The Blessing Stone (18 page)

Not a sound was heard among the hushed gathering, for the first tasting of the summer vintage would tell the people how the rest of the year would go.

Avram’s grandmother paused at the entrance and, lifting her arms, prayed aloud to the Goddess and to any spirits or ghosts that might be nearby. She spoke words that had been passed down from Talitha’s day, when the first wine was created in this cave, then she dusted the threshold with frankincense and bay leaves, a sacred mixture meant to sanctify the area. She went in first, to strike flints and light the oil lamps that had been placed there in the summer. She stepped with a light foot lest her intrusion disturb the sacredness of the cave.

When she satisfied herself that the wineskins were untouched, that no sacrilege had been committed here during the months of fermentation—for it was death to anyone who entered the sacred wine cave—she beckoned to Yubal. He was the
abba
of the house, he was also the
abba
of the vineyard, he must take the first taste.

To Avram’s surprise, Yubal touched his arm and indicated that he should join them. Avram had never set foot over the threshold of the sacred cave. He was filled with awe as he followed Yubal into the darkness and could
feel
the presence of Goddess-power all around him. He thought of Marit outside among the onlookers, and how filled with pride she must be to see him enter the sacred cave.

Yubal paused before the wineskins, stored on limestone shelves carved out of the cave walls, and looked at the boy beside him, tall and handsome, the first signs of a beard on his cheeks. Yubal could not explain why he felt the way he did about the boy. It had happened while Avram’s mother was pregnant. They would lie together on their sleeping mat and Yubal would stare in wonder at the great mound of her belly, watching it move when the baby was active. Yubal would lay his hand on that marvelous mound and feel the child move beneath his fingers, and something miraculous would come over him—it almost felt as if the child were moving within himself.

“Before we proceed, Avram,” Yubal said in a quiet, resonant voice that went no farther than the entrance of the cave. “I have something to tell you.” He grinned. “Wonderful news.”

He looked into the boy’s expectant eyes and grew somber. He had never had trouble talking to Avram in the past. They had been close and never awkward with each other. Even that one time, when Avram turned thirteen and Yubal had had to explain the rules and taboos of being with women, about the special tent the women retired to once a month, the moonflow that created new life and that was the sole purview of women. It had been difficult to explain it all to the boy. Just the power of woman’s mystery nearly stopped the words in Yubal’s mouth.

For all his wealth, Yubal was a simple man. He understood his vineyard and his wine, but women baffled him. There was that secret about them…that hidden place within them where a man took his pleasure but also where life began, where the Goddess dwelled. The fear of menstrual blood was strong in Yubal, as it was in most men. To even come into contact with it, so the myths said, meant instant death to a man, for the moon-blood carried the power of the Goddess, the power of life and death. When a woman’s blood stopped coming, it meant a new child was being formed. But when the flow appeared, it meant a life had died.

“Our house is to receive a new member,” Yubal said now amid the flickering lamps in the cave.

Avram looked at him in surprise. In his infatuation with Marit Avram had been so blind to everything that he hadn’t been aware his
abba
was involved in plans to unite their family with another. But of course, it was a move that must happen eventually.

The traditions and laws of family alliances began with the first families of the settlement, generations ago, when raiders came and plundered crops and houses. The ancestors had decided that, for the survival of the settlement, families must protect one another. Over the generations, it had been discovered that the most successful way of guaranteeing mutual protection in times of invasion or disaster was the periodic swapping of sons and daughters. In the case of Avram’s family, they had too few males to work the vineyard and protect the harvest from marauders. Yubal often hired men to help, but they tended to eat the grapes, and when invaders came, they ran. By the same token, there were now no females in the House of Talitha, just the very elderly grandmother. With just Yubal and Avram and the three younger boys, the house would die out. So a female would be added to their family, preferably one with many brothers and uncles, for such men would willingly protect the vineyard and not steal from the family they had been allied to.

“Who is it to be?” Avram asked, several candidates crowding his mind—the daughters of Sol the corn-grower, the nieces of Guri the lamp-maker, the youngest Onion Sister.

Yubal cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “A daughter of the House of Serophia is to join our family.”

Avram stared at him. “Serophia,” he said dumbly.

