The Wordsmiths and the Warguild (33 page)

       
The stream was running
low, slow and sluggish. Namaji and Togura were supposed to be drawing water
from it. Nearby, some fierce boy children were playing. They daubed their faces
with clay, scratched their wrists with thorns, mingled their blood, then split
into teams and went hunting. Shortly, they caught a frog. With much shouting,
they broke its legs, one by one. They embedded it in the earth, with only the
head showing. Then there was an argument. Togura suspected that one faction
wanted to bury their victim alive with the other side wanted to stone it to
death.

       
Namaji nuzzled his neck.

       
He shivered with
pleasure. He wanted her. She was so close, so warm, so yielding.

       
The boys saw what Namaji
was doing. They started to jeer. Then they began to throw things - clods of
dried earth, handfuls of water, sharp little stones.

       
"Stop that!"
shouted Togura.

       
One of the boys hauled
the quadriplegic frog out of the earth and threw it slap-bang! into Namaji's
face. She began to cry. Togura, to his shame, retreated. What else could he
have done? He could think of nothing, short of breaking a few skulls, which
would not have endeared him to the parents.

       
He began to contemplate
suicide.

       
The summer days
shortened to autumn. Togura thought of several ways of killing himself, but
could not bring himself to take the final step. Planning suicide, in fact, made
life easier, for at least it gave him a hobby of sorts.

       
One autumn afternoon,
while helping the women to make felt from horse hair, Togura realised it was
now two years since he had left Keep, that friendly, familiar mining town far
away in the land of Sung where, according to his memories, he had been very
happy. His beard was stronger now, a hairy little tuft at his chin, which he
did not trim.

       
Winter came, and, for
him at least, it was a bitter season. His growing competence with the
triple-harp was no consolation. He found out how to use its twelve
multicoloured buttons to sustain chords, to raise and lower the volume, to add
vibrato, or to generate percussion, woodwind or brasswind effects. But music
could not make him a man. It could only make him a more competent woman.

       
At mid-winter, he got a
real shock to his system when he was made to tend the fire in a hut where a
woman was in labour. Right from the start, he felt uneasy, feeling he should
not be there - but the women, delighting in his embarrassment, forced him to
stay. The labour lasted a day and a night. No man visited the woman in
question; it was Togura's impression that the men of the village shunned all
contact with pregnant women.

       
The birth itself
terrified him. So much pain! So much blood! And the child, when it was born, so
ugly! Covered with blood and mucus and something that looked like a layer of
white fat, and might well have been. And the mother took that horrible
disgusting slime-covered animal to her breast, and smiled as it suckled. And
then, when he thought it was all over, something obscene happened. A great lump
of the woman's guts followed the baby out of her body! Togura vomited, straight
into the fire, there being no other place available; realising the cause of his
distress, all the women howled with laughter.

       
The birth, from their
point of view, was a victory.

       
The female who had given
birth was up and about the very next day, apparently none the worse for losing
a great big chunk of her guts. But Togura did not get over it for days. Though
he was a country boy, he had never done farm work; he had never seen an animal
give birth, let alone a human being.

       
And, while he had always
known, vaguely, that a baby grows in its mother's belly, he had never thought
about where it comes out, and had never been told. At an early age, his father
had instructed him on how a man impregnates a woman; that stage he found
intensely interesting, but he had never troubled himself much about what comes
afterwards, having no curiosity about the private mysteries of women.

       
Now that he knew the
truth, it quite put him off the thought of sex. For practical purposes, that
made no difference one way or the other; however, considering his
sensitivities, it was probably just as well that he had not yet had a chance to
learn about menstruation, as that might have quite blighted his steadily
developing romance with Namaji.

Chapter 30

       
In spring, the men
daubed themselves with clay, as had the frog-hunting boys of the previous
summer, then rode off to take a slap at someone beyond the horizon. They came
back a few days later, some wounded, a few missing, and one, slung over the
back of a horse, most definitely dead. The men had a roistering feast; as part
of their celebration, they honoured their dead comrade by eating him.

       
As a great concession,
even Togura was honoured with a bit of human flesh, which, over-roasted, tasted
mostly of charcoal. He ate it eagerly, for it gave him at least a momentary
association with the world of men, which is the world of swordblade legends and
conquering heroes; Togura was living in the world of women, and he hated it.

       
The human flesh
concession was a once-only indulgence. It changed nothing. Togura, in the eyes
of the men, was a nominal woman, which made him almost invisible. They might
give him a kick if he got in the way, or get rid of a bit of rubbish by
throwing it at him, but generally they scarcely seemed aware that he existed,
except when they came to have their hair cut. He had no knife, his blades
having been confiscated long ago, so the men provided their own. Often he was
tempted to cut a throat or two, but never managed to nerve himself to the act.

       
Togura did not know it,
but his readiness to cut hair had lowered his status to about that of a dog. In
terms of the local religion, hair, once separated from the body, was regarded
as a particularly unpleasant form of dead and death-inducing matter; Togura, as
hairdresser, was ritually unclean. He had compounded his uncleanness by
stockpiling a great heap of hair in the annexe in which he slept, intending one
day to stuff a mattress with it. This stockpile was now the subject of many jokes
which were, in the local context, obscene.

