Just as the Sun left the clearing, the dogs jumped up and ran towards the shore, tails held high. The women got to their feet and took the stones they’d been heating out of the fire. They laid the hot stones at the bottom of the cooking pit, and covered them with birchbark. Then they fetched baskets of shellfish and sea-roots from a shady pit, and took off the damp leaves: it would be very bad to look as if they’d been expecting meat if there was none.
The children down on the shore were quiet. No one was running back to be the first to tell us what the hunters had brought. We glanced at one another.
The men came into the clearing. They carried their weapons. The dogs padded at their heels. The tail of children hung back, keeping out of the way.
Arantxa’s man came over to the hearth.
‘Welcome, husband.’ The fear in her voice made me angry.
Arantxa’s man looked suspiciously at me. I greeted him by his name. ‘And these men are your guests at Loch Island Camp?’
Because I was Go-Between he had to lead them forward and tell me who they were. ‘Basajaun, of the Lynx People.’ He named the cousin too.
‘You’re Kemen’s brother?’ I said to Basajaun.
‘Yes. You know him?’
‘He belongs to my family.’
That startled him. ‘To your family? But . . .’ Basajaun wasn’t one to write his thoughts across his face. He caught himself up at once: ‘In that case, Wise One, I’m glad to call myself his brother.’
I didn’t reply. Kemen didn’t waste his words saying clever things that had no meaning. But if I hadn’t had eyes to see, I’d have thought it was Kemen speaking. These brothers twisted their words the same way. Their tongue was Lynx. Kemen didn’t make so many mistakes as he used to, but when I heard Basajaun speak I realised that Lynx words still lived in Kemen’s tongue, and however hard he tried to speak like Auk People, they always would.
I let my gaze rest on the two strangers. Basajaun raised his brows, then he saw that everyone held me in respect. Perhaps he guessed I was Go-Between. He braved it out, but I could see he didn’t like the way I stared at him. He was taller and stronger than Kemen. His hair was darker. He wore it in a long plait down his back. Kemen had plaited his hair the same way when he first came to us. I realised, looking at Basajaun, that Kemen now looked like one of us. Only in the heavy outline of nose and chin did I see a likeness. The eyes were different, and the thoughts inside the eyes even more so. All I read in Basajaun’s gaze was a proud refusal to let me read – but that told me something. I turned to the cousin. The shock was like touching ice. In his eyes – blue like Kemen’s – I read naked fear.
He knew he’d shown me too much. His eyes dropped. I watched how he looked down – how he moved – how he stood. For a heartbeat the spirits drew aside the hide and let me see through a doorway I’d never entered. They showed me a hand-full of boys huddled under an oxhide. Blizzards swirled round them, wiping out the world. I couldn’t see what spoke to them, but I read fear in every upturned face. In one I saw blind terror. What the test had been, and by what chance he’d survived his initiation – all this was closed to me. But I had my warning: terror in a man means danger for everyone who comes near him. I looked from the cousin to Basajaun, and from Basajaun to the cousin. It was very clear who was the strong one – which one led the way. But already my Helpers had shown me how to reach what was hidden in Basajaun’s heart.
No one spoke about the lack of meat. The men laid their clean weapons in the shelter, and the women tipped their baskets of shellfish on to the birchbark in the cooking pit. When the shellfish were roasted they picked out the best bits for the men. They gave the razorshells and mussels that were left over to the children, but the women only got limpets. If things got no better, I thought, they’d have to leave Loch Island Camp within the Moon.
We finished our meal. Even the children were unusually quiet. They knew something was about to happen. When Hodei and I stood up, everyone’s eyes followed us. Some looked hopeful; some looked afraid. Basajaun’s face showed nothing. The other Lynx man sat in Basajaun’s shadow, so I couldn’t see what he was feeling.
In spite of everything, I smiled as I fetched my Drum from its sleeping place. I remembered how angry Hodei had been when he first saw that Drum. It was Zigor who’d sent me to find my Hazel Tree. I found it in the Moon of Rushes, far upriver under the Morning Sun Sky. The spirits showed me where my drumstick waited. I told them I was much too old to climb so high. The Hazel bowed down low, and I cut my drumstick. Hazel showed me a straight wand growing from its bole. It told me where to cut.
