A Woman of the Iron People

by Eleanor Arnason

  “We decided he is ignorant, like most of your people,” said Nia.

  About this time I noticed the bugs. They had bright yellow wings. I saw two of them fluttering over the water. Another pair rested on a log that floated past our boat.

  Agopian pointed at an island. The trees were dotted with yellow. More bugs, resting on the foliage.

  “It looks like autumn,” said Tatiana. “At home when the poplars start turning.”

  We passed other islands where the foliage was partially yellow. Clouds of bugs drifted over the river like leaves in the wind. But there was no wind—at least none sufficient to explain this whirling and dancing.

  Bugs landed on the roof of our boat, on the deck and railing.

  “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “Going south like the lizards,” Nia said. She looked pleased. “We see them on the plain. They are lucky.”

  The bugs took off one after another, rejoining the migration. We were almost through it by now. A few stragglers danced in the air, and the surface of the river was dotted with bugs, like a river on Earth dotted with the leaves of poplars.

  Ivanova’s boat turned toward the western shore. We followed, entering a new channel.

  “This is the tributary,” Tatiana said.

  The water changed color, becoming a deep clear brown. It moved quickly between steep banks covered with forest. Above the trees were limestone cliffs, close to us on both sides. We were going almost due west.

  Midway through the afternoon we came to rapids. They were nothing to write home about: a series of gradual drops. No rocks were visible. There was only a little foam. But they closed the river. We weren’t going any farther. Above us a trail of white smoke twisted out from the top of the valley wall.

  The other boat turned toward shore. We followed, edging in against the bank. Agopian clambered forward and tied our prow to a tree that leaned over the river. I wrapped a second mooring line around a sapling near the stern. The engine stopped. I heard leaves rustle, the cries of birds. The muscles in my neck relaxed.

  “Do you notice,” I said, “the sound of machinery is always an irritant?”

  He looked surprised. “If that is so, we’re in trouble in space.”

  He was right. Every ship and station was full of the sound of machinery.

  Nia said, “I have been thinking.”

  I made the gesture that meant “go on.”

  “It’s a bad idea to show anyone too many strange things at once. You come into the village with me. If Angai is there, and she ought to be, we’ll explain about your people. She can decide what to do. Maybe she will permit the men to come in.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  We climbed out of the boat.

  Eddie came toward us along the bank. “I’ve talked to Ivanova and Mr. Fang. We think you ought to go up to the village, alone or with Nia.” He smiled. “Ivanova is worried about Nia, since she has had a difficult relationship with her people. But I want her to go. Mr. Fang thinks we ought to leave the decision to you and Nia.”

  I glanced at Nia. “The people on the other boat have come up with the same idea. They want the two of us to go.”

  “It is hard to understand your people, Li-sa. When I begin to think that you are ordinary, you do something that is utterly crazy. When I decide you are really crazy, you make a decision like this one, which is ordinary and right. I never know what to expect.”

  I made the gesture that meant “maybe so.”

  We pushed through the bushes at the river’s edge. Beyond was a trail. Nia turned onto it. I followed her up the river bluff.

  On top was the plain: almost flat here. An erratic wind swept over it, changing direction often. The vegetation changed color as leaves flipped over. Tan. Yellow. Gray-green. Silver-gray. The colors moved across the plain, through light and shadow, brightening and darkening.

  Nia said,

  “Now, at last,

  there is room enough.

  “Hai-ya!

  There is room!

  “My inner person

  is able to straighten.

  “My inner person

  is able to expand.”

  Off to our left was a village made of tents and wagons. Smoke rose from many fires. Beyond the village—to the north and west—animals dotted the plain. Bowhorns. The edge of the herd. Or were these merely the domestic animals?

  “Come on,” said Nia. “I want this meeting over.”

  There were children playing at the edge of the village: about a dozen. Some wore kilts. Others were naked, except for various kinds of ornamentation: belts made of leather and brass, copper bracelets, necklaces of brightly colored beads.

  The children were organized in two rows, which faced each other. Between the rows were two children with sticks. The children in rows tossed a ball back and forth. The children with sticks tried to knock it down.

  That much I figured out before the children saw us. One shouted. A couple ran. The rest turned and stared.

  Nia said, “This person looks strange, but she is more or less ordinary. There are more like her below on the river. They have come to visit. They have fine gifts and interesting stories.”

  “Hu,” said one of the children. I could not tell the gender. He or she was tall and thin, with auburn fur and a yellow kilt. The kilt was embroidered with dark blue thread. The child wore a pair of silver bracelets, one on each wrist. He or she held a stick. “You are certain they are not demons?”

  “I have traveled with this person all the way from the eastern forest. She has never done anything the least bit demonlike. She’s a good companion.”

  “Hu!” the child repeated. “You’d better come with me. My foster mother is the shamaness.”

  “What is your name?” asked Nia.

  “Hua,” said the child.

  “I am Nia.”

  The child had turned, ready to lead us. Now she turned back, regarding Nia with large, clear yellow eyes.

  “How is your brother?” Nia asked.

  “He is getting difficult. Angai says the change is coming.”

  Nia frowned. “Isn’t he too young?”

