Stone spring

17

More than a month after the Spring Walk, Ana had the idea that they should take a party up the valley of the Little Mother’s Milk to the old summer camp.

It was a suggestion born out of desperation, after another night of arguments in the house, another night of four-way stresses between herself and her sister and the Pretani brothers, in a house that, despite being the largest in Etxelur, seemed much too small. Ana didn’t even understand what was happening any more. Did Gall still want Zesi, or not? And what about his brother? Zesi and Shade barely spoke to each other in the house, but Ana saw the looks that passed between them – looks of guilt and lust, or so she read them. Would Gall stand by and let his little brother have Zesi? It seemed unlikely. And where did Ana herself fit in? She had thought Shade was attracted to her, not Zesi. Did Shade still feel anything for her – if he ever had? Did she care if he did or not? Ana could hardly bear the baffling tension.

What made it worse was that it was still more than a month and a half to the summer solstice, and the Giving celebration. That seemed to be emerging as a major landmark in everybody’s mind. It was always the summit of the year anyhow, the longest day, after which the slow run-down to another winter began. And at the Giving the question of her father would come to a head. Although the solstice would be less than a year since Kirike’s disappearance, everybody seemed to feel that if he wasn’t back by the time of the feast, and Zesi, defying custom, took over his role as the Giver, it would be a kind of closing of Kirike’s story.

Ana didn’t want to face that. But another part of her longed for the day to come, for the Pretani were going home after the Giving.

A month and a half was too long to wait. And so she suggested a trip up-river as a way to use up some energy. The idea was greeted with a snarl from Zesi, but a day later, after a quiet word from the priest, her sister grudgingly accepted that it was a good idea after all, and the word was passed around. Not long after dawn, the people gathered around Zesi’s house, a few adults and many children, and with soft murmurs and laughter they set off.

It was a short hike from the Seven Houses to the estuary of the Milk, across scrubby grassland carpeted with buttercups. Ana walked with Arga and Lightning, neither of whom seemed troubled by the atmosphere among the adults. The sun rose, the mist burned off with the last of the dew, the birdsong was loud, and Ana was soon warm through. Given all her problems, she felt unreasonably happy.

But it didn’t help that both the Pretani boys had decided to come along.

Zesi seemed in a foul mood from the beginning. Burdened with a heavy pack, she set a tough pace, as if the walk was something to be got over with, not to be enjoyed. Some weren’t capable of keeping up the pace: the kids, and a young flint knapper called Josu, cousin of a cousin of Ana’s, who had been born with a withered leg. Soon the group was strung out, and a couple of the older men quietly moved to the back of the group, keeping an eye on the stragglers.

They reached the river, and by the early afternoon they were following a narrow valley that cut through sandstone bluffs, heading roughly west. Zesi led the tramp upstream, following a well-worn path by the bank of the river.

In places the forest, birch and hazel scrub, came pushing close to the water’s edge. The bank itself was crowded with willows, which could grow as much as a hand’s length in a month at this time of year, and old alders, trees that liked the damp. The alders’ branches were heavy with catkins, some of them as long as Ana’s hand. She could see the scars left where wood had been harvested in previous years; the cut trees were recovering, new growths pushing out of their root systems. Alder was useful for the frames of houses, for it stayed supple even after being dried out.

And in the shade of the very oldest trees white windflowers clumped, bluebell carpets shone, and elusive pied flycatchers flitted, spectacular splashes of black and white. People took the chance to gather birds’ eggs. It was a rich, charming place.

But Etxelur folk, used to the coast’s open spaces, weren’t comfortable in the confines of the narrow valley, and Ana thought it was a great relief to everybody when they reached the site of the summer camp.

Here the valley opened out to a wide plain, bounded on either side by low, rounded hills cloaked with grass and forest. The river itself spread out, as if it too was glad to be free of its confinement. The main channel here was shallow and winding, cutting through a floor of turf, heather and scrub, but in places the flow split into two, three or four braids that combined and recombined, and wide marshy areas glimmered in the low sun. All along the valley the green skin of the floor had been eroded back by the changes in the river’s course, to reveal bone-white gravel spits.

The old camp itself, set back from the river, had been abandoned since the last visit two years ago. Only one of the houses Ana remembered still stood, a collection of poles leaning against each other with the remains of a covering of skin and thatch. In a few more years, Ana thought, even these ruins would have disappeared into the green, and you’d never know the camp was ever here. People touched the land lightly.

People dumped their packs and began the pleasant work of restoring the camp. Two men chose a site downwind of the houses and close to the forest’s edge to dig a fresh waste pit. Another man checked over an old urine pit, lined with stone. He jumped down into it and began raking out dead leaves; later he would seal it up with fat.

Further back was a stand of forest, with an open area where new young trees were sprouting. Ana remembered that this area had been cleared by fire the last time they had camped here, and she thought she saw the pale, wide-eyed face of a deer at the edge of the thicker forest. That was the point of the clearing, to encourage the growth of whippy young hazel shoots and fresh plants, and so to attract the animals.

When Gall saw the deer he immediately sprinted away, spear and club in hand. The deer vanished.

