Paul O Williams - [Pelbar Cycle 02]

by The Ends of the Circle (v0. 9) (epub)

  The Director frowned. “I don’t know how I feel about your coming. I have been troubled a long time. This is all we have ever known. And you see how the men are. I fear we have entrapped ourselves in a nonproductive system, but you mustn’t tell anyone I said that. I fear I must soon abdicate. There is a feeling for Rabe. She holds to our stated beliefs simply and exclusively.”

  “Where are the other men?”

  “Those are all. They take little care of the young ones, and many die.”

  The two were quiet a long time. Ahroe said, “Do the mothers not have a feeling for their sons, then?”

  The Director shook her head. “When a male is born, they cannot wait for the initial nursing period to end so they can rid themselves of him. They loathe them. I had two sons myself. I had that feeling with the first, so I know it well. He died as a small boy. The other grew up. You saw him in the compound. I will not tell you which he was. I am ashamed to have been connected with him, but a little guilty, too. I have often wondered if perhaps it might have been different. You really are telling me the truth. This box was made by a man?”

  “Yes, by Stel.”

  The Director sighed. “I can see the love he put into it, both for you and for the work itself. In a sense it is the same impracticality the chess players show, but turned to use and delight.”

  “People with different attitudes speculate endlessly on the superiority of one gender over the other. One can hardly be sure where the facts lie, though I used to be very sure. My present attitude is that men and women do differ, quite obviously, though how seems less certain. So it becomes important for each to consort freely and closely with the other to pick up what the other may more naturally have.”

  “Which of the men in the compound would you want to start with?”

  Ahroe laughed. “That is a hard but a natural question. The long-range answer is any of the three boys.”

  Ahroe could see the Director thinking that over and slowly turning her mind against the idea. Surely it offered practical difficulties. Finally, the Director said, “Ahroe, I am a little afraid for your safety, and more for his,” pointing at Garet, who was sleeping in Ahroe’s lap. “It is Rabe and her friends.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? I am not sure you can make provision for it. Rabe is a hunter. She is tall and strong, and you have seen her cruelty.”

  “I will try to defend myself and Garet. But I hope not to hurt her.”

  “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Now, Director, I wonder if I could leave you with something that will help you all. It is soap.”

  “Soap?”

  Oddly enough, Ahroe had learned from Fitzhugh how the Pelbar made soap. Stel had taught the Ozar. Ahroe produced a small piece and got Ambi to wash with it. The old woman felt her hands and looked at them.

  “I will explain how to make it.”

  “That is something the males would do.”

  “Then bring one and I will explain it to him.”

  “They do not come here after dark.”

  “I will go there.”

  ‘That is not done—except in the mating house.”

  “The— Is there no way then? Must so many of the boys die? They are your boys.”

  “That is how we have always kept them weaker.” But as she said this, and to someone not of the sisterhood of the Jahv, Ambi knew, having pondered it so many times to herself, the weight of what she was saying. “Look at them, how they are,” she added.

  Ahroe pondered. “Why not bring Rabe in and ask her. She would see the use of soap.”

  “I don’t know. It is irregular.”

  “So am I. You know I must go. We could go down there with plenty of guards and whips. I could explain.” “Rabe will say to do it tomorrow.”

  “Of course. But I must leave tomorrow morning. It is prescribed by my religion.”

  “Is it? Your religion?”

  “Not really,” Ahroe said, laughing. “We will tell that to Rabe. I am sure that you will not harm Garet, but I feel the animosity of some of the others. I must go tomorrow for his safety.”

  The Director summoned her chief guard and explained. Rabe frowned deeply.

  “Tomorrow night, Rabe,” said Ahroe, looking out the window, “the moon swells beyond its half phase, and no journeys are resumed when the moon is in its bent back. It is bad and results in misfortune. I must go tomorrow morning precisely when the sun is halfway to its summit. Thus it gives me the strength of its rising at the start, and the restfulness of its falling when I am tiring. And before it reaches noon, our priests have enjoined me, I must wade in the swift river again to give my feet the strength of the rushing water as the sun swells.”

