The Cleft (14 page)

Horsa was a young man with remarkable capacities, and his name dominates this part of our story. There was a constellation they called Horsa, and when we think how names began, sometimes we may easily hear the snarl of a wolf, the growl of a bear. Horsa's animal familiar was a stag, so we may entertain ourselves thinking that the bark of a deer became Horsa, the name of the famous hunter.

When the women went to the valley as usual, the men were gone. The ashes of the great fire were cold. The eagles were not sitting in their places like tutelary gods, and the bits of fish and bones had been scattered by animals.

As they stood around, wandered about, dismayed, even desperate, an eagle did come floating down and settled in its place. ‘Well, where are they? Don't you see? We have to find them.' The bird did not seem to wish them ill but made no attempt to show them where the men had gone, and soon it rose up and flapped its way slowly up and back to the eyries on the mountain top.

The young females said they would go and look
for the men, who were, it was pretty certain, not far along the shore. Unlikely the boys would leave the shore for the interior, but this was their own preferences speaking – the women's. There was another reason the men could not be far: the little boys living here in the valley had gone with the men and that surely meant they must all be close. The older females said they would wait at the river's edge for a few days, and watched as the young ones set off along the shore looking for the fires which would mean the men were there.

And yes, they found they looked down from cliffy heights on to a beach where the men were, and the boys – all the males – who, seeing the women, let out cries of welcome and pleasure, mingled, however, with sounds of – derision? Yes. The girls who reported this arrival told too that they were upset at the criticism, and it was not the only time jeers at the women greeted their arrival. To me – to this male, even so very long after – it was pretty clear what was happening. The females were associated, for the boys, with criticism and complaint – and I must record, perhaps as a small and I hope not inept addition to the history, that it is always a little humorous when nagging changes, without much warning, into a plea for – well, as soon as the women clambered down the cliffs to the white sands, there were multiple matings and encounters in and out of the surf. The young boys stood around
watching, and perhaps trying out ideas of their own on each other, as we may see animals do.

This was daytime, and towards night hunting parties returned from the trees with carcasses, which were cut up and there was much sex.

The women had been ready to criticise the men for taking the little boys along with them on this expedition, but about one thing the women had been wrong. These boys, some of them as young as six and seven, were in no way babies, or infants, nor needed concessions to their smallness in the way of running or climbing.

The men did not treat the little boys in any way differently from themselves and the women had to acknowledge that these small boys were as hardy and speedy as the men. This acknowledgement meant that later, when the little boys were so anxious to go off and live with the men, the women's anxiety was lessened.

The older females came along in a day or two, and there was a considerable and lengthy meeting, full of festivity and many games.

Then the women returned to their shore and the men went into the forest.

We have here to acknowledge a good long time, an age – how long? – when there were groups of the males in various parts of the forest, where there were suitable rivers or inviting glades. And women went
to visit them, when their nature told them it was time. And now it was evident that we are talking about sizeable populations – quite a few females on their shore, and some males in their valley. So, how many? There is no way of calculating, particularly when it is known that among the men were always girls, who were not merely the visiting females, but who had decided that they preferred the men for company. These females were for some reason not fertile or had made sure they were not, or were sterile, and this meant they did not discommode the men with their babes. We know that some deliberately got rid of their babes when they were born. And who are we Romans to criticise, who at so much later a time do the same, leaving unwanted infants out on hillsides to their fate? There is one fact shown by this: that these people were no longer afraid that they were too few. ‘How few we are, how easily we die.' Not any longer. The Noise was a long time in the past.

And it is a fortunate or unfortunate fact that we, the peoples of the world, are very fertile, fecund, forever proliferating. There are more babes born than are needed. It is Nature's way, is it not? She oversupplies, over-provides, always and in everything.

I think this is where we must face a certain question, even if it cannot be answered. Where was this
island where our remote ancestors crawled (we think) out of the sea to become us? Of course, many have tried to establish which island and where. How large an island? Like Sicily? No, too small, surely. Perhaps Crete? But we know Crete has suffered earthquake and invasion by the sea. Someone brought the bundle of ancient writings here to Rome, from – one of the isles of Greece? The argument against this is the climate, for nowhere in the chronicles is mentioned burning suns and crackling heat and the bitter dusts of summers that drag on into drought. But all that could mean was that these people had never experienced anything different from what they knew, and did not think extremes worth recording – though they certainly recorded the Noise, the great storm. It was not a cold island: they never wore much more than wreaths of seaweed, or the men's feathers and leafy aprons. So they went naked, or almost. We may assume they were brown, since all the populations we knew about are a shade of brown or perhaps brownish yellow. If other colours of hair or eyes existed there was no reason for these people ever to know about it. They probably had brown eyes.

