Bronze Summer

29

The First Year After the Fire Mountain: Midsummer

‘We think Caxa has run off to hide in the First Mother’s Ribs,’ Vala said to Voro.

Xivu, the Jaguar man, sat glaring at Voro from the shadows of Vala’s house. ‘Which, as I understand it, is your own strange name for the range of hills to the south of here.’ His Etxelur-speak was uncertain, his tone dismissive. He had a warm blanket thrown over his shoulders as he sat close to the fire on this cold summer’s day. With his very un-Northland dark eyes and strong nose and deep black hair, he looked out of place, Vala thought, sitting here in this wooden house loaned to her and her family of nestspills by a cousin, surrounded by cooking pots, racks of fish and scraps of meat, heaps of clothes for mending, and the children, Mi and Puli playing a complicated game of counters on a wooden board, while little Liff sat on Mi’s lap, half asleep. Out of place and profoundly unhappy. And he looked on Voro with unconcealed contempt.

But Xivu was here because he needed Vala and Voro’s help. Caxa was lost, Xivu’s sculptor, his treasure. When he had begged the Annid of Annids for help, Raka had sent him to Vala to sort it out. In this sunless summer Raka had a lot more important issues to handle than the fate of a girl sculptor from across the ocean. After all, if Kuma’s monumental image was not set on the Wall this year, it would be done next year, or the next, when they all had more time and energy; Raka was sure the little mothers would forgive them for the delay.

And Vala in turn had called in Voro.

‘Why me?’ Voro had asked. ‘I’m a Jackdaw. A trader. Maybe you should send a priest.’

‘The priests are too busy trying to persuade the little mothers to warm us all up. And besides — you’re not doing much trading, are you?’

He looked away.

It was true. Everybody knew why. Voro was still being eaten up inside by a corrosive guilt from his association with the death of Milaqa’s mother Kuma. Vala had said, ‘You must put aside this shame.’

‘Must I? How? It’s like the clouds in the sky that won’t go away.’

Vala touched his hand. ‘Forget about Milaqa for now. Think about Caxa.’ This was her bright idea, to solve two problems at once. ‘Maybe you can help her. You’re young, and so is she. You’ve both been through trials. You’ve got a lot in common.’

‘Even though we were born an ocean apart.’

‘Even so, yes. Go and find her. And if you do, maybe it will help you too. People will see you in a different light. You’ll break up that cloud over you once and for all — even though, Voro, it looks a lot blacker to you than to the rest of us.’

He had agreed, and he had gone looking for Caxa, but he had returned — without her.

So here they all were. And Vala, sitting by the hearth, grinding herbs with mortar and pestle, was not impressed by Xivu’s arrogance.

‘Of course,’ Xivu said now, ‘this isn’t the first time the sculptor has been endangered among you people. She nearly got broiled alive on Kirike’s Land.’

‘I know,’ snapped Vala. ‘I was there, remember?’

Voro studied Xivu. ‘Why don’t you go after her yourself?’

Vala laughed. ‘Oh, she runs away from him. He’s the main reason she’s run off, I reckon.’

‘Enough,’ Xivu snapped. ‘I told your Annid that this is not the way to handle the problem. In my country we would send a squad of soldiers to flush her out of the hills, like a hunted bird.’

‘But this is not your country,’ Vala said sternly.

‘No, it isn’t. This is Northland. Where this boy was manipulated into complicity in murder. Now you manipulate his guilt to make him do this task for you. And he will manipulate Caxa to bring her home. It is just as you build your country. You dig a ditch here, a dam there, manipulate a great river to run this way instead of that. We would cut through it. We would build a city of stone and make the river serve us!’

Vala ignored him. ‘So, Voro, before you go out again, what would you like to eat?’