Choele laughed. She said, ‘He will not punish me.’ She had unfastened the thongs that held the top of her dress; she lay smiling secretly, pushing the thin material forward and back. ‘See, Mata, how I have grown,’ she said. ‘Put your fingers here, and feel me. I am nearly a woman.’
Mata said coldly, ‘I do not choose to.’ She rolled on her back, feeling the sun hot against her closed lids; but Choele persisted till she opened her eyes and saw the nearness of her breasts, how full and round they had become. She stroked the nipples idly, marvelling secretly at their firmness; then Choele showed her another thing, and though she played in the dark till she was wet with sweat she couldn’t make her body do it too. So she cried at last, bitterly, because Choele had spoken the truth; soon she would be gone from her, and there was no other she chose to make a friend. For a year, each Bride lived with the God; but none of them had ever spoken of the Mystery, and all afterwards avoided their former friends, walking alone for the most part with their eyes downcast.
But next day Choele was kinder. ‘This will not be true of us,’ she said. ‘For a time I shall live in the God House, certainly; but afterwards we will be friends again, Mata, and I will tell you how it is when you are loved by a God. Now come into the bushes, and let us play; for I am a woman now, and know more ways than before to make you happy.’
The drums were still beating; but the fires, that had flickered so high, were burning low. The Corn Ghosts were dead, driven by Cha’Acta’s magic from the fields; their old dry husks, empty as the shells of lobsters, had already been ritually burned. In the winter to come the old women, who had seen many Corn Processions pass, would plait new figures; for next year, too, the God would need a Bride.
Mata gulped, and swallowed back another thought half-formed.
She slipped from the hut, moving quietly so as not to disturb the little ones. From the Council Lodge, set square facing the end of the one street of the village, sounds of revelry still rose; for the moment, she was safe. She shadowed between the huts, heading away from where the fires still pulsed and flickered. By the stockade, the outer air struck chill. She climbed the rough wooden steps to a guard tower. As she had expected, the high platform was deserted. She stood shivering a little, staring down into the night.
The moon was sinking to the rim of hills. Below, far off and tiny at her feet, the Sacred Mound was bathed in a silvery glow. Across its summit, black and hulking, lay the God House. It was still, and seemingly deserted; but Mata knew this was not so.
She tried to force her mind out from her body, send it soaring like the spirit of Cha’Acta. She heard a hunting owl call to its mate; and it seemed she flew with the flying bird, silently, across the moonwashed gulf of space. Then it was as if for an instant her spirit joined with Choele, lying waiting silent on the great brushwood bed. She heard a mouse run and scuttle on the floor, thought it was the scratching of the God; and giddiness came on her so that she staggered, clutching the wood of the watchtower for support. Then, just as swiftly it seemed, she was back in her body; and fear of the God was on her so that she shook more violently than before. She pulled her cloak closer round her throat, staring about her guiltily; but none had seen, for there were none to watch. She huddled a long time, unwilling to leave her vantage point, while the fires in the street burned to embers and the moon sank beneath a waiting hill. Its shadow raced forward, swift and engulfing, half-seen; and the God House was gone, plunged in the blackest dark.
She licked her mouth and turned away, groping with her bare feet for the edges of the wooden steps.
The God, as ever, was pleased with his Bride. Cha’Acta announced it, before all the people; and once more the horns blew, the drums thundered, the vats of corn beer were broached and drained. Every day now the sun gained visibly in strength, the hours of daylight lengthened. A burgeoning tide of green swept across the land, across the forest tops in the valleys, across the little patchwork fields where the corn pushed sappy spears up from the ground. The time of breeding came and passed; the coracles ventured farther from the coasts, bringing back snapping harvests of sea things, lobsters and crabs. The villagers, from headman and priests to the lowest chopper of wood, grew sleek and contented. High summer came, with its long blue days and drowsy heat; and only Mata mourned. Sometimes, as she lay watching her father’s goats, she wove chaplets of roses for her hair; sometimes she joined in the children’s play and laughter; but always her thoughts slid back to the great house on the hill, to Choele and her Lord.
