In the Beginning (6 page)

“If it could be made to roll down it would break through the hedge, as the boy said. If it can be moved.” He looked at the hunters. “We will dig the earth away and find out.”

He had won back his ascendancy over them, for the time being at least. At his command they set to work, scrabbling at the earth with their hands, loosening the soil and pulling it away. They could not all
get in under the stone together so Dom's father made them work in relays: he did not dig himself, of course, because he was the chief.

They worked hard and for a long time, sweating in the rays from the sun which, though slanting now across the valley, were still hot. Only when the sun had dipped below the facing hill did the chief permit them to stop.

Dom looked at the hole they had made; it seemed very small compared with the size of the boulder. With the other hunters he put his hands against the rough surface of the stone, trying to move it. Nothing happened.

“We will come here tomorrow,” Dom's father said, “and dig again.”

• • •

In the morning the cut in his arm was sore and inflamed, and Dom wondered if the evil spirit really had returned to him. He would have liked to go and search for the plant which Va had put on the wound in his leg, but his father commanded all the hunters to go up again to the stone on the hillside, and Dom had to go with them.

The sky was light but the sun had not yet risen
above the hill; there was a glow of gold in the blue sky behind its crest. But one could see very clearly, and he looked down beyond the hedge into the village. Animals were there: cattle in their pen and hens pecking the earth. None of the people could be seen; doubtless they were still sleeping in their tree-caves. He wondered in which cave Va was; then his father saw him standing idle and ordered him to dig.

The sun came up and they sweated again. Down in the village people came out of their huts. They looked up at the hunters and mocked them as they had done the previous day. Dom saw women and girls there as well as men and, once more filled with anger at the thought of her running away from him, tried to pick Va out. But the distance was too great to see if she were there; the enemy's jeers came thinly through the air.

They dug round the sides and back of the stone as well as under the front. The work was hard, and although the hunters' hands were tough and calloused, they grew sore. Some said it was time to try pushing the stone again, and in the end Dom's father agreed. They put their shoulders to it, striv
ing to make it move, but with no success.

There was grumbling among them. Dom's father shouted:

“Push! Push hard!”

He came and heaved against the stone himself, elbowing a hunter out of the way to do so. Then they all felt it, a tiny rocking, almost imperceptible. They heaved again and it rocked a little more. Dom's father said:

“It is beginning to come loose. Now dig!”

They dug and heaved and dug again. Each time they tried it moved more positively—after another hour or two they could rock it to and fro. Wiping sweat from his eyes, feeling the soreness and smart of his wounded arm, Dom looked briefly down into the village. He thought of Va with anger and a savage joy. Soon he and the other hunters would be in there, and he would show her what it meant not to obey his commands.

On the next attempt the stone almost came out of its socket in the earth. The hunters went back to their digging with a will, because now they could all see the prospect of success, of fighting and triumph. They dug and pushed, dug and pushed.
Then, pushing, Dom heard his father's cry of exultation close by him and, putting all his strength against the stone, felt it lurch forward, tilting up and away, out of the earth which had held it.

They all shouted together as the stone rolled down the slope, but their shouts died when its progress halted after no more than a yard or two. The hunters stared at it, discouraged.

“It has moved once,” Dom's father said, “so it will move again. Push!”

It moved but stopped after a few more feet. Unless they could get it to roll fast it would be useless as a means of breaking through the hedge. Near the village the slope was much less steep, almost level. No amount of straining, Dom realized, would enable them to move it down there.

The hunters heaved and struggled. Dom felt the sting of his wound as his arm pressed against the jagged surface, but ignored it. The stone rolled again, and this time went on rolling. They saw it gathering speed as it bumped on down the slope, rocking and scattering smaller stones that lay in its path. Shouting, the hunters ran after it.

The men of the village came running as the
boulder careered downhill toward the hedge. Dom heard their cries of amazement and dismay, mingling with the hunters' shouts of excitement. Bouncing in a cloud of dust, the stone reached the more gentle slope at the bottom and without checking, rolled on. It hit the hedge and smashed through it, making a gap several feet across and crushing some of the village men who stood inside. Before it finally came to rest it had crashed into one of the tree-caves and split it open.

• • •

The battle was not a long one, but it was bloody enough. The men of the village, in among their homes, fought much harder than they had done on the first encounter; but the hunters fought better than on the second. They were at full strength, they were relishing the triumph of having forced their way through the barrier which had held them at bay for so long, and they were led by their great chief, Dom's father, swinging his huge club of bone. Nothing could stand in their way now.

