a tree trunk. The woodpecker stopped drumming and came fluttering into sight in the high branches of the tree, a big bird, black and white with a splash of red on its underbelly. ‘It drums to attract the females. Thinks I’m a rival.’ Jurgi dropped the stick and waved his fingers. ‘Fly away, little man. I’m no threat. Unlike these Pretani.’ He sat with Zesi again.
‘It occurs to me,’ she said, ‘that I don’t know any of their names. The Pretani, aside from Shade and the Root. I know everybody’s name in Etxelur.’
‘They run things differently in Albia. The Root and his sons matter more than anybody else, save maybe their priests. What they say goes. Everybody else just has to obey—’
‘Like a child.’
‘No, not that. You may guide a child’s behaviour, but you expect her to grow into an adult who will make her own decisions. No, the other Pretani are like dogs, like Lightning. Who must always do as they’re told, all their lives. I know it’s odd but it’s the way they are. And they’re not unique. You should talk to Novu.’
‘Who? Oh, the rock maker.’
‘Brick maker.’ He used Novu’s own word. ‘I think it’s similar where he comes from.’
‘Why would anybody want to live like that?’
‘Because it works. The Pretani seem to control a lot of their country. And it suits the top men. Look how big the Root’s belly is.’
That made her laugh.
She watched Jurgi as he sat at ease, bare to the waist, cross-legged, picking bits of meat and mushroom from the hot rock. She thought back to how she had looked at Ana as she had set off from Etxelur - as if she had never seen her sister before. It occurred to her that she rarely looked at people. She was too busy blundering through life, in pursuit of something or other. People were a means for her to achieve her goals, or they got in the way. ‘You’re doing well,’ she said now. ‘On the walk, I mean.’
He grinned. ‘Thanks. I’m enjoying learning how to hunt from the masters. The range of signs they look for, the animals’ scent, piss, scut, saliva, signs of feeding, broken twigs . . . Even a bent blade of grass tells a story. And they don’t just track the animals, they seem to try to guess how it thinks, where it will go, the decisions it will make. Remarkable. No wonder the Pretani eat so well.’
‘I thought you’d turn back in a day, or I’d be carrying your pack after two.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m a priest. Priests don’t have to do a lot of walking, or carrying. But I was a boy before I became a priest. I won a lot of the kids’ challenges at the Giving feasts - this was when you were small, I guess you wouldn’t remember. Once I was chosen I gave all that up. People don’t want to find themselves being beaten in some race by a priest - or, worse, to beat him. It complicates relationships.’
‘How were you chosen?’
‘Old Petru touched my shoulder one day. You remember him, the priest before me? He told me he saw I was more interested in people than in hunting or fishing.’
‘In people? Not in the spirits?’
‘Petru said the way to hear the spirits is to listen to other people. I think he was right. And listening is the point of having a priest in the first place.’
‘Is it?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He studied her coolly. ‘Even when no words are spoken, there is always something to listen to.’
That confused her, and she went on the offensive. ‘I still don’t understand why my father was so keen for you to come with me.’
He glanced over at the Pretani. ‘A man of Etxelur beside you when you sleep will make you seem less available to our hosts.’
‘I don’t need some man to fight for me.’
‘I understand that. As does your father. But he doesn’t want you fighting at all. There has been enough fighting. That’s why he chose me. I am a man, but not a man who fights. Now, are you going to eat the rest of that mushroom or not?’
She took some more mushroom, but the flesh was heavy, tasteless. Suddenly it made her nauseous. She left the rest to him.
The nausea didn’t go away. That night she slept badly, her stomach churning.
And in the morning, in the dawn light before most of the Pretani woke to begin their ritual of comparing overnight erections