Dance of the Tiger

by Bjorn Kurten

  Unlike the other Whites of Veyde’s Island, Mister Silverbirch was a well-traveled man, born and raised on the shores of the Salt Sea in the far west. He was orphaned when he was very young and was taken care of by a Black girl. So he grew up among Blacks, learning many of the crafts and a little of their language. As he conceded sadly, his tongue was too stiff for the bird-talk, and he never learned it properly.

  “The Black people lived in a big camp not far from the coast. They had come up from the south that spring,” he said. “When the girl brought me to the camp, there was much excitement. All the people came to look at me and touch me. I had never seen a Black before, and was all in a whirl. Some of them looked angry, others laughed. But the girl spoke for me, and I was allowed to stay.

  “I played with the Black children. Some of them were friendly, but many of the boys took a dislike to me and hurt me whenever they could. They called me a Troll imp, taunting me for not speaking their language properly. The girl who saved me—her name was Squirrel—often had to save me again, from those boys. I was lucky to be a good shot with the sling. I taught the Black children to use it, and for that they respected me. They tried to teach me the use of the throwing-stick, but I never was much good at it.

  “Among the Blacks, everybody has the name of an animal or a bird, like you, Mister Tiger. They used to draw a picture of their animal in the sand—”

  “Yes,” said Tiger, “I can do that.”

  “Please do, Tiger,” said Baywillow. They were sitting near a cove where there was a small patch of sand. Tiger found a stick and began to draw. First he drew the long, undulating line of the head and back. Quickly he sketched in the face, the ears, and the great scimitar teeth. He made the eyes brood under heavy brows. Finally he drew the long front legs, the shorter hind legs, and the stubby tail. “My father taught me that,” he said. “I have never seen the black tiger myself.”

  “There is magic in your hand, Mister Tiger,” said Silverbirch. “I have seen the black tiger. That is how it looks. And that is how the boys drew their names—every one a different creature. The best of all was Stag. He drew it very big, with great antlers growing like bushes from its head. I could not draw anything but just this—”

  And Silverbirch, with Tiger’s stick, laboriously produced a small crescent. “The boys used to laugh at me for that. Stag laughed hardest and said that it was a grub. So they called me Grub. I tried to tell them my real name and showed them the birch, but this made them laugh again. Nobody could be named for a tree, they said. When my feet turned to roots and my fingers to leaves, they promised to call me Silverbirch. Until then I was Grub, except to Squirrel. She called me by my real name.

  “Could you draw a picture of the birch?” he asked Tiger.

  Tiger looked around. The idea was new to him, but he was a good draftsman, and he felt challenged. There were few birches on the island, but a small one was in sight. He looked at it long and hard to let the picture sink into his eye. Then he closed his eyes, trying to remember. After many false starts he finally produced a likeness of the tree. Old Silverbirch looked at it with great admiration. “There it grows, just like the real tree,” he said. “Truly there is magic in your hand, Mister Tiger. Thank you.”

  But Tiger had already begun to draw something else. Suddenly Veyde raised her arms in delight: it was the woad plant with its many seed-pods. “There you are, my dear,” said Tiger and threw away his stick. “Finish your story, please, Mister Silverbirch. What happened next?”

  Silverbirch resumed his tale. “Now, Miss Squirrel married a man, and he was one of those who disliked me. Nor did she like him—”

  “Then why did she marry him?” interrupted Veyde.

  “Because she had to. Here, a girl chooses her man, but among the Blacks—at least among those Blacks—the parents decide who is to marry whom. The man presents the woman’s parents with a gift, and she moves in with him, becoming his property.”

  “That is true,” said Tiger, who had never thought about it that way.

  “So it was with Squirrel. I did not see her often any more, but I heard that her man was bad to her. He wanted a son, but she did not give him one. After a time he began to beat her, calling her a Troll bitch and making her cry. Then he took another wife. Meanwhile, I had grown to manhood. So had the other boys, and they began to play with the girls. I would have done the same, but the old folks would not permit it. I could see that some of the girls liked me, but they dared not defy their elders.

