The Matriarch Matrix

by Maxime Trencavel

  Orzu left for the fields with Namu before this shooting contest, as Ki with her bow and arrow reminds him so much of his beloved Illyana that he cannot bear to watch. Namu thanks him again for his help. Orzu replies that on the days when Narn is repairing the nets, he and Nanshe are happy to come and help her family.

  As they clear a new section of land, with the tamed giant male aurochs pulling out trees, stumps, and rocks, Orzu laments that he is fearful that the trade-for-safety agreement he and Namu’s sister made years ago will not last for much longer. The fact that Reindeer warriors are now using young men for their sexual perversions means daughters like theirs are becoming rare.

  Namu concurs, shaking his head over the heinous things the Reindeer People are doing to others. He asks the sky, “Is this why we were put on this earth, to be slaves, to be sacrificed, and to be objects of the most egregious forms of sexual abuse for these beasts?”

  His brother-in-law’s pleas remind Orzu of his beloved Nanshe, who prays every night for the safety of her precious family, Orzu included.

  As they clear a dense group of trees and rocks, they spot the tip of a strange boulder, unlike any that cover it, unlike any from all the lands nearby, unlike any sitting beneath the shores of the vast lake. They dig around the giant stone to expose more of the base. Black and somewhat smooth, with some round pitting. They get enough exposed to secure ropes and hooks around it, such that the aurochs can pull it out of the ground. With the power of four of the giant beasts, the stone eventually budges, and with levers and planks, the men roll it onto the open ground. A large black-and-grey fusion of rocks unlike anything on earth they have seen or heard of.

  Overhead, the skies rapidly darken with the type of clouds one would not want to encounter when fishing on the big lake. And then come the blinding flashes, with the sound of multiple lightning strikes rapidly coming closer and closer. Orzu grabs his brother-in-law to flee into the forest, seeking some modicum of safety. They reach only the edge of the trees when they are blinded by more than twenty flashes in succession. And the instantaneous booms deafen them. Scared for his life, for the first time, Orzu tries praying to Nanshe’s god while assuming the fetal position on the ground. For minutes after the cacophony ends, which to them seem like hours, Orzu looks up and finds his brother-in-law in the same position. He yells, “Namu, you okay?”

  Namu looks up and around to ascertain if it’s safe and yells back, “What did you say?”

  “What did you say? Speak up, you are whispering,” Namu replies. Realizing the comedy of their deafness, Orzu arises and gazes back into their newly cleared field.

  There are billows of steam and broken ground. And the stone. The stone. It is glowing. Colors of yellow to orange to red. Orzu pulls Namu up and they slowly approach the stone as if it were a wounded wild animal and they wanted to ascertain if it were safely dead. They stare at the object. Its black-and-grey tones have transformed into warm hues. In the areas that are cooling first, the darker tones begin to return. On closer examination, they observe that the lightning strikes have created a fissure between the two rock types.

  Inspecting the area, Namu finds a few large splinters of this stone, which are already cool enough to touch. He picks up one that is the length of his arm and weighs like a timber of wood. He tells Orzu he wants to use this to open the fissure in the stones further, after which he puts the splinter into the fissure. He takes a large stone-head club as a hammer and drives the splinter into the fissure.

  Flash-boom. They are thrown backwards several paces.

  Stunned, Namu raises himself into a sitting position on the ground and says, “What? What did you say? Please repeat for me again?”

  “Are you still deaf from the thunder?” Orzu yells. “I didn’t say anything!”

  Namu shushes him as he listens. He says to the air, “A boat? How big? Right here? Angry? How angry? That angry, huh?”

  Namu rises and goes to Orzu to help him up. Namu explains the phenomenon to Orzu. “At the risk of you thinking me tetched, I was told to build a boat. Big enough to take my farm and my family.”

  Looking at him as if he has lost his mind, Orzu says, “Maybe we should have Nanshe look at you. Your sister is highly skilled at comforting the crazies that we may succumb to in our moments of duress.”

  “No, no. You don’t understand. The voice said to build a boat. I don’t know how to build a boat. Will you and Narn help me?”

  Humoring his crazed brother-in-law, Orzu kindly replies, “Why, of course. Let’s go to see your sister Nanshe, and after her soothing teas, we can go to my house to build your boat.”

  “No, no, no. The voice said to build the boat here. We need to use the strongest wood from these oak trees around here.”

  Orzu is sure now that something is seriously wrong with Namu. Nanshe will need to prepare her strongest herbal remedy for him. He has never before asked such private things of his brother-in-law, so maybe Nanshe can talk with Zamana about the special kind of comfort only a spouse can provide.

  But in a rare moment of humor, Orzu quips, “But, Namu, if you build a boat here, how will it float on the lake, which is more than a couple thousand paces from here?”

  “The water. The water will be angry,” mutters the dazed Namu. “The angry water will float my family away in my boat.”

  Later that night, Nanshe assures her husband that her double-strength herbal potion should help her older brother recover. As they prepare for bed, she strokes her husband’s head and asks if he is sure that he too is not so stricken. After his affirmative response, she says her prayers and they bed down for the night.

