She had no children left to offer her a grudging corner of their hut. Her daughters were all gone; some bright-eyed and willingly, others reluctantly bartered, one simply vanished, seized in some raid. She had never given the old man a son to stay in the village and hear his forefathers remembered in the lists of names recited by the painted men.
He had never reproached her for bearing only daughters. She turned away from the doorway of the hut to look back at the old man lying dead on the earthen floor, wrapped in hides. He had not beaten her. He had not given her up to be fodder for the beast, as some would have done. After all, he had not chosen her for his woman, not wooed her away from the maidens' dances beneath the eyes of the sky. She had just been his share when his raiding party had ransacked the village she could barely
recall, somewhere through the dark forest and beyond the green grassland.
She returned to the doorway, looking out into the rapidly darkening twilight. They would come for her. When they decided she offered the village nothing in return for whatever food and water she consumed. When the beast came, and the painted man demanded fodder for the creature, in return for his favour for the village. No one would risk his disfavour.
Should she just wait patiently? More than one old woman or old man had done so, in the long years she'd lived here. They had lived out their last days with full bellies and soft hides to sleep on. When he had come, the painted man, whichever one it had been, he had praised their courage and their devotion to their children in offering up this last good deed.
Others had chosen a quicker end to life's trials. Could she throw herself into the flames when they came to burn the hut around the old man? He had earned that much respect from the hunters — his body would not become fodder for the beast or be cast out into the forest to sate some lesser scavenger. Besides, the dwelling was dead now that he was dead and could never be lived in again.
What else could she do? She looked back once more at the old man lying still and lifeless in the gloom. He had been kind and he had been brave. He had hunted the great birds of the grasslands and the wily lizards of the muddy rivers. He had never returned empty-handed from the chase. He had never given in. Nor had she. He had taught her that much. She had fought to save him from the fever that had laid him low, cooling him with poultices and bringing gourd after gourd of water from the river, her burdened back aching from the long walk.
She fought back tears and despair. Was she just going to wait here until they ushered her out of the hut, their
eyes averted? They wouldn't want to see her weeping as they brought an ember from the communal hearth to fire the walls of woven lath and the parched grass thatch.
No. She would not. Her stiff knees and hips protested as she rose from the hides she had been sitting upon. Bending painfully, she picked up the topmost hide, a length she had scraped and soaked and oiled to a thin softness none of the other women in the village could match. She wrapped it around her desiccated nakedness, knotting the corners over one withered breast. Moving slowly around the hut, she amassed a small pile of prizes in the middle of the second hide, a thicker piece with scurrier's mottled fur still clinging to it in matted patches.
Her face fell as she considered a knife that the old man had made, the black stone rippling along the cutting edge. Some young hunter would have had his eye on that. He might even now be offering to help burn the hut, in hopes of finding that knife and keeping it for himself. If she took it with her, someone would know and they would pursue her. Such a treasure wasn't to be lost along with some useless old woman.
She could take the lump of black stone, though, half-used but still worth having. Together with the bent length of thick bone, battered with use. Her finely tapered digging stick, worn smooth and well fitted to her swollen-knuckled hand, was certainly of no interest to anyone else. Nor were the few scraps of hide, the skein of cord twisted from pounded bark and the best of the gourds she had diligently gathered throughout the long hot season. She and the old man had feasted on the soft flesh that was so much easier on their gums and remaining teeth. Then she had dried the carefully emptied husks and offered them to women tied to the village by their crawling and suckling children. The mothers had traded eggs that their older children had dug from the sandy banks of the river
or sometimes even a portion of the meat that their men had brought them.
Her stomach rumbled at the recollection of sweet, slippery liver, so much easier to chew. She was hungry. How could she leave with an empty belly? Would someone take pity on her if she joined the circle around the hearth? Perhaps. Perhaps they would come and burn the hut while she wasn't here. Perhaps the hunters had already decided who would keep her tied like a dog to a post of his hut until the painted man and the great beast came again.
