The Gathering Night (37 page)

Now Hodei and I worked together. In spite of my fears I felt strong. At Gathering Camp Zigor and Aitor listened to what we had to say. I sat with them. We roasted spirit-mushrooms on the hot stones of our hearths. We waited until everyone had gathered. Daylight faded into twilight. Hearth fires flickered. The smell of food hung over the clearing. The Evening Star shone like a white pebble in the dusky sky.

I was Go-Between, but because I was a woman I had no part in speaking to the Animals about the Hunt. I knew how men muttered among themselves, saying that I couldn't really be Go-Between because whoever heard of a Go-Between that didn't speak to the Animals about the Hunt? Nothing had been said openly. But now we had to answer that question, because the answers to the other questions were wrapped up inside it. That was why it was I, not Hodei or Zigor or Aitor, who first took up the Drum. That was why I called on the women.

‘Come, you women!' I cried as I drummed. ‘Stand up, you women! Now the Dance is for you! This Year you women are making the Dance! Come, you women! Come! Come! Come!'

All around the Go-Betweens' mound, the women hung back, glancing at one another. At every hearth women looked round at their men. The men dropped their eyes and said nothing. However angry, or puzzled, or fearful those men were, what could they say? I had three strong Go-Betweens at my back, silently watching everything I did.

‘Come, you women! Come! Come! Come!'

My sister Sorné got slowly to her feet – she was old, like me – and shuffled into the empty clearing below us. Haizea jumped up beside her. I might have known it: that daughter of mine has such courage! They clasped hands and walked slowly towards the mound.

Aitor, Zigor and Hodei had been standing behind me, in front of the Go-Betweens' fires. Now they moved back into the shadows. From the foot of the mound the Go-Betweens' fires must have looked longer than usual. Only the four Go-Betweens on the mound could see why that was: there were no longer three linked hearths, but four. Four fires blazed into flame, fed by sticky pine branches. The crowd whispered like aspens in a breeze. Now they realised what had changed. Their sighs and mutters were like the wind whistling to itself in a high corrie.

Ten heartbeats passed.

My niece Itsaso ran forward from her new family at one of the far hearths. Hilargi leaned on Sendoa as she heaved herself to her feet. Sendoa gave her his hand as she stepped over her basket into the clearing. Esti left her mother's side and ran to join her aunty. I was amazed when Zigor's niece Zorioné came from the other side of the clearing, pulling her two sisters with her.

Osané stood up – even in the midst of my drumming I felt the wave of courage that swept her on – and seized Alaia's hand. One hand cradling her bulging belly, Osané dragged Alaia forward. The women clapped as I drummed. The dance rippled round the forming circle.

My Drum quickened. It beat a path. All the women were on their feet. My Drum gave them no choice. I glimpsed Arantxa's terrified face in the flickering firelight. My Drum searched out the way as it went. This dance had been done before, but not in the present life of anyone here. This dance was a tale passed down from the Ancestors along with stories of trouble, fear and want from a past so distant it had crumbled away, leaving no more trace than the bones of the People laid lovingly to rest on their platforms among the hills.

But the song had stayed alive. When I began to sing, my voice came echoing back from many throats. It grew like the wind. Every woman of the Auk People knows that song. We sing it whenever a girl becomes a woman so that it never dies. No man in that gathering had heard it since he was a little boy. If any of the men remembered, it could only have been like a fragment of a dream.

Where clouds gather

On Grandmother Mountain

Water springs from her breasts

Water streams from her caves

Water flows to the sea

Where clouds gather

I am your daughter

Grandmother Mountain

I am your daughter

Grandmother Mountain

Where clouds gather . . .

Something crashed in the Go-Betweens' hearths. Black smoke billowed upwards. The footsteps of the Animals drummed behind me. They had no dance in them. They were rock falling. They were Aurochs charging. They were the sea sweeping over the land. Hooded shapes leaped from behind the mound and tore through the dancers. The drums banged without speaking to each other. The song broke into separate drops like a River going over a precipice. The dance stumbled. It lay dead on the trampled ground. The order of things fell to pieces.

