by Jack Lasenby
The fragments should have been removed, the wound cleaned yesterday. But at least the young woman now had a chance. It was only when I finished that I realised Gerrolah, the old woman healer, was squinting down on me, filthy hands raised.
“I pulled this out.” I showed her the spear head. “Anything like that is certain to cause infection.” I looked at a boy whose cut leg was encrusted with dirt and dried blood and called for more hot water.
“It’s too late to stitch it now,” I said to Gerrolah, “but at least the cut can be cleaned and bound so it heals. Dirt brings infection, needs to be cleaned out of wounds. Just washing your hands would save a few lives.”
As I spoke, Lutha arrived with her bodyguard.
Chapter 7
Cat’s Cradle
“Ish! You have no right here!” Lutha was grim-faced. “Gerrolah is our Healer. She knows the incantations.”
“Chanting spells won’t do a thing. Your father taught me about germs that dirty hands carry from one wound to another and kill people. Some of these are going to die because of Gerrolah’s filthiness!” I saw the anger on Lutha’s face. She couldn’t afford to upset Gerrolah and the old women. Not even if it meant people would die. Their survival was less important to Lutha than power. And I saw Kalik behind the Maidens, smiling.
“Forgive me. I just wanted to help.” I backed away, apologising and thinking of Kalik’s earlier remark. If the wounded died, they deserved it. Irrational, superstitious, but it was the way the Headland People thought.
Lutha could only change things with their willingness. If she changed too much too quickly, they might turn against her. That much I could understand. Even so, my training in Healing made me angry.
They happened: unnecessary deaths – infection spread by Gerrolah’s dirty hands. And I could have died because of my interference. Well-meant, but still interference. I had read and seen how easy it is to divide a community, how easily a divided community is defeated. I had no wish to weaken Lutha’s rule. I controlled my temper, reminded myself why I had stayed after the battle.
Some wounded recovered, including the young woman from whose shoulder I had taken the spearhead. People began coming with all sorts of injuries and sicknesses. Most were trivial. I had learned that the body cures many things itself, that the best way to help is to keep it clean and rested. But I had also learned some discretion.
When a mother brought a sick baby, I said, “You must listen to Gerrolah, but you might try giving your baby a little water in which you have simmered these herbs.” To another: “Say the words Gerrolah taught you over your baby. Then mash a few konny berries with honey. Try her with them first, and she might be hungrier.” I remembered all I could of the Shaman’s care of babies, but made sure the mothers went to Gerrolah for her mumbo-jumbo. And, as I gave advice, as I taught the use of cleanliness, I thought increasingly about Lutha, her leadership. Was it worthwhile if it depended upon ignorance?
One night Lutha called me to the shelter by the Roundhouse. Kalik was there. “What did you tell Kalik and Gerrolah? About things that kill, things too small to be seen?”
I began to explain about germs, but realised Lutha only desired the information, didn’t want me to pass it on to anyone else. “It’s a theory,” I said. “One your father mentioned. But I don’t know much more about it than that.” I deceived Lutha but was less sure of Kalik. I emptied my mind of pictures, of ideas, lest he know what I was thinking.
I conceived a great disgust for them both. Ignorance, the Shaman had taught me, is no fault, but any attempt to sustain it is wrong. I sometimes wondered how the Shaman would have got on here on the Headland.
Perhaps Kalik warned Lutha against pushing me too hard. A guard later brought a message: “Lutha says you may practise your healing on the Salt Children.”
The messenger slapped the handle of his spear, trotted off importantly. I smiled at his self-satisfaction, darted inside my hut, leapt and danced. Nip stared at me, astonished.
Why had Lutha made her offer? So she and Kalik could watch and learn the things I had not told them? Had Kalik guessed I was withholding information? I must never undestimate his ability to read me as if I were an open book.
“Book!” I exclaimed aloud. My story book had disappeared. I should have known my pack would be searched.