  “But Miss Squirrel still saw me in secret. I told her how sorry I was for her, and that maybe it was all my fault. Then she put her arms around me to comfort me. So it came about that I loved her, and soon she was in a blessed state, her belly growing big.

  “At this her man became very proud, for he thought it his own doing. He sent his second wife away and stopped beating Miss Squirrel. For a while everything was fine. Then came the disaster. Miss Squirrel had not one child but two—twin boys. They were dark like their mother, but they had the marks of our people in their faces. Her man was in a rage. He went to look for me and kill me, but I was a strong young man now. He found me in the woods, and thinking I was unarmed, came at me with his spear. But I had my sling and was quicker than he. My stone hit him in the forehead, and he never rose again.

  “Now I had to flee for my life, for even my friends were against me. I hid in a tree and watched them hunt for me, listening to Stag boast about what he would do when he found me. They never did.

  “During the night I crept back to the camp to see Squirrel and the two boys. She told me I had to go—quickly and far away. I wanted to take her and the boys with me, but she said no. ‘They will only track us down and kill us all. I must stay. I will move back to my parents’ house where nobody will harm me.’ I left, and I never saw Miss Squirrel nor my two boys again. They must be grown men now, if they were allowed to live. And now you must see that it was not a happy thing, in Miss Squirrel’s tribe, to mix the Black and the White.”

  They thought in silence about Silverbirch’s tale. Then Veyde suddenly noticed Baywillow, who had been crouching in the sands. “Look!” she cried.

  Baywillow looked up, somewhat bashfully. He had drawn a branch of the little tree for which he was named, showing a catkin and several elliptical, pointed leaves.

  “It is very good,” Tiger said, and Baywillow smiled. Veyde was thrilled. “Tiger, our child will be an artist too—she will draw the trees, and the animals, and the birds…”

  Tiger slipped his arm around her waist. “What did you do then, Mister Silverbirch?”

  “I ran east—into the forest. It was late summer, the berries were ripe, and there was plenty of game. I found my old home farther north, but there was nobody there, only some bleached bones. Then I came upon another Black settlement, but dared not show myself, in case they had heard something. Finally, I decided to leave the coast altogether, and struck out for the forest in earnest.

  “I traveled for a long time without seeing anyone, Black or White. Autumn came, and I found a small White camp where I could spend the winter. By then I craved a woman, and when I did not find one there, I set out again in the spring, always heading east. I could tell you of many adventures, but I am growing tired of speaking and will keep my tale short.

  “That was how I came upon the White camp up at Blue Lake, and found the woman who wanted me. Speedwell she was called, and her eyes were as deep a blue as the flower for which she was named. We lived at Blue Lake for many years, had children, and were happy. Then one day she did not return from the hunt. I spent that whole summer looking for her, but never found her, dead or alive. I knew she had to be dead. Otherwise she would have come back to me.

  “The children were grown up by then, and there was nothing to hold me at Blue Lake. Everything that had been sweet like the wild strawberry when we shared it turned sour like the wolfsbane now that she was gone. I remembered the sea where I had grown up, and I knew there was another sea not far from Blue La
ke. So it happened that I took up with Miss Angelica’s people. I still remembered how to fish, to hunt the seal, and to build a coracle, which was new to the people here, who until then had used only rafts. That,” Silverbirch concluded, “is my story,” and Tiger heard it without any premonition of its importance in his own life.

  Miss Angelica’s mate, the dependable and silent Mister Marestail, was master stone-knapper for the tribe. He made most of the spears and harpoons, and his tremendous strength was called upon whenever there was a particularly heavy job to be done. Otherwise he was content to be Angelica’s shadow, following her everywhere, whistling soft tunes, his heavy brows wrinkled as if he were concentrating hard on finding a way to lay down his life for her. Standing behind her, feeling the need for a moment’s attention, he sometimes smacked her gently on the behind. She would then turn to give him a smile, and he would stand with cleared brows, a sparkle in his eyes.