Dom, forgetting wound and weariness, forgetting everything except the ecstasy of battle, wielded his club with the rest. Very soon its whiteness was
stained with the blood of the enemy. Like the other hunters he killed mercilessly, giving no quarter. Within fifteen minutes it was over, and the earth littered with dead or dying men, among whom the hunters walked, shouting their victory.

The women and children of the village huddled together in shocked and weeping groups. As soon as his mind cooled from its fever of killing, Dom looked for Va among them. He found her quite soon, clinging to an older woman. With the bloody club in his hand, he said:

“Come!”

She stared at him, shivering with fear, her face stained with tears. Despite his anger he found it good to see her again. He would beat her for running away, as he must, but perhaps he would not beat her very hard. Then they would go to the wood together, and bathe in the pool, and find fruit to eat. He would make another necklace of scarlet blossoms and put it round her neck.

When she did not move, he said more harshly:

“Come. We have conquered your people. From now on you will do as I say.”

She still cowered away. Dom passed the club into
his left hand and roughly grabbed her arm with his right. She moaned, and the older woman cried out, but he pulled her toward him.

As he did so he heard his father's voice calling. He turned and his father came to him. Dom said:

“This is the girl who helped me, and then ran away.”

Dom's father looked at Va. “She is of an age for mating.”

“Yes,” Dom said. “I will take her for my mate. But first I will beat her for running away.”

His father laughed. “She is of an age for mating, but you are not, boy! I will take this one.”

“No.” Dom looked up at his father. “You cannot do that. She is mine.”

“Cannot?”

His father stared at him, more curious than angry, still good-humored from the victory he had won. He grinned.

“Run away, boy. Leave the girl to me.”

“No!” Dom was frightened, but desperate. “I will not.”

He pulled at Va's arm again, trying to convey to her that they must both run now, to get away from
his father. But she moaned again, and held back. Then Dom's father roared as curiosity and amusement gave way to rage. His heavy fist smashed at Dom. Dom dodged the first blow, but the second knocked him senseless.

6

T
HE NIGHT AFTER SHE HAD
run away from Dom, Va could not sleep. She lay awake, thinking of what had happened and sobbing from time to time. It was her punishment, as the Village Mother had said, and she must endure the unhappiness. It would not last. The savages would go away in due course, and after that she would forget about Dom. She would marry someone, Gri perhaps, and live her life in the village as her people had always done. At last, when she was old and wise, she would be the Village Mother like her grandmother.

But as the slow hours passed, she thought less of
the Village Mother's words and more of Dom. She thought of the way he had learned to smile during the two days they had spent together. She remembered his anger when she had pulled him down into the pool, and then how he had laughed afterward.

It was true that he had killed the squirrel, and grinned as he held out the small corpse to show her. But he had not known that he was doing anything wrong—to him her tame squirrel had been just another animal to slaughter. Because he was one of the savages, the Village Mother had said, and of course that was true. She had also said that a savage could never change, would always be a cruel and hateful killer.

Was that true, too? Although she knew the Village Mother was wiser than anyone else, Va could not bring herself to believe it. She thought of that morning of the second day, when she had found the moss-bed empty and gone down unhappily to the pool—of how good it had been when she had realized that the face reflected in the pool beside her own was Dom's. And how he had brought her the necklace of flowers. That was not the way a savage acted. There were other things in his mind besides the lust for killing.

She made her mind up as light was beginning to filter into the hut, in promise of the new dawn. She would go to the wood again, as soon as the gap was opened in the hedge. Perhaps Dom would still be there, waiting for her. She would teach him—not just things like swimming but how to love small animals, not kill them. The Village Mother was wrong because she did not know Dom. All she knew was that the savages had killed men and cattle, and tried to break into the village. She had not seen Dom's face when he offered her the necklace of flowers, nor when they laughed together in the pool. Her own first thought had been right: he could be taught not to be a savage. She could teach him.

But the gap was not opened in the hedge that morning because this time the savages did not go away. They stayed in the clearing, occasionally coming up close to the hedge and shouting until they were driven off with stones. Va looked for Dom but did not see him. Only the men were allowed to climb up on the huts to throw stones; she had to peer out dimly through the thorns.

