Ancient Echoes (20 page)

In turn, I was led from the main house to a second, brighter and airier place which was nevertheless overwhelmingly heady with the smell of fat, flesh and furs. The pelts of various animals were pinned out on wooden frames. Two women and a thin-armed youth were at work with bone scrapers, stripping the fatty tissue from the skins prior to curing them. The headwoman gave me a scraper of my own, a block of pumice, showed me briefly what to do and knelt me down at a piece of hide a full six feet by four. As I knelt to the task, she patted my head. As I hesitated – the smell was overpowering – she kicked my backside.

The other three laughed. They were all chewing vigorously – disgusting lumps of a fishy gum – and one of the women reached up and touched the side of her nose, causing her companions to exchange glances and chuckle.

No thanks.

I bent to the task of curing with a vigour that surprised me.

William Finebeard, in the meantime, had been taken over
the ditch and up into the woods. His hands were quite raw when he came down for the stew of fish and chicken that was served up about two hours later, as darkness was covering the land. I had by then processed two hides only. He had logged and stripped the bark from two trees. He had then dragged the trees into the village and been shown how to cut the trunks lengthwise, insert stone pegs at hand-width intervals, ready to split the resinous wood into crude planks.

Shortly before we ate, a muscular man with fierce eyes but a ready smile and two cuts on his cheek came into the lodge, kneeling down before the older couple, then joked with them. He was clutching a great bundle of broken bone harpoons and was exhilarated and loud, high on the catch of a fish that looked like a sturgeon, but was five times the size, and ten times as hideous. It was dangling from a gallows in the centre of the village, a focus of much excitement; I’d seen it as I left the curing house.

Two Cuts tossed the broken hooks towards a mat in a corner of the lodge, for later repair, then crouched by the cooking fire for a moment, stirring the stew and talking to the eldest of the three girls.

After a while he came and sat with William and me, taking my companion’s hands in his own and examining the blisters. Whatever he said, it was approving and concerned. He called to the eldest daughter, exercising an authority that suggested he was married to her, then went to his corner, bending to the task of removing the bone blades from the broken hafts of the harpoons.

The older girl came and sat opposite William, rubbing oil and ash of some sort into the blisters. She was called Ethne and her eyes sparkled as she worked on the wounds, speaking quietly and I felt wryly, since William smiled and laughed with her.

Her young sister – Thimuth – came over to me and took my hands, her own eyes shining with energy and excitement. She could have been
no
more than twelve or thirteen, precocious
and lively, the touch of her hands on mine signalling more than soothing. But Five Cuts spoke to her sharply and she drew away, scowling and disappointed, spitting into her hat before placing it back on her head and sulking back to the cooking fire and the stone pot with its simmering, smelly soup.

We sat in a circle to eat, and William and I were encouraged to fill our bellies. In truth, the mix of fish and chicken was tasty and I was soon full and feeling tired.

By firelight, later, I watched Two Cuts back at work in his corner, the headwoman sitting and talking with her middle daughter, who was stitching cloth, and Thimuth curled into a tight ball below a blanket, watching me. Ethne was still working on William’s sore hands, and talking quietly. Five Cuts himself sat staring at me curiously. When I met his gaze he frowned, glanced at my companion, then back again.

Slowly he shook his head, a clear warning.

Now something became clear to me which should have been obvious all along. There was more than soothing going on between William and the eldest daughter. With everything except language – they were contriving to sound innocent – they were loving each other, sharing their souls! No wonder William had been so willing to come back. These two were not strangers to each other by any stretch of the imagination. My friend’s attention was half on the harpoon mender, sitting in the gloom, and half on the beauty who sat before him, and affection and desire flowed between them as tangible as a scented summer breeze.

You young rogue, you
…

The clutch of harpoons was repaired and Two Cuts ceremonially presented them to the Headman and his wife. He went outside with Ethne, then – they were clearly betrothed – and William spent a long time scratching at the ground with a stick. Ethne didn’t return; she lived in the lodge during the day, but slept elsewhere.

