Calamity's Child

by Sharon Lee

  His mouth was dry, his head heavy; his blood still warm from that last draught. Altogether, he thought painfully, he was in a dangerous and most discouraged state and ought by rights to simply curl up on the moss by the dying fire and sleep off the sorrows of the day.

  In the heart of the fire, an ember exploded in a rush of scarlet ash. Slade jerked -- and froze.

  Walking swiftly across the trampled and vacant moss came a tall reed of a woman, her dark hair braided with feathers and flowers, her short robe of soft suede, her legs and feet naked.

  Forward she came, until he could see her face in what remained of the firelight. Wide, pupil-drowned eyes stared down at him from a bony, long-jawed face. Abruptly, she checked and looked wildly about, but there were no other hunters shivering and lachrymose around the dying fire. He was the last.

  As if the realization galvanized her, she jumped forward and grabbed his wrist. Her fingers were cold; her grip strong. Without a word, she turned and marched into the darkness beyond the fire. Slade, perforce, went with her; all but oblivious to exalting songs and catcalls from the standers-by.

  The sounds and warmth fell away behind them, and there was dust underfoot, her shape distant in the night, and her hand, unrelenting, to guide him.

  She came at last to a small tent in the next-but-last circle. Brusquely, she pushed the flap aside and ducked within, dragging him after, her fingers bruising his wrist.

  Inside, he was at last released, as his captor -- his wife -- turned to lace the flap. Slade looked about, finding the interior of the tent as cluttered as Gineah's had been neat and shipshape. In the center, beneath the air hole, was the fire, banked for the night, bed unrolled beside it.

  He felt a hand on his arm and turned to look up into the face of his wife.

  In the relative brightness, he saw that she was younger than he had at first supposed -- scarcely more than a girl, even by the standards of the Sanilithe -- her forehead high, and her jaw square. Her lean cheeks had been painted with stripes of white and yellow and red; those on her left cheek were smeared. Her eyes were the color of summer moss -- gray-green -- and very wide.

  Still, she said nothing to him, merely reached with hands that trembled to begin working the knot in his kilt. His manhood leapt, eager, and she gasped, the first sound he had heard from her, snatching her fingers away.

  Gods, Slade thought, his mind sharpening slightly within the shrouds of drugs and exhaustion. She's terrified.

  "Wait," he said softly, catching her hands. She flinched, and looked at his face -- at least she did that -- and did not pull away. "Wait," he said again. "Let us trade names. I am Slade."

  She swallowed, and glanced to one side. "Arika."

  "Arika," he repeated, struggling toward gentleness. "It is not necessary --"

  She pulled her hands free. "This tent requires a hunter."

  "Yes," he said, trying to soothe her with his voice, trying to ignore the increasing demands of his body. "Yes, I will hunt for the tent. But it is not necessary to continue this, now, with both of us tired and frightened."

  She stiffened at that, and awkwardly reached for his hands, looking sideways into his face.

  "I -- there is nothing to fear, inside my tent," she said, haltingly. "Slade. There is no harm here. I am -- Tonight, I will teach you a mystery which will, will bond us and make us stronger for the tent."

  A set piece, poorly learned, he realized, holding her cold fingers. And all honor to her, that her first thought was to soothe his fears. He smiled, carefully.

  An unmarried hunter of the Sanilithe was a naive creature. He learned of the mystery of sex on the night of his Choosing, from the woman who had Chosen to become his wife. It was that same wife who would later decide how many children the tent might rejoice in -- and a married hunter was not at all certain quite how those children came to be. Verad spoke of seeds, but in the context of a fruit eaten, perhaps from a tree known only to the erifu of women.

  Though obviously herself terrified of the upcoming mystery, Arika would be scandalized to find that her new and unshorn husband came to her fully tutored. Still, Slade thought muzzily, he was the elder here, and it was his duty to ease her way, as much as it was hers to ease his fear.

  "First," Arika said, breathlessly, slipping her hands away. "We must remove these skins..." Her fingers were at the knot again, somewhat steadier. Slade left her to it and reached to the laces of her robe. She froze.

  "What do you?"

  He smiled again, as guileless as he might, in which endeavor he was no doubt assisted by the drugs.

