by Bjorn Kurten
Goshawk rummaged feebly in his bundle and brought out a sheaf of sticks, which he looked at in a forlorn way. “Which is your mark? What did you say your name was?”
“Tern, I’ve told you. That one’s mine.”
Goshawk placed the two sticks side by side. The notches matched. Each notch signified one day’s work, and beside one of them the mark of the full moon was carved. Sighing, he got out a flint knife and started to cut new marks across the sticks.
“And you haven’t even looked at my work,” said Tern approvingly. “That shows you trust me, Gos—ha-ha—Goshawk. You’re nice after all. Three marks, thank you! Now I have three days off. I’ll come with you to Caribou Lake.”
While they walked, Tiger asked about Caribou Lake and what was going on there. Goshawk was eager to tell him, but as usual he was filled with his own importance and spent some time pointing out the great responsibility of his position and how the Overseers were a very select group.
“I was entrusted with the post of Overseer because I know the language of the Whites. Now I’m responsible for the girls’ camp in the Forest, Blacks and Whites alike. Perhaps you too could become an overseer, Tiger—”
“His name is Wildcat,” Tern corrected.
“Wildcat, I mean. I know you speak the Troll language too. Before this, I used to be Overseer in Sunwood—”
“Sunwood, what’s that?”
“Oh, that’s where the caribou are—the cattle of the Sun. It’s the big wood in the bend of the Gorge. It’s surrounded on three sides by the Gorge and by Caribou Lake. The War Camp is on the fourth side. So the caribou are safe there, and their keepers too. Most of the keepers are Trolls, both oxen and bitches, but there is a Black women’s camp too, and nobody can get out of there. Every spring and autumn, when the caribou pass by, we drive new animals into Sunwood to replace those that are killed for meat.”
“I’ve been there too,” said Tern, “but then I became the Master’s woman—”
“I was Overseer in Sunwood for two winters,” interrupted Goshawk, “but it gets tedious after a while, what with the noise from the Gorge; and the Troll oxen make a lot of trouble. Recently a new warrior came to Caribou Lake who speaks the Troll language. He’s a bastard, by the way. In fact, sometimes I feel there’s something familiar about him.”
Tiger felt suddenly excited. “Do you know his name, Goshawk?”
“His name? Let me see, I think it’s Buzzard. Anyway he took over my old job in Sunwood, and I moved here to succeed old Crow…”
“Crowshit,” corrected Tern.
“Crowshit, I mean,” repeated Goshawk mechanically, but checked himself: “Shut up, girl! Crow, I mean.”
Tiger kept his eyes down so as not to give away his excitement. The buzzard was Baywillow’s bird. Could it really be…?
“Crow is getting old and he can’t see very well any more,” Goshawk explained. “But the Master takes care of the old, showing his benevolence to those who have served him well. Crow doesn’t have to work any more. For myself, I was pleased to move here. It’s calm and peaceful, and there are no bothersome Troll oxen. The girls are good, Black or White. Only the safe ones are put to work here.”
“What do you do with the sticks?”
“The Master thought that out. Everyone, except the warriors, of course, has to work six days. I see to it that they really do their work…”
“I know what you see to,” said Tern in such a low voice that Goshawk did not hear her.
“Everybody has her work-stick, and I have its double in my pack. After six working days each girl gets three days off and can do what she likes. You’ll understand in a moment. As you see, I have to keep track of a lot of things, but I know my responsibility. Nothing escapes me. Now we’re coming to the gate.”
The gate was formed by two big pines. On each side stretched a stockade, so dense that there was hardly room for a hand between the logs. Two sentries, armed with spears, were guarding the gate. Like Goshawk, each had an eagle feather in his headband.
“You see the gate is very wide,” said Goshawk. “This is where we take in the caribou for Sunwood. They usually pass by just outside, and we take out ten or twenty animals at a time, to bring them in here.”
Tern had gone to one of the sentries and had given him her stick. He looked at it, put it into his bag, which was beside him on the ground, and nodded at her to pass.
“Now she is off duty,” said Goshawk. “After three days she’s got to fetch her stick and go back to work. You saw the mark for the full moon. You can’t fool the Master. I only hope,” he added nervously, “that she won’t talk too much. But come along, Ti—Wildcat, and leave the talking to me.”