These whispers from the past, the immense past, voices that repeat what has been said by other voices, we have to interpret by what we know, what we have experienced – and our questions disappear as if they
were stones dropped into a very deep well. After all, we Romans did not always know that to our north were populations with corn-coloured hair and blue or grey eyes.

Suppose the climate of that long ago has changed so that we have no means of knowing what it once was? Balmy and beneficent shores where lived people through long ages, slowly evolving from – but we do not know – to … We do know they called themselves the people as if there could be no others in the world. But that is the common tale of the beginnings of a people.

In our (comparatively) recent times it is happening that old Greece, once thickly forested, is becoming bare rocky hillsides. How do we know that the blessed land of that ancient people is not now all rocky arid outcrops – and not further away than our sailors may travel.

At the point our tale has reached, there were several communities separate from each other, not on the sea's edge, but in the interior in the forests, always near streams and rivers. They sometimes fought. Over what? Certainly not food – the forests were full of food. No, it was space. Large parts of the forest were swamp, marsh, and that was because the Noise, that great storm, had felled trees as easily as one of our breaths may blow seeds off a stalk. Old rotting trunks in unhealthy water – and so it was that there was not
enough of the desirable forest for everyone. And again there is a reminder here that these are not small groups we are talking about, but a serious number of people.

The leaders of the different communities sometimes fought, and there were casualties, and the women sent protests and admonitions – but it was Horsa who ended the fighting. We know about him that he was brave and a good leader, but perhaps there were many Horsas, one after the other supplanting each other, and Horsa was simply the name for the main leader.

Meanwhile, over on the female shore Maronna ruled, not in the sleepy way of the Old Females, but with vigour and – it is suggested – often impatiently. Certainly this Maronna made her way past the marshes and the swamps to the part of the forest where Horsa ruled and it was because of her chiding that the fighting ended. There are suggestions that the men enjoyed the fighting, pitting their wits against each other. When there were wounded, they were taken to the women's shore to mend.

Before Horsa went off on his trip, there was a bad quarrel between Horsa and Maronna. Earlier chronicles said that this was one event, referred to as the Men's Rage, the Women's Rage, depending on the gender of the speaker. Rage there was, but it was misreported, misunderstood, as a single defining confrontation. I remember the satisfaction, the feeling – and there is nothing like it for an historian, that moment
when I realised the truth – that there might have been a culmination of disagreements in rows neither side could easily forgive and forget. There had been successive complaints from both, and all the differing versions described the same thing, unnecessary multiplications of the ‘Rage'. ‘Of course, how was it I didn't see that before' – and it is seldom enough insights come so clearly and cleanly, to add up to a conviction. One trouble is that the men's version is so brief. As usual, when Maronna came, having sent us complaints by the visiting girls, she always said the same things. And the girls' messages were the same, the men were irresponsible, thoughtless, careless of our lives and particularly about the boys' safety. We took it for granted that what we spoiled, the women would put right. That really was all there was to the men's version. ‘And so Horsa decided to go away, to find some place far enough from Maronna to make it impossible for her easily to come after us.'

This is to the point, I think:

I was walking a few days ago with Felix, my slave, who made the lovely statues of Diana and Artemis, and on a certain slope of a hill I remarked that I had often thought what a good site this would be for a house. Yes, we have a fine house on the estate but I enjoy thinking about an even finer one.
We paced around a bit, argued that this place would be better than that – and no more was said. Today Julia arrived without warning at the town house, and she said there was urgent news. I could see from her face it would be better if we were not overheard – Lolla was tidying the next room. I put my hand on Julia's arm and drew her out to the courtyard, and there she said, ‘This is serious, where can we talk?' We knew Lolla would be listening if she could, and there was an old slave sitting by the wall. I walked with her to the fig tree, and we could see nobody else who might listen.

