by John Hart
“Rakrak lead,” said Agaratz. He tied a thong to her pack and ran it back past himself to Urrell who had himself tied a line to Piura behind him. Thus, trusting to Rakrak’s instinct, they moved on in single file. Here the air was clammy, faintly smelling of brimstone from the stream. When they stopped to eat Urrell tried the water and found it distasteful. They sucked chips of ice instead.
“How far, Agaratz?”
“Two days, Urrell.”
“What will there be?”
“Land, Urrell, like before, then, how you say, weald, big woods, to land of other mens, land where mammurak live long ago. You see.”
“Did your people live there Agaratz? Was this their homeland?
“Before great cold come, my ancients live here and where we go too. Many places.”
“How do you know the way?
“I remember.”
“Did you come with your father?”
“I remember.” He tapped his head. “I know from fathers, from old time.”
Urrell, aware of the migrations of bison, deer and horses, of waterfowl that rose in huge flights when it was time to leave, as they had always done, guessed what Agaratz meant.
Towards the end of the second day of their trudge, broken only by stops to nap and eat, the ice became thinner overhead, translucent; shortly, they issued into a jumble of broken ice and a stony plain. Across this their river headed purposefully, vapour rising from its tepid water, and as it was going their way they followed it.
The long summer days enabled them to travel twelve hours with only brief stops. Two more days and they entered scrub that yielded to birch carr and then pine forest. Urrell sniffed the resinous scent with pleasure. They cut poles to make a travois, and a small one for Rakrak.
“How much longer, Agaratz?”
“About seven days, Urrell. We see hills and then come to place.”
“Why are there so few animals in these woods, Agaratz?” They had seen only a few musk-oxen from afar, glimpsed wolves, foxes, hares. Overhead flew the usual scavengers.
It was an empty wilderness compared with their home range in the grasslands. Agaratz, in a hurry to arrive, made no attempt to hunt or forage but relied on their stores, supplemented with berries and wild fruit they found on their way. They did not even light campfires. Piura, on short rations, kept up as best she could, her ribs beginning to show.
“Urrell, long time ago in this land, many animals, in time of old mens. Animals gone.”
“Gone?”
“Like mammuts: no more.” As they reclined, Agaratz, with the facility that so amazed Urrell, drew on flat stones a succession of beasts, some familiar, many not. Several had woolly flanks; one a single horn; huge bears; tiger-like and panther-like predators with fangs of unbelievable size; strange fowl, one flightless; as well as rodents big and small; immense owls and eagles, all drawn from a phantasmagorie, a recollection, that left Urrell in wonderment.
“You saw these in cave paintings, Agaratz?”
“No, not caves.”
“Where then?”
“I not see them. They no more. Gone with old peoples.”
“But Agaratz, how can you draw them?”
He remembered the engraving of his own great bear, one like those Agaratz drew now.
“Urrell, when you have poodooec, you see too.”
“How can I have poodooec Agaratz?”
Agaratz fixed his gleaming eyes on Urrell’s. The lad held his gaze.
“Not yet, Urrell. Not ready yet.”
Any more questions would be fielded likewise. Any annoyance, any impatience, he felt, would go unanswered.
Four days farther on their river met outliers of a range of hills and turned aside to flow elsewhere. They left it, not without a little tug at Urrell’s heart. Agaratz, on its banks, chanted a brief farewell to the current that had been their companion and guide for days.
They now entered slopes clad with the forest trees of Urrell’s boyhood, oaks, ashes, beeches, elms, walnuts, and an understorey of hazel nuts and elder, hawthorn and crab apples, with nuts and fruit ripening. Wildlife abounded again. Hinds in herds, led by stags, trotted off at their approach, aurochs lurked in deeper glades, lynxes stared at these strange bipeds, the wolf and lion, and slank off to ponder such oddities. He thought he glimpsed the woolly horned creatures Agaratz had drawn but said nothing lest Agaratz’s grin gave away yet another trick of his. His companion was in a playful mood. He mimicked the calls of a doe with fawn till one came within arm’s length and only started off when she espied Rakrak. An owl landed on his upheld wrist. To Urrell’s alarm he enticed a she-bear with cubs to eat a piece of jerky from his hand, her two cubs warier than mother, keeping a little away, and Urrell, to Agaratz’s amusement, farther away still, aware of a she-bear’s fury at the slightest hint of a threat to her young. It was an idyllic scene, made more so by the delicious thrill of fear down Urrell’s spine.