In the mornings she woke now before it was light, with the first sweet piping of the birds. Always, the Sacred Mound drew her irresistibly. She would sit and brood, in some hollow of the grassy hill, watching down at the long roof of the God House, still in the new, pearly light; or she would run alone and unseen, down to the brook that meandered softy below the Mound. Trees arched over it, cutting back the light, their roots gripping the high banks to either side; between them the water ran clear and bright and cold. Her ankles as she walked stirred greyish silt that drifted with the current like little puffs of smoke. The coldness touched first calves and knees, then thighs; then as she dipped and shuddered, all of her. Sometimes she would look up, unwilling, to the high shoulder of the hill, and see the nubs and spikes of stone watching down, run scurrying to drag her clothes on wet and sticking. Then she would bolt from the secret place to the high yellow slope of hill below the village; only there dare she turn, stare down panting at the Mound and the God House, rendered tiny by distance and safe as children’s toys. And once, on the high hill, a whisper of cool wind reached to her, touched her hot forehead and passed on into distance, to far fields and the homes of other men. She sat down then, unsteadily; for it seemed to her the God had indeed passed, laughing and glad, to play like a child among the distant hills. A gladness filled her too so that she rose, stretching out her arms; for the Lord speaks only to his chosen. She turned, excited, for the village, bubbling inside with still-unadmitted thoughts.
Later, she was vouchsafed more convincing proof.
Toward the end of summer she was set to gathering reeds; the village folk used them in great quantities for thatching both their own homes and the God House. The sacred hut, alone of all buildings, was refurbished every year. For its great span, only the finest and longest reeds would serve; so Mata in her searching wandered farther and farther afield, hoping secretly her harvest would adorn the home of the God, and that he would know and be pleased. The afternoon was hot and still; an intense, blue and gold day, smelling of Time and burning leaves. She worked knee-deep for the most part, shut away among the great tall pithy stems, hacking with a keen, sickle-bladed knife, throwing the reeds down in bundles on the bank for the carts to pick them up. In time the endless, luminous-green vistas, the feathery grass-heads arching above her, worked in her a curious mood. She seemed poised on the edge of some critical experience; almost it was as if some Presence, vast yet nearly tangible, pervaded the hot, unaware afternoon. The reed stems rubbed and chafed, sibilantly, water gurgled and splashed where she stepped. She found herself pausing unconsciously, the knife blade poised, waiting for she knew not what. Unconsciously too, later with a strange rapture, she pressed deeper into the marsh. Its water, tart and stinking, cooled her legs; its mud soothed her ankles. The mud itself felt warm and smooth; she drove with her toes, feeling them slide between slimy textures of root, willing herself to sink. Soon she had to tuck her skirt higher round her thighs; finally, impulsively, she drew it to her waist. She fell prey to the oddest, half-pleasurable sensations; and still the magic grass called and whispered, still she seemed drawn forward.
She heard the wind blow, a great rushing rustle all about; but her vision was narrowed to the brown and yellow stems before her eyes. Her free hand now was beneath the water; and it seemed in her delirium a great truth came to her. The grasses, in their green thousands, were the body of the Corn Lord; and his body, mystically, the grasses. She cried out; then her own body seemed to open and she knew the Magic Thing had happened at last. She pressed the reed stems madly, awkward with the knife, sucking with her mouth; and life ended, in a wonderful soaring flight.
The world blinked back. She opened her mouth to gasp, and water rushed in. She threshed and fought, fear of the deep mud blinding reason. Dimly, she felt pain; then she had dropped the knife she carried and the bank was close. She reeled and staggered, clawed to it, rolled over and lay still.
The sun was low before she opened her eyes. She lay a moment unaware; then memory returned. She half sat up, pushing with her elbows against a weight of sickness. Somewhere, there were voices. She saw a waggon moving along the river bank. It came slowly, one man leading the ox, a second stooping to fling reed bundles on to the already towering pile.
Her chest felt sore and sharp. She stared down, frowning. Her dress was stuck to her, glued with dark red; the rest of her was muddy still, and bare.
The waggoners had seen her. It seemed they stood staring a great while; then they stepped forward carefully, placing each foot in line. One of them said in a low voice, ‘It’s the headman’s child. She who was sent to cut the reeds.’