  That night, the first ever night of the affliction, Nanshe is terrified by the yelling and physical duress of her beloved. So terrified she must awaken him. Their bedding in shambles, he trembles in shock. She asks if it was the dream of Illyana again. In great fright, he says he doesn’t know. He can’t remember. She tries to comfort him as best a cherished spouse can. He finally falls asleep again, with her in apprehension of the next bout of terror.

  This same scene occurs night after night for the next several days. Orzu is getting more and more tired. And one day, he falls out of the fishing boat into the waves of the big lake. Nanshe strips off her outer garments and dives into cold waters to save her husband. Narn, Ki, and An help them back into the boat, and Ki covers her father with the only blanket they have with them.

  Nanshe is drenched and asks for a drying cloth. She sees Narn glancing at her in her undergarments that cling so tightly to her body. “Shame on you,” she admonishes her little brother. “I’m your sister. Such thoughts are bad. We must certainly find you a wife.”

  That night, Nanshe has resolved she must find a cure for her husband. She has talked discreetly with her sister-in-law and determined her older brother does not suffer this affliction, nor does he hear that voice anymore. She concludes that her extra-strong herbal potion needs to be brewed again, for her husband this time. Giving him a bowl of this steaming brew before bed, she prays again, and they retire for the night.

  And after observing him for a long spell, she is thankful when he appears to rest peacefully. She falls asleep next to him. Then it happens again, no different from all the times before. Nanshe tries to comfort him. Passionate sex has had only a modest effect in past nights. At her wits’ end, Nanshe decides to talk to him. She tells him how much she loves him. How much she needs him. How much his heart means to her. How much his thoughts, which he freely shares with her, mean to her.

  In a moment of inspiration, she says it again, but this time she rubs his chest and talks about his heart and love. She rubs his forehead with her fingers and talks about his thoughts and how he shows his love through his ideas, which he intimately shares. He appears to calm more. As she feels the warmth of her loins growing, she strokes his member, saying how he makes her feel so loved in this way. His mind now clear with a modicum of peace, he hugs her, telling in tears how much he loves her. They kiss over and over agai
n, and with the passionate, intimate lovemaking, they settle into a blissful sleep.

  The next night, Nanshe thinks she is onto something. She begins to try different things to help calm him and help him clear his head. Hugs and making love are not enough on their own. And she finds over the course of several moon cycles that rubbing the chest, forehead, and loins is a mainstay of all combinations she has tried. But by involving all five senses, whispering to him, licking him, letting him taste and smell her, and touching his chest, forehead, and loins, she settles him such that they both rest clearly, calmly, and with love.

  Over the next sun cycle, on days when they cannot fish, when the nets or boat need repair by An and Narn, they go to Zamana and Namu’s house. Nanshe has found a simply delightful village girl and negotiated with her father to make her a bride for her sex-starved younger brother. She and Zamana have tried to school her in the proper attire for ladies. At first they are met with resistance, but as her new young sister-in-law realizes, it may very well save her someday from the Reindeer warriors she so dreaded, and so she begins to adopt some of the new style.

  And during that sun cycle, as they endeavor to complete this seemingly silly big boat, they work late into the evening to complete tasks that are best not left to the morning. Nanshe and Orzu bed down at her sister-in-law’s house. She has described to Zamana in private what she has to do to calm her husband, so her sister-in-law prepares the most private area of their home for them to sleep for the night. Much to Nanshe’s surprise, her husband rests more calmly that night, not needing even a brief moment of her calming methods. So much better that she does not need to muffle her cries when her own intimate and physical love peak while calming her loved one.

  The next day, they go back to their home, newly extended for her younger brother’s privacy. Narn and his bride, Sama, welcome them back. After dinner, Nanshe puts her children to bed, says her prayers, and beds her husband, knowing his affliction is finding a cure. She will not miss his bouts of nightly torment, but she would be sad if the intimacies she has developed as therapy were to end. But that last part is fully in her control, she thinks to herself secretly. And much to both of their dismay, the affliction strikes that night, no less tormented, no less violent, no less unforgiving than all the other nights.

  The next day, she begs forgiveness of Narn because they needed to stay over at their sister-in-law’s home. And sure enough, Nanshe saw that her afflicted life partner is much less afflicted and nearly fully corrected, even without her therapeutic comforting. She concludes this stone, this object, must be connected to the affliction.

  Morning comes, and Nanshe says to her older brother to take her to this object. Around and around, she circles the black-and-grey stone fusion, which she deems an object, as it looks and behaves as no stone they know of. As her husband and her brother watch, she goes to touch it. Cold. She feels nothing. But she knows what it means to her and her husband, with his cursed affliction. As she always did, she acts like Namu’s older sister, his much older sister, as she says she will take part of the object back to their house. Orzu shrugs his shoulders at his brother-in-law, who knows that tone of voice full well from their mother and knows that the only thing to do is get it done.

  So Namu and Orzu collect the giant aurochs, six of them this time—three for each side. They place hooks and harnesses around different parts of this mixed beast of non-stone or non-rock or whatever this substance is, and the aurochs begin to pull in opposite directions. They strain and grunt, to no avail. Again and again. So focused are the three, they do not notice the clouds gathering, so grey and so angry.