The fact that she had not seen him did not mean that he was not there; but just as the previous
evening she had imagined she heard his voice crying hatred with the rest, so now she felt sure in her heart that he had not returned to his savage tribe—that he was still in the wood, waiting for her to come back. Tomorrow, perhaps, she would be able to do so. But next day the savages were still there; and the day after the same.

That night the Village Mother spoke to them, assembled together near the fire.

“They are more cunning than I thought,” she said, “and more persistent. They know we have been grazing the cattle while they were away hunting. Therefore they stay here to prevent your doing this.”

One of the men said: “What should we do, Mother? We have fodder for only a few days. Soon the cattle will be starving. Should we not go out and fight them?”

“They are stronger than you are,” the Village Mother said, “and more skilled at fighting. One expects as much of savages. It would be folly to attack them; they would only defeat you as they did before.”

Another man said: “They have shamed us, Mother. We must not skulk here and watch our women and
children starve. It is better to be killed than do that.”

“Maybe,” said the Village Mother. “But for the sake of your women and children it is better to live and be able to protect them in days to come than to save what you call your honor.”

He said: “But if we stay here we will all starve together. In a few days the cattle will start to die. We must do something.”

The Village Mother shook her head.

“If we are less strong than the savages, it is all the more important that we should show ourselves wiser. They must have food also. As our cattle run short of fodder, so they will lack meat. Then they must go away to find animals to kill.”

“Some went away today, but others stayed behind. That is what they are likely to do next time, too.”

“Then next time,” the Village Mother said, “you may attack the ones that are left. There will be fewer of them, and they will not be expecting it. If you can drive them away, perhaps they will all go. They are not civilized people, as we are, who have a home that we love. They are mere wandering savages; and there are plenty of other places where they can find beasts
to hunt. Perhaps they will go on once they realize they can get no advantage here.”

Listening, Va hoped what she said was right. The others would go away, but Dom would stay in the wood. She would find him there and teach him all the things he needed to know, and after that bring him to the village. She rocked on her haunches and smiled secretly, thinking of it.

• • •

Three days later the opportunity which the Village Mother had spoken of came. Early in the morning scouts reported that many of the savages were moving away down the valley. The men wanted to open the gap in the hedge at once and go out to attack the ones left behind, but the Village Mother said no. They must wait until those who had gone were too far away to hear the cries of their friends, and run back.

An hour later the men begged again to be allowed to give battle, but the Village Mother still refused. When one protested, saying that the hunters must be more than five miles away by now and well out of earshot, she said:

“There is something else. I have noticed that they
drowse in the heat of the afternoon, like all hunting beasts. That will be the best time to surprise them.”

Some of the men grumbled a little, but they would not go against the counsel of the Village Mother. So they waited, while the sun rose to its zenith and began its downward path toward the western hills. Then the Village Mother gave the word, the stone and the thorn branches were pulled to one side, and the men of the village ran shouting against the enemy.

It was soon over. Those left behind in the village heard cries of triumph from familiar voices, and went out to find them victorious and the savages all chased from the clearing. But they wasted no time in rejoicing. Following the instructions of the Village Mother they at once led the cattle out to graze, and collected fodder for the days ahead.

The Village Mother said: “If they have sense they will not come back, but go elsewhere to do their killing and leave us in peace. But if they do return they will still need to go away some time to hunt. When that happens, you can beat the ones they leave as you did today. We must be patient, and in the end they will depart.”

They waited until evening to celebrate the victory. One of the cows was killed for the feast. The girls trailed chains of flowers over the beast, and the Village Mother asked pardon of the animal's spirit and then, while girls fondled it, one of the men struck it a blow behind the ear with a stone held in a twisted rope, and it sank to its knees, not knowing it was killed.

After that the carcass, now no more than dead flesh, was cut up and roasted over the fire; and they ate it with spiced bread and drank beer made from herbs, and afterward ate fruit that the children had picked during the afternoon. Then they sang together in the quiet dusk. These were not songs of battle and victory, but songs about the good things of their life in the valley: about love and marriage, children and crops and animals, about the shifting rhythm of the seasons—winter and seed-sowing spring, summer and harvest-autumn. Songs about life itself, and about death which, coming in the fullness of age, was a good thing also.

Va sang with them and thought of Dom. The savages would go, and he would be waiting for her in the wood. She would make up a song about that and
perhaps in days to come—long years ahead maybe when she was old—all the people would sing it.

