Snow came down more fiercely than ever. Juniper sat with Hira listening to the wind pelt the snow against the hanging skins. He watched Tepi say something to Oak. Only Tepi would make his friend learn the words. Oak was looking sad as if he had had the dream again.
Windgods swung round the shelter. The fire spurted up and lit Hira’s eyes and her black hair that hung down to her waist. Her cheeks glowed red. All through the winter Juniper had made bone necklaces and belts for the women. Now he offered to make Hira a little bone figure. She nodded, asking him for a horse. She loved the horses that came down to the river in Spring.
Juniper smiled. ‘In return for . . .’
He hesitated and looked back at Oak.
‘Oak’s sad. He’s missing the men. He wants to know where they’ve gone.’
Fear came into Hira’s eyes.
‘You must never ask. It’s dangerous.’
Juniper stood up. ‘I’m sorry. It’s the pictures in Oak’s head. It’s his dream.’
Hira was already running over to Chenti. She spoke loudly and angrily and all the women and children circled round. From then on they ignored Oak although Juniper begged them not to make his friend unhappy. It was he who had spoken, he said, not Oak.
‘But it was you who brought back the moon,’ Hira reminded him, ‘you who saved us from darkness. It was Oak’s spear that killed the moon!’
Chenti and the older ones still welcomed Oak to the fire but they never tried to make him understand anything. It was as if they, like the women, wanted to keep him on the outside of the family. Oak’s thoughts were too dangerous to know.
Juniper made the little bone horse for Hira and she went on helping him to learn the words. From his bonepit Oak watched them talk together as if he no longer mattered. The children still played with them and Tepi helped him guard the carcass pit. In return he made Tepi some shoes. The boy put them on and circled round the women, boasting, lifting his legs in the air as Juniper might have done when he was small.
None of the women relented and Oak guarded the carcass pit as if he didn’t care. Once he fell asleep at his post and dreamed he was behind a tree, watching Hareman. It was night and Hareman’s face was lit up by the moon. His hare ears glistened, their brown fur thinning to pale pink skin. Oak held his spear high and aimed at Hareman’s ears. Suddenly the hare ears rose up in the dark sky and glistened like the long shells that sometimes lay at the edge of Greenwater. When they reached Moongoddess they covered her little by little, while Hareman lay on the grass, his mouth open, his scream filling the air. In his dream Oak looked round for Juniper, but his friend was some way off, sitting with Hira, his eyes fixed on hers. Now Oak aimed his spear at Hira. As she fell Juniper shouted MURDAM MURDAM in Hira’s language. Oak opened and shut his mouth but no sound came out.
He woke abruptly. He had already killed a man. Maybe his spear had killed the moon. He thought of the story Juniper had once told him about a Trevi hunter who killed Moongoddess. She only returned because the Trevi vowed never to kill another man. He found himself gazing outwards at the white wood. Perhaps he would stop dreaming if he found his broken spear and put it together. At least he’d be a Trevi with his own spear. At that moment Tepi came up to him, scowling and muttering. His grandmother had whipped him for stirring up the other children. Tepi’s misery made Oak forget his own. He held the boy’s shoulders and smiled and pointed to his boots. Tepi wiped away his tears. He seemed to be saying, Yes, he liked the boots very much. He dragged Oak over to the entrance of the shelter and pointed to the tracks on the path. He spoke slowly but Oak shook his head. He would never understand. Tepi gestured with his hands and pointed to Oak’s spear. Maybe he wanted to show him where his broken spear had been thrown. Oak spoke slowly.
‘You want us to find the badpit, my Trevi spear?’
Tepi nodded and took hold of Oak’s hand. He pulled him through the entrance.
The Windgods had flown away and for a brief while Sungod was above the trees. His light slid off the white bearskins and lay in golden pieces on the path.
Oak wrapped his deer hide round his shoulders, held up his Salvi spear and followed Tepi along the white path.
