The Wild Girls

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  “Ill?”

  “I don’t know,” Bela said, weakening, glancing at Modh.

  “Yes,” Modh said.

  “But perhaps she could just come show me her pretty eyebrows.”

  Bela glanced at Modh again. She said nothing.

  “I had nothing to do with that stupid message my father sent you about her,” Ralo said. He looked from Bela to Modh and back at Bela, smirking, conscious of his power. “Father heard me talking about her. He just wanted to give me a treat. You must forgive him. He was thinking of her as an ordinary Dirt girl.” He looked at Modh again. “Bring your little sister out just for a moment, Modh Belenda,” he said, bland, vicious.

  Bela nodded to her. She rose and went behind the yellow curtain.

  She stood some minutes in the empty hall that led to the sleeping rooms, then came back to the dancing room. “Forgive me, Lord Master Bal,” she said in her softest voice, “the girl has a fever and cannot rise to obey your summons. She has been unwell a long time. I am so sorry. May I send one of the other girls?”

  “No,” Ralo said. “I want that one.” He spoke to Bela, ignoring Modh. “You brought two home from that raid we went on. I didn’t get one. I shared the danger, it’s only fair you share the catch.” He had evidently rehearsed this sentence.

  “You got one,” Bela said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Bela looked uncomfortable. “You had one,” he said, in a less decisive voice.

  “I came home with nothing!” Ralo cried, his voice rising, accusing. “And you kept two! Listen, I know you’ve brought them up all these years, I know it’s expensive rearing girls. I’m not asking for a gift.”

  “You very nearly did,” Bela said, stiffly, in a low voice.

  Ralo put this aside with a laugh. “Just keep in mind, Bela, we were soldiers together,” he said, cajoling, boyish, putting his arm round Bela’s shoulders. “You were my captain. I don’t forget that! We were brothers in arms. Listen, I’m not talking about just buying the girl. You married one sister, I’ll marry the other. Hear that? We’ll be brothers in the dirt, how’s that?” He laughed and slapped his hand on Bela’s shoulder. “How’s that?” he said. “You won’t be the poorer for it, Captain!”

  “This is not the time to talk about it,” Bela said, awkward and dignified.

  Ralo smiled and said, “But soon, I hope.”

  Bela stood, and Ralo had to take his leave. “Please send to tell me when Pretty Eyebrows is feeling better,” he said to Modh, with his smirk and his piercing glance. “I’ll come at once.”

  When he was gone Modh could not be silent. “Lord Husband, don’t give Mal to him. Please don’t give Mal to him.”

  “I don’t want to,” he said.

  “Then don’t! Please don’t!”

  “It’s all his talk. He boasts.”

  “Maybe. But if he makes an offer?”

  “Wait till he makes an offer,” Bela said, a little heavily, but smiling. He drew her to him and stroked her hair. “How you fret over Mal. She’s not really ill, is she?”

  “I don’t know. She isn’t well.”

  “Girls,” he said, shrugging. “You danced well tonight.”

  “I danced badly. I would not dance well for that scorpion.”

  That made him laugh. “You did leave out the best part of the amei.”

  “Of course I did. I want to dance that only for you.”

  “Lui has gone to bed, or I’d ask you to.”

  “Oh, I don’t need a drummer. Here, here’s my drum.” She took his hands and put them on her full breasts. “Feel the beat?” she said. She stood, struck the pose, raised her arms, and began the dance, there right in front of him, till he seized her, burying his face between her thighs, and she sank down on him laughing.

  Hehum came out into the dancing room; she drew back, seeing them, but Modh untangled herself from her husband and went to the old woman.

  “Mal is ill,” Hehum began, with a worried face.

  “Oh I knew it, I knew it!” Modh cried, instantly certain that it was her fault, that her lie had made itself truth. She ran to Mal’s room, which she shared with her so long.

  Hehum followed her. “She hides her ears,” she said, “I think she has the earache. She cries and hides her ears.”

  Mal sat up when Modh came into the room. She looked wild and haggard. “You hear it, you hear it, don’t you?” she cried, taking Modh’s hands.