Arga grabbed Ana’s hand and Shade’s. ‘Come on! I’ll show you the river, Shade. I bet you don’t have rivers like this in Pretani.’

With grudging glances at each other, they both ran with the girl towards the river.

The sun was still high, the summer sky washed out, and the colours of the landscape, blue water and white gravel and green grass, were bright. Lightning, hot, thirsty but full of life, ran at their heels, yapping. Ahead of them a heron, invisible before it moved, took to the air and flapped away, its narrow head held high.

They came to a gravel bank, and the dog disturbed an oystercatcher from her nest amid the stones. The bird rose, red beak bright, peeping indignantly, and flapped away. The dog splashed into the river, shook himself to make a spray, and his pink tongue lapped busily at the cool, air-clear water.

Shade looked down at the ground, puzzled. ‘I know the oystercatcher’s been nesting here. I just can’t see where.’

Arga got to her hands and knees and poked at the gravel. ‘Look! Here it is.’ She held up a pale brown egg; the nest was just a collection of twigs in the gravel. ‘They’re good at hiding. I suppose you have to be if you make your nest on the ground.’ She popped the egg into her leather pouch. ‘You just take one,’ she said seriously. ‘The little mothers say you should leave the rest. Come on. I’ll show you the lagoon.’

They walked further up the valley. Here a lagoon ran beside the river, a crescent of dense, stagnant water choked with reeds and rushes, and surrounded by grass and scrub. Arga, seven years old, enjoying having somebody to show off to, told Shade about the different plants here, the watercress and water chestnut and water lily, and how you used them all. Lightning, his tail wagging ferociously, paddled across muddy ground and stuck his head down among the reeds, trying to get to the water.

Ana knelt, filled a cupped palm with water, and raised it to her face. Tadpoles wriggled, tiny and perfect. She carefully dropped them back into the lagoon’s scummy surface.

A sand martin dipped across the water, right in front of her, its wings swept back, darting and swooping in search of insects too small for her even to see. Watching it she found it hard to breathe, as if the bird was dragging her spirit through the light-filled air with it. All the darkness, the winter nights in the unhappiness of the house, the nagging, unhealed wound that was the loss of her father – none of it seemed real or important, compared to the martin’s graceful joy.

Shade came to sit beside her. ‘This lagoon,’ he said. ‘It looks as if the river once ran here. See? It curved around in a loop, and joined up down there, somewhere. But at some point the stream cut across the neck of the loop, and left it stranded.’ He pointed to the far bank. ‘You can see where it’s cutting back into the turf, over there.’

His grasp of the Etxelur tongue was now quite good. And she was always impressed by the way he saw patterns in the world. It had never occurred to her that this moon-shaped lagoon might be a relic of the river’s past.

He looked around. ‘It’s odd, however. As if the valley is too big for the river.’

‘So it is.’ The priest plodded down to the water’s edge. Jurgi had got rid of his pack; bare-chested, he carried only his charm bag. He pulled off his boots, sat on the bank and gratefully lowered his feet into the water. ‘Ah, that’s good. I don’t do enough walking; my feet aren’t tough enough. In our story of the world, Shade, ice giants made the world from the first mother’s body, the land from her bones, the sea from her blood. Later the little mothers finished the job. But the giants’ shaping was crude and rough, which is why the world is such a jumble now, with valleys like this, too big for the rivers that contain them.’

‘We have a different story. To do with big trees.’

‘Maybe all our stories share a deeper truth,’ the priest said.

Shade grunted. ‘You’re a funny sort of priest.’

‘Am I?’

‘That’s what my brother says about you. The priests back home say there’s one kind of truth – their truth. If you disagree you get punished. Gall says you’re a genius, or mad, or a fool.’

Jurgi laughed out loud. ‘Or all three.’ Tentatively, he touched Ana’s shoulder. ‘And how are you?’

Caught between light and dark, she thought. ‘I don’t know. I wish I was a sand martin.’

‘Even sand martins have work to do,’ the priest said. ‘Digging holes to build nests. Flying far to their winter homes.’

‘A tadpole then. Swimming mindlessly.’

‘How do you know they are mindless? Never mind.’ He glanced around, at the people playing in the water, or working at the settlement. ‘It was a good idea to come here. Etxelur has not been a happy place this winter.’

‘It’s because of us, isn’t it?’

‘Ever since the Pretani boys showed up. Brother against brother, sister against sister.’ He sighed. ‘Frankly, I think most people wish your father would return, Ana. It is as if we are led by wilful children.’

‘It’s my fault,’ Ana said dismally. ‘My Other. I’m bad luck.’

‘You’ve had no control over any of this,’ the priest said.

‘None of us have,’ said Shade heavily.

‘If only you’d just go home!’ Ana flared at him, her anger surprising herself.

‘Oh, that’s not going to happen,’ said the priest. ‘Not until this little game of yours is played out, one way or another. Let’s hope that these days in the valley will soothe our spirits’

There was a piercing yell. They all looked to the cleared area before the forest. A tall figure emerged, a deer slung over his neck, hand cupped to his mouth.

‘Gall’s back,’ said the priest.

‘No.’ Ana stood up. ‘That’s not Gall. That’s a snailhead!’