The Shore of Women (56 page)

“I can do nothing,” I said bitterly. “I cannot force her leg into its proper place without risking more injury to her. I don’t know what causes her to tremble. The man who taught me healing was wise, but even he could have done nothing. I am sorry.”

“May I leave you now? I must gather wood.”

I nodded. She picked up a long leather sling and left the hut.

“I am sorry,” I said to Lily. “I would give you herbs or a root to see if that might stop your trembling, but such potions might make it worse. Often it is best for a healer not to act when he doesn’t know an ailment’s cause. Perhaps it is an illness that will heal itself in time. You are brave to face it without complaint.”

She glanced at me from the sides of her eyes, then picked up her reeds. I went outside. Birana was walking into the clearing with a small sack of plants she had gathered. All my fears for her suddenly welled up inside me.

I motioned to her. “I must be alone with you,” I said in the lake tongue. “Will you come with me to the small hut tonight? I’ll make the sign in front of the other men, but we do not have to share pleasures—your company will be enough.”

She set down her sack. “You don’t have to ask.” Her mouth twisted. “The other men need only make the sign, it seems.”

“I shall always ask. I won’t make that sign unless you wish to come with me.”

She smiled, but her eyes were still sad. “I’ll go to the hut with you, then.”

By evening, my desire for her had grown, but the sight of the men grinning and winking as I made the sign nearly robbed me of my longing. We walked together to the hut. Tern whispered to Skua, who laughed.

We entered; I picked up a hide and laid it over the mat on the ground. “Do you want a fire?” I asked.

Birana shook her head. “It’s warm enough without one. Anyway, the men would expect me to fetch the wood here for it.”

“Birana, you will do as you wish when you’re with me.”

She stretched out on the hide. I meant only to hold her, but my hands reached under her shirt as my lips met hers. I wanted her, then remembered what my past pleasures would force her to endure.

I released her. “I cannot,” I whispered. “I fear what may happen to you. I looked at Lily today. Cress told me how she entered the world, and now I fear even more for you.” I paused. “I can do nothing for the girl.”

“She has a palsy of some kind. I had thought such things were gone from the world, but here…” She turned her head toward me. “The women will help me, Arvil, and I’ve always been strong. You mustn’t worry. It may be easier for me than it was for any of them.” I felt she was saying this only to soothe me.

“It isn’t right for the men to treat them as they do.”

She sighed. “They don’t know anything else.” She went on to speak of stories the women told among themselves, although not to the men.

The women lived in the hope that others of their kind would someday come to the camp and restore their magic to them. They took Birana’s presence as a sign that this might happen soon. They accepted the labor that they did, met the demands of the men, and told themselves that their ability to bear children showed their greater power. They knew nothing of the cities except that others of their kind lived there and that their Goddess was to be feared. The men might say bitter words about the regions the Lady ruled, but the women, in secret, occasionally prayed to Her.

“What have you told them about yourself?” I asked.

“Only that I was sent out of a city. They don’t know why. They want so desperately to believe I was sent here to help them, that others will come too. I don’t know how to tell them it isn’t so. They have so little to hope for.” She reached for my hand. “You mustn’t tell that to the men, though.”

“I understand.” I wondered what other secrets the women kept from the men. “Wouldn’t an enclave help these women if…”

“Women who live with men as they do? I don’t know. Such women aren’t supposed to exist. Now they’re harboring me. They’d probably die simply for that.”

Her voice was so despairing that I searched for a way to cheer her. “Tomorrow,” I said, “I shall leave this camp with my spear and your arrows and bow. Meet me and we’ll hunt together again. We don’t have to say anything about it to the band.”

“The women wouldn’t say anything about it anyway, although they’d probably scold me for it. I can’t go. They’ll expect me to do my own work.”

“You will hunt with me, and I’ll forage with you.” I held her close to me until we slept.

We hunted together only a few times that summer. Birana seemed strong, but as her belly began to swell, she grew more listless. At first, she risked the anger of the men by glaring at them when one ordered her about or by speaking without asking permission. Soon, she was doing her work without protest. I remembered how proud and brave she had been and despaired.

