The Gathering Night (18 page)

I stretched my arms high and flung my head back. ‘We come for Osané!' I cried in a loud voice. ‘Take this woman away!'

My Helpers didn't need to stir themselves: they knew I could handle Arantxa on my own. No sooner did I call out than she threw herself on the ground, hands over her head, sobbing for mercy. I stepped over her, lifted the tent flap and went in.

It was hot and smelly inside. At first I couldn't see where Osané was. Empty shells and chewed bones were heaped over the cold ashes in the hearth. The sleeping platform was piled with moth-eaten furs. I stooped closer and smelt stale urine. There was a bigger pile at the back of the platform. I pulled away an oxskin. Underneath was a tangle of light-brown hair. I tugged away the skins; startled lice scuttled into the folds. She'd wrapped herself up so tightly it was like skinning a seal.

When I'd last seen Osané she was red-cheeked and laughing, on her way home with a basket of hazelnuts. That was three days ago. Now, when I held her under her chin and forced her head round to look at me, I was horrified. Her cheeks were grey and hollow as if she were dead. I saw no sense in her eye, only blind terror. The other eye was buried in a purple bruise. The string of her tunic was undone. I pulled the deerskin back. There were bruises on her swollen neck – I read in them the shape of fingers, four on each side – and a scarlet mark in the hollow of her neck in which I read two thumbs.

When I came out I found Itsaso and Haizea guarding the tent door. That woman who called herself a mother was sobbing by the hearth. The children grizzled beside her, chewing their knuckles. If she couldn't face her daughter she could at least have fed the little ones. Zorioné had gone.

‘Haizea,' I said. ‘Go to Zigor at once, and tell him we need fire in the Go-Betweens' hearths, and the shelter ready!'

She gaped at me.

‘Quickly!' I gave her a small smile. ‘Have faith, little daughter! It'll be all right! Now go!' I turned to my niece. ‘Itsaso, run round the Camp. Use that voice of yours! Summon everyone to the healing! But first go to your mother. Tell her to bring clean skins to wrap Osané in, and to come here at once. And tell her . . .' – Itsaso stopped in her tracks – she was already on her way – ‘Bring Hilargi as well: we'll have to carry Osané. Off you go!'

As I sat holding Osané's hands in that miserable tent I heard Itsaso's voice ringing round the Camp. ‘Come quickly! Come quickly! The Go-Between is waiting! Come for the healing! Come for the healing! Come! Come! Come!'

I was too taken up with Osané to think that when Itsaso cried ‘Go-Between' she meant me. I heard startled voices chattering like so many starlings – shouts – questions – then the quick patter of many footsteps.

Haizea called to me through the tent flap. ‘Mother! I told him! He didn't say anything. But he's gone up the mound and pulled back the turfs himself, and laid kindling on the fire. He's doing it himself! But he didn't answer me – didn't take any notice of me at all! And they're coming – everyone who's here is coming!'

‘Well done! Now go and spread the word: Osané's soul is already far away. Tell them we must get ready to call her back at once, or it'll be too late.'

And so my first audience was made of women, children, old men – and Zigor. Nearly everyone was on my side. If the men had been there it would have been different. To this day I don't know what was in Zigor's mind. I'm sure he didn't want to make it easy. Perhaps he simply did what his Helpers told him: it was right for Osané. Whether Zigor could see far enough to know where the healing of Osané would lead I don't know. All I can say is that Zigor was a powerful Go-Between, and in those days he didn't like me. It's also true that he never failed our People.

I'd never stood on the Go-Betweens' mound before. I'd never yet felt the heat of the spirit-fires. Now I came close I saw how the three rings of hearthstones overlapped, joining the Go-Betweens' hearths together like the segments of a caterpillar.

We carried Osané to the Healing Place halfway up the mound, just below the Go-Betweens' fires. Fresh pine branches crackled and smoked in two of the hearths already, billowing round us so that People could only see us through thick smoke. The sky was low over our heads, heavy with unshed water. Some People carried pine tapers to keep the mosquitoes off – I could see little dots of fitful light through the pall of smoke. Even the little children kept still. My family sat at one end, where they could see more clearly. I could feel their support rising up to me, and the coldness of Zigor at my left hand.

