The Gathering Night (11 page)

All this Kemen might have brought upon us without meaning it. I found no guile in him – though I could have been wrong – how could I know the thoughts in a stranger's heart? But now I was Go-Between I had ways of finding out. More than that, it was now my duty to my People to discover what I could, whether I felt like it or not. I'd not been tried yet, but I was beginning to be aware of new responsibilities. Kemen was my first test.

I walked away from the cliffs towards the High Sun Sky, in the opposite direction from White Beach Camp. No one had used the way through the hazel woods since Seed Moon. Willow shoots, briars and brambles had grown into the path. I pushed them aside with my digging stick. I passed the narrow part of the island and climbed the little hill that's almost a separate island. I went up beyond the trees.

I sat looking at the glimmering waves. I gazed at the Open Sea until Near and Far had no meaning any more. The patterns of shifting light stopped being out of reach. They pushed against my eyes and forced their way inside me, rippling through my head so I was the sea too, in the sea, my smooth, striped body leaping joyfully through the waves as the light broke apart and showered down round me. I wasn't afraid. I was laughing. Dolphin was laughing as he leaped through the waves with me. He was with me, and he said no, no,
no
, you don't need to worry, no, life is good, and Kemen is a good man, and the evil spirit he brought with him is far away it will come it will come one day one Year oh yes it will come and you must be ready for it but not yet not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

I found myself sitting on the hill where I was before. There were clouds above my head and the light had gone out of the sea. I could see rain coming towards me from the Evening Sun Sky. I stood up, shivering, and pulled my foxfur cloak round my shoulders, hugging myself tightly to get warm. But though my outer body was cold, inside my ribs I blazed with delight, and also with the comfort that Kemen was a good man. It was safe to accept him as our cousin. Whatever harmful spirit had followed him, it was still far off, and Kemen had brought nothing in his own person that could harm us.

Amets said:

No, don't put any more wood on that fire. It's getting late – look how high the Moon is above Gathering Loch. Alazne's fast asleep, and those boys can hardly keep their eyes open. I haven't much more to say. I can see Alaia wants to speak too, but then we'll end this story for tonight.

As soon as we met Sendoa and Kemen at White Beach Camp I was happy again. We started hunting the sea-birds at once. Kemen hadn't done that kind of hunting before, but he was quick to learn. I explained to him how we leave the women to get puffins, because all they have to do is haul them out of their burrows. And a woman can get terns' eggs, gulls' eggs and duck eggs, just by walking over open ground. It's easy for them to do that. But it's a man's job to catch birds and collect eggs from the cliffs. I walked along the coast with him and showed him our best bird-hunting places.

‘You see? The guillemots and razorbills nest in the ledges all across the cliff. All we have to do is climb down there, and they'll give themselves just as much as we want. Kittiwakes too: you'll find a lot of gulls' eggs as well as auks'. It's all the same – they're all just as good as each other. Then down below – just above the shags there, look, about a man's length above high tide – see there, where the waves are breaking over Flat Skerry – that's where the great auks nest. You've never seen one? We'll soon show you! There's enough meat in a great auk's egg to keep a man going for a full day's journey, even if he finds nothing else. They're big birds – one great auk will stop the whole family complaining they're hungry for the best part of half a day! Oh, we get good hunting, I can tell you, while the auks are here on White Beach Island!

Kemen stood beside me on the cliff top, looking down at the places I showed him. All he said was, ‘We don't have any cliffs like these in Lynx lands. We don't hunt auks at all.'

I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have no auk season.

When we got back to Camp I showed Kemen how to make a snare from bark twine to catch auks. Kemen looped the twine to make a noose the way I showed him, and took his knife to trim the end.

‘What kind of blades are those?' I kept my voice even. My head told me that Lynx stones might be different; my heart feared that the spirits had written the colour of blood on the blades of Kemen's knife for a bad reason.

‘Just flint.' Kemen hesitated. Then he held out his knife to me, as if we were kin.

I held back for a heartbeat. Then I took his knife, balancing the haft between my finger and thumb. I kept my voice ordinary, as if nothing particular had happened between us. ‘I've never seen flint that colour.'