I asked to see Lutha. The Maidens led me to the shelter. There was no sign of Raka. The same Salt Girl, eyes cast down, stood by the door with the baby. Inside, Kalik sprawled elegant, stringing a cat’s cradle between the fingers of both hands.
“Ish,” Lutha said, “Kalik told me how well you fought against the Salt Men. He says you saved his life at least twice.”
“It was nothing. Kalik probably saved my life several times.” It might have sounded glib because the slightest frown crossed Kalik’s face. His mind was more subtle than mine. I had only frankness to set against his deviousness.
“Thank you for your permission to work amongst the Salt Children,” I said to Lutha.
“Try out your ideas on them. It doesn’t matter if they die.”
Kalik smiled at Lutha’s words, and I remembered him kicking the Salt Child who spilled a pot of water, before the attack. He took another loop of string around a finger, picked it up with the tip of the same finger of his opposite hand, doubled and led it around a thumb. I watched as he drew his left middle finger back and set the whole intricacy of the cat’s cradle sawing back and forth. Kalik laughed and flicked both hands, a sudden flash of fingers. The string flew, one long length instead of the net it had been a moment before, and vanished. It was just sleight-of-hand, but I laughed appreciatively. Kalik moved his head, a tiny nod.
“The stockade guards will let you in and out any time,” Lutha went on. She was watching Kalik who now spun the string, a tracery around his left hand. It was like him, I thought, to play a game of subtle warning. Telling me to watch my step lest I be caught in a net?
“Lutha, I had a thing in my pack. About this big. I have looked everywhere but cannot find it.”
“If one of the guards has taken it, I will punish them.”
Kalik shook his left hand so the string slid. He spread his fingers wide. The net he had so patiently contrived piled in a series of circles over his wrist. I noticed his fingers rippled singly then together, a supple shifting movement as if they danced.
“I took it.”
“You?”
“I was interested.” Kalik’s reply to Lutha was too cursory. Her eyes narrowed. “What is the thing, Ish?” Kalik asked.
But I was ready with my reply. ‘The Shaman – your father –” I said to Lutha, “gave it to me. The marks in it are a record of how to heal illnesses. He said I would come to understand if I looked at it often enough.”
I had prepared the lie, determined not to let Lutha and Kalik know about reading and writing. That was a secret strength I had, one I would keep secret.
“Then, if I look at it often enough, I will understand healing.” There was a silky smile in Kalik’s voice. He reached inside his tunic, produced the book. Lutha held out her hand. “It makes no sense,” Kalik said but surrendered it.
I did not say to Lutha that she held it upside-down, that she was turning the pages backwards. To her it must look like a lot of thin white flaps covered in rows of irrregular black marks.
“How do we know these are not spells?” asked Kalik.
“Spells?” Lutha’s voice was sharp.
Kalik nodded. “Enchantments,” he smiled.
“Your father fought against superstition. Witchcraft and magic he said were the powers of ignorance. That’s why I’m sure they are not spells.” I heard the certainty in my own voice. It convinced Lutha, I could see.
“Nevertheless,” said Kalik, “it would be wiser if I keep it.” He glanced at the book in Lutha’s hands. “I will show it to some of our older people. Some of them might know what it is.”
“Of course,” I heard my voice say. “I missed it, that’s all. It
was the Shaman’s gift.”
Lutha tried the book round the other way, turning the leaves over from the front. Held it the right way up. There might be somebody among their people who had seen letters written somewhere. But so what? The book contained only stories. I cleared my mind because Kalik was watching me.
“As long as it is safe….”
“It is safe,” Lutha assured me.
Kalik glanced at the book in Lutha’s hands, turned his hard stare on me again, but I knew I must look innocent, must seem unworried – except about the book as a present from the Shaman.
“I was afraid somebody might have thrown it away when they found it was no use for anything.”
Kalik smiled. “If it’s a record of how the Shaman did his healing, wouldn’t you expect to see a number of the same marks here and there?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know. The Shaman didn’t tell me how it worked.”