The women fled, leaving a clear space before the mound. The men rushed forward, then stopped in their tracks. They could go no further. The dance had drawn a line round the clearing. The People felt where the line was. They gathered, men and women together, in a ring behind it. Only the four Go-Betweens on the mound stood inside the circle. The hooded Animals had gone. The four Go-Betweens stood side by side – not in our usual place behind the Go-Betweens' fires, but in front of them. Moonlight fell on the faces of the People. Our faces were in shadow. There was nowhere for anyone to hide.

We waited until the silence began to hurt. A log crackled in the fire behind us. Then Aitor raised his voice in lament:

‘The rightness of things has fallen to pieces! The Hunt is broken! The Animals refuse to speak to us about the Hunt! The Animals aren't listening to the Hunters. They listen to the women. The spirits won't come to the men of the Auk People. A great wrong has been done, and the spirits refuse to come to us.

‘We men are no good! Our women asked the spirits to come. Our women had to do that because our men are no good! The spirits listened to the women. The spirits have come! The spirits are listening to us now! Our women are better than we are!

‘We men are shamed! Can our women speak to the Animals about the Hunt? No! No woman can do that! We men must put things right with the spirits! We must put things right before the Moon sets tonight!'

The People all turned towards the Moon with a soft sound like a breath let go. In two days Gathering Moon would be full. She'd just come clear of the hills between the Morning Sun Sky and the High Sun Sky. The stars turned pale. The dark fled and hid under the trees as the Moon rose higher. In the clearing it was as light as day.

‘Before the Moon sets tonight, that wrong must be put right! Before that Moon sets, your Go-Betweens must speak to the Animals about the Hunt! If the Auk People are to live another Year, that wrong must be put right!'

Now Hodei was calling on them: ‘You think first of your families, as People do. You think about your sons, your fathers, your brothers, your nephews, your cousins. That's the right order of things, when all things are right. Now there is a great wrong, which threatens not just your own family, but the whole of the Auk People. A great wrong has come among us! Now you must think of the Auk People, not just of your own family! If anyone has anything to speak, speak now!'

The spirits came into the Drums and beat our cry into the hearts of all the People: ‘If anyone has anything to speak, speak now! Speak now!

The People took up the chant: ‘Speak now! Speak now! Speak now!'

Three men leaped into the clearing. They jumped up on to the Healing Place halfway up the mound. Their heads were level with the four hearths. The firelight fell on their faces. Osané's brothers, Koldo, Oroitz and Itzal, stood before us.

The drumming died away. Only the heartbeats of the People carried the beat:
speak now! speak now! speak now!

Zigor cried out so everyone could hear: ‘Koldo! Oroitz! Itzal! Speak now!'

The eldest spoke for them all. Koldo hadn't the voice of a Go-Between. He sounded sullen. I could hardly hear him. ‘The men of the Lynx People brought this wrong. We three know. One of them stole our sister. Edur brought the other two to us. We know they did great wrong from things that were said when they were with us. We saw when the Go-Betweens spoke to the spirits at Loch Island Camp. These men were cursed when they came to us. Their People did great wrongs and the spirits washed their land away. Now they've brought those bad spirits here. Those bad spirits want to kill us!'

We Go-Betweens know there is no such thing as a bad spirit. We know there is no such thing as a wholly good man either. Itzal understood this better than Koldo. I saw that he was trembling. Oroitz didn't meet our eyes. Only Koldo was quite sure that everything he said was true. I beckoned to Itzal. ‘Come here, Itzal!'

Itzal glanced at his brothers. He climbed slowly up to us. He looked at the four hearths and his eyes widened. ‘Come here, Itzal!'

Hidden between the cloaks of the four Go-Betweens, Itzal knelt at our feet, shaking like a leaf about to fall.