The air felt tight. When I took out my knife to carve a space round Osané and me I felt it pushing against the blades. I used all my strength to cut through the fear in the air. Then I went up the mound, behind the three fires and into the shelter. Three Drums hung from a withy screen. I swallowed, and summoned up my courage. I lifted the first Drum. I'd never touched a Go-Between's Drum before. It was very light. Faded red spirals were written on the hide. I read strength in them, but no harm. I turned the Drum over. The hide was stretched over hazel wands bound in a circle, and pulled tight with strings of sinew. I took down the second Drum, and studied the pattern on the hide. I couldn't read it. I picked up the hazel drumming sticks that hung beside the drums, and went outside.

I felt the gasp from the crowd. Without looking at Zigor I held out the Drum I hadn't been able to read, and the stick that went with it. The spirits had told me right: Zigor let me give him his Drum. Later I found out that the Drum I'd taken for myself was Aitor's. If I hadn't succeeded, Aitor would have seen me die. I'd never handled Drum or drumming stick before. I held the Drum in my left hand, the way I'd always seen it done. As soon as I touched the stick to the hide I was filled with power. Softly at first, then gradually more firmly, I began to drum.

I drummed alone. For long heartbeats I drummed alone. Fear touched my back with his cold finger. Then I was angry. Osané lay in the Healing Place at my feet. Would Zigor let her die? My head grew hot. I ceased to care. I stood up straight and drummed with all the fire I possessed, my head held high.

I remembered what to ask. At once I saw – even though we were far from the Open Sea – I saw to the very edge of the world where the water meets the sky. I saw my Dolphin leap through the waves towards me. I saw his painted side. His mouth was open, laughing. I drummed as loud as I could to show him where to come.

My drumming came winging back to me, stronger than it went away. The strength was coming from my left – from Zigor. As my Dolphin leaped through the water Osprey swooped over his head. She plunged into the sea as Dolphin leaped into the air. I saw a twin trail of white spray. Osprey surfaced, and soared into the sky.

I threw back my head and called my Helpers with all the sound my lungs could hold. I drummed and I sang, and the People chanted too, echoing the words we gave them. I heard my own voice, and the voices of my Helpers were inside it, making it strong. We began to sing for Osané, calling on her soul to come back.

I laid down my drumming stick but it was still drumming. The drumming was on my left. The singing filled the air. I jumped down to the Healing Place and put my arm over Osané, my Swan's wing to protect her.

I fell into darkness. This was where she'd wandered. I followed her down and down. The spirits mocked me. I wouldn't look into their eyes. I kept going down into the pit where her soul had gone before me.

I heard a short rasping bark. I flew to find my enemy. Then I smelt him:

Lynx!

The Moon ducked from under a cloud and gleamed in his yellow eyes. By her light I saw the broad cat-face – tufted ears – painted hunting-stripes – body tense as a hazel-whip, crouched to strike – all the pent power of the Hunt. I froze.

But now I had his name. I used it. I used all the powers I had and wrestled with him. I smelt raw meat in his hot breath. His teeth flashed in the Moonlight. But now I knew my enemy, and that gave me strength. Lynx shook Osané's soul between his teeth. With wings and beak and webbed claws I fought him for her. My strength was running out.

For a heartbeat I saw my Dolphin lying dry on a sandy beach. Seaweed was strewn along the high-tide mark. Alder and sallow willow grew at the top of the beach, and sea poppies in the dry sand. I looked into the dying eye of my Dolphin. The embers of a small fire and a smooth white pebble lay on the sand before his body. I picked up the white-stone pebble and put it in my pouch.

Lynx fought hard but there was nothing he could do. When he realised what I'd seen, the strength went out of him. His grip on Osané's soul began to slacken. I put my mouth to her neck and sucked him out of her. I made him let go. I swallowed him and spat him out. I watched him flee with flattened ears and tail towards the High Sun Sky.

