Eden River (8 page)

In the months that followed it was not Kelimuth only that thought of her baby: the subject was never for a moment far from the mind of Larian herself. It provided, moreover, a topic of conversation for the whole camp. Kelimuth was envied by her sisters and admired by the young men: it was felt that she had justified her seniority. Cain alone held stubbornly aloof from these discussions, never by word or sign betraying any knowledge of a fact that was now apparent for all to see. If it were mentioned in his presence he was deaf; if Kelimuth herself passed near him he was blind. And when at last the time came when Larian must go to him and say that a son was born to Kelimuth her daughter—such a little beauty, Cain! she said with feigned eagerness—he stared at her sombrely, as if unhearing, and presently, raising a lean hand, he pointed to the distant sky. Turning in wonder she saw the sun going down in red splendour, spilling his
colour upon the crest of the holy mountain to which it was the custom of Cain's tribe to address their devotions: it was the same mountain as could be seen, in another aspect, from Eden, and many a time had Adam himself, pausing in his work or his play, looked up at it with eagle aspiration. It is the Holy Blood, said Cain. The Holy Blood has spoken. We must go.

The wolf-call of Cain, lonely and hollow, echoed through the sleeping camp, and the journey to the holy mountain began with the first hint of morning. The company was sixteen strong: there were Cain and Larian, three sons of Zildah, five sons of Larian, four daughters of Zildah, and Larian's Kelimuth with her baby. The rest of the children, being too big to be carried yet too small to walk so far, had been left behind in the care of Zildah, who was glad enough to avoid the long march. Cain would have permitted Larian to stay too, but Larian insisted on being with her daughter. As they advanced through the forest it was as if the morning came to meet them, first sending shy intimations of herself, a glimpse of pearly sky, the chirp of a young bird, a gleam of gold in the higher branches. Larian, though her heart was filled with a nameless foreboding, could not be insensible to the enchantment of earth, or unaware of a presence in nature that was the more comforting to her because it was heedless of herself, and as heedless of
the shadow cast by Cain as he walked, brooding and masterful, among the trees. The largest of the trees rose to so great a height that Larian, who had not since young girlhood penetrated the forest so deeply, felt that she was walking in a vast room with a high fretted roof, an endless sequence of corridors filling the world. Everywhere, it seemed, the sky was scattered with green and growing leaves. In order to spare the young mother, who would need all her strength for the journey that was ahead, Larian carried Kelimuth's baby; and Keli-muth kept close to Larian. Often, when she could do so unobserved, Larian glanced at the girl with an anxious searching glance, trying to read the secret that lay behind her impassivity: at times it comforted, at times dismayed her, to observe that Kelimuth showed no consciousness that anything unusual was toward, no curiosity as to what this expedition boded. Kelimuth was placid and silent, happy in the possession of her child and able to think of nothing else. She smiled indulgently at the excitement of her brothers, who sang as they strode along, and struck at each other playfully, and flung out jeering brotherly remarks at the other girls; she seemed unaware of Cain, stalking silently ahead, and only turning back when the
pace of those who followed grew too slack for him; and even the bond between herself and her mother was one rather of silent propinquity than of speech. Larian, with a mother's eye, looked for signs that this serenity was of the surface only; but she found no such thing, found in Kelimuth no hint of the uneasiness that was troubling her own spirit.

The day wore on; the sun came pouring in vertical streams through the leafy roof; and a warm humming note, filling the air as with a glaze of sound, testified that the forest was at last awake in all its parts. To Larian, the smooth trunks of the trees, so cool to the hand yet so much alive that one could fancy a pulse beating under the skin, seemed moulded of pure colour, with branches of splintering green light, and gold dropping from those branches. For a while she yielded all her senses to this dream, and the yielding helped her to forget the fatigue of walking on and on, with no food and little rest, and with a baby in her arms that at times was fretful. But presently she woke to the fact that Kelimuth's silence had persisted to a degree that was unwonted, and in this fact her unsleeping and unacknowledged fears chose to find matter for further anxiety. Why had the girl lost the use of her tongue? The question forced itself at
last into the forefront of consciousness, and it was all she could do to refrain from uttering it. Yet the very fear that made her want to speak made her check the impulse. It was the baby himself who broke the silence, with a little whimpering cry.

