by Jack Lasenby
Her eyes closed, tears slipped from under the lids. I thought of the first time I had seen Maka, when Lutha struck her, how she stood holding the baby, defenceless.
I put my arms around her. She mumbled, “Nothing,” but she wept. Poor Maka! She had seemed so self-possessed, cheering the little ones, telling them stories. And all the time afraid herself.
We sat. I still held her. The distant lakes turned silver as the ridges about them darkened. I did not understand fully what had been done to the Children. Should I encourage them to talk? Or leave it to find its own way out? The Shaman once said it was sometimes better that old hurts were left to lie buried deep.
“If people don’t want to talk, the Healer musn’t make them. It might even be our job to stop them from talking. Revealing what they may later regret.”
Maka was pretty, desirable. Of course I wanted her. Her distress made my hunger all the stronger. But something held me back. I looked away from the curve of her smooth face, wet with tears. Saw her rounded, brown knees. Again I felt desire then remembered Lutha’s knees in the canoe, when she saved us. All the time in the Land of the White Bear, I had remembered the sight of her knees, the feel of her breasts against my face as she hung the knife around my neck. And I also remembered Lutha’s indifference to the Children’s misery.
Maka was one of the Children. My family. Her sobs quietened. At last, she shuddered and laughed. “I hate him!” she said. And we returned. Maka walking beside me, her hand in mine, trusting.
Chapter 20
The Smell and the Sound
Under a leaning wall, Tepulka and Paku had scraped the sheepskin of fat and hung it on a pole. Chak and Hurk unrolled the edges. Tepulka looked at Maka.
“Where are we?”
“South-east of the lake. Further than I thought.” I pointed. “At least two days.” I could see Paku thinking it out, arranging the landscape like a map in his head. He would need that sense of the country, the lay of the land.
“So that’s how long we were in the tunnel?”
“Maybe three. We climbed quite a bit.”
“We’ve been lucky, eh, Ish?”
“I’d like to get further still, as far as possible from Kalik.” Again, the silence that followed mention of his name. “We can light a fire. They won’t see the smoke.”
While the rest gathered firewood and fern, Tepulka scored a groove in a length of dry wood. Maka stood on the end. Tepulka shoved a sharpened stick backwards and forward in the groove. Some time I would show them how to make a fire-drill.
Old Hagar had taught by starting something off and letting me finish. Hinting at something I might try, so I thought I discovered it myself. Taur was the kindest teacher. The Shaman taught me to question, to work things out for myself. Even his inconsistencies were deliberate: I learned to be critical of him – and of myself.
By the time we dragged down some logs, Tepulka was blowing on a little flame, Maka, laughing, feeding it twigs, dried leaves. Under the wall, the light caught the curve of her chin, her forehead. I realised just how pretty she was and dropped my end of a log. Paku grimaced as it jarred his hands.
The fire leapt against the gloom. Rain became heavy as we ran with the last wood, bundles of fern. The river roared in the dark. A shower of drips over the brow of the wall made it like standing behind a waterfall. Snug, we grinned at each other.
From end to end of the sheep’s carcass, Tepulka and Maka had thrust a sharpened pole. This spit now rested in forked stakes either side of the fire. They rubbed little grey leaves between their hands, scatterered them inside and over the carcass, and turned the spit. The sharp sweetness of the leaves, the fragrance of roasting meat! My mouth watered.
Chak sniffed loudly. “It smells lovely!”
“Don’t sniff too hard.” Chak looked hard at Tepulka. “There’ll be none left for anyone else.” Straight-faced, Tepulka turned back to help Maka sharpen slivers of wood, and Chak told Hurk he mustn’t sniff too hard.
“When will it be cooked?” asked Kimi. “Can’t we start now?”
“You just reminded me of a story,” I said to Chak. “About a poor man called Nostril.”
“Nostril!”
“His nose was so big. Nostril had been starving for three days when he came to a market-place.”
“Like the one in our story?”
“The same one. A fat man was roasting a whole sheep on a spit. Another was selling donkeys. Several stalls had racks of warm clothes.
