The Chalk Giants (14 page)

Her father finally sent for her late one night. He sat in some state in the Council Lodge, a pitcher of corn beer at his elbow. Cha’Acta was also present, and the elders and priests. Mata stood head bowed in the smoky light of torches while her father spoke, sadly it seemed, saying the impossible words; and later, when she left, there was no sensation of the earth beneath her feet. Already it seemed she was set apart from normal things, the chosen of the Lord.

She lay sleepless till dawn, watching the embers glowing on their shelf of clay, listening to the breathing of her sisters and her mother’s rattling snore. A score of times, when she thought of what would come, her heart leaped and thudded, trying it seemed to break clear of her body. At length the longed-for dawn broke dim and grey; she rose and dressed, went to seek a hut at the far end of the village. In it lived Meril, the old woman who instructed the God Brides and for many years had preserved their Mysteries.

Mata stayed a month with the crone, learning many things that were new and by no means wholly pleasant. Choele, it was true, had often taken her to the hills for purposes not dissimilar But Choele’s fingers were brown, and sweet as honey; Meril’s were old and horny, sour-smelling. They left her feeling unclean. Mata shuddered and stiffened, sweating; but she endured, for Choele’s sake and the sake of the God.

Cha’Acta she now seldom saw. There was still much to be done; grain to be prepared for sowing, beer to be brewed, pens and stockades repaired, the God Tents and all the paraphernalia of the Great Procession made ready once more. In most, if not in all of these things the Chief Priest took an interest? Meanwhile, the buds swelled perceptibly. Rain fell, waking new grass; and finally came a time of clear, bright sun. The skies dappled over with puffy, fast-moving white clouds; the wind came gusting and warm, lifting trails of dust from hilltops and the sloping fields, and Mata knew her waiting was all but ended.

Then came tragedy, stark and unexpected. Choele was missed from the village. For some days uneasy bands of men desultorily searched the hills and surrounding ground; then one morning an oldster came gabbling and puffing up the hill, ‘ shouting his incoherent tidings to the sleepy guards on the gate. In the brook that ran below the Mound, the grey, cold brook where Mata once had bathed, floated a sodden bundle of cloth and hair; all that was left of the Corn Lord’s Bride.

The omen threw the village into a ferment. Drums beat before the Council Lodge, where Cha’Acta and his priests prayed and sacrificed to avert the undoubted wrath of the God. Men rose fearfully, watching up at the clear skies; but strangely the weather remained fine, the land continued to smile. So that by the week of the Great Procession the death was all but forgotten; only Mata felt within her a little hollow space, that now would never be filled.

She already knew her duties, and the many ways existing to please a God. What remained after Meril’s rough instruction had been imparted by Cha’Acta in his harsh, monotonous voice. For two days before the great event she fasted, drinking nothing but the clearest spring water, purging her body of all dross. On the day before the ceremony she made her formal goodbyes to her family. A waggon was waiting, decked and beribboned, drawn by the white oxen of Cha’Acta; she mounted it, stood stiffly staring ahead while the equipage jolted out through the broad gates of the stockade. The guards raised their spears, clashed a salute; then the village was falling away behind, the wheels jerking and bumping over the rough turf of the hill.

Every year, so ran the litany, the God came from the south, drawn by prayers across the endless blue sea. The little camp the priests had set up by the shore already bustled with activity. Hide tents had been pitched; over the biggest, on a little staff, hung the long green Sign of the God. Here Mata would lie the night. Some distance away the nodding insignia of the Chief Priest marked where Cha’Acta would rest on this most important eve; beside his quarters, waggons unloaded more bundles of hides, the poles and withies on which they would be stretched. Other baggage was stacked or strewn around; Mata saw the motley of the Hornmen, the antlers and hide masks, by them the green lobster-shells that in the morning would become the Corn Ghosts, and shivered with a medley of emotions.

Difficult now to retain even the memory of Choele. Her tent was ready for her, its lamps lit, the grass inside strewn with precious water bought at great expense from the traders who sometimes passed along the coast. She was bathed, and bathed again; then lay an hour, patiently, while the fluffy down her body had begun to grow was scraped from her with sharpened shells. Her breast-buds were stained with bright dye, her hair combed and stroked and combed again; and finally, she was left to sleep.

