Everything else is secondary. Everything.
Interchapter One. She Who Knows
IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the day now and a sense of mounting crisis was affecting the whole encampment. The entire Hunting Society had returned from the plains, without having remained there long enough even to catch sight of game, let alone to do any hunting-and now its seven members sat in a morose huddle, fretting over die possibility of war and how it would affect them. The Goddess Women had unpacked the three holy bear-skulls and had set them up on the stone shelves above the shrine of the Goddess, and were crouching naked in front of them, anointed with bear fat and wolf blood and honey, chanting the special prayers that were supposed to bring wisdom in time of great peril. The Mothers had gathered all the small children under their wings as if they expected the Other Ones to attack at any minute, and the half1 grown ones lurked at the edge of the circle, fearful and uncertain.
As for the older men, the wise and distinguished elders of the tribe, they had gone off by themselves to the little hill above the camp for a discussion of strategy. Silver Cloud was up there, and Mammoth Rider, and one-eyed humpbacked Fights Like A Lion, and fat, sluggish Stinking Musk Ox. On their decisions the fate of the tribe would rest.
When the Other Ones had moved into the tribe's hunting grounds in the western lands and it became clear that nothing the People did was going to make them leave, the elders had decided that the best thing to do was go east. "The Goddess has chosen to give the western lands to the Other Ones," Stinking Musk Ox opined. "But the cold lands in the east belong to us. The Goddess means for us to go there and live in peace." The others agreed. Whereupon the Goddess Women had cast the destiny-stones and had come up with a result that supported the opinion of the men.
So the People had migrated to this place. But now the Other Ones had turned up here too, apparently.
What do we do now? She Who Knows wondered.
We could go south to the warm lands, perhaps. But very likely the warm lands are full of Other Ones by now. Should we go up north where the terrible ice fields are, then? Surely the Other Ones are too tender to want to live in a place like that. But so are we, She Who Knows suspected. So are we.
She felt a great sadness. They had come a long way to this place. The strenuous march had left her weary, and she knew that Silver Cloud was tired also, and many of the others. It was time to rest now, and gather meat and nuts to store for the winter ahead, and replenish their strength. But it seemed that they would have to wander again, without any chance to rest, without a moment of peace. Why was that? Was there no place in this broad barren land where they would be allowed to pause for a time to catch their breath?
She Who Knows had no answers, not to that, not to anything, really. Despite the proud name she had given herself, She Who Knows was baffled by the problem of the eternally bothersome Other Ones, just as she was by the challenges and mysteries of her own existence.
She was the only member of the tribe who had no real pkce, no real function. Like most girls, she had grown up assuming that she would be a Mother, but she had waited too long to take a mate, preferring instead a free-spirited roving life, even going out to the hunting fields with the men sometimes. When in her twentieth year she finally did agree to take the warrior Dark Wind as her mate, a very late age for such a thing, nothing but dead babies came from her womb. And then she lost Dark Wind as well, to a black fever that carried him off in a single afternoon.
She still had much of her beauty then, but after Dark Wind died none of the unmated men of the tribe had wanted to have her-no matter how beautiful she might be. They knew that her womb was a place that killed babies, so what value could she have as a mate? And Dark Wind's early death argued that she was cursed by ill luck, besides. So she would remain forever alone, untouched by men, she who once had had so many lovers. She would never become one of the Mothers.
Nor could she join the Goddess Women, not now; it would be a mockery of the Goddess and all that she stood for that a sterile woman should serve Her, and in any case you had to begin learning the mysteries of the Goddess Women before the first blood came from your loins. It was absurd to have an aging woman of twenty-five who had borne and lost five babies in five years becoming a Goddess Woman.
So She Who Knows was neither a Mother nor a Goddess Woman, and that meant she was nothing at all. She did the ordinary things that any woman would do, scraping hides and cooking meals and caring for the sick and looking after children, but she had no mate and she belonged to no Society and that made her almost a stranger among her own people. The one hope for her was that Keeps The Past would die, and then she could become the tribe's chronicler. Keeps The Past was a woman like herself, not a Mother and not a priestess, and in all the tribe she was She Who Knows' closest friend. But although Keeps The Past was forty years old, indeed the oldest woman in the tribe, she was still vigorous and sleek. Whereas She Who Knows, eight years younger, was already turning into an old woman. She was starting to think that she was destined to shrivel and fade and die long before Keeps The Past yielded up her record-sticks and went to the Goddess.
It was a sorrowful sort of life. But She Who Knows took care to hide the sorrow that afflicted her from the others. Let them fear her; let them dislike her. She would not have them pitying her.
Now she stood by herself, as usual, looking around at the others in their groups. Each one was as helpless against the threat of the Other Ones as she was. But at least they were together, in the comfort of a group.
"There's the one we need!" Blazing Eye called out. "She Who Knows ought to come out and fight the Other Ones alongside us!"
"She Who Knows! She Who Knows!" the Hunting Society men called raucously.
They were mocking her, of course. Hadn't they always? Hadn't each of these men in his turn rejected her, in the days after Dark Wind's death, when she had hoped to find a new mate?
But she went over to them all the same, and stood grinning fiercely down at them where they huddled in a circle on the frosty ground.
"Yes," she said. "A good idea. I can fight as well as any of you."
She reached out, so quickly that she couldn't be stopped, and snatched up Blazing Eye's spear. He grunted in rage and jumped up to take it from her, but she deftly slid her hands along it to the hunting-grasp, and prodded the flint tip of its point against Blazing Eye's belly. He looked at her, goggle-eyed. It wasn't just the sacrilege of having a woman handle his spear that seemed to be bothering him; he appeared actually to think she was going to stick it into him.
"Give me that," he said in a thick voice.
"Look, she knows how to hold it, Blazing Eye," Tree Of Wolves said.
"Yes, and I know how to use it, too."
"Give me that."
She prodded him with it again. She thought Blazing Eye was going to have a fit. His face was bright red and sweat poured down his cheeks. Everyone was laughing. He made a swipe at the spear and she pulled it back out of his reach. Furious, he spat at her and made a demon-sign with his clasped hands. She Who Knows grinned.
"Make that sign again and I'll wash it away with your blood," she told him.
"Come on, She Who Knows," Blazing Eye said sourly. He was visibly struggling to control himself. "It isn't right for you to be touching that spear, and you know it. We're in enough danger as it is, without your committing evil acts."
"You invited me to go out and fight with the men," she said. "Well, if I do I'll need a spear, won't I? Yours is a perfectly good one. It will suit me very well. Make yourself another one, if you like,"
The other men laughed again. But there was an odd edge on their laughter now.
She feinted with the spear and Blazing Eye, cursing, dodged it. He came forward stolidly as if to take it from her by sheer force. She warned him off with a serious thrust. Blazing Eye jumped back, looking angry and a little afraid.
It was hard for her to remember when she had last enjoyed herself so much. Blazing Eye was the strongest warrior of the tribe, and the most handsome man as well, with shoulders as wide as a mammoth's and wonderful dark eyes smoldering like coals under a splendid brow that jutted forth like a cliff When they were young she had slept with him many times and she had hoped he would take her as his mate when Dark Wind died. But he had been the first to refuse her. Milky Fountain was the only mate he wanted, he had said. He liked the sort of woman who knew how to bear children, is what he had told her. And that had been the end of it between Blazing Eye and her.