The sentries raised their spears and looked suspiciously at Tiger. Goshawk said in his grandest manner, “A new warrior. I’m taking him to the Master.”
“Do you vouch for him?”
“Of course I do. Have I not brought him here myself?”
The sentries exchanged grins. “Well, in that case,” said one of them with mock humility, and Goshawk strutted through the gate, followed by Tiger.
A succession of strange sights met Tiger’s eyes as he entered the camp. To his left, in a valley where a small stream flowed, was a large village of solidly built houses. In front of him and to his right rose a forested slope. The Gorge was not in sight, but the din from the rapids filled the air, seeming to well out of the forest itself. Tiger was even more intrigued by what was going on down by the stream. At least thirty men, all with eagle feathers, were behaving in the oddest manner. They walked to and fro, always in a straight line. Beside them walked another warrior, who gave a shout. Suddenly they threw themselves on the ground with a collective thump, clearly audible through the noise of the rapids. Another shout, and they were up again, throwing their spears. With wild cries they rushed ahead, each with a knife in his raised hand. They seemed to attack an invisible enemy, sticking their knives into him and pounding him to death. Yet another shout, and everyone rose and stood at attention.
“By all the spirits of the forest,” said Tiger, amazed, “have they gone utterly mad? What do they think they’re doing?”
“Curb your tongue,” said Goshawk. “It’s war-practice. What do you think the warriors do all day—lie around in the sunshine? Soon you’ll be there too, if all goes well. Come along with me.”
He took Tiger up a winding path where a well-timbered house came into sight. If the war-practice had seemed nightmarish to Tiger, a more pleasant view presented itself here. Children were playing; a rotund and motherly woman was tending them; and a thin Black man watched and smiled. He turned expectantly to Goshawk.
“Fox, I’ve brought you a new recruit,” said Goshawk ponderously. “Wildcat is his name.”
The man looked searchingly at Tiger. “We’ll put him to the test, if the Master pleases. What can you do, Wildcat?”
“I’m a hunter and an artist,” said Tiger. “The renown of the Master has reached far and wide, and I should like to enroll with you, if you have any use for me.”
“I vouch for him,” said Goshawk.
Fox smiled, and Tiger noted with surprise that he found the man attractive. “Thank you, Goshawk. I’ll take him to the Master. You can go.”
Fox’s smile grew more cynical when Goshawk had left. “The fat fool’s recommendation isn’t really worth much,” he observed. “But we need an artist. Are you any good?”
“Put me to the test, Fox,” said Tiger. “Also, I speak the White language.”
Fox looked at him, his interest heightened. “The Master will put you to the test,” he said in the White language. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
“I do, Mister Fox,” answered Tiger in the same tongue, “and if you permit me to say so, you speak the language as well as a White.”
Fox gave a delighted chuckle. “You’ll do. Come.”
A few moments later Tiger was standing in front of Shelk.
THE RECRUIT
CUN
NING.—N. Cunning, craft, subtlety, maneuvering, temporization, circumvention, chicane, sharp practice, knavery, jugglery, concealment, guile, duplicity, foul play.
—Roget’s Thesaurus
Shelk’s house was the biggest Tiger had ever seen. Like the stockade, it was built of standing logs, but here the chinks were carefully lined with earth and moss. In front of it was a great pillar, made from an enormous tree-trunk. It was crowned by a red globe, which Tiger thought must represent the Sun. From the house the ground sloped down to the valley and the village, but when they came closer the wide panorama of the ice-bound Caribou Lake came into view.
Fox asked Tiger to wait while he went in, and as Tiger stood there alone, still bewildered by all the strange things he had heard and seen, a new idea struck him with a flash of terror. What if Shelk recognized him? Then everything would have been in vain, and death was certain. Twice they had met. The first time, at the Summer Meet, Tiger was a beardless youngster and Shelk had hardly noticed him. But the second time! Then Shelk was dying. Baywillow had killed him, yet he had promised to come back. Was it the same man, or was the one who had died on Veyde’s Island only his shade? How could he know?