She slept soundly, curiously enough, tired out by the time of fasting and preparation; it was a shock to feel her shoulder shaken by old Meril. A cloak was held out to her; she crept from the tent, into the first glow of dawn. The sea lay cold and flat; a droning wind blew from it bringing with it the harsh, strange smell of salt.

The God Tents were triangular and black, built not of hides but of thick, impermeable felt. The flap of the nearest was raised for her; she crept inside, shivering, already knowing what she would find.

On the ground inside the little booth had been placed a great copper bowl. In it, charcoal smouldered and the magic seeds of plants. The little space was thick already with an acrid, pungent-smelling smoke; she coughed, catching her breath, leaned her head over the bowl as she had been taught. Instantly she heard the sighing as the bellows, worked from outside by an attendant priest, forced air over the burning mass, bringing it to a glow.

The smoke scorched her lungs; she retched and would have vomited had her stomach not been empty. She inhaled dutifully, closing her streaming eyes; and in time it seemed the fumes grew less sharp. Then strange things began to happen, her body, she was sure, had floated free of contact with the earth; she groped awkwardly, pawing the hard ground for reassurance. Then the bowl and its contents seemed to expand till she felt she was falling headlong and at great speed toward an entire world on fire. The inside of the booth, small enough for her to span, likewise enlarged itself to a soundless black void, infinite as the night sky. In it, sparks and flashes burned; there were stars and moons and suns, comets and golden fruit, God-figures that passed as fleeting as they were vast. She opened her eyes, screwed them closed once more; the forms still swam, in the darkness behind the lids.

Lastly it seemed that Mafa herself had grown to immense stature; she felt she might grasp with her arms the headlands that closed the bay, stoop to catch up the running figures of men like ants or grains of sand. She rose slowly, swaying, knowing she was ready.

Outside the tent the light had grown. She felt, dimly, the presence of the people; heard the shout as the cloak, unwanted now, was drawn from her. Muffled fingers touched her, plaiting the green wreaths in her hair; and already she was moving away, angling with difficulty her mile-long legs and arms, stepping up the rocky path from the bay. Behind her the Procession jostled into order; cymbals crashed, horns shouted, the drums took up their insistent thudding. Her ears registered the sounds; but disconnectedly, in flashes and fragments, mixed with a roaring like the voice of the sea.

The wind blew, steady and not-cold, pressing to her tautened body close as a glove; while from her great height she saw, with wonderful acuteness, the tiniest details of the land across which she passed. Pebbles and grass-blades, wet with sea-damp, jerked beneath her bright as jewels. She sensed, in her exalted awareness, the rising of mighty truths lost as soon as formed, truths that her body nonetheless understood so that it laughed as it moved, exulting; while stepping so far above the ground a part of her mind marvelled that she did not fall.

The Corn Ghosts skipped, lashing with their whips, chasing their half-terrified victims from the path. The priests chanted; Cha’Acta, eyes implacable behind his bright green mask, blessed the land, casting spoonfuls of grain to either side. The sun, breaking through the high veils of mist, threw the long shadow of Mata forward across the grass. She glanced down, along the length of her immense body to the far-off, forgotten white tips of her feet. The vision was disturbing; she raised her eyes again, rested them on the distant line of the horizon.

Already - it seemed impossible - she saw before her the high pass in the hills. On the right was the village with its stockade; to her left, close and looming, the Sacred Mound and the waiting house of the God. She could feel now, faintly, the textures of grass and earth beneath her feet; but the intense clarity of sight remained, she saw tiny flowers budding in the grass and insects, sticks and bracken and dead straw. The way steepened, beside the Brook of Choele; she pressed on, hurrying the last few yards. And here was the causeway, built of ancient stone; beyond, the Sacred Mound, empty and desolate and vast.

Never before had she been so high. Subtly she had expected grass and bushes, the very stones, to be changed here somehow, so close to the home of the God; but even to her exalted sense they seemed the same. At the causeway end she remembered to turn, showing herself again to the people. She heard them cry, felt their stares against her like a prickling wind; then she was alone, threading her way between the spires of stone.

