Stone spring

59

The Fifteenth Year After the Great Sea: Late Spring. Qili, following the northern shore of Northland, walked steadily west, as he had done for many days.

The sea was a blue-grey expanse to his right, stretching to the northern horizon, and he saw fishing boats working far out, grey outlines against the sky. On the wrack-strewn beach gulls and wading birds worked, squabbling noisily. The day was warm, less than two months short of midsummer, one of the hottest days of the year so far, and the sun was high in a clear sky. Qili had his boots on a bit of rope slung around his neck, and he walked in the damp sand that bordered the sea. The cool wavelets that broke over his feet eased the ache of callused soles, but did nothing to relieve the weight of the pack on his back, grubby and stained after his long walk from home at the mouth of the World River, far to the east.

He rounded a headland of gravel that spilled from the feet of eroding dunes, and the view to the west opened up. And he saw Etxelur, birthplace of his grandfather Heni, for the first time in his life.

It was just as his father’s visitor from Etxelur had described. There was Flint Island lying just offshore, and there the bay cupped by the island’s bulk and the gentle hills of the mainland. With land and sea mixed together, an estuary-dweller like Qili could see at a glance how desirable it was as a place to live.

But there, cutting across the sea, stretched between island and mainland, was a line, dead straight and bone white. It was clearly unnatural, sharp and straight in a world of curves and randomness.

All along the Northland coastline he had glimpsed similar works, walls to keep the water out, channels to let it run away, many of the works fresh cut from the earth. Everywhere people were working the land to keep it from the clutches of the sea. A part of him quailed at the thought of this reshaping of the world. Yet, standing here before the great dyke, he felt a spark of wonder. He was seventeen years old.

A pair of birds flew over his head, casting sweeping shadows. Their outspread wings had a clear white stripe along their brown surfaces, and behind sharp bills they had bright red necks; their call was a low-pitched ‘whee-t’. He watched, entranced.

‘Phalaropes. We call them phalaropes.’ The words were in the traders’ tongue.

Two women were approaching him, coming from the west. They were bare-footed, dressed in simple dyed-cloth tunics that left their arms and legs bare. The older woman, perhaps in her early twenties, had a serious face and blonde hair tied back behind her head. The younger, perhaps younger than Qili, was more exotic, her hair thick and jet-black, her features strong, her skin a rich brown. Her tunic was open at the waist, and he saw a marking on her belly: three concentric circles and a single radial stab, disappearing into the wrap around her loins. She was taller than he was. He’d never seen anyone quite like her. She was undoubtedly beautiful, but intimidating.

As they reached him they stood apart, and he saw that both had bone-handled stone blades hanging on loops from their leather belts. If he had been meaning to attack them, he could not have reached both with a single movement. That was a reasonable precaution, strangers were often unfriendly, but he had no such intention. And he couldn’t take his eyes off the weapons’ blades, shaped from a rich, creamy, pale brown flint. Back home only the big men and the priests would wear such things. Was Etxelur really as rich as they said?

The women were watching him, waiting to see what he would do. He smiled and spread his hands, showing they were empty.

The older woman asked, ‘You speak the traders’ tongue?’

‘Not well.’ He glanced up. ‘Phalaropes. We call them red-cheeks. They are early this year. Often not seen before…’ He stumbled on the word.

‘Midsummer? No. My name is Arga. This is Dolphin Gift.’

‘I am Qili. I come from a land east of here, at the mouth of the World River. You are from Etxelur.’

‘How could you tell?’

‘Well, I can see it,’ he said, gesturing to the island. ‘Just as has been described. And I recognised the marking on your stomach,’ he said to the younger woman. Dolphin scowled at him. He said, ‘It was the same marking as on the cheek of our visitor.’

‘What visitor?’

‘His name was Matu son of Matu. He said he was from Etxelur. And he said he was searching for sons of Heni of Etxelur.’

‘I see he found you.’ Arga smiled, and her face was transformed, a smile as wide as the moon.

‘I am Heni’s grandson, not his son. I never met Heni.’

‘But you have come to celebrate his death and life.’

Dolphin Gift said, ‘That’s a long way, just to see the end of some old man you never knew.’ Despite her looks, when she spoke she had just the same accent as Arga.