“Why do you suppose not?”
“Perhaps he would have explained it – but the Salt Men shot him.” Lutha nodded. “Perhaps we’ll never know. I am grateful for your permission to work with the Salt Children, Lutha.” I stood, not looking at the book which Lutha had set down beside herself. She was not going to return it to Kalik. At least I knew where it was.
I thought Lutha believed me, but was unsure of Kalik. There was the feeling of a question on the air as I left the shelter, as if he was just waiting until I had gone before raising something I hadn’t thought about.
One of the Maidens muttered something. I smiled. There was no point in angering them. I touched Nip’s head, and walked away. Again, no sign of Raka.
Back in my hut I prepared herbs, healing leaves, flax string, soap, and gourds cut into large bowls. Crude tools to fight the sicknesses I knew we would find amongst the Salt Children. The first difficulty would be winning their confidence.
A guard challenged me at the stockade, but another said, “Lutha ordered us to let Ish come and go when he wants.” The first guard shrugged, swung open the gates.
Chapter 8
Something So Obvious
A child ran screaming from the nearer hut. Another chasing it. A sound like a punch. The scream became a bubbling which turned to a hiss – like sap steaming out the end of a green log on a fire. The child clutched at the arrow in his throat, kicked, and died. The guard ran past and retrieved his arrow. A moan rose from the nearer hut. The second child had disappeared back inside.
“They know the rule. No coming outside unless they’re ordered,” said the guard.
The gates slammed shut. The guards climbed back to their platform commanding the compound. Nip sniffed at the corpse. I knocked on the door of the hut. A few high shrieks. I pulled open the door and recoiled. The stench!
Light slanted and jagged through holes and cracks in the walls. Mounds of darkness breaking the lines of light were children crawling away from the door. Huddling against the far wall.
I went out of that foul air, reasoned with the guards, but they said they must shoot the Children if they came out of the buildings. “Those are our orders!” I returned to the Roundhouse.
“There’s a child dead – shot because it ran outside. Can I tell the guards to bury it?” I asked Lutha. She nodded, unsurprised. Kalik just looked at me, quizzical. When I asked if I might bring the Children out of the huts, Lutha instructed a messenger.
The guards listened and nodded at Lutha’s new orders. They dragged the body across to the palisade. I wondered how many had gone that way.
The Children did not move when I told them they could go outside, but packed tighter against the far wall. They could not know my good intentions. I had to bring a guard to order them outside. Even then, they stayed close, ready to dash inside again.
Three had to be carried outside. They were dying. I made the guards bring water, wet their mouths. One looked as if she had the wasting disease, tuberculosis. The other two, a girl and a boy, responded neither to touch nor sound. Their pulses a tiny thread; their eyes did not focus. These were beyond my help. At least they died in the warm sun.
Many of the others showed the same apathy, eyes that saw nothing. The guards were unwilling but, when I threatened to complain to Lutha again, brought baskets of cooked fish and potatoes. The Children bolted the food, most cowering away from each other. I helped the smallest, a boy who whispered his name was Chak and smiled.
“While I am here, you can stay outside. Don’t go near the stockade or the gates,” I told the Children and went to work. Splinting several broken limbs, ordering a fire lit, water heated. I set several bigger children to washing the cuts, the sores, ugly wounds of neglect.
I noticed the other signs of damage: slumped bodies, the closed faces of children who had been treated cruelly, had no trust. Some responded to my first words of kindness. First Chak, then a girl, Kimi, who played with Nip. I wondered again why some people give in, why some survive. Kimi and Chak were the youngest of the Children. Perhaps that helped.
In the other hut two corpses lay inside the door. The same stench, apathy, and terror. We got those children out into the light, and I called for more food. I washed, bound, and treated what wounds and sores I could see and set several more broken limbs.
