“Lokar speaks the truth. You have had time to talk with the lad. What do you know of him? Is he a spirit from the sea or is he a man like ourselves?” Tresko asked.
Birno looked at him contemptuously. “What do you fear? He is just a boy like your son Korwen, though not so old.”
“Where did he come from?” Tresko demanded.
“He came over the sea from a great land far to the south. Lokar knows there is such a land.”
Lokar nodded. “Yes, all the old tales of our tribe tell us there is a land beyond the noonday sun. Long ago our people came from it in boats made from trees, like that boat the lad came in today.”
There was silence for a minute, then Tresko spoke again. “This boy might have been sent to spy out our land. When he has learned all about us he will go back and bring mighty warriors to fight us.”
Birno threw back his head and laughed. “It is you who should be telling us tales, Tresko, not Lokar. The lad is harmless. He was blown over the sea by a storm.”
“Why then should he come armed, carrying an axe with a shining head such as we have never seen before?” Tresko asked. “For all we know there might be magic in the axe. He could bewitch us all with it.”
“You speak stupidly,” Birno said briskly. “I asked Tenko about it. He told me there is a way of making such axes out of strange material found among the rocks, but he has never seen it done. His father got two axes from a man in a tribe far to the south.”
“Has he given you the axe?” Tresko asked.
“No, I have not asked him for it.”
Tresko gave a sneering laugh.
“Listen, Tresko!” Birno said hotly. “That boy saved the lives of my children. Why should I reward him by taking the axe from him? We all give axes to our sons as soon as they are old enough to handle them. Tenko had his from his father, who perished in a battle.”
No one noticed Korwen slip away from the outer circle of youths gathered in the shadow, listening.
Birno and Tresko glowered at each other.
“It would be better if Birno took the axe and got rid of the lad. He could turn him adrift in his boat,” Tresko said.
“His boat! You are foolish, Tresko. That boat is bigger and stronger than any of ours. If he becomes one of our tribe his boat will be useful to us.”
“Then let us take the boat,” Tresko said.
A murmur of argument ran round the circle of men, but Lokar held up his hand.
“Birno cannot reward good by evil. That is against our law. But he can ask Tenko for the use of his boat if the lad becomes one of our tribe.”
“That I will do,” Birno agreed.
“And the axe? What about the axe?” Tresko asked. “It is a better weapon than any of ours. It would not do for the youth to use it against us.”
“Birno must give his word that he will take the axe from Tenko if he threatens any of us with it,” Lokar decided.
“If Tenko lifts the axe against any of us it shall be taken from him, even if I have to use it against him myself,” Birno promised. “I will speak for him as for one of my own family.”
While the dispute was going on Korwen crept along the main passage, the roofed street of the little stone village, and into the narrow passage that led to Birno’s house. At night the openings to these passages were closed by slabs of stone held in place by stone bars which rested in sockets in the inner walls. Tonight, though, the slabs were not in place as the men were all at the meeting place.
Korwen reached the narrow paved passage into Birno’s house. Here he paused and listened. He could hear the deep breathing of the sleepers. Cat-like, he crouched on all fours and crept along the low passage. He entered the hut near the small bed where Kali was asleep. She did not stir.
There was a faint glow from the peat fire on the hearth. It was enough to enable Korwen to see – and be seen! Brockan was still wide awake and sucking at his crab claw. He watched Korwen tiptoe past the hearth. What did he want? Why had he come creeping in like that? Brockan half closed his eyes and feigned sleep.
Korwen stood still by Brockan’s and Tenko’s bed for a long time. Then he slipped a hand into the bed and began to feel among the heather. In a flash Brockan knew what he was after. The axe! It lay between him and Tenko. He pretended to stir as if in sleep and Korwen drew back a few steps. Brockan turned to face outwards but he felt with his hand behind him till he gripped the wooden haft of the axe. Then Brockan waited, eyes closed, breathing as if he were asleep.
Korwen drew nearer again and began to feel with his hands along the foot of the bed. The axe was not there. He tried the head of the bed next, keeping his hands away from Tenko’s face. Not there either! Then it must lie on one side or the other of the sleeping Tenko. Korwen leaned over the boys.
