father hated you that much. I mean, the thing about the thieving was just the final excuse, wasn’t it?’
‘We never got on,’ Novu said. ‘I wasn’t like him. Vain and greedy. And on the other hand I wasn’t a tough hunter type, like some of my cousins. I played alone a lot—’
‘Making bricks.’
‘As I got older we started having fights. I’d challenge my father in front of my mother, his brothers. Once he took me to a meeting of his friends. Maybe you know some of them. I think, looking back, he was trying to help me. If I could get to know these people, maybe I could be accepted by them. Be like them some day.’
‘Be like him.’
‘Yes. But they were just a bunch of stupid fat old men to me, with their sea shells and bits of jade and obsidian and gold dangling from their necks and ears. Well, I made a fool of my father. I made them laugh at him.’
Chona grunted. ‘He won’t have enjoyed that.’
‘That was over a year ago. Since then he’s been harder on me. You saw it. In turn I played up more. It just got worse and worse. I was stupid to steal from him. Now I can see that he was making plans to get rid of me. Just waiting for the chance.’
‘And waiting for the right bit of obsidian to exchange you for.’ Chona belched, and lay back on a skin. ‘I can see how it went. He feared that you’d become a rival. Position is everything to your father, position among all those other jostling idiots in Jericho. Like goats in a herd, but not as intelligent. That’s what I use to sell him stuff, you know. Impress your friends! He feared you were going to undermine all that.’
‘I probably would have,’ Novu admitted. ‘I’d have enjoyed doing it.’
‘Well, there you are. So he got rid of you. Brutal, but effective. Bad luck for you.’ He settled his head on his arm. ‘I’ve eaten too much. Well, we don’t have to walk for a couple of days.’ And with that he rolled on his side, loosed a fart that filled the cave with the essence of fish, pulled another skin over his body, and wriggled to make himself comfortable.
Novu leaned back against his wall once more. He tried to ignore the uneven, unsleeping breath of the trader, and listened again to the crackle of his fire, the rush of the river.
The last daylight was all but gone, and as his eyes opened to the dark, he saw more detail in the roof carvings. There were oval shapes, like eggs, chipped into the rock, each about the size of his own head. He thought he saw what looked like a face carved into each egg, circles for eyes, a crescent for a downturned mouth. But surrounding the face and running down the body were overlapping circles and plates that looked like scales. Half-human, half-fish. Maybe that was how the people of the Narrow saw themselves, their very spirits mingled with the fish that gave them life.
Chona coughed and stirred. He squirmed, his back to Novu, and pushed one hand inside his skin leggings. Novu saw his upper arm working. Novu had seen this before. The trader was a man who, so contained and controlled, hid a powerful lust. He had probably been dreaming of this niece of a niece of Cardum’s for days, and was now denied her.
It wasn’t long before the trader’s body shuddered, and relaxed. Then, at last, Novu was left alone, with the river, and the fish-people of the cave.
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?