  Ambi stared at Ahroe for the ease with which she lied. But Rabe agreed, and a torchlight procession went to the compound, threw back the stockade gate, and roused the men. They began to grumble and joke, but several whips cracked in the air brought a sullen silence.

  Ahroe directed them to heat water and bring one of the small boys, still naked in the evening chill. She gave him half her remaining soap and directed an old man to bathe him and scrub his hair with the soap. The child cried and screamed throughout the process.

  “Keep it out of his eyes,” Ahroe said. “It is strong soap and will make them sting.”

  When they finished, she explained in detail how soap was made, from the leaching of ashes to the boiling with fat and pouring into molds. The men were amused, and inclined to whisper, but the novelty of the evening, the ring of torches, and the scattering whips, kept them generally quiet.

  “Now bring a stool and the man who was whipped,” said Ahroe. He came forward reluctantly. The ugly welt across his shoulder and back was crusted with dry blood and purple at the edges. It had not been touched. Ahroe sensed this was a matter of pride. “Sit there,” Ahroe commanded. “What is your name?”

  “Latz.”

  “This will hurt, but it will help the healing. You will have to cover it to keep the flies off. Boil a cloth and wrap it. Your friends will help.”

  “We’ll peel the rest of his hide,” said a low voice from the back of the group, but Rabe’s whip found out the man, licking across the forearm.

  “You are gaining on me, Rabe,” said Ahroe. Rabe simply coiled her whip carefully.

  Latz sat still, looking over his shoulder, until Ahroe applied the warm, soapy water to his back. Then he yelled and winced. She took a handful of his hair and shook him. “Quiet. Where is your backbone?” Rabe smiled in amusement, but Latz endured the washing with no further outcry. Then she tore several strips of her own gray-white cloth, clean and dry, not mentioning it was nearly a third of Garet’s diaper supply, and wrapped the wound expertly.

  “Stand up,” she said. Latz stood. He was about the same height as Ahroe. She looked at the bandage. “Wash that every day. With soap. Now, mouth shut and nose clean. See how that is done? I am sure you can do that.”

  Latz stared at her. “We’re doin’ fine, woman. You nearly killed me.”

  “You see?” said Rabe.

  Ahroe didn’t turn or reply. “Can you make the soap?” “Sure. It is simple.”

  “Will you, then?”

  “They will have us. Another job.”

  “Make some for yourself, too. And use it. I’ve never seen such an animal pen. Now, Rabe, perhaps we should go. Thank you for all your help.”

  They left, a stream of torches on silent faces, but as they passed through the field, the hoots and yells swelled behind them. Ahroe knew she had made a nearly empty gesture, but there was the fact of the soap. She had never felt clean in Shumai country without it. At least she would help the women. But perhaps it was hopeless. Latz was much more empty-faced than her own infant. Perhaps he was already tearing the bandage off and dancing around with it. No one would really care. But at least she had given them a glimpse of a different kind of treatment. They might think about it tonight.

  Ahroe and Garet were given the Dire
ctor’s workroom to sleep in. The women generally slept together, in one large room, on pallets they hung from pegs during the day. It was Garet’s presence that they could not tolerate. Ahroe made a show of preparing for sleep, as Rabe leaned in the doorway talking, but as soon as the door was shut, she dressed, packed, nursed Garet once more, and studied the night out the open window. Was that a shadow? What other way out was there? Behind the fireplace was an ash dump. Shrouding Garet’s face with her hand, she crawled through and away. Looking back, she could see a dim figure watching the window, reclining, holding a spear.

  In the deep night, Ahroe returned to the river, descending into the gorge and wading in the snowmelt water until she could find a log. She pushed off, poled and groped her way across above the riffle at the head of a rapids. Stumbling and shivering through the undergrowth, she found an overhanging rock near dawn, and slept. Garet stirred, but seemed to understand the need for silence. She laid her finger across his lips. He grasped it and stared at it in near darkness, then puffed a small laugh.

