Calling the Gods

by Jack Lasenby

  His injured mother was nursed with tenderness. Her broken leg was splinted and recovered, but not her broken mind. One morning a lookout on the Horns saw her body float down the channel and out to sea.

  The old stories now spoke of the time before the coming of iron as a golden age. Year after year the soldiers returned demanding more, ever crueller. And then one year there was no tribute boat.

  “It may have sunk in a storm,” said the village elders. “Lador will send another next year.”

  But years passed, there was no tribute boat, and life was good. The Selene sang the gods on their great journey and accepted the sacrifice of their children. The village was rich in whale oil and stored food, and some forgot the black-sailed boat, the red-cloaked, arrogant captain, and the cruel soldiers. Those who were too young to remember began telling stories of a great town in the south, of its trading boat laden with rich, strange goods.

  “Things must have changed in Lador,” said an excitable young man, one night in the Great House. “The merchants must have overthrown the soldiers.”

  One of the elders frowned and said, “If they have done so, they will send a trading boat. They need our oil and dried fish, but we can afford to wait. It is safer.”

  “But we want the dyed cloth for new clothes, the canvas for sails, the beautiful beads and necklaces. Life must have been wonderful in the old days when we traded with Lador.”

  “We can weave our own cloth, make our own sails and ropes,” said an elderly woman, one who had been the Selene in her youth. “As for the rest, none of it was necessary, especially not if it meant soldiers killing, and stealing our children. We must do nothing to offend the gods.”

  The members of the family which had lost its mother and father years ago stood and left the Great House, the silent Hornish way of showing disapproval at the young man’s words. He was too excited to be embarrassed.

  “What about iron? We can’t live without iron.”

  “We have enough knives and axes, all the cooking pots we need, shovels, hammers, and the rest of the tools,” said the chief ironsmith. “And we have iron bars to make more, enough for many years.”

  “We have time on our side,” the elders decided. “It is wiser to wait.”

  The young man’s mother spoke. “Why don’t we take our oil and dried fish to Lador ourselves? That’s what we did in the good old days.”

  “She’s right.”

  “We want to see Lador.”

  “It’s not fair. We’ve only heard stories about it.”

  “You are too young to remember that the soldiers took our children, killed our men and women. They stole our oil and dried fish and called it tribute. The more time that passes the better. When we need iron again, let us first send spies to Lador, to find if the merchants are in power. The merchants never did us harm.”

  That is how it was when my parents grew up. Ennish and I were born, and Hulsa and Palik began telling us the stories of Hornish, and we heard them repeated under the roots of the tree that held up the roof of the Great House. A few years later, Tobik was born, a serious little boy, and then Peck and Patch — as noisy as their older brother was quiet.

  “Like a pair of cheerful eels,” Palik said, “sliding in and out of the water all day.”

  I was made the Selene and sang the gods on their journey across the world and back. Good year followed good year until some young men stole two boatloads of oil and dried herrings and sailed to Lador. One boat limped home with only three men. They said both boats had been seized, the crews held prisoner on the stone wharf of Lador, each man branded with a cross burned into the back of his right hand.

  “One night,” said a young man called Pokai, “the guards forgot to shackle the three of us. We found one of our boats loaded with food and water, ready for a journey, and sailed for home. By daylight we were out of sight of Lador.”

  “Did you sail north?” asked Palik.

  “As fast as we could.”

  “We must act at once,” said Palik to the elders. “Here is what we must do …”

  Two weeks later, the lookouts on the Horns beat their warning gongs, and there off the narrow entry was a large boat furling black sails. Rowed by our missing men shackled with iron chains, the boat tied up alongside our jetty and a red-cloaked captain led the soldiers ashore. Pokai and the two other men were recognised and dragged down to the jetty, ankles fettered, and thrown aboard. But first their branded right hands were chopped off.

  The soldiers seized everything they found in Hornish: barrels of oil, smoked sausages, dried whale meat, fish, our stores of oats and barley, and forced the villagers to carry it aboard past the three hands lying curled in blood on the jetty.

  “Have your tribute ready next autumn,” the red-cloaked captain told the elders. “Double this year’s. Try to deceive us, and we will take all your children as slaves.”

  The villagers lined the cliffs and wept while, flogged by the soldiers, our shackled men rowed the tribute boat out under the Horns. As they hoisted the sails, the soldiers jeered and flung overboard Pokai and the other two men — still fettered.

  My father had already shoved down a dinghy. I jumped in and we rowed out fast, just in time to rescue Pokai clinging with his one hand to the flat ledge at the foot of Skull, where he had been carried by a wave. The other two had disappeared, dragged down in the whirlpool under Dis. The black-sailed tribute boat was already hull-down in the south.

  Chapter Twelve

  Why the Gods Were Angry

  But for my father, we would have starved that winter,” I reminded Ennish.

  “We must act at once,” Palik said to the elders as soon as Pokai and the other two young men had escaped from Lador, returned, and told their story.

