West of January (5 page)

But the horrors were not over yet.

Anubyl stormed out of Jalinan’s tent, still fastening his belt. “Quiet!” he bellowed. “Bury him quietly, with no—
You!
Woman! Come here!”

He was glaring at my mother, who was some distance from the tents, heading the way Indarth had gone and carrying a bundle wrapped in a blanket. She jumped nervously, then came scurrying back.

Once—as in my ancient memory of her with the angel—she had seemed tall and slender, smooth of skin and merry of spirit. Now she was plump and shorter even than I, a squat figure in a patterned wool dress, her youth and beauty eroded away by the bearing of eleven children. A lifetime of constant sun had crumbled her face, and the hair below her kerchief was silvered.

Anubyl strode forward and waited for her by the dying fire, folding his arms. She stopped in front of him with her eyes downcast.

“Tip it out and let’s see!”

She shook the blanket. A cascade of smoked meat and a few roots fell at her master’s feet; a knife, also, a water bag, and tinder. He reached out with both hands and ripped the gown from her. He threw her to the ground. Then he took a long stick from the firewood pile and laid it across her back. Before the blood had even started to ooze from the first welt, he struck her again.

I took one step forward.

Anubyl paused and looked at me inquiringly.

I stopped.

I have done many things in my life that shamed me at the time, and many that shame me yet. But none ever caused me larger and more immediate pain than that revelation of my own cowardice. From then on I knew that I was a coward, worthless and despicable. No act of mine ever hurt me more than that failure to act. Still in my worst nightmares I stand and watch with the rest while my mother is battered half-senseless. I again taste the blood from my bitten Up and feel my nails cut into my palms.

Finally he stopped and tossed away the stick. “Get up!” he ordered, panting and wiping sweat from his brow. There was a long pause, then she levered herself to her knees and reached for her gown. He put a foot on it. “Go to him like that. Let him see. And tell him that he must leave, or I will kill you.”

He had to help her to rise. She swayed, then began to move.

“What is the message?”

She stopped. “He must go or you will kill me.”

“And your other children.”

“And my other children.”

He nodded. “Hurry back.”

Naked and bleeding, my mother hobbled away into the grasslands. The monster looked over the rest of us and evidently concluded that he would have no more trouble. Smiling, he ordered Rantarath to her tent so that he might try out another of his prizes.

─♦─

Indarth had gone north. The herd was to the south. Westward lay my father’s death place. I went east, sunward.

I had never heard of suicide, but had any obvious means presented themselves, I might have reinvented it. How long I wandered I cannot tell—long enough to discard as impossible every means of revenge, long enough to reduce a boy to staggering exhaustion, long enough for gnawing hunger to dull his shame and send him creeping miserably home again.

That was the fourth landmark and the end of my childhood.

─♦─

The ranchers who live in Friday maintain that bad bloodlines make bad foals. They blame a man’s faults on his breeding.

The hunters of the forests say that everyone chooses his own paths through life, that he must himself accept the blame for his own mistakes.

The gentle seafolk raise neither voice nor hand to a child. They claim that we are all molded by our upbringing and that defects of character are due to poor rearing.

I do not choose between these opinions.

I pass no judgment. I make no excuses.

But that was my childhood.

—2—
THE TYRANT

W
HEN I RETURNED TO CAMP, ANUBYL WAS VISIBLE in the distance, having trouble staying on a horse. Probably, like me, he had watched riding being done but had never been allowed to try. I hoped he would fall off and break his neck.

My mother had been bandaged by the other women. She was lying facedown, covered by a thin blanket. The flaps of her tent were open, and a soothing breeze floated through. To save her having to raise her head, I stretched out flat on the rug at her side, horrified by her pallor.

She smiled and moved her hand closer. I took it. It was cold.

“I am glad,” she whispered. “I was frightened you would not come back.”

“I will kill him!”

She tried to shake her head. “No, I am glad, too, that you did not try to interfere.”

“I am a coward!”

“No.” she said again. “I was wrong. He was within his rights. You were not a coward. You did right.”

I was almost sobbing. “He is a tyrant!” Of course, I had never seen a tyrant, but I knew the stories. It was the worst thing I could think of to call him. Speaking was obviously difficult for her, but she insisted on trying. In broken phrases she explained things I did not know. Anubyl could have done worse. He might have killed off the babies. He might have slain Indarth out of hand, and perhaps others, like myself or even the older women. He was herdmaster and could do what he liked with any of us. Rantarath and Jalinan were pregnant, and he had ordered them to contrive miscarriages right away, but that was to be expected, for of course he would want the women to start producing his own young as soon as possible. Anubyl, my mother told me, had done nothing outrageous.

I was too innocent to think of it then, but I have often wondered since: Had she guessed that our new master would soon contrive to establish his authority by making an example of someone? Had it not been she, it would likely have been another of us, woman or child. She may well have taken the risk she did, not merely in the faint hope of aiding her banished son Indarth, but also by way of volunteering to be the scapegoat if she was discovered. That would have been like her. Certainly she must have known the danger.

She even made excuses for Anubyl. “He has traveled far alone, Knobil. Being alone can make a man mad. He will heal now, with women to tend him.”

Then she whispered, “Is he near?”

No—the monster was far off, still fighting with his horse. When I said so, my mother told me to close the flaps. Now I realized that the other women must be staying away, and keeping the children away, for some reason. So I did as I was bid and returned to her side.

“Look in my brown pack,” she said. “Be quick.”

After some prompting, I discovered what I was supposed to be searching for, wrapped in a cloth at the bottom of her tiny collection of belongings. I sat down and opened the package. All I found was a triangular piece of leather, small enough to fit on the palm of my hand. The back was rough and still its natural tan shade, except for a few curious black squiggles. The smooth side had been painted pale blue, with a strip of green along one edge. I stared in bewilderment at this inexplicable object.