       
Namaji, however, did not
mind. Namaji thought Togura was wonderful. Namaji longed for him. Namaji
worshipped him. Togura, having outgrown his brief-lived horror of human flesh -
he had by now convinced himself that the birth he had seen was a tragic medical
freak, and that most babies probably exited to the outside world by way of a
woman's naval - was once more being tormented by his unappeased lusts. Given
half a chance, he would appease them with Namaji.

       
That spring, a stranger
arrived, bearing a green bough, which was perhaps a sign of peace, for he was
admitted, even though he was not of the village. He smelt differently. His hair
was elaborately styled, tied into ornate knots in the front, plaited into three
pigtails behind, in start contrast to the men of the village, many of whom,
thanks to Togura Poulaan's latest contribution to the world of fashion, were
wearing their hair shaven close to the skull in front, and wild and woolly behind.
The lobes of the stranger's ears were tattooed with blue, black and red, which,
for reasons unknown to Togura, made many of the women giggle.

       
After a day of public
palaver, in which the stranger made several speeches which were very well
received, the men of the village fêted the stranger in the meeting hall. Togura
was there, sitting on a three-legged stool just behind the headman, playing his
triple-harp.

       
It was a wild night. The
men got drunk on fermented mare's milk heavily laced with a juice extracted
from a special kind of toadstool. This potentially lethal brew was forbidden to
women, and to untouchables like Togura, so he could only watch, stone cold
sober, while the men got legless to the tune of his music.

       
At the height of the
festivities, when most of the men were flat on their backs, the visiting
stranger suddenly drew a knife and advanced on the headman. Togura at first
thought it was a joke. Then a warrior, staggering on uncertain legs, tried to
intercept the stranger, and was stabbed with three swift, professional blows.
Nobody else was fit to stand.

       
As the women screamed,
Togura picked up his three-legged stool and hurled it at the stranger. It
clipped him on the head. Momentarily stunned, he wavered. Togura closed with
him. And down they went, fighting for control of the knife. The women started
to shout, stamp and applaud.

       
"Don't just stand
there!" yelled Togura. "Hit him!"

       
But nobody understood
his Galish.

       
The stranger was a strong,
tough, wiry warrior, experienced in battle. But he had drunk a little of the
night's brew, so as to appear sociable. Togura had drunk nothing. He, too, was
tough, strong and wiry, capable of spending entire days lugging around heavy
pots of water, milking mares or making felt. He found a stranglehold, and made
good use of it.

       
Togura, with the
stranger dead, stood up.

       
The stranger started to
stir - he was not dead at all. Togura tried to finish him off, but the women
restrained him. Since the would-be assassin was not dead, they would have the
pleasure of skinning him alive.

       
The next day, terrible
things happened to the captive. In public. He clung stubbornly to life; he was
not a pretty sight by the time he died. Togura watched it all, without emotion.
He had seen worse. The body lay in state while everyone filed past to give the
corpse a good hearty kick, which helped tenderise the meat; Togura gave it the
hardest kick of all. The corpse was then demolished; some small boys began a
tug of war with the intestines, while the women sizzled chunks of flesh on a
barbecue.

       
"Togura!" said
the headman, when the first steaks were cooked.

       
At first, Togura did not
realise he was being addressed, for the headman's hare lip made the name
slurred and distorted. Every time Togura heard the headman speak, he was
reminded of Slerma, who also used to have a strange, slurred voice; he still
had occasional nightmares about her.

       
"Togura!" said
the headman, again.

       
This time, Togura
realised who was being spoken to. He got such a shock that he almost jumped out
of his skin. He advanced, with some hesitation. The headman embraced him, then
presented him with a prime piece of rump steak. He was flattered. He ate heartily.
Excellent! But this was not the end of his reward, for, after several long
speeches, all the unmarried women of the village formed a line. The headman
thumped Togura on the chest, then indicated the women.

       
Slowly, he began to
understand.

   
    
A miraculous future
revealed itself.

       
By triumphing over the
assassin, he had saved the headman's life; he had proved himself as a man and
as a warrior. He was going to be allowed to marry into the tribe. He would have
weapons and a horse. Riding off to battle with the other men, he would prove
himself as a great war leader. In time, he would become chief, an honoured
patriarch revered at home, and feared abroad for his cunning, his sagacity, his
reckless violence on the field of battle.

     
  
He looked the women over. He could
see which ones fancied themselves - those who were tallest and widest. Well,
bugger that for a joke! There was no way he was going to get himself hitched to
a woman he couldn't beat up if it came to the crunch. There was only one choice
for him, and he kenw it. He picked Namaji.

       
Incredulous laughter
greeted his choice. The headman laughed until tears of mirth came blubbering
down his cheeks. Little boys rolled about on the ground, chortling, kicking
their heels as if they were being strangled. Togura dearly wished to have a go
at a few of them. Namaji, embarrassed beyond endurance, broke down and cried.
Togura confronted her bravely.

       
Finally the headman
recovered hyimself, and made a short speech which set the people stamping and
cheering. Namaji managed a small smile, and Togura knew everything was going to
be all right.

       
The marriage took place
the next day. The ceremony started at dawn and ended at sunset. There was a lot
of singing, dancing and eating; Togura, for once, took no part in the
music-making. During the ceremony, a horse was tortured to death as part of the
festivities. Togura couldn't help noticing that it was a rather old horse,
which had been lame to start with. He felt slightly insulted by this, feeling
that he deserved the best.