Yubal held up a hand. “It is a shock to you, I know. But the Goddess was consulted and she spoke through Reina. We also consulted the star-reader and the seers. All agreed that a family so ancient and noble as ours can only ally itself with a house of equal standing. Who else but Serophia?”

Yubal had not been happy with the idea himself, and had argued with the grandmother about it. Edra was a good House, he had argued, and the bloodline of Abihail. But she, and the Goddess, had prevailed. No other house would do. And so, through a representative (since it was unthinkable the rival
abbas
should actually speak), Yubal had approached Molok on the issue of creating an alliance between the two families. But Yubal had had an advantage. He had heard from the trader Hadadezer that Molok was getting worried about his beer trade. It was becoming easier and easier for other men to make beer—all they had to do was buy barley bread, crumble it into water to form a mash and leave it alone until it fermented, without having the bother of a barley field that needed cultivating, harvesting, and protection from locusts and thieves. The rumor was, Molok’s business was starting to fail and he was looking for ways to diversify and keep the family prosperous. But Molok was rich in another area: his house had many strong sons, and so Yubal decided that the protection of another man’s sons in exchange for a winepress and a portion of the grape harvest was a good bargain. The alliance, after centuries of rivalry, was agreed upon.

“Even though the sons of Serophia might still hate us,” Yubal said, “they will nonetheless protect their sister in case of raider attack, protecting us and our vineyard as well.”

“Which daughter,
Abba
?” Avram said in a whisper.

“The youngest. The girl Marit.”

Avram felt as if he had been struck by lightning and stuffed with honey at the same time. His shock and his joy collided to strike him dumb.

Yubal hurried on, misreading the shocked look on Avram’s face. “I don’t blame you for being angry. But it is for the ancestors and for the bloodline. But now, I have even better news!”

Avram tried to find his voice, to say, “What could be better than having my beloved Marit beneath my own roof?” but Yubal was speaking quickly. “I have entered into an agreement with Parthalan, of the House of Edra, and we are to unite with them by sending you to live with them. Think of it, Avram! Living with the shell-workers! A very enviable position since their work is clean, no sweat, no calluses, their hands are always soft and clean. And they have several beautiful daughters with whom you can take your pleasure.”

Yubal was pleased with his own cleverness—just look at the expression on the boy’s face! He was clearly about to faint at the suddenness of this good fortune. Since Avram was a dreamer, always wondering what was on the other side of the hills and wasn’t interested in the vineyard or making wine, Yubal had found the perfect solution in Parthalan for he and his daughters traveled yearly to the Great Sea where they collected cowries, conches, clams, scallop, and abalone shells that they brought back to be carved into jewelry, fetishes, amulets, and magic ornaments. Parthalan was rich and had been looking for a new healthy male to add to his family. So Yubal struck a deal with Parthalan: Avram was to join the House of Edra and in return, Parthalan was to pay annually in abalone shells to the House of Talitha.

Yubal’s face glowed with joy in the flickering lamplight. “Finally you will see what is on the other side of the hills! What better life could you ask for!”

“Oh
Abba,
” Avram cried, his voice resounding off the cave walls. “This is terrible news.”

Yubal’s face fell. “What do you mean? You should be rejoicing. You have never been happy working the vineyard or the winepress. Now you are being given a chance to see what is on the other side of the horizon. I am handing you your dream and you are angry?”

“My dream is Marit!” Avram blurted.

Yubal stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Marit. I love Marit.”

“You have a passion for the girl? I had no idea. You certainly kept it a secret.”

Avram hung his head. “
Abba,
I cannot leave her.”

“But you have to.”

“I cannot be parted from Marit.”

“You’re young yet, lad. Once you set your hands upon the luscious thighs of Parthalan’s daughters—”

“I don’t want the shell-worker’s daughters. I want Marit!”

Yubal’s face darkened. He loved the boy but Avram was over-stepping bounds in this sacred cave. “You cannot have her, Avram, and it breaks my heart now to know what I have done. But all the arrangements have been made with Parthalan, the agreements are set. We spoke vows before the Goddess. We cannot go back on our word.” Yubal laid a heavy hand on Avram’s shoulder. “But think on this then, that Marit will be in our house, safe and protected, and she will be here when you come back from the Great Sea.”