  “No,” Modh murmured, “no, I don’t hear it. I hear nothing. There is nothing, Mal.”

  Mal stared up at her. “When he comes,” she whispered.

  “No,” Mal said.

  “Groda comes with him.”

  “No. It was years ago, years ago. You have got to be strong, Mal, you have got to put all that away.”

  Mal let out a piteous, loud moan and put Modh’s hands up over her own ears. “I don’t want to hear it!” she cried, and began to sob violently.

  “Tell my husband I will spend this night with Mal,” Modh said to Hehum. She held her sister in her arms till she slept at last, and then she slept too, though not easily, waking often, listening always.

  In the morning she went to Bidh and asked him if he knew what people—their people, the villagers—did about ghosts.

  He thought about it. “I think if there was a ghost somewhere they didn’t go there. Or they moved away. What kind of ghost?”

  “An unburied person.”

  Bidh made a face. “They would move away,” he said with certainty.

  “What if it followed them?”

  Bidh held out his hands. “I don’t know! The priest, the yegug, would do something, I guess. Some spell. The yegug knew all about things like that. These priests here, these temple people, they don’t know anything but their dances and singing and talk-talk-talk. So, what is this? Is it Mal?”

  “Yes.”

  He made a face again. “Poor little one,” he said. Then, brightening, “Maybe it would be good if she left this house.”

  Several days passed. Mal was feverish and sleepless, hearing the ghost cry or fearing to hear it every night. Modh spent the nights with her, and Bela made no objection. But one evening when he came home he talked some while with Alo, and then the brothers came to the hanan. Hehum and Nata were there with the children. The brothers sent the children away, and asked that Modh come. Mal stayed in her room.

  “Ralo ten Bal wants Mal for his wife,” Alo said. He looked at Modh, forestalling whatever she might say. “We said she is very young, and has not been well. He says he will not sleep with her until she is fifteen. He will have her looked after with every attention. He wants to marry her now so that no other man may compete with him for her.”

  “And so raise her price,” Nata said, with unusual sharpness. She had been the object of such a bidding war, which was why the Belens had all but beggared themselves to buy her.

  “The price the Bals offer now could not be matched by any house in the City,” Alo said gravely. “Seeing we were unwilling, they at once increased what they offered, and increased it again. It is the largest bride-bargain I ever heard of. Larger than yours, Nata.” He looked with a strange smile at his wife, half pride half shame, rueful, intimate. Then he looked at his mother and at Modh. “They offer all the fields of Nuila. Their western orchards. Five Root houses on Wall Street. The new silk factory. And gifts—jewelry, fine garments, gold.” He looked down. “It is impossible for us to refuse,” he said.

  “We will be nearly as wealthy as we used to be,” Bela said.

  “Nearly as wealthy as the Bals,” Alo said, with the same rueful twist to his mouth.

  “They thought we were bargaining. It was ridiculous. Every time I began to speak, old Loho ten Bal would hold up his hand to stop me and add something to the offer!” He glanced at Bela, who nodded and laughed.

  “Have you spoken to Tudju?” Modh said.

  “Yes,” Bela answered.

  “She agrees?” The question was
unnecessary. Bela nodded.

  “Ralo will not mistreat your sister, Modh,” Alo said seriously. “Not after paying such a price for her. He’ll treat her like a golden statue. They all will. He is sick with desire for her. I never saw a man so infatuated. It’s odd, he’s barely seen her, only at your wedding. But he’s enthralled.”

  “He wants to marry her right away?” Nata asked.

  “Yes. But he won’t touch her till she’s fifteen. If we’d asked him he might have promised never to touch her at all!”

  “Promises are easy,” Nata said.

  “If he does lie with her it won’t kill her,” Bela said. “It might do her good. She’s been spoiled here. You spoil her, Modh. A man in her bed may be what she needs.”

  “But—that man—” Modh said, her mouth dry, her ears ringing.

  “Ralo’s a bit spoiled himself. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

  “He—” She bit her lip. She could not say the words.

