Shame of Man (22 page)

They walked on north. As they approached the large camp, he picked Mina up and carried her in a sitting posture. She put her arm around his neck for security, facing forward.

Three youths were lounging before the big hide tent. “I come to see Joe, the clan leader,” Hugh said.

They eyed him with expressions bordering on insolence. “Hey, it's the spooky one,” one said. “With the wrong hand.”

Hugh experienced a familiar surge of anger. Was he to be insulted by these striplings when he came on business?

Then Mina turned her face to look at them: first one, then another, then the third. And they blanched. “In there,” one muttered, moving away.

Hugh concealed his amazement. The child had stared them down! He knew how big and dark her eyes were, at times seeming like infinitely deep
pools of water, but this was new. The spirits must have shown through her gaze.

“Thanks, precious,” he said, and carried her on into the tent.

Joe got up as he entered, and came to give him a bear hug that was gentle enough not to squeeze the child. “Welcome, Hugh,” he said. “I'm always glad to see you. Did Bil come too?”

“Yes. And four more. And three maidens.”

“And Anne, of course?

“And my wife,” Hugh agreed.

“And who is this little maiden?”

“My daughter Mina. She came to protect me from spirits, but all we encountered was three youths.” That was as close as Hugh cared to come to reporting their insolence.

Joe looked Mina directly in the face, appreciating her aspect. “You will be a priestess one day,” he said seriously.

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Maybe already.”

“Yes.”

Hugh realized that Joe understood what had passed between Mina and the striplings. Joe had never been known for intelligence, but he recognized and appreciated power of any type. That was why he was the clan chief. Those who related to the spirits were respected.

Joe returned to business. “We have a good group and fair weather. We're going to try to erect two stones, flanking the Watch Stone. It's not right to leave it only half attended.”

Hugh nodded. “Our men are ready. And our youths.”

“But I want you on the drum.”

“I understand,” Hugh said, though he was hurt.

“No, it's not for your hand! That's nothing. Sometimes my own left works better. It's that there may be an attempt to hurt you or blame you for trouble. I don't know who, though I suspect. So I want you safe.”

Someone wanted to cause him mischief? “Whom do you suspect?” Hugh asked.

“I must not say. Who kicked whom?”

Answer enough. There had been bad blood between Hugh's family and the brother/sister team of Bub and Serilda. When Bub lost Fay, he seemed to have gotten interested in Anne, perhaps in a notion of revenge, wanting to deprive Hugh of what he most valued. Last summer the man had tried to waylay her, and walked into a dancing maneuver he hadn't appreciated. Bub had never spoken of it, but news had gotten around. Serilda had never married.

Hugh was confident of his ability to handle Bub, should it come to violence. Bub was larger, but Hugh had greater finesse with the hand axe,
and Bub knew it. So it wouldn't come to violence. But Bub had devious ways, so was dangerous. “I will drum,” he agreed.

“Unless we have to have you on the rope,” Joe said.

Hugh nodded. He left the tent. The striplings were gone. He set Mina down and they walked back to their own camp. It had been an interesting visit in more than one sense.

In the morning Hugh was first up, as usual. But as he returned from the communal refuse pit, he discovered little Mina stirring. “Daddy, someone was here,” she said.

He laughed. “Half the clan is here, precious. It's the Festival of Stones.”

“In the night,” she said insistently. “Doing something.”

Hugh frowned. “A stranger? In our share of the tent?”

“Yes. I colored his shoe.”

Hugh trusted his daughter's sincerity, but not necessarily her judgment. Someone could have blundered into the wrong section, and departed quietly upon discovering his error. But thievery was known, when so many people got together. “Show me exactly where he was.”

She pointed to their piled family supplies. He checked, but nothing was missing. Their travel clothes, extra food, and his coil of rope were where he had left them. “It's all right, Mina,” he said.

Anne appeared. “Something wrong?”

“Someone blundered by here in the night,” he said. “Mina marked his foot.”

