The Kin (58 page)

Now she sensed a movement around her, looked, and saw that the four marshmen were approaching and the Kin were grouping to face them. She went and stood behind Bodu, looking over her shoulder but keeping the baby out of sight. All four marshmen were there now. The two in front walked normally, but the third was helping the fourth to hobble along. He was obviously in great pain.

The wound in Tun's arm had gone bad for a while, and was still not well, so he'd decided to rest it and not go hunting. Now he gestured to Tor and walked forward with him to greet the marshmen. It looked for a moment as if they were going to shove him aside, but he stood his ground with his usual confidence and their leader brusquely returned the greeting.

Immediately he began to grunt and gesture. His hair bushed out. He shook his stick with a stabbing motion, beckoned with his head to the other three and once more started to stride past Tun.

Tun moved to bar his way. His hair also bushed, but only partly, showing he meant business but didn't want a fight. The marshman put up a hand to thrust him aside but Tun caught him by the wrist with his good arm and drew him close, staring down into his eyes, unblinking.

The second marshman hesitated, and raised his stick. The Kin gave a shout and surged forward. Though they were almost all women, these weren't the fawning, servile women the marshmen were used to. They backed off and lowered their sticks. Tun let go of the leader's wrist, and he too took a pace back. His hair settled, and Tun's did the same.

“This is good,” he said calmly. “We make fire. We eat. We talk. Nar, go find the hunters. They went that way. Say to them,
Come
.”

He made the
Come
sound to the marshmen and without looking to see if they were following led the way towards a group of shade trees.

While most of the women made fire and prepared a meal, Chogi and Bodu pounded garri leaves and mixed them with a little water to make a paste, which they daubed onto the hornet stings. Though Mana and Tinu had both been stung they dealt with the marshman first, because he was much the worst hurt. The garri paste didn't cure the pain, but numbed it enough to make it bearable.

By the time Chogi reached Mana the demon baby was at last beginning to whimper a little, and make sucking movements with his lips.

“He is hungry,” said Chogi crossly. “Mana, this is stupid. You cannot feed him. You have no milk. He dies.”

“Chogi is right,” said Zara. “He is a demon baby. One day he is a man. Then he is a demon man. He is not Kin. Let him die now. Give him to the marshmen. This is best.”

“The marshmen are friends,” said Yova. “Do we make them enemies? This is not good. Give them the baby.”

“I say no,” said Bodu. “The baby dies—he dies. This is one thing. We give him to the marshmen—we say,
Take him. Kill him
. This is another thing. I cannot do this.”

“Bodu, this is stupid,” said Zara. “This
one thing, other thing
. They are the same. The baby is dead. Do you say to him,
Live
, Bodu? You have milk. Do you give it to the demon baby?”

By now Mana was weeping. She looked at Bodu through her tears. The round, cheerful face was frowning. Bodu had been eating well for more than a moon now, and she probably had milk to spare, but nothing like enough for two babies. And the second one a demon baby?

Mana could see her struggling with Zara's question, and that she couldn't quite bring herself to say yes. It was too much to ask.

There seemed to be only one thing for Mana to do, though it was worse than anything she could have imagined. She stood up.

“I take this from you,” she croaked. “It is my stuff. I go away. I go far and far. The baby dies. This is my stuff also.”

A voice shouted from behind the women. Ko. Mana hadn't realized he'd been listening.

“Mana, I come with you. Your stuff is my stuff. I, Ko, say this.”

Through a fresh upwelling of tears she heard Tinu's quiet mumble.

“Tinu comes, I come,” said Nar. Mana could hear that he had willed himself to say it.

“Suth is hunting,” said Bodu slowly. “I know in my heart he says,
We go with Mana
.”

“This is stupid, stupid!” cried Zara. “Nar, my son, you do not go! This is not your stuff!”

“Wait,” said a voice.

Silence fell. Everyone rose from whatever they'd been doing and turned and stared at Noli. She had been sitting against a tree trunk, feeding Amola, but the baby had let go of the nipple and was waiting like the rest of them, as if she too had recognized the voice of Moonhawk.