Zigor spoke first. ‘What wrong did these Lynx People do, Itzal?'

Itzal swallowed. ‘Kemen stole my sister!'

‘Did you see him do it?'

‘No, but—'

‘Then what do you know of it?'

‘My brothers saw . . . my father . . .'

‘Your father and brothers told you to speak against these men?'

‘No!'

‘You were a child, Itzal. What did you know?'

Itzal glanced up. Hodei was his uncle. Zigor had often spoken to him kindly. Itzal sought the faces of friends: there were no faces. Only the empty shapes of the Go-Betweens hung over him, blotting out the stars.

‘I knew I loved Osané!' Itzal blurted out.

‘You loved your sister.' The voice was dry as a stone. ‘Was she raped, Itzal? Is that why you want to protect her?'

He was crying, grovelling in the turf at our feet.

‘Was she raped?'

‘You were a child, Itzal. What did you know? Was she raped?'

‘I can't say! No! No! Yes! No! I can't say!'

‘Then why did you say you could speak? Get out!' Zigor kicked him savagely. Itzal curled into a ball. Hodei kicked him in the back. Itzal rolled out into the firelight. He would have jumped up and fled, but Aitor gripped the neck of his deerskins. ‘Stay there! You came into this circle! This isn't finished yet!'

The Go-Betweens faced the waiting People.

‘Send these Lynx men forward!'

Basajaun and his cousin were shoved across the clearing, and pushed up to the Healing Place.

After a heartbeat's pause Kemen stepped forward. Amets and Sendoa tried to come with him, but Kemen pushed them back. ‘No! You mustn't be part of this.'

Amets tried to protest, but Kemen took him by the arm and spoke to him quietly. I saw Amets raise his hands to the spirits; I knew very well what Kemen had asked him. That pleased me: if Amets had promised to look after little Bakar, my grandson was as safe as he could be.

The three Lynx men stood below us on our right. Koldo and Oroitz stood on our left. Basajaun folded his arms and stared with contempt at Arantxa's sons. Koldo and Oroitz dropped their eyes.

‘Oroitz!'

Oroitz jumped. He'd thought he was safe now.

‘Oroitz! Did you give food to these two men' – Aitor pointed to Basajaun and his cousin – ‘when they came to your hearth at Loch Island Camp?'

Oroitz hesitated. He couldn't look at Basajaun. But there was only one answer. ‘Ye-es.'

‘You gave them food. Were you deceiving them when you did that?'

There was only one answer to that too. ‘Ye-e-es.'

‘You forced the spirits of your hearth to tell a lie?'

Oroitz was silent. Koldo opened his mouth to speak.

‘Quiet, you! Oroitz, where is your father?'

Slowly Oroitz raised his arm and pointed into the darkness, in the direction of Arantxa's tent.

‘Is your father alive, Koldo?'

Koldo stared. ‘Yes!'

‘Is he mad?'

‘No!'

‘Is he ill?'

‘No!'

‘Then why are you here without him? Is he ashamed?'

‘No!' Koldo and Oroitz cried out together.

‘No? Perhaps he's just dozing then? Perhaps his sons hunt so well for him that he's eaten too much meat? Perhaps he's sleeping quietly in his tent? No? Well, well – we won't disturb an old man in his dreams. Basajaun!'

Basajaun stood with his arms folded and his lynx-skin cloak thrown back over his shoulder. He stared up at Aitor with the same contempt in his eyes that he'd shown to Arantxa's sons. Then his gaze dropped. His arms fell to his sides.

It was my turn at last. Basajaun wasn't expecting me to speak, and he started in surprise.

‘Basajaun,' I said. I was glad that in spite of everything my voice held firm. ‘Basajaun, the dolphin beached on the white strand – whose was it?'

He didn't answer. Over his head I saw the Moon look down. She cast her shadow, and laid Basajaun's head at Osané's feet, where Osané stood in the crowd between Sorné and Alaia.

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' Basajaun said at last.