The Caves of Perigord

by Martin Walker

  “I thank you, honored colleagues, for this welcome,” he said, surprised that he was not stammering in his pleasure and surprise.

  Suddenly, a torch flickered on the rim of the gathering, and the Keeper of the Bulls came in quickly to join them, his sister behind him with an infant whimpering in her arms.

  “Forgive me, brothers. A man without a woman is not master of his time when a babe frets.”

  “The child is ailing,” said his sister, and the other women crowded around in concern, leaving just the men around Deer and the Keeper of the Bulls. Deer noted how swiftly the focus had moved from him to the late arrival.

  The Keeper of the Bulls bowed to Deer. “Salute and welcome to our new brother.”

  He had brought a bowl of new berries and laid them casually at Deer’s feet. Then from his own belt, he took a long flint knife, a finely wrought stone of green whose blade was as curved and even as a laurel leaf, its handle wrapped in strips of shrunken rawhide. The thongs tailed off into a long loop that slung around the wearer’s neck. He came up to Deer and took his arm. Staring fixedly into Deer’s eyes, he ran the edge of the sharp blade lightly over the youth’s forearm. He lifted the blade to his lips and blew away the scraps of hair the keen knife had shaved from the skin.

  “Use it well, brother,” he said, without a trace of a smile. He took the loop from around his own neck, slipped it over Deer’s, and gave him the knife. It was a princely gift. The Keeper of the Bulls leaned forward and embraced Deer, who felt the power of the man, before he stood back and thanked him in deep sincerity. Perhaps he had misjudged this man, this rival for Moon. The bonds of the Keeper’s brotherhood had proved sacred to him as well. He slipped the knife into his belt, noting how its narrowing between blade and handle made it fit snugly.

  The woman of the Keeper of the Horses left the knot of women around the fretting babe and led Deer to the broad log before her fire and bade him sit. The other Keepers settled alongside him, and Moon took a long, green knife of flint and a smooth brown stick that had been sharpened to a point as two of her brothers lifted the long spit from the fire. Holding the meat firmly with the stick, Moon began slicing the steaming, aromatic flesh. The first and honored slice she placed on a warmed stone and brought to Deer. Her head seemed to be downturned, but her eyes laughed with delight at him from under her lashes as he bowed and thanked her. This time he did stammer.

  “You’ll be ready for the time of mating,” chortled the Keeper of the Bear at his side. “Looks as if someone has already chosen you.”

  “Is the feast always given to a new Keeper? Was this how it was in your time?” he asked, skirting the topic of Moon, although his eyes followed her as she served the other Keepers.

  “My time was a long time ago. We had just started the work in the cave then. My father made a feast for me,” he said. “But you have no father, so the Keeper of the Horses said the brotherhood should attend you.”

  “You attend me just this evening and in matters of the cave, or at all times? Forgive me, but I know not the customs.”

  “Why, at all times. At the hunt, at times of sacrifice, at times of betrothal, and even in time of war, the Keepers stand together. Our hearths are always open to our brother Keepers. We are bound like kin to take one another’s part, just as the hunters and the flint men do. We mourn one another’s deaths and celebrate one another’s births.”

  “And if this rule be broken, if one Keeper should stand against another?”

  “That happens not. We have our council where all matters are discussed until we are resolved and of one mind. Yes, there are arguments, but finally we come to agreement. That is the way of the brotherhood. You saw this evening how it is sacred to us all.”

  The next morning, Deer took his place in the line of young men who gathered before the cave. The other Keepers stood behind the sacrifice fire, and once again the Keeper of the Bulls had donned his eagle’s headdress and placed the bull’s skull behind the fire. Beside the fire stood the leaders of the hunters, the fishers, the flint men, and the woodmen. Each bore his sign of office, the bow and the barbed fish spear, the great flint ax and the smooth and blackened club, whose head was carved into the shape of a bird with a sharp, pecking beak. Two boys held the young reindeer that had been saved from the slaughter at the cliff. Its front and rear feet were hobbled with thongs, but its eyes rolled and it kept trying to duck its head down between its own shoulders.

  One youth from each clan had qualified for manhood at the great hunt, and they stepped forward in turn as their clan leader called them. Each stripped off his garment, and each was given the ceremonial weapon of his clan, except for Deer. The Keeper of the Bulls took from the edge of the fire the bowl of red clay and the stick whose end had been flattened and shredded into the form of a brush and handed them to Deer. No women were allowed to witness this rite.

  “Mark it well for your fellow youths. Lead them this day to the common kill that will bind you all as men,” chanted the Keeper of the Bulls.

  Deer advanced on the terrified reindeer, which froze immobile. He painted one red circle around its eye, and another low down on its neck where the shoulders met, and another on each side where the ribs parted and rose to the soft flesh of the belly. The two boys scurried away. Deer went around to the rear of the trembling beast, leaned his chest on its rump and wrapped his arms around its haunches, clutching it to him to keep it still. A trickle of its urine splashed his feet. The lad from the fishers stood to one side, his fish spear aimed at the red circle on the reindeer’s side. The young hunter stood on the other side, a little to the rear, so his arrow would penetrate deep into its vitals. The one with the flint ax stood by its shoulder, his weapon raised high to cleave down to the bones where the neck rose from the shoulders. And the young woodman stood at the beast’s head, the pecking beak on the club’s head pointing forward.

