Chapter 4 #2
“I only saw their ship in the dark,” I reply calmly.
“But I know what her voice sounded like when the velan grabbed her.” I’d prefer not to have to say that I grabbed her, too, and then ran.
When the Deep gives something, it’s usually not necessary to tie up the gift’s arms. But Callie is the first thing I’ve been given that had arms, so perhaps it is as it should be.
“She’s not an agent of the Plood. They are as much her enemy as ours. ”
Silence follows. Sprub’ex inclines his head. He has lost this exchange, but he has not abandoned the field.
Mek’tor steps in before anyone else can speak.
He smiles too quickly and too broadly, but then he always does.
“We only wish to be careful,” he says. “You have taken responsibility for her. That honors you. Still, the Day of Trade comes soon, after the splix run. The jungle tribes will arrive to trade their goods for our splix. They will see her. They will ask questions. Perhaps it would be wise to decide together how she is to be presented.”
“Presented?” I repeat, and I hear the danger in my own voice. My spear is still in my boat, but I can easily get it.
Mek’tor follows my gaze. “As a blessing,” he says quickly.
“Or as a warning. As given from the Deep. You know that the jungle tribes don’t believe in the Deep.
If they were shown a woman, surely they’d have to give up their silly beliefs about the Ancestors or the legend of the Woman they’re all waiting for.
‘Look,’ we can say. ‘Here is a real woman. Was she found in the jungle by one of you? No! She was found by us, on the beach, given to us by the Deep.’ They would have to see the truth, then. ”
“What do we care about what other tribes believe?” I ask. “Since when is it our task to help them realize that the Deep is the only power there is? Do we really want them building villages on the water as well? Let them believe what they want.”
“Ah, but if they saw the truth,” Mek’tor goes on, “they would hold us in even greater regard. They would have to ask us about how to worship the Deep, how to be given its gifts. We could tell them to bring us iron, sweet-smelling firewood, fabrics, pots, and furs in return. And they could bring it more often than just once a year. We could have them hunt for us!”
Some of the men nod, clearly liking the idea. “We do need pots and iron.”
“And,” Mek’tor goes on, encouraged, “if we show the woman to them as something shared, they might see her value all the better—”
I take a step forward as heat rises in my cheeks. “She is not a splix to be shared,” I snarl in his face. “She is not a tool to be loaned. She stays in my hut until I decide otherwise. She was given to me. She is mine.”
Mek’tor lifts his hands as he takes a stumbling step back. “As you say, Crat'ax. I only speak for the tribe. For balance.”
It doesn’t make me less angry. ’Balance’ is what some men call it when they want what another owns.
“I will speak again when there is more to say,” I tell him. “But I hope our tribe will receive this remarkable gift from the Deep with gratitude and respect.”
“Of course.” He bows and steps back. Too easily.
Chief Brun'ax clears his throat. “The splix run will begin within this moon. Already Yrf grows round in the sky. When it grows smaller again, we can expect the splix. We will need more lines. Perhaps more hands.”
“Perhaps more spears,” I say without thinking.
Several men turn toward me. Surprise shows on their faces.
“Spears?” Brun'ax asks with a chuckle. “While you are a good spearsman, Crat'ax, it is a craft that takes years of practice. And only you have enough iron to make all the blades that are needed for a spear like yours.”
“For the shallows,” I say. “The splix stand as dense as straws of grass in a jungle clearing, in many layers. Throw a dozen spears in, and each will catch a dozen splix. The lines can only catch one for each hook. And we don’t have that many hooks.”
“That is how we always catch splix,” someone mutters. “The hooks are good enough.”
“Things can change,” I answer. “Even the old ways.”
The skirr chirps and slaps its tail wetly on the floorboards. The sound draws a few laughs and breaks the tension.
I turn back toward my hut. “She’s sleeping,” I say. “When she wakes, I will feed her properly. She is injured. She will not be questioned today. But perhaps she will come out and see our village.”
No one challenges me. Not openly, at least.
Inside, the hut smells of salt and fur and her. I kneel beside her and set a bowl of softened splix fillets within reach. I pour watered frit into a shell cup and hold it to her lips when she stirs.
Her eyes open, and she immediately pulls away. “Oh fuk! Um. Soree. Eye min, helow.”
The reality of it all hits me. She is here. A woman. Given to me by the Deep. In my hut.
It takes my speech away for a moment while the hut spins slowly around me.
“You need some breakfast,” I manage. “The boys want to give you dried fruit, but I think that can wait.”
She drinks and eats. She doesn’t thank me, but she also doesn’t pull away again.
I sit back and watch her enjoy her food. I wonder if she’s been starved before, because she eats faster than I would have expected from such a small being.
But she’s not too small. She’s not a child, not at all. Her voice is more mature than that of boys, and her deliberate, calm moves tell me that she’s not as skittish as an inexperienced adult would be.
She eats the morning food slowly, as if she expects it to vanish if she moves too fast, and I find that I cannot look away.
In the clear light, I see things the dark hid from me: the color of her eyes, deep and warm like wet earth after rain, unlike any gaze I have ever met; the softness of her shape, rounded where tribesmen are sharp, smooth where we are ridged, her body flowing instead of cut from stone.
She is built as if the Deep shaped her with patience, pressing gently instead of striking, and though she is clearly not of Xren and not made as we are, my breath catches as if I have been walking uphill too fast. It’s a desire deep in the body, like the moment before a spear leaves the hand, when the world narrows and everything else waits.
My loincloth lifts quickly in the front, and I have to put my hand on it so as not to make it too obvious.