  Nanshe, not one for suffering fools, people and objects included, ignores the pleas of her menfolk, takes her brother’s club, and says to them, “Wood can only be split with a wedge that is cut from its own tree.” And she whacks the sliver of the object that had remained imbedded all this time, for she is going to take this object home for her husband no matter what, or so she prays.

  Flash. Boom.

  They are knocked back several paces. The aurochs break loose and bolt. And before they can raise themselves from the earth, simultaneous flashes and booms overwhelm their senses. More than they can count. More than the last time. They are temporarily blinded, temporarily deafened, temporarily singed. Their nostrils fill with the essence of this energy discharge.

  As she calls out to Orzu, Nanshe crawls on the ground, feeling their way to him. She stops, thinking she heard a voice, but clearly not that of her beloved husband. And she yells to the voice to talk louder as she has been deafened. And the voice is beautiful. The voice is harmony. The voice is love. She looks and looks for where the voice is coming from, but her eyes are blurry from the lightning flashes. And into her nostrils come the most wondrous smells. Peace.

  And then she feels the warm arms of her husband come around her with his kisses to her forehead as he places his palms over her stricken eyes. The voice was a voice of love. She asks Orzu, did he hear the voice? Trying to comfort his wife, he says no, he did not. She now understands what her brother has been through.

  After much time recovering on the ground, their sight and hearing begins to return. Namu comes to them, saying he heard the voice again. It said the time is near. The end of the defilement, the debasement, the denigration is near. The voice said to finish the boat with thick layers of tar and start putting their house, animals, plants, and family into the boat.

  Nanshe explains that she heard something entirely different. Beauty. Harmony. Love. Warmth. And she hears a whisper. She looks at Orzu, who shrugs as he heard nothing, obviously the odd man out. She listens very intently and says, “I understand what I need to do. I understand that too.” She turns to her menfolk and tells them to round up the aurochs to finish splitting the object. They look at her, still afraid after what just happened, and she gives them the mother look. They shrivel, cower, and chase the aurochs.

  But the lightning did the job they started to do. That which six aurochs could not. That which the wedge could not. The object has been split into two. Nanshe’s prayers have been answered.

  Making a sled with planks, they use three of the aurochs to take their part of this thing, this entity, this object to their home. That night, Nanshe puts her children to bed and says her prayers, which include the modest suggestion that the object outside cure her husband. She puts her husband to bed and kisses him goodnight. She awakens later to find her husband tossing and turning, but not with the violence or physicality of before.

  And as she has been told to do early that day, she takes her husband in her arms, lightly strokes his arm. She opens his tunic to expose his chest and rubs it with her palms, expressing her love of his heart. Then she places her fingers to his forehead, expressing her love of his mind. She continues for minutes, and then she caresses his lingam, the source of her cherished children, as she licks and blows into his ear and whispers for him to smell her neck and hair. And following her therapeutic regimen, she kisses his lips lightly and whispers for him to taste her. They kiss and kiss and kiss open-mouthed for minutes and minutes as she strokes him beneath his nightclothes.

  As the voice told her to do earlier, she opens up her nightclothes, brings his head down into her bare breasts and says to him, “See my breasts, smell my breasts, feel my breasts.” As he does so with gentle, loving movements, she whispers, “Hear them,” as she moves his head against her left breast. And likewise, she says to taste them, which he does as a baby does to his mother. It is working. The voice of beauty, the voice of harmony, the voice of love was right. Her beloved’s affliction is linked to his nightmares about his sister. Illyana’s heart between her breasts.

  What she does as she followed the voice’s guidance so comforts her beloved that he pulls back and speaks clearly and calmly. “It was so clear. My dream, it was so clear. We need to go to the other side of the lake. The Reindeer People are coming tomorrow to renege on their agreement.” And thinking about what would happen, he begins to shake.


  Nanshe takes his head to her breast and strokes his warm, firm member beneath his nightclothes. “It’s that time of the month, my love.”

  He looks at her, puzzled. Why, then, is she stroking him so in the way that leads to the craze of lust and then love?

  Nanshe shakes her head and smiles invitingly. “No, silly, not that ‘time of the month.’ But the other time. The night to make a new baby.”

  Chapter 12

  He who climbs never stops going from beginning to beginning, through beginnings that have no end. He never stops desiring what he already knows.

  –Saint Gregory of Nissa

  9:00 a.m. GMT, May 15, 2021

  Approaching the UK in Mei’s personal jet

  Awakening faceup, he tries to remember where he is. The pillow is nicely placed under his head, the same as it was when he fell asleep. It’s not bunched up or thrown around, and the sheets are not all over the place like a war zone. This is not normal. Less fog in his mind. Less ache in his head.

  Suddenly, Peter stiffens with apprehension. He looks to his left, where Mei sits atop the bedcovers, stroking his arm. Seeing he has awakened, she smiles at him and then strokes his forehead with her fingers in that way that’s just right.

  “But I thought you slept outside?” asks a groggy-brained Peter.

  Mei pulls her head up onto his pillow. “You were having a very rough night. Very rough. I came in and fixed things. How are you feeling?”