Chapter 22
THE UNKNOWN PATH
The track ran through high white banks. Oak stretched his legs as if walking fresed him from his misery. He held his spear tightly, listening to the forest sounds, the thump of snow falling from the trees, the cries of hidden animals. Tepi ran ahead, looking down at the animal tracks that veered off the track and circled the snowdrifts. At the end of the cleared path he stopped, turned round then pointed to the snowed-up path ahead that wound up the hillside. Oak looked at Sungod shining over the trees. It wouldn’t hurt to push on a little further and perhaps the badpit was at the top.
The snow had drifted to one side of the hill and the way that had already narrowed into a deertrack was not too difficult to follow. A little further on there were signs the snow had once been shovelled away. Perhaps it was the hunters . . .?
Oak looked round. He took note of a clump of birch trees on the edge of a cliff. At the bottom of the gorge the river was a glimmer of ice. The track wound higher still, veering away from the cliff and at a clearing in the trees he saw that the sky that had become grey and low, like an empty field. Soon Icegoddes would return, and going back would be difficult.
He was already feeling clearer, calmer.
One look at the sky was enough to tell him they had to return. There was nothing more for it and a broken spear was useless anyway, even a Trevi spear.
He waved his hands and shouted at Tepi to stop but the boy beckoned him on and then Oak understood. Tepi wasn’t looking for the badpit. There was something else he wanted to find out and he needed Oak to go with him.
‘Tepi, Tepi, we have to get back. It’s going to snow! Tepi, Tepi!’
The boy went on as if he didn’t hear. A white fox crossed the path and several deer nosed and pawed the ground, looking for food.
‘Tepi!’ Oak shouted again, but the boy went on. The silence that fell between them added to Oak’s fear. He had promised Ganti to look after his son, and here he was, following an unknown path. The old woman was right, the boy was wilful. Now it began to snow. In the white blank world Oak’s sense of isolation returned. For a moment he stood still and shut his eyes to fight the feeling of surrender, the lethargy that seized his body. When he looked up Tepi was no longer in sight. Oak wearily scrambled up the hill. What would happen if he couldn’t force the child to return?
The path cut through high banks and snow hung on birches and low willows, turning them into strange white animals that watched him. The boy had already disappeared round another bend and in the distance Oak heard noises. Human voices.
A deer crossed the path then pushed back through the undergrowth. Oak put his fingers over the engraved bone he always hung round his neck. He thought of Juniper, nodding his head, promising Ganti to look after Tepi! He stood still, caught by a sudden terrible fear. The voices had become loud, angry, questioning. There was a cry like an order. A swishing sound. A childish scream of anguish. A scurry of feet. The deep voices of men.
Instinctively Oak stepped back into the track the deer had taken. It sounded as if the men were arguing among themselves but one voice was raised above the others. It was wailing, wailing. There was a dragging sound—was it a snowboat?—then a silence in which the loud lament cascaded into the air.
Oak stood in the animal path staring at the corner as if he could see everything that was going on. He couldn’t go forwards or backwards. A sense of no-belonging seized him as if the last roots of his childhood had been dug up and flung onto the bone pit.
He walked forward with the feeling he was somebody else. Where the animal track met the hunters’ path he paused. He couldn’t make up his mind whether to go back to the camp or forward towards the men.
He found himself walking forward, away from the shelter, away from Juniper and Hira, towards the unknown,
forbidden place the small boy had tried to discover.
Chapter 23
DEEP IN THE EARTH
Juniper stood up and looked down at Hira. He held his newly sewn boots and stretched out his arms.
‘I feel like a bird!’
Hira laughed. Juniper looked at her longingly but she didn’t stop pulling the thread through the hide and he felt cut off in his flight.
He turned to watch the children. They had invented a game with stones like the one he used to play with Lily. He had pictures in his mind of his smalltime, but the sadness had gone. Hira had lifted his spirits and even Icegoddess didn’t oppress him. He sat down again, crosslegged, and talked to Hira as he had done for many sunjourneys.
She looked up. ‘Now you can speak almost like me.’
‘And sew as well as you. What about these?’
He thrust his newly-finished boots in front of her.
‘I want to go out and try them.’
Hira shook her head. ‘Not until the hunters come back.’
