The Gathering Night (41 page)

Kemen raised his head. ‘Yes,' he said, in a voice so low most People couldn't hear him. The crowd muttered, asking each other to repeat what Kemen had said. ‘Yes!' repeated Kemen louder. ‘Edur's right. Basajaun is my brother! Basajaun was my grandfather! Basajaun was the uncle of my grandfather, and my father's cousin, and his cousin's son. Basajaun was my far-off cousin's newborn child! And the Drums just now – they beat out the lines of blood that tie me to the Lynx People. My father told me that my grandfather was a good man. Basajaun was a good brother to me. When the sea swept over us Basajaun saved my life. I can't turn my back on Basajaun. Whatever you do to him, his name will live in my heart. I can't change that.'

Basajaun turned his head and looked at Kemen. Neither brother made any move. I think – the Moonlight was tricky and I can't be sure – I think Basajaun smiled.

‘In that case,' said Aitor, ‘for as long as you live, Basajaun's name won't die.' Aitor turned to Amets. ‘You call yourself Kemen's friend?'

‘I certainly do!'

‘Then seize him!'

Amets looked startled.

‘You and Sendoa – and you – and you – seize him! Bind him! Carry him to the Go-Betweens' tent! You want him to live? Then seize him, I tell you! Do as I say!'

Sendoa ran up and twisted Kemen's arm behind his back, forcing him to bend over. ‘You hear the Go-Between, Amets! Fetch ropes! Bind him!'

‘What . . . ?'

‘You fool!' shouted Sendoa. ‘You don't want him to die with his brother.' Kemen twisted backwards, and Sendoa fought to keep his grip. ‘Fool! Amets! Help me! Don't you see, man! It's the only way to keep him out of it!'

Amets couldn't think that fast. He hung back. Koldo and Oroitz rushed forward to help Sendoa instead. A mass of People, including Alaia –
she
wasn't stupid – grabbed Amets and forced him back before he could move to help Kemen. Kemen kicked Oroitz in the groin. His fist smashed into Sendoa's face. Sendoa fell to his knees, blood pouring from his nose. Kemen's cousin lurched forward to help him. Swift as a snake, Basajaun struck down the man's raised arm. I saw the frightened question in the cousin's eyes. Basajaun didn't trouble to answer it. He just held his cousin back, gripping his shoulders, until the Auk men had overpowered Kemen. Edur bound Kemen hand and foot to a big birch branch, pulling the ropes tight with vicious knots. I hid in the shadows when they carried Kemen up the mound and dumped him in the Go-Betweens' tent. As soon as they'd left him there, I crept back to see what happened next.

Only when Aitor turned to Basajaun did I see a glimmer of understanding in Amets' face. ‘Your brother is out of this, Basajaun. He wouldn't be a man if he didn't try to help you, but we've made it impossible for him to do anything.'

Basajaun nodded. ‘For
that –
I thank you,' he said, as coolly as if it were he, not Aitor, that was Go-Between.

‘Now,' said Aitor, ‘I say to you two Lynx men what Zigor said to you before: choose now! Either your names go out of the world for ever, or you give yourselves! You did murder! Yet the spirits of the Auk People are kind. They let you choose: will you give yourselves, and put right the wrong you did? Or will your names die for ever?'

Basajaun held his head high. He showed neither fear nor sorrow. He looked Aitor in the face, and challenged him: ‘My name will never die!'

Aitor met his eyes. ‘Are you so sure of that?'

‘Oh yes.' Even though he had to look up from the Healing Place to meet the eyes of the Go-Between, Basajaun seemed much the taller man. ‘You heard what the Drums were saying. You know very well that whatever you do, my name will live in this world. You can't make it die!'

I thought of my son, dying at the hands of this man, alone on the white beach beside the Dolphin that had given itself to him. Now Kemen, one of my own family who shared my hearth, had told everyone that Basajaun's name would stay alive in his heart. Yet Kemen was now Bakar's father. Five Years ago Zigor had made Kemen swear that Lynx names would live among the Auks, and nowhere else. Zigor hadn't known then about Basajaun, but the spirits had known everything all along. Although I'd been Go-Between five Years I found myself without any wisdom to deal with this matter.