After a long pause the voice came again, no more than a whisper but seeming to fill the shadowed space beneath the trees and breathe far out across the sunlit plain beyond.

“His name is Okern.”

There was an astonished gasp from every mouth, and then another silence. There was always one person in each Kin to whom their First One came, and that person chose names for newborn babies. So Noli had named Ogad, as well as her own Amola, and long ago she'd also named Tor, after the Moonhawks had rescued him and accepted him into the Kin. She had done this in her own voice, not Moonhawk's.

But it wasn't only that this time she had spoken with Moonhawk's voice. It was the name she'd chosen. The names of babies started either with an O sound, if it was a boy, or an A sound, if it was a girl. Then, when they stopped being babies and became small ones, these sounds were dropped. Mana herself had once been Amana, and Tan had been Otan. When the time came Ogad would become Gad, and Amola would become Mola. And Okern would become Kern.

Names were repeated. They had to be. There weren't that many possible names to go round. There must have been many Manas before Mana. Some she knew about and some she didn't. But usually there was a gap of several generations. Mana had never heard of a name being repeated like this, almost at once, when they could all remember a Kern they had known and loved—a Kern who had then been horribly killed, and one of whose killers might have been the father of the baby who now bore his name.

At last Tun rose from where he had been squatting beside the marshmen, treating them as honoured guests.

“Moonhawk spoke,” he said solemnly. “The boy is Okern. He is Moonhawk. His blood is our blood. This is good. Now I tell the marshmen this. We leave these places. We take the boy. We go far and far. They do not see us again.”

He turned back to the marshmen. Mana stood where she was, too bewildered to think, too blinded with tears to see. The baby was struggling now, and on the verge of crying. Somebody touched Mana's arm.

“Mana, give him to me,” whispered Bodu. “I have milk. He lives.”

Oldtale

THE UNSWEARING

The First Ones spoke to their Kins. They said, “Go now to Odutu, Odutu below the Mountain. Snake and Fat Pig go there. They unswear the War Oath. See this. Let it be done before you all. Then feast.”

The Kins hunted. They foraged. The First Ones drove game to the men. They caused trees to bear nuts out of season. They ripened the berries on the bushes and the seed in the grasses. They swelled the rich roots
.

The Kins journeyed to Odutu. Their gourds were heavy
.

The men of Snake stood before them, and the men of Fat Pig. By two and by two they went to the rock, one from each Kin. They laid their hands upon the rock. They unswore the War Oath
.

The Kins rejoiced. They gathered fuel. They built great fires. They roasted flesh, they baked seed paste
,
they popped nuts. They said, “Come, now we feast. The war is ended.”

But the men of Fat Pig said, “It is not enough. Shame is still on us. We have killed a woman. We killed first.”

They put Mott in front of them. They took his digging stick from him. They said to the men of Snake, “Kill him.”

But the men of Snake said, “Not so. Our shame is greater. Rage was in Mott's heart. He did not see, he did not think, he struck. Ziul chose. He saw Dipu. He said in his heart, I kill a woman. It is vengeance for Meena.”

They put Ziul in front of them. They took his digging stick from him. They said to the men of Fat Pig, “Kill him.”

Fat Pig and Snake hid in long grasses. They saw this. They went to Black Antelope. They said, “Let there be no more deaths.”

Black Antelope put his nostrils to theirs. He breathed out. He gave back their powers
.

Fat Pig and Snake made themselves invisible. They went to their Kins. No one saw them. Fat Pig hid Mott. Snake hid Ziul. Their hiding was of this sort:

See, this mountain. A cloud lies upon it. A man climbs. He is in the cloud. It swirls all about him, it is cold, water covers his skin. He cannot see the trail. He is lost
.

Such was the hiding of Mott and Ziul. Then Fat Pig and Snake carried them far and far. They were not seen again
.

Now the Kins feasted. They were happy
.

The First Ones went back to the Mountain, the
Mountain above Odutu. They too feasted and were happy
.

