The Gathering Night (4 page)

Haizea whispered, ‘He might not be able to help it, one day.'

It was true that our father was getting old. He was older than our mother. I knew what Haizea was thinking. Even as I put my arm round my little sister I felt the baby kicking inside me. My baby was reminding me that I couldn't make promises either because I mightn't be able to keep them. There's always danger, and mine was growing very close.

Suddenly I jumped to my feet. I shouted at my father: ‘My mother has no right to do this! Just because Bakar's gone' – I was so angry I
would
name him as if he were a living man – ‘she's no right to inflict her misery on us! We're
all
sorry! We
all
miss him! You
must
be angry with her, Father! You should be! Oh yes, you should be! She makes it seem like you don't care. That
you've
not lost
your
son. Oh no, you're not to have lost your son, and I haven't lost my brother, and Haizea hasn't lost hers! None of the rest of us is supposed to feel
anything
! She makes it seem like we don't care, just because we go on living. She ought to care about
us
! Supposing I die – because I might – I might easily – where's my mother going to be when I need her? And Haizea needs her? She won't care about us! Or about you either! If she came back and you were dead, and I was dead, she wouldn't care! She—'

My father dropped his twine. He stood up and struck me hard across the face.

I fell back on the piled-up furs, my hand to my cheek.

Amets looked at my father, and at me. He stood up, and reached for his cloak. ‘I'm going to check the traps,' he muttered, and turned to the door.

‘Let me come with you!'

We all froze. Amets looked at my father. Surely he'd interfere in this! Haizea realised what she'd done almost before the words were out. She clasped her hands over her mouth in horror. Then she flung herself on the bed, sobbing as if her heart would break. Neither of the men moved. It was I that knelt beside her and put my arm round her. ‘Sweetheart, it's all right. No one will punish you. If mother had been here it would never have happened! We'll forget it, let it go.' I looked at my father and spoke to him firmly, although I was quaking inside. ‘Father, Haizea didn't mean to speak to Amets. Amets is
my
husband, and I think nothing of it. My sister's upset because Bakar's lost, and now her mother's gone too. That's why she forgot. She's only little. So be kind and forget, won't you? Won't you?'

I could hear my mother's voice very clearly inside mine, telling my father what he should do. I quailed in my heart, but I stood facing my father, and met his eyes. I knew how my mother stood up to him, and gave as good as she got.
She
never quailed for any man. When my brother and I were little we used to cower under the furs in our sleeping place as the battle of words stormed over us. And here was I, speaking to my father in my mother's own voice, as if I had her power inside
me
!

He must have heard it too, because suddenly he threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘What a pack of women we have about us, Amets! Where did they learn to order us about like this? How did they get to be so unruly? I hope you'll keep your family in better order than I've been able to do, young man! Look at how my women behave, telling us what to do, and speaking out of turn! I'll come with you to the traps, Amets, and let's hope they'll rest their tongues and do a bit of work for a change while we're gone. Or maybe they've grown too uppity to want to feed us any more!'

Amets grinned, and held back the skins for my father to go out. Before he followed him outside Amets looked back at me, and winked. I knew the wink was for Haizea too, and that when the men came back everything that she and I had said would have been forgiven. I also hoped that, although my father would never refer to the matter again, what I'd said to him about my mother would not be entirely forgotten.

Amets said:

As the winter Dark slowly gave birth to another Year, I thought about what I should do now Bakar was gone. ‘Next winter,' I thought, ‘if Nekané comes back, I'm building a separate winter house at River Mouth Camp for my family. Never mind if we have to keep two hearths. Alaia and I will have a child of our own, or so I hope' – I stretched my arms up to the spirits even though I'd not spoken aloud – ‘if I have Alaia and a child, then

I'll certainly build another winter house for us here. And if . . . if that's not going to happen, and it's the worse for me' – I could hardly bear to think of it – ‘supposing Alaia is gone and I have to take Haizea . . .' I didn't finish the thought. Already I greatly missed Bakar. My wife's father was a good man, but he was getting old. Bakar had been my friend, but he'd been gone too long – three Moons now – for me to hold out any hope for him. Alaia was my woman. I didn't want the child Haizea – if I had to take her I couldn't do anything with her until she was grown, but I'd have to feed and clothe her all the same – and I certainly didn't want to be the only young man in the Camp.

