Stone Spring Part 15

But this was a day of sharing, evidently, and he heard people chatting in the traders' argot as they gave each other fuel for the fires and swapped food, a bit of fish for a slice of meat. And the children who played in the surf and in the rocky pools, many of them naked, seemed entirely unaware of their differences as they ran and swam and chased and shouted and played with their barking dogs, big skulls, dangling ear lobes, tattooed b.u.t.tocks and all.

He reached what seemed to be the central part of the beach. Here, before the dunes to his right, he saw odd, curving formations - almost like walls, almost like something from Jericho. Close to he could see they were middens, banks of sh.e.l.ls and other waste, but carefully shaped. And before them stood a wooden structure, a kind of stage of wood planks set on piles driven into the sand, with a curve that roughly followed the crescent shapes of the middens. Poles stood around the stage, and trophies dangled in the air: the skin of a bear, the toothsome jaw of some huge fish, and flags of hide bearing a symbol: concentric circles cut by a dark radius. n.o.body was on the stage for now, but maybe this would be the focus of the 'Giving' that Loga had mentioned - whatever that meant.

He stood in the middle of the beach, alone, surrounded by groups, families. He felt oddly excluded, out of place. He wondered if he should go back to Loga and his family. But he didn't really belong there either.

He noticed a woman sitting alone, save for a baby wriggling on a skin on the sand beside her. Bare-legged, sitting up straight, she was tall, striking, with black hair pulled back from a fine-boned face, and a slightly darker complexion than those around her. She had a pile of stones, big rough-cut flint blades, and she was working on one, holding it over a leather ap.r.o.n on her lap and pressing its face with a bone tool. Bits of flint were scattered on the sand before her. Concentrating on her work, alone with her baby, she seemed utterly unaware of the clamour around her.

Drums pounded suddenly, making Novu jump. And then came a roar. He turned and saw a deer running along the beach, a huge one, its fur bright brown in the sunlight, its head ducking, antlers like tree branches splayed. To Novu's astonishment, children were running towards the animal, clapping and smiling, and he heard music, the piping of flutes and whistles, clatters and rasps.

But as the beast approached he saw it wasn't a deer at all, but a skin stretched over a frame of bone and wood. A bull of a man ran at the front, brandis.h.i.+ng the great head on a pole, while under the skin children in ornate clothing played whistles and shook rattles, all of them carved from white bones. Behind the deer came more men whirling bits of shaped bone on ropes in the air; it was these that made the rhythmic roaring sound.

The deer hurried past, trailed by excited children, and continued up the beach.

Somebody spoke to him. He turned. The striking woman on the beach had been joined by a girl, who knelt beside her - redhaired, younger, slimmer, with a rather serious expression. She wore a tunic that was cut open at the waist to reveal a belly marked with a tattoo of concentric circles, like the sign on the flags, and a smaller mark on her hip in the shape of an owl.

The flint-making woman was smiling at him.

He hadn't understood their words. 'I'm sorry,' he said in the traders' tongue.

The girl said, 'I just asked if you were all right. The music deer made you jump.'

'It was a shock.'

The older woman swept a bit of sand smooth with her forearm. 'Please,' she said, her accent different from the girl's.

He sat beside her.

'The deer runs at every Giving,' the girl said. 'It is the start of the day, in a way. You never saw the deer before? This is your first time here?'

'Oh, yes. And I've come a long way to be here.' He sipped from his water skin, and offered it to the women, who shook their heads. 'My name is Novu.'

'Ana.'

'Ice Dreamer.'

These names were strange to Novu, but he was used to that. 'Ana. You live here?'

'Yes. Etxelur is my home. My father is the Giver today-'

'I meant to ask you about that,' said the woman, Ice Dreamer. 'He got Zesi to agree in the end?'

'Not without a fight. And in return he had to agree to let her go on the wildwood hunt with the Pretani, and he wasn't happy about that.'

'I can imagine.'