It seemed to whet Agaratz’s sense of fun.
“You like to see animals come, Urrell?”
“Oh, yes.”
“We go a little farther and I show you.” As so often, he left Urrell wondering.
CHAPTER 32
Later that afternoon they came to a clearing, a dell in the forest, one of those areas where the trees seem to have held off encroachment to allow the grass and flowers a patch of their own. Urrell felt that Agaratz knew the place. A brook ran across it. Butterflies flitted about in the sunlight and Rakrak, suddenly skittish, once her pack was off, gambolled about and ran in circles. Piura settled down to watch.
“You see, Urrell, Rakrak knows is good place.”
They threw off most of their apparel, along with their packs, and Urrell lay in the herbage, basking and chewing grass stalks. He looked as Agaratz rummaged in a pouch; he pulled out not something to eat but his flute.
Urrell sat up.
Agaratz began to play. Warming to his tune he rose and circled, the limp from his bare club foot noticeable, a short cape and trews his whole attire. As the music quickened, filling the glade, Agaratz circled faster to it. Urrell leant on an elbow listening, half-expecting something unusual to happen, while Rakrak continued her excitement and gambols.
He had been so absorbed by the music, by the intenseness of the sounds which thrilled him to his hair roots, that at first Urrell did not notice they were no longer alone. Creatures were appearing from among the trees. First several deer edged out, bunched as though to give one another courage. Other animals followed, ears pricked towards the flute player. Urrell kept quite still. Out crept foxes, badgers, wild boar, more deer, cattle of a sort unknown to him, smaller than aurochs. All these drew closer, intent on the flute, in thrall to the sounds.
Rakrak squatted by Urrell, her skittishness gone. Agaratz circled. The least pause in the stream of notes might break the spell. On it went. A panther, drawn by so much easy game, padded out of the shadows and Urrell, expecting it to leap, half stirred to warn Agaratz, thought better and lay back in the grass. It did no more than push itself forward to observe the source of the sounds, then plopped down to watch and listen. Other beasts appeared: several lionesses, woollier than Piura; a pair of true aurochs; and forest bison, shaggy coats moulting. Urrell noticed birds alighting on branches, attracted by the sight and perhaps staying to listen. However, it was when he saw the massive shape of a he-bear, upright at the wood’s edge, head and round ears cocked inquisitively to the ring of animals, that he knew he was witnessing a sight beyond anything Agaratz had ever conjured before, or he might ever witness again. Mammoths could not have stunned Urrell more.
The performance went on and on, the music echoing animal calls yet transmuting them so that although Urrell made out within the line of melody sounds familiar to him from forest, grassland, heath and hill, they were such as to slip from memory no sooner heard. Were he to blow his own flute a year on end he knew that he could never recapture those sounds.
When Agaratz let the notes dwindle away and slowed to
a stop in his circling, some animals shook themselves, some stretched, a deer pricked its way forward to sniff the flute in Agaratz’s hand. Agaratz himself went about among the creatures, stroking one here, tickling another one’s ears there. Urrell watched as panthers let him approach. Even the he-bear made no threatening movements before lumbering back into the forest. In ones and twos the animals drifted away, as though loth to return to their lives in the woods.
“Now hungry, Urrell. Eat.” He looked worn. As he put the flute back into his pack, Agaratz gave Urrell a little grin, a ‘you see, no tricks’ look, and they settled down to pemmican and berries.
“We stay here, Urrell. Good place. Soon we meet people.”
“Which people, Agaratz.?”
“Many. Some bads, some goods. You see. Be careful. I tell Rakrak and she watch.”
Agaratz lit the fire that night using only the driest sticks, to avoid making smoke, something he had not bothered about during all the days of their long trek. Urrell was reminded of the wisp of smoke he had seen from the scarpment, when still a boy on his long, lonely journey. The wisp had meant humans, but peril as well, yet it had led him down into the fir forest in search of company, to the bison hunters, and then to Agaratz.