‘No? Yours is all like that?' Kemen pointed to my knife.

I handed it to him. ‘That's Auk flint. Over there' – I pointed towards the Sunless Sky – ‘where I come from, in the hunting lands of the Seal People, we have other stones.' I watched Kemen testing the blade of my knife against his thumb. I handed him a little stone core from my pouch. ‘There's no blades left in this now. I don't know why I keep it. When I first came here, that's what I was using. You won't find any stone like this in Auk lands.'

Kemen took the core of dark-grey stone. He turned it over in his hand, and felt the smooth surface. ‘That's good hard stone.'

‘Only white-stone is harder. We get plenty of
that
in Auk lands. On the beach and in the rocks. You won't find much flint on Mother Mountain Island – we get most of ours from the beaches on Gathering Loch – but you'll always find white-stone here if you want it.'

‘I've never worked with white-stone.'

‘It's harder than flint or bloodstone. Do you know bloodstone? No? We get it at Gathering Camp – they bring it from Bloodstone Island. I've got some in Camp – I'll show you – well, you saw Sendoa's knife? Dark-green stone – tough to work, but it makes a good blade.'

We sat there for half a morning talking about stones. I won't tell you the rest because my wife is listening – it was all what she calls men's talk! You all know how Alaia keeps us men in order! She can work stone as well as anybody, but she only likes talking about People really.

Kemen handed me back the useless little core of mudstone I'd brought with me from the Seal People's lands, saying, ‘I think you
do
know why you keep it.'

After that talk I didn't worry about giving Auk knowledge to Kemen. He knew about boats already, but he wasn't used to the fierce tides that rip around the islands. At first he thought that if there wasn't much wind or swell there was nothing to worry about. We had to teach him better before he went off and drowned himself! Sendoa and I had a private talk about our fishing marks.

‘Are you sure it's safe to show him?' I asked. ‘Remember his kin are staying among the Heron People.'

‘The Heron People won't come here. They don't know our seas. Besides, I trust Kemen.'

‘Why?'

‘Because I've had all winter to get to know him. And because Nekané said he was a good man.'

‘Nekané is Go-Between,' I agreed. ‘And I'm telling you, Sendoa, I hope no one else in my family ever becomes Go-Between. I couldn't stand it!'

Sendoa chuckled. ‘A woman too! Her man can't stop her getting above herself now!'

I laughed with him. ‘But to be honest, cousin, she doesn't use it against him. Not since she came back after – whatever it is that they do – after it happened. Before that – oh, she was terrible. But now she does her work again and doesn't make much fuss. But after my wife's brother left, I tell you, it was terrible!' I slapped him on the arm. ‘I was never so glad to see anyone as to find you here! One thing's certain: I'm not going through another winter being the only hunting man. Because' – I mentioned my wife's father – ‘he knows a lot, but he can't keep up really. He's too old.'

Sendoa glanced at me when I said that. I guessed what he was thinking. ‘Nekané going Go-Between won't help with the hunting anyway,' was all he said, ‘because she's still only a woman – she was never initiated. I've never known a woman Go-Between before, though I've heard it happens sometimes. But a woman Go-Between can't have the right Helpers for the Hunt. Anyway, she wouldn't know what to ask them.'

But Nekané might have other uses, I thought. I didn't say so to Sendoa, but she'd already shown, over this matter of Kemen, that she had. ‘Also,' I added aloud, ‘she's past having children. That makes her equal to a man in many ways.'

‘I can accept Nekané being one of the Wise,' agreed Sendoa. ‘In fact that's what old women are for. They're not much use for anything else!' I laughed with him, a little nervously, because we were mocking at the Wise. ‘It's having a woman Go-Between in our family. I'll get used to it, I expect.'

‘She was able to tell us it was all right to have Kemen here.'

