Having no sense of time, I could not comprehend the difference between growing older and growing bigger. I was small and did not appreciate my danger. Talana’s son Arrint was larger than I was, so I assumed that he must go next, after Indarth. Then, once, while bathing in the pond, I glanced down at my groin. There have been few events in my long life that frightened me more than seeing that sheen of golden fuzz. Hastily I checked my armpits. So far they were innocent, but I had enough sense of time to know that they must soon follow. Now terror stalked me, also; thereafter I was much less interested in childish behavior such as splashing around in water. That was the second landmark.
The third was the arrival of my father’s sixth woman, and this was important to me because I was conscripted to play a part. It gave me a glimpse of men’s affairs and a hint of what seemingly lay in store for me.
My father rode into camp and dismounted, but he did not unsaddle his horse, merely dropping the reins and striding across to the weaving place. The women scrambled hastily to their feet.
“Hanthar?” he said.
“She is sleeping, sir.”
“Wake her. Get her ready.” He was not a man to waste words. The family buzzed with excitement and bewilderment.
I was eating—small as I was, I had an appetite second to none. My father glanced around and his eyes settled on me, who was suddenly no longer hungry. I wondered if my pagne was decently in place and doing its job.
“Knobil!”
“Yes, sir?”
“You will come also. To help me.” Then he added an unusually long speech: “You will be coming back, so don’t worry.”
Help him? That was unprecedented. I suppose I swelled with pride and flashed arrogant glances at the others. I can see now that he had chosen me because I seemed younger than my true age, and therefore relatively harmless. Fortunately for my self-esteem, I did not know that then.
There were no emotional farewells—or if there were, they were made within the tents. My father rode. Hanthar walked on one side of him in her new gown, bearing a bundle on her back. I strutted proudly on the other, full of contempt for her foolish silent tears.
It was a long outing and it seemed very pointless, for we were retracing our last move. Our own woollies’ dung lay everywhere. But when my father unslung his bow and strung it, and thereafter kept it to hand, my self-assurance wavered. Then, after a wearisome trek beneath the merciless sun, we crested a ridge and saw our objective on the next hill—two woollies and two people.
My father reined in his horse. “Go to him, Knobil. Tell him if he wishes to trade, he is welcome. Else he must depart.”
I did not fully understand, but I ran.
The newcomers waited for me, turning their woollies so that they did not approach closer. I ran so hard that I had almost no breath to speak when I came up to them, but by then I had realized that I was facing a boy little older than myself and a girl very much like Hanthar. Probably I then knew what was going to happen, but I would not have understood why, for no one had ever lectured me on the incest taboo.
I gasped out my message. The boy seemed as nervous as I was, but he nodded. “I come to trade,” he said.
There was a moment’s pause, for neither of us knew what should happen next; then I turned and started running back. I saw my father and his daughter start down the slope toward me. He had left his horse and weapons on the ridge top. The boy and girl came behind me, and all five of us met in the marshy hollow.
My father must have seemed like a very terrible hairy giant to the lad, who was quivering like the grass dancing in the wind. He quickly gabbled out a speech, obviously well rehearsed and probably taken word for word from that father-son lecture that I was never to hear.
“I offer my sister Jalinan, a woman unspoiled, well trained, and of good stock, suitably furnished.”
My father waited and then prompted, “Show me.”
The boy nudged his sister angrily and pointed at her bundle, lying now at her feet. She knelt to unfasten it.
I had never heard my father’s voice softer. “Not that. Her.”
Blushing furiously at his error, the boy ordered his sister to strip, trying to help her with inexpert hands. Solemnly my father inspected the trade goods. I suppose he was establishing that the girl was a virgin and had not been a victim of incest. I do not recall what emotions she was showing. I probably did not care, and I was certainly not looking at her face.
He rose. “She is as you state.” That sounded like a set speech also. “In trade I offer my daughter, Hanthar, who is likewise unspoiled, well trained, and of good stock, suitably furnished.”
I had forgotten how to breathe while this was taking place in that little hollow. Marsh worms could have eaten off my toes and I would not have noticed. Now my sister had to remove her clothing also. The boy inspected her briefly, but even then I doubted that he knew what he was looking for. He straightened up, redder than ever and obviously at a loss. Probably his instruction had not gone as far as this.
A small smile escaped from within my father’s beard at that point, one of the very few I can ever remember seeing there. He offered a hand. The boy flinched and then shook it as if he had never shaken hands before. The girls were hastily dressing.
“Go with this man and serve him well,” my father said, giving Hanthar a gentle push. He beckoned to Jalinan. When she stooped to raise her bundle, he told her softly to leave it. “Two woollies are not enough,” he said. “I shall send out two more.”
“Sir…you are most generous.” The lad seemed thunderstruck.
“I should not want my daughter to starve,” my father said, almost as if that were an admission of weakness.
Hanthar carried the two bundles off, following the boy. My father watched until they were halfway up the hill before turning away himself. He would have been taking a last, sentimental look at his departing chick, or perhaps he was guarding against treachery.
By the time we reached the camp, the women had already erected a sixth tent. My father said only, “This is Jalinan,” and handed her over to Amby.
He sent Indarth off with two woollies and then attended to his horse, ignoring the large band of curious onlookers. We boys all wanted to know what would happen next.
What happened next was not very informative. The women had prepared a large and steaming dish of food. I expect Amby had also prepared and instructed Jalinan, who was waiting within the new tent. My father took the dish and entered. The flap closed, shutting out our eyes, if not our imaginations. A couple of my half-brothers claimed to have caught a glimpse of the new woman with no clothes on. I, of course, could brag about my earlier comprehensive overview.
Eventually we lost interest, as boys will, and wandered away to bathe, for whatever was happening seemed to be taking a very long time. I expect it was done gently. He was a kindly man, and patient.
That, then, was the third of my four landmarks. Now I knew the ending of the ceremony that began when a boy was ordered to raise his arms. How much time elapsed before the fourth landmark, I cannot say. Not a long time, I think, but long enough for little Jalinan to be accepted as just one more of the women and to start to swell into a woman’s normal shape.
It happened with no warning. Once again I was by the fire and eating—I have already confessed the appetite I had in my youth. I think I was the first to notice the stranger walking boldly into camp. He was young, with only a shadow of a beard; tall, but slender as a dead tree. I remember my astonishment at the thinness and length of his legs. His ragged pagne reached barely to his knees. He had a bulky bundle under one arm and a bow on his shoulder, a much longer bow than my father used. And he carried a sword in his free hand.