No one asked me to be Wise, which was just as well. I was a woman, and had nothing to do with what followed.

Zigor said, ‘We promised that before the Moon set we'd speak to the Animals about the Hunt. We must do that now, or the Animals will go away and leave us.' Zigor stepped out of the smoke and came round the Go-Betweens' hearth to where everyone could see him. He held something in his hands. It looked like a branch from a tree. ‘Now we'll speak to the Animals about the Hunt! Men, come forward!' He dismissed Alaia with a flick of the hand. She fled, and hid herself among the women.

The Animals were stirring. I stepped quietly into the shadows beside the tent.

Men flooded into the clearing. Their song surged forward like new tide over ebbing water. The men stamped their feet along with the footsteps of the Animals, as the Go-Betweens' Drums led them onward.

Always when the dance began, I'd creep away from the Go-Betweens' tent and go down the dark side of the mound, away from the fires, and round by a little woodland path to join the other women by the hearths. Now I stayed where I was. The men danced the footsteps of the Animals. They danced Cat, Marten, Boar and Deer. They danced Aurochs, Wolf and Bear. They danced Lynx. Their stamping shook the ground. Never had I come so close to the Hunt as this. The part of me that was woman was too afraid to move: if I was not Hunter, I must be Hunted. As each Animal danced before my eyes I felt the terror that comes before the giving in. I had no wish to give myself, yet I couldn't take my eyes away. Terrified, I crouched in the shadow of the Go-Betweens' tent.

I saw Zigor lift the branch. It was no branch: I recognised the antlers. I gasped in fright, but I was neither man nor woman now. I was Go-Between, and the spirits didn't hurt me.

I saw the Hunted. He never flinched. When they brought the antlers he didn't cower. He towered over most of them, but he didn't bend his head to help them. Unlike an Animal, he met their eyes. Like an Animal, he knew the only way was to give himself before he was taken.

Edur placed the crown of antlers round Basajaun's head. He was the only man tall enough to reach. Edur pulled the mask down over Basajaun's face. Basajaun's green eyes glittered through the slits. The footsteps of the Animals beat from the heart of the earth. The press of stamping men hid the Hunted from the eyes of all but the Hunters. Except they had forgotten me.

Even under the weight of the antlers Basajaun held his head high. I'd almost forgotten the other one, a pale shadow at his side. No one took any notice of him. I think he was past caring himself whether his name lived or died. I looked at him and felt a sick wave of fear that for a heartbeat rocked me off my balance. From Basajaun I felt no fear at all.

Edur knotted the last strap. The hands that restrained Basajaun fell away. For a heartbeat he stood still, perhaps not realising he was free.

Then he leaped.

He went straight up the Go-Betweens' mound, surprising all his pursuers. He leaped over the fires and ran for the dark space behind the tent, where there were no men to hold him back. Only I was there. He crashed into me as he landed, flung me aside and shot away down the dark side of the mound, into the shadows under the trees.

Kemen said:

My arms and legs were lashed to the branch behind my back. I tried rolling on the wood to break it; it was too thick. I strained against my bonds until my wrists and ankles bled, but Edur had used thick strips of rawhide, and he'd done his work thoroughly. They'd blindfolded me too. I don't know why: I couldn't have freed myself even if I could see. I knew where I was. I'd lain blindfold in this same place before, only then it was full of People. Now I smelt only the closeness of imprisoned air.

I was so full of grief and anger, I felt I had to break out or die, but for all my struggles I lay helpless as a baby that doesn't want to be born. And about as much use: my mouth was filled with bitterness that I lay trussed like a pig on a spit when Basajaun needed my help as he'd never done before.

The ground beneath my back shook with the footsteps of the Animals. I heard them all: Cat, Marten, Boar, Deer, Aurochs, Wolf, Bear, Lynx . . . Lynx . . . and . . . something else. The close air round me rippled with a current I'd never felt before. My skin prickled. I smelt strange excitement. I smelt fear.