“Nostril wore some old rags. And he was weak with hunger. A servant threw the scraps from his master’s meal into the street, and Nostril grabbed up a crust.
“He looked around, afraid somebody might say he had stolen it, but nobody bothered watching a poor man. Nobody but the servant who watched Nostril hide the bread under his rags.
“Nostril’s big nose twitched. It led him through the stalls and lanes of the market-place, following a tantalising smell.
“‘Sweet roast mutton!’ cried the fat man. He turned the spit. ‘One penny a slice!’ Drops of fat smoked on the coals, spat, and flared.
“Nostril stared, his huge nose sniffed, his belly ached for food. ‘At least,’ he thought, ‘I have a piece of bread.’
“‘Sweet roast mutton! Only one penny a thick, hot slice!’
“A woman gave the fat man three pennies. He sharpened his knife and cut three thick slices of hot meat.
“At the crackle of the knife cutting the crisp skin, at the sight of the juice dripping, at the delicious smell, Nostril felt faint.
“Several people bought slices of meat. ‘Sweet roast mutton!’ cried the fat man. He sharpened his knife and turned the spit.
“Nostril shuffled and held his crust in the delicious smell rising from the cooked meat. He stared at the crust, as if it did not belong to him. His hand brought it towards his mouth. He closed his eyes and took a bite. Again and again he dipped it in the smell from the cooking meat. And as people paid their pennies, and the fat man carved their slices, poor Nostril nibbled at his crust. He closed his eyes, sniffed, and chewed. Great dripping hot juicy slices – thick!
“‘Thief!’ His hand gripped tight. The stub of his crust fell in the fire. The fat man ran Nostril to the far side of the marketplace, to a door where he knocked and shouted, ‘Judge! Judge!’
“‘My master is asleep,’ said the same servant who had thrown out the crust of bread. ‘He will beat you for making such a noise.’
“‘I caught this thief!’
“‘Are you sure he is a thief? The judge does not like being woken.’
“‘He is a thief, I tell you!’
“‘Bring him inside,’ said the servant. ‘I will wake the judge.’
“Not only had the servant recognised Nostril. He remembered how sorry he felt for him. He had gone back into the house, filled a basket with fragments of bread and meat and run outside. But the poor man had disappeared.
When his master was asleep, the servant liked to dress in his clothes and imagine he was the judge himself. Now he made sure his master was still asleep. He slipped on the judge’s robe. He put on his great hat. He strode into the room where the fat man waited with Nostril.
“‘Well?’
“‘Your Honour,’ gabbled the fat man. ‘This man is a thief.’ And he told the judge how he had caught the poor man stealing the smell of his roasting meat. ‘Not only did he sniff it up his big nose, but he dipped his bread in the smell of my sweet mutton and ate it.’
“The servant nodded. He had often been cold and hungry himself. ‘What is your story?’ he asked Nostril.
“‘I have had nothing to eat for three days. I picked up a crust in the street and held it in the air above the man’s mutton as it cooked. I chewed the crust, closed my eyes, and imagined I was eating meat.’
“‘When did you last eat meat?’
“‘I cannot remember.’
“‘Hmmm,’ said the servant. ‘You say he stole the smell of your meat?’
; “‘Yes, Your Honour! The wretched thief!’ And the fat man kicked Nostril.
“‘The poor man has not yet been found guilty,’ said the servant. ‘So he is still innocent. You have broken the law by kicking him.’
“‘No, I mean yes, Your Honour.’
“‘Give me your purse.’
“The fat man untied a leather bag from his waist. The servant took out a coin.
“‘What is this?’ he asked.
“‘A gold coin, Your Honour.’
“The servant rang the coin on the table. ‘And what is that?’
“‘The sound of the gold coin ringing,’ said the fat man.
“‘I fine you one gold coin for kicking the poor man,’ said the servant. ‘I award it to him for his pain.’ And he handed the coin to Nostril. The fat man wept.
“‘Ring it on the table,’ the servant said. ‘Nostril had never seen a gold coin before, but he spun it till it rang.
“‘You heard the sound of the poor man’s coin?’
“‘Yes, Your Honour,’ said the fat man.