What is it, my little frog? murmured Larian. Come, Kelimuth, you'd better take him now. He's hungry, poor soul. And no wonder. Boys! Call to your father and tell him we must rest. The little one wants feeding. Without waiting for Cain's consent she squatted down, and Kelimuth with her. The young mother received her child and guided his mouth to her nipple. She sat very still, enfolding him, her mouth curving tenderly as she bent over him. Her large eyes were brimmed with the soft light of her ecstasy. Ah, he's a brave man, she said. Ah, he's a beautiful man. Look at his little fingers, how they dig into me. How greedy he is. See, mother, how greedy he is, the monster. He can't drink the milk fast enough. Kelimuth glanced up to find her mother's eyes intent upon her: intent, and with an intentness that seemed to veil some mystery. He'll be a great hunter when he grows up, mother. But why do you look at me like that? Huh, said Larian, can't I look at my own daughter when I like? You're not
the first woman that's had a baby, let me tell you. There, said Kelimuth, grandmother is angry with us. I wonder why. Don't you want him to be a hunter, mother? But I think he will be, all the same. See what beautiful strong legs he has, and how his toes curl in. He was a terrible one for kicking and fighting before ever he was born. Do you remember, mother? It gave Larian an unaccountable pang to hear the girl speak of her recent pregnancy as though it had all happened long ago. Kelimuth lived so utterly in the present moment, a moment filled with her child and his beauty, that yesterday was already an old story for her; and she was ready to smile with kindly derision at the simpleton she had been before motherhood came to crown her with joy and importance. Yes, mother: he's to be a hunter. He'll run faster and climb higher than all the others, even than our father Cain. Hush, child! said Larian: you must not talk like that. I must and I must, cried Kelimuth wilfully. He'll be stronger than all the others, mother: you'll see. And he shall bring you his first kill. Won't you be proud of him then? Oh, I'm proud of him, answered Larian, in a half-grumbling tone. I'm proud of him, proud enough. But there've been babies before him, and
there'll be babies again: that's what you seem to forget, my chick. Larian was a little weary after her much walking, but it was not weariness that brought tears to her eyes.

The daughters of Zildah now came crowding round the young mother, the brothers staying near Cain, whom they eyed anxiously, from a respectful distance. Cain was deep in thought. His mood seemed dangerous: he rejected all food that was brought him. At last, however, one of the girls succeeded in persuading him to eat a little: at which the whole company breathed a sigh of thanksgiving, for until Cain consented to break his fast everyone must wait hungry. Now they all began munching, and tongues were loosed. The girls chattered like sparrows. The boys, with sly glances in the direction of this chattering, nudged each other and sniggered; and sometimes there was a shout of laughter that for a moment roused Cain from his sullen brooding. The girls that were gathered round Kelimuth eyed her and the baby with a mingling of envy and distaste, pleasure and curiosity. The baby was very small and sweet, they thought; his smile was angelic, and at sight of his liveliness, his candid eyes and dimpled limbs, a warm spring of delight gushed in their hearts. But
they hated Kelimuth for somehow stealing a march on them, and the presence of Cain made them oddly furtive in their attitude to the baby. Because he might be watching them their smiles of pleasure became self-conscious smirks, and their thoughts strayed into the very paths he had forbidden them. The baby was a man. They thought what delicious fun it would be to take his wrap off. They whispered to each other, and glanced at Kelimuth out of slanting eyes. Kelimuth stared back at them, red but defiant; but for Larian, true daughter of Eden although in exile, those meaning glances had no meaning: their burden of innuendo was something she could never learn to understand. Nevertheless, she was aware of Kelimuth's discomfort and was glad when presently the journey was resumed. Come, come, cried Cain impatiently. We have wasted too much time. We must hurry if we are to get there before nightfall. But why hurry? thought Larian. Who cares whether we get there before nightfall? Cain, as if answering her unspoken thought, cried out in a loud voice that it was the will of the Holy Blood that they should reach the mountain crest before the sun went down. And we're not yet at the foot, he complained. We must hurry, do you hear? It will be a long climb. At
mention of the Holy Blood, everybody, even Larian herself, bowed the head and muttered a form of words that Cain had drilled into them. Yes, even Larian. She had long ceased to identify the Holy Blood with the young man Abel whom she had seen both alive and dead, and this made it easier to ascribe malignity and power to that unseen deity, whose active interference in human affairs had long been taken for granted by the whole tribe.

The light that now filtered into the forest was of a new quality, cold and colourless; and the travellers became conscious of the moist aroma rising from a soil to which a thousand generations of leaves had added their rich dust. The hum of noon had given place to an emptiness in which the flutter of wings seemed an anxious portent and an occasional birdcall had a fabulous isolation, so that listening, the moment after, to the memory of the sound, retracing the pattern scribbled in the mind, Larian was constrained to wonder whether it had not all been fancy. In this stillness, of which she was newly and abruptly aware, the noises of their journeying—the footfall, the hurried breathing, the snapped twig—had each a sharpened edge; and their voices seemed sudden, and over-loud, like voices heard in a state
of half-waking. And now, as though a curtain had been drawn across the sky, darkness came suddenly down upon the travellers and forced them to a standstill. With a lively sense of the dangers surrounding them they made ready for sleep, leaving two of their number, however, to guard them while they slept, Cain and his sons having, by their hunting, made bad blood between man and beast. Cain had no sleep that night: he lay alone with his strange and dark thoughts. And Larian, from dark till dawn, sat wide-eyed, with Kelimuth's head pillowed in her lap and Kelimuth's child nestling against its mother. When Kelimuth stirred in her sleep, or half-woke and wondered where she was, Larian touched her with gentle fingers, saying: Sleep well, my little pigeon. Sleep well. And in her heart she added: Sleep while you can.

