the next conjunction.
To tell the truth, I was uneasy. This would be the first time I would have to Speak for my whole village and make decisions for them. It was one thing to browbeat one’s own people for their own good — quite another to attempt it with a perfect stranger.
I carried with me a token of luck in lieu of the new Speaking Token which Shoogar had not yet begun to build. (One of the most important ingredients he still had not located — a stone the weight of a small child. Indeed, we had not even selected the small child yet, whose weight was to be the standard of the token.)
I felt unsure of myself without a proper Speaking Token — and worried that I might not do a proper job. “A token, a token,” I mumbled, “my village for a token.” But I tottered down the slope, determined to do the best Speaking I could without it.
There was a shout from behind me. I paused. My first wife came running down the hillside, her skirt flapping, her breasts bouncing, her hobbles giving her a peculiar short-gaited run. “Lant, oh brave Lant, wait!”
I waited.
She hurried up to me, “My brave Speaker, you have forgotten your amulet of shrewd mongering.”
“But I don’t need it, woman,” I admonished her. “I am going to Speak. I have a token of skillful language as well as one of luck. What do I need with a monger’s token?”
She looked crestfallen. “I am sorry, my brave one. You are right. It is just that I wanted to do something to help you — I wanted to give you something to aid your Speaking and all I could think of was your monger’s amulet. I thought perhaps it might help — a little bit anyway.”
“How could it?” I scoffed. “I am not going there as a monger, but as a Speaker.”
“You are right, my wise master.” She began kissing and stroking my feet. “I do not know what it is that Speakers do — but I thought it was something like mongering, so I — I’m sorry. I take up your time. I will go and flog myself.”
She looked so unhappy and woebegone: her hair had fallen out in patches and lost its once-proud sleekness, her shape was heavy with child; I felt a surge of pity for her. “Here, woman, wait. Give me the amulet. It could not hurt to carry it. It will not help, of course, but I will take it because you thought it important.”
Trivial words, of course, easy enough for me to say — but they cheered her immensely. She smiled gratefully and threw herself at my feet in gratitude.
“Here now, here now — that’s enough kissing. You want the other wife to think I am favoring you with an inordinate amount of affection?” I bade her rise, took the amulet and sent her back to the encampment.
I continued downward to the lower village.
The wide river swept through it on its surging course to the sea. Great black housetrees lined both sides of its banks. There were many frog-tending ponds and dams, and there were terraced riceblossom pools along the river banks. Off to one side, well away from the village proper was a tree so misshapen that had it been human, it surely would have been stillborn. Clearly, that was the nest of Purple the Magician.
But that was not my destination. Not yet. First I would speak to Gortik.
As I entered the village proper, a curious ragtag of villagers and children began to follow me. Some of the children tried to taunt me, but were hushed by their elders. All followed curiously as I strode between the shady trunks. The blackgrass crunched under my feet.
I could not help but admire the size of the trees and the skillfull weaving of the nests hanging from them. They spoke of prosperity. It takes extensive care to make a tree grow as big as it must to support a house. That this village had so many spoke well of the wealth of its inhabitants.
The Speaker’s glade was a shady area lined with gentle birts and yellow aspen. Here no women, no children and no villagers outside the first circle were allowed.
I held a rank which allowed me to enter, but in the interests of politics I gave Gortik the courtesy of officially granting me the right. He stepped forward, bade me enter — but not before he had first chased away a by now sizable crowd of onlookers. The arrival of my village must have been the most exciting thing to happen here for some time.
Gortik and I sat in the glade and exchanged formalities. We chewed raba-root and talked about the Gods and the weather. We each traded two syllables of our respective names, more an indication of a growing — and necessary — mutual trust than a sign of respect.
We traded our histories as well. I did not go into much detail in the telling of mine — merely that I had been chosen Speaker by acclamation of my fellow villagers because of my bravery and courage.
Gortik was impressed. He told me how he had become Speaker for his tribe — how he had fought for the honor many times, and how each time he had been defeated — but only narrowly, mind you — how his village had had a succession of terrible Speakers one after the other, how one had been killed for his audacity, how a second had been disgraced and a third laughed out of power. At last these gentle villagers had realized that Gortik had been right all along, and they hailed him as their new Speaker.
It was an impressive story, all right. I didn’t believe him any more than he believed me; but I was thoroughly impressed with Gortik’s skill as Speaker.
“It is no secret,” Gortik said then, “that your tribe needs a place to settle permanently.”
I nodded. “You are right, it is no secret. One can get tired of traveling.”
“I find that hard to believe. Why, the excitement, the ad-venture!”
“Yes,” I admitted, “we love to sit and talk about them. We were a brave people to have faced the dangers of such a migration. It was the dangers behind us that helped to make us brave.” Then, changing the subject, This is a rich area you have here.”
“Oh, no,” Gortik protested. “We are really quite poor. Quite poor. We go hungry throughout much of the ungrowing season.”
“Then you have not been exploiting the land properly,” I countered. “Our tribe could grow enough on this land to feed both villages.”
“Ah, you exaggerate again. We have trouble feeding our-selves. There is not space enough for a good crop, let alone room to plant a decent number of housetrees.”
“Your village belies that — there are more than enough housetrees in your village. Many are empty. And there are other housetrees high on the slope, unused as well. There is room for us there, above the aspenwood.”
“That is our migration ground. We will need it later when the waters rise.”
“It is still a roomy area — there are a great many housetrees there.”
“Hardly enough,” he shook his head. “Hardly enough — and in poor repair. Poor repair.”
“Nonsense. My villagers could put those trees m shape within a hand of days and have decent nests hanging from every one within a second hand.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“We could show you. As I said, we have many skills that your village obviously must not have, or you would be living better than you do now.”
“We live as well as we can.”
“Do you have a decent bonemonger among you?”
“Bonemongering is a northern trade. We do not —
“More’s the pity — you are missing out on much that would make your life easier. We have other trades as well, which you lack.”
“And suppose we did let you demonstrate your vastly superior talents and abilities — what would you expect in return?”
“The right to settle — say, on that piece of land above the woods.”
Gortik shook his head slowly. “That is not living land. That land is unusable for men.”
“It is unusable for you, you mean. We are not cropmongers as you people are. We do not need to live near the rivers, nor do we need to migrate every year to avoid the swelling waters. We are mountain folk and make our living off the sheep, the goats, the high pastures. We do not go hungry during the time of ungrowing, the season of sweat.”
“Humph, Lant, I doubt much of what you say — your clothes are rude, badly woven to say the least. And animal skins do not indicate the quality of spells you claim to have. One who is civilized no longer needs to wear animal skins.”
