The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur (электронную книгу бесплатно без регистрации .txt) 📗

I meant no harm, old grandfather. But her curiosity had been piqued.

The old man was a craftsman, and usually he was delighted to show off his handiwork. He had not protested when Centaine watched as he split the pliable yellow bark off the trunk of a kokerboom tree, rolled it into a quiver to hold his spare arrows and decorated it with designs of birds and animals burned into the bark with a coal from the camp fire.

He showed her how to shape arrowheads from hard white bone by patiently grinding them against a flat stone, and Centaine was surprised at the keenness of the cutting edges and the points. He even took Centaine with him when he went out to hunt for the grubs from which be made the arrow poisons which had brought down the great gemsbok bull, and which could kill a man within hours. She helped him dig beneath a particular type of scrub and pick out of the dirt the brown pellet-like capsules which were the chrysalis in which the fat white grubs of the embryo diamphidia beetle were enclosed.

Handling the insects with elaborate caution, for the minutest quantity of their body juice entering through a scratch would mean lingering but certain death, O'wa pounded them to paste which he thickened with the juice of the wild sansevieria plant before dressing his arrowheads with the sticky mixture. From the sansevieria he separated the fibres from which he braided the twine to bind the arrow head to the shaft.

He even allowed Centaine to watch while he whittled a primitive pen-like flute on which he accompanied him self with piercing blasts when he danced, or while he carved the decorations into the heavy throwing stick which he used to knock the rocketing coqui francolin out of the air in a puff of pretty feathers or the blue-headed lizards from the uppermost branches of the camel-thorn trees, but when he worked on the gemsbok skin he went off to a discreet distance and he worked alone.

The river of sand which they had followed for so long finally contorted into a series of tight bends, like the convulsions of a dying adder, and then abruptly ended in a dry pan, go wide that the trees on the far side were merely a dark wavering line on the horizon. The surface of the pan was white with crystals of evaporated salts.

The reflection of the noon sun from this surface was painful to look at directly, and it turned the sky above it to pale silver. The Bushmen's name for it was the big white place.

On the steep bank of the pan they built shelters sturdier and better thatched than any of the others had been, giving an air of permanence to the camp, and the two little San settled down to an undemanding routine, albeit with an underlying air of expectancy which Centaine detected and queried.

Why do we stop here, H'ani? Each uneventful day made her more impatient and restless.

We wait to make the crossing, was all that the old woman would tell her.

Crossing to where? Where are we going? Centaine insisted, but H'ani became vague and pointed in a wide arc into the east, and answered with a name that Centaine could only translate as a place were nothing must die.

Centaine's child grew strongly within her pouting belly.

Sometimes it was difficult to breathe, and almost impossible to be comfortable on the bare ground. She made herself a nest of soft desert grass in her little sun shelter, which amused the two old people. For them the bare earth was bed enough, and they used their own shoulders are pillows.

Centaine lay in her nest and tried to count the days and months since she and Michael had been together, but time was blurred and telescoped so that all she could be sure of was that her time would be upon her soon. H'ani confirmed her estimate, probing her belly with gentle, knowing fingers.

The baby rides high and fights to be free. It will be a boy, Nam Child, she Promised, and took Centaine off into the desert to gather special herbs that they would need for the birthing.

Unlike many Stone Age peoples, the San were fully aware of the processes of procreation and saw sexual intercourse not as an isolated and random act, but as the first step in the long voyage to birth.

Where is the father of your growing infant, Nam Child? H'ani asked, and when she saw the tears in Centaine's eyes she answered herself softly. He is dead in the north lands at the ends of the earth. Is that not so?

How did you know that I came from the north? Centaine asked, glad to turn away from the pain of Michael's memory.

You are big, bigger than any of the San of the desert, H'ani explained.

Therefore you must come from a rich land where living is easy, a land of good rains and plentiful food. To the old woman water was all of life. The rain winds comes from the north, so you also must come from the north.

Intrigued by her logic, Centaine smiled. And how did you know I was from far away? I Your skin is pale, not darkened like the skin of the San. Here in the centre of the world the sun stands overhead, but it never goes north or south, and in the east and west it is low and wasting, so you must come from far away where the sun lacks the warmth and strength to darken your skin. Do you know of other people like me, H'ani, big people with pale skins? Have you ever before seen people like me? Centaine asked eagerly, and when she saw the shift in the old woman's gaze, she seized her arm. Tell me, wise old grandmother, where have you seen my people?

In what direction, and how far away? Would I be able to reach them? Please tell me. H'ani's eyes clouded with a film of incomprehension and she picked a grain of dried mucus from her nostril and examined it with minute attention.

Tell me, H'ani.1 Centaine shook her arm gently.

I have heard the old people talk of such things, H'ani grudgingly admitted, but I have never seen these people, and I do not know where they could be found. And Centaine knew she was lying. Then, in a sudden vehement gabble, Kain went on. They are fierce as lions and poisonous as the scorpion, the San hide from them- She jumped up in agitation, seized her satchel and digging stick and hurried from the camp and did not return until sunset.

That night after Centaine had curled in her grass bed, H'ani whispered to O'wa. The child yearns for her own people. I have seen her look southwards with sadness in her eyes, O'wa admitted.

How many days travel to reach the land of the pale giants? Ram asked reluctantly. How far to travel to her own clan? I Less than a moon, Olwa grunted, and they were both silent for a long time, staring into the hot bluish flames, of the camel-thorn log fire.

I want to hear a baby cry once more before I die, I H'ani said at last and O'wa nodded. And both their little heartshaped faces turned towards the east. They stared out into the darkness, towards the Place of All Life.

Once when H'ani found Centaine kneeling alone and praying in the wilderness, she asked, Who are you speaking to, Nam Child? and Centaine was at a loss, for though the San language was rich and complex in its descriptive powers of the material aspects of the desert world, it was extremely difficult to use it to convey abstract ideas.

However, after long discussion spread over many days while they foraged in the desert or worked over the cooking fire, Centaine managed to describe her concept of the Godhead, and H'ani nodded dubiously and mumbled and frowned as she considered it.

You are talking to the spirits? she asked. But most of the spirits live in the stars, and if you speak so softly, how will they hear you? It is necessary to dance and sing and whistle loudly to attract their attention. She lowered her voice. And it is even then not certain they will listen to you, for I have found the star spirits to be fickle and forgetful. H'ani glanced around her like a conspirator. It is my experience, Nam Child, that Mantis and Eland are much more reliable. Mantis and Eland? Centaine tried not to show her amusement.