‘You mustn't do it, my dear, everyone is talking about your new house, it is just madness even to think of it.' I was admiring my lovely wife, while noting that I never had heard her so peremptory, so harsh. Julia is ever charming, does not go in for scoldings. ‘But Julia, how can “everyone” be talking? I hardly know myself – I just mentioned the possibility to Felix, that's all.' She stood, checked, her eyes searching my face, not doubting me, but puzzled. I was ready to pooh-pooh the whole rumour, but then exclaimed, ‘Wait, yes, I understand.' My father freed two of his favourite slaves. One sells tripe near the docks, the other meat pies not far from the gladiators' quarter. Both are friendly with our slaves. Felix had come to our town house a few days before, said that the Master was thinking of building a new house, and so the rumour had gone – and so quickly – from this house to: ‘We all know about it, and believe me you aren't
being very wise this time.' Julia's pet name for me is Father Wisdom, from the very first days of her coming to me.

I told her the basis of this rumour, how flimsy – and that I wasn't really planning to build this famous house, it was just a whim.

‘A whim!' she exclaimed, and looking around her in case someone else had come into the courtyard, she came close to me, and put her arms round me – a wifely gesture, but its rarity would be bound to startle any watching slave into suspicions. Julia, her mouth very close to my ear, said, ‘Listen to me, have you forgotten? You're such an old dreamer these days, perhaps you haven't really taken it in.' And she began whispering into my ear the names of prominent people who have had their houses, their estates, herds, silver or gold dishes, confiscated by our latest tyrant. ‘Do you really want to lose this house to Nero?' she said, dropping her already low voice to not more than a breath of sound. ‘Nero is worse, worse every day. Do you mean to say it never crossed your silly old head that if you started building some fine new house that would be like an invitation for him to take it?' Now she released me, and started adjusting my toga, and taking her silver comb from somewhere in her robe, she began tidying my hair. It had been a long time since I had stared from so close into my wife's face. I was looking to see if the fast, self-indulgent life she led was showing on those pretty features. There were tired lines round her eyes, not much more. ‘When I heard them all talking
last night, I knew I had to come and warn you,' she said, very low.

Who was ‘them'? – but I had a pretty good idea. ‘And are you being careful, Julia?' I whispered.

She nodded, and smiled. ‘Thank you. Sometimes you are such a foolish old thing,' she whispered and actually shook me a little.

‘But Julia,' I whispered, ‘this house has no existence except in my head.'

‘You had better tell Lolla that you thought of building the house but Felix said the spring has too little water in summer. No, wait, better still, you don't have enough funds to build now, you might think of it in a year or two.' And again she came close to whisper, ‘He can't last for ever, can he?'

And now she stood away a few steps, and said loudly, ‘There, you see, a good thing you have me to keep an eye on you. Look at that toga. I'll bring a new one next time I come.'

‘I hope that will be soon,' I said and she laughed, a half-teasing, half-regretful laugh. I like to think my Julia is sometimes sorry I am too old for her. At least I must be a nice change from that raffish lot she runs around with. Arm in arm we went back to the house, where we could see Lolla's face at a window. Julia said loudly, ‘Oh dear, what a pity you are short of money just when I was going to ask you for a big sum. Leptus has some houses he wants to sell. Oh, Lolla, there you are.' Louder still, she said, ‘Your trouble is you don't see the consequences of your actions, my dear. I could
have told you not to put your money into that ship going to Thessaly. It's sunk, didn't you know? It's sunk, lost all its cargo.' I went with her to the outer door where her chair was waiting, with its slaves. We smiled at each other, tender conspirators, and off the chair went. So my poverty would be gossip by nightfall. And I went to my study thinking that I hadn't ever heard from Julia before the exasperated tone of her whispers to me under the fig tree. Is that what she really thought of me, her Father Wisdom? I'm afraid I have to think so.

Maronna talked to Horsa as if he were a child – well, he could easily have been hers, after all. The women always talked down to the men, chiding and scolding. On one occasion, when Maronna arrived in the men's camp, very angry, it was because some small boys had been killed in the fighting, when the fighting still went on, and she, speaking for all the women, was pointing out that it was easy for them, the men, who never took on the boys when they were small, but always when they had stopped being demanding children, and the women had done all the hard work of rearing them, feeding, nurturing. It took a moment, said Maronna, to kill someone, and that moment ended years of painstaking, difficult hard work.

In our time our Roman matrons are committed to
publicly applauding the successes of their sons as soldiers. I have never heard anyone publicly make Maronna's complaint, that it takes years to breed up a boy to be fit for the legions, but they do sometimes say this kind of thing to their husbands – as I may affirm.

