LITMIR.BIZ

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how I’m dishonoured.’ ‘Well,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘you were betrothed. It’s nothing to make a song about. Go to your mother, Erif.’ He went back to the Chief, and Berris said: ‘It serves you right for magicking people.’ ‘Well, who told me to?’ said she furiously. ‘Oh, of course,’ said Berris, ‘but you know you like doing it. You think you’re clever.’

      She leant forward and hit the horse on the neck, and sent it clattering off towards the tents, nearly throwing her. She called for her mother; the foot was hurting again, it wanted magic. The women helped her into her mother’s tent, saying nothing, because they saw she was angry, and knew what she could do to them if she chose to use her power. The old nurse brought her clean clothes, her best, and warm water, and olive oil, and soft woollen towels to wash with. Then at last came her mother, Nerrish, so small and quiet and shadowy in her grey dress, that she was hardly there. She sat beside Erif, holding her hand, crumbling something over her hair, while the girl cried solidly for ten minutes. Nerrish knew a great deal about people and a great deal about magic, but it had worn her out. She felt very old, she could scarcely deal with her children, hardly ever thought of the younger ones. But she would give what she had to this elder one who was most like her, whose life she could best see into. After a time Erif fell asleep, and while the sleep was at its heaviest, her mother and nurse undressed her and washed her, and saw to the bruises and the twisted ankle, and dressed her again, and plaited ribbons into her hair, and discussed between themselves, in very low voices, the doings of that curious, savage creature man, and how one should deal with him and overcome him. Then they moved a little brazier of burning charcoal close to the girl’s head, and Nerrish laid some large, flat leaves on it. The smoke rose and hung and spread itself upwards along the walls of the tent; Erif Der lay and slept, breathing easily, the colour coming back into her cheeks.

      Meanwhile the horse had found its way back to Tarrik, and stood, with twitching ears, blowing into the palm of his hand. He had just said to Harn Der: ‘Three days ago I killed Epigethes,’ and was watching to see what would happen next. Harn Der said nothing at all for the moment, but breathed heavily. Berris, though, had heard. ‘You haven’t done that,’ he said, ‘Tarrik!’ And then, seeing it was true, covered eyes with hands in sheer horror.

      Said Harn Der: ‘This was—unwise.’

      ‘Yes,’ said Tarrik, and began laughing as he had that day at the Council.

      ‘Why did you do it, Chief?’ said the older man.

      But Tarrik went on laughing and then suddenly kicked backwards like a vicious horse at a clod of earth which exploded under his heel.

      And Berris groaned: ‘Are you mad?’

      ‘He was bad,’ said Tarrik, and stopped laughing and walked from one bit of scattered turf to another, tramping on them. ‘He was bad. His things were bad. Rotten. Rotten roots. I like sound things. Sweet apples. Hard apples—like yours, Berris.’

      ‘My things!’ said Berris Der. ‘Oh God, you should have killed me—I don’t matter. But he …’ And his voice trailed off into silence, overwhelmed with the loss of Hellas.

      ‘The Council will think you mad, if they think no worse,’ said Harn Der again.

      But Tarrik bent down and was lacing his shoes. ‘I shall want clean clothes,’ he said. ‘Burn these, with hers, and give them to your fields, Harn Der.’ He spoke now in the voice of the Corn King. They would be very careful to obey him; next year the crops would know.

      He took the clean linen and went off by himself to the stream. All this time her star had been round his neck; when he lifted it, he found it had blistered his skin underneath in a star pattern. So while he washed, he put it under water to get cool, downstream from where he was. He also found that where her teeth had gone through the skin on his arm, there was still bleeding; it would not stop for cold water, or burnet leaves, or dock. After some hesitation he touched it with the star. Then it stopped at once. Tarrik knew no more about how magic worked than any other of the men, but it interested him immensely; that was perhaps the Greek part of him, not taking everything for granted. He dressed and walked slowly back to the camp; the star was on his neck again, but well wrapped in leaves, so that it should burn them first. It was the middle of the afternoon by now, very hot; he thought he could smell the lime grove, breathing its sweetness towards him from the other slope, a mile away now.