‘Always waiting!’
Half defiantly Juniper pulled off his old foot coverings and put on his new boots. He stood up and paced about in them. For a moment being next to Hira wasn’t enough. Oak would understand. Oak.
He looked round.
There was no one by the carcass pit. Perhaps his friend was in the tent, or helping Tepi in the wood store.
He walked about the camp in his new boots, searching everywhere. The children waylaid him and soon it would be meal time, the best moment of the day. He would sit next to Hira as he always did now, watching her ladle hot seed soup into his hollow stone. And Oak, why hadn’t he thought more about Oak?
The old grandmother cut into his thoughts, coming towards him, waving her stick, calling ‘Tepi! Tepi!’
Chenti came up, leaning heavily on a child’s shoulder. He peered round the family and spoke in a thin, anxious voice.
‘Tepi’s not here. Has anyone seen him?’
‘Oak’s missing, too,’ said Juniper, ‘They must be together.’
Grumbling and sighing, the women and children scattered, shouting ‘Tepi, Tepi’.
Only Juniper called out for his friend. Yells and commands swung round the shelter, but no one answered.
At last the family came back to the fire and Juniper made them sit down. He spoke loudly, with the authority Ganti had given him.
‘I promised Ganti I’d look after his son. I’ll go out and look for him.’
Chenti held up his hand. ‘It will soon be dark.’
Juniper ran to the entrance of the shelter and peered through the hanging bearskins.
The air was charged with cold and low clouds floated above the white misshapen trees.
He ran back to Chenti.
‘I must go. I promised Ganti—’
Chenti held out his hands. ‘We can’t lose you, Juniper. Soon we’ll need you.’
Juniper looked up in astonishment. The words were like a bond, a recognition. Into his head came a picture of Hornbeam smiling at him when he was a child.
‘I must go. I promised.’
Chenti nodded. ‘Then take this.’
He gave Juniper a bone engraved with criss-cross marks.
‘If you show this to the hunters they’ll know I sent you. It’s called Riji. And take this as well.’ The old man shouted out for a Salvi spear. ‘You may need it out there.’
Juniper smiled as if he was looking at Hornbeam. ‘I’ll put Riji in my hide bag and go straightaway.’
Why hadn’t he seen what Oak was doing? Why hadn’t he thought about his friend for such a long time? Before they came here everything he remembered was shared by Oak: the games in the river, the little clay figures, the fox, the manhood ceremony, the bear hunt at Koni time, his exile. Beside Oak, Hira was a yearning, no more. It was Oak who had given him faith instead of silence, friendship instead of exile.
He went to the tent, put on his hide cloak, secured his new boots, slung his bag round his neck and shouldered his Salvi spear. Nothing must be left to chance.
Outside it was bitterly cold and about to snow.
‘But Windgod is resting,’ he thought, picturing the god’s strong water-thin wings folded together.
He felt lightheaded as he walked away from the camp. All around him trees were laden with snow. He might have been among the silent white figures who lived with Stonegod. A deer crossed his path and stopped to sniff the air, the smell of man. Juniper stared at its high head, its raised antlers, its leaf-shaped eyes, its brown fur. He wished he too was a creature with four legs and the strength to live and forage outside. Of all the animals he worshipped and killed it was the deer he loved the best.
The animal quietly crossed the path and disappeared into the shadows. Juniper looked down: over the crisscrossed patterns in the snow he recognised Oak’s marks. And there were Tepi’s prints, small and swift, as if he was leading Oak on.
The sky grew dark and as he walked he was filled with remorse.
He had been climbing for a long time when the earth shook and he heard the faint wail of voices. He knew that sound from his childhood: it was the voice beyond words, the expression of grief, the death lament. The sounds drew him on, up the narrow track. He walked towards the thumping of earth and snow, the continual wail.
He rounded a corner and the hunters came in sight. They were digging a hole. Nearby a hide was flung over the outline of a body. Juniper recognised the reddish tinge of Oak’s deer hide. Without thinking he ran forward and raised his hands in the sign of grief. The hunters looked up and Shako put out his hand as if to stop him. Then Juniper remembered Riji. He fumbled for it in his bag and held it up before Shako who gravely took it from him.