I’d already worked out how to get the hide for my Drum. It had to be done alone, but what kind of hunter was I – a woman, and old at that? After I got my hazel I went into the high birches and watched the deer for a long while. I saw what paths they took. I walked back to a place where I’d seen a fallen pine, and cut four spiky branches. I sharpened the ends with my knife. I carried my sharpened stakes up the hill to the deer path. I dug a pit, loosening the earth with my digging stick, and emptying baskets-full into a heap. Then I drove my pine stakes into the hard earth at the bottom of the pit. I wedged them with stones. I filled my pit with leaves. After a day and a night, a Yearling hind gave herself. I found her in the morning. Two stakes had run her through. I cut her throat and hauled her out of the pit. I drank her spirit as if I had been a man. I gave thanks as men do. I became a man that day, although I remained a woman.
I made fire. I opened my hind along her belly-line. I eased the hide away from the stomach. I took out the liver and cooked it while the blood was warm. When I’d eaten some of it – it was too big for one old woman! – I shoved my fists down the ribs, between skin and flesh. The hide came away sweetly. I stretched it on a frame. I built a shelter of birch boughs and laid moss over it. Now I had everything I needed for my Drum, I knew I’d be in this place for a long while. I hung my meat and dried it. My Hind gave enough meat to keep me as long as I needed to be at Drum Camp. I’d carried woman’s-stone and ochre with me. I took the wand Hazel had given me. I ran my hands to and fro along its length. Gently I bent it to my will. I persuaded it into a circle. I sang as I bound it with rawhide. I sang until it forgot it had ever been a wand. A new spirit entered it: not Hazel, but Drum. I sang to my Drum as I cut willow and wove its base. I sang as I carved my drumstick. I sang as I stretched my hide over its frame. I sang as I sewed it with sinew from my Hind.
I sang as I mixed colour and water on a flat stone. I sang as I wrote my helpers into my Drum: Dolphin and Swan, Hind and Hazel Tree. I sang as I wrote my long journey. I sang for the son I had lost. My Song wrote patterns I couldn’t yet read, as it sang itself into my Drum. I sang to my Drum as it tightened in the Sun. I sang to it for two days and two nights until it was dry and taut.
Hodei had been furious when I’d hung that Drum in the Go-Betweens’ tent at Gathering Camp three Years ago. But he saw that I hadn’t written the Hunt, so he let it be. And now, here at Loch Island Camp, his Drum and mine together would wake the spirits. Neither of us had dreamed that this would happen.
Our drums awoke so quietly that People were only gradually aware of them. The spirits came as rain on water, rain pattering on hide, Rivers running into rapids. People hushed their children, threw the baskets of empty shells on to the midden and turned towards the hearth. The spirits grew louder. Children too young to be afraid began to clap as the spirits drummed. Their elders were slower: they knew that beyond the swelling water lies melting ice. The spirits spoke to men and women of wrong deeds uncovered, trapped water finding a way out, floods that sweep away good and bad without making any difference between them.
The Dark crept in and listened. The Fire shrank from the sound of the rain, and went out. The light was in the stars: the Evening Star, the Red Star, the Wolf, the Lynx, the Fox, the Red Deer. The River of Milk streamed across the sky. I remembered when I’d seen my son outlined against the winter stars. I thought of how he’d come back to me, how o
nce again I’d held him in my arms. I saw that if my little Bakar were to live to become a man, we must make this world a safe place for him. And that, the stars told me, depended wholly on what the spirits said to us tonight.
Hodei and I sang to our Helpers as we drummed. The People clapped and sang. A Fox barked from across the water. The trees woke. Animals rustled through the grasses of the clearing. A Swan splashed into flight and rose above the loch. A Peewit tumbled through the air, bringing with it the smell of the high moor in Seed Moon. A star shot across the sky in the curve of a Dolphin’s back.
The dead fire leaped up in answer. In one heartbeat the drums stopped.
Before anyone could move, the Go-Betweens struck.
