died. We took her and her children in. She had four children; two of them died . . .’
It was a story that you could have heard all over Etxelur, of broken families joined together for support. All very ordinary. And yet her relationship with this Wise wasn’t ordinary at all.
‘Sit down,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Do what I tell you. Sit down.’
Kirike murmured, ‘What are you doing, Dolphin?’
Wise stood still for a long heartbeat. Then, slowly, with a kind of unspoken insolence, he sat.
‘Now stand up.’
Again he drew the moment out. But then he stood, unwinding his thin legs.
She said to Kirike, ‘I control him in everything he does, as I control the fingers of my own hand. It’s not even like a trained dog, for he is human, as we are, and can understand exactly what is asked of him. I can make him do anything. I wonder how far I could go. If I told you to take that stone knife and to start slicing away at your own flesh, would you do it, Wise?’
‘Stop it, Dolphin.’
‘Just imagine if everyone was your slave. You could do anything you wanted. You could rebuild the whole world! You could tear down the hills, and banish the sea.’
Kirike muttered, ‘Ana seems to think she can do that already. How would you know if you gave the right commands? We aren’t the little mothers. Even if we had the power, we wouldn’t have their wisdom.’
‘You could always ask the priest,’ she said, but she giggled. ‘But if he was a slave, how could you trust his answers? And besides—’
‘What?’
She looked down at the children. ‘Having slaves around is probably all right as long as you aren’t one. Look, that little one has cut her hand.’ She knelt down and reached out to take the child’s arm. The girl flinched away, and the women tensed. Dolphin murmured, ‘It’s all right. I won’t hurt you. I just want to help. Oh, get your nose out, Thunder, she doesn’t want you licking her!’
The wound was small but deep; the blood had smeared all down the girl’s arm and over the bark she had been working. The girl was evidently terrified, and now she started to cry, though the women tried to hush her.
Dolphin said, ‘This will get infected if it’s not treated. The little one will get sick.’ The women were scared to respond, she could see, and she wasn’t sure how much they understood. She looked up at Kirike. ‘Go find the priest. Bring some moss, and ask him for healing herbs - he’ll know what’s best - and bring cloth soaked in sea water.’
Kirike hesitated, then he nodded and jogged away.
Dolphin smiled at the girl. ‘It will be all right. You’ll see. I’ll clean out the wound and wrap it up.’
‘We have healing,’ one of the women said unexpectedly. ‘In home, in land of Great Eel. Not bring. Pretani. Not let us bring.’
‘Well, it’s stupid to stop you keeping yourselves healthy, for if you get sick you can’t work, can you?’
Wise shrugged. ‘Always more Eel folk. Always more children. Why are you helping us?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Because I’m an outsider here too, and so is Kirike. Because I made you stand up and sit down, and I don’t like the fact that I enjoyed it.’ She probed at that bit of guilt, like a tongue exploring a broken tooth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t say sorry to me.’
‘I’m sorry anyhow. When Kirike comes back we’ll fix up her hand. Later I’ll bring you more healing stuff.’
‘The Pretani will take it away. Punish us for having it.’
‘Then we’d better make sure they don’t find out, hadn’t we?’ She grinned. But the women looked wary, and Dolphin was reminded that this wasn’t a game to these people, but a question of the lives and deaths of their children.
So she sat quietly and held the little girl’s hand until Kirike came back with a satchel of medicines.
76
The Seventeenth Year After the Great Sea: Late Summer.
In the cold dawn light, Acorn and Knot approached the Leafy Boys tethered at the foot of the great old oak. Shapeless in her tunic of stiff hide, Acorn was carrying a skin food satchel. Knot, close beside her, bore a long, stout stick.
Knot felt Acorn’s hand creep into his. He could feel her trembling, her small fingers clutching his. His own heart was thumping, for he had a deep gut fear of the Leafy Boys.