Any wisp of smoke now might draw hunters too.
However, they slept untroubled, trusting to Rakrak’s watchfulness. No one, nothing could have crept up on her unannounced.
They broiled jerky for all four in the embers next morning, supplemented with white mushrooms that studded the grass by the brook. Urrell found patches of wild strawberries which they crammed into their mouths by the handful.
“Two days, we arrive,” said Agaratz. “Many mens, womens.” Urrell felt a rush of joyous anticipation: he was beginning to yearn for the squeals and glances of girls, the tales of old men and women, the sound of voices, the smells of a camp, the company of young men against whom to measure himself.
CHAPTER 33
Over the brow of a low ridge, clear of the tree-line, their little group looked down on a vast natural bowl, crossed by a river. A line of rocky heights blocked the view in the distance. He could see a cavernous opening, and several smaller ones, in the face of the rock line. Scattered about were clumps of humans. Fires smoked. Urrell scanned the scene as far as he could see, and it looked to him as if all the folk in the world were assembled there. Never before had he seen so many people, not even when his tribelet joined other clans to overwinter by the sea on shellfish, carrion and seaweed.
“See, Urrell, big moot. Only come when long years.”
What ‘long years’ were he did not ask, so engaged were his eyes on the scene below.
“Come Urrell, come.”
They gathered up their bundles, pouches, sling-bags and weapons and loped down the grassy slope. From other directions other arrivals were approaching the riverside, choosing spots and making camp. Agaratz went straight to one of the few trees, an oak, by the river, as though he knew the place already. The orderly way other groups did the same, heading for one spot rather than another, like migrant fowl to old nest sites, left Urrell feeling odd-man-out, with a feeling of ‘what next?’
Nothing happened. Agaratz lit their fire, sending Urrell to scour the outlying parts of the combe for fuel. Children and elders foraged alongside him, but Urrell, wary of so many people, shunned all contact.
Two or three days went by in this way, as more groups and family parties arrived and slotted themselves into the settlement. The river was rich in fish, freshwater crabs, crayfish and mussels. Overnight, edible mushrooms appeared in the grass. Raspberries, whortles and small sweet plums throve on the outer slopes of the combe and the open country beyond. The delicious woodland strawberries abounded. Urrell found thickets of hazel and groves of walnut, their nuts coming into season. He brought back pouchfuls. One day he found a hive in a tree hollow. With his boyhood skills he smoked out the bees, filching honey while leaving enough not to destroy the hive – that much he had learnt from Agaratz – and returned to camp with his booty to find Agaratz in deep conversation with a young woman.
She was comelier than the general run of females he saw in the camps, or the giggly maidens he encountered while berry-picking who fell silent as he went past with his wolf. This one looked him straight in the face. He had a sense of recognition, one which occurs perhaps twice or thrice in a lifetime, of knowing a stranger beforetimes. It might have been her eyes – they bore a family likeness to Agaratz’s. With them she looked quizzically at him, a faint mockingness as of pre-knowledge, or perhaps Agaratz had been speaking about him to her, so that he felt clumsy before her. But the mockingness was not disdainful, rather the look he had seen in kittens, cubs, young creatures engaged in tumbling matches, even in the roguish grin of Agaratz himself.
She turned to speak to Agaratz, in a language that differed hardly from his, many words of which Urrell had learnt but not enough to follow rapid speech between two native speakers. It was the first time he had ever heard it spoken between two persons. Agaratz’s features shone with pleasure, whether from what was said or from hearing his own tongue, or both, Urrell could not tell, nor tried. It did not concern him; and yet he knew it did.
“This Guimera, Urrell. I think woman for you.”
