Compared to their tall, healthy ancestors, people were actually shrinking.
And then there were the deaths.
It was true that the mothers here did not have to sacrifice their babies. Indeed, the women were encouraged to have children as rapidly as possible, for children fulfilled the endless demand for more laborers for the fields: By the age of thirty, many of the women were exhausted by the endless drain of nursing and caring for weaned infants.
But where many were born, so did many more die. It did not take long for Juna to see it. Disease was rare among Juna’s folk, but it was not rare here, in this crowded, filthy place. You could almost see it spreading, as people sneezed and coughed, as they scratched weeping sores, as their diarrhea poisoned the water supply of their neighbors. And the myriad afflictions targeted the weakest, the oldest and youngest. Many, many children died, far more than among Juna’s folk.
And there was barely a handful of people her grandmother’s age. Juna wondered what happened to all the wisdom when the old died so cheaply and so early.
The days wore by, identical, meaningless. The work was routine. But then everything here was a routine, the same thing, day after day.
Cahl continued to use her, most nights. He seemed to lack vigor, though. Sometimes he would come at her hard, pushing her down and ripping aside her shift, or pushing her on her face to take her from behind. It was as if he had to work himself up, to excite himself. But if he had taken too much beer, his pisser would not rise at all.
He was a weak man, she realized. He had power over her, but she did not fear him. In the end even his taking of her had become routine, just part of the background to her life. She was relieved, though, that she couldn’t become pregnant with his brat— not while Tori’s child continued to grow inside her.
One day, while she was straining to drag her stone plough across dry, rocky ground, sheep came blundering over a bluff, bleating noisily. Always ready for a break, the workers in the field straightened up to watch. They laughed as the sheep stumbled over the broken ground, nudging each other nervously and nuzzling in search of grass.
But now there was a frenzied barking. A dog came tearing over the bluff, chased by a boy wielding a wooden staff. As the workers laughed, clapped and whistled, the boy and the dog began to chase the sheep, with comical incompetence.
Gwerei was at Juna’s side. She peered into her baffled face. Then, not unkindly, she pointed at the sheep.
“Owis. Kludhi.”
She picked out the sheep with her finger, one by one.
“Oynos. Dwo. Treyes. Owis.”
And she nudged Juna, trying to get her to respond.
Juna, her back aching, her hair matted, had had enough strangeness. “I’ll never understand.”
But Gwerei, remarkably, stayed patient.
“Owis. Kludhi. Owis.”
And she began to speak to Juna, in her own tongue, but much more slowly and clearly than usual— and, to Juna’s shock, with one or two words of Juna’s language, presumably picked up from Cahl. She was trying to tell Juna something, something very important.
Juna subsided and listened. It took a long time. But gradually she pieced together what Gwerei was trying to tell her. Learn the language. Listen and learn. Because that is the only way you will ever get away from Cahl. Listen now.
Reluctantly she nodded.
“Owis,”
she repeated. “Sheep.
Owis.
One, two, three—”
And so Juna learned her first words in the language of Gwerei and Cahl, these first farmers: her first words in the language that would one day be called proto-Indo-European.
As the days wore by, so her bump grew steadily. It began to hinder her work in the field, and her strength seemed drained. The other workers observed this, and some grumbled, though most of the women seemed to forgive Juna her slowing down.
But she worried. What would Cahl do when the child was born? Would he find her so attractive without a swollen belly? If he turned her out, she would be in as bad a position as if she had simply taken her chances on the high plain— worse, perhaps, after months of bad diet and backbreaking work, in a place she neither knew nor understood. The worry grew into a gnaw that consumed her mind, just as the growing child seemed to consume her body’s strength.
But then the stranger with the shining necklace came to the town.
It was evening. She was shambling back from the fields as usual, mud-covered and exhausted.
Cahl was making his way to the hut of the beer maker. Juna had glimpsed the great wooden vats inside the hut, where the beer maker churned domesticated grasses and other unidentifiable substances to make his crude wheat ale. The beer seemed to have little effect on Cahl’s people— not until they had consumed vast quantities of it— little, anyhow, compared to what it did to Acta and the others. No wonder it was such a useful trade good for Cahl: cheap for him, priceless to Acta.