  Though Tiger did not articulate it, he certainly got the impression that in this community the women were more forceful and interesting than the men, Silverbirch and Baywillow being the only exceptions. It was customary for a woman to share her house with her man and children, but as there was a surplus of women on the island, two women often lived with the same man. Such was the case with Miss Rosebay, who lived in an apparently happy relationship with Mister Alder, a much younger girl named Marigold, and four children. But Miss Rosebay, well over the mature age of twenty, had started to eye one of the boys in the camp, young Campion son of Angelica, who would soon become a man. The possibility of this affair was the subject of many good-natured jokes.

  These were the people among whom Tiger now lived. Many of their ways seemed strange to him, but he was impressed by their gentleness and generosity, and knew that he owed them his life. He was ashamed now to remember that his own people used to talk about Troll oxen and bitches, as if they were not human. Yet sometimes he could not help thinking of Hind, her graceful figure becoming more and more ethereal as the months went by. Then he would look at Veyde, robust, intensely alive and spirited, and his affection for her surged up.

  So the winter passed on Veyde’s Island. The last of the ice was melting, and the air became filled with a glorious harmony of bird voices new to Tiger. The long-tailed ducks passed by in endless flocks, heading northeast along the coast. In the brilliant mornings of early spring, triumphant cadences were heard from a thousand throats. Crawling out of their tent to watch, Tiger and Veyde saw the entire bay dotted with resting birds. These were holy birds; nobody harmed them. And in the vigorous triad of their song, Tiger thought he heard something of Veyde’s own nature. As if she had guessed his thoughts, she suddenly turned to him and said, “The long-tailed duck is my bird, the bird of the woad plant.”

  So it was that the spirit of the island, in Tiger’s mind, took the shape of the long-tailed duck. He, and later others as well, called it Veyde’s Island.

  GOSHAWK

  Et si destoupe mes oreilles

  Quant j’oc vin verser des bouteilles.

  —Froissart

  To all appearances Tiger had settled down as a happy member of Angelica’s clan, but he had bouts of restlessness, and as he regained his physical strength, they began to worry him more. The image of his father transfixed by Shelk’s javelin haunted him. Sometimes he tried to free himself by drawing the image in the sand, then smoothing it out. One day Veyde found him at this, and understood at once what was in his thoughts.

  “Do you want to go back to your people, Tiger?”

  “I think I would like to go back to Trout Lake, to see what happened to them,” he said. “They have lost all their men. Only the women and children are left, and the winter must have been hard on them. Perhaps they got help from the Biglakers.”

  “Still, there is your mother, and your sister, and your brother.”

  “Marten—yes,” said Tiger. “I would like to find out what happened to them.”

  They talked it over. Veyde suggested that she come along too. “I want to see your family, Tiger. And we would be going soon anyway, to gather berries at Miss Sundew’s Cloudberries and the other moors. Why not go to Trout Lake at the same time?”

  “I wonder if there is any news of Shelk and his gang,” said Tiger.

  “We could visit Blue Lake, Mister Silverbirch’s old camp. His children still live there and may have some news.”

  So it was resolved, and on a clear, still day the islanders ferried themselves to the mainland. Blue Lake was two days from the coast. With old Silverbirch as a guide, the trip was easy. They found good game and the bilberries were ripe.

  Silverbirch took no chances. When they drew near Blue Lake, he sent Baywillow and Silverweed as scouts. When they returned saying that all was in order, the rest of the islanders followed.

  The tents of Blue Lake were set up along the shore. This tribe was more prosperous than Angelica’s, and about thirty people of all ages were out basking in the afternoon sun, their labor’s done for the day. Among them were Silverbirch’s two sons and his daughter, who were overjoyed to see their father. They embraced him fondly and hurried to show him their children, whom Silverbirch admired one after another. Tiger looked around, and soon noticed several children with brown eyes and dark complexions. Baywillow, it seemed, was far from unique among the Whites.

  Tiger soon had an explanation. The flap of a tent was thrown open, and out peered a somewhat bleary-eyed Black man, squinting in the strong afternoon sun. Seeing Tiger, he shouted a word of greeting and crawled out.

