Ember of a New World (24 page)

As the kissing continued
,
Ember started to feel warm all over and slightly embarrassed. She looked down, worrying that she shouldn't be watching so intimate of an encounter. She had seen people this way before, not so uncommon in a longhouse without too much privacy, but those times were not intentional and something about just staring felt wrong. Ember looked back up just in time to watch the woman's leather skirt fall free leaving both lovers naked, aside from their boots. Both the man and woman wore matching necklaces, made from a leather thong with a large shiny pendant at the end. The pendants were made of the same yellow rock the people had been gathering. Ember slowly stood and walked back towards the camp. She gave one last look back seeing the man and woman on the ground in a deep sandy embrace. Blushing, she walked through the woods, still able to hear the two lovers half way to the camp. Ember hoped she might one day find out just how wonderful a lover's embrace was. She sighed at the thought as she
approached the now quiet camp.

Ember found the pile of furs and decided to lie back upon them for a short time and relax, before finding a tree
in which to
spend the night. The softness of the fox furs was simply too much to resist, and Ember had plenty to think about. Ember fell upon the furs and began to consider what type of man she might one day find. Would she look for a strong hunter? Perhaps a talented artisan? Ember spent a good while thinking the fluttery thoughts of
first
love and romance which live in the minds of young women. One day
,
Ember hoped for such love, but first she would have to complete this foolish task.

If I make it all of the way to the west, the end of the world, and find nothing... I'm going to be very angry,
she thought. She sat back on the soft furs and pondered many thoughts. Unfortunately, the fox furs were very re
laxing.

Nomadic people and strictly hunter gatherer societies in Europe were nearly a thing of the past by the Neolithic period. The advent of farming and the domestication of animals required less land and provided a greater and more controlled food supply. Early slash and burn farming might require only short movements every few seasons. If crops failed, traditional hunting could be relied upon temporarily. With more structured food supplies from farming, the Neolithic period also saw a dramatic increase in the amount of trade throughout Eurasia. Traders, using skills adapted from earlier hunter gathering, traveled the lands in small groups bringing wares from south to north, west to east, and vice versa. The group Ember now encounters i
s the result of this new trade.

People
from
larger villages
,
able to afford the temporary loss of
workers
,
c
ould journey for long distances for trade and the harvesting of valuable resources for trade. Gold, featured throughout the book, was not actually a major resource at the time, but its malleability and chemical purity has always afforded gold an intrinsic value. Primitive necklace pendants, as an example, could be fashioned with mere stone tools and the heat of an open fire. Still, other resources were much more important for trade. Hides and painted pottery from the north were traded for spices, imprinted pottery, and pigments from the south, as well as a multitude of other exchanges. Thus, we find a band of young hunters and a few older traders.

Unlike modern Europeans, these new people have naturally darker skin complexions, yet light colored hair and eyes
,
and otherwise European facial features. Coming from a more northern climate, they had only recently
begun
the change from Mesolithic hunter gatherer to a Neolith
ic society. As Neolithic farming
cultures switched more of their food supplies from meat to grains, those of lighter skin coloring were more easily able to obtain their vitamin D from the sun and not from their food. As a result of this and other changes in diet and lifestyle, Neolithic peoples may have tended to have lighter colored skin than Mesolithic people
.

.

That night, Ember dreamed she was a mink. She ran along the river bank faster than she could have as a human. Grass and small debris flew past her as she ran. Slowly she came to a stop and curled up in her bushy soft tail for a warm nap in the sun. The dream was quite pleasant until a poke to the stomach brought her around. Ember laid against the fur pile by the hut as the morning sun hit her face. How could it be morning? She had just laid her head against the furs by the hut for a moment, then she would return to the woods and find a hiding place, but the sun was somehow out? She was considering the light and the source of the poke when her sleepiness left her, and she fully realized that she had fallen asleep against the pile of soft f
urs by one of the little huts!