  Bela was keeping her from turning back to pick up the baby, jabbing his sword at her, dragging her by the arm. Mal was crying and stumbling behind them in the dust, up the steep hill, among the trees.

  They all sat in uncomfortable silence.

  “So,” Alo said, louder than necessary, “there will be another wedding.”

  “When?”

  “Before the Sacrifice.”

  Another silence.

  “We mean no harm to come to Mal,” Alo said to Modh. “Be sure of that, Modh. Tell her that.”

  She sat unable to move or speak.

  “Neither of you has ever been mistreated,” Bela said, resentfully, as if answering an accusation. His mother frowned at him and clicked her tongue. He reddened and fidgeted.

  “Go speak to your sister, Modh,” Hehum said. Modh got up. As she stood she saw the walls and tapestries and faces grow small and bright, sparkling with little lights. She walked slowly and stopped in the doorway.

  “I am not the one to tell her,” she said, hearing her own voice far away.

  “Bring her here then,” Alo said.

  She nodded; but when she nodded the walls kept turning around her, and reaching out for support, she fell in a half-faint.

  Bela came to her and cradled her in his arms. “Little fox, little fox,” he murmured. She heard him say angrily to Alo, “The sooner the better.”

  He carried Modh to their bedroom, sat with her till she pretended to sleep, then left her quietly.

  She knew that by her concern, by the nights she had spent with Mal, she had let her husband become jealous of her sister.

  It was for her sake I came to you! she cried to him in her heart.

  But there was nothing she could say now that would not cause more harm.

  When she got up she went to Mal’s room. Mal ran to her weeping, but Modh only held her, not speaking, till the girl grew quieter. Then she said, “Mal, there is nothing I can do. You must endure this. So must I.”

  Mal drew back a little and said nothing for a while. “It cannot happen,” she said then, with a kind of certainty. “It will not be allowed. The child will not allow it.”

  Modh was bewildered for a moment. She had for some days been fairly sure she was pregnant. Now she thought for a moment that Mal was pregnant. Then she understood.

  “You must not think about that child,” she said. “She was not yours or mine. She was not daughter or sister of ours. Her death was not our death.”

  “No. It is his,” Mal said, and almost smiled. She stroked Modh’s arms and turned away. “I will be good, Modh,” she said. “You must not let this trouble you—you and your husband. It’s not your trouble. Don’t worry. What must happen will happen.”

  Cowardly, Modh let herself accept Mal’s reassurance. More cowardly still, she let herself be glad that it was only a few days until the wedding. Then what must happen would have happened. It would be done, it would be over.

  She was pregnant; she told Hehum and Nata of the signs. They both smiled and said, “A boy.”

  There was a flurry of getting ready for the wedding. The ceremony was to be in Belen House, and the Belens refused to let the Bals provide food or dancers or musicians or any of the luxuries they offered. Tudju was to be the marriage priestess. She came a couple of days early to stay in her old home, and she and Modh played at sword-practice the way they had done as girls, while Mal looked on and applauded as she had used to do. Mal was thin and her eyes looked large, but she went through the days serenely. What her nights were, Modh did not know. Mal did not send for her. In the morning, she would smile at Modh’s questions about the night and say, “It passed.”

  But the night before the wedding, Modh woke in the deep night, hearing a baby cry.

  She felt Bela awake beside her.

  “Where is that child?” he said, his voice rough and deep in the darkness.

  She said nothing.

  “Nata should quiet her brat,” he said.

  “It is not Nata’s.”

  It was a thin, strange cry, not the bawling of Nata’s healthy boys. They heard it first to the left, as if in the hanan. Then after a silence the thin wail came from their right, in the public rooms of the house.

  “Maybe it’s my child,” Modh said.

  “What child?”

  “Yours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I carry your child. Nata and Hehum say it’s a boy. I think it’s a girl, though.”

  “But why is it crying?” Bela whispered, holding her.

  She shuddered and held him. “It’s not our baby, it’s not our baby,” she cried.

