John Norman (56 page)

“Herjellsen did not expect to be always with us,” said Hamilton.

“We are alone now,” said Gunther.

“We have ourselves,” said William.

“Herjellsen,” said Gunther, “would have liked to see the stars.” He looked down at the grave.

Then the party turned about, and returned, slowly, to the compound.

Behind them they left the grave, with its simple marker. It bore the name Herjellsen. It bore, too, a brief inscription, which William had added, `Ad Astra.’

At the gate to the compound, Hamilton turned to William. “What is the meaning of `Ad Astra,’ “she asked him.

William smiled. “To the stars,” he said.

Hamilton lifted her head. She rose to her feet, and stood in the high grass, among the stones in a circle.

The Horse People had, in the months intervening, added other stones. Some they had placed on others. Many of these stones were large, and had, apparently, been brought, doubtless on rollers, from long distances. Many of the stones, now, were higher than Hamilton’s head.

Then she walked from the place. Two men of the Horse People saw her. They cried out. She paid them no attention. They did not touch her, though, for a time, they followed her. Then they returned to the circle of stones. Looking back, Hamilton saw them dancing about its edges.

She continued on, not again looking back. About her thighs she had wrapped the brief deerskin skirt of the women of the Men, which she had worn when she had returned to Rhodesia and the compound. She had not brought supplies with her, nor a compass. She knew her way. She knew she could live off the land. She was a woman of the Men.

Tree turned her roughly about, her back to him. Hamilton stood very straight. She felt the collar, of thongs, and teeth, and leather, and shells looped several times about her neck and then, behind her neck, knotted tightly. He turned her about, to face him.

“You have been long from my collar,” he said.

“Beat me,” she said.

“If you run away again,” he said, “I will kill you.”

“I will not run away again,” she said, “-Master.”

Her body, abruptly, was half turned about, as he tore the deerskin skirt from her.

“Lie down,” he said. “Lift your body.”

Swiftly Hamilton, half frightened, obeyed him. He did not take her immediately, but looked upon her.

She looked at him, and saw his anger. She knew he would take his vengeance on her, deep and incredible vengeance, a ruthless hunter’s vengeance, for the months in which she had denied him her body. She trembled, but yet with eagerness to feel his wrath. She waited for him, her body trembling; she waited, a slave, for the master to ventilate, fully, on her helpless beauty, the extreme, pent-up fury of his mighty displeasure; she, a slave, awaited her discipline; she knew she would be sharply disciplined; she, a slave, awaited her punishment; she looked at Tree; she knew she would be well punished; “I love you,” she said; he looked at her with fury, with desire, with lust, such as she had not seen since he, long ago, had tied her in the high prison cave; “I lie before you, as you have ordered me,” said Hamilton; “I lift my body to you, as you have commanded. I am yours. Do with me what you will, Master”; she smiled, tears in her eyes; she arched her back, lifting her body more vulnerably to him; but she saw that he would not be so easily placated; she did not know how long it would take to placate such an anger; it might, she suspected, take weeks, or months; perhaps for more than a year she might be forced to eat from his hand; she looked up again at him, tears loving and sweet in her eyes; “I love you,” she whispered; then she said, “I await my punishment”; then she said, “Punish me, Master.”

Hamilton, turning her head, with her teeth, took the bit of meat from Trees band. He held it. She looked at him. Then he permitted her to have it. She chewed it, and put her head delicately against the hair on his wrist.

“Punish me, Master,” she had said, lying before him, his naked slave, in his collar.

With a cry, almost animal, of rage, of joy, of lust, Tree, a hunter, brutal and cruel, had thrown himself mercilessly upon her.

Well had he punished her. Never again would she so much as dare to think of leaving his side.

“I have come back!” she had cried. “I love you!” she had cried. “I love you!”

Antelope came to Hamilton and, as a joke, put her hand on Hamilton’s back. Hamilton cried out, and winced, but then, as she saw Tree’s frown, was silent, and put down her head, smiling. He did not wish her to cry out. Her back was laced with welts, deep, from the switching she had been given. It hurt her to move, but she was pleased. He had used her five times, almost consecutively, before dragging her to a sapling and lashing her wrists about it; then he had beaten her; when he had done this, he untied her and again, by the hair, threw her to the grass, where he raped her until he could rape her no more, and then told her to run to Old Woman, to help with the food. Stinging, laughing, pulling her skirt about her bruised, aching thighs, she had stumbled to Old Woman. “Hurry, Girl,” had laughed Old Woman, cackling with pleasure, “turn the meat on the spit. Be busy, lazy, good-for-nothing girl!”