  “No, little one. It is not time to play.” He wasn’t hungry, but she nursed him until he slept. Then she too slept.

  Garet’s crying awoke her in midmorning. She hoped the rush of the river hid the sound. She fed him, ate some dried meat herself, and listened a long time. She had not set up defenses, but she knew now she would have to resume the practice. Garet’s safety outweighed her memory of the sound of Assek’s last labored breathing. She sensed danger, the hovering shadow of Rabe, who was not a trained fighter, but still tall, strong, and, above all, intent. Ahroe left the river and traveled into the dry, rough country north of it, then hurried westward.

  It was not until the third night that she returned to the river, and then only because she had found no water that day. Somehow the sense of danger hung like the flies over the water. What was it? Would Rabe follow this far, this long? She picked her way through the dusk to a place good for defense, then set up a triple-snare wall in the dark, but without stakes.

  Just at dawn, she awakened to the sound of a sapling rushing upward and a shriek. Garet began to cry, but she muffled his mouth with her coat. He struggled, unconsoled. His crying continued, but the pouring river seemed to shroud it. Ahroe had readied her short bow, but she didn’t move. Someone had been caught. Were there more? The light came slowly and showed a figure hung by one foot. Rabe. Her spear still held, she saw Ahroe and struggled to cast it. The tree bobbed and she cried out in pain.

  Ahroe rushed her, knocked the spear aside, and brought her down by her hair. “Where are the others?”

  “The others? All around you, male lover. See them? They will get you sooner or later, and your brat. Let me down, bather of men. Men’s spit licker. Men’s—”

  Ahroe hit her across the face hard, slowly and deliberately, four times. “Where are the others?”

  Rabe held her face with her hands. Through them she said, “You would do this to a sister! It is unbelievable.” Ahroe simply stared, then sat down and began to laugh, almost hysterically.

  Rabe hung down in front of her. “You are mad. I knew you were mad. You and your males. You and your soap. Dragging a male baby across the wilderness. Cuddling it like it was human.”

  Ahroe looked at Garet. He was trying to stand, teetering against a rock. She turned to Rabe. “What am I to do with you? If I let you down, you will try to do us harm. If I leave you up there, you will die. The others quit, didn’t they.”

  “I never give up.”

  Ahroe bound her arms behind her, hauled her downward and cut the cord. Rabe collapsed in a heap, then scrambled up, fell, and tried to stand again, but Ahroe held her down. “How will I be rid of you?” she asked. The other woman only breathed hard. Ahroe forced her forward, sat on her, and fastened her arms behind her, tying each finger separately, arranging the binding so Rabe could not chafe the thongs through on a rock. She was extremely uncomfortable, angry, and silent. Ahroe hummed a Pelbar hymn softly as she worked.

  “Now what will—” Ahroe began, but as soon as she started to talk, Rabe yelled, and every time Ahroe tried to resume, she would yell again so as not to hear. Ahroe shucked off one of Rabe’s soft-soled shoes and bound it in her mouth. Then she sat down and patted the other woman’s shoulder. “You are being very bad,” she said. Rabe thrashed around, trying to press one ear against the ground, the other against her shoulder. Ahroe rolled her over and sat on her.

  “Now then, Rabe. You will have to walk home with one shoe on. Better go directly. You will not free yourself without help. By then I will be gone, and you will have to be satisfied with that. I wish you no ill. I feel sorry for all of you. If you do manage to follow me, I will have to kill you. You are a female Assek. Know who he was? A man who tried to force me. I had to kill for myself. You I will kill for Garet if I have to. Do you understand?”

  Rabe made no sign until Ahroe took the shoe from her mouth and spun it into the stream. Then, panting, Rabe said, “You would really do this to another woman.” “Weren’t you trying to kill me?”

  “That is different. Only if you defended that male animal.”

  “Different?”

  “Remember this. Somehow I will follow you. I will make you free whether you like it or not.”

  Ahroe sighed. “You are no match for me, Rabe. I am trained for this sort of thing. But you are welcome to try if you want to.” She patted the young Jahv on the shoulder, then packed and walked down the rocky river bank with Garet on her shoulders.