Osané's torn soul drifted in the darkness.

I lay across her body and began to call her back. The People swayed to the rhythm of her name and took up the chant. ‘Osané, Osané, Osané . . .'

Her soul heard. Watching her face, I saw her eyelid flicker. She opened her eye. The black centre had grown huge, with just a little rim of blue. The other eye was a slit in the swollen flesh. Osané blinked. Slowly I saw her gaze come back to me and fix itself on my face.

‘It's all right, little daughter. You can come back now.'

I had her carried into the Go-Betweens' shelter. We cleaned her body, and put cold moss on her bruises. I gave her water, and after a while I persuaded her to eat some berries.

‘We must keep her there until she finds a family,' I told Zigor later. ‘She can't go back to her parents.'

I didn't know what he was thinking. Nor could I make my memory of the soaring Osprey join up with the thin man squatting beside me at the Go-Betweens' hearths. Zigor reached for his waterskin and took a long drink. He didn't offer me any.

Zigor wiped his mouth and said as he stared into his fire, ‘So you found the first cause?'

‘First cause?'

‘Of her sickness! You surely had the wit to look for that?'

‘I found the cause.' I felt as if I were fighting all over again. ‘I'm not sure who strangled her – or tried to – she won't say a word – but I think I can guess.'

‘You
think
you can
guess
! If you're Go-Between, Nekané, you neither
think
nor
guess.
You
find
, and
learn
. As to whose hands made those marks – does it matter? Or can you go no further than that?'

‘It matters that she never goes back to her parents.'

‘Then give her to Edur. His family can have her.'

‘Zigor, do you remember what Arantxa was like when she was young?'

‘Do I care what Arantxa was like, then or ever?'

‘Perhaps you should.' It was difficult to say enough without saying too much. ‘Itmight be better for the Auk People if Arantxa's daughter took a man who can't be related to her in any way.' I glanced at him. Zigor was clever: surely I need say no more? ‘
In
any way
,' I repeated. He must have understood me now.

‘Is that all you have to say?'

‘No, it's not all.' He was Go-Between for the Auk People, and so was I. His Helper had come to my aid, and he must have seen my Swan and Dolphin. I told him exactly where I'd found Osané's soul, and everything that had happened on my journey.

I knew Zigor wouldn't praise me. What mattered was that he listened. When I'd finished he didn't speak for a while. I watched him tracing patterns with a twig in the ashes round the fire.

‘Last night I read the mark of Lynx on a man's back,' said Zigor at last. ‘I wrote Auk over it.'

‘But the spirits Kemen brought with him are good! I saw that at White Beach Camp.'

‘All spirits are good. You know that. But the good spirits of one People can be the enemies of another. When you followed Osané out of the world you met Lynx. Be careful how you read that Lynx. It might not mean what you think. There's no such thing as a bad spirit.
Your
beloved Helpers are your enemy's worst enemies. Never forget that.'

‘
All
spirits? But . . . the sea that washed away the Lynx People's land and killed so many of them – how was that
good
?'

‘Everything on earth is good.' Zigor spoke so bleakly he might as well have said the opposite. ‘But the spirits of the Sea care nothing for People. Why should they?'

‘So the Sea became the enemy of the Lynx People—'

‘The Sea was not concerned with the Lynx People.'

‘But why should Lynx be
our
enemy? Kemen is not . . .'

‘No. We can use that.'

‘How?'

‘Give her to him.' Zigor bared his teeth in the semblance of a smile. ‘That solves your other little problem too, I think.'

My thoughts ran fast. Remember I'd never worked with Zigor before. Now I know very well how far that man saw! That first day he surprised me. But yes – I could see it now. On my journey into the spirit-world Lynx had been Osané's enemy –
our
enemy. But all spirits are good . . . Lynx is also good. If Lynx is taking care of his own People, that might be the worse for us. The spirits that bring sickness can't be destroyed; you have to make them change sides.