The Gathering Night (16 page)

Haizea and Itsaso had been fishing too, with lines. They'd got a basket of young saithe, and, believe it or not, an octopus. They couldn't have set an octopus trap from the shore, but I had more sense than to ask whose boat they'd used. The others brought in small birds and baskets-full of many-coloured mushrooms, endless hazelnuts and berries, and lots of different roots from woodland, marsh and shore. My aunt Sorné brought a basket of acorns and set them to steep in the River. I'd kept the fire hot so as to make a heap of smouldering ashes. I covered up the roots and fish, and skewered the birds on hazel spits. Other families were also cooking. The rich smell of many kinds of food mingled and rose into the air. Everything is plentiful in Gathering Moon, except in the worst Years, and this wasn't one of them. The spirits crowded above us, hidden behind clouds of flies, savouring the different tastes that floated up to them. There was all the usual to-ing and fro-ing between hearths, especially the children, offering and receiving the best titbits from each other's food. Everyone was laughing and joking; we were as noisy as rooks! Even Agurné came over with a big basket of mussels, cooked and ready to eat. I gave her one of the ducks – a lot better than mussels – which was all I had ready. I hoped this meant there'd be no dogshit at my tent door in the morning. Just when the food was ready, Amets and Kemen came back with a huge basket dripping with honey. Nothing could have been better! I sent the two girls off at once to offer honey to all our kin.

Itsaso and Haizea carried the basket between them, and I could hear Itsaso's ringing tones all round the Camp. She sounded just like her mother! My hand went to my mouth when she swaggered up to a Go-Between's hearth. At least she hadn't the gall to speak to Zigor directly, but I was near enough to hear what she said to his wife and nieces: ‘Forgive us for interrupting you with such a sad little gift. You really won't think much of it. I don't know why my cousin bothered to bring it back. I know People like honey – but this! Well, it's not much good, but it could look worse, see' – Itsaso dipped the stirring-stick and let the honey flow off it in a thick golden stream flecked with sweet lumps of waxy honeycomb. ‘Won't you be kind to my poor family and honour us by accepting some of this, even though it's not much good?'

Of course they could hardly wait. The birchbark basket they held out certainly wasn't the smallest they had, either. I didn't grudge them one mouthful. Honey sweetens the soul. As Itsaso poured their honey I realised the spirits were indeed looking after us. If there were one thing we needed to do above everything else it was to sweeten Zigor now. No fewer than three of my family were going to be tested at this Gathering: Nekané, Ortzi and Kemen. Itsaso was a clever girl: she kept on pouring honey until it was oozing over the birchbark on to Zorioné's deerskins, and they had to cry out for her to stop.

The girls came back to us with an empty basket. Only the children who were too young to understand the value of gifts minded. We gave them the basket and a cockleshell each, and let them scrape the thickly woven rushes clean. I smeared a little honey on the end of my finger before it was all gone, and let Esti suck it. She'd never tasted honey before. We ended up with some very sticky children!

The Go-Betweens started preparing the three fires at the top of their mound. As we ate and talked, we watched them walking round their fires, stretching up their hands, getting ready for the spirits. Most of the children had finished eating. They kept scrambling up the Go-Betweens' mound and sliding down again, shrieking with excitement. A hand-full of half-grown puppies barked and leaped amongst them. As always the Go-Betweens took no notice. The spirits see children like leaves blowing in the wind. Children can do whatever they like because the serious business of life has nothing to with them; not yet.

We had three Go-Betweens: Aitor, Zigor and Hodei. There was Nekané too, of course, but she hadn't been publicly accepted. Some People thought she never would be because she was a woman. Zigor was against it – his niece Zorioné made sure we all knew that! When the Go-Betweens came out of the shelter with their drums some of our kin glanced across to see how my mother was taking it. Nekané's face showed nothing. She knew better than to draw attention to herself when they were speaking to the Animals about the Hunt. She was biding her strength.