I can't say I'd been thinking much about my wife's mother. The days had been quiet without her. There's little for a man to do in the long dark except sleep, and if his sleep is disturbed – well, maybe that's a sign of too many women in a house.

One evening we sat by the outside fire. It had been a clear day with the smell of snow in it, and hoar frost glittering on the grass. The bare oaks were black against the sky. I'd found a young pig in my trap that morning. Dark fell as we feasted. While I sat chewing the meat off the bone, I thought about everything in a way I never had before. I now belonged to a winter Camp with one old man, my woman and a girl child. ‘If that's how it is next winter,' I decided, ‘I won't come back. Even if I have Alaia and a healthy child of my own, I won't come back if I'm the only hunting man. Alaia works better than two of most women put together' – yes, that's what I thought about my wife then, and I still do. I saw how well Alaia looked after everything even before I took her. In fact that's one of the things . . . But not the
only
thing, I'll give my word on that! But this is what I was thinking: ‘My wife's father still brings home meat. He set traps, and he shoots small game. He still fishes from his coracle. But he can't trek far inland after deer or boar, and certainly not bear or wolf. Next winter he'll do even less. No,' I decided, ‘without Bakar this Camp makes no sense. Before next Gathering I'll speak to my wife's father. Either we bring in others from Alaia's family – she has plenty of cousins – or he must find a man for Haizea – one who'll be prepared to wait for Haizea to become a woman in return for having a place in this family.

‘If my wife's father says no . . . He can't say no!' It dawned on me that I was now the one who'd say how things were to be. If I refused to come back, this family would have to give up River Mouth Camp and let others take it over. Now that Bakar was gone, I was the only hunting man. They couldn't live here – they couldn't go anywhere in fact – without me.

Now I'd started thinking, a host of new ideas crowded into my mind. ‘Unlike some men,' I thought, ‘I don't talk a lot about what I can do. I don't need the whole Gathering to tell me I can hunt, or fish, or dance, or make love, or sing or do anything well at all. I've never fought other men if I could help it. Even when I was a boy I didn't squabble or fight much. Since I took Alaia, and lived in this family, I've watched them argue but I've never said much myself. But the fact is, now Bakar's gone, I'm the one who's in charge here. Of course I'll not shame my wife's father in front of his daughters. I'll show him proper respect, but' – this was another new thought – ‘he must know as well as I do how matters stand.'

I glanced at my wife's father, who was splitting the pig's thighbone to suck out the marrow. His eyes were downcast and he seemed absorbed in what he was doing. I was staring at him without realising it. When he suddenly looked up and caught my gaze my eyes dropped at once. Even so I'd seen the look he gave me. Old he might be, but his eyes were as piercing as ever. I felt the hot blood redden my cheeks, and hoped it didn't show in the firelight. Because in that look I read that not only did he know exactly what I was thinking, but he'd thought of it all himself, long before any of it had occurred to me.

Nekané said:

All winter I searched in every place I knew, right to the edges of our hunting grounds. I went down Long Strait beyond Boat Crossing Camp. When I got to my sister Sorné's winter Camp the men were away hunting in the hills. But Sorné sees everyone: she told me that no one for far around had seen my son that winter. I realised by now that I wouldn't find Bakar alive, but I needed to know what had happened to him. If only I could
know
it would be easier, or so I felt.

The others seemed to have let him go. At first they mourned almost as much as I did, but as the ripples fade and vanish after a fish has leaped into the Sun then disappeared again into deep water, so too did the memories of Bakar fade from the minds of his family. Only I, his mother, never ceased to think of him.

