The Shore of Women (54 page)

“Is that why you talk of turning back?” I asked. “Or is it that you fear what we may find?” She did not reply. “Birana, they may move their camp in this season. If we leave and return later on, any trail will be harder to find. We might have to roam far to discover where they’ve gone.” I released her hand. “But I must do as you wish. I have brought enough harm to you. I won’t force you on a journey you do not want to make.”

She pressed her lips together, then said, “I suppose we must go on.” She stared down at her belly. “Maybe the effort will cause me to lose this child.”

“Do not say it.” Somehow I felt that her life was now tied to the life within her, that if the child were lost, I would lose her as well.

The sea was ever-changing. Storm clouds appeared in the east, and I was unable to tell if the storm would reach shore and lash us with its wind or drift away. The ocean’s greenish waters became gray as the sky clouded, then darkened as the waves rose to white peaks. I huddled with Birana by a rock as a storm raged.

Near another place, where a fire had been built, lay the bones of fish. The waves washed other fish ashore, but we ate none of them. We had a little food left, and I did not know these fish well enough to be sure they were safe to eat. I gathered a few of the most beautiful objects the sea gave up to us. The ocean had robbed me of my will. I imagined wandering along the shore endlessly with each day bringing me another treasure, revealing another of the sea’s many aspects.

Birana had shed her shirt. Her skin grew browner, and although she was thinner, her breasts had swelled. I thought of when I had first seen her and of how she had tried to cover herself. I knew her body well, and yet now her form would become something new to me.

We drank as little of our water as we could, but on the fourth day of our journey along the shore, I knew we would have to find more. I retreated from the ocean’s edge to the steeper slopes bordering the beach, then waited for Birana to catch up to me.

“We must leave this shore and search for water,” I said to her. “This sea will steal my soul if we remain.”

She nodded. We climbed up the slope with difficulty, feeling the sand shift under our feet until we came to the top.

I now saw more of the land to the south and knew we had come to water we might drink. Farther ahead, the ocean had formed a bay. Through the rocks on the shore, a wide river fed the sea, flowing under willows with drooping limbs and on through marshland around the shore.

“We’ll have water,” Birana said.

“Those men might have made their camp along that river.” I turned toward her. “Perhaps you should cover yourself.”

She shook her head. “Better that they see what I am.”

We picked up our pace and were soon among the trees. I ran to the riverbank, tasted of the water, and drank from my hands. As I rose, a small object on the ground caught my eye. I bent and picked it up.

“Look at this stone,” I said. “It was part of a tool. A hand shaped this and made the edge sharp. Look here.” I touched a fern. “Someone has cut at this plant, has foraged here not long ago.”

She filled a waterskin, drank, then faced me. “They may be upriver,” she said. Fear flickered in her eyes. “We had better find out what kind of men they are.”

“Wait here. I can go alone, see if it is safe first.”

“No, Arvil. I can’t go back now no matter what lies ahead. I’ll come with you.”

I gripped my spear as we walked up the river. The banks narrowed until the other side was clearly visible. As we crept through underbrush, a voice reached me, a high, light voice like a boy’s.

Near the bank, two foragers clothed only in loincloths stooped over the ground. A hand pulled at a root and tossed it into a leather sack. The foragers stood up, turned toward us, dropped their sacks, and let out wild cries.

Birana gasped. I nearly cried out myself, but my voice caught in my throat. I stared at the pair’s beardless faces and then at their breasts, hardly able to believe what I saw.

Before I could speak, a man lunged from the trees behind them, spear raised. He gaped at Birana. His arm fell.

“We come in peace,” I said slowly. The man looked from Birana to me. One of the women raised her hands to her face. “We mean no harm.” I took a breath and dropped my spear and bow. After a moment, the man cast his spear on the ground.

“We have found your refuge,” I murmured as we walked toward them.

The three were older than they had seemed from afar. The man’s brown beard was streaked with gray while lines and wrinkles marked the faces of the women. Their bare breasts were pendulous and their bellies sagged.

