by Henry Treece
3.
dawn came too soon. And the Fox Folk lived too near. It seemed no time before the Dog Folk were climbing over the stockade and poking their spears through the wattle walls at the sleepers inside.
Crookleg had to stay on the far side of the stockade, holding a sharpened ash-stick. They would not let him have a flint spear till he had got back to the long-house and had given his offering in the presence of Holly and Bone and Ash.
He heard a lot of noise. Women were screaming. Then the Dog Folk were barking and the Fox Folk were howling. Then a big man in a black bearskin and a bone through his nose jumped over the stockade almost on top of him. Crookleg could see from the man’s tattoo-markings that he was a Fox, so he pushed his spear-stick at him, but the man just brushed it aside with his hand and ran into the wood breathing hard.
Then some of the straw huts began to smoulder and send up black smoke and women tried to get over the stockade. Crookleg saw their fingers gripping the stakes. They were smaller than men’s fingers. He did not stick his spear at them, because he thought of his mother Bluestone and did not like to do bad things to women. But none of the women got over the stockade. Their fingers loosened on the oak stakes and disappeared.
Crookleg felt sad. He did not feel like a war-man at all. Then suddenly Fang jumped over the stockade and shouted out, ‘Run, Crookleg, run. Thorn has three arrows in him and is lying on the ground. He has gone away from the tribe. The men will not follow me yet, they want to go home. Run after me. I will lead you.’
Crookleg hobbled after him for a while, then was too tired to go on. His leg began to hurt too much. He fell sideways under a gorse bush and tried to get his breath. Many Dog men raced past him barking, but they did not smell him. He lay still until the last of them had gone by. Suddenly he thought: Bluestone has gone away. Thorn has gone away. If I go back they will take my finger and make me into a war-man. Among the Fish Folk perhaps they do not take fingers. Perhaps they do not fight with stick spears. Perhaps they do not have barley sowings and men hanging from the elm tree. Perhaps.
He waited a long time, till the sun rose up over his head and the flies came swarming out of the fern and buzzed over him, and the little grey snakes slithered past him into the heather.
No one came from the Fox Folk. He could smell their village burning when the wind shifted. He could not hear anyone shouting or laughing.
At last he got up and found that he could stand on his crooked leg quite well again. He forgot about his spear-stick and went on through the wood, sniffing for wolves, and trying to remember where he had been told the Fish Folk lived. He knew that at dawn in springtime they lived in a straight line from his own village, if you kept the low sun between your two eyes, in the middle of your forehead. But he did not know where they lived if it was later in the day or later in the year.
4.
At the red time of the sun he came to a pleasant green place in the woods, where there was long green grass and a pool with little blue-green fishes in it. He put his hand towards them and they did not move from it. A hare came out of some foxgloves and sat near him, to look at him more closely. He said to the hare, ‘Do you feed here, brother? Is there good food here?’
But the hare did not speak back to him. It kept on twitching its nose and turning its head from side to side to see him better. Crookleg laughed at the hare and said, ‘I do believe that you are as silly as I am. They would never make a wolf of you, brother. Can you draw in the earth with your finger, then?’
The hare lost interest in Crookleg and slowly turned and shambled away, its white scut bobbing as it moved.
Crookleg drank some of the clear water and liked it much better than the water they got from the stream that ran into his village. No sheep had left their droppings in it. No folk had washed their hands and feet in it. He thought that a man could drink such sweet water with joy. At home you only drank when you were thirsty.
A brown owl fluttered down and stood on a branch only a spear’s length from him and glared at him with amber-eyes. Crookleg said, ‘Is this your pool, Old Man? Forgive me for taking water from it. I will draw the shape of you as payment. Then everyone will know it is your pool.’
He did this, in a stretch of flat damp mud that took the lines well, with a strip of spiked hawthorn.
It was so like the owl that Crookleg wanted to stay there always to be near the likeness. But the owl did not even look at it. He flew away, as low as a man’s shoulder, staring into the grasses, flapping noiselessly.
Then Crookleg thought that his picture had not been so true, if the owl would not even look at it.
He still thought that it was good to keep his finger though. He was sad for Thorn to lie with three arrows in him, but that was always what happened to war-leaders and it was no great surprise. He was more sad about his mother, because she was warm and furry and gentle. She had never hit him. He was sad about Bud, because he had always wanted to hold a little man and to rub his cheek on the little man’s and to listen to the funny words little men said before they started to say the words that war-men said. He liked best to hear their chuckling laughter.
Then he wondered if Bud was a little woman and not a little man. If she was, then she would speak some other language that he would never understand. That was not right, to speak and not to understand. He wished that all people, the men and women and hares and owls and dogs, could agree to speak the same words. Then all things would be so easy, to speak and to be understood. Perhaps no one would fight then.
He was turning this over in his head, like a pebble in the hand, when he almost jumped out of his skin, for someone was standing right behind him and sniffing at his back. He could feel the warmth of that sniffing.