  "If we must remove the skins, it will go quicker, if you remove mine and I remove yours." He affected a sudden shyness, dropping his eyes. "Unless there is some reason in erifu that I should not...?"

  She frowned, as if trying to recall a long-ago and not very well attended lesson. Finally, she jerked a shoulder -- the Sanilithe negative. "It does not offend erifu. You may continue."

  Continue he did, taking care with the laces while she fumbled with his kilt. He did not wish to reveal her too soon. Best, if they became naked and equal in the same moment.

  He felt the knot at his hip loosen all at once, slipped the last of the lacing free and slid his palms over her shoulders, easing the garment up, just as the kilt fell unceremoniously to the floor. Softly, he smoothed his hands down her back, slipping the robe down and off, to pool about her feet.

  She visibly swallowed, her pale eyes moving down his body in quick glances. Obviously, she hadn't the least idea what to do now.

  Slade stepped forward, lifting a hand to her hair, stroking it back to reveal an exotic and enticing little ear. He heard her gasp, but she had heart, did Arika. She slid her fingers into his hair, silking it back to reveal his ear. Greatly daring, she ran her finger 'round the edge and he felt his blood flare as he copied the motion, then stroked the line of her jaw. She followed his lead, her fingers moving in a long stroke down the side of his neck.

  He cupped her breast, she ran a light hand down his chest; he bent and put his lips around one pert nipple. She gasped, back arching, and it came to him that erifu would have required that she also drink the Choosing drugs, to be ready to welcome the new husband in fullness...

  "Slade," she said huskily, and her hands were in his hair, drawing his face up, her gray-green eyes looking deep into his. "We -- should lie down."

  A good idea, he thought, before one or the other of us falls into the fire.

  He stretched out beside her, and she touched him, tentative fingers warm now, and indescribably exciting. He moaned, and pulled her to him, exhaustion burning away into the brilliance of passion.

  *

  Slade opened his eyes to a tent wholly unfamiliar, a heavy weight pinning his arm to the sleeping mat. Carefully, he turned his head, and discovered his wife, Arika, deeply asleep, her head on his shoulder, hair tangled with last night's passion, lashes sooty smudges on her thin cheeks. In the spill of morning light from the fire hole, her face was achingly young.

  Surely, he thought wildly, surely a child of this age ought to be with her tutor and not roistering about in the darkness, soliciting strange men into the service of her tent?

  He drew a hard breath. The Sanilithe came quickly to adulthood, and quickly to old age. Gineah, revered grandmother that she was, with two daughters and a hunter-son, all grown and mated -- Gineah had between fifty and fifty-five Standard Years. On the planet of his birth, she would have just reached the height of her powers, with another thirty to fifty years before her...

  The planet of his birth, he thought, suddenly bitter; which he had wished with all his heart to escape -- and found his wish well-granted.

  Carefully, not wanting to awaken the girl-child asleep on his shoulder, he drew a breath, and looked about him.

  It was not the largest tent he had seen among the Sanilithe, nor the tidiest, though it might, considering the numerous patches in the skin walls, make some claim to the shabbiest.

  Scattered a
round, in no order he could discern, were baskets, pots, robes, and rugs. Poles lined the walls, and from them hung familiar clusters of dried herbs and medicinal plants.

  Gineah had divided her tent into sections -- a place which was erifu and off-limits to ham-fisted sons of the tent, a place to store foodstuffs and water, a place for that same ham-fisted son to keep his weapons, his skins, and his bedroll. The center was common area, where meals were made and where grandmother and son might dawdle over their warmed beer, talking far into the night.

  Well, and Gineah's tent was as distant from him as his mother's house, now that he was married.

  He sighed and brought his gaze back to the child's sleeping face. The stripes of paint adorning her cheeks were smeared and faded. The Sanilithe did decorate their faces -- certain signs were erifu, others were, as far as he understood, nothing more than exuberance. It seemed to him that he had seen stripes like these before -- white, yellow, red, in alternation -- and suddenly, he remembered.

  Mourning stripes. Someone of this tent had died -- recently. The stripes were worn only for three days after the deceased had been commended to the fire.