  “It will be early. But not that early. You have been gone a long time.”

  “That’s true,” said Nia.

  The child led us into the village. The tents at the edge were small and widely scattered. I saw no people around them.

  “What are they?” I asked.

  Nia answered. “They belong to the men. The old ones, who have come into the village.”

  “I don’t see anyone. Where are they?”

  “Hunting. Or maybe sitting where they are not visible. Men set up their tents so the entrances face the plain. If they are home, they will be—” She made a circling gesture.

  “What’s wrong with this person?” asked Hua. “Doesn’t she know anything?”

  “Not much,” said Nia.

  Farther in, the tents were larger and closer together. They were made of leather, stretched over a series of poles. Each tent had six to eight peaks. In spite of their size, they were not especially tall—more like a mountain range than like a tepee.

  The flaps were open, held up by poles so they formed awnings, which shaded the entrances. Women sat under the awnings, and children played in the streets.

  The women called out in a language I did not understand. Hua answered in the same language. The women got up, leaving their work. They gathered their children and followed. Soon we were at the head of a procession.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “They are asking about you. Hua is telling them—come along and listen while Angai finds out what you are.”

  “Oh.”

  Nia added, “I do not like being followed.”

  I made the gesture of agreement.

  The village was obviously new to this location. Plants grew between tents and under wagons. Flowers bloomed. Bugs jumped and hummed. A tethered bowhorn ate leaves off a bush in the middle of what seemed
to be the main thoroughfare.

  We passed the animal. It stopped eating and looked at us, then lifted its tail and defecated.

  More evidence that the village was new. I had seen very little dung or garbage.

  I looked at the wagons. They were everywhere, scattered among the tents. They had rectangular bodies made of wood and curved tops made of leather stretched on a frame of wood. The sides were elaborately carved. The tops were decorated with strips of brightly colored cloth that hung down in the front and back, making curtains of ribbon that fluttered in the wind: red, yellow, blue, green, orange. Each wagon had four wheels, bound with iron. The spokes were carved and painted.

  We crossed an open area, full of more plants. Hua stopped in front of a tent. It was large, and there were poles around it: standards. One was a metal tree, full of gold and silver birds. Bells hung from the lower branches, moving in the wind and chiming.

  “I know that,” Nia said. “I made it.” She looked at her hands. “I have been traveling too long. I need to have tools again.”

  The other standards were animals made of bronze or brass: a bowhorn, a killer of the plain, a biped.

  “My name-mother made the others,” Hua said. “They are very old.”

  Nia’s teacher. I remembered now. “Did you know her?” I asked the girl.

  Hua looked shocked. “No! Never! How can you ask a question like that? What do you mean by it?”

  “This person comes from a long way off,” said Nia. “When I first met her, she didn’t know the language we are speaking. I sometimes think she doesn’t know it yet. Don’t worry too much about the things she says.”

  Hua made the gesture of acquiescence. But she looked worried.

  A woman came out of the tent. She was tall and thin, dressed in a full-length orange robe. Her fur was dark brown, flecked with gray, though I didn’t get the impression that she was old. She wore at least a dozen necklaces made of gold and silver and amber. Bracelets covered her arms from wrist to elbow. Like the necklaces, they were a mixture: gold, silver, copper, ivory. There were even a couple made of carved wood. She had a gold stud in the side of her low, flat, furry nose.

  She looked us over, then spoke to Nia. “Can you never behave in an acceptable fashion? What are you doing back here? And where did you find a person like this one?”

  “This is my foster mother,” Hua said.

  “Her name is Angai,” Nia said. She gestured toward me. “This person is named Li-sa. I met her in the east, in the village of the Copper People of the Forest. I’ve been living there.”

  “This is no Copper Person,” said Angai.

  Nia made the gesture of agreement. “I don’t know where she’s from. A long distance away, she told me. But I met her in the village of the Copper People in the house of their shamaness Nahusai.”

  People murmured in back of me. A baby started to cry.

  “There are more hairless people below the village in two boats. They want permission to come up.”

  Angai frowned. “What have you told them about us, Nia? Have you been lying? We always make visitors welcome! There is no reason for them to wait below.” She paused. “Unless they are sick. Is that what has happened to their hair?”

  “Four of them are men.”

  “Sit down,” Angai said. “Here, under the tent flap. There is no reason why we should be uncomfortable while we talk.”

  We obeyed, even Hua. Angai glared at her. “I am not certain this is a matter for children.”

  “The whole village is here. Everyone is listening.”

  Angai made the gesture that meant “very well.” “But keep quiet. Pay attention! Learn what makes a shamaness!”

  Hua made the gesture of assent.

  “Now.” Angai looked at Nia. “Tell me what this is about.”

  “These people are different. It isn’t simply the lack of hair. Look at her eyes.” She pointed at me. “They are brown and white like the ground in early spring, when the snow has begun to melt. Who has ever seen eyes like these? Look at her hands. She has two extra fingers, and they are not deformed. All her people have two extra fingers. Friend of my childhood, draw in a breath! Does she smell like any person you have ever met before?”

  Angai sniffed. “No.”

  Nia hunched forward. “She is not a person the way you are a person, Angai.”

