Behind her some of the women had begun to sing quietly to themselves, but she couldn’t join in. The words gummed at the back of her throat as she trembled against the hull. Strange fears closed in about her. Could she really survive the forest at night?
Carefully she weighed the totem in her hand, the ivory smooth and warm to her touch. Jacek’s first kill must have been a monster: the tooth nestled in the palm of her hand almost reached across its entire length. The carved outline of a boar was crudely honed at the centre. Around it the clan marks ran along the length of the bone. Not even Iwa understood all the runes. Many were symbols of Karnobog but in amongst them others danced; secret scripts kept only for the men. From the day the hunt master hung it round his neck, the hunter would always keep the image upon him and from then on he’d always carry the spirit of that animal to guide him. To lose the totem would be like losing part of his soul.
So she’d never seen one up close, let alone held one in her hand. She closed her fingers tight over it, oblivious to everything else, the singing of the women and the creak of the wood or the stench of sweat and fear.
My mother touched this. She turned the totem in her hand. Nobody spoke about her mother, not even Yaroslav. It was bad luck to talk about one who’d died in childbirth, especially to the child who’d killed her with its birth, but she’d heard the stories, nothing but scraps passed around the campfires at night when the old ones thought she was asleep.
The light dripped across polished ivory as she ran her thumb over Karnobog’s sacred image. She glanced over to where Jacek lay propped up against the side of the ship, a thin film of sweat coating his features as he struggled for breath.
No hunter would ever give his totem to another. Not even in death. She knew that as well as any of the other women. Jacek must have been very frightened to have done so now. But he had given it over to someone else once before – to her mother. Nobody knew why, or if they did they had kept quiet about it. There were stories of secret rites in ancient groves where the old gods mumbled in the bracken. Iwa shivered and made the sign to draw off evil. What had her mother to do with such things?
Few of the other hunters had ever trusted Jacek, not completely, quick to draw aside even as he brought in the best of the catch. And he was often alone, a silent, morose presence hawking on the edges of the campfire.
Not that she’d ever thought often about her mother. Best to forget such things, this woman who she’d never known, but there’d always been a part of her that’d never accepted the silence. Carefully she traced her thumb over the carvings, and a feeling of painful loneliness crawled over her.
An arrow of light cut across the gloom. Instinctively she snatched the totem into the folds of her dress as the women’s song faltered and the tarpaulin was lifted. ‘You lot,’ a voice shouted from outside, ‘get out and be quick about it!’ Dumbly the women began to climb out, Iwa being one of the last to leave, the sunlight stinging her eyes as she dropped to the ground. One of the men poked his head behind the tarpaulin, his face twisting at the hot stench. ‘Move!’ he shouted at the old hunter.
‘Leave him,’ one of the others said, ‘he’ll only slow us up.’ With that the tarpaulin was snapped shut. Iwa was herded forward, stumbling, half blinded by the sun as a spear butt drove into the small of her back.
They gathered around the boat; a tiny ragtag group, the children clutching at their mothers’ skirts and the women desperate to hold down their tears. Around them, armoured men circled and began to herd the women into the camp. Please Karnobog, let my death be quick and be there to guide me easily to the spirit world. She reached into her dress to feel the totem smooth between her fingers. I should have died by the river’s hand – better that then to end my life on a raider’s spear.
Around her the women pressed in, huddling together as they staggered across the ground. Somewhere up ahead a prayer was muttered. Iwa kept on, not daring to look up even as she stumbled into someone’s back. There was no complaint from the woman in front, only a long and bitter silence. Even the children were quiet, their faces filled with fear. In the thick of the crowd Tomaz had wakened and began to cry.
If only she could hold him now. Suddenly and quite unexpectedly she wanted to have the baby in her arms, as if cradling him in death would make her slip into the ancestor world all the more easily. After all, I carried him in life. She looked round, half panicked, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly the group came to a halt. Iwa pressed herself against one of the women but couldn’t bring herself to look up. Luckily she was locked in the middle of the crowd. I’ll be one of the last to die. Maybe she could just drop down and pretend to be dead, but even then there’d be little chance that she’d survive the slaughter. Around her the children pressed close to their mothers. A few of the elders took cold comfort from the ancient song of Karnobog. Iwa heard it murmured all along the line. She’d
