They agreed.
“Now go convince our people,” Tsilka said.
CHAPTER 12
WINTER… IN SPITE OF TOR’S HOPE, IT CAME. THE SUN deserted Teahra Village. The clouded sky varied from gray to grayer. The nights were moonless, starless black. Wind whipped the rivertop to froth, and slanted the rain, which never stopped.
Drip. Drip.
Splash. Ashan awoke with wet hair stuck to her face. One corner of their rough shelter had come loose. She shook Tor awake. He put on his leathers, and tied the flapping hide up again.
“On, no!” she said. “My medicine pouch!” She picked it up. Water dripped from the fringe. She looked inside.
“My herbs are all wet! They’ll get moldy, and make people sick instead of well. What am I going to do? If I had a hut, I’d just hang them up by the fire.”
She couldn’t help sounding like a little girl with a broken doll.
“I’m sorry, love,” her mate said. “I’ll make you a fire, and you can heat rocks to dry your herbs on.”
“You’re sweet, Tor.”
He headed off to get coals.
As she always did when she had that lost little girl feeling, Ashan thought of Kai El and wished she could hug him. But Shahala little ones had been sleeping in the Tlikit cave since winter got serious. And besides, she was the Moonkeeper, not a little girl.
Hunched under the stretched hide with water dripping from its edges, she separated wet clumps of herbs. Winter in Teahra, she thought, is as different from winter in Anutash as a cougar is from a rabbit. She remembered gently falling snow, slowly piling up; bright days, starry nights. Rain, certainly, but it came and then it went, and people saw blue sky for a while before it returned. Cold, yes, but not like this. In this wet cold, it hardly mattered what people wore. They froze anyway, unless they stayed by a fire.
At least there was plenty of wood here. From branches to whole trees, it washed up where the land jutted into the water. The Shahala had never had wood just come to them like this.
“What a wonderful gift from the River Spirit who already gives so much,” some said.
Others said, “It’s a good thing the river brings us wood, since this barren place doesn’t grow any trees.”
That wasn’t quite true. Trees grew here and there along the Great River and up on the plateau—junipers, spruces, others the Shahala had never seen—but compared to the lofty giants of their homeland, these were hardly worth mentioning.
“That big oak,” Ashan once heard a man say of the single large tree in Teahra Village, “would make many huts.”
“Leave it alone,” she’d said.’ ’How can you think of killing something that has lived so long? Even the Tlikit, whom some of you consider savages, have saved that tree.”
Though a village fire was tended day and night by the women who lived under the oak, the Shahala used riverwood to keep a fire of their own blazing against an overhanging cliff where they liked to gather.
They saved the best pieces of riverwood for huts. On days like today, when it drizzled instead of poured, they worked on them—one for each family.
A family included a warrior, his mate, and their little ones. Girls moved out when they grew up. Boys brought mates home, and added little ones. If a hut became too crowded, a young man might have to make one of his own. Eventually, parents moved to the old people’s hut. With repairs by each generation, Shahala huts lasted forever.
Tor returned to their crude shelter against the cliff wall. He carried two flat stones in his leather-wrapped hands.
“Here,” he said, dropping them.
Ashan spread her herbs on the hot stones. She set a loose-woven basket upside down over them, to keep the heat in while letting the water out as fog. Tor made a fire with coals from his clamshell carrier. She placed stones around it, to take the place of the ones he had brought when they cooled. They chatted in the easy way of mates.
“This will take all day,” she said. “But I have to save these medicines. We may never see some of these plants again.”
“Spring will surprise you,” Tor said. “I think you’ll find more than you expect.”
From a goat bladder, Ashan poured water into a bowl-shaped basket given to her by a Tlikit woman named Skacha.
“I’m so impressed with these baskets that don’t leak,” she said. “I think this one is made of spruce roots and nettles.”
She added dried, ground fish, mashed juniper berries, and small hot rocks, and kept it moving with a stirring stick, changing the rocks several times until the mush was hot.