But Black Antelope said to Snake and Fat Pig, “Let no stoneweed grow in the Places of your two Kins.”

They made it so. It is so to this day
.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Several moons later Mana was watching Okern trying to catch Amola. This was difficult for him, as he could only roll, while Amola could already crawl. She was busy with Amola stuff—mostly spotting something that interested her, crawling to get it, and then testing whether it tasted good—so she had no idea what Okern was up to. But he knew.

Now he tried again. He'd almost got her last time, before she'd crawled away to check out a dead leaf. He'd been rolling when she'd moved off, and hadn't seen her go, but she wasn't there when he next looked. Mana saw him frown and gaze around, turning his neat, dark head in little jerks, like the movements of an insect.

Ah, there she was. Patiently he lined himself up for another roll. He hadn't found how to roll in straight lines, so he approached his target in a series of curves, often going in quite the wrong direction before he stopped to check, and then having to line himself up again. He was an extremely determined baby.

This is man stuff, thought Mana, smiling. He has this idea in his head. He does not let it go. This is how men are.

Then a chill thought struck her. It was a new version of an old thought, one that had lived in the back of her mind ever since the Kin had accepted Okern as one of themselves. Sometimes, as now, it came creeping out to trouble her.

Or is it demon man stuff? Does Okern hunt Amola? One day he would be a man. What kind of a man would he be? A savage killer, like his father? Or strong and gentle like Kern, whose name he bore?

He was a very good baby. Even Chogi said so—at least she said, “For a boy, good. A girl is better.” He hardly ever cried, and then quietly, though often he had to wait for food while Bodu and Noli made sure their own babies had enough. Mana had to make up by chewing food for him and spitting it into his mouth. At first he used to spit it straight back, but he got used to it, and she found things he seemed to enjoy, and that didn't make his bowels run. She liked to feed him herself, because it was a way of telling him he was hers. From early on he seemed to have decided that she was his, and came gladly to her as soon as one of the other mothers had finished giving him milk.

A prayer formed in her mind. She whispered it under her breath.

Moonbawk, I praise
.

Moonbawk, I thank
.

See Okern, Moonhawk
.

You gave this name to him
.

Let him be Moonhawk, like Kern
.

Let him not be demon
.

I, Mana, ask
.

She sighed and looked around. This was a new camp, right at the furthest end of the northern slope of the immense valley. From where she sat Mana could see, rimming the horizon many days' journey to the south, the range of hills they had crossed when they had left the marshes. But they had come here by a far less direct route, for Okern's sake keeping well clear of the southern slope, which the returned marshmen were now reclaiming as their own.

Once or twice, as they had slowly explored this new territory, they had glimpsed one of the frightened little black women, but no men. Apart from that, nobody seemed to live here at all.

It was strange. Though nothing like as rich as the southern slope, these were still good places. This camp, for instance. It was a fine camp, with two caves and a stream nearby. Why was there no sign of anyone using it?

“The small people had these Places,” Chogi had suggested. “They were theirs. The demon men came. They killed the men. They took the women. They are all gone.”

It was as good an explanation as anyone could think of.

The camp was as far as they had yet explored, and it looked as if they wouldn't be able to go much further. Ahead lay a chain of real mountains, capped with snow. As always, when they first settled at a new camp, Tun had sent scouting parties out to look for possible dangers and good food areas. The mothers, including Mana, had stayed with their babies to forage nearby, gather fuel and prepare for the evening meal.

The sun was going down, all the other scouts were back and the meal was ready before Suth and Tor returned. Though they both seemed well, Suth wouldn't talk about where they'd been. He was strangely grave and silent, and Tor kept shaking his head in a troubled way.

When they had finished eating, the leaders of each scouting party stood up and told everyone where they'd been and what they'd found. Suth was the youngest, so he came last.

“I, Suth, speak,” he said. “I went with Tor. We went this way …” He pointed directly towards the mountains and went on, describing everything of interest to the Kin, areas of food plants, a place with the right sort of ants' nests, deer tracks, another stream, and so on.