Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

  Now ahead of him the four longhouses stood inside their fence of brush, their doors all facing east; they were narrower at that end than the other, the way trees grew shorter toward the wind.

  When the women moved them, they merely detached the mats of straw and rushes from the piers of the walls, lifted off the roof, and carried it all away to the new site, singing loudly to lead the hearth-spirits after them. It had been a fine thing to see, the great thatches travelling off on many little legs toward higher ground.

  His father had not thought it such a fine sight. Ladon had grumbled and argued with the women, and even spoken to some of the men about restraining them, but the other men would not consider it. The women grew the food. The men would do nothing that might induce the women to be tight with their produce. Therefore the longhouses went away from the river, up toward the forest, no matter what Ladon wanted.

  Ladon was a fool to object, his son thought to himself. It was only a little way farther than before. If Ladon wished, he could give the order to move the roundhouse too, and then all would be together again. His son wondered why Ladon was so reluctant to move.

  Maybe because he was getting so fat. Ladon’s son giggled, thinking of that. His father had gotten old, somehow, very quickly, in the space of a single year, and while he was still a formidable man, his son was beginning to see the time coming when Ladon would be chief no more.

  And then—

  Some of the men thought that Karelia had weakened Ladon, the old storywoman, with her curses and her charges against him. That was folly; it was Karelia who had died.

  Around the longhouses, the women bustled and talked and sang, and the children ran naked here and there doing chores and getting in trouble, and many people called out to Ladon’s son in greeting. He answered every one of them. Everyone who spoke to him made him feel stronger and more admired. He stopped to see a new baby and spoke to the mother, and she smiled at him, her cheeks suddenly ruddy. He watched a goat being milked and accepted a drink of the fresh frothy food, and that seemed to him to be only his due.

  The women loved him. They had always and would always; they would nurture him and coddle him and do as he said, as they did with every man.

  Now he went into the longhouse where his wife lived. The holes in the thatch were still open, to let in the afternoon sun, but the air here was cooler than outside and the dim light was smoky with floating dust. Except for a few babies asleep with their mothers, the hearths were empty. He walked the length of the room, his feet loud on the packed earth of the floor.

  The place had only stood here for a few months but it was already a midden of disorder. He wondered, as he walked, why the women could not keep their places as clean and neat as the men did. Here were clothes scattered everywhere, hung up everywhere, and pots and baskets lying all over the ground, and ashes from the fires, and pieces of wood, and mats and blankets; how did they know whose belongings these were? He could not remember well how he had lived here as a child. It was better for boys to leave their mothers early, he thought, and take up life among other men to learn order and discipline, before they had to apply these qualities to the work of men, the mastery of lore and the dance. He knew when he had a son he would encourage the boy to leave his mother’s hearth as soon as he could run with the boys’ band.

  However it seemed unlikely that he would have a son soon, since he could not find his wife. She was never here when he came here. He wondered if she were avoiding him.

  He stood before her cold hearth and fought his anger. The impulse filled him to scatter the stones of her hearth and pour ashes on the few things of hers that lay around it. Why did she have so little? He brought her something every time he came to her—a fur, a pot, a worked stone to use for a tool. Yet none of these things he had brought were visible to him as he stood looking into her hearth place. What did she do with them?

  He knew what she did with most of them. She threw them away. She did not want them. She did not want him.

  He looked through narrowed eyes from side to side, to see if anyone witnessed his humiliation. He dropped the fox fur on the cold hearth. Let her throw that away too. Then, thinking again, he stooped and picked it up and dusted the ashes off and went to find her.

  He knew where she would be. Leaving the longhouse, he bent his steps higher up the slope, following the rutted paths that led to the women’s gardens. A group of young girls was walking up ahead of him, carrying jugs of water on their shoulders; as he caught up with them, being longer of leg and less burdened than they, they stepped aside, laughing, and spoke to him in greeting. He smiled at them. Any one of them would have dropped her jug in her tracks and run after him if he had crooked his finger at her. Then why did Shateel hate him?

  When he found her, he asked her that. “Why do you hate me?”

  She was sitting beside her garden, eating wild strawberries from a little basket. At first she ignored him. He sank down on his heels, rubbing his hands together; his eyes strayed to the garden beside him. Its irregular shape filled up the space between two old stumps. Her new plants grew neatly in rows that curved to follow the outline of the plot, and at either end her hills of beans were already climbing up the stakes she had set into the ground to support them.

  She said, at last, “I do not hate you, husband.”

  “Then why do you come here, and not stay in the longhouse when you know I am coming to you?”

  “I wanted—” she spread out one hand toward her garden. “The deer will eat them, if I do not stay here to protect them.”

  As she spoke, she raised her face toward him. In her open guileless look he saw that she spoke the truth to him—that these tiny sprigs of green meant more to her than he did.

  He sat down beside her and put the fox fur in her lap. “Here,” he said. “You could make a lining for a basket out of this.”

  She smoothed down the lovely red fur. The hide was well tanned and supple as cloth. Suddenly she lifted it to her cheek and pressed her face to the softness.

  “You could line a basket,” he said, and put his hand on her thigh. “To put a baby in.”