“‘Then the poor man has paid for the smell of your meat with the sound of his gold coin,’ said the servant. ‘Now get out before I have you thrown into prison for fraud!’
“‘What are you going to buy with your gold coin?’ he asked Nostril.
“‘Warm clothes,’ said Nostril. ‘Something to eat. And, with what is left over, I will buy a donkey. We can earn money carrying firewood.’
“‘Be kind to the donkey,’ said the servant. ‘If you beat him, you will be beaten yourself. And you will not just be shown the stick, nor just hear the sound of the beating….’
“‘I will not beat my donkey,’ promised Nostril. ‘He will be my friend.’
“The servant returned the heavy robe and the great hat. The judge pretended to be asleep, but he had woken and watched the servant dress himself in his clothes. He had listened through a crack in the door. And he said to himself, ‘This servant of mine is as good a judge as me!’
“And always after, the judge asked the servant his opinion before he passed sentence. And he sometimes accepted the servant’s advice. But he never left his robes and his judge’s hat where the servant could put them on again.”
“That’s a good story!” said Chak. “I told Hurk he mustn’t sniff all the smell of meat, or there’d be none for anyone else.”
“What happened to Nostril?” asked Puli. I had noticed her listening closely.
“He bought something to eat, some warm clothes, and had enough left over to buy the donkey. He never put too much on the donkey’s back. He never beat him. They worked hard, saved their money, and bought a little house. And they lived happily ever after.”
“What about the fat man?”
“He was so scared of the judge, each day he gave away several slices of meat to the poor. People liked him for that and bought his meat. Soon he had two fires going and two sheep cooking. He bought a shop and sold people whole meals instead of just slices of meat. He became very rich.”
“What about the servant?”
“He confessed what he had done. The judge laughed and said, ‘You were kind to the poor man. And you taught the fat man a good lesson. So I forgive you. But don’t let me catch you doing it again!’”
We were a long time talking about the judge. The Children wanted to know about his power over people.
“I think that meat’s just about done,” I said. We stood in a circle and sniffed.
Chapter 21
The Feast
Maka and Tepulka tried the meat, nodded gravely, and grinned at each other. Thrusting poles underneath, because it was falling away from the bones, we lifted off the roasted carcass, lowered it carefully on to a platform of logs covered with watercress. The meat hissed magnificent on the damp cress.
“Look at me!” Chak dipped his fingers in the steam and licked them.
Maka, Tepulka, and I carved quickly. On sharp slivers of wood, the Children took thick slices, chops, and gobbets of hot meat running juice. The catch of the herb came through the smell of roast meat.
“We’re alive!” I said.
Paku nodded. “We beat them!”
We ate, and laughed, and ate, and sang, and ate again, and rested. We dozed around the ruin of the carcass, woke, and dragged ourselves forward for more. Licking fingers. Taking the oiliness off lips and tongues with the sharp cress. I feasted my family.
“If I don’t stop I’ll split up the middle!” said Chak, stuffing down some more.
Stomach round, her red cheeks shining with grease, Kimi crawled and sprawled against me. “Tell us a story?” Hurk leaned on my other side. Jealous, Chak climbed on my lap. I got my back against a log, made room for Tupu. Puli and Tama joined us, eyes large in their sad faces. We were warm in the wash of flames. An occasional hiss of rain on the fire. In the dark, the river roared.
“Tell us the one about the Showman and the Dark Forest?” begged Puli. “Yes!” “Yes!” “The one about the Showman.” Why would Puli want a story that scared me, the part where I thought the Showman looked like Kalik – or the Carny?
The story finished, the Five Friends safe home in their own place, a voice mumbled drowsy, “One day we’ll find a place like that.”
“What’s wrong with staying here?” murmured somebody.
And Maka said, “I want to get further away. Out of sight of Grave Mountain and Lake Ka. Where we can forget everything.”
“I wonder if Nip’s had her pups?” said Chak.
“We’ll get some dogs where we’re going,” I told him. “And I’m going to teach you how to read.”
“What’s read?” asked Kimi.
“Remember when I drew the Five Friends on the wall of your hut?”
