The Kin (7 page)

So when he got back to the camp and found Noli sitting with Otan asleep in her lap, and Mana sitting patiently beside her, he put Ko down and picked Mana up.

“See, I come back,” he said.

She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. Noli looked up and smiled.

“You hear the thing Mana says?” she asked him.

“Yes. It is true,” he said.

That evening, when the sun was low, the fire was piled with wood and those who had caught ground rats skinned the bodies for roasting. Then they all trooped down to the lake for their evening drink. Even Mosu came, hobbling on her stick and helped along by the woman with the withered leg, whose name was Foia. This time it was Mosu who raised her hand and spoke in greeting to the water before anyone drank.

On their return they settled in a wide circle around the fire, with the men on one side and the women and children on the other. While they ate, Mohr, who was Paro's mate and Sula's father, carried the new baby around and showed him to everyone in turn. Men as well as women held him and looked him carefully over while he thrashed and squalled, and then passed him back to Mohr.

Mohr didn't show him to the Moonhawks, but Sula brought him proudly over.

“See,” she said. “He is whole and clean.”

She opened one of the tiny clutching hands and showed that there were four good fingers and a thumb, without webs, like hers, between them. After his mistake with Loga under the shade trees, Suth didn't dare ask what was so wonderful about a child being born normal. Apart from Tinu, all the babies he had known had been born whole and healthy, though later some had fallen sick and died. As it happened, Sula told him anyway.

“When my brother was born he had no arms and no legs,” she said. “He would not live. My father carried him into the trees and left him. Our blood is sick. Mosu says,
We are too few. That makes the sickness
.
We have only each other to mate with
. Now the sickness grows stronger. See. It is here, in me.”

She spread her webbed fingers to show him.

“Soon I am a woman,” she said. “Then I have you for my mate, Suth. Your blood is good. It gives me good babies. Mosu says this.”

Suth smiled uneasily, but she wasn't joking or teasing, though there was always a lot of that among the Kin when children were reaching the right age. He glanced at Noli for reassurance, but she was sitting hunched into herself, breathing heavily, not noticing anything. Tinu was amusing Otan by tickling his feet with a grass stem. Mana was asleep, and Ko was playing tag around the circle with a boy his own age. Suth didn't really understand what Sula had told him, but he didn't feel easy about it. Perhaps this was not a Good Place after all. Perhaps it was like the fruit of the sixberry bush, which tasted so good in the mouth that you wanted to eat more and more, but when you'd had more than five it caused you to vomit until you thought you would die.

Sula carried the baby away and gave him to Paro. Ko returned panting and bright eyed from his game. Noli gave a shuddering sigh and sat up and looked around.

“You hear the thing that Sula says?” Suth asked her.

She shook her head and in a low voice he told her. She nodded.

“I slept and did not sleep,” she said. “Moonhawk came. She told what Kin these are. They are Monkey. Big Voice is Monkey.”

He stared at her, remembering what the Oldtales said.

“Monkey has no Kin,” he said.

“These are Monkey,” she insisted. “Does Moonhawk lie?”

Oldtale

HOW SORROW CAME

An and Ammu journeyed through all of the First Good Places with their children. They showed them the trails and the water holes and the dew traps and the warrens. They told them the names of the plants, root and fruit and nut and leaf, those that were good to eat and those that were bad. They showed them the places of safety and the places of danger
.

They came to a tree that held the nests of weavers, and An cut a long pole and showed how to knock down the nests, so as to eat the eggs and the young chicks
.

Then the two who had been reared by Weaver said, “We may not eat of this food. We are of the Kin of Weaver.” Their names were So and Sana
.

They came to a warren below the crags where moonhawks nested, and Ammu showed how to set traps for ground rats
.

Then the two who had been reared by Moonhawk said, “We must set the hearts aside for Moonhawk. This is her prey, and we are of the Kin of Moonhawk.” Their names were Nal and Anla
.

They came to a cave and An said, “Here we sleep.”

Then the two who had been reared by Little Bat said, “First we must do a thing. Bats lair in this cave. We ask leave of them. We are of the Kin of Little Bat.” Their names were Tur and Turka
.