Whatever happened, it was too late to get away. Tiger collected his wits, stopped trembling, and moved with firm steps when Fox gave him the sign to come in. He entered a room greater than any he had even dreamed of. It must have been the length of five men and the breadth of four. The ceiling was so high that even the tallest man could stand erect. Tiger remembered how the Chief his father had had to bend his head in his own house. The walls were decorated with skins of caribou, bear, elk, wolf, and other animals. Daylight streamed in through four windows. Never had Tiger seen anything so impressive. His eyes went to the far wall, on which a shelk antler was hung. The man sitting under it must be the Great One himself. Tiger had expected the lord of Caribou Lake to transfix him immediately with an all-seeing stare, but instead he was talking to another man whose back was turned to Tiger. Fox told Tiger to wait by the door while he joined the others.
Only then did Tiger notice that there was yet another person in the room. A young girl was sitting on a pile of skins by the side wall. She was sewing, her head bent over her work, her black hair hiding her face. The sunlight from the door fell across her bare knees. Tern’s successor as the Master’s woman, thought Tiger. He probably changed them often. For Tern, two moons had been enough, but maybe that was because she talked so much. In the next moment Tiger forgot his cynical thoughts, for the girl, suddenly aware of his gaze, looked up. He reeled as if struck blind, whether out of terror or despair he did not know. The girl who war sitting in Shelk’s house was Hind, Wolf’s daughter, the girl who was to have been his bride.
He imagined that he had cried out; in fact he was struck dumb. He was certain that she would cry his name, but she did not recognize him at first. She looked at him listlessly. Then recognition dawned, and with it dismay and fear in her eyes. She drew in her breath, and the blood left her dark face, which became grey and lifeless. Her lips opened. Tiger gave her a rapid wink, and to his relief she closed her mouth. A deep flush colored her face. Tiger cast a glance at the men. No one appeared to have noticed anything. When he looked at Hind again, she had returned to her sewing, but her hands were shaking, and she bit her lip. She breathed quickly.
Apparently the conversation had come to an end, for the man who had been standing with his back to Tiger turned around and went out. It was Baywillow. Tiger registered this new shock dully. He had actually expected to see Baywillow ever since Goshawk mentioned the name Buzzard. Still he felt grateful to Baywillow for his habitual self-command, which was probably never put to a harder test. His eyes met Tiger’s without a show of interest, but just as he passed, he let his eyelid flutter.
Fox beckoned to Tiger, and the man who was sitting under the great antler raised his eyes. When Tiger met Shelk’s gaze he felt that the man was able to read every thought and every plan in his brain, every feeling and hope in his breast. As he walked those few steps, it seemed that all he had felt and thought ran away like meltwater, leaving him empty and helpless.
“You wish to join my warriors, Mister Wildcat?” said Shelk in the language of the Whites. “Mister Fox tells me you speak this language.”
Tiger realized, with some surprise, that Shelk had noted his confusion, that his kind words were designed to help him over it. The courtesy, and the polite address of the Whites, which seemed to raise him to the rank of the Master, brought him to his senses again. This was the beginning of a conversation that Tiger could never look back on without a feeling of extreme terror. He felt he was balancing on the edge of the Gorge, in danger of falling. The rush of the water seemed to engulf him here in Shelk’s room.
Was this the same man? The face, the figure, the amber necklace—all were the same as at the Summer Meet. Yet he was different, and while the talk proceeded, Tiger felt sure that he was not the same man. The other had been aloof, stern, forbidding. In the searching eyes of this man, he sensed a thoughtful sadness that was utterly unexpected.
Shelk went on asking questions with unwavering politeness. Tiger tried to keep his voice steady and to answer with apparent frankness. Once he thought, Now Hind will cry out and say that it’s not true, what I’m saying. But she made no sound. Tiger heard himself describe journeys he had never made, adventures that had happened only in his imagination. It was all part of his carefully rehearsed story. No, he’d never seen the Salt Sea. Yes, his father, Badger, was dead, killed by a wounded wisent. Yes, he’d seen the Great Water and had lived there for a winter and a summer, with the Whites. Where? Far to the northeast, in a place called Outer Island. (That was in fact the place where Miss Swallow had learned the White language.) Shelk nodded thoughtfully. He had never been that far east himself, he said. Did they get plenty of caribou there? No, not particularly. The main winter game was seal.