* * *

We were both exhausted and I was glad when blankets of animal skins were brought to us and I could entertain sleep, disturbed only by the sound of constant chewing, and by my friend, in the very small hours, who rose beside me, indicated graphically that he needed to urinate before slipping from the house. He didn’t come back, and at first light I saw him at the lake edge, staring across the water.

I had certainly hoped that our efforts of the day before would have been sufficient to earn the transport across the lake, but the headwoman worked us a further full day, mercifully releasing me from curing duties after a few hours and setting me to splitting logs. William was raw-handed but exuberant in the evening, and we were presented with three long harpoons, a warbling whistle, and a pound of fish-gum, which I held to my bosom with exaggerated pleasure as I thanked them profusely.

Our boat was shown to us, our boatman was an older man – Four Cuts – who would take us to the far shore, returning the vessel when we were safely landed. Such boats were at a premium, it seemed, and we were given instructions on how to signal in the future should we need to be returned.

We would stay the night and depart first thing in the morning.

William’s need to urinate came upon him astonishingly quickly, as we dozed by a smouldering fire-glow and listened to the mastication of fish-gum. The young girl’s eyes sparkled as she watched me, but she had been warned away from me and did no more than occasionally spit into her round hat and sigh. When William slipped from the lodge she half sat up, but seemed more concerned that her parents shouldn’t see him go.

In fact, Five Cuts was awake also, watching me from a position on his side. I could not fathom that gaze, but I was glad we were leaving the next day.

* * *

The girl was shaking me awake. She had kindled the fire and was holding out a shallow dish of very meaty fish and vegetables. There was no one else in the hut, and I noticed that my pack had gone, as had William’s. What was happening?

I was still bleary in the head, probably from the combination of unexpected manual labour and my intake of a thinner, more palatable version of the syrup that had accompanied the chicken and fish meal of the previous evening.

I wasn’t hungry, tried to be polite, then saw that the girl had tears in her eyes. At first I thought they were for me, but sudden angry voices outside, and her quick, nervous glance, told me otherwise.

Where was my friend? Where was the young rogue?

I splashed cold water on my face and with the trembling girl following, stepped out into the bleak dawn. My host and hostess were by the lake, and the boatman was waiting for me. I could see the packs stowed at the front of the blunt-nosed vessel, and a small breeze was catching in the half-sail.

I walked down to the shore, aware that this was an angry community, now, that we had outstayed our welcome. There was no sign of Ethne or William, no warmth among the people who had gathered on the beach.

‘Where is he?’ I asked. Five Cuts indicated the boat. I was to get aboard. Everything was stowed, I could see … packs, harpoons, two dull-scaled, smoked fish, a bag of fleshy fish gum …

‘I’m not going without him …’

‘Get aboard!’

I refused, turning back to the village, determined to find my friend, but William was there before me, two hundred paces distant, walking across the bridge over the ditch, walking straight to the boat, walking stiffly …

As I made an attempt to go and meet him, the old woman, the headwoman, dragged me back.

‘Get in the boat!’

Her words, incomprehensible in themselves, were charged with meaning.

‘Are you all right?’ I called to my friend. He smiled at me, but it was a thin gesture, and he seemed in pain. He was wearing his leather shirt, but was naked and fully revealed below, holding his heavy trousers over his arm, holding them to his side as he kept in a straight line towards the boat.

What have you been up to, you dog – as if I need to ask
…

There was something wrong. Behind him, Two Cuts appeared, striding over the bridge, pacing down towards the beach and the boat; in his hands, five harpoons. On his face: anger, terrible anger.

I don’t know how or why the thought occurred to me, but I realized suddenly that this was a walking race between two men, the wrong-doer and the wronged. It was something about the deliberateness of the pace; either could have run, but each walked, and each walked with increasing desperation, the furious man behind struggling, it seemed to me, to get into harpoon range.

‘Come on! Make a run for it, we’ll get off-shore and row until we drop!’

