, all faces turned toward him. When he came at last to the feet of the kings, the whole Gathering was there, they filled up the whole great space within the ring of stones.

  There were too many of them, they made his skin crawl, the dirty brutes. He went to the edge of the platform, and said, “Hail to the kings of the People of the Stones!”

  He spoke their language a little. Enough, anyway, to do what he had to do.

  Before him in a semi-circle sat five or six men, hideously painted, dressed in skins and feathers. One was so old he dozed, the front of his coat dappled with drool. Others glanced at him incuriously, scratching themselves, yawning. In their midst, the greatest of them, Ladon the Mighty, leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Harus Kum.

  “I, Opa-Ladon-on, welcome the outlander.”

  One of the other kings, a younger man, now leaned forward and stared at Harus Kum and turned to frown at Ladon. Harus Kum did not know him. The only one of these men whose name he knew was Ladon; he prided himself on his understanding of these savages, that he had swiftly realized that Ladon was pre-eminent among them, the only one worth dealing with. Even now, Harus Kum was pleased to see, he wore the coils of blue beads that Harus Kum had given him the year before.

  The younger man was staring from Ladon to the trader, his face dark. Harus Kum said, “I have brought tokens of my respect and gratitude to the kings of the People of the Stones.” With a gesture he brought Tor forward with the basket.

  The kings all moved suddenly, leaning over to see—even the old man, knocked from his dozing. Tor held the basket, and one by one Harus Kum removed the small treasures and placed them on the thick furs at the kings’ feet.

  “Ah!”

  At once, they reached for the goods; like children, if two of them seized the same thing, they struggled with each other for possession of it. Only Ladon sat motionless in their center, saying nothing, showing no interest in the pretties before him. The young man wrestled a pot of color away from another of the kings and turned the little jar over and over in his hands, even sniffing at it, trying to find the way in; when at last he pulled the stopper out, he had the jar upside down, and a shower of blue dye ran down over his lap.

  The other kings laughed heartily at him, and the young man went red. He flung the jar down and brushed fitfully at the specks of blue on his clothes. Harus Kum watched the lovely color disappear into the dust; he remembered the hard work that had derived this tiny bit of blue from the rocks of the earth, which the wind now drifted away.

  The young man
twisted toward Ladon. “Opa-Ladon-on, mighty is he! Mighty before all the People! Mighty with the help of an Outlander, who gives him blue beads, hah, Ladon, is that it? Is this where you got the blue beads?”

  The other kings stirred, round-eyed, staring at the young man, and one reached out and laid a hand on the youth’s shoulder as if to calm him, but the young man thrust him off. His gaze was fast on Ladon. “Tell us, Opa-Ladon-on, mighty, mighty, mighty. Tell us where you found the blue beads!”

  Ladon ignored him. The other men glanced from one to the other of them and turned their attention to their prizes. The young man’s words hung unanswered in the air, and like the flecks of blue, the wind wafted them away. Harus Kum bowed and spoke words of honor and praise to the kings, backing up, leaving them. As he left, however, he lingered there a moment by the gigantic stones, listening to the mutter of the crowd, and so he learned that Ladon’s young rival was named Rulon.

  Harus Kum was taller than any of the People, thin as a willow slip, with a brown beard that covered his chest. His clothes too were strange, a long shirt of woven stuff that reached to his knees, his legs wrapped in more cloth. Crouched just beyond the fence, Moloquin watched him roar and rant through his camp, shouting in his rattling harsh language at the others, and from the way these others scurried away from him and took the blows he dealt around him, Moloquin supposed much about the relationships among these strangers.

  There were no women in Harus Kum’s camp; the underlings did all the work, carrying wood and water, tending the fires, even cooking and cleaning up. To see them better, Moloquin pulled some of the brush out of the fence, but when he did this a slave came running at him, yelling, brandishing a stick, and Moloquin backed hastily away.

  The brush fence was built around the top of a little hill. Halfway down the slope, Moloquin squatted down in the grass and went on watching.

  Presently, behind him, he heard the grass rustle, and he knew Grub was there.