In supposing that they could reach the mountain crest in one day's journeying, Cain was deceived; for it was not until sunset of the second day that they found themselves, after a long and arduous ascent, standing on a high mountain path, hitherto untrodden, with the last unscalable section of pyramid towering above them. Following this path in a vain search for a way up, they came to the other side of the mountain and saw, far below them, the pleasant land of Eden. They saw, but without understanding: Larian alone of that company felt within her the stirring of an ancient music, for Cain was wrapped in a bloody fantasy and was unaware that he stood within sight of his heart's true home. The red of sunset was in the sky, and Cain cried out in a loud voice: It is the Holy Blood. Bring me the child. Ah no, said Larian. But to the others his meaning was still dark, and being filled with the fear of the Holy Blood they had no mind to oppose their father Cain. So Kelimuth came to her father with the child. And he took the child and laid it on
a ledge of jutting rock. And lifting his axe above his head he delivered judgment, saying: Sin has been committed among us and the Holy Blood is angry. Sin has been committed and this child is born of sin. A cold silence followed these words, every man and every woman of the tribe standing rigid and entranced, as if frozen by the thin mountain air, until suddenly the voice of Larian was heard, shrill and challenging: Whose was the sin? Whose was the sin? Cain, looking at her with anger, gave no answer. There rose a low murmuring among the young men, but no one answered Larian's question, and Cain began chanting the litany of sacrifice. O Holy Blood of Abel, it is warm blood we bring you. And mechanically, with habitual unction, his sons and his daughters intoned the response: Look with favour on our sacrifice, and bless us, O Most Holy Blood. The lips even of Kelimuth herself moved to this formula, but no sooner was it pronounced than the child uttered a whimpering cry. At that the mother darted forward and flung herself between him and the swinging axe. Cain, shocked by this blasphemy, shouted to the young men to take her away; and obediently they closed in on her, a team of hunters, as often they had closed in upon some
bewildered fawn in the forest. Her solitary wailing filled the mountain with unearthly voices. Go down, go down, called Cain, in accents of agony. Carry her away from this holy mountain and leave me to make my peace with the Voice of the Blood.

And they left him with the child, all but Larian. Larian, undaunted by his black looks, took him by the hand and reasoned with him, saying: Cain, there's a sickness in you, or you wouldn't dare to destroy my daughter's child. Look at him, the little lamb. He's stopped crying now, he's smiling at you. Let me take him up and we'll go back home together and forget this day. It'll be a long journey, my dear, but we shall take care of each other and no harm will come to us. But Cain answered: Woman, what are you saying? The Holy Blood requires the sacrifice of us. Do you want to bring a curse on the world? Stand aside, and let me do what has to be done. A curse there will be indeed, said Larian, if you destroy this pretty bud, this innocent. Sin has been done, you say, but whose was the sin? Not his, Cain. Whose was the sin? she repeated searchingly. With eyes askance Cain answered: Why do you torment me? We have all sinned, and this must be the atonement. But listen, Cain. Larian had little cunning,
but it was clear to her that she must seem to fall in with his humour. Listen, she said: this child is a child of sin, and therefore displeasing in the sight of the Blood. If we offer him this child in sacrifice he will think we are mocking him, and his anger will be without end. Cain was shaken by this sophistry, but he held stubbornly to his purpose. Turn your face away, he said, and I will kill the child mercifully with one stroke. No, Cain, whispered Larian, clutching him as in deadly fear, I am afraid of the Holy Blood. If you insult him with such a sacrifice he will take us to himself, to the land of the dead. I will tell you a better way. Let us not touch the little one, but let us leave him here alive, and let us make our prayer to the Holy Blood and watch for an answer. What talk is this? said Cain, wavering but suspicious. It is good talk, urged Larian. For if the Holy Blood is pleased with our sacrifice he will send a wild beast of the mountain to take the child and destroy him. And if the Holy Blood is not pleased, he will let the child live. We are his servants, Cain; and it is not for us to decide what blood he must accept in sacrifice. Cain pondered these words for a while, but at last he said: Very well. It shall be so. But remember this, Larian. Whether the child is taken by the Holy Blood or
not taken, he shall not come back with us to the camp. Living or dead he is now delivered up to the mercy of the Blood for ever.