  The fire flared as the Keeper of the Bulls tossed dried tinder into the flames, and called, “As one for your common manhood-kill.”

  The arrow flew, the fish spear thrust, the great ax fell, and the pecking beak slammed deep into the rolling eye, and Deer felt a great spasm of power tense the haunches as the young reindeer died and its front legs collapsed. Deer unclasped his hands, let the rump sink to the ground, and taking up his bowl of red clay moved to the great cleft at its neck to add the steaming fresh blood to the clay. He stirred it thoroughly, and then went first to the fisher, to paint the sign of the fish on the lad’s heaving chest. Then to the flint man to paint the mark of the ax. Then to the hunter, to paint the curved, taut bow. Finally to the woodman, to paint the sign of the club with its bird’s beak.

  Then Deer raised his arms and stood stock-still as each of the other four in turn drew a mark on his chest, a long downward stripe from between his nipples to his belly, and then a fan of thinner strokes that rose to his shoulders. he looked down at his chest. It looked a little, just enough, like the brush he had used to daub the targets on the reindeer and then to daub them. They were bound now in common manhood. There was but one final part of the ceremony.

  Dry Leaf emerged from the mass of boys with his lamp, and waited for the other Keepers to light their lamps at the sacrifice fire, and then came to stand beside Deer, his small hand cupped protectively around the charcoal wick. The Keepers led the way, and then Deer with his bowl of bloody clay, and then two by two, the blooded new men followed, each accompanied by his clan leader.

  The Keeper of the Bulls led them into the main chamber of the cave, and stood beside the great black bull he had painted. Each of the other Keepers stood beside one of his own beasts.

  “That you will have the courage of the bull,” began the Keeper of the Bulls, his voice seeming to come eerily from his eagle’s beak in the dim light of the lamps.

  “That you will have the power of the bear,” intoned the Keeper of the Bears.

  “That you will be surefooted as the ibex,” echoed the Keeper of the Ibex.

  “That you will hav
e the grace of horses,” chanted their Keeper.

  “That you will have the speed of the deer,” intoned Deer.

  Now Deer alone led the other four youths who had joined him in manhood deep into the next chamber of the cave. This was an act for the five of them alone, the mark of their own generation. The choice of place and sign was theirs. Deer, conscious of the time of mating that lay ahead, led them with his weak and flickering lamp to a female beast, a black cow of leaping grace. There was just room for the five of them to stand abreast.

  “Here,” he said, laying his hand on a stretch of white chalk beside the cow’s muzzle, and handing the bowl and brush to each of the others in turn. Each of the four drew a long, vertical line, almost parallel to the next. The woodman, clumsy with the unaccustomed brush, allowed a small vein in the rock to jerk his stroke, and left a slight angle in his line. No matter. Deer drew a half line alongside it to make his own mark, not quite knowing why, but feeling that the pattern was more pleasing. Then he drew a horizontal line that joined the tops of the strokes, and met the cow’s mouth, and turned and looked at his fellows, their faces solemn in the dim light.

  “That bonds us as one on this day of manhood,” he said.

  Then he drew another horizontal line to join them at bottom, using the two outermost vertical lines to make a square. “That is the sign of the square, drawn in the blood of our kill, that shows that our friendship of this day can never be broken,” he said, and with his thumb drew a small square on each of the other’s foreheads. He handed the bowl to the woodman and said, “Paint one side of the square on my forehead.” Each of the others in turn drew another side of the square, the hunter’s tongue pursed at the corner of the lips as he concentrated to make the last corner meet.

  Without another word, Deer led the other four out of the narrow gallery and into the main cave where the clan leaders and the Keepers stood waiting. They marched past them and out to the sacrifice fire, where they placed the bowl with its remains of bloodied clay on the embers and then added the brush. They stood and watched them smoke, catch fire, and burn, as the older men emerged from the cave and began to skin and joint the sacrificed reindeer, and set up spits of green wood to roast the meat.

  “It is done,” said the hunter. “We are men now.”

  “Aye,” said the woodman. “We will have women tonight.”

  As the sun began sinking and glinting red on the river, the women came singing up the hill, the three maidens leading them with flowers in their hair. The young widows had sewn feathers into the seams of their tunics and their children danced in excitement beside them. The married men took torches, lit them in the fire, and then shuffled into two long lines, making a wide passage that led to the fire, jesting with their women as the young girls, eyes downcast, approached.

  Again the Keeper of the Bulls dominated the ceremony, standing in his eagle’s mask by the great horned skull, flanked by the chief hunter with his bow and the chief woodman with his beaked club. Each of them had a clan daughter to be betrothed this day. Standing in line with his four fellows, Deer caught his breath as Moon came forward with the other two maidens to lay flowers before the feet of the young men. Heads down, they backed away, and the two long lines of men began the wedding chant, stamping their feet in steady rhythm as the young widows came with flowers in their turn.