Ana looked at Novu. 'Zesi is my sister.'

'Ah. And what exactly is this Giving?'

'Everybody comes together and gives everything they bring,' Ana said. 'My father organises it. We have plenty to give ourselves, oils and meat from a whale, the produce of the sea-'

'We have a similar custom in my country,' Ice Dreamer said. 'Every summer we would come together and share. Those who had gone short in the winter are helped by the generosity of their neighbours.'

'Knowing that next year it might be their turn to give.'

'That's the idea. So why are you here? To Give?'

'No,' Novu said. 'I came with a trader. He hopes to do business. I travel with him, but I don't trade.'

'Then what do you do?'

'I make bricks.' He used a Jericho word; there was no word in the traders' tongue.

Ana frowned. 'What is a-'

How do you describe a brick? 'A block.' He mimed with his hands. 'Made of clay and straw. Like a stone.'

Ana pointed. 'There are stones lying around all over the place.'

'Not like my bricks.'

'What do you do with them?'

'Build houses.'

That made her laugh. 'We make houses out of wood and seaweed.' She pushed a wisp of her red-gold hair out of her eyes, her freckled face scrunched up against the sun. 'Is this place different from where you come from?'

'It couldn't be more different.'

'Do you like it, though?'

Novu glanced around, at the sea, the beach, the children, the laughing people. 'Yes,' he said. 'It would be good to stay here for a time. Though I've no idea what I'd do here.'

'Make bricks,' Ice Dreamer said, and she laughed too.

A man's voice could be heard shouting, before the platform.

Ana jumped up. 'The races! I'll talk to you later, Ice Dreamer. And you-'

'Novu.'

'Yes.' She stared at him for one heartbeat longer, then ran off.

Dreamer picked up her baby, sitting her on her lap.

Novu touched an unfinished blade. It was bigger than any spear point he'd ever seen, longer than his outstretched hand when he laid it on his palm. The shape of a leaf, it had two worked faces, a fine edge, and peculiar fluting channels down at the thicker end.

'I haven't been here long either,' Ice Dreamer said now. 'Ana's a good kid. Reserved, mixed up, but good-hearted.'

'I never saw a blade like this before.'

'It is the way my people, the True People, always made them.' She pointed. 'You see, you use pressure from the bone tools to work either side of the blank, shaping the edge. And then the fluting, which is used to attach the blade more firmly to its shaft - you knock out a thin section of flint to achieve that.'

'It's bigger than any blade I've seen.'

'It is meant to bring down bigger animals than you have seen, I imagine. Bigger even than the music deer. I have made these before, but under instruction . . . My craft is poor. But I will improve with practice.'

He blurted, 'Could I have one of these?'

She seemed surprised. He continually had to remind himself that people generally didn't want things, not outside Jericho. But she said, 'Of course. Come back when I've finished one.'

He nodded. 'Thank you . . . Where is your country?'

'To the west of here.' She pointed at the sea. 'Further west than you can imagine. And yours?'

'Further east than you can imagine.'

'We are both far from home, then.'

'We are.'

She asked, 'Why did you come here?'

'It was more a case of leaving home. And you?'

'That's a long story.'

'I have time,' he said.

'And so do I. Here. Hold the baby, while I try to finish this blade . . .'

The baby was warm in his lap, heavy, and he thought she smiled at him.

27.

The dozen runners jostled behind the line scratched by the Giver in the sand.

Shade, braced to run, looked along an empty stretch of beach lined by cheering children. It looked an awfully long way to the prize at the far end, a big convoluted sh.e.l.l full of rattling stones that hung from a pole. Only one man could grab that sh.e.l.l; only one man could win the race. The day was hot, the sun high, and the dry sand was soft under his feet and would be tiring to run on - which, of course, was the idea. After a morning of sports he was already exhausted. The sun had got to him too; his skin, used to the shelter of the forest, was red raw across his back and belly and thighs.