I'd been in this place before. Not when I lay under Zigor's knife a hand-full of Years ago. I went back long before that. I smelt the sweat of huddled bodies. Before my blinded eyes I saw strips of hare meat roasting over a heather fire that sparked and hissed, then flared up, catching the faces of the listening boys in sudden flashes. I smelt their excitement; I also caught a current of cold fear.

‘A man can also give himself.'

Even the snow-laden wind that had buffeted our tent seemed to hold its breath, waiting for what came next. All these Years later, I remembered exactly what our teacher had said to us: ‘A man is not an Animal. He doesn't know the spirits as the Animals do. But the spirits know him. If the spirits mark him, they can take him for their own. They can save him by forcing him to give himself. He is still man, but also, for a little while, he is Animal as well.'

Long ago, in the high snows where the Lynx People have – had – their Initiation Camp, I listened to that quiet voice telling us how it was done. Even then the story sent a cold trickle down my spine. But I was very young: I didn't understand how we still live in the Beginning, even though the Years have carried us such a long way away. How could I know, caught on the cusp between child and man, that one day I'd lie bound and helpless, listening to the footsteps of the one Animal that is not Animal? How could I dream that the Hunted Man would be my own brother? I couldn't: through the Years that followed my dreams told me many things, but they'd never given me any hint of this.

I lay, wide-eyed under my blindfold, until the last footsteps died away. I don't know if I slept. A strong wind started to blow from the evening sky. The trees roared like the sea. If Basajaun were making inland, towards the drowned lands of the Lynx People, the wind would be behind him, blowing away his scent and helping him on his way. Perhaps the spirits were on his side. But later, in the stillness before dawn, I felt no wind at all. Perhaps it had already done its work. I heard faint movements outside the tent. The soft sounds faded into whispering leaves. A dog howled. I sniffed the growing dawn seeping into the tent. A blackbird sang above my head. Doves cooed in the wakening woods. My anger and grief were spent. What I wanted more than anything in the world was to piss. How long would they leave me here? I was thirsty too, but there was nothing to be done about that.

It hardly mattered. Basajaun was gone. Auk dogs were on his trail. Auk men were hunting him to his death. This was Auk hunting land; the Auk men had dogs and spears and arrows. Basajaun had nothing. He couldn't escape. Perhaps he was already dead. Where would his spirit go now? He and my cousin – they were Lynx, not Auk. How would Basajaun's spirit find its way through this strange land?

I tried to think of Osané. She'd suffered last night too. I thought of her unborn child, and hoped – as well as I could hope anything – that the baby had come to no harm. I thought of my little Bakar. How much had he seen, or understood, of his parents' shame? In one night my son had seen his mother's father stripped of his name and sent away for ever, and his father's brother sent to his death. I wanted to find my boy and take him in my arms and make sure he was all right. I wanted to comfort Osané. I wanted my friends to be my friends and not my deadly enemies. I wanted to lay out my brother's body where the spirits would find it, even if I couldn't save his life. But more than all that I wanted to piss. But shame myself I would not. I lay still and waited.

Gathering Camp started to stir. Shrill childish voices mingled with birdsong. Fresh smoke rose. Women called to one another across the clearing. A dog whined. It wasn't a nursing bitch or a pup. I knew how that dog felt. He and I were the only hunters left in Gathering Camp. We'd suffered the same loss; I wondered what it was like to be him. Dogs live halfway between People and Animal. We People know them very well, and yet we don't know them at all. At least that dog could piss if he wanted to, and not think anything of it. I envied him that, and hoped someone had brought him water.

It was Zigor who came at last. I was so glad it wasn't Nekané I almost smiled when I heard his voice. He cut through my bonds – I'd tugged at them too hard for him to undo Edur's knots. Zigor rubbed the blood back into my legs until I could stand. I was stiff with cuts and bruises from the fight last night, and when I tried to walk my ankle gave way. Zigor let me stagger outside to piss. I wasn't in a fit state to fight or run, but I would have done, had I not known already that it was all too late. I let Zigor lead me back into the tent, and when he offered me his waterskin I drank deep. Zigor watched me as if he were a duck sitting on her eggs, and I a lynx about to spring.

‘Am I your enemy after all?' I asked wearily. ‘What d'you think I'm going to do?'