  Outside, a woman's voice rose in the welcome-morning song. The girl asleep on his arm stirred, and opened her eyes, face tensing. He smiled, deliberately.

  "Good morning, Arika," he said softly.

  Her face relaxed, though she did not go so far as to smile. "Good morning, Slade," she returned, seriously, and looked upward to the patch of sullen sky visible through the smoke hole.

  "We must rise," she said abruptly, snaking out of their tumbled bed and rolling to her feet. "There is much to do."

  Naked, she hesitated, staring about the disordered tent, then darted to one side, where she found a tunic. She pulled it over her head; emerging, she frowned at Slade, still slugabed.

  "Rise!" she snapped, and reached for the pair of leather leggings hanging over a cracked storage pot.

  Sighing, he rose, found his kilt on the dirt floor by the edge of the fire, picked it up, shook it out, and wrapped it around his loins, feeling even more foolish, now that there was no kindly drug diluting his perceptions. Quickly, he knotted the leather, wishing for shirt and leggings.

  "Slade."

  He turned. Arika held her hands up, showing him the blade in her right, and the comb, in her left. "I will cut your hair, now, and we will go to the smith. Then we will go to the tent of Grandmother Gineah and bring away those things she allows to be yours." She smiled, very slightly. "The sooner we do these things, the sooner we may eat."

  Eat. His stomach, reminded of its fast, set up a complaint, and he moved sprightly indeed and sat on the floor at her feet.

  "Be still now," she said, and plied the comb, surprisingly gentle; and then the knife, in long, practiced sweeps.

  Slade closed his eyes as the weight of his hair fell away, leaving the back of his neck chill.

  "Done."

  He lifted his hands to his head, feeling strands barely two fingers long. Gods alone knew what he looked like, but at least he was rid of the braid, which had a penchant for becoming entangled in twigs, and flirting with fires...

  "Come." Arika was already unlacing the flap. "The smith."

  Indeed, the smith. He rolled to his feet and followed his wife out into the new day.

  *

  Some while later, earlobe stinging and stomach rumbling, he stood two paces behind his wife, before Gineah's tent.

  A shadow moved and the grandmother stepped out, plump and grizzled, her arms encircled with the many bracelets of her station.

  Before him, Arika spread her arms wide in the traditional greeting to one of the Wise.

  "Grandmother," she murmured, respectfully.

  "Daughter," Gineah replied, and moved her eyes, pinning Slade with a bright blue glance. "Hunter."

  He bowed, which the Sanilithe did not do. "Grandmother."

  She stepped forward, her eyes on Arika. "You could have come to me."

  Arika bit her lip, and shook her hair back in what Slade was beginning to understand as a nervous gesture. "I swore to Keneple that the tent would endure," she said, her voice not quite steady.

  "And a tent must have a hunter." Gineah sighed. "Child..." She stopped.

  "Please," she said, after a moment, "allow your hunter to enter my tent and collect those things which have been made ready for him."

  "Yes..." Arika whispered. She straightened shoulders that had begun to sag and looked to him, chin up.

  "Slade, you may find what Grandmother Gineah has left for you and bring it forth."

  "Yes," he said in his turn and slipped into the tent that had been his home for two full turns of season.

  Inside, all was neat and familiar; it smelled of herbs, and leather; smoke and the scent of Gineah herself. Tears rose to his eyes. Blinking them away, he turned toward the corner which had been his.

  There were several bundles there, as well as his spear, his knives, and the unfinished length of braided hide he had been working on as he sat at the fire with Gineah in the evenings.

  He knelt and examined the bindings of each pack, in no hurry, wanting to give Gineah as much time as possible to share what wisdom she might with his girl-wife. It came to him that it was Keneple who had died, and who Arika mourned. The name meant nothing to him, but that was not unusual. Well as he knew the names of those with whom his tent traveled in the seasons of gathering, little did he know the names, or the faces, of those who traveled other routes.

  Kneeling on the mat among his bundles, his Choosing became real to him: he was now tied to a tent that would follow a different route, come the Light Season, and which held allegiances and debts that he did not understand. The ones he would hunt beside would not be the same men he had come to know -- who had come to know and accept him, with all his incomprehensible difficulties -- as a brother.