  At that she sighed so deeply that he expected her to fall to weeping, but instead she turned to him, earnest and open, and said, “Husband, I do not hate you. It is nothing of your doing that makes me unhappy.”

  “Unhappy!” Startled, he stared into her face while his hand stroked her thigh. “Are you unhappy, Shateel?”

  “I want to go back to my own people,” she said.

  “I—”

  He stopped. He had been ready to leap forward, like a deer, to jump straight ahead thoughtlessly into telling her that they would go together to her people. That was the usual way, for a man to go to live with his wife’s people. There was a Bear Skull Society among her people, and that was the life of a man—his lore, his dances, his society, and his chief. But now suddenly Ladon’s son realized that if he went with her, he might not be here—would be most unlikely to be here—when Ladon died. And when Ladon died, the new chief would be chosen, and if he were not here—

  “Don’t be a fool,” he said. His hand on her thigh reached up and up, across the tender skin, up to her secret place. “Don’t be a fool,” he said, and pressed her down backwards onto the ground.

  “No,” she said, muffled, but she did not try to hold him off.

  “It will make your plants grow,” he said and pulled her garments away and possessed her there on the grass. She spread open her legs for him, and put one arm around him, and seemed to want him, but all through it she held the fox fur against her cheek and she shut her eyes.

  When the People all came together at the Turnings-of-the-Year, Shateel went to the nearby village of her brother, Rulon. She found her mother with the other women, sitting in the yard of their longhouses with their weaving and baskets. This was all much the same as it had been when she left this place to go off with he
r new husband; every face she saw was a face known since her babyhood,

  It was so familiar to Shateel that she was half in tears when she reached her mother.

  She came to her mother Joba with her arms out, expecting to be gathered in, and so she was; her mother took her well into her arms, and they pressed their cheeks together and wept a little together. But then her mother stepped back.

  “Well, how do you do, my girl?” Joba patted Shateel’s front. “No basket-belly yet, hah? Is Ladon’s son so green he cannot make the sap run?”

  Shateel blushed, embarrassed by this frank talk. Around her the other women—her aunts and cousins—raised their heads and laughed at her.

  “Mother,” she said, and her tongue caught. In the midst of so many listeners she could not speak properly, and she took her mother by the hand. “Come walk with me a little.”

  At that her mother’s round glowing face lost its merriment. Her dark brows drew together over her nose, and her eyes glittered; Shateel had always feared this look in her mother. Nor did the older woman take the hand offered to her, but said only, “Walk, then, Shateel.”

  They went off a little way, across the yard to the gate in the fence. Outside, they stopped. Before them lay the broad grassy stretch of ground where the People met for the Gathering; all was now covered with hearths and mats, men and women and children, dogs and goats, full of noise and bustle. Shateel led her mother away, around the outside of the brush fence, toward the embankment that surrounded the Turnings-of- the-Year.

  Shateel lowered her head. She dared not look at her mother. The words came from her in a rush.

  “I cannot bear it, Ana. I want to come home. I hate being among Ladon’s people.”

  “Oh?” said her mother coldly.

  “Everything there is different from here. They tease me and mock me—they say I do everything wrong—”

  “Is Ladon’s son cold or cruel to you?”

  She watched her feet crush the grass down, wishing she could say that he was. Her mother would give her no help. The silence grew and grew, until at last she had to speak.

  “No. He is kind. He is very good to me, he brings me presents often and gives me all I need. He is a good husband.”

  “All you need but a baby.”

  “Mother, I do not want a baby. I want to come home, and be with you again.”

  As she spoke she raised her eyes, hoping to find some smile there on her mother’s face, some warmth and welcoming kindness, but Joba’s face was harsh as a weathered stone. The older woman stopped still in the grass. She put her hands heavy on her daughter’s shoulders and held her fast.

  “Listen to me, Shateel. You are only a girl yet, and soft, and weak. You have gone off to be with your husband in a strange place, against my wishes, as you remember, and instead of growing up and becoming a woman, with a woman’s work and a woman’s pride, you meet your troubles by weeping and trying to run away. No. I will not allow you to come home to me, although once, as you remember, I begged you not to go. No. Stay with Ladon’s son. Work your garden, raise your crops, make babies, keep your head up, and smile at the other women. When they tell you that you are wrong, listen to them! Perhaps they are right.”

  At that, without any more, not even an embrace or a smile, Joba walked away, turning back toward the village. Shateel stood tear-ridden in the place where her mother had left her. For months the girl had thought of nothing but coming here; she had soothed every hurt and every loneliness with the promise of her mother’s love. Now she watched the older woman walk away, her great shapeless body bundled in clothes the color of the dirt she tilled, her walk like the rolling of a great stone over the grass. A surge of hatred rose through her body. All her life she had depended on her mother and now Joba had abandoned her. She sat down in the grass, determined never to go back to any of them, ever again.

  Shateel’s mother went away fretful and did not go to her own fire, but away to the hearths of Ladon’s people.

  There she found the old women sitting on their mats by the hearth, passing around a newborn baby and oohing and aahing over it. In their midst, the new mother glowed under their praises. When Joba appeared, the women all looked up, and seeing it was she, they all sighed.