Only when the footsteps began was everyone quiet. As soon as the Go-Betweens heard the footsteps of the Animals they began to echo them with their drums so we could hear them too. The nearest People began to clap with the drumming. The clapping spread across the Camp. The last conversations ceased. Everyone stopped eating. Young women went round collecting the good bones into baskets, and flinging the rest on to the midden with all the empty shells. People wiped their mouths and turned to watch the Go-Betweens. Soon everyone was clapping the footsteps of the Animals.

Most of you remember Aitor in his last life. He was quiet and kind when he wasn't Go-Between, but when he was – oh, he was frightening! Aitor was a huge man with a big voice. When he came out of the Go-Betweens' tent, painted all over in spirit-patterns of Red and Yellow, with his wolfskin round his waist and Wolf's face pulled over his man-face – when he came out of that tent with his Drum written all over with secret marks, and its wolf-claws and sea-eagle feathers dangling from its frame – all the People used to gasp and cower away. Children burst into tears at the very sight of him. You think Hodei is a frightening Go-Between – it's true that Fox looks cruel and hard over a man-face, especially when the spirits have written Blue and Red over a man's body, and his Drum beats through your body like the heart of the land itself, and his cloak of feathers flies out behind him . . . But Hodei – I hope you won't mind me saying this, Hodei – isn't as terrifying as Aitor was.

Then Zigor . . . After the other Go-Betweens Zigor seemed light as a bird. He was always small and bent, even when he was young. Painted in his spirit-colours he seemed to turn spirit himself, caught in a beam of light and made suddenly visible. His power was like the whip of a hazel wand coming after the solid strength of oak. Zigor used to come out of the tent last, after the other two. Some People – especially the women – well, me too, I suppose – thought he was the most frightening one of all. Women often feel – I feel myself – the very thought of Snake makes us shiver, even on a sunny day when everything that's Go-Between seems to be fast asleep. Yet when Osprey soars over the Open Sea our hearts long to follow . . . Osprey opens up our dreams and makes our waking thoughts fly high and far. When Zigor's Drum awoke and began to beat, its voice was so cold and far away – that Drum was somehow the most Go-Between thing I ever heard. I tremble now, even just thinking about it.

Aitor began the song. Although the song has no words it tells of many things most of us will never understand. A cold wind creeps down my back every Year when I hear that song. The Go-Betweens sang to the Animals while we clapped their footsteps until our palms were sore. The Wise began to sing to the Animals as well. The younger men joined in, and last of all the young women. We sang softly at first so we could hear the Go-Betweens above the rest, and then louder. The song grew fast and fierce. Some People stopped clapping and drummed their fists on the ground until it shook. The song got so loud it wasn't just the People any more. The Animals were in it too, and so were the spirits that link the souls of People and Animals together, because at the Beginning we were all one soul, and inside everything else that happens to us we are still in the Beginning, and always will be.

The dark covered us. Out of it shone Deer Moon: a little sliver, no thicker than the paring of a thumbnail, still entangled in an oak tree top. The People kept clapping until Deer Moon came clear of the leaves and launched herself into the sky. She was barely big enough to dim the stars. The Go-Betweens' fires glowed above us on the mound. The Go-Betweens were lost in the shadows. We only saw the flash of tooth or tusk catching the firelight as they moved.

Other things moved in the shadows behind the fire. Now the firelight caught the curve of an antler, the sweep of a horn, and lost them again. The men around us were on their feet. The ground thudded with the footsteps of the Animals.

Sendoa leaped from our hearth. His brothers followed. As he passed, Sendoa leaned over me and grabbed Kemen by the arm, pulling him forward. The firelight fell on Kemen's face: I saw the startled question in his eyes. The brothers surrounded him, shoving him into the centre. Amets wasn't there. I hadn't seen him leave, but I knew why he'd gone. We couldn't see anything now. The darkness of many bodies hid the fire, and swallowed up our men.

We stood up so we could see better. We linked arms – Haizea was on one side of me and my aunt Sorné on the other. We swayed and sang, stamping out the footsteps of the Animals. Their song was our song. We couldn't see them because the Men hid them from us. The Animals crouched and hid, and began to creep and run away. The Men raised invisible spears and stalked them. All round the Go-Betweens' mound they crept and stalked. Whenever the light caught them they fled into the dark again. We saw them aim their spears.