Brockan could bear it no longer! With a shriek he sat up with the axe in his hand and brought it down on Korwen’s arm. The blood spurted. Korwen gave a yell and jumped back.
Tenko was instantly awake, like an animal at the approach of danger. He leaped out of bed. Korwen made for the passage but Tenko was too quick and grabbed him. Kali was suddenly wide awake too. She rushed over to the fire and impaled a glowing peat on the end of a long bone used for a poker. The peat burst into flame as she thrust it almost into Korwen’s face. Korwen drew hurriedly back.
“So it’s you, Korwen?” Kali exclaimed.
Stempsi was out of her bed too. “What are you doing here, Korwen, creeping in like a thief?”
“He was stealing Tenko’s axe,” Brockan shouted.
In a quick writhing movement Korwen slipped from Tenko’s grasp. Terrified, he bumped his way along the narrow passage. Tenko seized the axe from Brockan and ran after him. Korwen had the advantage of Tenko because he knew the way. With Tenko at his heels he emerged into the wider passage and fled along to the meeting place. There he burst into the astonished circle of men with Tenko hot behind him, flourishing his bronze axe. After both of them Kali and Brockan came running.
The men leaped to their feet. Korwen dashed to Tresko and hid behind him, blood dripping from the gash in his arm. There was shouting and confusion. Birno seized Tenko’s upraised arm and swung him about. “What is all this?” he demanded.
“He tried to steal my axe,” Tenko accused Korwen.
“He has struck my son with the axe! Look at the cut on his arm,” Tresko cried. “Now you must keep your word, Birno, and take the axe from him and cast the stranger into the sea.”
“I did not strike him! No one shall take my axe from me!” Tenko declared fiercely, clutching his axe more tightly.
“How did Korwen come by the cut in his arm then?” Tresko shouted.
“I struck him!” Brockan pushed his way through the circle of men to the centre of the ring. “I hit Korwen with Tenko’s axe.”
“I do not believe it!” Tresko cried.
“It is true!” Kali said. “I saw Brockan with the axe in his hand. He caught Korwen when he tried to steal it.”
Tresko was furious. “No woman-child has the right to speak at our meetings. Turn her away!”
“Be silent, every one of you!” Lokar had mounted on his stone and stood with upraised hand, a tall commanding figure. “Let the children speak. You first, Brockan.”
“I was awake and I saw Korwen creep into our hut like a shadow. I pretended to be asleep. When he felt about in the heather of our bed I knew he was searching for Tenko’s axe. I had my hand on the axe and I brought it down on his arm.”
“And you, Kali?”
“I snatched a peat from the fire and by its light I saw Tenko grappling with Korwen and Brockan shaking the axe.”
“The stranger struck me! Tenko struck me!” Korwen yelled.
Kali turned on him. “That is a lie! You are a liar as well as a thief, Korwen! If Tenko had struck you with the axe, he would have severed your arm from your body.”
“We will prove Kali’s words,” Lokar intervened. “Here is the leg of a sheep I meant to cook for my meal.
Put it on this stone slab. Now, take the axe, Brockan, and strike with it. You are to use all your strength.”
Brockan lifted the axe and brought it down with all the power of his six-year-old arms. A deep gash appeared in the leg, but that was all.
“Now you, Tenko!”
Tenko lifted the axe above his head, poised it and swung it with all his strength. It cut through the flesh and into the bone with a sharp crack, and the bone lay severed in two. A gasp went up from the circle of men.
“You have your answer, Tresko and Korwen,” Lokar told them. “Kali and Brockan have spoken the truth.”
“My son has been wounded. There is a law in our tribe that blood shall be answered by blood,” Tresko cried wildly. “Brockan shall answer for this. Korwen shall strike at him with the axe.”
There was a sudden silence among the men. They knew this was the law of their tribe. Birno looked at Brockan, so very pale and so very small, standing with clenched fists and mouth tightly pursed.
“Our law also says that one of a family can take the punishment for another. I will take the punishment for my son. He is too small,” Birno declared.