‘I came to find them.’
‘It’s too late.’
Shako angrily pointed to the ground.
Juniper swayed backwards and forwards in front of the half-made grave. As the men dug up the frozen soil with their antler picks, their lamenting grew louder. One voice was raised above the others. It was Ganti’s.
‘He was the father.’
Juniper looked at Shako. ‘What about Oak?’
Shako held up his fist. ‘He’ll be judged. He could have stopped the boy.’
Juniper looked down at the deer hide.
‘He’s stripped of all his belongings,’ said Shako, following Juniper’s gaze. ‘When the boy’s buried we’ll hold the judgement.’
But Juniper was filled with relief because if Oak was alive he could save him.
‘It was my fault. I should have stopped Tepi,’ he cried. ‘Ganti left the boy to me. It was my fault . . .’
Shako raised his hand and turned his back, shouting at one of the hunters who was digging.
‘Take him,’ he ordered, pointing to Juniper.
The hunter came over and tied Juniper’s hands behind his back.
‘Where? Where are we going?’
But the man wouldn’t say.
They climbed up a little path that led to a clearing. The snow had been trampled down into a hard black surface. To one side, the sloping, rocky ground had been cleared and a black hole gaped from the rock. Beyond this a few tents huddled against the rising hill. The hunter untied Juniper’s hands and pushed him down into a low black tunnel where the air was still and evenly cold. They crawled or walked, doubled up. The path widened out and Juniper saw a little light bobbing up and down. A man was standing with a lamp in front of another tunnel. He must be guarding it.
‘Rankooni’
‘Rankooni.’
Juniper remembered the password from the ceremony at the carcass pit. There was an exchange of low whispering then the guard held the light high above his head. He pushed Juniper into the next tunnel and followed him closely behind. Juniper could just make out the small rough passage that wound between the mass of rock. He tripped on wet stones, collided with a jutting wall. Blackness was everywhere and he thought despairingly of Oak who loved the sun. At last the passage widened
out and there was another guard holding up a candle. It flowered in the darkness like a little sun.
‘Rankooni’
‘Rankooni.’
While the guards were exchanging greetings Juniper tried to peer over their shoulders at the opening in the passageway. In the cool air he could think more clearly. Of course! These were the ancient waterways that Rivergod had abandoned, the sanctuaries of his judgement, the sacred places Hornbeam had hinted at. Underground, unseen, save by a few.
Before him was a great cave lit up by several lamps that had been placed round the walls. And there was Oak on the other side, tied to a boulder. The flickering candles threw Oak’s shadow up on the wall. The huge shadow man was looking at Juniper, accusing him, overwhelming him. The guard shoved Juniper against the nearest rocky wall and bound him hand and foot to a boulder. The ropes were tight and the rock stuck into his back. Between the flickering lamps, pools of darkness separated him from Oak. He could just make out his friend’s sad expression.
‘Forgive me, Oak.’
In a flash their lives together unrolled before him.
‘It wasn’t you.’ Oak’s voice was tired and despairing. ‘Cloudgod filled me with jealousy. I wanted to be with you alone. I wasn’t myself or I’d have stopped the boy. It’s you who must forgive me.’
Juniper wept. ‘I never stopped loving you, Oak. I’ll think of something. We will escape.’
He looked round the cave. Boulders were scattered about like hooded men. Lamplight flickered on the smooth yellow and black walls.
‘There must be a way out.’
There were passages leading further into the ground and there was the way up to the icy earth—but that was where the guard stood. Perhaps this time there was no escape after all.
‘They’re coming in,’ shouted Oak.
Chapter 24
THE JUDGEMENT
The hunters passed Juniper and gathered in the middle of the cave. They placed several lamps on boulders so their other selves loomed, huge and black on the cave walls. They took off their fur hoods and hand coverings and piled them in a heap. They unrolled their deerskins and sat crosslegged before an enormous deer head and a huge antler that were balanced against a boulder.
The Dream Cave Page 11