Avram was utterly miserable. “The abalone hunters are gone for a year at a time.”

“But then they come back to carve and sell their shells. You will be with Marit then.”

“I shall die at the Great Sea.”

Yubal sighed. The day had not gone as he expected. Still, there was nothing to be done about it and Avram was young, he would get over it. Time to move on and remember why they were in the cave. But first, there was something else Yubal wanted to do.

He wore a wolf’s fang on a leather thong around his neck. He had been hunting in the hills one day and was attacked by a wolf. Yubal had nearly died—his body still bore the scars. The men who brought Yubal home, covered in blood, had also brought the dead wolf with Yubal’s knife buried in its chest. Yubal later removed one of the beast’s fangs as a trophy and made it into a pendant: a big yellow canine tooth with the faint rusty stains of his own blood still on it. It was very powerful protection against harm because it possessed the spirit of the wolf.

He now lifted the thong over his head and draped it over Avram’s. “To protect you while you are away at the Great Sea.”

The youth was speechless. He looked down at the powerful talisman and felt his throat constrict. He had difficulty finding voice. “I vow to honor the family and your contract with Parthalan,
Abba
.” And in his mind he saw Marit, waving farewell on a hilltop, her figure growing smaller until she was no longer in sight.

It would take a blind man,
Hadadezer thought cynically,
not to see that Yubal has made a terrible mistake.

As the obsidian-trader gnawed on a mutton joint, occasionally wiping his greasy hands on his generous beard, he looked around and thought this feast was more like a funeral than a celebration. The Serophia girl’s brothers looking dower. Molok drinking too much. Marit’s mother too loud, braying false laughter, wearing so much bone and shell jewelry she looked as if she might collapse beneath the weight of it all. The Talitha grandmother putting on a nauseatingly sweet face, fawning over the guests. And too much food, even for these rich families. What did they expect? That a few gestures, a prescribed ritual, vows before their goddess and suddenly all the hatred that had been ingrained in them since birth would vanish? Great Maker, there was much bad luck hanging over this feast. For the first time in all his years of eating and drinking at the Place of the Perennial Spring, Hadadezer was anxious to get back to his own tent and away from this bad luck.

Unfortunately, he was an honored guest—his caravan was due to depart tomorrow for the north—and so he could not leave. He must sit through this painful feast and then be expected to follow the procession from the girl’s house to her new home. It was but a short distance from the Serophia homestead to that of Talitha, but in Hadadezer’s mind it was going to take forever. He sighed. At least he wasn’t expected to delay his departure and join the procession taking the sullen Talitha boy, Avram, to his new home with the shell-workers.

At least the girl seemed happy, sitting on her little throne festooned with winter flowers, her hair wearing a crown of bay leaves, her chest barely rising and falling beneath the weight of so many cowrie shell necklaces, gifts from family and friends. But her new kinsmen, Yubal and Avram, looked about as miserable as two souls could be. And they were drinking too much, even by Hadadezer’s standards.

The evening dragged on with false merrymaking until finally Reina the priestess gave the signal that the final stage of the unification of the two houses take place. Hadadezer belched his relief and signaled to his bearers who immediately jumped up and hoisted his carrying platform onto their shoulders. They followed the girl and her family a discreet distance, then the trader gave another signal and his bearers veered away from the procession, carrying their master back to the caravan encampment where two lovely young females were waiting to share his bed.

Yubal could hardly walk. He was so sorry about the contract he had made with the abalone hunters—he had truly thought Avram would be filled with joy at the news—that he had poured far more wine down his throat than he was accustomed to. A deeper pain also afflicted Yubal that no amount of fermented drink could assuage: the reality that he had had to go to Molok and ask for this alliance. Although at first he had felt smug about knowing of Molok’s desperation to save his failing beer business, and had even come away from the negotiations thinking he had done the man a favor, the reality of what he had done now stuck in Yubal’s throat like a thorn. No amount of Goddess blessings or good wishes from friends, no assurances from the seers and star-readers that he had done the right thing, could get the sour feeling out of Yubal’s stomach. He still hated the Serophia Clan, Molok most of all, and now regretted that he had not found another way to protect his vineyard.