And so with each of the others in their turn, each honouring the First One who had raised them
.

Only the two who had been reared by An and Ammu themselves had no knowledge of any Kin to which they belonged, because Monkey had hidden himself and done nothing for them. Their names were Da and Datta
.

They came to An and said, “Our brothers and sisters have each a Kin, but we have none. How is this?”

An, knowing no better, said, “You were reared by Ammu and by me. You are of the Kin of People.”

It was from this that all sorrow came
.

CHAPTER SEVEN

They slept in the cave. It stank. Like the Kin these people didn't make dung or pass water close by their lairs, but went well away to do so. But small children can't control their bowels all night, and though the people piled up grass and brought it in for bedding and cleared it out when it was dirty, the reeks gradually gathered in the cave until in the nostrils of the Moonhawks the stench seemed almost too strong to bear. The people didn't seem to notice or mind, any more than they noticed the strange foul-egg odour that wafted to and fro in the valley.

The stink in the cave was made worse because when all were in for the night, the people piled rocks across the entrance, blocking it to the height of a man's shoulder. That meant any who needed to go out to relieve themselves were unable to do so.

Suth wondered if this was necessary, but on that very first night he got his answer. In his sleep he sensed a stirring, and woke and heard a low snarl, followed by another, coming from outside the cave. Night hunters were there, squabbling over scraps of food left from the meal. Against the patch of sky above the barrier, Suth saw the outlines of men with digging sticks raised ready to fight an intruder. Nothing more happened. The animals moved away and everyone relaxed back into sleep.

Later he woke again. He had felt the rock beneath him shudder, twice, but no one else in the cave stirred. They must be used to that.

The barrier was taken down as dawn was breaking, and the rocks laid aside to be used again. The air smelled wonderfully fresh and clean after the cave. They ate a little food and then went down to the lake for their morning drink. After that the foragers and hunters left, but Noli was still feeding Otan so the Moonhawks stayed for her.

While they waited the air grew heavy. Clouds gathered, seemingly from nowhere. Everyone left at the camp hurried into the cave. There was a clap of thunder, and rain came pelting down while the lightning blinked and the thunder rumbled on and on. And then it was over, and the whole hillside was streaming with water.

This was the season of thunderstorms. The Kin used to watch them grumbling across the plains, dropping their rain in one place and not in another. But Suth had never seen one like this, gathering and gone so soon, and all in one place. It was very strange.

As the Moonhawks were getting ready to leave, Foia, the woman who helped blind old Mosu move around, came up.

“You speak now with Mosu,” she said.

Suth frowned. The old woman made him very uneasy, and he wanted as little to do with her as he could. He glanced at Noli.

“I come also,” she said, and passed Otan to Tinu to mind.

Mosu was in her usual place by the cave, with her back against the cliff. Suth and Noli kneeled before her and pattered their hands on the ground.

“The boy comes,” said Foia. “The girl also.”

She moved a short distance away and sat down.

Mosu gave no sign of having heard, but then she raised her head and said in her croaking voice, “You are children. You have no father and no mother.”

“The strangers killed our fathers,” said Suth. “They took our mothers.”

“No mother, no father—the child dies,” said Mosu. “Now I give each of you a mother and a father. They care for you and teach you our ways.”

For a moment Suth didn't understand what she meant. Then he realized that she wanted to split the Moonhawks up and give them each to a different family.

He looked anxiously at Noli. She drew her lower lip into her mouth and let it go.
This is not good
, she was telling him. He remembered what Mana and Ko had been saying last evening, that he was now their father, and Noli their mother.

I
do not let this happen
, he thought.
But I must not offend this old woman. She is the leader in this place
.

“We thank,” he said hesitatingly. “But … we are not of this Kin. We are Moonhawk. Our ways are ways of Moonhawk.”

“Moonhawk is dead,” said Mosu. “All those Kins are dead, gone. All your Good Places are taken. There is no Snake, no Fat Pig, no Ant Mother. There is only one Kin, and it is ours. Big Voice sings in the forest. He says this to me.”

