“Who?” Lockridge asked.
The Yuthoaz.” She pronounced the name with an umlauted u and an edh. Lockridge was still mastering the technique of using a diaglossa, and could merely summon up now that this was what the local tribes of the Battle Ax culture called themselves. And the Axe of those sun-worshipping invaders was not the tree-felling Labrys: it was a tomahawk.
Storm rose, tugged her chin, and scowled. “The available information is too scanty,” she complained. “No one thought this station important enough to scout out intensively. We don’t know what is going to happen here this year.”
After a moment, musingly: “However, reconnaissance certainly established that no large-scale use of energy devices occurred in this area during this entire millennium. That is one reason I chose to go so far back, rather than leave the corridor at a later date when the Wardens are also operating. I know the Rangers are not coming here. Thus I dared leave the corridor in the first year of this gate; it will be accessible for a quarter century. And—yes, another datum, a report recorded from a survey party out of Ireland, whose time portals are a century out of phase with Denmark’s—Avildaro still stands, has even grown to importance, a hundred years hence.” She shifted her pack and resumed walking. “So we have little to fear. At most, we may find ourselves involved in a skirmish between two Stone Age bands.”
Lockridge fell into step with her. A couple of miles went by in footfalls through the blowing grass, among the scattered groves. Save for an occasional giant, spared because it was holy, these coastal trees were not oak but ash, elm, pine, and especially beech, another tall invader that had begun to encroach on Jutland.
As the trail rounded such a stand, Lockridge saw a goat flock some distance off. Two preadolescent boys, naked, sun-darkened, with shocks of bleached hair, were keeping watch. One played a bone flute, another dangled his legs from a branch. But when they spied the newcomers, a yell rose from them. The first boy pelted down the trail, the second rocketed up the tree and vanished in leafage.
Storm nodded. “Yes, they have some reason to fear trouble. Matters were not so before.”
Lockridge pseudo-remembered what life had been for the Tenil Orugaray: peace, hospitality, bouts of hard work separated by long easy intervals when one practised the arts of amber shaping, music, dance, love, the chase, and simple idleness; only the friendliest rivalry between the fisher settlements scattered along this coast, whose people were all intricately related anyway; only contact for trade with the full-time farmers inland. Not that these folk were weaklings. They hunted wisent, bear, and wild boar, broke new ground with pointed sticks, dragged rocks cross-country to build their dolmens and the still bigger, more modern passage graves; they survived winters when gales drove sleet and snow and the sea itself out of the west against them; their skin boats pursued seal and porpoise beyond the bay, which was open in this era, and often crossed the North Sea to trade in England or Flanders. But nothing like war—hardly ever even murder—had been known until the chariot drivers arrived.
“Storm,” he asked slowly, “did you start the cult of the Goddess to get the idea of peace into men?”
Her nostrils dilated and she spoke almost in scorn. “The Goddess is triune: Maiden, Mother, and Queen of Death.” Jarred, he heard the rest dimly. “Life has its terrible side. How well do you think those weak-tea-and-social-work clubs you call Protestant churches will survive what lies ahead for your age? In the bull dance of Crete, those who die are considered sacrifices to the Powers. The megalith builders of Denmark—not here, where the faith has entered a still older culture, but elsewhere—kill and eat a man each year.” She observed his shock, smiled, and patted his hand. “Don’t take it so hard, Malcolm. I had to use what human material there was. And war for abstractions like power, plunder, glory, that is alien to Her.”
He could not argue, could do no more than accept, when she addressed him thus. But he remained silent for the next half hour.
By that time they were among fields. Guarded by thorn fences, emmer, spelt, and barley had just begun to sprout, misty green over the dark earth. Just a few score acres were under cultivation-communally, as the sheep, goats, and wood-ranging pigs, though not the oxen, were kept—and the women who might ordinarily have been out weeding were not in sight. Otherwise, unfenced pastures reached on either hand. Ahead blinked the bright sheet of the Limfjord. A grove hid the village, but smoke rose above.
Several men jogtrotted thence. They were big-boned and fair, clad similarly to Lockridge, their hair braided and beards haggled short. Some had wicker shields, vividly painted. Their weapons were flint-tipped spears, bows, daggers, and slings.
Storm halted and raised empty hands. Lockridge did likewise. Seeing the gesture and the dress, the village men eased off noticeably. But as they approached, an uncertainty came over them. They shuffled their feet, dropped their eyes, and finally stopped.
They don’t know exactly who or what she is, Lockridge thought, but there’s always that about her.
“In every name of Her,” Storm said, “we come friends.”
The leader gathered courage and advanced. He was a heavy-set, grizzled man, face weathered and eyes crow-footed by a lifetime at sea. His necklace included a pair of walrus tusks, and a bracelet of trade copper gleamed on one burly wrist. “Then in Her names,” he rumbled, “and in mine, Echegon whose mother was Ularu and who leads in council, be you welcome.”
Thus jogged, Lockridge’s new memory sent him off into a professional analysis of what had been implied. The names given were genuine—no secret was made of the real ones for fear of magic—and came from an interpretation by Avildaro’s Wise Woman of whatever dreams one had during the puberty rites. “Welcome” meant more than formal politeness: the guest was sacred and could ask for anything short of participation in the special clan rituals. But of course he kept his demands within reason, if only because he might be host next time around.
With a fraction of his awareness, Lockridge listened to Storm’s explanation as the party walked shoreward. She and her companion were travellers from the South (the far-off exotic South whence all wonders came—but about which the shrewder men were surprisingly well-informed) who had gotten separated from their party. They wished to abide in Avildaro until they could get passage home. Once established, she hinted, they would make rich gifts.
The fishermen relaxed still more. If these were a goddess and her attendant wandering incognito, at least they proposed to act like ordinary human beings. And their stories would enliven many an evening; envious visitors would come from miles around, to hear and see and bring home the importance of Avildaro; their presence might influence the Yuthoaz, whose scouts had lately been observed, to keep away. The group entered the village with much boisterous talk and merriment.
6
Auri, whose name meant Flower Feather, had said: “Do you truly wish to see the fowl marshes? I could be your guide.”
Lockridge had rubbed his chin, where the bristles were now a short beard, and glanced at Echegon. He expected anything from shocked disapproval to an indulgent chuckle. Instead, the headman fairly leaped at the chance, almost pathetically eager to send his daughter on a picnic with his guest. Lockridge wasn’t sure why.
Storm refused an invitation to join them, to Auri’s evident relief. The girl was more than a little frightened of the dark woman who held herself so aloof and spent so much time alone in the forest. Storm admitted to Lockridge that this was as much to confirm her own mana in the eyes of the tribe as for any other reason; but she seemed to have withdrawn from him too, he hadn’t seen a lot of her during the week and a half they had dwelt in Avildaro. Though he was too fascinated by what he experienced to feel deeply hurt, it had nonetheless reminded him what a gulf there was between them.