“Come close,” my mother whispered, so I lay down again, nearer than before, still holding this meaningless, and yet apparently important, token. “It is yours, Knobil, and precious. So he said.”

“Who said?”

“Your father. You must keep it in the dark. No sunlight. The color will fade.”

I knew that properly fixed dyes would not fade. I knew a lot about dyeing and weaving. Those things were women’s work, but my father had supervised them, so I had watched and learned also.

I heard my mother’s scratchy voice again: “He said you must take it to Heaven.”

Probably she did not realize how little I understood, for she was in great pain and very weak. Probably I did not catch everything she said in that thin gasping whisper. I did not know anyone called Heaven, and although she may have thought she was making clear to me which father she meant, I did not catch that important distinction.

“Does everyone get one of these?” I asked.

“Only you.”

I saw that she was too exhausted to say any more and that I must leave my questions for later. So I rose and put away her pack. Fortunately I did have a place where I could keep a small valuable, although until then I had never owned anything more precious than a sling. Slings need shot, so we boys all carried pouches on our belts to hold any suitable pebbles that we happened to see. I wrapped my green and blue treasure back in its cloth and placed it carefully in the bottom of my pouch.

My mother seemed to be sleeping. I threw open the flaps and went off in search of food. When I returned, she was dead.

─♦─

“Would you please help me, Knobil?” Aunt Amby asked. “Please?”

She was kneeling in the door of her tent, braiding something, and I had been going past. A woman could give orders—or even punishment—to a herder, but certainly not to a loner. Now I was one of the oldest herders, and the women’s attitude toward me was changing. I found that “please” more alarming than flattering.

I condescended to help and knelt to hold one end of the string she was making. Her callused brown hands fluttered like butterflies as she combined the thin woolen yarns. My assistance did not seem necessary—she could have used her foot as easily.

“I am making him new breeches,” she said, not looking up. Of course, I knew who “him” was. Only a herdmaster wore breeches. Anubyl was growing out of them as fast as the women could sew them, and they were proud of him. He could still eat half a dasher in one sitting.

I did not know what use this cord would be for breeches, but I said nothing. Amby flashed me a worried glance and bent to her task again.

“He let Arrint take food and water,” she said defensively.

But no woollies, no woman.

“Who’s next?” I asked bitterly. “Todish?”

“He is growing fast.” Then she added quietly, “You were born before Arrint.”

I had already come to suspect that. I was learning the difference between growing up and growing bigger, coming to realize that I was never going to be big. My fair complexion disguised my increasing maturity, but now I had to keep my elbows close to my ribs, and this talk reminded me that I had not been doing so. Fortunately Amby seemed to be concentrating entirely on her braiding and had not noticed.

Always I stayed as far away from Anubyl as I could, but at the moment he was out riding;—he had mastered the horses—so I could be brave. “It is shameful to make you and Ulith and Talana share a tent!”

She shook her head. “Oh no! Old wives do not need a tent each. It is customary. A man does not want too many tents showing. We do not mind sharing. We do not all sleep at the same time! We are grateful for being allowed to stay at all, Knobil.”

“Then it is shameful about Oapia and Salaga!” Two of my half-sisters had been promoted to their own tents. Anubyl was spending much time with them.

Amby glanced up briefly at me. Her wrinkled cheeks blushed very bright. She dropped her eyes again. “No.” Then this white-haired mother of many children started to stammer as she told me things that a woman should not discuss with a man, only with other women. She explained the incest problem. She explained why my father had been required to trade daughters to obtain new women. Anubyl need not do so—he had an unlimited supply ripening to hand.

Once I understood that, she added more truths. “Of course, a loner can circle around and kill his own father, Knobil. But it is a foolish thing to do. He is better to find another man’s herd, so he gains more women for his own use. Do you see?”

I saw. I saw also that these were things my father should have lived to tell me. I was much more interested in vengeance than in this legendary sex thing. I said nothing.

Amby muttered quietly, “You will tell the others, Knobil?”

Were the women afraid that we boys would mutiny? They were overestimating us, I thought. I was the oldest, apparently, and I was a craven nothing. Did they think I might lead a revolution? I turned my head away so she would not see my tears and shame. I detested Anubyl with every breath I drew. I dreamed constantly of vengeance and justice, but I was a yellow-haired runt, a blue-eyed freak. And a coward also! Revolution? I was not capable of talking back to a woollie.

Amby sighed. “There! That’s done! Pass me that knife please, Knobil.”

Reluctantly I rose and went where she pointed.

“Be careful!” she called. “It is very sharp.”

I took the knife to her, preparing a snappy retort about being old enough to know about knives. Then the odd quality in her voice registered. She held out the knots, and in silence I cut off the loose ends for her. I was puzzled, but she was avoiding my eye.

“I have a good sharpening stone,” she said. “Makes a knife so sharp you can split hairs with it.”

Then she rose and walked away, out of the tent.

I was left holding the knife. It was a very tiny knife, the smallest in camp. At my feet lay the cord she had braided. It would make an excellent bowstring.

─♦─

I had aimed my line of woollies so that it would pass by a very large boulder and give me double cover. I was sitting behind the boulder, biting my tongue with concentration and getting cramps in my fingers. I had never heard of shaving, so it had not occurred to me that a very sharp knife could be used razor fashion. It is not easy to grip hairs in your own armpit to cut them, and blood running down my ribs would certainly attract attention. But this was why Amby had given me the knife. It might buy me more time to grow a little more, and I understood time just enough to appreciate that. I had the bowstring wrapped around my thigh, under my pagne.