In Dark Moon the nights become dangerous and powerful and almost swallow up the days. For half a Moon the days were so starved and shrunken it seemed as though they could never recover. Day after day the wind was from the Sunless Sky. Blizzards and hail came down with the wind, and blotted out the weary Sun. For seven nights we saw no stars. On the eighth night the wind died. The snow lay still at last; it had grown so thick it reached almost to the top of the door. We'd piled thick logs across the doorway to keep it out. The clouds died with the wind, and when Amets dug away the snow so that we could step outside everything was quiet. We heard a big branch snap under its weight of snow. The sky blazed with stars.

I trudged over the frozen snow. Once more I climbed Lookout Hill. I read the shape of the hills in the darkness where there were no stars.

I looked up at the River of Milk that spurted from the breast of our First Mother – the white River that spans the sky and dims the farthest stars. I saw it as a sandy strand where a man might easily walk. Although the air was freezing I stood staring, and I saw how the stars were as many as the grains of sand on the shore. It was as though the hide of an immense beast had been hooked back from a huge door. Inside a house one can see no further than one can stretch out one's hand and touch. A house holds us close, like children in the womb. But when the hide is lifted from the door you can see across the world to where the sea meets the sky. And sometimes in the winter Moons it's the same when you look into the sky: everything is sharp and clear and bright, and there are more stars in the sky than you'd ever see on a summer night.

I looked into the stars, and I saw the shape of my son Bakar. I saw him stand above the River of Milk with his bow over his shoulder and his knife hanging from his belt. Red spirit-lights flickered round his head. His wolfskin cloak streamed across the sky, green as the sea. And I knew that I must search for him in places more different than I'd ever dreamed of.

On every cloudless night after that, I went up Look-out Hill and watched the stars. As the Sun got tired the nights grew strong. One by one new stars peered over the Morning hills, ready to begin their winter journey. Each night they climbed higher before they dropped into the Deep Sea under the Evening Sun Sky. Slowly the Hunter shook himself free of the horizon. Soon the timid Marten followed him, crouching low, ready to run back to his cave before day came and put him out. As the Sun grew weak the dark grew strong. I was glad. Like the winter stars, my journey belonged to the night, and the braver the dark grew the more I welcomed it.

One day a Dark Moon will come when the nights will swallow the days for ever, and when that happens our world will end. Every person who was ever born must have wondered if the last Dark Moon would come in their lives, but it never has, and now I have travelled far enough to know that there is much more still to come, and many more lives to be lived, before the Sun dies.

But that winter my eyes were on the dark. The days were an empty waste. I lay in the sleeping place and turned my face to the wall. When my family all danced in the melting snow to greet the light I wouldn't raise my head. They thought I was ill, and so perhaps I was, for what is ill? I don't know if I ate or drank or slept. I only know that slowly the days passed, and each one was far too long.

Each night, when the dark came, my man lay down in his usual place beside me. I ignored him, and when his breathing told me that he slept I slid from under the thick bearskin and crept away from my family, where they lay in their bed places round the hearth, all fast asleep. I pushed aside the hides that covered the door, and stepped into the freezing night. Did I wrap a fur round me? Did I put on my sealskin boots or my hood? I don't remember. Perhaps I stood under the icy stars with no protection at all. Perhaps not. But the small things we do every day to protect ourselves – the way we take care to be warm and dry in winter, cool in summer – the way we eat when we're hungry and drink when we're thirsty and sleep when we're tired – the way we enjoy and comfort one another – none of these things seemed to matter any more.

In Thaw Moon Esti was born, and her father recognised her. I should have been very happy to see my daughter a mother and I still as strong as ever, and able to travel as far as I liked. I knew that much of my life still lay before me. Ever since I'd seen Bakar outlined in the stars, I knew that the next direction would be new and strange. As the Sun recovered its strength, I did too. I began to go out in daylight again, and to eat and drink with the others. I could see they all hoped that whatever illness had struck me down in Dark Moon had gone away for ever. I knew I hadn't been ill. I came back into the world only for a breathing space. I had to gather my strength for what lay ahead.