She turned to see her surroundings and instead saw that there were twenty-one people standing around he
r, several with spears and bows!
An older man holding a fishing spear, seemingly the one who poked her before, looked as though he would speak, but Ember didn't give him a chance. Like the mink in her dream she
suddenly
stood
, turned,
and threw herself
back
at the pile of furs bouncing over them, less gracefully than she hoped, and on to the other side where the people were not. Ember stared at the people for a split second with a blink,
and then
ran! This was her preferred method for
getting out of bad situations.

I should have taken the name runs-like-mink when I took on this silly quest,
she
mused
. The people behind her screamed as Ember ran as fast as she could. Again she was glad for her lesser endowments.

That girl last night definitely couldn't do this
, she thought with a smile as she ran a
s fast as she could.

Ember ran through the woods for a moment and then turned and ran back towards the camp, hoping this would throw off the mob of people pursuing her.
Her radical change in direction and doubling back seemed to be working, as she noticed no pursuers near her. Likely, they were chasing her into the forest and did not know she had doubled back. Behind her, Ember could hear the people. She would simply run through their now empty camp and flee the opposite way.

As she ran through the camp, she tripped on a pole left beside one of the huts and fell hard on her side. She rolled over and saw the people coming towards
her!

No! They figured it out
!
Ember
worried
.
Quickly, she rolled over and tried to stand. Ember let out a painful cry and fell to her knees, her already bruised knees, as a sharp pain radiated through her ankle. She had pulled her ankle in some way and was now nearly incapable of walking. Ember briefly considered hopping, but she knew that would never work. The men surrounded Ember slowly and carefully. She sighed and accepted capture. She fell against the ground and started to cry, more out of frustration than fear. So she would be a prisoner again. Perhaps this was better than dying in the cold season to come. She was probably extremely far from her goal, for whatever that was worth. Feeling helpless and defeated, she sat upon the ground sobbing.

Why does everyone always want to capture me?
she thought
.

The men who had surrounded her were at a loss for what to do next. Before them sat a young woman, who looked as though she might have walked farther than they had walked this season, on the ground sobbing. She didn't even look like she had stolen anything. The men stood staring at the girl and then at each other. Suddenly a woman came forward pushing them aside to kneel beside Ember. She started slowly stroking Ember's hair and speaking to Ember in a questioning but comforting tone. The petting, a bit odd for this woman to be doing, had a relaxing effect on Ember. Her mother, East, used to stroke her head to help her sleep when she was young, and those feelings comforted and calmed Ember. She had become too emotional in her moment of panic and let her fear and frustration take control of her. Ember didn't know what to say to the woman, but she stopped crying and cautiously look
ed
up.

She was still surrounded, but the men had lowered their weapons and were starting to appreciate that this was a lone woman and not something more malevolent, though they remained suspicious given the unlikelihood of a young female making it out here on her own. The oldest man walked forward and said something to the men. Reluctantly, most of the men formed into groups of two men each and ran off different directions. Ember guessed they were searching for the remainder of Ember's “group”. They would come up empty handed, but she understood their fears. The older man leveled his gaze at the young woman kneeling beside Ember. As they started talking, Ember realized that this woman was the same she had seen the night before with the man. Perhaps the previous night's foray had left her in an extra compassionate state for she seemed, to Ember's reckoning, to be convincing the man of her position, which seemed to be favorable to
ward Ember.

The man listened to her passionate plea and slowly, thoughtfully, nodded his head in a reluctant agreement. He turned his gaze to Ember and spoke slowly and carefully.

“
Ertu auen?
”
he said.

She stared at him without understanding. He thought for a moment then spoke again, this time in a completely different language, judging by the tone and timing.

“
Veetae sae?
”
he asked.

The second language was smoother and more flowing than his more guttural native language. Ember shook her head with a look of confusion. The man smiled and thought once more before trying
again.

“Do-you know my-words?”
he said slowly and in a thick ac
cent.

He had spoken the language of the southern traders, though barely correctly. Ember knew this language as the traders from the south came to her village every other harvest, during the warm seasons, and stayed for perhaps a ten-day or more. The sounds were clear but not well strung. The language seemed more made for common understanding than real usage. The timing and sounds of the trade language always bothered her, but at least it was a language they both shared. She looked at the m
an with watery eyes and spoke.