Then we saw – over the heads of the men – caught in the firelight – the spread antlers – there at the foot of the mound – where the song began – we saw them turn gold and black and gold again in the shifting light. They rose in the still heartbeat which is the beginning of the Hunt.

The antlers twitched. They turned one way and then the other. They twisted and ducked among the thundering footsteps of Men and Animals. The Dance turned around the antlers, just as the stars all turn round the one Still Star in the heart of the Sunless Sky.

Haizea jumped up and down at my side, trying to see over the heads of the Men. She was too young to know that even if she were as tall as an aspen she would never see what was hidden at the heart of the Hunt. I saw Deer Moon high above my head. I felt Esti a sleeping weight on my back. My hands and feet ached with clapping and stamping. I drew back and sank down on the big oxskin by our fire. We'd laid heather and bracken underneath it, and put a birch trunk at the back to lean on. In spite of the noise, or because of it, the young children were already asleep. I pulled Esti round to my front and lay propped against the log with her in my arms. The ground shook under me with the footsteps of the Animals. The heart of the earth beat through me. One by one the others joined me. Haizea and Ortzi were the last to drop. They'd forgotten they'd stopped being friends. Ortzi was frightened, both of what might happen next, and – worse still – of what might not happen. Child-like, he clung to Haizea as he never would again. They crouched at the edge of the spread skins, arms round each other's shoulders, and though the rest of us dozed now and then, as far as I know those two children never moved.

Later on I was cold. Drowsily I pulled my deerhide round myself and Esti. The Morning Sun Sky was streaked with pink and grey. I could hear the footsteps of the Animals, but now they were far away. I watched the men who were still dancing. Their steps were slow and weary. Up on the mound the Go-Betweens' fires burned low. Just below the hearths lay three huddled shapes: the bodies of the Go-Betweens who'd given their lives to the Hunt. So all was well. Once again the Go-Betweens had saved us from the terrible bargain we make when we come into this world, because we have to eat up other souls in order to feed and clothe our own. Every child needs to hear this, so listen, even the little ones! For every soul we take, a soul must be given back. If our Go-Betweens didn't speak to the Animals about the Hunt, so they agree to die for us and come back, over and over again, the People would have to leave the world for ever.

I looked round at the family hearths lining the clearing. Women and children lay fast asleep all round me, though some had gone back to their tents. Haizea and Ortzi were curled up together on the edge of the oxskin. Sleep had swallowed up Ortzi's fears at last, but not for long.

Something crashed beyond the fires on the mound. Sparks flew. Drums beat. The footsteps weren't measured any more. They ran all over the place, as if all the Animals were fleeing or giving chase at once. A wild shrieking came with the footsteps: the spirits themselves had turned Hunter and were screaming for their prey. The knot of men that hid the Go-Betweens scattered in all directions, running and yelling.

Everyone woke. Esti began to wail. Other babies were crying; little children screamed for their mothers. Haizea and Ortzi, startled from sleep, clung to each other like a couple of squirrels.

The Go-Betweens were on their feet. Animals flew from the empty air behind them. We weren't hunting them: they were hunting us! They rushed towards us. They had the bodies of Men – painted all over – and the heads of Animals. Women who'd often seen them still quailed and hid their faces. The air shook with shrieks as boys were snatched from their family hearths and spirited away. One Animal made straight for us – he had the head and upper jaw of a wolf, and a wolfskin flying at his back. His naked body was black as night and red as blood. Haizea screamed as he swooped. But it wasn't her he wanted. He ripped Ortzi from her side, threw him over his shoulder, and shot past us into the forest.

Haizea burst into tears. I took her in my arms and tried to comfort her.

‘It's all right, it's all right. Ortzi will be fine. He'll be a fine man when he comes back. You'll be proud to call him cousin! Oh yes, you will. He'll be back before Gathering Camp is over – yes, and Amets too!'