  Five newly made young men, and three maidens. Two men who had lost their women in childbirth, and five widows. One of them would go back to a lonely bed this night, waiting for another year.

  The chief hunter and chief woodman began lengthening the fire, poking the embers while other men brought dry wood to feed the new flames until the fire was as long as three spear lengths. The oldest woman of the village, not a tooth left in her head, limped up to the bull’s skull and poured a bowl of milk, freshly taken from the breasts of nursing mothers, between its horns, to ensure that all the matings would be fruitful.

  The two men who had lost their women stepped forward to the fire, one hunter and one fisherman. The hunter laid a fresh-killed rabbit at his feet, and his bow beside it. The fisherman laid a fat pike on the stone before him, and rested the shaft of his fishing spear beside it. The oldest woman went down to the group of waiting widows, and clearly by some arrangement the women had made among themselves, took two of them, one by each hand, and led them with their children to the waiting men. One hand still clasped to the old woman, each of the widows stretched out her other hand to one of the men. Each took it, and then each couple ran to the long line of fire and leaped, hand in hand, across the flames. It was done.

  The old woman went back to the three remaining widows, and led them in line to the five new-made men. One had a babe at her breast, and another had toddlers clinging to her skirts. For a man who wanted sons, the certainty of fertility was important. The third widow was the fairest of all them all, but had no children with her. Deer remembered the body of her husband, the bold young hunter, being brought back to the village.

  From his side, the young woodman with the mark of the beaked club still on his chest, was the first to step forward and offer his hand to the girl with the babe in her arms. She took him, and they ran to leap the fire. Then the young fisherman stepped forward and offered his hand to the childless widow. She turned her face aside to the fire, toward the bull and the immobile man in his eagle’s mask. She had refused the fisherman. Blushing deep red in the thin light of dusk, the young man shrugged and offered his hand to the woman with the toddlers. She took him, and the old woman gathered the children to her as the new couple ran down to jump the fire.

  Three young men remaining, three maidens. And the fair, proud widow. Deer’s eyes were fixed on Moon, across the open space before the long fire, and hers on him.

  The three fathers of the maidens stepped from their place among the men, and their mothers came forth from their place among the women, and each stood by their daughter.

  The old woman came for the first group, led by a sturdy flint man with thick, scarred hands, and brought them to the men. Again, there had been an arrangement, this time within the clan. The flint folk often stuck together. The young flint man with the ax sign now smeared on his chest stepped forward and offered a grinning girl his hand. She took it, and her father clasped their two hands in both of his, and released them to run hand in hand to leap the fire.

  Deer was trembling now as the old woman limped back to their small knot of waiting parents and maidens. She took the fisherman by the hand, and led him and his woman and his daughter toward the men. Deer’s eyes were fixed on the Keeper of the Horses, his arm affectionate on Moon’s shoulder. Her face was white, her body immobile.

  The fisherman’s daughter came to stand before Deer and the young hunter, the only two men remaining. She was fair-haired, with a round and cheerful face and plump hands, and her eyes darting excitedly from one young man to the other. Her breasts strained against the skin of her tunic and the flowers in her hair were blue. Deer closed his eyes and begged that she find favor in the eyes of the hunter. He opened them and glanced at his last neighbor, his stomach churning and not daring to breathe, and saw the lad’s face alight with joy as the girl beamed devotedly at him and they each stretched out a hand at the same moment to the other. They had arranged this already, Deer thought, and a great wave of relief swept through him and he wished them well as they trotted, hand in hand and eye fixed upon loving eye, to leap the fire.

  And now there was nobody and nothing in his thoughts save Moon. No fire, no lines of chanting, stamping men, no knots of women with their raucous laughs as each couple ran off, no sound of children nor crackle of flames. Not even the childless widow, standing proud and lonely where she had been rooted since she refused the young fisherman.

  There was nothing but Moon, walking toward him, her head up and her eyes alight for him. His vision cleared, and he saw her mother smiling fondly at him, and the Keeper of the Horses looking proud and pleased, and there were bright tears in Moon’s eyes and his
own filled and the old woman cackled as she felt their young excitement. She was his. He was a man and a Keeper and Moon was his. Deer’s hand came up unbidden, and Moon’s lifted to grasp it, and then came a great shout of “Hold!” and the Keeper of the Bulls strode toward them.

  The childless widow turned a pace toward the commanding figure with the eagle’s head. He was not alone. His friend the chief hunter strode at one shoulder, and the chief woodman, with his great beaked club over his shoulder, at the other.

  “Hold,” the Keeper of the Bulls repeated. And as he stopped, the chanting of the men died away, and a great hush fell. They stood in tension, the Keeper of the Bulls and his two attendants, equidistant from the childless widow and the Keeper of the Horses and his woman and daughter. They formed a triangle from which Deer felt suddenly excluded.

  “You have forgotten, old woman, that one womanless man remains,” said the Keeper. “And a womanless man takes precedence over a newmade youth.”

  The childless widow, her face light with anticipation, clutched one hand to her breast, and gazed fixedly at the imposing man. This was why she had refused the fisherman, Deer understood. There was an arrangement here, he told himself, clamping down on the knot of dread that gripped his belly.