She climbed now in earnest, using her hands to steady herself. She rounded a lichened buttress, trudged across an open space where dead grass tangles stroked her thighs; and the God

House was ahead, awesome and close. She faltered then, hands to her throat; and memory flooded her dulled brain, she wished herself for one heart-stopping moment back at her father’s hearth, smutty and unknown, and all she had done, undone« Then the time was passed; she paused once more to wave, heard the scattered shouts from the hill and stepped inside, to darkness and quiet.

The quietness, at first, oppressed her worst; a singing silence, heightened by the rushing of the blood in her ears. She stood still, clutching her shoulders, trying to draw herself into a tiny compass. The long house was empty, and quite bare. The floor, swept of all but the tiniest grains of dirt, gleamed a dull grey-brown; the walls rose, rough and cobbled, to shoulder height; the long gable stretched away above, thatch-poles showing equidistant and pale. Between them the reeds lay even and close, filling the place with the scent of grass and ponds.

She walked forward, slowly, still with her arms crossed in front of her. As her eyes became used to the gloom she saw that what she
had
taken to be the end wall was in fact an open wattle screen, pierced by a narrow entrance. She stepped through it. Beyond, an arm’s span away, was a second screen, also pierced. The entrances she saw were staggered, blocking from sight the great outer door. Beyond the second screen was a chamber, small, square and dark. She saw a couch of thick-piled bracken; beside it a water jar and dipper, standing on the smooth, beaten floor.

And that was all.

Her legs shook suddenly. She unwound the garlands from her hair, clumsily, tossed them down unnoticed. She knelt by the pitcher, dipped water. It was clear, sweet and very cold. She drank deeply, slaking herself; then rolled on her back on the bracken bed. She was conscious, now, of a rising weariness; she let her limbs subside, luxuriously, her eyes drift closed. In time the singing in her ears faded to quiet.

She woke in darkness. The little chamber itself was pitchy black; she turned her head, slowly, saw the intervals of the wattle screens lit by a silver-grey glow. For a time, she was confused again; then she realized the hours she must have slept. The cold, metallic light was the moon.

The effects of the seed-smoke had wholly left her now. She shivered, wanting a coverlet; but there was nothing in the hut. Then she remembered she was not there to sleep.

She swallowed. Something had roused her, surely. She listened, concentrating her whole awareness. The wind soughed across die Mound, stirring the grass and bushes. A timber creaked, somewhere in the great hut. Her heart leaped, it seemed into her throat; but nothing further came. The God House was as silent as before.

She frowned, brooding. Were all the tales, the stories, false? Her training, thorough as it had been, stopped short of this. What if no God ever really came, to live in the house on the hill? Or what if - terrible thought - the Corn Lord had rejected her? What if he had already come, in the darkness and quiet, found her unpleasing as a Bride and passed on? Then he would leave the valley for ever; and the corn shoots would rot in the ground, the people starve. She would be stoned, disgraced ... She clenched her fists, feeling her eyes begin to sting. The disgrace would be the least of her pain.

She made herself be still again. He would come in his own time and fashion; for who, after all, could command a God? Once, already, he had visited her in the reeds; what more did she need, in proof? It had been a mark of favour such as no other, in her memory, had received. He would come; because he always came, and because he had chosen her.

The thought brought fresh fears in its train. What would he be like, when he came? Perhaps he would be burning hot, or terrible to look on. Perhaps his eyes would be like the eyes of a beast... She willed her mind to stop making such thoughts. It was hard, this time of waiting. She wished for the magic smoke again and the strength it gave, the great thoughts that in the morning had seemed so clear. In time she slipped, unwillingly, into a doze.

The moon was higher, when she woke again; and this time, she knew without doubt, she had been roused by something more corporeal than the wind. She lay still, trembling, straining her ears. Almost she cried out; but the thought of her voice echoing through the dimness of the hut choked the sound in her throat. Then she heard them; the stealthy, padding footfalls, coming down the moonshot dark toward her.

She rolled over, scrabbling at the bracken. Her vision swam and sparked. A blur of movement, sensed more than seen; and a figure stepped into the chamber. She stayed crouched and still, glaring up. The moon, touching the wattle screens, gave a dim, diffused light. For her eyes, tuned to blackness, it was enough; she could see, now, every terrible detail.