  “Well, Joba, sit down and tell us your troubles.”

  They made room for her in their midst, and the baby was returned to its mother and borne swiftly away.

  Joba took her place beside Tishka and Grela and folded her legs under her, rocking her bulk into comfort. She laid her hands on her lap and stared into the little fire, its flames all but invisible in the strong sunlight, and she shook her head.

  “There is no joy in mothering a daughter,” she said.

  Beside her, Tishka grunted, patted Joba’s arm, and said nothing. On her other side, Grela said, “You should have brought that girl up to respect her elders.”

  Some of the others murmured agreement. Joba kept her teeth together; she saw no hope in fiery words and wounded pride. She watched the fire springing up from its bed of twigs.

  Now Tishka spoke, in a quiet grave voice. “She is just lonely and hearth-sick, Joba. We have tried to be kind, but she takes it all for ill will.”

  Across the way, old Thyrella cackled. “It is all the fault of Ladon’s son. If he would fill the pot—” she laughed and patted her own bulging belly, lumpy with age.

  Grela said, “Maybe if they came to live with you, Joba, things would work out better between them.”

  Joba sighed. She thought much of this was true, and yet it was small truth, having no power to shape the world. She said, “Would that Karelia were here. She would have some story now, to comfort us, and make us see what will come of this matter.”

  Grela said, “Truly, since Karelia died I have heard no stories. No one tells them as she did. She gave her craft to no one.”

  “No one except Moloquin,” said Tishka.

  These words fell on a silence that startled Joba; she raised her gaze from the fire and looked around her, seeing in the faces of these women some deep misgiving, some dread, beyond her knowing. Even fat Grela, who babbled constantly, said nothing; she sat with one leg extended, her weaving looped over her big toe to keep the work straight, and as the silence stretched on, Grela’s weaving grew longer and longer. Joba suddenly shuddered all over. In that bit of weaving she thought she saw the fate of the world worked together.

  She raised her voice, defending herself with words of her own power. “I spoke with my wicked daughter harshly, and have told her she cannot come home to me. So you may expect to find her walking back to your own village. Tell me, though, tell me how things fare with you.”

  They talked about the crops, the wet weather of the spring, and the moving of the longhouses.

  “Did Ladon move his roundhouse?” Joba asked.

  At that even Tishka laughed, and Grela clapped her thighs in amusement. “Oh, no. Do you think great Ladon would tag after a pack of mere women?”

  At that they gave up a great roar of laughter. Beside Joba, Tishka sat with her head down, picking a burr from her skirt.

  “He will travel farther yet, if he will not yield his pride.”

  They laughed again, nudging one another. The name Karelia arose again in their speech; Karelia, whom they had all envied and mistrusted in life, sounded in their speech now like a beloved talisman, their champion against Ladon. Joba heard all this with a growing unease. Early in her lifetime, she had seen her whole village moved; it was a devastating thing, when the people lifted up their roofs on their shoulders and walked away. Yet it was necessary, if the ground were turning sour. She saw much trouble for Ladon in this, if the women of his village had already moved their longhouses. If he moved as they bid him, he lost his supremacy, but if he stayed where he was, very soon he and the men would have no women, and the women in their longhouses would have no men. She began to wonde
r if she ought not to let her daughter come home after all.

  Grela’s fingers flew back and forth across her work, forming a pattern of birds. Opposite, old Thyrella watched as well, and her fingers worked in her lap, her knuckles swollen with arthritis. Joba said, “Well, if need be, you can come to us—our gardens are thriving. I have some seed—”

  She took a pouch from her belt and gave it to Tishka. They spoke of the necessity of keeping bean plants staked up and well drained, and shared herb lore. Joba stretched herself, enjoying the genial conversation. The thought flitted through her mind that if many of Ladon’s People did leave him, going off on their own, then not Ladon but her own son Rulon would be the greatest of the chiefs.

  Grela looked up, past her, catching sight of something in the distance. Her gaze dropped again, and she turned across Joba toward Tishka. “Tell me how you would bind this off, Ana.” She started to hand the woven work to her mother, but suddenly her head whipped around again, she stared away again, and her mouth fell open.

  “Oh. Oh, what I see I do not believe.” She scrambled up onto her feet, shading her eyes with her hand, and her weaving dropped unnoticed into the dust.

  All the women twisted to look where she was looking, even old Thyrella. At first Joba made out nothing unusual; they were staring across the bustle and hurry of the camp, toward the west. The children were running and tumbling in the grass, the women bent over their fires to cook, or walked up with loads of wood, or milked goats; in the whole wild tumble Joba saw nothing to remark on, nothing—

  Save the three people coming straight toward them down the far slope, a tall man, naked but for a loincloth, and a shorter man in a shirt, and a pregnant woman, coming last.

  They were all strangers to Joba. But Grela remained on her feet, and now Tishka, too, was laboring to rise.

  One of the other women said, evenly, “Yes. Yes, it is Moloquin.”

  “Moloquin,” said Joba blankly. The name struck no spark of recollection from her memory. She looked again toward the three people walking up to them, and behind her, Grela spoke.