Song of the River (39 page)

Cen had been especially careful when he was with Daes, aware of the mourning taboos that kept her from men. Perhaps that was why she had seemed so desirable—because of the taboos. There were other First Men women he could have chosen, but his eyes had filled themselves with Daes.

It had been a mistake, after bedding her, to return on his way back from his trading farther to the west. But how could he forget her? She still haunted his dreams. He should have stayed with her at the River village. What did it matter to him what village he lived in? His mother had been of the Caribou People, his father of the Walrus, and he had spent summers in River villages as his parents traveled between their peoples. He had grown up speaking all three languages, and easily picked up the First Men language.

He should have lived with Daes, claimed her child, the boy whose face was so much like his Walrus grandfather’s, whose voice held the clear, singing timbre of the Caribou People. But Cen had known that each time Daes looked at him she wished he was her First Men husband. Besides, what trader needs the encumbrance of a wife and baby? He had found her a River elder who was still a strong hunter, who would be a good father to the child and a good husband to Daes.

Though he had left her behind, during the next winter Cen’s thoughts had stayed with Daes. No matter how many Tundra women warmed his bed, the smooth brown skin under his hands had always belonged to Daes. So he returned each year to visit her, and finally she had agreed to go with him. Then he dared to believe that she no longer wished he was that dead husband, that she had learned to care for him because of his own strengths.

All things had seemed so good. His throat ached to think of it. But he would have his revenge, and those River People—the few he allowed to live—would never forget him.

THE WALRUS VILLAGE

Aqamdax expected them to come in the night, so she waited, keeping herself awake with songs and stories, but finally she fell asleep where she sat, leaning against the bedding platform. She awoke in early morning with a stiff neck and cramped legs. The entrance was still braced shut, and Aqamdax, feeling the need to relieve herself, searched the lodge for some kind of urine trough or night waste basket. Finally she squatted over a fishskin container, hoping it would hold her water and that she was not breaking any Walrus taboos.

The oil in the stone lamp was low, and several wicks had gone out. There was a small amount of oil left in the seal belly, and she poured a portion of it into the basin. The fire blazed with greater strength, but still she was cold. She sorted through baskets and hides, searched the walls for a food cache, but found nothing. She seemed to remember from stories that the Walrus stored their food in outside caches, but she was not sure. She had eaten the day before. She would not starve, and there were full water bladders hanging from the lodge poles.

Ah, Tut, she thought, why did I not ask more questions about these people? Surely in refusing their shaman she had insulted the whole village. She would wait one more day, then during the brief darkness of night, would cut her way out using the small skinning knife she kept in the belt under her sax. They had not found that one, and though the blade was short, it was sharp. If she was careful and worked slowly, it might be strong enough to cut through the split walrus hide.

Then what? Without food, without her woman’s knife, what could she do? She would have to find Sok and his brother, beg them to take her with them, or go to the shaman, make her apologies and ask to be given to some Walrus Hunter as wife. She sat on the edge of the bedding platform, stroked the smooth feathers of her sax.

No, she would not return to Sok. Why trust the man? It was better to stay here in this village, closer to her own people. She would offer herself to the shaman. If he no longer wanted her, she would ask to be wife to a hunter, second wife if necessary.

Hii, she had been stupid! But now she would be wise, and if she could keep her anger from directing her hands into more foolishness, she would find her way back to her people.

Chakliux walked through the village to the iqyax racks. During the days it took them to paddle to this village, he had spent much time considering the First Men iqyan and whether he might change his own to be more like theirs—narrower for speed and with a keelson made of three pieces of wood rather than one to allow the iqyax more strength, more flex in the waves.

Perhaps rather than change the iqyax he had, he should make another. Why ruin something that already worked and worked well? Then he could compare the two, how each rode the waves, how each responded to his paddle in currents and tides, in rips and breakers.

He passed the small tent where they had put Aqamdax. He felt sorry for the woman. She had seemed to care much about Sok, to try in many ways to be a good wife.