“This is different,” Tor said as he ate. “I like it.”
She said, “I thought juniper berries might help the taste. Fish, fish, fish. I think I’m turning into one.”
“It’s not just fishy Ashan. It’s salmon, and I could never tire of it.”
When they finished, Tor said, “It’s nice by this fire, but there’s a lot of dirt between me and our hut.”
He removed his shirt and leggings. She looked at him, wearing only loinskin and moccasins.
“It’s cold today. Aren’t you wearing anything but that?”
“There’s no reason to get my leathers soaked. It takes forever to dry anything. Besides, digging keeps me warm.”
“I think you’re turning into a Tlikit,” she said. They laughed, and Tor headed off to work.
As she tended the fire and dried her herbs, Ashan watched her man. The woman of twenty-two summers loved looking at him as much as the girl of fifteen summers had. Muscles bulging, working together or against each other; straining face; rain-sleek skin and hair. What a perfect thing, the body of a man and the way it moved—as he broke the hard ground with a stick, gouged, scooped, piled, tamped. Other men did the same work, but Tor was the only one worth watching.
The Shahala were making their huts on the flat middle ground of Teahra Village, with the Moonkeeper’s hut in the center.
Knowing Tor, their hut would be the largest and finest. For days he’d been working on the floor—a flat-bottomed, straight-sided hole; knee deep; round in shape; wide as three men. He piled the dirt around the outside. When the floor was finished, he would bury pieces of wood in the earth wall, and weave them with others to form sides and a roof with a round shape. Then he’d stretch hides over the frame—the same hides that had covered their hut in Anutash—leaving an opening for smoke in the top and a door in the side.
Ashan closed her eyes, imagined what it would be like inside, and sighed… dry, warm, and private… wonderful.
When Tor came for midday food, Ashan patted his wet hair and cold, red skin with fur, wrapped him in a bearskin, gave him hot stew, and rubbed the muscles in his shoulders as he ate.
“Look at that hut,” she said, though it was nothing yet but a half-dug hole with a pile of wood pieces next to it. “Good floor—smooth, flat, easy to sweep. Deep hole, high sides—it’ll be warm and dry—better in every way than sleeping under the sky. And Kai El will sleep with us instead of in the Tlikit cave, and we’ll have dry leathers, and—” She sighed. “Oh, Tor, it will be wonderful.”
“Mmmm,” he said, savoring the food, the shoulder rub, the praise. Ashan knew the value of appreciation to someone working so hard.
“Have you decided where to put our sleeping shelf?” she asked in a voice that suggested what—besides sleeping—happened there.
“Anywhere you want, my love. I’m doing this all for you. I do everything for you.”
CHAPTER 13
THE WORD “;SISTER” HAD SEVERAL MEANINGS. A Shahala woman called all the women in the tribe “sisters.” There were blood sisters, who had the same mother; time sisters, born of different mothers during the same summer. And spirit sisters, closest friends from one lifetime to the next, like soulmates were lovers over and over.
Ashan—lucky enough to have a spirit sister—valued the seasoned relationship with Mani that was like no other. Also time sisters, born twenty-two summers ago, Ashan and Mani had discovered the
ir spirit relationship as little girls. Tor was the best friend that a man could be, but Mani was a woman, and there were some things that could only be spoken of between women.
Mani and her mate, Lar, had two little ones: Tahm, a boy Kai El’s age; and Yayla, a baby girl. A good woman with a strong sense of right and wrong, and a healthy fear of the spirits, she was not afraid to speak freely to Ashan, as most people were. Moonkeeper or not, Mani knew Ashan would never harm her.
On a mild winter morning soon after the Moonkeeper’s hut was finished, Mani came to visit. Her long black hair, pulled back and tied, was damp from river washing. Her open, friendly face had a shiny, scrubbed look. She wore bison fur around her shoulders, a loose dress of two doeskins, and low elkhide moccasins.