‘So,' scolded Maronna, ‘who has done all the hard work? Not you! You make sure you are a long way off when there are babes to tend and teach.'

And now I must fill in the background. When the boys were about seven, sometimes earlier, they made their way to find Horsa in the forests. This had been going on for so long that we may describe it as their custom. Between the shore and the forest settlement was a track that avoided swamp and marsh and mire, and was safe enough, provided no child was alone on it. The girls always travelled in groups and the little boys were exhorted that they must do the same. But there were many animals, and more than once an unaccompanied small boy was taken. Maronna demanded that Horsa should insist the boys leaving the women's shore should take off openly, so that they could be accompanied. Horsa and all the men laughed at her. That she should say this meant she had no understanding at all of the boys, their feelings – and, by extension, of the men's. Of course the boys needed to sneak away from that overcrowded shore full of small
children and babes, of course, that was the whole point – if the boys' escape was going to be monitored by the women, the fun of the thing would be gone. ‘Can't you see that?' demanded Horsa, and said that she was stupid.

The little boys – who felt themselves to be no longer little from that moment they crept from the women's shore, saw their escape as ‘going to the trees'. There were few trees anywhere near the shore. It was a wonderful thing, to see the arrival of a batch of boys, who had had to evade the women trying to keep them a bit longer. When they saw the great clearing in the trees they were amazed at the munificence of it all – and at once were up in the trees. Forests covered the whole island – if it was one – except for the places where there was marsh and swamp. There was a practical advantage in taking to the trees: some predators could not climb, or not easily, into that great canopy of boughs and leaves. The boys were safer than the young males who lived mostly on the ground, or who went off on hunting trips.

There were reports that some groups of the men lived entirely in the trees, but this was not said of Horsa's people.

The boys, from seven or so, did spend most of their time up in the trees. What boy can resist the trees of a real forest? It was a good life. They came down to the ground to join in the meals, the feasting,
and trips. They made platforms in the trees, and all kinds of pulleys and swings and walkways. The life trained them in self-reliance and in physical skills. There were of course accidents, and that was another reason the women's complaints were so irritating. They said that when the boys fell and broke a leg or an arm, the men sent them back to the women's shore to be put right. Couldn't men at least watch over the little boys enough to stop so many falls – and even some deaths? This struck the men as positively irrelevant. Of course boys will venture into danger, and there must be accidents. What was this extraordinary concern by the females for safety?

Another confrontation between Maronna and Horsa with anger, accusations, bitterness. There was nothing the women could do. The boys, on reaching the age of seven or even younger, were of course going to run off to join the men.

All of the males had made the early journey, off into the forest, every man had memories of the too-crowded confined women's shore.

Horsa pointed out that there were many different kinds of shore, none far away from the original one, and there was no need for the females to stay where they were. Yes, the caves were convenient, and the men would confess to harbouring a fondness for them, their earliest memories were lodged in the caves above
the sea. The cliffs everywhere were of soft sandstone and easily excavated. Horsa said that the men would make a new home for the women, every bit as good as what they had, and with much more space. But Horsa was up against a stubborn predilection for what they were used to, what they knew. ‘Their' shore, said the women, was where every one of them, Clefts and males, had originated. And they weren't going to leave.

Maronna did not hear about Horsa's proposed expedition direct from him. It was the girls chatting among themselves that alerted her. Were they going along with Horsa? Perhaps for a short way? Maronna did not at once take in that the departure would be soon, until one of the girls asked if she, Maronna, would go? At last, and too late, she understood that several of the girls would go, and all the little boys currently with Horsa would go too. When she thought about the implications of this she was horrified. She did not at once take in that Horsa had not thought about these implications. Planning for a long term was certainly not his talent, but to mention just one of the problems: if the girls went along they would be pregnant, and then they would be a burden to the travellers. This was why at first Maronna believed that Horsa planned a short trip.

Then, some girls went up to the mountain top to
see if any men were in the valley and saw that down there, by the river, some youths were catching fish to make a feast for the eagles, to ask for their protection on their journey.

Some girls at once went down to join in. Some had never seen the great birds so close. Some children were frightened. But the boys were not at all afraid and piled up the fish, and sang to the birds as they ate.

There were many eagle songs, some saying that the first of us had been hatched from eagles' eggs.