He remembered with a flood of warmth how it had been to have Gguzaakk as wife, and remembered the horror of her death. Their son had died the next day, and in his grief, Chakliux had not wanted to live. But what Dzuuggi could choose the luxury of death?

He continued to work for peace, though he knew K’os worked against him. It was not until his grief brought him to visit Gguzaakk’s burial platform that he knew the extent of K’os’s hatred. As he approached the sacred place, he saw K’os there, and he waited, thinking she also had come to grieve. She stooped to lay something on the ground. When he drew near, he saw it was a spray of purple flowers, and knew, as every child knows, the deadly poison of the plant and its hooded blooms.

“My son also?” he had asked her.

“Children die easily,” she had said, and lifted a hand to cover her nose and mouth.

He should have killed her then, but he was unable to move, as though his body, too, had been gripped by that poison that stills the muscles, stops the heart. He went to the elders, the hunters, even his father, but no one believed him. To make his revenge would mean his own death, the whole village against him. Then what chance would he have to work for peace?

Sometimes it was almost too difficult for any man to be Dzuuggi. The moons with the Walrus and First Men, a time when he was only hunter, had been good.

He envied Sok. What man could want more than a woman who honored him? Red Leaf and Aqamdax, two good women. It was sad Sok could not keep Aqamdax. Yet every man must value his life, and if Sok had not given her to the Walrus shaman, the shaman might have killed him or cursed him with illness.

Of course, when Aqamdax refused to come with them except as Sok’s wife, he could have left her with her own people. But if they had not brought her back, would the Walrus shaman have allowed Chakliux to stay in the village if he could not return to the Near River People? So, then, though Sok had earned trade goods, he had also helped Chakliux.

As Chakliux passed Aqamdax’s tent, he heard the soft sounds of a song, something she had sung when they were in the iqyan. He felt his heart twist as though touched by her sorrow, but told himself that soon she would feel happiness in being wife to the village shaman, joy in finding new stories here in this village.

It was not until he came to the beach that he heard the first wails of women mourning.

THE FIRST MEN VILLAGE

“I know you,” the old woman said. She leaned forward, and because of the large hump that deformed her back, Cen thought she might topple face first to lie at his feet, but she twisted her head so she was looking up, eyes squinted into slits. His heart gave a lurch, then he chided himself. Was he afraid of an old woman?

“I have been here before,” he said boldly. “Do you see anything you want?” He swept his hand out over the trade goods he had displayed beside his iqyax.

For a moment she looked down, and he thought he had distracted her, but again she turned her head to study him, again she said, “I know you. You were here …” She paused. “Four summers ago. No, five.”

“Grandmother, I have been to many villages in five summers. I cannot say for sure that I was here. Perhaps. I did make a trip out this way about that time, though I have not been back until now.”

She seemed not to hear him, and instead began to murmur to herself. She fingered his trade goods and finally left. Then the younger women were looking, all speaking at the same time, several of them snapping their dark eyes at him, in insult, he knew, but also to see if he noticed their impertinence. These First Men women were not ones to throw themselves into a man’s bed, but usually, in most First Men villages, there were one or two who might show favor to a trader. He counted on finding such a one at this village as well. In the privacy of her dark sleeping place, he would ask about Aqamdax, would say that some other trader claimed she was good in a man’s bed. The young woman, in her eagerness to show Cen she could please better than Aqamdax, would probably answer all of Cen’s questions—and his needs.

Through the day, Cen traded, building his supplies with First Men trade goods that would bring much to him among the Caribou and Tundra People, but no woman gave sly hints that she would welcome him.

Later, when hunters were trading, Cen ventured to ask if any woman in the village gave hospitality.

One hunter smiled at him, showing a broken front tooth and high pink gums. “You are too late,” he said. “There was one, but a River trader came and took her as wife.”

