I’ll plead for Oak, thought Juniper, as Shako came forward to untie him. Shako’s hoof swung backwards and forwards before him as he spoke in a harsh voice.
‘You must tell Oak what we say. You must tell him what the judgement is.’
Juniper clung to Shako. ‘Oak didn’t mean it. He didn’t know what he was doing.’
Shako pushed him off and moved into the middle of the cave where he picked up the antler and held it above his head. At this sign some of the men disappeared into the darkness and returned staggering under the weight of deer heads and a solitary bird head.
Birdgod! He had come before to save his mother. Surely he would come now to help Oak? Juniper prayed silently as he watched one of the hunters put on the bird head. Shako lifted the great deer head and settled it over his shoulders, bowing his neck to hide his own eyes and mouth. The hunters put on their deer heads and prayed to the great Animalgod who has no name.
Juniper tried to catch a glimpse of his friend but now Oak was hidden by the tall bird head and the towering antlers. Shako turned round and beckoned Ganti to stand and speak. Ganti spoke softly and angrily.
‘We shared our fire, our meat. We trusted him to guard the carcass pit.’
With a sudden spurt of energy he pointed to Oak.
‘He let Tepi go down the sacred path. He made me shoot my own son.’
He rocked to and fro and sat down, unable to say more.
Juniper repeated this to Oak who replied intently.
‘Tell Ganti, tell him it was bad fate. Tell him it’s nothing to do with you. Tell him I am responsible.’ He looked at Shako. ‘. . . And tell him I was ignorant. Tell him I didn’t know we were on the sacred path.’
Juniper stuttered as he tried to find the right words.
Then Ganti stood up again. ‘My son’s dead, nothing will bring him back to life.’ He pointed to Oak again. ‘There is more than one way of making war.’
The word of darkness ran through Juniper’s head. Would the Salvi commit Murdam? A killing for a killing. Or would Oak be exiled? There was always some sort of hope for the exiled but the dead had only one path to follow.
The hunters whispered and murmured among themselves until Shako raised his voice.
‘We will make a sacrifice. If the smoke rises straight up it will be cold death. If the smoke wavers it will be cave death. As for you,’ he turned to Juniper, ‘you will give us all your gifts in return for your life. You will be initiated straight away.’
In a low sad voice Juniper told Oak what Shako said. Then Birdman stood up and one of the hunters knelt before him. From a bag that was bulging with movement he pulled out several white hares. He took out a little spear and killed them instantly.
He placed the bleeding bodies in a circle on the ground and the hunters smeared their hands with hare blood. Then they lit a small fire inside the hare circle and kneeled round, chanting and swaying. Ganti took a knife to Oak and untied his arms. He held Oak’s left hand and with a single blow cut off the little finger. Then he cut off the little finger of the right hand.
Juniper ran forward but Shako tied him up again, tighter this time, so the rock burned into his back.
Ganti threw Oak’s fingers into the fire and the hunters went on chanting to Fategod.
Juniper tried to catch a glimpse of Oak. For a flash his friend’s face was framed between the rising antlers. His eyes were closed and lines of exhaustion deepening in the flickering light.
Juniper looked back at the fire. Smoke was rising out of the flames. It gathered itself up and rose in a straight line to the glistening roof.
Birdman looked up and spoke. ‘It is death by cold!’
He turned to Oak. ‘You’ll be led to the badpit and stripped of your hides. You’ll die from cold or be devoured by an animal.’
He turned to Juniper. ‘Tell him we don’t practise Murdam. Everyone must fight Fategod. He’ll be stripped of everything but the engraved bone you gave him. Such a gift has its own life. He’ll be given a stick to fight Fategod. He’ll be thrown on the badpit and no one will witness his end.’
Juniper couldn’t bear to look at Oak. He shut his eyes and Greenwater came into his head like a wraith of smoke that wandered along the paths of his childhood. Hornbeam was sitting beside the grey river, his voice thin and small as the smoke.
‘You can’t fight Fategod. Only the great Pollon can pin him to the ground.’
Hornbeam’s words faded and Juniper pleaded for Oak.
‘Let me talk to him once more.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll agree to share all my gifts with you if you give us time to say goodbye when you have gone. There are many guards. If you don’t let us I will cut off my own hands.’
Shako spoke sternly. ‘A short goodbye.’
It seemed a long time before the hunters filed out and Juniper and Oak were left with the guards.
Their voices echoed across the darkness.
‘I can’t let you die.’
‘It’s Fategod, Juniper.’
‘I’ll come and find you.’
‘They won’t let you.’
‘There must be a way. You must get back to Greenwater. I’ll come back for you.’
‘You must stay. Men and gods need your work.’
The lamp flickered and their other selves swayed on the walls of the cave.
‘I’ll fight to live,’ said Oak. ‘You must stay here and work for them.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps one day you’ll go back to Greenwater . . .’
Juniper wept. ‘You’ve spent your life comforting me. I would rather die instead of you.’
‘I’ll fight to live,’ repeated Oak, ‘and you must work.’
How small Oak looks next to his great shadow, thought Juniper. How small we all are.