Careful to stay in the shadows, she looked out of the doorway once again. Men and women alike were unidentifiable shadows crossing the firelight of the communal hearth. The noise of the naked children running around rose like bird chatter above the crackle of the flames. She heard the occasional chink of one stone pot against another as the women set their families' meals in the outer ring of embers. The adults' conversations were too quiet to hear, men and women standing with their heads close together, some being shaken with regret. Others wiped tears from their eyes.
The defiance that had set her shouting at the old man in the days of their youth rose within her. Could she steal an ember from the hearth unnoticed and fire the hut herself? That would deny those who relished the prospect, and would spare those who would weep a few discreet tears for her fate, and out of fear of their own old age.
It would also draw unwelcome and immediate attention. Besides, she had nothing to carry an ember in. The stoppered hollow bones that the old man was wont to carve were all gone. Everything had been traded for food to sustain him through his slow decline and that final cruel fever.
She glanced behind her towards her own stone cooking pot lost in the darkness beyond the old man's body. There
was no way she could carry that away with her. All the same, the water it held would deceive her hungry belly for a little while. She slipped back into the darkness to kneel stiffly down by the heavy stone bowl. Cupping her hands, she drank as much as she could of the water she had so laboriously brought up from the river.
When she felt uncomfortably full, she returned to the mottled scurrier hide and gathered up the corners. Trussing the whole bundle with a fraying rope of plaited bark, she clutched it in her fleshless arms and edged close to the doorway. Peering out, she satisfied herself that everyone else was busy around the hearth or their own dwellings. The old man's hut was on the edge of the village. It had been in the middle when he had first brought her here. When the changing seasons saw them all return to this place, the old huts were repaired and news huts built but never on the same spot where a previous dwelling had died with its builders. So, as the years passed, a gap had opened up as the huts that had surrounded theirs were burned and the rest of the village edged away. The old man had outlived everyone else in the hunting party that had brought her here as a captive.
She stood by the corpse for a moment. There was only the faintest hint of decay in the still darkness. He had been kind to her, even when she had tried to run away. He had taken care that her bonds weren't too tight and had refused to listen to the older men insisting that he beat her into submission. One of the girls taken with her had died from such a beating and two others regularly bore bruises until they had proved their worth by bearing children. He hadn't even forced himself on her, waiting until she finally turned to him in loneliness and despair and surprising her with tenderness that offered at least Heeling gratification to lighten her misery. Eventually she had been happy enough in her way, with her daughters,
and when they were gone, with the old man. He had made no secret of sharing her sorrow at the loss of their children.
She looked back out to the distant fire in the centre of the village. She had never gi
ven up in her youth. Even in the darkest nights she had never been tempted to do the same as that girl who had refused all food and secretly eaten dirt from the floor of her hut until she had died. She wasn't about to give up, even in this wretched old age.
Clutching her bundle, she stole out of the doorway, pressing so close to the fragile walls that splinters from the laths caught at her skin wrap. Heart pounding, she slipped into the shadows by the side of the hut and waited. No shout of surprise or greeting came and she slipped further round to put the whole hut between her and the rest of the village. Still no one seemed to have noticed her.
Scrubby trees and bushes had reclaimed the deserted plots where those long dead had once built their huts. Beyond the rustling undergrowth, the taller trees of the dark forest rose up black against the star-filled sky. The twin eyes of the sky looked down on her. Half-closed, they still shed enough light to show her the faint scar of the path worn by women and children fetching kindling from the forest margins and water from the distant river in the cool of each morning. She hurried away down the track, moving as quietly as she could lest she startle some ground-roosting bird into raising a shrieking alarm.
Ignoring the fork where the path branched off towards the river, she took the hunters' trail into the depths of the dark forest. She had never done so before, but what did she have to lose? If they looked for her, they would look by the river first, so this way she might avoid notice just long enough to escape.