We had to work to lay aside enough provisions for the winter to come. The men had described the winter of this land to me. It would not be as harsh as some I had endured, but as the summer drew to an end, a sharp wind often blew through the camp from the sea.

At night, when the camp was quiet, I sometimes sensed the distant roar of the sea. I welcomed the sound, which called to my soul. Sometimes, I would leave the camp and sit alone on the shore with my thoughts, marking the movement of the water as it crept up the sand.

A day came at the end of the summer when the women went to the sea to dig for clams in the wet sand. I had watched them at this work before, but they would not let me help and seemed to want this time away from men. I followed but sat on the hill above the beach to watch. The band had come to the shore often, had built a fire, and dug a pit in which to steam the clams along with salty wet seaweed, but the weather would soon be too cold for this work. All of the women wore shirts and leggings now. Hyacinth’s shirt was tight over her belly and Birana’s would soon be too small for her.

They laughed and chattered as they dug for the food. I had brought a hide with me and worked at the leather with my stone, happy to see the women in this easier mood; I recalled a dream of women beckoning to me from another shore. They picked up their burdens of shells and began to climb toward me, all except Willow, who was putting her clams into her sack. They smiled as they passed me; Birana was about to speak, and then her eyes grew distant and cold.

I turned. Skua was behind me, approaching the shore. The women passed him silently. He came to my side, stared at Willow for a moment, then scrambled down the sandy slope toward her.

He strode up to her. I expected him to help her with her sack, unlikely as that was. He was speaking, although I could not hear his words. She backed away, shaking her head. Skua seized her arm. She tore herself away from him. He leaped after her and threw her face down on the sand, then pulled at her leggings and loincloth. She scrambled to her knees as he tugged at his own loincloth. He pulled her toward him by her hips and entered her, thrusting against her as she clawed at the sand.

I jumped to my feet. The woman had given no sign that she wanted this and many signs that she did not. I hastened toward them, but even as I pitied Willow, I could not take my eyes from this coupling. Something in me was roused by this sight, however I fought against it.

Skua finished, stood up to adjust his loincloth, and caught sight of me. I thought he would be angry, but instead he beckoned to me. Willow curled up on the sand, weeping; the marks of his fingers were on her hips.

“You have hurt her,” I said. I held out my hand, but Willow shook her head and covered her face with her hair. I wanted to comfort her but had only shamed her by witnessing this act.

Skua shrugged. “She is often thus. Perhaps a child will come of it this time.” He narrowed his eyes. “If she doesn’t grow a child soon and yours is born without flaw, perhaps you should try her.”

I recoiled at his words, which he said as though Willow were not with us. “I shall see what Willow wishes,” I replied.

“She has nothing to say about it.”

“I seek no pleasures with one who is unwilling.”

“You had better learn what you are and what a woman is.” Skua lowered his eyes. “You do not say it, but I see that she has roused you.”

He had seen what I could not admit, for my member had grown stiff. The sound of his laughter followed me as I stumbled away.

An evil had entered me. I could not put what I had seen from my mind; I had been without pleasures for too long. I walked on toward the camp, struggling with my thoughts, aching to feel a woman around me.

In the camp that night, I made the signal the men used to Birana. I had never done this before without knowing earlier that she wanted to be with me. Her lips tightened as I gestured. The men had seen me make the sign, and she could not refuse me.

She spun around and walked toward the small hut. Skua’s lip curled as I stood up. I thought of his hands on Willow’s buttocks, of how his member had plunged into her, of how her helplessness and protesting movements might themselves have aroused him. My desire was sharper than it had ever been before.

The inside of the hut was nearly dark. Only a little moonlight shone through the openings under the roof. As Birana sat down, I knelt behind her and pulled at her shirt.

“What’s wrong with you?” she whispered in the lake tongue.

“I must… I need…” I forced her down on her belly.

“You’re hurting me.”

“I must…”

She twisted away and struck me. “Oh, I understand. How quickly you adapt. Well, you’re still stronger than I am, especially now. Go ahead, do what you like. If I resist too much, you can call out to the others. They’d probably come here and hold me down for you, and then tell you what a fine man you are for taking what you want.”