‘Which brings us back to Kemen – telling him where to fish. Listen, Amets: even when everyone arrives we'll only have' – Sendoa held up his fingers one by one, thinking of the men in our family – ‘eight hunting men. Old men' – he counted his fingers again – ‘three. Women' – one by one he raised all ten fingers, and then another three – ‘and then there's the children and dogs, who all have to be fed too. I think we have good reason to show Kemen our fishing grounds.' He glanced at me. ‘He is our kin, though far-off, I agree.'

I nodded slowly.

‘And also,' argued Sendoa, ‘if he stays, he could have one of our women. That would make it right.'

I grinned, and suggested a name. We began to laugh. I won't repeat the things we said after that, because all the girls we mentioned have a man of their own now, and we know what happened with Kemen. But we ended up laughing so much we couldn't say another word. From then on we accepted Kemen as one of us. When the others arrived they found the matter already settled, and they soon accepted things as they were. Nobody discussed the matter any more.

Alaia said:

Of course when the other women came – everyone arrived before Auk Moon was half full – we talked endlessly about the loss of Bakar, and the arrival of Kemen, as we sat in the Sun plucking birds and grinding sea-roots. It was obvious that the spirits had taken one and given back the other, but we weren't able to see why. But that's how it is: the spirits have their own ways of working and we can't expect to understand why they have to hurt us.

It was so good to have the others to talk to, who weren't my mother, and who were in no way Go-Between. My aunts and cousins welcomed my baby. They passed Esti from one to another whenever she was out of my arms. They never tired of cuddling her and singing to her. I felt as if my Esti was safe at last: whether I lived or died, from now on the voices and scents of her kin would always be familiar.

As we sat together round the fire picking over dandelions, clover and chickweed, roasting sea-roots, eggs or fish in the ashes, or shelling shellfish, we played names with the new baby. Haizea would hold Esti up to face one of her kin, and we'd all sing together, ‘Who's that, Esti? Who's that? Who's that? Who's that?'

And then we'd chant, ‘That's Esti's cousin Itsaso! Itsaso! ITSASO!' Or ‘Sorné' or ‘Hilargi' or whoever it might be. My baby loved that game, as every baby does. She'd smile and chortle, and before we left White Beach Camp she knew all their faces, and I'm sure she already understood how every name and every face joined up to make that particular soul.

When we told the others what had happened with Bakar we had all our grieving to do again with them for company. Their sorrow helped me. The scar was still there, and always would be, but the pain of Bakar's loss began to heal. I could talk to my cousins in a way I couldn't talk to my mother, especially now she'd changed so much.

Now Amets was back with our cousins he wasn't silent and grim any more. When he was laughing with the others I realised how little laughter there'd been all winter. When we sang in the evenings I remembered how sadly we'd all gone to bed as soon as it was dark. And I'd had Esti to think of; I'd been pregnant and then I'd given birth, and now she was attached to me all night like a little limpet. Perhaps I'd been neglecting my man. In fact my aunts told me so: they said my mother should have warned me that the birth of the first child was dangerous in this way.

‘Amets loves his daughter,' I said to them indignantly. ‘I told you, he was the one who recognised her. Esti was his own mother's mother!'

‘That's as may be,' my aunt Hilargi said, knotting a piece of twine and biting off the loose end, ‘but look at what he had to put up with last winter. First your brother disappears – his only friend – and then my sister Nekané becomes even more impossible than she was before!'

‘And it's not as if your father's much of a companion,' put in my aunt Sorné. ‘I've never seen a man age so much in one winter. He looks half dead already.'

‘Now if you had boys to train it would be easier,' remarked Hilargi. She reached across me for another bundle of twine-grass. ‘But it looks as if Nekané's blood mostly produces girls. Maybe the spirits will give you a boy one day, or perhaps they'll give Haizea a son. That would improve things. I'm not saying it isn't better to have girls, Alaia. You're the lucky one, really! You bring up a boy, feed him all through the best part of your life – and don't they just eat a lot! I'm telling you, you clothe him, keep him warm in winter, teach him everything he needs to know – and then what? He can't wait to leave you and find a woman of his own, and you see him at maybe two Camps in a Year if you're lucky. No one knows that better than I do! But a family needs a proper balance if it's going to work.'