  She was relieved but alert. She was also weary, not only with her escape from the Jahv, but with the whole journey. It was beginning to seem endless. The country was so vast, so dry, so empty. Stel seemed nowhere in it. For a moment she wished she had never undertaken this search, but as she thought back, it seemed inevitable. How strange it was. Her feelings of Dahmen pride and justification had faded. How much trouble they had caused her. Were her family as elastic as all the others, Stel and she would never have left home, never gone through this hunger, cold, travel, danger, skulking, and hiding. She would not wonder each day if there would be food, watching a baby’s health when his diet was uncertain, his surroundings wild and unpredictable.

  As she moved west, the country seemed flatter and drier—sun and tufts of desert plants. Should she turn back to the Shumai, far away as they were? Where was Stel? Would her life dwindle out in the ragged edge of nowhere? High overhead she watched two vultures gathering altitude on the thermals. Surely they saw her. Through their slight thought she passed as a brief consideration. Was she a potential food source? No, she was not, would not be. Where there was discipline, there was defiance of death. But how awful things had become.

  16

  Stel had seen a similar change of landscape to the north, where the stream he followed tumbled westward to join a larger one flowing to the south. He put together a rough raft to cruise down the larger stream, but he soon found it too had rapids. As he waded ashore, watching his raft break up below him, he knew he would have to walk. Increasingly this river moved through canyons, some little higher than the bluffs of home, some much higher. Instead of the gray-white limestone of the Heart, this was a reddish rock, weathered into knobby round promontories with long, rough talus slopes sliding down from towers and buttresses.

  Sometimes the walls were sheer, often at the mouths of dry washes, which sometimes made pleasant, flat-floored side valleys raying from the river. As he approached one of these, Stel heard the steady tick, tick, tick of chisel on stone, so familiar from home.

  Across the valley he could see someone on a scaffold, crude and rickety, tapping at the rock face. Coming closer, he saw it was a woman, dark-haired, about Ahroe’s size. Below her and stretching on either side of the canyon wall were carvings, in shallow relief, all of figures and animals, streaming west in a great migration, still faces in stone imitating the moving flow of life. Some looked back in fear, others ahead in weariness. Some seemed to see promise ahead. Most seemed merely moving.

 
; Stel drew near and stood under, looking up. The sculptor continued working steadily. As the breeze shifted the scaffold, she would occasionally steady her position against the rock with her hands or her bare feet.

  “This thing is a menace. You’d better be careful or you’ll fall,” Stel said. The sculptor jumped and turned, startled, and Stel ran to one set of braces to steady it. “Come down from there before you kill yourself. Let me fix this thing for you.”

  “You imbecile. Don’t you know better than to sneak up on somebody like that? What? Who are you, anyway? I don’t know you. You aren’t a goatherder, are you?”

  “Do they come this far west? No. I am Stel Dahmen. I am, of all strange things, a Pelbar from the Heart. The Heart River, that is. Far to the east. East is best and west is beast, I am beginning to think. Now come down off that and let me put it together right.”

  “You are rude and presumptuous. Who are you to tell me what to do?”

  “I’ve done a whole lot of stonecutting in my life, and a good deal of it on scaffolds, but none on siich a thing of grass as this.”

  “Go away, please. I am busy and do not want to be distracted. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You look so much like my wife.”

  “Who? Where is she—at some mythical river in some other mythical place no one ever heard of? Why do you cut your hair like an inverted bowl?”

  “To cook in in the evening, of course.”

  “As I said, you are distracting me. I didn’t come here to be convivial. I came to get some work done.”

  “You surely are doing that. But you will be killed before you finish unless this scaffold is repaired. What is your name? You didn’t tell me.”

  “I am Elseth. Some call me Crazy Elseth.” With that, she turned back to her chiseling, leaving Stel still holding the swaying scaffold. He shook it slightly. Elseth grabbed the rock, then turned. “Get out, get out, get out,” she yelled, throwing the chisel at him.