  All night the baby wailed. People rose up and lighted lanterns and walked the halls and corridors of Belen House. They saw nothing but each other’s frightened faces. Sometimes the weak, sickly crying ceased for a long time, then it would begin again. Mostly it was faint, as if far away, even when it was heard in the next room. Nata’s little boys heard it, and shouted, “Make it stop!” Tudju burned incense in the prayer room and chanted all night long. To her the faint wailing seemed to be under the floor, under her feet.

  When the sun rose, the people of Belen House ceased to hear the ghost. They made ready for the wedding festival as best they could.

  The people of Bal House came. Mal was brought out from behind the yellow curtain, wearing voluminous unsewn brocaded silks and golden jewelry, her transparent veil like rain about her head. She looked very small in the elaborate draperies, straight-backed, her gaze held down. Ralo ten Bal was resplendent in puffed and sequined velvet. Tudju lighted the wedding fire and began the rites.

  Modh listened, listened, not to the words Tudju chanted. She heard nothing.

  The wedding party was brief, strained, everything done with the utmost formality. The guests left soon after the ceremony, following the bride and groom to Bal House, where there was to be more dancing and music. Tudju and Hehum, Alo and Nata went with them for civility’s sake. Bela stayed home. He and Modh said almost nothing to each other. They took off their finery and lay silent in their bed, taking comfort in each other’s warmth, trying not to listen for the wail of the child. They heard nothing, only the others returning, and then silence.

  Tudju was to return to the Temple the next day. Early in the morning she came to Bela and Modh’s apartments. Modh had just risen.

  “Where is my sword, Modh?”

  “You put it in the box in the dancing room.”

  “Your bronze one is there, not mine.”

  Modh looked at her in silence. Her heart began to beat heavily.

  There was a noise, shouting, beating at the doors of the house.

  Modh ran to the hanan, to the room she and Mal had slept in, and hid in the corner, her hands over her ears.

  Bela found her there later. He raised her up, holding her wrists gently. She remembered how he had dragged her by the wrists up the hill through the trees. “Mal killed Ralo,” he said. “She had Tudju’s sword hidden under her dress. They strangled her.”

&
nbsp; “Where did she kill him?”

  “On her bed,” Bela said bleakly. “He never did keep his promises.”

  “Who will bury her?”

  “No one,” Bela said, after a long pause. “She was a Dirt woman. She murdered a Crown. They’ll throw her body in the butchers’ pit for the wild dogs.”

  “Oh, no,” Modh said. She slipped her wrists from his grip. “No,” she said. “She will be buried.”

  Bela shook his head.

  “Will you throw everything away, Bela?”

  “There is nothing I can do,” he said.

  She leaped up, but he caught and held her.

  He told the others that Modh was mad with grief. They kept her locked in the house, and kept watch over her.

  Bidh knew what troubled her. He lied to her, trying to give her comfort; he said he had gone to the butcher’s pit at night, found Mal’s body, and buried it out past the Fields of the City. He said he had spoken what words he could remember that might be spoken to a spirit. He described Mal’s grave vividly, the oak trees, the flowering bushes. He promised to take Modh there when she was well. She listened and smiled and thanked him. She knew he lied. Mal came to her every night and lay in the silence beside her.

  Bela knew she came. He did not try to come to that bed again.

  All through her pregnancy Modh was locked in Belen House. She did not go into labor until almost ten months had passed. The baby was too large; it would not be born, and with its death killed her.

  Bela ten Belen buried his wife and unborn son with the Belen dead in the holy grounds of the Temple, for though she was only a Dirt woman, she had a dead god in her womb.

  “STAYING AWAKE WHILE WE READ”

  LOOK OUT, BOOKS. You’re dodos, again. Or anyhow turkeys. The Associated Press, using an AP-Ipsos poll of 1,003 adults and claiming an error margin of plus or minus 3% points (the kind of solemn statistic meant to silence such questions as which 1,003 adults? and what’s the error margin of your error margin?) has announced that 27% of Americans haven’t read a book all year.* Of those who did read, two-thirds cited the Bible and other religious works and barely half said they’d read anything describable as literature.