The blackness beneath the sprawling canopy of the trees was absolute, giving her no choice but to stick to the main path. Mysterious feet pattered alongside her from time to time or scampered in the branches overhead. Menacing snarls and pitiful cries spoke of battles for life and food won and lost. She hugged her pathetic bundle tight to her breast and hurried on as fast as she could, her old bones aching with the exertion.
She lost all sense of the night passing. There was only the endless darkness. Once she heard something larger than a man moving slowly through the trees. Saplings creaked and snapped as it forced its way through a thicket. She could hear its rasping breath and smelled a rankness she had never encountered before. Frozen with terror, she stood trembling on the path, face buried in her bundle to muffle the impulse to cry out in sheer terror.
Whatever it was moved away unseen, uninterested. She stumbled onwards on numb feet, shaking with relief. Gradually her calm returned. She wouldn't have made much of a meal for whatever the creature had been. Old age had dried her to skin and bones. But she wasn't ready to die just yet. Not that she knew what she was going to do, or where she was going to go. That didn't matter, not yet. A curious peace filled her as she walked on through the night. She just had to keep on moving. Every day she kept moving was another day gained. Life was hard but she wasn't done with it yet.
Little by little, the sky paled up above the treetops and she could see further into the grey colourlessness beneath the trees. She began searching for some animal trail leading off the main path. Hunters from other villages would be up with the dawn and she was a prize to be Captured without mercy or malice. A prize to save them from giving up one of their own when a painted man cameand demanded tribute for his beast.
The path curved around a mighty fallen tree that was fast subsiding into decay. Green tufts growing along the length of the mouldering trunk spread their leaves to the open sky above. The old woman moved more cautiously in case birds were browsing on the tender shoots in the transitory glade. In case men lay in wait for the birds with their spears and slings.
She looked along the void ripped into the forest by the falling of the great tree. Beyond, the green shadows led away towards the higher ground. Fewer people lived on the higher slopes, that much was certain. Life was harder up there, with less water and food for hunting or foraging. What was that to her? She was leaving one death behind her. If she ran into another, she was no worse off. And if there were fewer people on the higher slopes, surely there was less chance of her being seized? And if there was less prey for the hunters, there must surely be fewer creatures that might hunt her.
Her stomach gnawed within her and she felt lightheaded with hunger. If she didn't find something to eat, and soon, she might as well just lie down to die here. Hands shaking, she untied the rope around her bundle. Setting down the scurrier hide, she took out her digging stick and gave the rotten wood of the fallen tree an experimental prod. It crumbled to damp splinters. She dug harder beneath the edge of a sheet of bark, ignoring the hot ache in her gnarled knuckles.
She snatched at the fat white grubs squirming in the unwelcome light, biting down hard on the pulpy bland-ness twisting on her tongue and swallowing hastily. She managed to eat a couple of handfuls before the rest writhed in blind terror away from the daylight. Drawing a deep breath, she spat out a few fragments of sour wood and wished fruitlessly for a drink of water. At least the meagre meal had dulled the worst of her hunger pains.
Where should she go now? The sunlight was strengthening and this was a well-trodden path. Better to trust in the concealing gloom of the forest. She peered cautiously around the tangled mossy roots before leaving the shelter of the fallen log and picking her way through the tangled vines and bushes enjoying their brief tenure of the open glade. She would make for the higher ground, she decided. Though the underbrush was scant beneath the mighty trees blocking out the sunlight, the leaf litter lay thick under her feet. She walked carefully, alert for many-legged stingers and poison snakes. The few patches of open ground were smudged with marks that she could not identify, ripped up by vicious claws.
She noted fallen wood here and there out of old habit. Would a fire protect her when darkness fell again and the forest's night dwellers came hunting? She dismissed the notion with caustic self-censure. Where would she get an ember from? Besides, a fire would surely snag the all-seeing eye of a painted man or a great beast.