They sat in silence looking at each other until the guards moved forward and unbound Oak from the rock. They tied the cord round his body so he could move nothing but his fingers.
As they dragged him along, Oak glanced at Juniper with great strength.
Juniper looked steadily back and smiled. ‘Birdgod be with you,’ he whispered.
When Oak had gone Juniper felt as if he would never move again, as if the whole of his life was darker than the tunnels under the earth.
A guard pushed in front of him and gave him a cold drink from a hide bag. He accepted it without thought.
‘You must stay here alone in the dark. I’ll untie your arms so you can reach the water bag. Darkness and silence will purify you.’
Darkness and silence.
The other companions of his life.
Chapter 25
THE FOUR SECRETS
Only the strange glow on the ceiling broke the darkness. It was like a sky and Juniper remembered the grey stretch of low clouds and the white earth. In his mind he followed Oak, step by step.
He saw him on the sledge, bound and stripped of everything but the engraved bone. Oak’s mutilated hands ached, his face was white and tense.
Several hunters dragged him down the hill and past the shelter where they told the women and children what had happened. Oak was in pain but the earth still seemed beautiful to Juniper. He pictured the animals among the trees—wolves, bison, oxen. An old bear sat on a rock by the river cliff, deer huddled together, nosing at the trees and the snow-thick ground. Their sprouting antlers reminded him of a spring he had almost forgotten. He saw the hunters reach the badpit and pull Oak off the sledge, leaving him naked on the snowy mound with nothing but a long sharp stick. Before they left they beat him with the stick and cursed angrily.
Juniper saw this scene over and over again until he drew a blank. Then the darkness in the cave moved closer to him, swinging its cloak round and round his head so there was nothing at all, not even the white, shining ceiling. Out of the darkness Hornbeam came towards him. The old man was fragile and bent, but the expression on his face was full of kindness and authority. He took Juniper’s hands in his and looked at them for a long time, as if they held an important secret. Then h
e moved backwards and faded out of Juniper’s dream.
‘It’s time.’
Juniper woke to find a lamp shining on a boulder in front of him. Shako was undoing the cords that bound him. His arms were stiff but his head was clearer than it had been. For some reason, he no longer felt oppressed and hopeless.
‘There’s meat and drink.’ Shako pointed to a rock where the food had been placed. When you’ve eaten Birdman will come alone to talk to you. There are things you have to know before you become one of us.’
‘Oak! I’ve been dreaming about Oak.’
‘Don’t speak of him. He’s nothing to do with us now.’
Juniper sighed. His love for Oak would always set him apart from the others.
He ate and drank. The lamplight flared up and Shako stared at him. Would it ever be possible, he wondered, to live another sort of life?
Shako went and Birdman came in with a lamp in either hand. He put the lamps on either side of Juniper and lowered his head so he appeared to be speaking through his mask. He spoke solemnly.
‘You’ve passed darktime alone. Now you have to understand the four great secrets. Watch carefully.’
He moved his hands round and round in such a way that Juniper was forced to follow their movements. After a while Birdman clenched his fists then slowly opened his fingers. It looked as if something was stretching and tightening in the space between his hands. Whatever it was shone in the lamplight with the same unreflecting blue-white glow as the ceiling. Now it was a ball, now a cord, now a circle, and now it took on the shape of a blue-white egg. For a moment Birdman let the egg balance between his hands. Then he threw it up in the air and it disappeared. Juniper’s concentration sharpened. He watched Birdman closely as he moved the lamps to one side and sat before him, crosslegged. Birdman raised his head so that his own face was visible. Juniper saw that the brown mark on the hunter’s forehead was in the shape of an egg.
‘Is your spirit clear?’
‘Yes,’ said Juniper.
‘Are you ready to receive the secrets?’
‘Yes.’
Birdman nodded and raised his finger to the mark on his forehead.
‘Listen carefully to my words. Ask me if you don’t understand.’
He paused for a moment then spoke in a high, monotonous tone:
‘The egg holds the invisible bird.
The painting holds the invisible
picture .
The hunter holds the invisible child.’
They sat in silence for a while.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Juniper at last. ‘The hunter holds the invisible child?’ It’s the women who have children.’
‘This is the first Secret,’ said Birdman. ‘The invisible child is the hunter’s seed. It’s the hunter who puts the child in the woman.’
‘But that’s play, pleasure,’ said Juniper. ‘That has nothing to do with the birth of a child.’
‘The hunter’s seed is the child,’ repeated Birdman slowly. ‘It’s his seed that makes the child in the woman. Pleasure is not a game. It’s a mystery.’
The meaning was so great Juniper sat in silence again. It meant he had a flesh father, not an elected father, and that his father had a flesh father. The line stretched back and back, not only from women to women but from men to men. It meant he too had the seed of a child inside him. He wanted to go on thinking about it but once more Birdman raised his hands to the mark on his forehead.
‘That was the first secret. Here is the second.’
‘First? Second? I don’t understand,’ Birdman smiled.
‘These are words we use to make Time sit in our hands. Time is a bird we’ve tamed. He flies everywhere, in our dreams, in the forest. But our words make him sit where we want. He listens to our counting.’