“Yes, Old Woman!” had cried Hamilton. “Yes, Old Woman!”

Ugly Girl had come to her, to lick the wounds on her back. “I love you, Ugly Girl,” said Hamilton, kissing her.

About the camp she saw the small boy of the Ugly People, whose parents had been killed by the Weasel People. He had fled to the woods. Ugly Girl, months ago, had found him, and brought him to the camp. He played with the other children, as one of the Men. Tooth was to him as a father. Ugly Girl’s own belly was swollen with young, perhaps, it was possible, with the child of Tooth. Hamilton knew the relationship in evolution of the bands of Ugly People to the bands of the Men was obscure. It was not known if the Men themselves had sprung from a form of Ugly People, or if there had been only, in the remote past of these peoples, a common animal. That seemed most likely. But there was little doubt, in gross matters, as to the similarity of the species. The Ugly People and the Men, in the great patterns of life, were brothers. And the belly of Ugly Girl, even if it were only from the gentle, shambling male of the Ugly People, was heavy with life. Hamilton looked into the wide, deep, simple eyes of Ugly Girl. They are called, among themselves, she thought, the Love People. “I love you, Ugly Girl,” said Hamilton again, kissing her.

Hamilton looked up.

Stone, huge, dour, stood near her. He reached out his large hand. He, gently, touched her head.

“I am pleased to be back,” said Hamilton.

Stone had been long with the Men. He, as a boy, had hunted with Spear. He knew the trails, the weather, the land, the animals. He was powerful. He was hard.

“I am pleased, too,” said Stone. Then he turned away from her. Hamilton smiled. It was about as much emotion as she had ever seen the dour Stone evince.

As she turned the spit, various of the Men, on one pretense or another, welcomed her. “I will need sinew, fine sinew, to bind the points of arrows,” said Arrow Maker. “I will get it for you,” said Hamilton. “I will need hide softened,” said Runner. “Bring me the skin,” said Hamilton. “I will soften it for you.” “Where have you been, and what lands did you see?” asked Fox, Wolf behind him. “Many far places,” said Hamilton. “I went as far, even, as the land of the Horse People,” she said. Hyena, from a ledge, crouching, watched her. He carried a yellow-tufted stick. Then he went back into his cave. He would draw signs on the floor. It had not been important. It had been only the return of a female. Hamilton felt a hand on her buttocks. “Turtle,” said Hawk. For an instant she felt irritation. She felt like telling him to go away, that he was only a boy, but when she turned to face him, to scold him, she was forced to put her head back, that she, a female, and suddenly aware that she was only such, might look him in the eyes. She was startled. He was much taller. Confronting her, looming over her, was a hunter. “Turn the spit,” he said. He was, she recalled, of the Men, and she was only a woman of the Men, a mere female. He grinned down at her. “Yes, Master,” she said, lowering her eyes. Behind Hawk, on wobbly legs, following him, was a wolf cub. It was the survivor of a litter which the Men had found.

When Tree indicated that the women, other than Ugly Girl, might approach her, they flocked about her, holding her and kissing her. There was Cloud, and Antelope, and Feather, and Flower, and Butterfly, and the others. Among them, even, were the red-haired girl, pregnant, radiant, who had been with the Weasel People, and the girl of the Dirt People, who had been she who was to have been sacrificed, who had once been so exquisitely virginally bodied; but no longer was her body the slip that it had been, for now it had known the will and pleasure of hunters; her breasts were larger now, filling with milk, and, beneath the tiny skirt of the hunters, her belly, like that of the red-haired girl, was big with child; she was Hawk’s second woman, fed behind Butterfly.

Nurse, too, and Old Woman, when the others were not looking, kissed her.

When it had been time for the meat to be distributed, Hamilton had taken Flower by the hair, and, baring her teeth, threw her from Tree’s side.

Tree did not interfere, but busied himself with the cutting of meat.

Flower looked furious, tears in her eyes. “You will bear daughters,” said Hamilton, derisively, “who will serve my sons.”

Flower shook with fury, and then went and knelt behind Fox. He threw her a piece of meat. She picked it up, and, angrily, ate it.

Then Hamilton extending her neck, took the piece of hot, juicy meat which Tree thrust between her teeth.

Chewing it, she smiled at Flower, who looked angrily away.