“I-understand
,
” she said. He looked at her carefully, eyes searching her face carefully.

“Are-you one, many?
” he said as best as he could.

“One, tired
?”
she said. Her vocabulary in this common trade language was limited to perhaps fifty out-of-practice words. The man gav
e her a deep smile and nodded.

“Rest. Soon, food, talk
,
” he said. Ember noted the man's own unfamiliarity with the language and his meaning. The
woman,
who had knelt beside Ember, introduced herself as
,
“
Kis'tra
, wife of-Zhek”. She escorted a confused Ember to her hut.

Does she know the language too?
Ember thought. The walk was painful, but Ember was now sure she had merely pulled her foot muscle and not sprained it. She would probably be back to walking in a few days.
Kis’tra
carefully helped Ember into the hut and to sit on a wooden stump which seemed t
o serve as an impromptu chair.

"I-help
,
" she said in a thick accent. That meant she did know a little of the trading language of the south. It was easier to expand a language you already knew, than learn another. Perhaps she could talk with
Kis’tra
and pick up some of her words, but where to begin?

I can't start with, “Hello
Kis’tra
, I saw you and Zhek rolling on the sand last night. Perhaps you could name your first born after me, or is this too soon?”
T
he
thought nearly made her laugh.

“Where
Kis’tra
-home?” She asked, as clearly and as best as her vocabulary would allow.

“Far-north
,
" she said. Her skin and complexion was
darker
, and her eyes were a bright shade of blue. Ember wondered from just how far north she came and why these people came this way at all. Most trade was with the south and east. Ember supposed that she was technically
to the south of these people.

“Do-
you trade-south?” Ember asked.

“Yes. North, go-south. Trade. Go-north, when no-snow
,
”
Kis’tra
said. Ember understood now, these people came south and stayed until the snows melted and then returned. That would mean they probably came every two harvests. That would make sense as the traders from the south made the same cycles.

Speech was slightly hampered by the lack of vocabularies but also by the very nature of the trade language. The trade language was really a set of a few dozen single and double word pairs which were commonly used between most of the peoples of the region for the purposes of trade. The language was very ine
xact and sentences were horribly
constructed. Ember didn't even think the words all came from the same language, but were real
ly bits of other languages.

“Rest. You, Me, talk. Leather off
,
”
Kis’tra
said. Before Ember could determine the second part of the sentence,
Kis’tra
had bent over and produced a large fur blanket. The blanket was actually many rabbit pelts sewn together. She gestured to the reed mats and soft furs which made a bed on the floor. Ember understood now; she would disrobe and sleep under the furs.
Kis’tra
initially sat a clay dish of washing water in front of Ember, but seeing that she was indeed clean from the previous day
s swim, she put the dish away.

The day was not yet warm, and didn't seem that it would be. While heat and furs did not mix, lying under furs with dirty clothing, or clothing at all, was an uncomfortable experience. Ember was somewhere between a captive and a guest, she figured, so she might as well accept the hospitality. The group had found a tired and ragged-looking Ember on a pile of furs sleeping, so
Kis’tra
probably figured she was exhausted and needed sleep. In truth, she was still tired, both physically and emotionally, from being outdoors for so long.
Kis’tra
helped Ember out of her shirt. Modesty around another woman was not an issue as women sometimes worked, breast fed, and occasionally fished topless, but when
Kis’tra
pointed to Ember's torn and ragged reed skirt, Ember became alarmed. Stripping her skirt would be awkward, to say the least.
Kis’tra
seemed to understand and handed her a corded leather belt and fresh soft breechcloth made of what looked like rabbit or ferr
et leather (without fur), scrap
ed to extra thinness and beaten with wooden clubs or chewed to make the leather very soft. The hide was sewn into an arm length strip a hand's length in width. Ember took the breechcloth and swapped it with her old one, keepi
ng her skirt on the whole time.