But this evening Cahl had with him a man— tall, as tall as she was, if not quite as lofty as some of the men of Juna’s folk. His face was shaven clean, and his long black hair was tied in a knot at the back of his head. He looked young, surely not much older than she was. His eyes were clear, alert. And he wore extraordinary skins, skins that had been worked until they were soft, carefully stitched and decorated with dancing animal designs in red, blue, and black. She was frightened by the thought of the hours of work that had been invested in such garments.
But what most caught her eye was the necklace he wore around his neck. It was a simple chain of pierced shells. But in the central shell, below his chin, was fixed a lump of something that shone bright yellow, catching the light of the low sun.
Cahl was watching her. He let the young man go on ahead to the beer maker’s hut. In her own tongue he said to her silkily, “Like him, do you? Like the gold around his neck? Think you’d prefer his slim cock to mine? He’s called Keram. Much good that will do you. He’s from Cata Huuk. You don’t know where that is, do you? And you’ll never know.” He grabbed her between the legs and squeezed. “Keep yourself warm for me.” And he pushed her away and walked off.
She had barely noticed his latest assault.
Keram. Cata Huuk.
She repeated the strange names to herself, over and over.
For she thought that— just for a moment, just before he turned his back to walk to the beer maker’s— the young man had looked at her, and his eyes had widened in a kind of recognition.
It was three months before Keram traveled out from Cata Huuk to the town again.
He’d actually put off the call. As the youngest son of the Potus, he routinely got the worst jobs, and checking on the tribute collection from these outlying towns at the fringe of the city’s hinterland was about as bad as it got.
“And this place,” he told his friend Muti, “is the worst of them all. Look at it.” The riverbank town was just a huddle of dung-colored huts, eroded to shapelessness by rain, stinking smoke curling up from their roofs. “You know what they call this place?
Keer.
” The word meant “Heart” in the language the two young men spoke, a language that was used throughout a wider belt of colonization spreading back from this place far to the east.
Muti grinned. “
Keer.
I like that. Can this be the heart of the world? Why does it look so much like its arsehole, then?” The two of them laughed together, their necklaces of shell and gold nuggets tinkling softly.
Cahl came up to them. The trader joined in with their laughter, his gaiety forced, his dim, piglike eyes darting from one to the other. The guards behind Keram moved subtly, showing their alertness, tilting the tips of their pikes.
Cahl said, “Master Keram. It is a pleasure to see you. How fine you look, how your clothes shine in the sunlight!” He turned to Muti. “And I don’t believe—”
Muti introduced himself. “A second cousin of Keram. Cousin and ally.”
Keram was amused to see the naked calculation in Cahl’s eyes as the trader added Muti’s name and position to the tentative map he was so obviously making of the power structures within Cata Huuk. Cahl began to flap and fuss as he led them into the town. “Come, come. Your tribute is ready, of course, piled in my hut. I have food and beer for you, fresh from the country. Will you stay the night?”
Keram said, “We have many more places to visit before—”
“But you must enjoy our hospitality. Your men too. We have girls, virgins, who are ready for you.” He eyed Muti and winked. “Or boys. Whatever you desire. You are our guests, for as long as you choose to be with us.”
As they walked delicately over the muddy, shit-strewn ground, Muti leaned closer to Keram. “What a repulsive fat slug.”
“He’s just trying his chances. He isn’t even the chief of this little band of dirt-grubbers. And he has some interesting weaknesses, notably for fat women. Perhaps they remind him of the pigs who are no doubt his real loves. But he is useful. Easy to manipulate.”
“Will he ever get to Cata Huuk?”
Keram snorted. “What do you think, cousin?”
Now they were approaching Cahl’s hut— one of the grander in the town, but still a heap of mud in the eyes of the young men.
Keram asked Muti, “Do you want to stay awhile?” He nodded toward the four guards. “I usually let the dogs out of their pen for a while. And Cahl’s usefulness does include digging out the more attractive sows from this sty. Sometimes their mud-hole desperation makes them— interesting. It’s fun, in a strenuous sort of way. But you have to be prepared for a little filth—”
Muti, distracted, asked, “What’s this?”