Anne tried to be serious. “Mina, you shouldn't dye folk's feet,” she said. But it was clear that she found it as funny as Hugh did. Someone in the camp might have a red boot. With luck, that person would not realize it soon, and would not know who had perpetuated the indignity.

After that it was rushed. Hugh set up his drum, stretching the leather across a big earthen pot and drawing it tight. It might not be the most melodic instrument, but it was loud and had a certain urgent quality of sound that was what they needed for parts of the work. He hauled it to the working area some distance from the camp, joining Joe and Bil. When Bil nodded, he began to play it, first lightly, then more firmly. This was the signal to get started, and all the working men and striplings converged.

The two great stones were lying on the ground near where they had been quarried earlier in summer. Quarrying was a somewhat tedious business, in which suitable boulders were located and separated into proper fragments by fire and water. Wood soaked in animal fat was laid along the line where the split was to be, and set on fire. When it burned out they cleared away the ashes and poured cold water over it, and the stone cracked along that line. They also pounded it with globular stone mauls, a number of men striking
along the line in unison to break it farther apart. All this required special expertise and coordination, and the trained crew was the only group allowed to do such work, lest a good stone be ruined.

Now the men and striplings hauled timbers into place. There were not many suitable trees here, so these beams were saved to be used from year to year. They made a large sledge by fitting short cross timbers across long runner beams and lashing them together. This stout sledge was hauled into position beside the stone.

Now came the hard part. Hugh changed the beat of his drum, to get them perfectly coordinated, while Joe shouted the orders. Men with long stout poles levered up one side of the stone while the striplings hauled on a multitude of ropes from the other side. “On three,” Joe cried. “One,” matching the loud drum beat. “Two. Three!” All the levers and ropes went under tension together, and the giant stone heaved up on its side. Others shoved blocks in to hold the elevation when the levers were removed, but the boys on the ropes held steady. Then they shoved the sledge in close under it, and scrambled away before the ropes were slackened.

The stone fell back down, over the blocks, and crashed onto the sledge. It was now half on, but the worst was over. They used their ropes and levers to nudge it by stages fully onto the sledge. They tied it in place so that it wouldn't come loose no matter how it might be tilted.

Now round roller beams were laid beyond the end of the sledge, and the ropes and levers used to haul it onto the series of rollers. When it was fairly on them the work was easier; the ropes alone were enough to heave it forward, beat by beat. As it left rollers behind, men carried them quickly to the front and laid them down again. So it continued, moving grandly along its track toward the erection site. But the hauling was still hard work, leaving men and striplings panting, and glad to have the water the maidens brought to them during their rest shifts.

They brought the stone all the way up to its place of erection. This was a hole that had been well prepared, shored up inside by surrounding stones, with guide stakes driven in along the far side. They levered and hauled it to the brink, lifting the distant end so that the near end slid grudgingly into the hole and thunked into place at the bottom. They had to jam in more blocks at each stage, and lever it up a little more, so that its erection was actually rather slow. Hugh's drum made the beat throughout, keeping it coordinated, for any mistake could send the stone crunching dangerously wrong. A pyramid of cross-stacked planks formed behind the stone, from which the men kept working. Only when that structure was almost as tall as the stone itself were they able to get it all the way vertical, and fill in the rear of the hole with small rocks.

It was done—and though the work had seemed to move right along, the day was fading. It was time to relax and celebrate. Hugh beat a new cadence
on the drum, and the maidens of the several villages came out, provocatively dressed, and danced while the men finished their supper. Anne directed them, for the dance was her specialty, and she led them through coordinated motions of heads, arms, legs, and hips that would have been perhaps in bad taste on any less important occasion. But here the rules of behavior were to a degree suspended; this was after all the Festival of Stones. The men of course loved it, and there were no mature women to protest. Anne did not count; she pretended for the moment to be one of the maidens, and such was her figure that it was an excellent emulation. Her hair and torso moved in ways that excited admiration and lust, as they were supposed to, and Hugh was glad that she was his wife. The maidens emulated her movements, shake for shake and kick for kick, making a most intriguing array. Especially when the kicks were high.