She stretched out on the mat. The thought of her lying there enduring me, hating me, suddenly repelled me. “My need is too great,” I whispered. “Today, I saw Skua with Willow, on the shore. I knew she didn’t want him, and yet…”

“I can imagine what you saw. I’ve heard the women talk of what the men do.”

“Yet they stay here,” I said. “There must be some pleasure in it for them.”

“Where can they go, Arvil? How would they live? They come here with the men because they’d be beaten if they didn’t. Sometimes they have some pleasure, and often they don’t, but it’s worse if they fight it. The men only deceive themselves by thinking that the women want it. Is that what you want from me?”

“This place has poisoned me,” I said. “I’ve seen men have their way with weaker ones before, but the sight never roused me—I remembered what it was like to be a boy at the mercy of men. But a boy can grow strong enough to have his revenge on one who torments him too much. Willow will never grow stronger than Skua. He’ll always have his way with her.” I sighed. “These men see the women only as ground for their seed. I hate myself when I think of what they do, and yet their evil is in my soul.”

“You mustn’t…”

“Perhaps your kind was right to draw away from us and teach us to worship you.”

“No, Arvil. What’s true for these men and women isn’t true for us.”

I lay down next to her. She was silent for a long time, and then her hand touched my hair, brushing it back from my face. “Whatever you felt, you didn’t act on it. I couldn’t have fought you, but you held back. There’s evil enough in all of us—what matters is whether or not we act on it.” She paused. “You’re still my friend, aren’t you?”

“You shame me by asking. You’re more than my friend.”

“I need your friendship here. My child will need you. I fear what will happen even if I live through this birth. I’ll have to have another child, and then another—the others will expect it.”

“No,” I said. “I can’t let you suffer this again.”

“If we don’t have another child, the men will wonder why. They’ll begin to think that one of them might produce a healthy child with me. I might be forced to lie with one of them.”

“Never,” I muttered. “We’ll have to leave this place.”

“How? With a baby? Do you think they’d let us leave now?” She nestled at my side. “Arvil, I’m afraid to stay here, and yet the women have been kind to me. They have some hope even if it is an illusion. It would be hard just to abandon them although I can do little for them.”

Her lips touched my cheek. Her hands caressed me; she was seeking my touch. My longing swelled inside me.

“Isn’t it better this way,” she whispered, “having me want you?”

Her body was new, her breasts full, her belly large against me. I lay on my side as I drew her toward me.

Hyacinth’s time came a few days later.

As she stood next to Gull, holding the food she was to serve him, she suddenly doubled over. The meat and the stone platter fell from her hands. Gull lifted his hand as if to strike her, then let his arm fall.

“It is her time,” Cress said without asking if she could speak. The other women got up and led Hyacinth to their hut. Cress turned toward Birana. “You had better come too. We may have need of you.”

Birana’s hands trembled as she stood. I was about to follow when Tern motioned to me. “This is not our business,” he muttered.

“I have learned of healing. I should learn of this as well.”

He shook his head. “This is not something for a man to see.”

We finished our food and cleared the space around the fire ourselves. From time to time, Hyacinth moaned or let out a cry. The men made no sign that they heard this, but each of her cries made me tense with fear.

As I lay in the men’s hut that night, her cries grew louder until they resounded through the camp, and I shuddered at the pain she must be enduring. Tern and Pelican, on their own mats, breathed evenly as they slept on. Even Gull, who had brought this upon Hyacinth, slept soundly. I could not sleep, could not understand how the men could sleep.

Birana would suffer in the same way.

I slipped silently from the hut. Firelight flickered in the entrance to the women’s dwelling. Hyacinth was screaming almost without pause. I crept toward the light and peered inside.

The screams suddenly died. Hyacinth panted rhythmically, reminding me of the moans Birana sometimes made when I joined with her. The women crouched around Hyacinth, and then Cress and Violet took hold of her arms as she squatted. Her body shone with sweat. A tiny head bright with blood was emerging between her legs.