The man began to speak as we approached. The two women stood behind him and covered their mouths as they peered at us. I had picked up my weapons but set them down once more as the man spoke. I could not make out his words, and although he kept glancing at Birana, his words seemed meant for me.

“We come in peace,” I said again when he fell silent.

He stroked his beard and spoke more slowly. His distorted and slurred words now sounded much like the holy speech, and I was able to make out a few. He was greeting us, offering to guide us to his camp.

“I know your words now,” I said, “but you must say them to us slowly.” He nodded, showing that he understood me.

“We would like to come to your camp,” Birana said. “We have little food left, but if you guide us there, we will share what we have with you.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. He did not move. One of the women was shaking her head.

“My companion and I will come with you,” I said. He nodded again; I wondered why he was able to understand my words and not Birana’s. “Are there others with you?”

“There are others,” he replied.

“Then I’ll put on my shirt,” Birana muttered to me as she reached into her sack. The women giggled as she donned her garment, perhaps wondering why Birana wanted to cover herself.

The man led us along the bank. The women trailed behind, stopping from time to time to gather other plants. “This is a joyous day.” The man spoke carefully, making each word clear. “We have always hoped to see others, and now it has come to pass.” Birana and I slowed to allow the women to catch up to us. He gestured impatiently. “Come. They know the way. Let them do their work.”

The ground was thick with shrubs and flowers. We pushed past the hanging limbs of willows and came to a path through the growth. We walked over a small rise and below, on the riverbank, I saw their camp.

Two dwellings of wood with grassy roofs stood on either side of a clearing where meat was roasting over a fire. A smaller dwelling had been built at the edge of this clearing. I looked at these huts for only a moment. Two men sat by the fire and two other women were feeding the flames with sticks.

“Rejoice!” the man at my side called out. “A man and a woman have traveled to our land.” I could not make out the rest of his words. The men below jumped up as the women dropped their kindling. Two naked young boys ran out from one dwelling. As we walked down to the camp, a third young one emerged from the other dwelling. I saw this child’s limp and then the hairless slit between her legs.

“A little girl,” Birana whispered to me. I caught my breath. Children were here, and these women must have borne them. They had lived. There would be help for Birana.

The men and women gestured, bowed, then surrounded us, laughing and babbling in their slurred speech as they poked at us gently with their hands. We set down our belongings and seated ourselves by the fire. One woman ran into a dwelling and came out with a basket of food.

They grouped themselves around the fire, the two women and the girl at our right, the three men and the two boys at our left. The other two women had reached the camp by then. They set down their sacks and sat next to the girl.

The man who had guided us to the camp struck his chest. “My band welcomes you,” he announced. “I am Tern, leader here. Next to me is Gull, and next to him is the man called Skua.” He did not say the names of the boys, or the women.

“I am called Arvil,” I responded, “and my companion is Birana.”

Tern muttered other words I could not catch, then said, “We will feast while we talk.” The women cut off pieces of roasting meat with stone knives and handed food to the men and to me before taking any for themselves or for Birana. I took out what was left of my dried meat and gave it to Tern.

I glanced at the women, who bowed their heads, refusing to meet my gaze. These women lived among men, yet seemed shy before me. I had already learned something of this camp and its people. The site of the dwellings on lower land and the path that led so clearly to the camp showed that these men and women did not fear attack and seemed to have no enemies.

“Are you alone?” the leader asked. “Or will others follow?”

I wondered how much to admit, but these men and women had welcomed us in peace, had shown no signs of fear or suspicion. “We are alone,” I said.

Tern frowned. “I had hoped there might be others, but we are grateful even for two.”

I reached into my quiver and took out the arrow I had found. “I think this is yours. This arrow guided me here.”

Tern took the arrow from me. “It is mine. We had gone too far from our own land and had to turn back. I hope our prey gave you some meat.”

“It gave its meat only to birds and worms, but that arrow was worth more to me than the meat.”

The man laughed. “You are welcome to dwell here for a time, to remain among us if you wish.”

“You are kind,” I said, surprised by this offer.