Among the maidens was Serilda, who was qualified despite being older because she had never married. She too had a figure to be reckoned with, and her slippered feet seemed tiny. She oriented on Hugh with her stare and did a dance that disturbed him because it made him react. He tried not to look as she showed her thighs, but couldn't prevent it. Each summer she did this, fixing on him though there were many single men who would gladly have married her. He had once thought she would not have the nerve, because Anne was here, but she clearly had no shame. Anne was remarkably tolerant, evidently feeling no threat, but Hugh felt it. Serilda acted as if she had some claim on him, as if there were some secret between them. And the way his body reacted, it was almost as if it were true.

Worse, he had the feeling that her closest loyalty was to her brother Bub, who had tried to rape Anne. Bub was here, but had remained well away from Anne so far. How was Serilda's evident interest in Hugh connected to that? How could Serilda dance in Anne's class while at the same time trying to vamp Anne's husband? The pieces of this puzzle did not quite fit together.

When the dance was done, it was time for the maidens to choose partners for the evening. Everything was reasonably proper; they would merely keep company with their chosen young men for the evening, in the view of everyone. But such acquaintances could lead in due course to marriages. Maidens could not marry within their villages, so this was one of their few opportunities to meet the men of other villages and examine prospects for the future. They had been watching the men as they worked, so now had some notions about whom they would like to get to know. Anne herself stepped back, doing a relatively sedate individual dance to cover the interval.

The youths were seated separately. The maidens now addressed that section, each closing on a particular youth and offering him the flower from her hair. He could accept it and be with her, or decline. The maidens this
time were unusually pretty, and the dance had been unusually provocative, so it seemed unlikely that any would decline.

Indeed, the matchings were quickly made, and soon all the maidens except one had men to be with. They brought the men to their family groups for introductions. The one remaining maiden was Serilda, who had not deigned to offer her flower to any of the youths. Instead she cast her eye around a wider range—and it fell again on Hugh.

Oh, no! Was she going to try to shame him publicly by pretending to a relationship that did not exist? It seemed she was, for she forged toward him, lifting the flower from her hair.

His response should be clear: he would reject the flower. He wanted no part of this suggestive ploy. Anne knew he had done nothing with Serilda, but others might not know, and tongues would wag.

But as she approached, she did not offer him the flower. She tossed it to him, making it impossible for him to decline. The flower landed neatly in his lap. Since the moment a man touched the flower the date was made, he was stuck for it.

She sat down beside him, her hip touching his. Her body was warm from the recent exertion of the dance, and her breathing remained heavier than normal. He did not look at her, but her presence was dynamic. He knew that all around them the other families were marveling. They were surely conjecturing whether he had had a secret affair with her, that was now becoming open. Did she want to be his second wife? Such arrangements were rare, but not discouraged, because sometimes there were more women than men and it was best that all women be married. Did that explain why she had passed up those men who had expressed interest in her? Was she tired of secrecy, so she was forcing the issue now, shaming him into recognizing her? All these conjectures must be going around, and it would be difficult or impossible to refute them.

Now the grog was poured and circulated, and the party proper proceeded. Anne came to join them, bearing three mugs of it. She handed one to Hugh and one to Serilda, just as if the woman had been expected to join them. Then she sat with her own mug on Hugh's other side. Bub was sitting well distant, not trying to provoke any trouble—and this, too, might be cause for alarm.

Dusk was falling, and they watched the stars come out. The plan of the stones related to the sun, though Hugh understood that the right priests with the right circles could track the moon and even the stars with marvelous precision. So when the sun set on this center, the work was over.

The carousing continued far into the night. Hugh drank and danced with Anne, ignoring Serilda as well as he could. Serilda remained close, but did not make any additional scene. Apparently she was satisfied just to be near him. That, perhaps, was mischief enough.