The baby Yayla, snug in the cradleboard carried by her mother, moved only her curious eyes.
“Let’s sit outside,” Mani said. “The sunshine is good for the little one.” She propped the cradleboard against the hut wall, turning it so the arched hood shaded Yayla’s eyes.
The women talked about how this was as good a winter as either tribe could remember… lots of food, not much work, new things to be learned. Even the weather hadn’t been bad, except for some rainy times.
Ashan said, “I’m surprised by how well this has gone. It helps that the Tlikit have no chief to stand in my way.”
“Well, there’s one who’d like to be their chief, but they call her names when she’s not there… like Thinks She’s a Man.”
“And Ram with no Horns.”
They laughed at Tsilka, and made up a few names of their own. Ashan didn’t like her, without knowing why.
She said, “I haven’t had to do much in the way of being chief. People are getting along on their own. I know they disagree on many things, but each tribe seems content to let the other behave as it wishes. So far, wishes have not collided.”
“This is like living with a mate at the beginning, when everything seems wonderful just because it’s new. Wait till they learn to talk to each other.”
Ashan looked at her friend. “Do you think time will change tolerance into a struggle for power?”
Mani answered slowly: “You must make sure they know that to struggle with a Moonkeeper is to die.”
Ashan thought about that… Shahala people were born knowing it. They were also born knowing they would be led by women.
“Tlikit chiefs have always been men. I’m going to have a problem with that. They believe women are less. Even the women believe it.”
Mani made a sound of disgust. “You may need to kill a man or two to prove them wrong.”
“Only if everything else fails.”
Ashan, like Raga before her, had managed to lead without having to kill. She hoped she’d never have to, but if the good of the tribe required it, she wouldn’t hesitate.
After a pause, Mani said, “You know what’s going to be your biggest problem, Ashan? Those four women who live under the oak tree.”
“The Forest Women bother me too.”
“Forest Women,” Mani said. “That may be what Tor calls them, but they are slaves, and they bother everyone of Shahala blood.”
Ashan’s deep sigh blew strands of hair off her forehead.
“Women afraid to say ’no.’ Others who want to keep it that way. I don’t understand it, Mani.”
After they’d been in Teahra Village for a few days, Ashan had questioned Tor.
“Are those women being punished for wrongdoing?”
“No.”
“Why do they have to sleep on bare ground out in the open, when the rest sleep inside the cave? They do the work of others. They are the only ones who tend the fire. I’ve seen Tlikit women yell at them, and even hit them, yet they don’t fight back.”
Tor had explained what it meant to be a slave. Even though he’d told her before, to actually see it shocked Ashan. It had never occurred to her to make people work, to beat them, force them… well, as Moonkeeper, yes, but that would only be for the good of the tribe. Ashan thought the Tlikit acted out of laziness and meanness.
Tor had been surprised to find the Forest Women living in Teahra Village. Long ago, while searching for Ashan and Kai El, he had come upon them, questioned them, then left them unharmed. Their home was far away in the mountains near the Hidden Cave of Ehr. But now, somehow, the Tlikit people had the women, and forced them to work. They ground food for everyone; made plant parts ready for weaving; hauled water; kept the village fire day and night, so the Tlikit never had to wait, or start it themselves, which wasn’t easy, since they used firesticks instead of sparkstones. The Forest Women worked wood and stone into whatever was needed, and did anything else they were told to do.
“They aren’t tied up,” Ashan had blurted. “Why don’t they just go home?”
But even as she’d said it, she knew they couldn’t, unless they were willing to leave their little ones. The slavewomen would forever be tormented outsiders, but the Tlikit had accepted their little ones as their own. Five of them, from two to eight summers in age, slept in the cave, were mothered by Tlikit women, and played with Tlikit little ones as equals.
“It makes no sense,” Ashan had said. “Why do they not make the little ones slaves too? They could work. Look at what they did to Elia, and he was one of their own.”