• • •

Next morning, when the savages were seen on the hillside above the village, everyone laughed at first. They looked so silly up there, scrabbling away the dirt at the base of the huge boulder. The villagers called to them, asking them if they were looking for roots to eat, or would they eat earth as they had eaten dust in the battle the previous day? Only the Village Mother said nothing and looked somber.

But gradually, as the hours passed and the savages went on with their digging, the rest of the ­people grew more quiet. They watched in silence as the hunters clustered round the stone and heaved against it, trying to make it move. They shouted with relief when they saw that the stone did not shift, but relief turned to dismay as the savages went back again to their digging.

Va found the Village Mother sitting apart from the others. She said:

“Mother, do something. Save us.”

The old woman did not speak for a moment. Va was shocked to see that tears welled in her eyes and
ran down her wrinkled cheeks. She said at last in a low voice:

“There is nothing I can do, child. They will break through the hedge. After that our only hope will lie in the courage of our menfolk. And I fear that courage may not be enough against brute strength.”

The villagers watched the savages heave on the stone again, and saw it rock and heard their enemy's distant shouts of joy. The savages dug and rocked, dug and rocked; then the stone toppled forward and down but only went a little way. And some cried that they would be safe after all—that the stone was too irregular in shape to be rolled down the hill. They were still saying this when it began to move again, traveling faster and faster, lifting from the hillside and banging down as it hurtled toward them.

The men of the village rushed to that part of the hedge where the boulder would strike. For a moment or two it was lost to view behind the thorns, its presence marked only by the thunder of its passage and the cloud of dust thrown up behind it. But in the next instant the hedge exploded inward and the stone broke through, scattering men as though they were children's dolls.

Behind it came the shrieking, howling savages. The men of the village joined battle with them, but it was hopeless from the beginning. One by one they fell under the onslaught of the great white clubs of bone which crashed and crushed them down. Others did their best to fight also—old people, women, girls and boys—but they were brushed aside. They were so strong, these savages. Even without their clubs they would have triumphed, by the strength of their arms; with the clubs they were irresistible.

Va herself tried to oppose one shouting warrior, and was beaten to the ground by a flailing blow that drove the breath from her body. By the time she managed to get to her feet again it was almost over. In a couple of places a handful of men from the village still fought on, but for the most part the savages roamed unchallenged. Where they found a man still living they smashed his skull with their clubs. Va covered her eyes, but could not stop her ears against the groans of the dying.

She went to look for the Village Mother, and found her by the spring, lying with her legs trailing in the water. Va dragged her clear and cradled her head in her lap; her face was bloody from a blow
which had crushed the side of her face. She spoke mumbling words at first; then said:

“It was my fault.”

Va rocked her gently. “No, Mother.”

“My fault,” she said again. “I am Village Mother and I failed you. I failed you all.”

“There was nothing you could do,” Va said. “You could not stop them uprooting the stone, nor stop the stone breaking through the hedge. It was not your fault.”

“I thought they would go away, but it was because my hopes deceived me. I knew what I should have done. They were stronger than our men, who could not hope to stand against them. We should have fled secretly while we had the chance. I thought of it, but if we had fled we should have had to leave our huts and our cattle and hens. Most of all, we should have had to leave this place which has been our home. So I kept the people here, hoping the savages would get tired of trying, and go on.”

She coughed. Blood bubbled from her mouth and Va wiped it away. The Village Mother whispered:

“Hoping is not enough, and people are more important than cattle and huts. One can find more
cattle, build more huts. One can make a new home.”

She struggled to speak but the words would not come. Va knew she was dying. She said:

“Rest, Mother.”

The one eye that could see looked at her.

“Get away, child, while you can.” Her voice was very faint. “Go through the hole the stone made in the hedge. Escape into the valley. It may be that one or two others of our people will escape also. If so it lies with you, who would have been Village Mother in due time, to guide them to some place the savages have not found. Promise this, and I will rest.”

Va said: “I promise.”

“Then go!” With an effort she raised her voice. “Go now.”

It was an order that had to be obeyed. Va eased her head down gently and slipped away, making for the place where the stone had crashed through. But when she got near she saw that it was too late—a couple of the savages stood on guard there, leaning on their blood-smeared clubs. There was no way out.

She thought of returning to the spring, but did not. The Village Mother was dying: there would be
more peace in her death if she believed Va had escaped. Instead she went in search of her mother and found her in a group of women and children; but not before she had also found the bodies of her father and her brother. Her brother had been two years older than Va, a boy who laughed a lot but whose face now was twisted in the grimace of death that had come as the club smashed his skull.