I could feel Kimi nodding.
“The marks I made under their pictures?” She nodded again. “You copied them when I was away up the lake. Making those marks was writing. Knowing what they mean, that’s reading.”
“That’s easy!”
“You’re going to learn to read and write lots more words, thousands.” The Children didn’t know what thousands meant. “All the words we say to each other, you’ll learn to write them down. You’ll learn to write messages to each other.”
“And there won’t be any Kalik?”
“No!”
“No Lutha?”
“No!”
“Just us?”
“Tell us about our place?” asked Tupu, the feverish note in her voice.
“A long way south,” I said, “there’s a warm piece of land between a lake and a river rushing by. With grass for our sheep and goats. And the river has a pool for swimming in summer. There’s a tree with a branch to hang a rope from, so you can swing and let go into the water. There’s a hut with a chimney. In winter we’ll sit around the fire and tell stories. We’ll spin wool and hair from the Animals and weave it. We’ll trade our cloth for knives and cooking pots.
“We’ll grow gardens. Fruit trees. We’ll catch fish and deer and wild goats. Kitimah and Sheenah’s babies will grow up there. We’ll steal wild pups and tame them….”
I went on until I was talking to myself, the Children asleep, firelight flickering off the grease on their faces and hands.
During the night, the river shifted the barrier of logs, boulders, and sand from the mouth of the tunnel and blocked up its old bed just downstream. The water piled against the new barrier and disappeared through the iron grating, submerging its bars. We stared in silence.
“What about all the rocks and dirt where the roof fell in?” asked Paku.
“I suppose the water will blow it out. Remember I said this tunnel must join the river under Grave Mountain.”
“It would have taken hundreds of years to cut and dig tunnels that big,” said Tepulka. “How do you know they weren’t there all the time?”
“They wouldn’t be so even-shaped. And there’s the gate. And remember the shaft to let in fresh air?”
Paku nodded,
but I could see Tepulka found it easier to believe the tunnels were natural.
“The Old People had machines to dig tunnels,” I said.
“What’s a machine?”
“A tool’s a machine. Like a bow or a knife.”
“Did they have knives that cut tunnels?”
“Huge machines with metal teeth like knives that spun and drilled through rock and soil. You’d understand them better than me,” I told Tepulka. “You know how you can make things?
“But machines became a problem. I read books about the time they did so much of the work, people lost interest. Sicknesses swept through, killing them. And then the sun went mad.
“The Shaman said we are an animal that’s very clever at going forward over difficulties. But that’s one difficulty the Old People didn’t overcome: how to keep going when there aren’t any.”
I could see I hadn’t explained things clearly enough. The Children had seen some of their toppled walls, but they had no idea of the huge numbers of the Old People.
“We don’t need to worry,” said Paku. “Things aren’t going to get too easy for us!”
“Not if we’re going to have to build everything ourselves!” Perhaps Tepulka understood more than I thought.
The excitement of starting our journey that morning! Even Tama and Puli felt it and moved faster. Paku wrapped the leftover meat in watercress and put it inside a deerskin pack. Tepulka rolled the sheepskin and plaited flax ropes to hold it on his shoulders. I depended more and more upon those two older boys, and on Tulu and Maka.
In bright sunlight we crossed the shrunken river, a mud dribble through the great tangle of logs and rocks above. I carried one of our bows. Two arrows through my belt. The broken one in my pack. Paku, a fair shot, carried our second bow, and the other two arrows. Tepulka had our one spear. Paku, Maka, and I had knives. We would look for wood to make more bows. Sticks for arrows. We would spin and braid cord. We needed more spears, too. I could show the Children how to sharpen their ends, harden them in a fire.
Backs to the sun, we headed south. All day we saw tracks and dung, the signs of browsing. There were more of the tracks Maka and I had seen the day before. I looked back. Chak and Kimi were shoving and trying to get in front of Maka and Tulu. Then Hurk, and Tupu with her face flushed with fever. Kitimah and Sheenah talking companionably. Tama and Puli. Tepulka and Paku coming along behind. “If only we had some animals, we’d look like the Travellers,” I said and thought of Nip.
