I took one step forward.
Anubyl paused and looked at me inquiringly.
I stopped.
I have done many things in my life that shamed me at the time, and many that shame me yet. But none ever caused me larger and more immediate pain than that revelation of my own cowardice. From then on I knew that I was a coward, worthless and despicable. No act of mine ever hurt me more than that failure to act. Still in my worst nightmares I stand and watch with the rest while my mother is battered half-senseless. I again taste the blood from my bitten Up and feel my nails cut into my palms.
Finally he stopped and tossed away the stick. “Get up!” he ordered, panting and wiping sweat from his brow. There was a long pause, then she levered herself to her knees and reached for her gown. He put a foot on it. “Go to him like that. Let him see. And tell him that he must leave, or I will kill you.”
He had to help her to rise. She swayed, then began to move.
“What is the message?”
She stopped. “He must go or you will kill me.”
“And your other children.”
“And my other children.”
He nodded. “Hurry back.”
Naked and bleeding, my mother hobbled away into the grasslands. The monster looked over the rest of us and evidently concluded that he would have no more trouble. Smiling, he ordered Rantarath to her tent so that he might try out another of his prizes.
Indarth had gone north. The herd was to the south. Westward lay my father’s death place. I went east, sunward.
I had never heard of suicide, but had any obvious means presented themselves, I might have reinvented it. How long I wandered I cannot tell—long enough to discard as impossible every means of revenge, long enough to reduce a boy to staggering exhaustion, long enough for gnawing hunger to dull his shame and send him creeping miserably home again.
That was the fourth landmark and the end of my childhood.
The ranchers who live in Friday maintain that bad bloodlines make bad foals. They blame a man’s faults on his breeding.
The hunters of the forests say that everyone chooses his own paths through life, that he must himself accept the blame for his own mistakes.
The gentle seafolk raise neither voice nor hand to a child. They claim that we are all molded by our upbringing and that defects of character are due to poor rearing.
I do not choose between these opinions.
I pass no judgment. I make no excuses.
But that was my childhood.
—2—
THE TYRANT
WHEN I RETURNED TO CAMP, ANUBYL WAS VISIBLE in the distance, having trouble staying on a horse. Probably, like me, he had watched riding being done but had never been allowed to try. I hoped he would fall off and break his neck.
My mother had been bandaged by the other women. She was lying facedown, covered by a thin blanket. The flaps of her tent were open, and a soothing breeze floated through. To save her having to raise her head, I stretched out flat on the rug at her side, horrified by her pallor.
She smiled and moved her hand closer. I took it. It was cold.
“I am glad,” she whispered. “I was frightened you would not come back.”
“I will kill him!”
She tried to shake her head. “No, I am glad, too, that you did not try to interfere.”
“I am a coward!”
“No.” she said again. “I was wrong. He was within his rights. You were not a coward. You did right.”
I was almost sobbing. “He is a tyrant!” Of course, I had never seen a tyrant, but I knew the stories. It was the worst thing I could think of to call him. Speaking was obviously difficult for her, but she insisted on trying. In broken phrases she explained things I did not know. Anubyl could have done worse. He might have killed off the babies. He might have slain Indarth out of hand, and perhaps others, like myself or even the older women. He was herdmaster and could do what he liked with any of us. Rantarath and Jalinan were pregnant, and he had ordered them to contrive miscarriages right away, but that was to be expected, for of course he would want the women to start producing his own young as soon as possible. Anubyl, my mother told me, had done nothing outrageous.
I was too innocent to think of it then, but I have often wondered since: Had she guessed that our new master would soon contrive to establish his authority by making an example of someone? Had it not been she, it would likely have been another of us, woman or child. She may well have taken the risk she did, not merely in the faint hope of aiding her banished son Indarth, but also by way of volunteering to be the scapegoat if she was discovered. That would have been like her. Certainly she must have known the danger.
She even made excuses for Anubyl. “He has traveled far alone, Knobil. Being alone can make a man mad. He will heal now, with women to tend him.”
Then she whispered, “Is he near?”
No—the monster was far off, still fighting with his horse. When I said so, my mother told me to close the flaps. Now I realized that the other women must be staying away, and keeping the children away, for some reason. So I did as I was bid and returned to her side.
“Look in my brown pack,” she said. “Be quick.”
After some prompting, I discovered what I was supposed to be searching for, wrapped in a cloth at the bottom of her tiny collection of belongings. I sat down and opened the package. All I found was a triangular piece of leather, small enough to fit on the palm of my hand. The back was rough and still its natural tan shade, except for a few curious black squiggles. The smooth side had been painted pale blue, with a strip of green along one edge. I stared in bewilderment at this inexplicable object.
“Come close,” my mother whispered, so I lay down again, nearer than before, still holding this meaningless, and yet apparently important, token. “It is yours, Knobil, and precious. So he said.”
“Who said?”
“Your father. You must keep it in the dark. No sunlight. The color will fade.”
I knew that properly fixed dyes would not fade. I knew a lot about dyeing and weaving. Those things were women’s work, but my father had supervised them, so I had watched and learned also.
I heard my mother’s scratchy voice again: “He said you must take it to Heaven.”
Probably she did not realize how little I understood, for she was in great pain and very weak. Probably I did not catch everything she said in that thin gasping whisper. I did not know anyone called Heaven, and although she may have thought she was making clear to me which father she meant, I did not catch that important distinction.
“Does everyone get one of these?” I asked.
“Only you.”
I saw that she was too exhausted to say any more and that I must leave my questions for later. So I rose and put away her pack. Fortunately I did have a place where I could keep a small valuable, although until then I had never owned anything more precious than a sling. Slings need shot, so we boys all carried pouches on our belts to hold any suitable pebbles that we happened to see. I wrapped my green and blue treasure back in its cloth and placed it carefully in the bottom of my pouch.
My mother seemed to be sleeping. I threw open the flaps and went off in search of food. When I returned, she was dead.
“Would you please help me, Knobil?” Aunt Amby asked. “Please?”
She was kneeling in the door of her tent, braiding something, and I had been going past. A woman could give orders—or even punishment—to a herder, but certainly not to a loner. Now I was one of the oldest herders, and the women’s attitude toward me was changing. I found that “please” more alarming than flattering.