The forest grew quiet as the day progressed. Only the birds were busy, flitting from tree top to tree top high above, serenading each other. She stopped when she heard a harsher note of disagreement. Picking her way towards the sounds of yellow birds squabbling, she found a tree ripe with brown furry fruit.
A scurrier was already feasting on the fallen bounty, cramming food into its mouth. It looked up, its dark muzzle clotted with fruit pulp. Lashing its fringed tail, it raised one clawed hand towards her and snarled, its sharp teeth white and pointed.
The old woman retreated, but only far enough to find a rotten bough lurking beneath a sprawl of leaves. She edged back towards the brown-fruit tree and saw that the scurrier had forgotten her, more interested in filling
its already bulging white-furred belly. Gritting her teeth, she hurled the length of crumbling wood at the scurrier. It screeched, surprised, and scampered away up the tree trunk, claws digging deep into the ridged bark.
It settled on a high bough and looked down. The old woman watched it for a while. It showed no signs of moving. Cautious, she approached the fruit tree, careful of the striped stinging flies. The scurrier chattered angrily in the tree top and threw twigs and leaves at her. The old woman ignored it as she poked through the glutinous mess with her digging stick. She was more concerned about the noise the scurrier was making. Hunters could be coming to see what was causing such a commotion. And the creature had had the best of the fallen fruit. Still, she found a few fruits fallen or knocked down before they were too ripe. Better yets, they showed no worm holes or signs of gnawing.
She jumped as a stinking lump of scurrier filth thudded onto the leaves beside her. Leaving the scolding scurrier to its tree before the creature showered her with its piss, she ate the brown fruit as she walked away, savouring the sweetness. She spared a moment to hope that some hunter might hear the spiteful beast and come to claim its hide for his bed, its meat for his children.
She was still thirsty, though. Thirst killed long before hunger, every child knew that, and everyone knew there was less water the higher up the slopes you went. She began looking m
ore closely at the smaller trees clustered in the spaces opened up by the death of some long-dead forest giant. Finally she spotted the thick ridged fronds of a drought tree and pushed her way through the undergrowth towards it, doing her best to avoid thorn scratches that would fester and kill her.
Setting down her scurrier skin by the tree, she picked
up the least rotten length of fallen wood she could find and thumped the nest of feathery fronds sprouting from the stubby trunk as hard as she could. She didn't want to disturb any snakes or stingers lurking in the depths. Untying the bark rope around her bundle, she spread out the hide and sat down. She picked up the broken lump of black stone and looked at it this way and that. Gripping the angled piece of bone tight, she set the black stone down on the hide and, catching her tongue between her dry, cracked lips, she hit it hard. A flake split away, one good enough to do the job. The old man had taught her well. Protecting her palm with one of the scraps of hide, she looked for the best cutting edge and smiled triumphantly.
Getting to her feet, she circled the drought palm looking for a frond thin enough to yield to her failing strength. Seeing a likely prospect, she pressed close to the tree, the prickly trunk jabbing painfully at her old skin through the gap in her scant leather wrap. She pulled the frond down as far as she could, using all her meagre weight to bring the tip lower than the base. She worked slowly, cautiously, sawing at the stubborn green skin with the cutting stone. Dark sap from the outer layers stained the pale fibrous inside. It tore loose with an abruptness that surprised her. Doing her best not to spill the precious water on the uncaring forest floor, she sucked frantically at the hollow stem of the frond. The water was pure and faintly sweet and soothing.
Thirst quenched, she sat for a little while on the scur-rier hide, absently swatting away the flies instantly drawn by the breath of moisture. Some while later, she got up with a sigh and, cutting a second frond, she managed to pour more than half its hoarded water into the bigger of her two gourds. She plugged it with a twist of greenery torn from the discarded frond and knotted a sling for it from her skein of bark cord. The gourd sloshed at her
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