  “If the soldiers lost the directions for finding Hornish, they know them now. Pokai and the other two young men were meant to escape, that’s why their shackles were left off, why the boat had food and water, all ready to sail. They fell into the trap, sailed north, and gave away the direction of Hornish. The soldiers will be coming after them.

  “Let’s hide most of our oil and food in the tunnels we dug for coal,” Palik suggested. “They’ll steal what we leave in the village and think that’s all we have.”

  The stores were hidden only just in time. As Palik had said, the soldiers arrived, seized all they found, but did not think to search outside the village. They threw Pokai and the other two overboard, and sailed away.

  The same day after saving Pokai, my father led several boats back to the fishing camp where they netted some late herring shoals before the cold white monster crept up from the south. With the stores hidden in the tunnels, there was enough to carry us through to spring.

  All winter, the villagers argued in the Great House. Some wanted to sail south and rescue our enslaved men. Others said we should hide all our oil and food in the tunnels, keep nothing in Hornish. We should move permanently to the fishing camp. We should pay the tribute. We should pray to the gods. We should hope the tribute boat wouldn’t come again. One man, Oilen, said we should fight the soldiers when they returned next year.

  “We can stop them coming through the entry under Skull and Dis. Roll boulders off the cliffs. Rocks. Spears. Arrows. We’ll show them.”

  “Oilen’s right. We’ll show them.”

  My father stood. “Even if we kill some, the rest will just sail back to Lador, return with more boats and soldiers, and destroy us. Lador is too strong for us to fight, so we must be cleverer.”

  “How? What do you mean? What will being clever do for us?”

  But Palik sat down and would say no more. Later, though, he said to me, “There is trouble ahead.”

  “From Lador?”

  “From within Hornish. The elders are going to have to work hard to hold us together. That’s part of your job as the Selene, too. Don’t be surprised if you are attacked; that is part of being a leader.”

  The stump of Pokai’s wrist was infected and slow to hea
l. Still white-faced, and thin from blood poisoning, he came one night to the Great House and sat with his head down.

  All evening he listened silent to the arguments, then his father Telak, an unreliable old man who had never been an elder, got up.

  “My son wants to say something.”

  People shouted. Pokai had brought such trouble upon us, some said, he had lost the right to speak; some were for banishment; others were moved by pity.

  The elders listened to everyone, talked together, and Kelak called for silence.

  “The elders say that whatever Pokai did, he has not yet had a trial. We must be fair, and we must be certain before we condemn anyone, and even then everyone must vote, as we have always done. Until the shells are counted, the elders say Pokai is still one of us with a right to be heard.”

  His older sister Ulseb helped Pokai to his feet.

  “Before they threw us overboard—” His voice broke, and people leaned to hear him, some chirruping sympathy, others staring coldly.

  “Tell us, Pokai,” said my father.

  For a moment Pokai stood straight. “Before they threw us overboard, the soldiers taunted the three of us with their plans for Hornish. Because they despised us, they didn’t think we understood them properly, and they were going to drown us anyway.

  “They are coming back for the tribute next year and the year after, but the third year they are going to take all the children and young women. And …” Pokai’s voice failed, his body slumped, and his head hung.

  “And?”

  “In the third year,” Pokai whispered, “they are going to kill the old women and all the men, and settle Hornish with their own people to get the whale oil and the fish Lador wants.”

  The confusion of shouts and cries in the Great House was so loud, Kelak struggled to be heard.

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “I tried, but everyone thought I was raving because of the blood fever.” Pokai swayed, and Ulseb put her arm about him. He gazed at my father and dropped his eyes. “I am sorry,” we heard him whisper.

  People shouted at Pokai for bringing down the anger of Lador. Kelak tried to quieten them, but the uproar went on until, half-carried by his family, Pokai shuffled out of the Great House.

  For several days, there was confusion: families disagreed, and neighbours argued. Pokai’s body was found floating in the cove, and rumours said he had been murdered and that he had killed himself. That night my father stood again in the Great House. People fell silent; just to look at Palik’s strong face was to feel confident.

  “Pokai made us a great gift.” Palik paused. “He told the truth. The soldiers will return next year, demand the tribute, and make us load it aboard as they always do. But now we know their plans, we can outwit them, thanks to Pokai. He will not have died in vain.”

  “You killed my son,” said Telak, high old voice cracking.

  “Palik and Selene saved Pokai,” several cried, but the deranged old man would not be comforted. His wife, Tilsa, stood hissing, her basilisk eyes on me, then on Palik, and back to me. I felt the scorch of her glare before she and Ulseb led away Telak dribbling curses and obscenities, followed by Ulseb’s children: Larish a girl about my own age; Ansik a boy of about nine or ten; and a little girl Lorne. The threats and cries dwindled, and there was a rustle in the Great House as everyone turned to Palik.

  A moan lifted. “What can we do?”

  “Lador is stronger,” said Palik, “so we must be cleverer.”

  “You said that before.”

  “Here is what we will do. When they come and demand the tribute, we will grumble, not too loudly; we will be resentful, not enough to make the soldiers strike us; we will be reluctant, but we will show our fear. They will strut and feel confident; and we will load the tribute for them.”