He wished he had his spear-stick for a moment. Then he was glad he had left it behind. There was a girl behind him, not a war-man, and she was just like his mother, only his own age more or less. She had long reddish black hair down her brown back and a skirt of
yellow linen round her waist. On her thin arms she had two horn bracelets, and round her neck a hide thong with a piece of black stone on it, shaped like a tear that runs down the cheek. Her eyes were brown. In the ends of her ears there were the prettiest little red stones. On her russet cheeks she had the tattoos of a flower, it seemed, with petals and a round centre. On her body she had a pretty whirling shape like the thing a pool does when you throw a stone into it.
He said to her in Dog talk, ‘Pull up your skirt to your knees and let me see your legs.’
There were enough words she knew, and she showed him how they had decorated her with the shapes of tree branches, with twigs and leaves and even apple-blossom.
She said in a funny, thick voice, ‘Do you like that?’
He nodded. He said, ‘They are apple leaves. The one who did that knew what to look for. He had eyes in his head.’
She said, ‘My father did it. He was called Alder before he went away in the burning this morning.’
Crookleg said, ‘Was he a Foxman?’
She nodded. ‘There are none of my own family folk left now,’ she said. ‘I shall go to the Fish Folk. They do not raid villages. They spend their time taking the beasts from the sea. Perhaps they do not have magic either. I do not want any more magic. My father lost his finger for it and was never quite happy again. My mother lost her first baby. And see, I have lost the little toe on my left foot, because I did a dance that came into my head.’
Crookleg looked and said, ‘A girl can spare that. It is not a great thing to lose. They wanted my best finger. This one.’
She didn’t look. She said, ‘My name is Blackbird. What do they call you—Crookleg?’
He nodded and said, ‘Sit beside me. I am not a man so you need not sit behind me. We can be equals.’ She said, ‘I had two hands of brothers from my father’s women. They were all fierce Foxes, all had put the stick into a bear in the spring raging. All had lost something to the bears.’
Crookleg said in fear, ‘What wer
e they called?’
Blackbird said, ‘They were all called Bear. One was called Bear Armless, another Bear Handless, another Bear Without an Ear.’
Crookleg said, ‘I would not wish to offend them then.’
Blackbird laughed and went into the pool to wash her feet. She said, ‘I think they were all in the burnt longhouse sleeping. Perhaps now they have their arms and hands again in the dream shape that comes after going away.’
Crookleg said, ‘I still would not like to offend them. They would be even worse with their arms and hands to use spear-sticks with.’
She came out of the pool and sat by him. She laughed at him and said, ‘They were not spear men. They were slingers. That is better than any spear man. I have seen them throw a stone through a hare and the hare went on running and didn’t even know till later on.’
Crookleg said, ‘I think I will go on my way through the woods, Blackbird. I have far to go and do not want to waste the light.
Blackbird got up to and said’Yes, let us not waste the good light. I am afraid of the wolves. I am a Fox, not a wolf. What are you?’
Crookleg did not like to say. But he did in case Ash was listening and came into his dream again. He said’I am a Dog.’
Blackbird nodded and said’I knew you were. I saw you waiting outside the stockade with your spear-stick. I was only a few paces from you all the time you lay in the bushes. I thought I might put my knife into you at first, because of my father and brothers; the when I saw you leave your spear-stick behind I thought i would come with you after all and not send you away into the silence.’
He said’I am glad you did not. I want to make pictures. See there, by the pool, I made an owl that sat on the low bough.’
She went over and kneeled above the owl.’That is like my father’s marking,’ she said.’He would have welcomed you for his son. Did your father praise you?’
He said’No, my father was that war-leader with the three arrows in him. He praised only three arrow men. Men who could take three arrows in them before going away.’
Blackbird said’I do not understand men. They are so afraid of pictures, yet they will face a wolf or a bear.’
He said,’I weep for Bluestone, my mother, but I do not understand women either. They are very fierce in their own way, and they speak words I do not understand. Do you speak the women’s talk?’
Blackbird nodded shyly. Then she swept her red-black hair out of her eyes and said,’The mother’s start us at it before we learn the village words, the men words. We dream in it. Does that make you sad?’
Crookleg said’If we spoke the same words, we should be happy together. But we speak different words and that makes me sad.’
Blackbird went away to a holly tree and rubbed her back against it where she itched. The she came back to him again and said,’I am going to do a bad thing. I will stop thinking the women’s words. I will pray to the man stone. I will do all this because you can make pictures as old Alder did before the burning took him.’
Crookleg knew that she must be planning something and he said,’No one asked you to, Blackbird.’
She put her fingers in his black hair and gave it quite a painful pull.’Who needs to ask anyone anything.’ she said,’if only you do what you like to do?’
He said,’Very well then, Blackbird. You tell me what we should do.’
She said,’We will go together to the Fish Folk. It will be safer with the two of us. The wolves are cowards and do not spring on two, only on one. Together we shall be safe.’
He said,’That is true. We will go together and be safe.’
Blackbird said,’And it will be warmer in this part of the year, We will share our warmth.’
He said,’And that is also true. At my village I had a deer hide to lie under. Now I have nothing to keep me warm.’