The questioning seemed to go on forever, but finally the commanding gaze was lowered. Shelk rummaged in a pile of skins and turned up the inside of a caribou skin. Tiger noticed that his right hand lacked the index finger. “I have been told that you are an artist, Mister Wildcat. Let me see if you can draw a caribou here; a cow that has lost one of its antlers, and is chewing it.”
Obediently, Tiger kneeled down, took the charcoal Fox gave him, and started to work. Soon he forgot everything else. His hand was steady: this was his proper work. A great pride and pleasure filled him. Never was his hand surer than when something big was at stake. Suddenly he noticed that Shelk and Fox, who had been talking, were now silent and attentive. Hind, too, had come forward to look.
There was the caribou cow, the antler in her mouth. Tiger heard Shelk’s voice, almost choking: “Mister Wildcat, can you draw a calf beside it?”
Tiger went to work again. The calf emerged under his hand, as lifelike as the cow.
“There you are, Mister Shelk,” he said at last, and put down the charcoal. “Anything more?”
Shelk did not seem to hear him. Unconsciously, he made the habitual gesture of the Whites, briefly covering his eyes with his hand. He looked steadily at the picture, his face inscrutable. His eyes shining, Fox looked from Shelk to Tiger, saying nothing. It was Hind who spoke at last.
“It’s a very good picture, stranger,” she said in a low voice. “What’s your name? Mine’s Hind.”
“My name, Hind, is Wildcat.”
“I see,” she said tonelessly.
Shelk came out of his trance and spoke in the Black tongue, like Hind: “Thank you, Wildcat. This picture has penetrated my heart.”
Only now Tiger realized that his fear of Hind had been unfounded. Of course she did not understand the White language; the entire conversation must have been unintelligible to her. Yet he felt that she would not have betrayed him anyway.
“Your pleasure is my reward,” said Tiger.
“And you want to become a warrior here. Very well, you shall take the oath. But warriors grow like grass ou
t of the earth. An artist like you one finds only once in a lifetime. I may have other plans for you in future.”
Shelk administered the oath, and Tiger repeated the words. He swore allegiance to the Sun, to Shelk, and to his leaders. He swore to defend them with all his power and to reveal any plot of which he became aware. It all seemed unreal to him. Here he was taking oath to Shelk, the man he had sworn to kill.
They left, Fox with his hand on Tiger’s shoulder in a friendly manner. “I’m glad you’re here, Wildcat,” he said. “Did you see how your picture pleased the Master? Never have I seen him so surprised and captivated. It touched something he hides deep within himself. There is magic in your hand, Wildcat.”
Tiger, exhausted, moved as if in a dream. “What do you wish me to do now, Fox?” he asked.
“You will join Diver’s Company. He lost a man recently, a messenger who never came back. We think he was taken by Wolf, a bandit who operates in the forest east of here.”
Tiger nodded. He thought he knew the fate of the man.
“This Wolf, he may think himself a wasp, like the one you carry,” and Fox pointed with a smile to Tiger’s talisman. “But in truth he’s nothing but a mosquito, and we’ll squash him like one.”
Tiger checked the words that rose to his lips, and said instead, “But after that? The Master told me he had other plans for me.”
“That’s true, and I think you have a great future here. But first you have to be broken in as a warrior.”
So Tiger became a recruit in Diver’s Company, knowing that he replaced the man whom he had seen hanged in Wolf’s camp. He lived with eight others in a house much smaller than Shelk’s, and every day they were trained in the art of war. The actual handling of weapons was somewhat less important than he had expected. That was already second nature to every hunter. The most important thing was to obey orders. The commands were given orally at first, then by signs. He learned to keep his eyes always on the man next to him and on his commander. He learned how to attack and retreat. He learned to wait, silent and motionless, from midday to dusk if need be, without letting his attention wander. After a moon of this he understood only too well why Wolf’s brave men had been defeated at Blue Lake. No personal bravery, no feats of arms, would avail against the murderous discipline and cooperation that Shelk’s cold brain had instilled into the Men of the Eagle Feather, and which they retained under Viper’s harsh rule.