Stone spring

79

‘Talk to me,’ Dolphin snapped.

Wise just looked at her.

Barefoot, he walked in the wet sand close to the sea’s shallow, lapping edge. He had a basket hung around his neck full of the cockles he’d been picking from the exposed rocks. His two wives and four children combed the beach with him, the children laden with their own small baskets. Gulls wheeled, competing for the food, but they scattered when the children clapped their hands.

It was noon, and still summer, only a couple of months after the solstice, an oppressive, colourless time of year, and though the sun was obscured by a lid of cloud the heat by the sea was intense.

One of the children splashed another, accidentally, and they giggled together, just like kids playing on a beach. But one of the women muttered a soft word in the tongue of the Eel folk, and they glanced uneasily at Dolphin, and fell silent.

Still Wise did not reply.

Dolphin snapped again, ‘Talk to me, or may the little mother of the sea drown you in her wrath.’

He glanced at his family. ‘Scaring children,’ he said in his softly accented traders’ tongue. ‘Walk.’ Still bending to pick cockles off the rocks, he turned and walked slowly away from the children.

She fumed, but followed. ‘You wouldn’t talk to a Pretani that way, would you?’

‘You are not Pretani,’ he said simply. ‘Will talk take long?’

‘What?’

He gestured at the rocks. ‘Pretani don’t feed us meat any more. Too many of us. We have fruits of sea. But we are hungry – we work hard – children growing. Shellfish not-’ He tapped his belly, running out of words. ‘They leave you hungry. We must gather many, many shells. Soon the tide will turn, rocks covered-’ ‘We know.’

He shifted the pack on his shoulder; she saw the leather strap was rubbing his bare skin raw. ‘Know what?’

‘What you intend.’ She glanced over her shoulder at his family, who continued to work in silence. ‘In Pretani there is a man called True. One of the Eel folk, like you. Perhaps you know him.’

‘Many called True.’

‘Just listen. The Pretani have a plan. They will come here in numbers, and attack us. This will be soon. And the Eel folk will be involved.’ She stepped forward, hand on hips, glaring at him, summoning all the authority she could muster. ‘You will rise up, all over Etxelur, and attack us. And when we turn to face you, the Pretani will fall on us like wolves on a lame calf. This is what True says has been planned. He says every adult of the Eel folk is prepared for it.’

‘How do you know?’

‘We take stone and slaves from the Pretani, in return for flints. You know this. To make the trade the Pretani come here, and some of us go to their settlements in the forest. One day True spoke to a man from Etxelur. He told him about the Pretani’s plan.’

‘Why would this True do that? Never been here.’

‘He knows nothing of Etxelur, and cares nothing. He only knows that Etxelur is an enemy of the Pretani. And he asked our trader for favours.’

‘What favours?’

‘His freedom, and his family’s, when the Pretani are beaten.’

Wise studied her. His face was weather-beaten, burned; many of the Eel folk, used to the milder sun of their inland lakes, had broiled in the intense light of the coast, especially the children. The darkening and tightening of Wise’s skin gave him an alien, hardened look. ‘Why tell me?’

‘Ana is having your leaders brought to her. We’re trying to do this out of sight of the Pretani. We don’t want them to know what we know. Soon they will come for you. But I came first.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to understand.’ Deeply hurt, betrayed, she clung to her anger. ‘You aren’t denying it, are you?’

He sighed. ‘Why deny?’

‘Even though the Pretani beat your children and rape your women, you are prepared to work for them – to kill us to further their goals?’

He shrugged. ‘No choice. And besides, when the attack comes, great chaos. Perhaps we slip away.’

‘But you would turn on us? What have we ever done to you? We don’t beat you.’

‘No. You let Pretani do that.’

‘Would you have harmed me?’ She grabbed his forearm; covered with dense grey hair, it was slick with sweat and sea spray. ‘Look at me, Wise. Would you have hurt me?’

‘If I had to.’

She stepped back, shocked. ‘But I cared for you – your family. I brought you medicine for your sick child.’

‘I depend on your kindness for life of child.’ He studied her, staring at her face. ‘Understand, little girl? Don’t want your power over me, for good or ill.’ She was horrified to see something like pity in his eyes.

She turned away and ran back up the beach.