A girl had come out of Cahl’s hut. She was quite unlike the dark, dumpy women of the town. Though scrawny and obviously careworn, she was tall— as tall as Keram, in fact— slender, and had blond hair that shone strikingly gold, despite the dirt tangled in it. She might have been sixteen or seventeen.
Cahl looked outraged at the girl’s approach. He slammed his meaty fist into her temple, knocking her down in the dirt. “What are you doing? Get back in the hut. I will deal with you later.” And he made to kick the girl as she lay helpless on the ground.
Smoothly, Muti grabbed Cahl’s pudgy arm and twisted it behind his back. Cahl howled, but he quickly subsided.
Keram took the girl’s hand and helped her to her feet. A bruise was already gathering on her temple. He saw now that her legs and arms were discolored by bruises. She was trembling, but she stood straight and faced him. He said, “What is your name?”
Cahl snapped, “Sir, don’t talk to her—” Muti twisted his arm harder.
“Ow!”
“Juna.” Her accent was thick and unfamiliar, but her words were clear. “My name is Juna. I am from Cata Huuk,” she said boldly. “I am like you.”
Keram laughed at that, disbelieving— but his laughter died as he studied her. Certainly her height, her grace, her relatively good condition did not speak of a life with the pigs of Keer. He said carefully, “If you are from the city how did you end up here?”
“They took me as a child. These people, the people of Keer. They raised me with the dogs and the wolves, and so I don’t speak as you. But—”
“She is lying,” Cahl breathed. “She doesn’t even know what Cata Huuk is. She is a savage from the tribes to the west, the animal people I have to deal with. Her mother is a fat slut who sells her body for beer. And—”
“I should not be here,” Juna said steadily, her eyes on Keram. “Take me with you.”
Uncertain, Keram and Muti exchanged glances.
Enraged, Cahl twisted away from Muti. “You want to lie with her? Is that it?” He ripped at Juna’s simple shift, tearing it away from her swollen belly. “Look! The sow is full of piglets. Do you want to hump
that
?”
Keram frowned. “The child. Is it Cahl’s?”
She trembled harder. “No. Though my belly excites him, and he uses me. The child is a man’s from Cata Huuk. He came here. He used me. He did not tell me his name. He promised me—”
“She is lying!” Cahl raged. “She was with child when I found her.”
“I am not for this place,” said Juna, gazing at the town with faint disgust. “My child is not for this place. My child is for Cata Huuk.”
Keram glanced again at Muti, who shrugged. Keram grinned. “I can’t tell if you’re speaking the truth, Ju-na. But you are a strange one, and your story will amuse my father—”
“No!” Again Cahl broke away. The troops moved forward. “You can’t take her!”
Keram ignored him. He nodded to Muti. “Organize the collection of the tribute. You— Ju-na— do you have any possessions here? Any friends of whom you want to take your leave?”
She seemed to puzzle over his meaning, as if she wasn’t quite sure what “possessions” were. “Nothing. And friends— only Gwerei.”
Keram shrugged; the name meant nothing to him. “Make your preparations. We leave soon.” He clapped his hands, and Muti and the troops proceeded to carry out his orders.
But Cahl, restrained by a guard, continued to beg and plead. “Take me! Oh, take me!”
It would take them three days to cover the ground to Keram’s mysterious home, to Cata Huuk.
The grain and meat, what Keram called the “tribute,” was briskly collected. Juna had no idea why the townsfolk— hardly well-off themselves— should wish to hand over so much of their provisions to these strangers. They didn’t even get beer back in return.
But now was not the time for her to inquire into such matters. The speech she had rehearsed for so long, since first seeing Keram, had paid off. Now was the time for her to keep quiet and follow where she was led.
The party formed up into a loose line. Keram and Muti took the lead. Their four squat guards followed, two of them with hands free to deploy weapons, the others loaded up with the tribute. Juna, carrying nothing but the spear with which she had arrived here, approached one of the guards, expecting to be given a share of the load.
Keram rebuked her. “Let them do their job.”
Juna shrugged. “In Cahl’s town, it would be my job.”
“Well, I am not Cahl. You must do as we do, girl. It is our way.”