It was put in Urrell’s language. She was not to understand, although she no doubt caught the drift of Agaratz’s brokerage. Her eyes smiled, as much a come-hither as no-you-don’t, neither arch nor coy, yet all of these in a glorious amalgam that left Urrell suddenly red and blurting, reduced from the manliness of the young hunter to a blattering fool. Or so he saw himself. Oddly, he did not mind a bit. It was all part of this meeting he found himself in, of this new place of people, brakes full of berries, nut groves, gaggles of girls picking fruit. On impulse, he offered her the leathern pouch of honey he had brought back. With a little bob, she took it, looked in and dipped her finger into the liquid gold. As she licked the honey, her eyes rose to meet Urrell’s and he saw in them that mocking playfulness he knew from Agaratz, the herald to some performance, some mimickry, some prank to astonish him. But none came. Instead she smiled, said something to Agaratz and was gone. With his honey. She had not been a dream.
CHAPTER 34
Though he plied Agaratz with questions about the girl in the days that followed he could learn little, only that by some chance Agaratz had stumbled on people from a remote clan akin to his own in language and appearance. Whence they came he either did not know or would not tell. Nor where they were camped.
The girl’s smile remained a fixation in Urrell’s mind. He took to ranging around in search of her, edging up to groups and encampments hoping for a glimpse of her, or of folk who might be of her people and a clue to her whereabouts, but she had vanished.
“You see again, Urrell, you see Guimera, but not before dance.”
“Dance?”
“Dance for maid girls. Now eat, Urrell. You get strong for fights.”
“What fights, Agaratz?”
“Fights when young mens wrestle, throw, run, to show how strong.”
He mimicked the competitions, even ordeals, young men were expected to undergo. Urrell had been noticing youths larking about more than usual, practising spear-throwing, lifting stones and running with them, performing feats of strength, wrestling. They must be preparing. The boys of his tribelet had talked about trials too, fearfully. To fail them meant banishment from the clan, to starve alone in the forest. “Show me, Agaratz.”
They found a secluded spot, a little dell, where Agaratz’s lessons might not be overlooked. From falls and twists of those brawny arms Urrell was soon bruised and aching. It was days before he could remain upright from his mentor’s hug and thrust. He soon realised that strength alone was not enough, that Agaratz was teaching him skills and feints no other youths practised when he watched them, and his confidence grew. He learnt to use Agaratz’s power in mock attacks to yield before him and throw the attacker, nimbly sweeping his feet from under him, or, if d
own, launching his foe overhead with unexpected leg moves only Agaratz could invent. He would be able to hold his own.
Next came marksmanship with javelin, throwing-stick and missiles. Urrell recalled his early javelin-casting lessons. Since then hunting had honed his skills, yet still Agaratz insisted on practice, striving to convey that sense of certainty when the weapon knew its mark, as in dreams. Urrell could not capture it, only sometimes in response to a sudden movement, when he was paying least attention.
His wanderings among the camps, looking for Guimera and her kin, were not always welcome. Several times he fought off youths bigger than himself and but for Rakrak’s snarls might have come off worse. It did not stop his searching. At the very edge of the encampments, where the poorest and weakest groups huddled, he came across some strange people, shaggy and short-limbed, who shied away from his friendly gestures. They pointed at Rakrak; he signed she was harmless. Their weapons were cruder, less well made than his or those of other groups. Their shelters sketchier.
He was drawn to them. When not foraging or practising his skills with Agaratz, he took to visiting their camp and squatting with them. As their trust grew, they tried to speak to him, crouching face to face and parleying with series of clickings, snorts and guttural coos. They also made a range of whistling sounds. Urrell noticed that when one of them wanted to speak to him, he stared straight at him, as they did between themselves. Their eyes were unusually deep-set, filmy, and often greenish. It was as though they needed this eye contact in addition to speech. They reminded Urrell of the three squat figures he had espied in the cold, from the great tree.
They grew to like and expect his visits. He brought them little gifts of game, a honeycomb, crayfish. They greeted him by pressing noses face-to-face and staring into his eyes. The men’s ragged whiskers and hair smelt stale and the message those opaque greenish eyes sought to convey remained untransmitted. He wondered if Agaratz would understand, but for the first time felt loth to ask – these people were his discovery, and he would explore them. Besides, Agaratz spent long whiles away, between training sessions, on what he did not say. Lulled by these thoughts, in the unchanging warm weather of late summer, Urrell lived from day to day without much thought of the trials ahead.