One of the satisfactions of being a Healer is that children get better so quickly. Some. Others die just as quickly. After the first desperate days, I got permission to dig graves. A clever-handed older boy carved stakes with faces of the dead, quickly done, just a few lines cut in the wood. It might help the Children, remembering them.
We scrubbed the huts. Cut windows in the walls. Sun sweetened the air and the dirt floors. The guards scoffed but did not interfere when I built bunks and strewed them with fern. Until then the Children had slept on the fouled earth. We dug latrines, separate ones for boys and girls.
There were over twenty children, some captured by Kalik several years ago. The ones who had been here longest were quickest to seize any food, grabbing the best for themselves. They had learned to survive at the expense of new arrivals.
The strongest were used as slaves to fetch firewood from the beaches, carry water, dig rubbish pits and latrines. They dragged up the canoes before storms. They were on call to anyone repairing the buildings, maintaining the palisade, fences, trenches.
Some of the bigger girls were used to look after babies. One helped me with the smaller children, said her name was Maka. A bruise covered one side of her face, that eye bloodshot still. “You’re the one Lutha struck?” She said nothing.
As they got better, the smaller Salt Children helped the older boys in the gardens, the orchard, tending the grape vines. Each day they carried in fruit and vegetables: greens, potatoes, onions, beans. Lutha agreed their work was valuable. “Just don’t go thinking they’re human,” she said.
The Children had survived on scraps, gnawing vegetables raw, stealing fruit. We built chimneys on the huts, and I taught them to cook.
Each day, fish were speared and netted, and people helped themselves from the racks on the beach. Any left over were smoked. There was always a good supply to carry through bad weather – or another attack by the Salt Men.
When hunting parties brought in carcasses of deer, goats, the occasional bear, the best cuts went to Lutha and her Maidens. Then the hunters themselves. The remainder was distributed through the settlement according to need.
My claim of fish for the Salt Children raised no complaints. But, when I filled a basket with meat, Lutha called me before her. Told several women there to confront me with their complaint.
“There is only enough meat for us,” said a fresh-faced woman, plump, pleased-looking. I knew her to have two young children. “Ish helps himself to fish for the Salt Children. Now he wants to give them meat. They get fruit and vegetables. What next will he want for them?” Her companions grumbled agreement.
“A lot of good meat is wasted, left for the dogs to clean up. The Salt Children do much of the heavy, dirty work. If we keep them healthy, feed th
em well, they will return that in work. They are too useful to waste.” I looked around the women. “Without the Salt Children, you would have to clean your own houses, look after your own babies.”
The plump woman gasped, rolled her eyes. But some of the others could understand that argument. If slaves had a value, they were worth looking after. Lutha ruled in favour of my suggestion. The meeting broke up in general agreement, except for the plump woman with her smug face.
“Better wasted than given to slaves,” she hissed.
I turned and saw Kalik staring at me. I was pleased I had betrayed no pleasure at Lutha’s decision. As I returned to my hut, I knew he would be looking after me, a little smile on his face as if he knew something.
“Nobody can read anyone else’s mind,” I said to Nip. “It’s superstitious to believe it!”
The cleaner, warmer huts, the better food helped. Wounds healed. Broken legs, arms, and ribs knitted. Those with the wasting disease looked more hopeful. Still there was something missing.
The Children had seen parents, brothers, sisters killed, raped, tortured, even eaten. There was no way of replacing their own people, their own families. And yet the spark for survival was there – in many.
The two most apathetic children, a girl and a boy, Puli and Tama, still hunched in despair, faces hidden against their knees, arms around their legs. I worried about my inability to bring them out of their unhappiness, then remembered Heta of the Seal People. The Shaman had said she was too far gone to be helped, her misery so deep it would be unfair to keep her alive. Kala, her husband, drove her on his sledge out on the white plain, built a snow-house, and left her to die.
Puli and Tama were too far gone in despair for me to bring back, I told myself. I must look after the ones who could be saved. And then I stumbled on a way to help them, something so obvious I might have worked it out before.
Chapter 9