Itzal said:
I was furious when Nekané loomed out of the mist at Flint Camp demanding that we take her to Loch Island. Of course I respect the Wise, but when she said she’d come instead of Zigor I was so angry I could hardly speak. This wasn’t what Hodei had meant! I’d given Hodei’s message to Zigor very clearly, and there was certainly nothing in it that suggested anyone at Loch Island Camp wanted to see Nekané.
I’d felt torn in two when Hodei sent me secretly to Zigor. I owed loyalty to my father. I had no right to betray him just because I hated him. When Edur arrived at our Camp with the two Lynx People I didn’t understand why he’d come to us. My family were more likely to kill Lynx People than give them food, because a Lynx man had stolen my sister Osané. Hodei told us we must welcome them and pretend to be friends. As soon as they arrived we gave them food.
Yes, we gave them food. What was I to do? My father said he’d take them to our Hunting Camps. I couldn’t speak to my father about it. Not because he could hurt me – I was a man grown, and he couldn’t touch me if he tried – but because I didn’t want a fight. I’d hit him once. My family could have sent me away for that! When I struck my father they took me to Hodei.
Hodei made me go into his tent so we could speak privately. I was shaking with fear. I thought he’d say I must go away from the Auk People because I’d struck my father. But all he said was, ‘Do you want to see your sister again, Itzal?’
‘Of course I do!’ I cried. ‘Osané was my friend as well as my sister.’
That was true. Osané is four Years older than I. I owe it to her, not my mother, that I lived. When I was small she carried me on her hip when I was almost as heavy as she was. She took me with her when she went out for food. She kept me warm at night with her own body. She picked the lice out of my hair, and sewed shoes for me when it snowed.
I was snatched from Osané’s side when they took me to Initiation Camp. I was so glad! I’d been old enough to go the Year before – just – but I hadn’t been taken – I’d begged the spirits not to leave me behind again. I was terrified the men thought I wasn’t fit. I knew no reason: I wasn’t crippled, I didn’t act like a woman, I’d done no great wrong to anyone – nothing like that. I worried about it because I wanted to leave my family more than anything in the world. I wanted it much more than most boys do, and so I feared all the more that it would never happen. But that Year they took me, and I became a man. When I came back I wanted to show Osané what they’d written on my back. Osané had gone. Someone had tried to kill her, and Kemen had taken her away.
I knew it wasn’t Kemen who’d tried to kill her. I thought it might have been Edur. That confused me. Although I was now a man, I still felt like a child in many ways – I didn’t know how to rescue my sister. I didn’t even know if she wanted to be rescued. Edur had joined us at Initiation Camp, but he wasn’t there to begin with. He wasn’t with us when Osané was attacked. Edur took Amets’ place after the Hunt. No one told us why. Edur was much harder on us than Amets had been, but we admired Edur more. We knew Edur was a great hunter, and he was generous about teaching boys who were quick to learn. He didn’t care about boys who weren’t quick. I did well, and I learned more from Edur than from Amets. I knew Edur was going to take my sister. I was proud. I showed off about it to the other boys. Edur didn’t stop me. He just smiled.
So now I said to Hodei, ‘Of course I want to see my sister again!’
‘Then I’m sending you away.’ I must have looked stricken, for he touched my arm. ‘No, no, Itzal, not away from the Auk People. You struck your own father – the spirits saw you do that – but’ – he looked at me, as if wondering how much to say – ‘right is born from right, and wrong from wrong. This wrong wasn’t yours in the first place, Itzal. The spirits punish People for what others have done before them – the spirits don’t care which of us is which. But People – we can feel what it’s like to be one another. I don’t want to punish you, Itzal, but there’s a wrong here that must be put right. Or the spirits will be angry, and destroy us all.’
‘So what must I do?’
‘To begin with, you must go towards the High Sun Sky, to Zigor’s family. Can you find your way to their Camp?’
‘Of course I can! I know where to go, and who to ask.’
‘Very well. I want you to go alone. Leave quietly. Don’t take any dogs. Cross the loch as if you were going fishing, and perhaps to visit some of the Camps on the other side. No one will take any notice. Then leave your boat and walk towards the High Sun Sky. Don’t tell anyone why you’re going. Find Zigor, and give him my message.’
‘What must I tell him?’