  “Is that what you mean by being clever?”

  “What sense is that?”

  Palik nodded. “Pokai said they are coming back for two years, for the tribute, and the third year to destroy us. This coming year they will be off their guard because they think we don’t know their plan. When we are spread out among the soldiers, Kelak will give a signal; we will draw our hidden knives, and each one of us will kill the nearest soldier. Before they know what is happening, most will be dead.”

  “But you said yourself, Lador will send more boats and more soldiers.”

  “You are right. Lador is stronger, so they are never going to leave us alone.” Palik shook his head. “We must be cleverer, outwit them.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “By the time they send more soldiers,” said my father, “we will have vanished and found another place to live.”

  “But Hornish is our home.”

  “What about the gods?”

  “You’re mad, Palik.”

  “Let us make peace with Lador.”

  “We haven’t enough boats to shift the village.”

  “Where would we go?”

  The voices got louder, then died away.

  “If we are clever,” Palik looked around with a calm smile, “the big tribute boat from Lador will already be loaded with much of our oil and food. We surprise and kill the soldiers, and finish loading, not just the stores but all our tools and clothes, plants, seeds, and enough young animals to breed again: pigs, sheep, goats, fowls — everything we need to start life somewhere else. With the tribute boat as well as our own boats, there will be plenty of room. What we cannot take, we burn.”

  “Burn the houses?”

  “Everything.”

  “The Great House?”

  “Leave our Great House for strangers to profane?” Palik shook his head, and there was a murmur of agreement. “Before Lador can send another boat,” he said, “we will be safe.”

  “But where will we go?”

  “All our lives we have listened to the old story about the voyage our ancestors made here from the land in the north. Three days west they sailed, and twelve days south, and they came to Hornish.”

  “That’s just a story.”

  “They are sailing directions,” said Palik. “That is why we tell the old stories, to keep the knowledge alive in case we ever need it, in case our children’s children need it.

  “Lador might think their tribute boat sank in a storm; they are more likely to suspect something and send another boat with more soldiers at once, if winter lets them. By the time it comes, they will find only ashes and the bodies of their dead.

  “And by that time, we will have found our old land and settled there, twelve days north and three days east. We will find a safe place to land, build a new Great House, a new village, plant gardens and orchards, catch fish, and net herrings again. Selene will sing the gods home, and they will send their children for the sacrifice. We will be cleverer and beat great Lador before Lador destroys us.”

  “He’s right.”

  Some grasped Palik’s idea at once; others wept and moaned, rocking themselves, unwilling to think of leaving our home on its isthmus between the golden bay and the western ocean.

  “Selene,” cried an old woman, “can you sing the gods their songs in another place?”

  I stood beside my father. “Yes.”

  “If we abandon the gods, the gods will abandon us,” another old woman cried.

  “Have you ever thought: the gods need us?” Palik smiled. “Without us, there would be no Selene to sing them on their great journey home. Trust the gods to look after us, as they trust us to look after them.” He sat to let people think and talk.

  One by one the elders agreed. People liked the idea of little Hornish being cleverer than great Lador, but some spoke against the planned killing.

  “It is not the way we do things in Hornish,” they said. “We have a fair trial, and everyone casts a vote with the shells. And even if we find them guilty, banish them out to sea, make them run the gauntlet, we give them a chance to live.”

  “We have never fought anyone before.”


  “The old stories say we came here looking for peace, so our ancestors must have known fighting.”

  “Have we the right to kill people — even soldiers — without a warning?”

  “We have always taught our children it is wrong to kill. That is why we have the banishing.”

  The elders listened and called a meeting in the Great House, where Kelak said, “It is true that we have tried to live without violence, banishing only when somebody has killed or broken our most important laws.”

  “That’s right,” somebody called.

  “Violence is violence,” said somebody else.

  Kelak waited for silence. “We do not wish to be violent.”

  There was a long pause, then a murmur of agreement from almost everyone.

  “There is another way of looking at this,” said Kelak. “If it is wrong to kill somebody, then it is also wrong to let somebody kill us — without trying to stop them: we would be helping the killer, and that is wrong.”

  I listened and thought I agreed, but some people were unsure about it. Later I asked my father, “Was Kelak right?”

  “Put it this way,” said Palik. “We have the right to defend ourselves. That’s simpler, and most people would understand it.”

  “It is so obvious.”

  “To us,” said Palik. “But Pokai’s family want something more. Telak is out of his mind, but Tilsa and Ulseb have always wanted power in Hornish and think this is their chance to seize it. We must watch them.”

  At the next meeting, Kelak put it to the people that we had the right to defend ourselves, and there was general agreement. We would kill the soldiers, but only because they were going to kill us.

  Our father’s friend Torkus, the cunning man who cured our ills, showed us where to stab a man, to kill him quickly. All winter we rehearsed, knives hidden under tunics, tramping backwards and forwards from the storehouses to the jetty, carrying dummy loads, timing it so there would always be plenty of us where the soldiers grouped themselves on the jetty, on the boat itself, and at the storehouses.