“Simon!” shouted Warren. “How dare you . . .”
“Then,” said Kate, loudly, keeping fast hold on the conversation, “perhaps Job will tell us precisely what he meant last night by his reference to Sedna’s Knucklebones.”
Job shrugged. “It is only a legend of Innuit.”
“A legend! Just right! We’ve nothing to do but unpack things, eat, sleep and get on each other’s nerves. A legend would help pass the time.”
Job looked around, nervously. “I don’t . . .”
“Oh come on, Job,” said Warren; “you tell a mean story, you know you do.”
Job shrugged again.
“First tell us what Innuit is,” said Kate.
“Innuit means ‘The People’. It is what we Eskimos call ourselves.”
“And the story of Sedna is one of your legends?”
“That is correct. It is the story of how the things in the sea came to be there. Not plants or fish, but creatures, animals.”
“Oh, please, tell us,” begged Kate, filled with the excitement she had felt when she first saw the pack.
Job looked at Ross, who shrugged his lopsided shrug, and nodded.
Job nodded back, and began to speak: “Long ago, at the beginning of all, there lived in a hut by the seashore the girl Sedna, her father Angusta, and her great dog. They lived there a life of ease and plenty, for the Inua, that is to say the spirits, of the sea were good to them and the fishes were plentiful and fat. Now as Sedna grew in years, she grew also in beauty and soon the young men would come to her hut with gifts of ivory, bone and amber, with lucky stones and love. And they would say to her: ‘Sedna, I bring gifts which took great finding and love which will never die. Come with me now and be my wife.’ But Sedna always said to them, ‘No.’
“At first she said this because she loved her father more than she loved any of the young men, and she would not be tempted away from him even by fat love-figures carved from the teeth of bears; but later she said ‘No’ because she loved to see the longing unfulfilled in their faces and she would wait with excitement to see what wonders they would bring to her the next time they came courting. So the name of Sedna became known through Innuit for her beauty and for her cruelty, and many came to her hopeful but went away from her sad.
“Then one day, as she sat by the seashore, thinking nothing of suitors, and talking with the Inua of the stones, there came towards her a man in a kayak. Such was his paddling that he seemed to come up from the ocean and down from the sky. Such was his beauty that the sun grew dim, for his hair was the silver of dull pearls and his skin was ivory gold. His nose was large, but beautifully shaped, and his eyes were black as the winter’s night.
“He called to Sedna saying, ‘Sedna, come with me.’ And Sedna, looking on him loved him, but she said to him, ‘What will you give me as a courting gift?’ And the man with the pearl-grey hair said, ‘This will I give you if you will promise to be mine.’ He held up for her to see a necklace made of amber beads such as she had never seen before.
“ ‘Then what will you give me as a bridal gift?’ asked greedy Sedna. ‘These I will give you as a bridal gift,’ said the man with ivory skin. And he held up for her to see ten fat love-figures made from the teeth of great white bears.
“Then was Sedna tempted to go with him in his silver-sided kayak, and this he saw with his eyes as black as the long winter’s night. So he said, ‘Fairest Sedna, whose name is known through all the Lands, if you will come with me now to my kingdom over the sea, I will give you these lucky stones which will keep you from all harm.’ And he held up two grey stones which danced with magic in his hands, and such was the power of the stones that all the Inua of the stones upon Sedna’s beach fell silent.
“Then Sedna called to the beautiful stranger, ‘I will come with you.’ So he brought his kayak close to the shore, and Sedna went with him.
“Far and far he paddled to his kingdom over the sea, and all the time proud Sedna knelt behind him, counting her amber beads. And so, after many days and nights they came to a rocky shore, black and tall with cliffs.
“ ‘Where is this?’ asked Sedna.
“ ‘It is my kingdom,’ said her husband.
“ ‘It is a cold, forbidding place,’ said Sedna, putting away her fat love-figures made from the teeth of the great white bears.
“ ‘It is your home,’ said her husband.
“ ‘But where is your hut, my husband, that I might make fire and cook for you?’
“And her husband pointed to a high cliff ledge and said, ‘That is where I make my abode.’
“ ‘I see no wood to make fire,’ she said to her magic stones.
“Then her husband cried in a high strange voice, ‘I need no fires, Sedna, my wife, for I eat my fish as I catch them and my feathers keep me warm.’ And as he said these words, the beautiful prince rose out of the kayak and spread his wings in the sky, for he had become a fulmar petrel. Then was Sedna torn with sadness and fear, for the beautiful prince she loved was thus revealed to be a Kokksaut: a powerful and terrible spirit he was, who roamed the skies on the wings of a bird and almost never came to land. Then Sedna cried out in her grief. Loud and long she cried, but nobody heard or came. And her spirit husband quartered the sky, searching for distant game.
“Now Sedna’s father, who loved his daughter as surely as she loved him, was made most sad and lonely by her absence. So he said to himself, ‘I think it strange that Sedna has sent me no word since she went away. I will go and find her myself,’ and left his hut and went. Many and many the days and dangers he met, and braved, and left, until one day in the distance he saw a seashore tall with cliffs, and he heard a voice which wept.
“ ‘It is Sedna,’ said Angusta, and he paddled towards his daughter’s voice. Sure enough, it was Sedna who cried at the foot of the cliff. But when she saw her father she smiled, and she said to him, ‘Take me away now, for I have fallen out of love.’ Her father was glad to do so, for his hut was cold without her. So they paddled over the mighty sea, but the Kokksaut who loved Sedna ventured home from his windy roads and saw that his ledge was empty, that she was gone from the foot of the cliffs. And he cried his wild fulmar’s cry, and set out in his turn to search. High and high the petrel flew, and he quartered the sea below. After many hours and days he saw the kayak of Angusta with Sedna kneeling in the back. He dived down to the kayak then and cried out, ‘Sedna, return.’ But Sedna cried, ‘You tricked me: I will never return.’ Then was the Kokksaut truly enraged, and he cried to the Inua of the ocean who were his cousins, and to the Inua of the winds who were his brothers, and they built up a terrible storm. Angusta’s kayak was battered and swamped. The waves fell out of the sky, and they became the black-grey of the magic stones, with teeth the white of the ten fat love-figures; and once in the distance they saw the sun, and it was the colour of clouded amber. So great was the storm that Angusta at last became afraid.
“ ‘Go back to your husband, my daughter,’ he cried.
“But she replied, ‘I will not return.’
“Then the storm became so terrible that Angusta cried out in fear, for the waves were as light as full grey pearls, and their teeth were ivory-gold. There were rocks both large and beautifully shaped tearing the water like the skins of birds; and, although it was high summer, the day became as dark as the winter’s night. And Angusta cried, ‘Go back, go back.’
“And Sedna answered, ‘No.’
“What the storm became then cannot be told, but it drove the old man mad. He hurled his daughter from the kayak and tried to paddle away. ‘Do not leave me, father,’ she cried. But her father replied, ‘I must.’ Then Sedna broke free of the ocean’s embrace and caught at the side of the boat. And Angusta, mad, brought the blade of his paddle down on his daughter’s hand, and the bones at the tips of her fingers broke away. She grasped again, and her father struck, and the bones of her fingers broke. The third time she tried and her father struck, and her knucklebones broke off.