Tenko sprang into the centre of the ring. “What Brockan did to Korwen was for me. Therefore I will answer with my blood in Brockan’s place.” He thrust the axe into Korwen’s hand. “Go on! Strike me!”
“Wait!” Lokar strode into the ring. “You are to strike Tenko no harder than Brockan struck you. If you wound him more deeply, then you must answer for it, Korwen.”
“I … I will not …” Korwen began, backing away.
“Your father has claimed your right by the law of our tribe. You must strike a blow,” Lokar insisted.
“Go on! Strike!” Tenko challenged him.
Korwen aimed a feeble, half-hearted blow at Tenko, who stood still as a stone to receive it. The axe glanced off his arm, leaving only a scratch which bled a little.
“That is enough. The law has been kept,” Lokar decreed.
Korwen threw the axe into the centre of the ring. Tenko picked it up. His voice rang out challengingly, “By Korwen’s blow I have become a brother to Brockan. I take Birno as my father and his family as my family.” Tenko looked straight at Tresko. “Whoever attacks them attacks me. For I will fight if the need arises.”
Tresko mumbled in his beard some words that no one could hear. Korwen hung his head and was silent.
Lokar spoke again. “The law has been fulfilled. Tenko is now one of the tribe of Skara. Let there be peace now and go you all to your huts.”
3. The Day of the Eagle
The following day Birno’s family woke with the coming of light as it filtered through the wide hole in the roof which let the smoke out. Stempsi rose first, poking the peats into a blaze with the leg bone of an ox. She raked out the embers to a smouldering glow and set a large earthenware bowl among them. In the bowl was a stew of pieces of mutton. Kali rose when she heard her mother stirring and fetched another large bowl from the stone dresser.
“Where are you going?” Tenko asked as she passed his bed.
“To milk our cows.”
“Wait for me! I will come with you.”
Tenko pulled his wolfskin cloak about him.
“Can you milk a cow?” Kali asked him.
Tenko grinned at her. “In my tribe over the sea the men go hunting, not milking cows.”
“Now you are one of our family you can make yourself useful,” Kali retorted. “There is another bowl on the stone dresser. Bring it with you.”
The early mists of morning swirled round the two figures as they climbed the sand dunes to the two small fields behind the settlement. The cows and sheep were kept there during the night in enclosures bounded by a stone wall. Already Salik the herdsman was there. He grunted a sleepy greeting to Kali, and then woke up at the sight of Tenko.
“Ah! Your new brother, the stranger from over the sea!” he said.
Tenko nodded warily. He wondered how the men of the tribe would regard him after the previous night.
“You did well at the meeting place last night,” Salik commented. “Now let us see if you can do as well with the milking. I should let him try his hand on the black cow, Kali.” There was a twinkle in Salik’s eye.
“I will do that.” There was a twinkle in Kali’s eye too. She led Tenko to the black cow. “There! Kneel beneath her and milk her into that bowl.”
Kali busied herself with another cow and under the pressure of her accustomed fingers the milk began to flow readily into her bowl. But Tenko was having difficulty with the black cow. As soon as he had placed the bowl beneath her and knelt down, she moved away. Tenko was left kneeling and looking up at the open sky.
Salik chuckled. “No, no! The milk does not come like rain from heaven. It comes from the cow.”
Tenko was annoyed at first; then he joined in the laugh against himself. He tried once again. This time the black cow stood still but there was a wicked look in the corner of her eye. She began to yield her milk, but when the bowl was half full she suddenly became restive. She kicked up her hind legs and sent a shower of dirt into the bowl. Then she moved away again, overturning the bowl with her foot.
Tenko was furious and caught hold of the cow by the tail. Kali moved her bowl and left her own cow.
“Easy now, Tenko! If you make the cow angry she will give no more milk.”
She rescued the upturned bowl, wiped it out with a handful of clean grass and resolutely set to work on the black cow herself.
“It looks so easy when you milk her,” Tenko said ruefully. “I hate to be defeated by anything.”
“Come, then, and kneel beside me and when I release my hold you go on milking her,” Kali suggested.