Birdman said the words that tamed Time: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—there are many more and you will learn them. We put the words down on wood and bone. That’s another way we make Time sit in our hands.’
Juniper stared in amazement. ‘But Time is everywhere, at the same moment—in memories, in dreams. How can words order time?’
He felt as if he knew nothing at all.
Once more Birdman raised his hand to cover the mark on his forehead.
“That is the second secret. The third secret is here, under the earth. Above the earth men fight because they’re afraid of change. When they find pictures and clay models and little bone figures they smash them because they believe they’ll bring back Icegoddess forever. They commit Murdam, as we once did when our ancestors lived with the Trevi and Icegoddess stayed for a long, long time.’
Juniper nodded.
‘Hornbeam told me about the great killing.’
Birdman spoke quickly. ‘The Trevi hate change but they won’t commit Murdam. They’re not like the silent hunters.’
Juniper remembered the hunters he and Oak saw. Men chasing men, silently, in the forest.
Birdman lowered his voice. ‘We hide our work from the silent hunters. Our paintings have great power. They help us to love and worship animals and to kill them in the right spirit. They bring us nearer to the great Animalgod.’
He made a sign in the air.
‘We paint in the depths of the earth. Here below the grass and the roots of the trees we stand in Pollon’s shadow. His shadow guards us under the ground in the same way as his light guards us above the earth. Icegoddess can never never come here! Pollon has great power under the earth. His caves are beautiful and always cool. Here our paintings will live forever in his gentle shadow. That is the third secret.’
Juniper nodded and Birdman put his hand once again over his forehead.
‘The fourth secret is one we don’t always understand.’ He spoke slowly so that Juniper would take in the words:
‘We mark down our dreams so we won’t lose them. Most of our own power lies in our dreams.’
Juniper remembered the strange marks on the hides that hung in the Salvi shelter. He listened carefully.
‘Straight lines are men’s dreams, circles are women’s dreams. There are other signs, like the marks we have to trace the path of Moongoddess. Those marks give a special meaning to any dreams that come at the beginning and end of her walk. These dreams are always important because they come from the other side of Moongoddess— the side she never shows us in the sky. There are many other marks but these are the most important ones of all.’
In the silence that followed Juniper tried to understand. Then Birdman stood up and helped Juniper to his feet.
‘You’ll soon go down to the middle of the earth where the great Animalgod lived in Pollon’s shadow. We work on our hands and knees and sing to him as we paint our dreams.’
‘Paint our dreams?’
Birdman didn’t answer. Instead he turned his back on Juniper.
‘Great Animalgod, Juniper has come to paint his dream in the dream pit.’ He turned back. ‘Do you accept?’
Juniper nodded.
‘Then put your hands on mine.’
They held up their hands, palm to palm, finger to finger.
‘Say after me: I swear I will understand and keep the Secrets.’
‘I swear I will understand and keep the Secrets.’
‘I swear to put them to the use of all the family.’
‘I swear to put them to the use of all the family.’
The warmth from Birdman’s hands moved into Juniper’s arms and down to his heart. He felt as if he was breathing freely for the first time. He would never put aside his sadness and love for Oak. He would do all he could to find him and save him. But now he must become a Salvi and give them all his gifts.
Chapter 26
THE MESSAGE
Oak nearly fainted when the guards dragged him away, naked. It was only his friend’s whispering that gave him strength.
‘Birdgod be with you.’
In an instant he became aware of Juniper’s inner self. He knew hi
s faith would be fulfilled and Juniper’s marvellous dreams would be locked up in the earth forever. They would be the Salvi’s secret and a key to the story of all men. He remembered the tree where they had strung up their deer hides and leaves had showered down on them like Greenwater.
‘We are the Newmen,’ they had shouted. ‘We are the Newmen!’
His feet scraped the rough ground and he dipped his head to avoid the low roof. His arms and legs burned under the tight cord. At the cave entrance cold air rushed over him. The hunters tied him roughly to a sledge and dragged him down the hill. He watched the trees herd over him, grey sky pushing down between. Soon Windgod would dance with Icegoddess and there would be nothing but swirling snow. It seemed as if the journey would last forever.
‘Birdgod be with you.’
He repeated Juniper’s words over and over to himself. Without these words he would have died.
At last the hunters stopped, unbound him and threw down a tall sharp stick at his side. They looked at him through their deer heads and insulted him with the only word he had learned—Badpit! Badpit! Badpit. It was like a spell that would turn him into the foulest thing they knew. He held Juniper’s bone necklace to counteract their chant until they filed away, dragging the sledge behind them. For a long while he didn’t dare move. When at last he stretched his arms a fierce pain shot through his fingers. At least they weren’t frozen! His eyes were dazzled by the snow and he wanted to sleep but he fought off the feeling. Perhaps he would find his broken spear! It must he near the top, he thought. With difficulty he pushed the shinbone through the snow and suddenly struck something hard. He dug round and uncovered a sharp stone head still lodged in the broken haft of a spear. His spear! The cord had rotted a little but it was still holding. It was a good omen.
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