And Knuckle, a snailhead with a grudge, was right alongside him, itching for the race to start.

Zesi stood watching beside her father, the Giver. Arga held her hand, the little girl holding her own trophies of sh.e.l.ls and beads that she had won in the children's deep-diving contests; she looked excited and happy. Zesi was brave enough to smile at Shade. He dared not smile back.

Now his father came up behind him. Even in the bright sunlight the Root wore his finery of bull skin and skull. Shade could smell smoke on him, rich, tangy fumes. The Root had spent much of the day in the dreaming house, as the Etxelur folk called it, where the leaders smoked pipes full of dried weed, and burned strange logs, and breathed the vapours from seeds cast on hot stones - all prepared by the Etxelur priest, who wore a crown of poppies today - plants brought here from far away, for they did not grow in Etxelur - and a huge axe of creamy, beautiful flint was suspended from a rope around his neck.

The Root leaned over his son. 'We lost the fis.h.i.+ng challenges.'

'We are hunters,' Shade hissed. 'Not fishers.'

'Yes, but we lost the spear-throwing as well.' His speech was slightly slurred. 'We couldn't begin to compete in the dolphin riding. The Giver himself won most of the swimming races.'

'Is that my fault?'

'I won't go away a loser,' the Root said softly, sinister. 'If Gall were here he'd win his challenges one way or another.'

'But he's not here, is he?'

'No. All I've got is you. And if you're any son of mine, you won't - lose - this - race.' He straightened up and backed away.

Knuckle, standing beside Shade, growled, 'I follow your cow language.' He was sweating hard, that extraordinary long skull coated in sand, and his tongue when he showed it had a huge stone plug sticking through it, obscuring his speech.

'Leave me alone, snailhead.'

'I will leave you alone in a heartbeat, when race runs. But make it interesting. If you beat me I have reward for you. See our priest, down there by the sh.e.l.l? Today we make our boys into men, into truth-tellers. If you beat me we make you one of us.' He ruffled Shade's hair. 'Don't worry, not touch your pretty skull. An honour - for a man. Are you a man, little boy?'

'Do your talking in the race, Knuckle.'

'Oh, I will . . .'

Kirike pulled a bull roarer around his head, once, twice, three times. Lightning jumped around his feet, excited as the rest. The watching people hushed.

Shade lined up with the others, as the runners jostled and pushed. He had the feeling it would be more of a long fight than a true race.

Kirike released the bull roarer. The bit of bone sailed in the air. The crowd yelled. Drums sounded like thunder.

Shade lurched forward, fighting for s.p.a.ce between strong, pressing bodies.

But before he had made three strides he got a punch between the shoulder blades that laid him out flat on the ground. Heavy feet trampled over his back, and his face was pressed in the sand.

As soon as they were clear he pushed himself to his feet and ran. Most of the runners were already far ahead of him, and people were pointing, children laughing at him. He wasn't the worst off; two others had fallen and lay without moving.

And Knuckle looked back, grinning. It was too much to bear.

Shade ignored the rest and threw himself after the snailhead. When he got close enough he lunged headlong, arms outstretched, not caring how his sunburned skin sc.r.a.ped over the hot sand, and with one reaching hand clipped the snailhead's heel. Knuckle fell. This time Shade was first up. He ran over Knuckle, stepping on the snailhead's swollen skull for good measure, and hurtled after the rest.

The watching people screamed and shook their fists, willing on their favourites.

An Etxelur boy, skinny as rope, was first, to collect the winner's sh.e.l.l.

But Shade had beaten the snailhead. Surrounded by the runners' families, the Root stood with his arms folded. Shade knew he wasn't about to be praised for failing to win, but he had fought off the challenge of the snailhead, and Shade could see a kind of grim satisfaction in his father's face under the bull's black muzzle.

Knuckle grabbed his lower arm, sweating, panting, evidently winded from his fall. 'Well done, boy. You fought dirtier than me.'