by Wil McCarthy
He demonstrated.
Dele laughed. Dala tried not to, but did anyway. “Honey bee, it looks like a sandal.”
“Sandal? A sandal? Nonsense. When I walk around the village in this, everyone’s going to want one.”
Dala threw a handful of grain husks in his direction. “If you go outside like that, everyone will say I’m a fool to love you. Of course, they say that already.”
“Then we have nothing to lose, eh?”
* * *
Harv Leonel was not actually present, was not actually seeing through the eyes of this man. Harv Leonel had not yet been born. And yet, sometime in the future, the Y chromosome inherited from this man, Argur, would release information about this time and place into Harv’s hippocampus, which would then read it back as episodic memories. Vivid ones! And this really wasn’t supposed to be happening, because he knew he wasn’t even hooked up to the machine any longer. Why was he still traveling in time?
He caught the smell of the air, cool and fresh and piney with a hint of ice, like being in the mountains of Colorado in summertime. The woman and the girl were wearing clothes—coarse, loose-knit fabrics dyed blue and yellow and brown, dull in the morning sunlight slanting in through the hut’s doorway. The cloth was dirty-gray and coarse-woven, and as rough as the crudest blanket Harv had ever personally seen with his own eyes. But colored, yes. Not just colored, but patterned, as was the curtain that partially covered the doorway. Argur himself wore a gray tunic belted across the waist.
Was this the Middle Ages?
* * *
In the hut’s center, away from the bedding and the chamber pot and the gaming circle, the three of them were sitting around the fireplace on the logs Argur had chopped and flattened and smoothed for that purpose. And finally, with a great deal of ceremony, Argur’s wife and daughter served him a breakfast of toasted malt grain and blueberries in a fine hardmud bowl.
“Sir,” Dala said, with false respect.
“Ma’am,” he said back to her, smiling, enjoying her discomfort.
“I think your sandal hair looks good,” Dele offered, watching her father eat.
“And that is why you are the best daughter any man has ever had, anywhere.”
He accentuated these words by balancing the bowl in his lap, pulling out his flute and tooting a few bright notes.
“Da da daaaaa!” Dele sang, in deliberately poor accompaniment. She actually had a beautiful voice—perhaps the best in all of Nog La—but as a toddler she had begun singing with far more enthusiasm than skill, and once she was old enough to realize this irritated her father she continued the habit, long after her true talents had become apparent.
“Beautiful,” he assured her, puffing out a few more notes.
Dala groaned. “This is my family? This is my home?”
And so Argur put his flute away and grabbed her around the waist. “If this child is such a disappointment, perhaps we should send her out for the morning and get started on another one.”
“Not today,” Dala said, lightly pushing him away. “I’m leading a gather this morning. Berries don’t grow in bowls, you know.”
“They don’t? Well, wouldn’t that be something if they did! Perhaps a blueberry bush could be woven into a basket shape and covered in mud, and planted here indoors? It might even keep rats out. Better than a regular basket, anyway.”
Mother and daughter rolled their eyes in unison, and Argur could see the reasons behind their eyes. First of all because they thought the idea wouldn’t work, second because Argur was always coming up with annoying ideas like that, and third because there was no point explaining all the pertinent facts to him. He didn’t have the patience to sit and listen!
Well, indeed, Argur hadn’t even finished his breakfast when he stood up and told them both, “I’d like some milk. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’ll find a nursing orr-ox and squeeze her teat right into this bowl. Cereal and milk! I’ll even try to bring some back, although it may spill along the way.”
“Ha!” Dele said.
“Don’t encourage him,” Dala chided. Then, to Argur: “You’re serious? Oh my, you are. All right, will you please be careful? Mayga’s husband, in the south village, was kicked by an orr-ox last year, and hasn’t been the same since.”
“Bronon! Yes, good man. Not very careful. Not like me.”
“Seriously, Argur.”
“Yes, seriously.”