As if he understood me, William Finebeard shook his head. He was close, now, and he
was
in pain, I could see that so clearly now. There was blood on the backs and insides of his slim legs. He made eyes at me, a look that said, ‘Get aboard,’ and a look that said, ‘Don’t interfere …’ Behind him, Two Cuts had raised a harpoon above his shoulder, still walking. I started to run, determined to interfere if I could, but a powerful slap to my face stunned me. The old woman danced around before me, slapped me again, turned me round and kicked me so hard that I stumbled towards the bobbing boat.

I resisted still, and looked back in time to see Two Cuts fling the harpoon. William screamed out and staggered, but stayed upright, his face contorting in pain. He reached behind him and snapped the shaft – God, that must have been agony! – and kept on coming.

The point had struck him in the middle of the back. He ought to have been dead.

‘I’m going to help him!’ I said, but Five Cuts took my arm in a vice-like grip and practically threw me into the boat, where the boatman held me down by the shoulder. A few seconds later, with Two Cuts close enough to whisper in his ear, William walked a path through the red skirts and black cloaks of the villagers, splashed heavily into the lake water and fell forwards into my waiting arms. I hauled him into the wooden hull, and felt the tug of movement as wind took the sail and the boatman used his long paddle to push away from the shallows.

If I was aware of this, it was from the edge of my vision. I was still recoiling in shock at the sight of the forest of broken harpoon shafts that grew like spines from my young friend’s back. There were seventeen in all, all cut through so they would break easily, all firmly embedded.

What I didn’t understand, as we pulled away, was why the angry partner of the eldest daughter had not finished the job. He had had a clear chance to do so.

Already, Two Cuts was walking back to his hut, the remaining harpoons cast aside, his body as stiff and lithe as a wildcat’s. Behind him, young Thimuth followed, head bowed, though she glanced back quickly towards the lake, and I raised a hand to her.

The boatman was silent, guiding the small vessel out across the deeps, his attention fixed on catching the shifting, impulsive breeze.

William was breathing hard, face down on the floor of the boat, head slightly turned towards me. I tried to comfort him and he smiled, then met my gaze and winked – I think it was a wink – but there was something about him that said, ‘It was worth it.’

We were well off-shore now and I started to remove his heavy shirt, thinking that the sooner I cut the harpoon heads out of him the better his chances; although the boatman was silent and remote from us, he was from a culture where such wounds must surely have been frequent, and might have practical suggestions.

William stopped me, eased himself onto his side, grimacing with pain as he did so, then relaxing, taking his weight on his shoulder. His eyes were watery, his mouth slack, but by sign and suggestion he told me what had happened. And why, in fact, he was still alive.

William and Ethne loved each other, having met on the young man’s previous visit to the icon hunters. They shared a magic that must have existed from the earliest of times: the magic of recognition, the chemistry of passion.

Two Cuts was not bonded to her yet, but it was a match that had been agreed within the small community. When the fisherman had found the lovers in the forest – he had heard her cry in the night, her cry of pleasure – both lives were forfeit, or only William’s, provided he undertook the Walk to the Shore. If he agreed to the Walk to the Shore, then the girl would be spared, free to live her life, free of all shunning, all punishment, all scorn. It was the way of these people, and a cruel one for the man involved.

Two hours before dawn, William Finebeard and Two Cuts had begun the walk to the shore, Two Cuts following at a distance of two harpoon throws behind the man he was challenging, free to launch up to twenty of the thin fish-stickers, free to kill if he could get close enough, required to lose honourably if the man he pursued outpaced him.

They had walked from the ridge, down through the pines, and along the shore. If at any time William had broken into a run, the girl’s life was lost. If he had fallen, his own life was lost. It was as simple, as brutal as that, and for four hours he had walked the walk of his life, despite the fact that Two Cuts’ aim was impeccable, and each time he’d thrown a spear, the blade, a long, thin piece of bone, the teeth re-curved, had found its mark.

Finebeard grinned and pulled me close. He murmured my name, then repeated it. And what he indicated to me then was the thought that had puzzled me as well. He said, ‘He could have killed me. But he didn’t. He thinks he’s driven me away.
But he hasn’t. I love her, Jack. This is something that perhaps you can’t understand …’