“He is a liar!” said Suth, suddenly too angry to be careful. He felt his scalp move as his hair bushed out in his anger.

“He is a liar, I say!” he repeated. “Everyone knows this. Moonhawk came to Noli. Last night she came, while we ate. She told whose Kin you are. She is not dead.”

Mosu merely cackled.

“Do your small ones live many more moons?” she said. “Does your baby live, that cannot walk? Can the girl feed the baby? Has she milk in her breasts?”

She rocked to and fro, wheezing between her cackles.

Suth looked at Noli for help, but she didn't see him. Something was happening to her. Her eyes were wide and blank, and her whole body shuddered.

“Monkey is sick,” she said in a deep, gasping voice. “Moonhawk speaks this. Monkey is sick.”

She staggered as if she'd been struck, and Suth caught her to stop her falling. He held her while she shuddered once more and gave a slow, exhausted sigh. Then she drew herself clear and stood normally.

At first Mosu didn't seem to have heard what she'd said, but her cackling died away and she sat still, wheezing heavily. Suth remembered what Sula had told him last night.

“Your blood is bad,” he said. “Your men have eyes of two colours. Your children have skin between their fingers. Your babies have no arms, no legs. You want our good blood. I, Suth, say this. Moonhawk lives. We are Moonhawk. You take us one from the others. You make Moonhawk die. I say you cannot do it. I say we leave this place and go far and far. You can not have our good blood.”

Mosu muttered something and seemed to shrink into herself.

They waited. At length she raised her head and sighed.

“Big Voice is not a liar,” she said quietly. “He is a trickster. His words say this and that. Long, long, he sings to me. Before my sons are born he sings to me. Their sons are soon men. I know the ways of Big Voice. He says this and that.”

“Moonhawk is Moonhawk,” said Suth. “Our Kin lives. We stay one Kin, together.”

Mosu cackled briefly.

“Are you a man?” she said. “Can you care for four children? Do you make a digging stick? Do you harden it in the fire? Do you fight the leopard when it comes for your small ones? Do you sit with the men at the feast? Do you speak when they speak?”

“In three moons I am made a man,” said Suth obstinately.

This was true and not true. If the strangers hadn't come and changed everything, then in three moons the Kin would have travelled south to Odutu below the Mountain, and Suth would have spent a night alone on the Mountain above Odutu, and in the morning Bal would have cut the first man-scar into his cheek and told him to make himself a digging stick. After that he would have left the women's side and sat with the men and listened to their talk. But it would have been tens of moons and three more scars before he would have been allowed to join in.

“Always the men mock this boy-man. They point fingers. They raise their lip,” said Mosu.

“Stones are sharper,” he answered.

She turned her head away.

“Make a digging stick,” she said.

“Moonhawk is Moonhawk,” he insisted.

“You say it,” she answered. “Go forage. The girl stays. We talk.”

He looked at Noli.

“I talk with Mosu,” she said. “Bring Otan to me.”

As Suth left the camp with Tinu and the small ones, he saw Noli sitting cross-legged, with Otan in her lap, listening while Mosu talked. He felt puzzled and angry. He had just stood up to the old woman and won his point. Moonhawk wasn't going to be split up. They were keeping together. Only they weren't, because Noli wasn't coming to the foraging grounds with them, but was staying behind to talk to Mosu.

She had to stay. Suth understood that. Mosu was leader of these people. If Noli had tried to refuse, Mosu would have kept her there by force. But Suth guessed Noli actually wanted to stay, he didn't know why. That was what hurt.

On the way to the ground rat warren, Suth broke branches from bushes to use in his trap. He had noticed a pile of good flat rocks by the warren, which people must have carried there to use, but they didn't seem to be marked with anyone's mark so he took one of those. Ko, of course, wanted to build a trap too, so Suth broke a spare branch into lengths for him, as a father would have done. He showed him how to use them to prop the rock up, so that when a ground rat nibbled the bait a stick would be dislodged, and the rock would fall and kill the rat. It wasn't easy, and Suth didn't think either of them would have much luck.