‘My father is too ill to travel. He is quite old – thirty-three.’

Arga nodded. ‘We think Heni was fifty! He said he stopped counting once he passed forty, and there is nobody left alive who can remember his birth.’

‘I come for my father, who remembers Heni with affection – even though he rarely saw him.’

‘That was Heni for you,’ Arga said. ‘Always out on his boat.’

‘And I come for myself, for I am curious to see Etxelur. Everybody knows about Etxelur. The traders come here from across Northland, across Albia and the Continent, to bring their goods to you in exchange for your flint – so I have heard, anyhow. But I never met anybody from Etxelur before Matu son of Matu came in his fishing boat to our estuary.’

‘Well, here you are,’ Arga said. ‘I’m glad we happened to meet you. Anyone of Etxelur would have made a grandson of Heni welcome. Walk with us.’

‘I’ll carry your pack.’ Dolphin held out her arm.

He didn’t need his pack carrying, but something in her manner didn’t encourage argument. He slipped off the pack, and she picked it up with one hand.

They began to walk towards Etxelur, along the beach. The women kept to either side of him, just out of his reach, showing residual caution.

Arga said, ‘When poor Heni died we sent Matu out in his boat off to the east, while his brother went west, hoping to find Heni’s sons. For we didn’t want to lay Heni in the midden without family present.’

‘You honour Heni, to do so much.’

‘Heni helped Dolphin’s mother give birth to her, out in a boat rolling around in the middle of the western ocean. And he saved my life when I was swept out by the Great Sea.’

This took some translation. ‘We call the big wave the Gods’ Shout.’

‘Without Heni I wouldn’t be standing here now, I wouldn’t have loved my husband, I wouldn’t have had my two children.’

Qili frowned, puzzling out a sentence that was long and convoluted in the traders’ tongue, which, rich with words but with crude grammar, was better suited to simple exchanges. ‘Your husband?’

‘Died, some years ago.’

Dolphin said morbidly, ‘Killed trying to deal with a failure of one of the dykes.’

‘Dykes. Matu explained that word. I am curious about the dykes.’ But they said nothing more, for now. He glanced at Dolphin, who walked with her head hung low, staring at the shallow craters her feet left in the soft moist sand. ‘I am curious about you too,’ he said at length. ‘You don’t seem happy to have found me.’

Dolphin glanced at Arga, who looked away. ‘Oh, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s about Arga and my mother. Ice Dreamer, she’s called – you’ll meet her.’

‘Ice Dreamer.’ This was a name like none he had ever heard.

‘She’s not from here. My mother thinks I don’t keep the right company.’

‘She’s talking about a boy,’ Arga said.

‘A man,’ Dolphin snapped. ‘We aren’t children, Arga. My mother has Arga supervise me when she can’t, to make sure we don’t start humping on the beach-’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dolphin.’

‘You’re the one being ridiculous. Everybody else my age has got babies. You had a baby when you were thirteen.’

Qili said, ‘I have two children myself. They’re boys aged one and two.’

Dolphin wasn’t listening. She snapped at Arga, ‘Kirike and I are getting old waiting, while you fools keep us apart!’

‘You’ve no need to wait,’ Arga said. ‘Just find somebody else.’

‘You see,’ Dolphin said to Qili. ‘She takes my mother’s side. She always does.’

‘I just want to avoid upset,’ Arga said. ‘And I agree with your mother that if you and Kirike were together there would be nothing but upset.’

Qili frowned. ‘Why?’

‘Because of the past,’ Dolphin said bitterly. ‘Long story. All to do with who Kirike’s mother and father were. The past! All because of the stupid things our parents once did. Sorry. You walked a long way to arrive in the middle of an argument.’

Qili shrugged. ‘We have arguments at home. At least here they are different arguments.’

Arga asked, ‘So what do you argue about?’

He hesitated, and decided to be honest. ‘Mostly about whether to trade with Etxelur.’

‘Really?’

‘Some people find you scary.’

Arga considered that, then nodded. ‘Sometimes I find us scary. Well, you can make your own mind up, because we’re nearly there.’