“It makes perfect sense, if you’re a Tlikit,” Tor had said. “The Forest Children will grow up to be mates of new blood for Tlikit children. That’s more important to them than a few more slaves.”
“These drylanders seem to be very selfish creatures.”
“It’s because of where they came from. Their homeland was a cruel place. Think of it this way: The Shahala are like a mountain lion who kills an elk, eats all it wants, and is happy to leave the scraps for whatever hungry creature comes along. The mountain lion has no reason to be selfish. Now think of the vultures who gather for the meager remains. Those vultures squawk and beat each other with their wings.”
“I see what you mean, Tor, but these are people we’re talking about, not some old piece of meat.”
“I know. The problem of the Tlikit tribe was far more important than you understand. Until we came, they needed new blood more than anything. They couldn’t mate among themselves without horrible consequences. They were a dying tribe that could not save itself.”
When he made her look at it this way, she understood—there was nothing Ashan wouldn’t do to save the Shahala tribe. But understanding didn’t mean she could allow it to continue.
When her people asked about the slaves, Ashan told them to be patient. She would deal with it when she was ready. She wanted to understand everything before deciding what to do. So far, one thing she knew was that the Tlikit had always kept slaves, if they could get them. They said it was a right given by their gods.
Mani adjusted Yayla’s cradleboard for the path of the sun.
“Have you seen the sadness on their faces when they look at their little ones?” she asked.
Ashan nodded. “It grabs my heart. Losing their children must be the worst. They’re not really lost, like drowned in the river, or stolen by savages. But they might as well be. The mothers have no time for them in the day, and they can’t even hold them at night.”
“These Tlikit are so different,” Mani said. “I’ll never get used to them. Remember when Deyon brought his Outsider to Anutash? We washed and dressed her? Named her Kalatash, New Woman? We made her our sister. And so the Tlikit are with us, like they want to be our sisters. Then how can they be so cruel to those poor women?”
“I don’t know. But it’s wrong. I must stop it, somehow.”
“I’m glad it’s you who are Moonkeeper,” Mani said, not for the first time. “Spirits will show you what to do, Ashan. They always do.”
The women were quiet for a while.
Mani said, “This day is too nice to waste worrying about other people. You should go to that special place of yours and let the sun work magic on you.”
; It sounded wonderful to Ashan. She took leather-working tools and the hide that Mani had given to her last moon, and climbed the cliffs behind the village. She reached the sitting stone that she thought of as her friend with a view, and settled into the curve that fit her backside.
Takoma, she thought in Shahala, meaning “where spirit lines cross.” Lu It, she thought in Tlikit, meaning “sacred place.” It no longer surprised her when thoughts came with two names.
From her sitting rock on the high cliff, the Moonkeeper looked down on Teahra Village. She smiled, remembering the first time she’d seen it. She had thought, That can’t be a village—there are no huts. With the work of strong Shahala warriors, Teahra looked like a real village now, with several huts finished, and others on the way.
The Moonkeeper’s hut sat in the center. Sleeping warm and dry and having privacy made Ashan happy. When she lived under the crude shelter against the cliffs, people could see if she was busy or not, and come to her anytime they wanted. Now they had to ask permission to enter. And if she made some small lovemaking noise, people wouldn’t hear and think she was speaking with spirits in the dark.
Today, Teahra Village was alive with people enjoying the mild midwinter air. Women were doing their work. Men rested or talked. Boys and girls played a rough but friendly game, kicking a pouch full of pebbles, and keeping it out of the water. Faint shouts of fun in two languages reached Ashan.
Little ones, she thought. I love them. The first to learn each other’s words. Even before they learned words, they understood play. A good sign for the future.
A faint greenish yellow color in the air—the color of discontent—drew Ashan’s eyes to the far end of the village, where a small group sat far enough away not to be heard by others. The Tlikit woman who’d like to be chief was talking earnestly, gesturing with a finger pointed at the village, pounding her palm with her fist. The others were nodding their heads at whatever she was saying.
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