And with that he was off, tightening his belt, gathering up his hunting bag and his spear and his skinning knife, just in case the orr-ox put up a struggle and things got ugly. He was halfway out the doorway when he stopped, turned, and said, “I forgot my breakfast! Wouldn’t that be a fine move.”
He scooped up the bowl and took it outside with him, and then set about rounding up a hunting party. “Orr-ox! Orr-ox! Who wants to hunt an orr-ox?”
He pretended to be recruiting from the general population, but in fact he already knew whom he wanted for the mission.
“What’s that on your head?” His neighbor, Tom, wanted to know.
“What does it look like? I’ve grown my hair back.”
“It’s not even the right color,” Tom protested.
“Well, then perhaps we’ll kill a black bear along the way. What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got rocks in your head. Or your heart, or wherever it is stupidity lives. But yes, okay, I’ll kill an orr-ox with you.”
“We’re just after the milk,” Argur warned.
“Eh? Really? You want the thing alive?”
“That’s the plan.”
Tom screwed up his face at that, as if wondering whether Argur could be talked out of this, or whether it was just one of those things he was going to have to go along with. “You know, we can also get the milk if we kill it. That’s a lot of meat.”
“Well, obviously. But I have an idea, or anyway half of one.” Argur puffed on his flute. “We could try to bring it back here! Tie it up with a rope or something. Then we can all have milk, all the time.”
“Hmm. Wouldn’t that be somewhere between stupid and crazy?”
“Maybe. Some things are. But if it doesn’t work—” he made a flourish in the air “—we can always change plans.”
And with that, Tom’s face resigned. This was one of those things. “Huh,” he said. “Well, all right, that sounds like a day. Let me get my stuff.”
From behind Argur, a voice opined, “You’re going to get kicked.”
He turned to see Tom’s wife, Birgny, shaking a finger at him. “You just see that you don’t get my husband kicked as well.”
“Nobody’s getting kicked,” he assured her. “We’ll throw nets on it from three different directions, keep it from going anywhere. We’ll make a plan.”
“You bring it back here it could kick children and the elderly,” she warned. “And who’s going to clean up all its shit? You?”
“You’ll make yourself sick drinking all that milk,” said another woman’s voice, from two houses over. Yula, the cousin of Dala’s sister’s husband.
“Perhaps!” Argur said brightly. That hadn’t even occurred to him, but it was hardly the worst thing that could happen. When people drank orr-ox milk it was usually mixed with orr-ox blood, and divided among everyone who could make it to the site of the kill. A few sips here and there, ah? But if a whole udder’s worth left him exploding from both ends, well, then the people of Nog La would have gained some valuable knowledge.
“And what is that thing on your head?” Yula demanded.
Not seeing a need to prolong the conversation, Argur simply handed the women his empty breakfast bowl, bowed respectfully, and went on his way. Three houses over, two houses down…his search was not random, and he needed to be quick about it if he wanted to catch the right people before they went off on other business. Although the castle contained ten sloppy hunters and ten decent ones, only some of these were also Knights of Ell, charged with protecting the valley of Nog La from monsters and human i
nvaders. And only these few possessed both the skill and the physical courage he thought might be needed for this little venture of his. Any idiot could heave stones at an orr-ox until it fell over. Any skilled idiot could load a leverthrow and hurl a spear through an orr-ox’s heart from a safe distance. But for something like this, they were going to have to get close. He could already imagine the smell of orr-ox breath! The buzzing of flies around her rump! Oh, today was going to be a day, all right.
“Headman,” said another voice—an adolescent young man suddenly tagging along at Argur’s elbow. He had no beard, and his hair was still short from the last time his mother cut it. It would be another year at least before it started to form grown-up dreadlocks. He was too small for his clothes, and his boots had burst through at the toe and been patched.
“Yes, Nortlan?”
“Have you thought about my idea?”
“Hmm. Which idea is that?”
“Putting mud on the outside of the castle wall.”
“Ah! No, I haven’t given it a thought.”
“I tried it on my house,” Nortlan said. “Fireproof. Even a torch couldn’t burn it!”