Blackbird got up from the grass and almost dragged him along. She said, ‘You have something more than a deer hide, if you can make an owl that looks as though it could hoot and fly. That should keep you warm, to know that. It should keep your heart warm in you.’
He nodded and said, ‘Yes, it has been with me all my time. It has kept me warm when the other boys got warm from fighting. But no one has ever said it to me before.’
She gave him a gentle push in the back. ‘Well, I am saying it now,’ she said. ‘And my father Alder was a great chieftain. So I should know.’
on the way through the forest they came upon a dead ram. The black flies were round him and at first Blackbird wanted to go round them because the flies are a special folk with their own magic. But Crookleg said, ‘Wait a while, his horns and hooves are still on. They could come in for something.’
So he went down into the hollow and took them.
For a while she walked a long way behind him waiting to see if the flies would follow. But then she came up with him and chattered on as merrily as before.
That night they slept in an oak tree, above the leaping-distance of wolves. And the next day they came to a place where grey clay lay above the chalkstone. And Blackbird said to him, ‘When a man makes friends with a woman he gives her something. What have you given me, but a lot of talk about your mother and Ash?’
He said, puzzled, ‘What can I give you? I have nothing.’
She said, ‘Do not look so frightened. I do not want your finger. But make a picture for me, make that owl again in this clay, and we will scoop it up like a stone for me to put on a thong.’
He did as she said, and the owl turned out well. It looked as though it could hoot and fly. She scooped it out of the clay with her long finger-nails and then dried it in the sun. It turned out to be a pretty shade of blue. But when she began to thread a hide thong through it, Crookleg said, ‘It will go dry and crumble to dust. Can you make fire? I do not know how to.’
She laughed and said, ‘Of course I can. All women can. They are the guardians of the hearth.’
He said, ‘Then make one quickly and do not laugh at me so much. I will go and look round for a sleeping-place while you do it.’
When he came back she had a twig-fire blazing. He held sticks in this until they got black, then rubbed the black over the clay owl. And after that he held the ram’s hooves over the fire until they melted, and with what melted he covered the black clay owl and then put it into the evening wind to dry.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you have something that will not crumble and will glisten. All folk will ask you of what stone it is made. You will be listened to with silence and no laughter. You will be great, wearing the black owl.’
Blackbird put on the owl and said, ‘I liked it better when it was blue. And I do not want folk to be silent when I speak. I would feel wrong if that happened, because I am not great. I have no house, no fire, no baby of my own.’
Then Crookleg got angry and said, ‘Why must you always think of these women’s things; Why do you not think of me; Can I not make things that look as though they can roar or fly; Is that nothing; And do you ever stop to think that I have a lame leg; I have things to worry about.’
Blackbird ran away weeping, so fast that he could not catch her. But she came back to him when it was dark and they slept in a little hollow with a fire beside them that she made with the heather twigs he had gathered. So they woke up happily and found that the sun was shining again. Blackbird was pleased with her owl now.
5.
when they reached the place of the Fish Folk at last it was not what they thought it would be. There were no houses and no stockades to keep the big sea out. The sea was much bigger than many packs of wolves and howled much louder.
The Fish Folk lived in little hollows in the cliffs beside the sea. Crookleg did not like the smell of their shell-middens. They seemed a careless people. At home on the ridge all the leavings had to be burned or buried so that the dogs and wolves did not seek them out: but here the Fish Folk flung everything on the long shore, and never lit a fire to bum their rubbish.
He said, ‘I do not think I shall sta
y here long.’
Blackbird wrinkled her nose. ‘You are a flint-man,’ she said. ‘You are afraid of the blue water.’
He said, ‘And so are you a flint-woman. What is the difference?’
Blackbird said, ‘The difference is that I am a woman and you are a man. Women learn to live where their bread is. Men go looking for dreams, and die with three arrows in them, like your father. That is not wise.’
Crookleg said hotly, ‘Then go and find your bread, woman. I give you leave to go. But I do not like the smell here, and I shall not stay.’
Blackbird said, ‘If you think I shall give you back the clay owl you will make a big mistake. It lies so warm on me now that I could not part with it for a better man than you are, Crookleg.’
Crookleg shook his black head. ‘I did not think of it,’ he said. ‘It has no value for me. I could make another. I could make a hand’s count of others. Go, and take it with you, Blackbird, if you will not come with me to another place.’
Suddenly a man came up out of the cliff. He was two hands higher than Crookleg, and carried an axe made of whalebone, so broad and beastly that no man would have liked to face it. And this man also was broad and beastly, for his shoulders could not have got through the door at Crookleg’s village. And his face was so savage that Crookleg thought there should be horns growing above his pale eyes.
And this man said, ‘You, lame youth! Stop while I chop you down! What have you to offer? What treasure? What gifts? Do you know who I am?’
He came forward so grimly, his whalebone axe cradled in his arm, that Crookleg turned and began to hobble away. The Fish man shouted after him to come back and taste the edge of the whalebone axe. He was laughing when he said this. Crookleg glanced over his shoulder and saw that the man had half-forgotten him already and was now holding Blackbird by her hair and shaking her, still laughing as though she did not matter very much.