Cen shook his head. River trader? They seldom came this far. Though their log rafts allowed them to travel the quieter rivers, they were not able to handle the harsh winds and high waves of the North Sea. Of course, a man could travel overland, but why waste so many moons in order to visit a few First Men villages? In the same amount of time he could trade in many Caribou and River settlements, even perhaps cross the great rivers to the land of the North Tundra People, those hunters who had no true villages but lived in thin tents, following the wind.

But Cen reminded himself that the First Men considered any trader who was not Walrus or First Men to be River. Did they not also call him a River trader?

“So there is no one?” Cen asked.

The First Men hunter shrugged, held out his hands, then picked up several bone-tipped bird darts, set them down again. Perhaps, Cen thought, it would be best to come out and ask, though often when someone was named, people acted with suspicion and refused to say anything. He could not truly remember what she looked like, though she had often been in his thoughts on this journey. He had watched all the young village women, seeking one who might look like Daes, but none had. Of course, daughters did not always look like mothers. Perhaps she had grown to look like that father who had drowned, or like one of her grandmothers.

He leaned toward the hunter who had again gone back to the bird darts. “Two for a handful of bola stones,” Cen told the man.

The hunter looked at him with surprise in his eyes.

“But do not tell other hunters until I have left. I cannot do that for everyone. I would have nothing to trade at other villages.”

The man held a hand up, palm out. “Save them for me. I will be back.”

“Choose the ones you want,” Cen told him.

The hunter chose his darts, each fletched with silver-white shearwater feathers. Cen tucked them under his upturned iqyax, then waited, offering other hunters other deals, bickering and challenging, always trying to make them feel they had bested him, that their trading talents were greater than his.

Finally the hunter returned, a double handful of sharp andesite bola stones bound in a square of seal skin. Cen studied them, turning several in his hand. Without speaking, he took the darts from the iqyax and handed them to the man. Then he leaned forward and, speaking in a low voice, asked, “There is a woman I have been told about. They call her Aqamdax.”

The hunter began to laugh. “You have been told,” he said. “Yes, I am sure you have been told.” He laughed again. “There is not a man in this village who does not miss that one.”

“She is no longer here?” Cen asked.

“She is the one who left with the River trader. He claimed to want her for her stories, but no one in this village believed that.”

“So she had no First Men husband?”

“No.”

“And no brothers or uncles?”

“No one. The chief hunter took her into his ulax for a time, but finally she stayed with old Qung.” He lifted his head toward a group of women who had settled themselves on a grassy knoll above the beach. “The old one there at the center of the group.”

She was the humpback who had claimed to know him. She sat on her haunches, her head bent so far forward it appeared to rest on her upraised knees. Though he could not hear what she said, Cen could tell she was speaking.

“She is our village storyteller. Aqamdax went to her to learn. The women were not happy about that, but she did well. Her stories were good to hear.”

The man continued to speak, telling Cen about Aqamdax’s talents, in storytelling and in bed, but soon Cen no longer heard. Why listen? Aqamdax could not help him. He had wasted his time coming to this village, and now he had to return, risking his life again in the North Sea. Worse than that, he had to make a new plan, a way to get revenge on the River People—and to take Ghaden, for what father would allow his son to be raised by an enemy?

THE WALRUS VILLAGE

The hunter’s spear was tipped with a bone and clamshell point stained the color of old blood. He held it just below Aqamdax’s jaw, the point pressing into her skin.

Several Walrus Hunters had brought her from the summer tent. They walked her out of the village and told her in a mixture of Walrus and First Men to stand at the edge of the beach, then all but one left. That one now stood between her and the village, as though she were a danger to those who lived there, as though she must be held at bay with threats and weapons.

Women gathered behind the hunter and shouted out their anger, but Aqamdax could also hear high thin wails coming from the village. Were they mourning cries?

Had someone died? Were the Walrus a people who killed to show their sorrow? She knew of wives who died grieving the loss of a husband or a child, of elders who, on losing a son, went to their sleeping places and waited for death. But why kill? For revenge, yes, but in sorrow?