  Tiger gave a start of surprise. He had never seen a fat man before. His own tribe had been lean; so were the people at the Meet. This man was obese. Tiger mechanically offered his hand in greeting; the man did the same, letting out an enormous fart. This seemed to be accepted behavior, for he continued to intersperse his talk with occasional discharges.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “Here we have another Troll-lover. Are these your bitches? It’s not a bad life, as I daresay you’ve discovered. All the bitches vie for my attention and call me a God. True, they’re not what you would call really enticing. In fact, I sometimes find it hard to tell their faces from their bottoms. But you know all about this, of course. By the Great Mammoth, it’s a good thing to have someone around who talks a civilized language. You are a very welcome guest, I’m sure, and I hope you will stay for some time.”

  Tiger managed to say that he would be off soon, but the fat man waved the news aside.

  “You must stay with us for a while,” he said. “Leave the hunting and berry-gathering to the Trolls. They are only too grateful to serve us. But I haven’t told you my name. I’m Goshawk the Divine, God of the Blue Lake Trolls for many winters. I bid you welcome.”

  Tiger found it hard to suppress a laugh, for anything less like a goshawk would be difficult to imagine. But he had been well brought up and knew the importance of civility. He politely mentioned his own name and bowed. Goshawk, undeterred by Tiger’s reticence, rambled on, delighted with this rare opportunity to speak in his own tongue.

  “Yes, it’s a good life,” he said. “I get anything I want, from the first strawberry of the season to the favors of the most buxom female. Speaking of that, let’s have something to eat and drink. Hey, you!” he yelled, snapping his fingers at random to the nearest group of Whites. He fell into White talk, and even Tiger could hear how atrociously he handled it. “Wine! Venison! Berries!” He turned back to Tiger. “My dear fellow, you shall have a real meal in no time. You look starved. No flesh on your bones, young man. Don’t your Troll bitches feed you properly?”

  “I’m fine, really,” said Tiger, still at a loss about what to make of this fantastic figure. “But I’ll be honored to eat and drink with you, sir,” he added quickly, remembering his manners.

  Goshawk produced another thundering fart and sat down on a boulder with some difficulty, hoisting one of his fat legs over the other. “I was just about to send my people out for the berry harvest,” he announced. “
And we’re running a little short on venison. There should be elk at hand—I really don’t take to horseflesh, do you? Sometimes in the morning there are several hands of elk on the other shore. I’ll see that my people get one or two for you tomorrow. Why, here’s the wine,” he went on, as a young White girl came up with a wine-skin. “Do have some. Don’t stint, now. This is made from sap, and soon we’ll have berries to make a new brew. They don’t drink it, of course. Strictly for Divine purposes. They’d go stark mad. But I’m glad to share it with you. Would you care for a bitch in your tent? There’s quite a selection here,” and he pointed at the group of people chatting with Silverbirch.

  Tiger sampled the wine, which seemed quite a potent brew, and handed the skin to Goshawk, who drank more deeply. “What I’d like is some information about Shelk and his gang,” he said. “Do you know anything about them?”

  Goshawk wrinkled his brow at this distasteful topic. “You must mean those people who sacked a Troll village up north last winter. I really don’t know much about them,” he confessed, wiping his beard, “but I know my responsibility. We have scouts out most of the time, and we’re not going to be taken by surprise. I’ll give that Elk or Shelk something to think about if he makes the mistake of coming our way. But let’s see now. I seem to remember hearing about him years ago. I believe they said he was a bastard—half man, half Troll. Is that so?”

  “I think so,” said Tiger. “I saw him once. He looks a little like my friend over there,” he added, nodding toward Baywillow. “Heavy brows like the Whites but tall and dark like the Blacks.”

  “Yes, that must be the man, a bastard gone bad,” said Goshawk. “There you are, don’t you see? My responsibility, I mean—or ours, to be sure,” with a confidential nod to Tiger. “But we can cope with Shelk. The people under my command are strong and capable. They will do as I bid them. We’re not going to stand for any nonsense.” Then Goshawk relaxed. “But really, I’m sure it was nothing but a temporary outbreak. Probably they have left for good now.”