“I thought your house fell down,” Argur said, with some amusement. Young Nort had moved out of his parents’ place and tried to build a little shelter of his own in a corner of the castle, without help from anyone wiser. Argur admired the spirit, but not really the sense. “And anyway, why do the walls need to be fireproof? Who’s going to attack us with fire?”
“I don’t know,” Nortlan said. “Bandits? Trolls? Jabrajab men from the East Hill Country?”
All of these had been problems in the valley of Nog La at one time or another, and were the main reason for the existence of the Knights of Ell. But none had dared launch raids against the castle or its nearby villages even once in Nortlan’s lifetime, and none had entered the valley of Nog La at all for the past six years. And none had ever been known to burn things down indiscriminately, or why bother raiding at all? This was hardly a situation that called for innovative measures.
“Are you imagining them stumbling across the valley with kindling and fire jars in their hands, sneaking up against the base of the wall with no one noticing, and building a fire there?”
Nortlan sniffed. “It sounds stupid when you put it like that. What if they hid in the forest, and ran at us with torches?”
“And kept them lit while they sprinted across the meadow?”
“Yes. Why not? With a fat-soaked rag wrapped around the head, it could burn hot for quite a while.”
Argur laughed. “You’ve thought a lot about this! Ah, Nort, you remind me of me. If only you were big and strong, I’d let you marry my daughter!”
“I’m strong,” Nortlan said, defensively, puffing himself up and squaring his shoulders.
“Indeed,” Argur reassured him. “Indeed you are, very strong for a man of your size.”
“Hmm.”
Oh, great. Now Argur felt bad. And why not? Nobody liked to be called small or weak, even if it was true, and no young man liked to be told whom he wasn’t allowed to marry. Sometimes Argur’s words ran out way ahead of his thoughts.
“It’s good to think,” he conceded. “Really. Very good. Most people never do. And it’s good to know how to make things fireproof. We can keep it in mind, right? Not every idea is useful right away, or even at all. But ideas are a kind of strength, yes? And you’ve got that.”
Nortlan looked somewhat mollified, though not entirely.
“Now, I’ve got to be moving along,” Argur said. Then, on impulse, he asked Nortlan: “Would you like to come on a hunt today? With your mother’s permission, of course, and with your promise to stay well out of the way.”
This might be a bad idea; Nort was no hunter at all, and certainly no fighter. But he was good company, and also needed to learn some common sense from somewhere.
“I’ll go ask,” Nort said, not bothering to find out what they’d be hunting. Now he was mollified, because Argur had shown him real respect. “Oh, and Argur? One more thing?”
“Yes, Nort.”
“What is that thing on your head?”
Argur laughed again. “It’s hair. You want some?”
* * *
While Argur walked, Harv Leonel looked out through his eyes, and saw…well, he wasn’t sure what he saw. A collection of domed huts made of woven sticks, thatch, and yellowish animal hides—maybe fifty buildings in all, with smoke rising from some of their centers, and everywhere men and women and children moving busily about. All this was surrounded by a fortification wall of sharpened timbers that enclosed a rough rectangle perhaps two hundred meters across. Thousands of timbers! A whole forest worth! There were even two crude watchtowers at opposite corners of the fortress: each one a tilted ladder lashed to the wall, with a little seat on top, like an inward-facing diving board. Neither was occupied at the moment, which probably said something about the actual threat level around here.
The settlement looked like a cross between a medieval village, a Wild West frontier fort, and an African or Native American nomad encampment. There were no animals here, no wheeled carts or even sledges, and on close inspection all of the tools were made of wood or stone or bone, sometimes fastened together with resin and rawhide. No metal anywhere, so he was in the Stone Age, not the Middle Ages. There were long, narrow, leaf-shaped tools everywhere—as spearheads, as knives with wooden hafts, as needles and as scrapers. The workmanship seemed competent enough, but none of them seemed to be barbed or curved or fluted or grooved. They seemed primitive, compared to other Stone Age artifacts Harv had seen in museums. The huts, too, looked extremely basic; except for dyed cloth curtains, they could be from anywhere or anywhen.