      When the fire in the brazier had burnt right out, Erif Der woke up again, slowly, in time with some singing of her mother’s. Moving her eyes and hands a little, she found, comfortingly, that she was wearing her best clothes, and remembered after a time what had happened. She was no longer a virgin: she settled down to that, with a certain pleasant relaxing of all her muscles. She had been hurt: that was all cured. By Tarrik: who cared what Tarrik did?—he would not be Chief much longer. But Tarrik had her star. She sat up suddenly. ‘Mother, oh, mother!’ she said, ‘he took my star!’

      ‘Well,’ said Nerrish softly, ‘do you mind?’

      ‘No,’ said Erif, ‘perhaps not. But what shall I do for some things?’ And she put her mouth close to her mother’s ear, and whispered.

      ‘The power is in you,’ said Nerrish.’ ‘Listen! I have done without things for years now. Have you ever seen me eat lately? No. And as for my star, I threw it into the sea last winter. I will tell you something, because you are more to me than the rest: soon, quite soon, I am going to turn into a bird, a wise bird with rosy feathers. After I am buried, I shall creep through the earth, all little, till I come to an egg, and there I will rest for a long time. Then I shall come out to the rose-red bird flocks. Look, Erif, my baby bird, it will be soon!’ And she spread her arms and the grey stuff wavered about her as she hovered a moment in the dim light of the tent.

      ‘But are you going to die, mother?’ said Erif, and her lip trembled.

      ‘Yes, perhaps. And he will be sorry’—she nodded towards her bed and some of Harn Der’s gear hung up beside it—‘but you will know better.’

      ‘Won’t you tell him?’

      ‘No,’ said Nerrish, ‘he is a man, he would be afraid.’

      ‘Some men aren’t afraid,’ said Erif musingly, and reached down to take hold of her own slim legs; as she did it, her plaits with the coloured ribbons fell forward. ‘Oh, mother,’ she said, ‘oh, my lovely hair! These are your very own ribbons that came from the other end of the world!’

      ‘Yes,’ said Nerrish, laying her cheek for a moment lightly on the smooth roundness of Erif’s head, as a mother wild duck does with her soft babies.

      Erif was stroking and purring over the bright, lovely colours, the rainbowed shining silk from that other end of the world! ‘Oh,’ she sighed, ‘I must go out, I must show them to Berris. Every one must see me!’ As she stood up, her mother slipped a stick into her hand, a long, smooth thing of ivory, carved into narrow leaf-shapes, and a fruit under her hand. Half consciously she leaned on it, and took the weight from her foot; her mother knew it was dangerous to disregard a pain that was no longer felt: it might come back.

      Outside the tent, the sun was blinking bright. She stepped out, with her high head, her white dress woven with coloured, fantastic lions, her coat of thin linen bordered with kingfisher feathers, her turquoise belt and ear-rings, and the brilliant shine of her plaits. Slowly, leaning on her long stick, she passed the groups of servants, the fires, pale yellow in sunlight. Wheat-ear ran up to her: ‘Oh lovely, lovely!’ she cried, and danced round her big sister. Further on, Erif saw her father with Berris, and, rather to one side, Tarrik in clean clothes, standing by his horse. They all stared at her, and she wished there were more of them. Tarrik came up to her, a little uncertainly. ‘I have your star,’ he said, ‘you beauty, Erif!’ And he suddenly kissed her hand. ‘I’m wearing it now,’ he said again, with a kind of challenge. ‘Go on, then,’ said Erif kindly, disconcertingly, and looked him up and down, and touched his arm, and then his neck, his cheek, and his lips with cool, baffling fingers. He stood quite still, feeling them trail about him. ‘And I have your coat,’ she said. ‘Burn it—for the fields,’ he said earnestly.

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