Tenko did as he was told and took over the milking from Kali. The cow remained docile and at last the bowl was half-filled.
“That is as much as she will give,” Kali told Tenko.
Tenko came from beneath the cow with the bowl. He looked ruefully from Kali’s bowl to his own. “I am not very good at the milking,” he said.
“No doubt you are better at the hunting,” she laughed.
They returned to the little stone village. Stempsi was kneeling at the peat fire. She was grilling streaks of mutton at the end of her long pointed bone poker. As she cooked each one she set it on a slate slab to cool a little. Birno was already tearing at his meat with strong white teeth. Brockan was gnawing the meat from a bone.
Stempsi looked up when the two children came in. They set the two dishes of milk down on the dresser. Stempsi eyed Tenko’s half-filled bowl. “There is not so much milk as usual,” she said.
Tenko coloured. “That is my fault. I am not used to milking cows.”
Birno guffawed in amusement. “So the black cow got the better of you?”
Tenko looked vexed, but Kali spoke for him. “In his own country the men do not herd cattle and milk cows. They are hunters.”
Birno looked at Tenko with interest. “There may be hunting for you to do here. Some animal or bird has been attacking the lambs on the hillsides when we pasture them there. Kill the attacker for us and we shall believe you are a hunter.”
“I will go out with the herdsmen and do what I can,” Tenko said quietly. “I have my arrows, but I have no bow. That was washed out of my boat in the sea storm. There are no trees here from which I can cut another bow?”
“There are bushes by the Lake of Skaill. Their shoots will bend but do not break easily,” Birno told him.
“You have seen bows and arrow, then?”
“Yes, I have seen them. Some of the tribes on the hills in the centre of our island hunt the deer. We trade cowhides with them for their deer horns. See!” Birno lifted a stone axe from the keeping-place hollowed out of the wall beyond his bed. His stone axe was wedged into a piece of deer antler used as a haft. Lines were chiselled on the stone in a pleasing pattern of squares and diagonals over the centre of the axe-head.
Tenko turned it over in his hand. “It is
beautifully carved,” he said with admiration.
“My father is the best stone carver in the island,” Brockan told him proudly.
“You will need a bowstring too,” Birno said, returning to the matter of Tenko’s bow. “That is easily found.” He felt again in the keeping-place. “Here are some sheep’s sinews. They will stretch to a bow, see? Kali and Brockan will take you to the lake. You can cut your bush shoots there.”
“Then I will make my new bow today,” Tenko said gladly.
“It is on the way to the hill of Gyran, where we are to pasture the sheep. It is our turn to look after the Skara flock today,” Kali said.
“You, as my new son, will go with them,” Birno decided.
“I will do that,” Tenko said, well pleased to be called Birno’s son.
They finished their breakfasts of mutton and milk.
“As you go to the herds you will pass through the village, Tenko. Speak with all the people you see,” Birno instructed him.
Tenko frowned a little. “Must I do that? They may not wish to speak with me, because I am a stranger.”
“You are no longer a stranger apart. You are one of our tribe now and you will act as one of the tribe,” Birno said firmly. “You will speak in peace to my people.”
Tenko nodded his head obediently.
The three children made their way along the passage to the meeting place. There Lokar, the old wise man, was sitting in the sun. Tenko did not hesitate. He went up to him but respectfully waited till Lokar spoke first to him.
“Well, Tenko, son of Birno?” Lokar said with a smile.
“I thank you, Lokar, for speaking for me before the tribe last night.”
“As long as you obey the laws of our tribe and do your duty as a son of Birno, you will have my good word, Tenko.” He laid his hand on Tenko’s shoulder and stooped and looked him in the eyes. “Go in friendship among my people and yours, Tenko.”
Already the people of the settlement were going about their work for the day. Some women were sitting on the sand dunes just outside the huts. With flint scrapers they were busy scraping clean the inside of sheepskins and cowhides. Others, with bone needles, were piercing holes and fastening skins together by threads made from animal tendons. These would be tunics and cloaks for their families.
The Boy with the Bronze Axe Page 3