Hamilton wondered why she, a runaway girl, had not been dragged before Spear, to see if she would be permitted to live.

She had not seen Spear, nor Knife, since she had come to the camp. She had not seen, either, the small, darkhaired girl who had been taken from the Weasel People.

Butterfly had gathered apples. She gave Hamilton one. Hamilton handed the apple to Tree, who ate it.

Late that night, after Hamilton had been much used by the hunter, Tree, she crept to Old Woman.

“Where is Spear?” she asked.

“He is dead,” said Old Woman, who sat by a fire, poking it with a stick.

Hamilton did not speak.

“Knife,” she said, “killed him. He had tried before, twice. Then he was successful. He wished to be first. He went to his side in the night and, with the ax of Tree, broke open his head. He left the ax beside Tree, that the Men might think this had been done by Tree.” Old Woman jabbed the fire, and sparks flew up. “But Spear,” she said, “was not dead. He is hard to kill. Some say Spear is not dead yet. He had not been asleep. He knew, sometime, Knife would kill him. He waited. He did not cry out. But in the morning, before he died, he told the Men it was not Tree, but Knife, who had done the thing. But the Men knew Tree would not do it. Only Knife would do it. Knife was foolish. He was not wise, not cunning, like Spear. He did not have Spear’s intelligence. He was not Spear.”

“Was Knife killed?” asked Hamilton.

“Do not kill Knife, said Spear,” said Old Woman. “I care for him. I love him, said Spear. He is of my body. I love him, said Spear.” Old Woman stirred the ashes. The reflection, red, was on her chin and upper lip, glowing in the wrinkles. “He is not bad, said Spear. He only wants to be first.”

“What happened?” asked Hamilton.

“Tree sent Knife away,” said Old Woman. “He gave him a woman, too, to take with him, the brown-haired girl, from the Weasel People.”

“Why did he do that?” asked Hamilton.

“So that Knife would have a woman,” said Old Woman. “Spear would have wanted Knife to have a woman.”

Hamilton said nothing.

Old Woman looked up, to one of the ledges, where there was a dark hole in the face of the cliff. No fire burned there. It had been the shelter of Spear. None lived there now. “Some say,” said Old Woman, “that Spear did not die, that he could not be killed. Some say he sits, even now, in the cave, in the darkness.” Old Woman turned to Hamilton. “Mothers,” said she, “frighten their children with Spear. They say, be good, or Spear will get you. Some think Spear is not dead.”

“But that is foolish,” said Hamilton.

Old Woman shrugged. “Hyena,” she said, “says Spear is not dead.”

“That is foolish,” said Hamilton.

“He says he has seen him,” said Old Woman.

“In dreams,” said Hamilton.

“And once by the river,” said Old Woman.

Old Woman thrust a brand in the fire. “Come,” she said. “We will look.”

Hamilton glanced at her, frightened.

“Are you afraid of Spear?” asked Old Woman.

“Aren’t you?” asked Hamilton.

“I am too old to be afraid,” she said. “Come with me.”

“But what if Spear is not dead?” asked Hamilton.

But Hamilton followed Old Woman, who, stiffly, climbing, limping, made her way to Spear’s ledge.

She entered the cave, the brand high. The cave was empty. “Spear is dead,” said Old Woman.

Then she turned about, and left the cave. “We must not fear Spear,” she said. “Spear was a great man. We must remember Spear and love him.”

“I thought you hated Spear,” said Hamilton. “He killed Drawer, when he was blind and Old Man.”

Old Woman looked up at Hamilton. Her eyes were moist. “Stone told me,” she said, “after Spear died, wanting me to know, though he would not say this while Spear lived, because I am a woman, and because Spear did not want the Men to know.”

“What?” asked Hamilton.

“When Drawer could not hunt, when he went blind, and could not draw, he could only eat and be led about, and he did not wish to be a burden on the Men.” Old Woman’s voice broke. “He told Spear to kill him.”

Hamilton was silent.

“For a long time, Spear did not do this thing. Then, one day, he did it. For a long time only Spear, and Stone knew, and then, after Spear died, Stone told me. Spear would not tell me. He was first among the Men. I tell you.” Old Woman’s voice choked. “Drawer wanted me to be fed,” she said. “I would have starved, or eaten scraps, or stolen,” she said. “When he died, I became Old Woman. The meat was mine to cook. I would eat.” Old Woman sobbed. “Spear,” she said, “was a great man. Let us not fear him. Let us remember him and love him.”