  He gasped. This time, the tears escaped to moisten his cheeks. To be taken from everything and everyone he knew -- and, yet, what did it matter? He was the alien here, shipwrecked and dead to all he had been. To lose one tent, one old woman, half-a-dozen savage brothers -- what was that, against the magnitude of his other losses?

  Crouched beside the small pile of his belongings, he wept, then wiped his face with his forearm and forced himself to his feet.

  He draped the bundles about himself as Verad had taught him to do, slipped his knives, carefully, into the waist of his kilt and hefted the spear.

  Outside, Gineah embraced Arika, and stepped aside. "Take care of my son, who is now your hunter, daughter."

  "Grandmother, I will." Arika swallowed, and Slade saw that her cheeks were also damp. "You are welcome in my tent, always."

  Gineah smiled upon them, and raised her hands in blessing above their heads. Then, wordless, she re-entered her tent.

  Arika licked her lips, nodded to Slade. He followed her across the camp, to their shabby and disordered home.

  *

  Kneeling on the dirt floor next to the fire pit, Slade unrolled his bundles. The first held his hunting leathers and boots, as well as a vest sewn of kwevit hides with the fur attached. He dressed quickly, rolling the kilt and putting it with the vest, then turned his attention to the rest, chewing on a strip of dried meat Arika had given him.

  She was at the back of the tent; he could hear her moving things, possibly attempting to impose order upon the clutter, a project of which he heartily approved.

  Opening the next bundle, he found the furs and skins of his own bed, and several sealed medicine pots. He smiled, profoundly warmed, for Gineah took care with her potions, which were genuinely soothing of bruises, cuts and strained muscles.

  Another bundle gave up his second pair of leggings, three sitting mats, and pots containing dried legumes, jerked meat, and raisins. Too, there was the bag ritually made from the skin of the very first kwevit he'd taken and meant to carry what Verad called "the hunter's touch," which was the only property besides his weapons and his clothes that a hunter c
ould be said to own. The knot was undisturbed, and inside, among the scent-masking potions, feathers, and special stones that he had been given by his brother of the hunt, was his paltry supply of Liaden nutrients. Slade smiled again, and thanked Gineah in his heart.

  "Where do those things come from?" Arika's voice was shrill. He spun on his knees and looked up, seeing her face twisted with anger, her eyes blazing green fire.

  "Gineah gave them," he said, keeping his voice gentle.

  She was not soothed. "Return them! I am the mother of this tent -- and this tent is not in need!"

  Very slowly, hands loose at his sides, Slade rose. Deliberately, he looked about him, at the clutter, at the tatters, at the soot. He looked back to her angry face.

  "The tent must eat," he said.

  "The tent will eat," she snapped. "The hunter will see to it."

  "Yes." He moved a hand, showing her the bounty Gineah had sent. "These were given by the grandmother, to the hunter. I have seen that the tent will eat."

  She glared, lips parting, then turned and stomped away.

  Sighing, Slade looked about him for an uncluttered corner to call his own.

  *

  They worked in silence, he on his side, she on hers. It was not so large a tent that they were unaware of each other, and had they been in charity, Slade thought ruefully, they might have made a merry time of it. And, really, it was wrong that they continued thus in anger. Unless he did something very stupid on a hunt, they would be partners for -- some time. They needed each other's goodwill and willing cooperation -- the tent could not function, else.

  Sighing, he straightened from tidying away his sleeping roll, and turned.

  Across the tent, Arika stood with a pot cradled in her arms, her head bent, hair obscuring her face.

  Biting back a curse, Slade crossed to her side, and put a careful hand on her arm.

  She gasped, and started, eyes flying to his face, her lashes damp, the remains of the mourning paint running in long, smeary lines down her cheeks.

  "Peace," he said, as gently as he knew how. "Gineah meant well. We should not be at odds because of her kindness."

  She swallowed, and shook her hair back from her wet cheeks. "I -- Tales of Grandmother Gineah's good works are told around story fires wherever the Sanilithe gather. I will be proud to tell my own story, that the grandmother so valued her son she gave his wife-tent a Dark Season's worth of provisions, as a measure of her regard."