  I opened my mouth to object, then closed it. Nia was far from stupid. She must have a reason for what she was doing.

  “They have tools that are different from our tools. Their language sounds like an animal spitting and chittering.

  “But—” Nia paused. “They do have tools, and they do have a language. They aren’t animals. Nor are they spirits. I don’t believe they are demons. They are utterly strange and unfamiliar people.”

  Angai made the gesture that meant “that may be.”

  “Among these people the men are not solitary. They live with the women.”

  “Aiya!” cried a woman. Others called, “Hu!”

  Angai made the gesture that demanded silence. “Go on.”

  “That’s why they are waiting. They know we have different customs. They do not want to anger the Iron People. They do not want to show disrespect or be dishonest.”

  “But they want to come into the village,” Angai said.

  Nia glanced at me.

  “Yes,” I said. “They—we—have a difficulty. An argument we cannot settle. We want your advice, the advice of your people.”

  “It’s hardly surprising that they argue,” a woman said. “Men and women together! What a perversion!”

  Another woman added, “Except at the time of mating.”

  “Bowhorns mate in the autumn,” Angai said. “And there are animals that bear two or three litters in a summer. Are you like that? Is this your time for mating?”

  I hesitated.

  Nia said, “I have watched these people carefully and listened to them. It’s my belief that they’re always ready to mate.”

  There was more hu-ing from the audience. Angai made the gesture for silence. We all waited. She frowned. “You are certain these are people, Nia?”

  “You are the shamaness. Is this one a spirit? A demon? Or a ghost?”

  Angai touched my arm. “She is solid. It is daylight. She cannot be a ghost.”

  “What about a demon?” asked one of the villagers. “They are solid. They can go out in the light of the sun.”

  Angai stared at me. “I have seen demons in my dreams. Their eyes burn like fire. Their hands and feet have long curving claws. Otherwise they look like people. I have never heard of a demon without hair.” She paused. “You are certain they are not spirits, Nia?”

  “Spirits have many disguises,” Nia said. “Even a clever woman can fail to discover them. But I have traveled with these people for three cycles of the big moon. They have never changed their shape. They have never changed their size. They eat. They sleep. They produce dung and urine. Their dung and urine is ordinary, though it does not smell exactly like ours. Even when they are angry, even when they seem to be in danger, they do nothing spiritlike.”

  Angai made a gesture I did not know. “They are not animals. They are not spirits. They are not ghosts or demons. Therefore they must be people. They have asked us for help. It is my opinion that we ought to help them. They have asked to come into our village, it is my opinion that we ought to give them permission.”

  A woman spoke loudly, but not in the language of gifts.

  Angai lifted a hand. “They are not like us. We cannot judge them the way we judge ourselves.”

  Several women spoke in the tribal language. I turned to look at the crowd.

  The sun was low by now. Rays of light—almost horizontal—shone between the tents. They lit the open area, the vegetation and the people: solid matrons, bent old crones, lithe girls, a lot of children. The adults shouted and gestured. Their jewelry flashed.

  I knew most of the gestures. “Yes.” “No.” “You are wrong or c
razy.” “We are in agreement.” “Agreement is utterly impossible.”

  I looked back at Angai. She watched and listened, expressionless.

  “What is going on?” I asked Nia.

  “Some of them agree with Angai. Others do not. They will all shout until they get tired.”

  I looked back at the crowd. The argument went on. Children—the older ones—wandered off, obviously bored. The younger children began to cry. Their mothers picked them up and hugged them and rocked them.

  The other women continued the argument, but everything was less violent now. The voices had grown softer. The gestures were less broad.

  Light faded out of the square. Only the peaks of the tents were lit and the tips of the metal standards. Gold, silver, and bronze gleamed in front of the sky, which was cloudless and deep blue-green.

  At last there was silence except for the whimpering of babies and the high, clear voices of a group of children who had started to play a game.

  “Hai! Hai! Ah-tsa-hai!”

  The women looked at Angai, who spoke loudly and firmly.

  The women replied with gestures of uncertain agreement.

  Angai looked at me. “The day is almost finished. It is a bad idea to begin anything important in the dark. Therefore, I ask you to return to your boats. Come back in the morning with everyone. All your people. We will listen to your problem.”

  I made the gesture of gratitude and stood.

  “You, Nia.” Angai looked at my companion. “Go with the hairless person. People have known you too long. They will forget that you are a stranger now. They won’t treat you with the courtesy due a traveler.”

  Nia made the gesture of assent.

  Hua said, “I want to go with them.”

  Angai frowned.

  Nia said, “No. I don’t want people saying that you are like me.”

  “Nia is right,” said Angai. She looked at her foster daughter. “Tomorrow you will see the hairless people. Tonight, stay here.”

  Hua made the gesture of reluctant acquiescence.

  The crowd parted. Nia and I passed through it.

  “Aiya!” said Nia. “What a day!”

  We went down the bluff. The lights on the first boat had been turned on. Pale and steady, they lit the open deck at the rear of the boat. The oracle sat there, gnawing on the forearm of a biped. He looked up as we climbed onboard. “What happened? Did you get any food?”