“You are needed.” He did not explain what he meant.

Birana was watching the women. One of them had a belly so big that I wondered how she could rise, and then it came to me that she, like Birana, carried a child inside her. Birana had said that her belly would swell; the sight of this woman’s belly terrified me. How large would the child be when it emerged, as large as Hasin had been when I first saw him? That could not be. Was it possible that a woman could live through such an ordeal? Guilt swept through me; I touched Birana’s hand for a moment, fearing for her.

I peered at the women again, then noted that all had the same light brown hair, although that of the older two was growing silver. They held their hands over their mouths in the same way, and their thin, pinched faces and narrow noses were alike. One glanced toward me with her yellowish-brown eyes and drew her hair across her face. I turned back toward the men. They also resembled one another and had the same thin faces.

Birana said, “We would hear of how you came to this place.”

Tern gestured at her. “We did not ask you to speak.”

Birana flushed. “I’ll speak without being asked.”

Tern scowled. “You are not to speak. He will ask the question.”

I frowned, then motioned to Birana as she was about to reply. We did not know this band’s customs. Perhaps they still feared her kind even after living among them. “How did you come here?” I asked.

Tern finished his meat, then set his hands on his knees. “It happened in this way. In the west, there lived a band of men, and out of the west, death came upon them. Many died at the hands of another, larger band, and only two lived. They cursed the spirits that had brought such evil to them, and then they journeyed to one of the citadels where the minions of the one called the Lady rule. There, within sight of the wall, they cursed the Lady and all of the men she holds in thrall, for they believed she had sent the band against them.”

Tern seemed to share their anger as he spoke of the Lady, and I wondered at the words he used in speaking of Her. “Then from that wall,” he continued, “a vision appeared to them, and an aspect of the Lady came out to them.”

This woman, Tern said, had revealed many truths to the two men, who learned from her that the Lady had little power in the lands to the east. From this woman they had also learned of the pleasures they could share with her and of how life could spring from them. From her body, two males and two females had come, and from the bodies of those two females, two males and three females, and from theirs, six more children. These six had come to the river where Tern’s band now lived, although the six had died many seasons ago. Tern sang out the names of all these men and women in a chant until he ended with his own name and those of his men.

“We live here now,” Tern said, “and although we were blessed in the past, we have known sorrow these past seasons. These three, and the one Hyacinth carries inside herself, are our only children. Another was born not long ago, but it did not live. One was born two summers ago, but so monstrously shaped that it could not be allowed to live.” He waved a hand at the little girl. “The child called Lily has a limp and also an affliction that makes her shake like a leaf in the wind—it was always so with her from the time she entered the world.” The child lowered her eyes. “I thought that the Lady had somehow reached out to curse us, but now that you are here, perhaps it is a sign that new ones will be born among us.”

His words filled me with horror. I had never known of a boy who did not leave an enclave fit and strong—his only defects of body would be those brought by illness, injury, or age. Birana had told me her kind made certain that their children were born strong and healthy. What would happen to her child here, away from her enclave’s magic? Would it also be afflicted? I tried to steady myself. The two boys seemed fit enough, and the girl had lived.

Birana’s face was white. “I thank you for telling me this story,” I said. “I too have tales to tell, but I would speak to my companion for a moment.”

Tern nodded. “Perhaps you do not wish to share our burdens. I cannot force you to stay but will tell you this—in all my life, I have seen no others except those here and the ones who brought us into the world. You will find no one else in this land.”

I took Birana’s arm and led her down to the riverbank. We were still within sight of the group but could speak softly in the lake tongue. “These afflictions Tern spoke of,” I murmured. “Could such things befall the child inside you?”

She drew her brows together. “I don’t know. I keep telling myself that your strain and mine are healthy ones, but I can’t be certain of what traits my child might carry. I can’t use gene-scanning techniques out here, can’t repair defective genes.” She went on in this way, using other words in her own tongue I did not know. “I don’t even know if I’ll have a boy or a girl, and there’s a chance the birth itself might cause some injury.”