She laughed at them then, or showed her teeth. She said, ‘I harvested more than reeds. The God came to me, and was very passionate.’ She fell back heavy-eyed, watching them approach. They fiddled awkwardly with her dress, giving her more pain. At last the fabric jerked clear; and the villagers huddled back frowning. Across her chest ran deep, curving gashes; the marks the Corn Lord gave her, with his nails.
The wounds healed quickly; but the. dullness of spirit induced by the God’s visit took longer to disperse. For many days Mata lay in the family hut, unmoving, drinking and eating very little; while all the village it seemed came to peck and cluck outside, stare curiously round the doorposts into the dark interior. Meanwhile prodigies and wonders were constantly reported. Magan, Mata’s father, saw with his own eyes a great cloud form above the God House, a cloud that took the baleful shape of a claw; the marshes glowed at night with curious light, sighings and rushings in the air spoke of the passage of monsters.
Finally, Cha’Acta came. He arrived in considerable state, three of his priests in attendance; he wore his official robes, blazoned with the green spear of the Corn Lord, and Mata as she saw him stoop beneath the lintel huddled to the farthest corner of the bracken bed. Never before had Cha’Acta acknowledged her directly; now he seemed terrible, and very tall.
Lamps were brought, the other children banished; and the High Priest began his examination. The wounds were subjected to the closest scrutiny; then Mata told her tale again and again, eyes huge in the lamplight, voice faltering and lisping. The thin face of Cha’Acta remained impassive; the dark, grave eyes watched down as she talked. But none could say, when he rose to take his leave, what decision he had come to, or what his thoughts had been. Later though he caused gifts to be sent to the hut; fresh milk and eggs and fruit, a tunic to replace the one the God had soiled. All knew, perhaps, what the portent meant; only Mata, it seemed, could not believe. She lay far into the night, eyes staring unseeing in the dark, clutching the soft fabric to her chest; but as yet her mind refused to make the words.
Autumn was past by the time her strength returned; the harvest gathered, the animals driven into their stockades. Round the village the fields and sweeping downs lay brown and dry, swept by a chilling wind. Eyes followed her as she moved through the village street, cloak gripped round her against the cold. She flushed with awareness; but held her head high and proud, looking to neither left nor right. She climbed to the stockade walk, stared down at the God House on the Mound. Cloud scud moved overhead; the pass between the hills lay desolate and bleak, grey with the coming winter.
Usually the God House was empty well before this time, its doors once more agape, its walls ritually breached, But Cha’Acta remained silent, and Choele was not seen. The village muttered curiously; till finally word came that the Corn Lord had once more left his valley home. The men of the village scurried on to the Mound, fearful and slinking, dragging after them the long grey bundles of thatch. Through the shortest days they worked, renewing the great roof and it’s framing of timber and poles. The walls of the God House were patched and re-whitened, its floors pounded and swept ready for the coming spring. Mata, who now did little of the housework, watched all from the rampart of the little town. She saw the Field Spirits carried down the street, hoisted distantly to their places; two days later, she saw Choele walking alone through the village.
She ran to her gladly; but a dozen paces away she faltered. For her friend’s face was white and old, the eyes she raised toward her dark-ringed and dead. And Mata knew with certainty that despite the promise of Choele the Mystery had come between them, as blank and impenetrable as a wall.
She ran, dismayed, to her father’s hut. An hour or more she lay on her pallet, squeezing the hot tears; then she rose, wiped her face and fell to with the household chores. A decision had formed in her, cold and irrevocable; and at last the forbidden thoughts were freely admitted. Next year, Mata herself would be the Corn Queen. Afterwards, when she too knew the Mystery, she would go to Choele; and all between them would be as it had been before.
Mata was often seen about the village in the brightening days that followed. She took to placing herself, consciously or unconsciously, in Cha’Acta’s path. Always she moved with becoming modesty; but her downcast eyes missed nothing. Sometimes, wrapped in talk or bent upon his own affairs, the Chief Priest seemed not to notice her; at others he turned, watching her as she moved on her errands, and Mata felt the keen, impenetrable stare burn on her neck and back.