‘Tell him how Edur came here with the two Lynx People. Tell him Edur has talked to the men here. Tell him we plan to bring Basajaun and his cousin, all unsuspecting, to Gathering Camp. Tell him that we need to make sure Kemen comes to Gathering Camp too. Tell him we plan to bring all three of these Lynx men into the Hunt. But what the Lynx men will not know is that they will not be among the Hunters. Our plan is that the People shall cast them out, and hunt them to death, and none of their names shall ever live among us!’
I stared at him, open-mouthed. ‘But . . .’
‘What, Itzal?’
‘These men . . . Kemen too . . . We gave them food! Every day we give them food!’
‘I know that. Men often ask themselves, “Which is the greater wrong?” They think, “A man has wronged me; I will do him wrong.” The spirits of the Animals don’t set one wrong against another like that. They see only that wrong follows wrong. This is why they withhold themselves. This is why our People grow hungry. This is why it won’t help us to kill these men privately just because they’ve harmed us. This is why only the Hunt itself can make right what has been made wrong. Do you understand me, Itzal?’
‘I understand the message I’m to give to Zigor.’
‘Tell him, then, that this matter must be dealt with before things get any worse. Tell him I ask him to come at once to Loch Island Camp. Tell him we must speak to the Animals about this plan, and find out if that’s what they want us to do. Tell him that’s why I need his help.’
Nothing could have been plainer that that. I gave Zigor this message very clearly. I travelled for a hand-full of days, going from one Camp to another, and in each place People set me on my way. I found Zigor at his family’s Berry Camp, which lay far inland up a River I had never known before. I followed the River as it grew small and wild, chattering over stony shallows where dippers fished, tumbling over rocky falls, losing itself in reedy marshes, then climbing thin and quiet among the birches until it ended in a limpid spring. I stopped and looked around.
The Sun shone slantwise through the still trees. Bogbean and mint grew at the edges of a round pool. The bottom was lined with white stones that could only have been laid there by the hands of People. I saw a stony beach by the pool where many feet had walked. Above it the birch roots had been polished smooth along a winding path. The spirits of the spring hung lazily in the warm air, watching me. I carried no water because I’d been following the River all day. I untied my waterskin and, bowing to the unseen watchers, I shook it over the pool, squeezing the sides together. A few drops fell. The Sun caught them; the spirits were content with the little that I had to give.
I squatted on the stony beach, cupped my hands and drank.
Zigor’s Camp was less than a dozen heartbeats from the spring. I hadn’t known I was so near. The breeze was taking the smoke the other way, the dogs were out and no one was at the hearth but the oldest and the youngest, all dozing in the late Sun. An old woman roused herself and gave me a roasted lapwing with bilberries and rowanberries. Hodei is my uncle, so I know what it’s like to have cousins of every degree suddenly turning up wanting a Go-Between. That’s why Go-Between families seem less curious about everything than ordinary People. No one spoke much, but their spirits had already greeted me kindly. I felt welcome. I basked in the Sun with the others, gazing into the blue distance and thinking about nothing much at all, until the afternoon wore towards evening, and the rest of the People drifted home.
Zigor barely greeted me when he came in. By then the women were roasting the carcass of a young deer on the spit. We ate until the Moon rose, and that night I slept at Zigor’s hearth. In the morning he said curtly. ‘You bring the message from Hodei?’ So he knew already – the thought flashed into my mind – why had Hodei sent me – if Go-Betweens wish to speak there are easier ways than sending a man on a long journey – so why . . . ? ‘Then come,’ said Zigor.
I followed him uphill, away from the spring. The summit was a rocky outcrop where no trees grew. We looked out to blue mountains that lay far off under the Morning Sun Sky. The rocks were yellow with lichen. Zigor sat down, and gestured for me to sit too. ‘So?’
I told him everything Hodei had asked me to say. Zigor raised his brows, and gazed at the distant hills. We were silent for a long while. I wondered if I’d said anything at all that Zigor didn’t know already.
‘And you, Itzal,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’ve told me everything that Hodei wanted you to say. What d’you think about it?’
‘Me?’ I stammered. ‘I . . . I . . . does it matter what I think?’
‘I’m asking you.’
The Gathering Night Page 24