And yet, these people were well organized. They had pottery and fortifications and fitted textile clothing, and…some sort of warrior caste? That didn’t make sense to him, and for the second time he was left wondering where the hell and when the hell he was.
* * *
Over the next little while, Argur rounded ten of the Knights he was looking for. There was Chap, the sprinter, and Pagel the distance runner, and the three brothers Snar, Gower, and Gouch—easily the three strongest men in the entire valley. There were Perry and Ronk and Max and Timlin and Tom. And last of all there was Jek, whom Argur half-hoped would not be able to make it.
“Your new hair looks amazing,” Jek told Argur when he and ten Knights (and Nortlan) showed up in front of Jek’s house. “So, I hear we’re going on a hunt? For Mommy’s milk? Aw. Does the headman miss his Mommy?”
This was how Jek generally spoke, and Argur only put up with it because Jek was by far the best hunter and wrestler and stone thrower he’d ever met. What little he lacked in raw strength, he more than made up for in precision and sheer aggression. He had once punched a troll! In a fair fight he could certainly beat Argur, although in order to get away with it he’d have to beat all the other Knights as well, and he’d never quite been stupid enough to try. Not quite.
“It might be tricky,” Argur said to him. “I need good men.”
“And boys, evidently,” Jek mused, eyeing Nortlan up and down.
“This one’s a trainee, and he’s with me, and you’ll leave him alone if you want to stay on my happy side.”
“Oh, and I do,” Jek assured him. “And although he evidently can’t speak for himself, I assure you both he has nothing to fear from me.”
“And I am thus assured,” Argur said, in a tone that implied otherwise. And yes, this was another of Jek’s talents: to get everyone else speaking and acting like him, if they weren’t careful. Then he said, “Do you still have that net we used last summer? Not the fishing net, the other one.”
Jek nodded. “My trapping net? Yes. I do. Would you like me to bring it?”
“Yes, and some rope, if you don’t mind. I’ve got a bit of a plan.”
“You always do,” Jek agreed.
He went back inside his house, and several of the men made ru
de gestures behind him.
“Oh, stop it,” Argur told them.
“You stop it,” Gouch muttered back.
Argur chose to ignore that, instead calling into Jek’s hut: “Don’t forget to bring water this time. And some food, and whatever else you might need.”
“Perhaps some otter fat for my lips,” Jek said from inside. It wasn’t clear if the comment was intended to be funny, or literal, or what. Fatting the lips was mostly something women did, and mostly in the winter. For a man in the height of summer, it was a strange thing to say. Argur sighed inwardly; this could be a long day.
To the assembled Knights he said, “I’ve brought my flute, of course. Has anyone got a little drum? Or a rattle?”
“Or a singing voice?” Pagel asked.
There was some laughter at that, for the awfulness of their voices was legendary throughout Nog La.
Finally, Jek emerged from his hut, with one red and one blue hawk feather jutting out of his headband, the two colors crossing together in the center of his forehead like a visor. This was foolishness, because one feather was more than enough to keep the sun out of his eyes, and so that was what most men typically wore. The second one was apparently just there for symmetry and color. But given that Argur himself was wearing a circle of bearskin on his nearly bald head, perhaps now was not the time to criticize other people’s clothing choices.
Jek was also loaded down with way more equipment than he needed. This puzzled Argur for a moment, because Jek was a veteran of countless hunts and patrols and even battles, and knew perfectly well how much a man should carry. But when he tried to hand some of this bric-a-brac off to Nortlan, Argur understood, and shot a warning glare at Jek, who then had to go back inside for a moment to drop some of it off.
“My mistake,” he muttered.
And then, finally, they were on their way.
Tom leaned close to Argur and asked, “Why you always got to bring Jek? Nothing’s ever fun when he’s around.”
Argur murmured back, “Yeah? Well, maybe not everything needs to be fun. Maybe this is serious, dangerous business, and I’m worried what will happen if he’s not there.”