and handing out the treasure they had brought back for their people. Bright with pride, Krow joined in. Carnelian did not feel he should, though he was fired by the general elation. Crowrane stood, eyes downcast, behind his wife, so that it was Galewing who oversaw the distribution.
'Losing so many young will hurt the bellowers,' cried Ginkga over the commotion. 'You don't understand what you've done.'
Carnelian was sobered by the woman's dismay. The rest of her cries were drowned out by the sounds of celebration.
Ravan basked in the approval of his hearthkin as he told for the second time the tale of the expedition against the bellowers. Osidian strode heroic through that tale and as the Plainsmen savoured the delicacies that had been made with the eggs, eyes kept flicking to the Master, sitting as he always did watching something only he could see in the dancing of the flames.
Not Whin, not even Akaisha were falling under the spell of Ravan's story. They witnessed his swagger, his naked adoration of the Master, with unhappy eyes. Earlier, returning red-stained from the earthworks, they had uncurled the foetuses from the two eggs the hearth had been given and went to bury them among the roots of their mother tree.
As Carnelian watched Ravan, he fondled Poppy's head as she sat against his knee. He glanced at Fern. When he had returned to find Carnelian alive he had run to him and, taking hold of his arms, had regarded him with undisguised delight. This had made Sil unhappy even though she had kissed Carnelian as she did the others, glad to see them safely returned. Aware of her reaction, confused by Fern's intensity, Carnelian had disengaged from him. When Fern became aware of Sil, the three of them had been left isolated, prey to confused emotions.
A movement at the edge of Carnelian's vision drew his gaze down to Osidian's pale hand signing: It seems we are heroes.
Carnelian turned to look at him. Use handspeech.
Carnelian obliged him. The boy speaks only of you.
Osidian made a sign connoting amusement, then: This popularity will, I judge, keep our lives safe outside the ditches.
I intend to return to work with – Carnelian indicated Fern.
No. I need you with me.
From petty jealousy, you endangered our lives and many others.
Osidian made a contemptuous gesture of dismissal. I made a bid for power.
You make my decision firmer. I will take no further part in your machinations.
Osidian's hand fell still. Then, slowly, he turned to watch Ravan who was enacting the arrival of the bellower mothers. Without turning back, his hand began to shape signs again. He will not now leave my side.
Carnelian frowned, staring at the pale hand. The fingers curled.
The outer world is perilous.
Carnelian grew inflamed and pulled at Osidian's shoulder to make him look at him. 'Do you stoop, my Lord, like Jaspar did with my brother, to use threats against another as a means of controlling me?'
Carnelian's Quya made Ravan fall silent. The whole hearth were staring at the Standing Dead.
Osidian's eyes burned furiously. 'You should remember why we have ended up here, Carnelian.'
Carnelian was painfully aware of the people round about.
Osidian smiled at Ravan, who smiled back. 'Do not imagine when the time comes I will have mercy on the boy.'
IRON SPEAR
Husband, you are the sky the angry one the winged sower of rain.
Come, quench my thirst.
The Grove was waking when Carnelian picked his way among the sleeping hollows towards Fern and Sil's. He knew where it lay even though he had never been there. It was Sil who first noticed him approaching and raised her husband. Little Leaf began to cry and Sil put her to a breast to quieten her.
Carnelian felt he was intruding. 'Can I speak to you, Fern?'
Seeing that Carnelian wanted to talk to him alone, Fern rose. Both men made an apology to Sil, who looked concerned.
They moved up the slope a little to where the branches of the cedar forced Carnelian to bow his head.
'I won't be returning to the Bloodwood Tree,' Carnelian said.
Fern frowned. 'You've decided to stay with the hunt?' As Carnelian nodded, he could see Fern was waiting for some explanation, but how could Carnelian tell him what Osidian had threatened to do; how could he tell Fern that he had made Osidian swear on his blood that, if Carnelian went with him, Osidian would not deliberately harm any of the Tribe?
'Well, you've told me,' Fern said at last and returned, still frowning, to his wife.
That day Crowrane's hunt was warding so Carnelian, Osidian, Ravan and several others accompanied Akaisha and her women down into the ferngardens. Akaisha had watched Fern go off to work alone and Carnelian had to endure the pressure of her scrutiny. She was clearly unhappy not only with his decision but with the way in which he had made it without giving her an explanation.
In the perfumed shadow of a magnolia, he spent that day, wretched, watching the women harvesting termites from mud towers and trying to ignore Ravan and Osidian. In the evening, he made himself blind to Sil's enquiring looks and, studiously, tried to behave towards Fern as if nothing had happened.
The following day, he helped keep watch over Akaisha and her women as they dug fernroot. He would have helped if Ravan had not insisted that it was tradition that men should rest on their warding days.
Next morning the women had to return to the earth-working. By coincidence, Crowrane's hunt were working in the ditches too, so that Carnelian went with Akaisha and was able to work with Poppy by his side all day.
Three days he laboured thus under the resentful gaze of Crowrane and Loskai. Carnelian saw the deference with which the other members of the hunt were treating Osidian. It was the youngsters, Krow among them, who were most in awe of him. Some dared to ask him questions through Ravan, but the Master remained aloof and worked as if he were alone, carrying the baskets filled with earth up the ladders to the ramparts, his strength fully returned. The women who worked alongside them outnumbered the men almost three to one. The men had to work hard to match them. The older people oversaw the repair of the ditch, or did the lighter work. Carnelian took turns at digging, carrying the dislodged earth up the ladders, or beating it into the ramparts with paddles. The sun was merciless. Carnelian was sheathed in the slime his sweat made of the red earth on his skin. During the hottest part of the day they hid in the depths of the ditch where its high walls, or one of the trees fringing it, cast delicious shadow. They ate, sipped water, napped. At the end of each day they returned to wash under their mother tree and slumped exhausted around the hearth, almost too tired to speak.
The way it worked out, the hunt and Akaisha's women completed their stint in the ditches on the same afternoon. In the morning, Carnelian had to leave Poppy in Akaisha's care when she took her hearth down to the Bloodwood Tree. For the next six days, it would be Crowrane's hunt in company with that of Ginkga's husband who would make the journey each day to fetch water for the Tribe.
It was a relief to ride out from the Koppie to the vast spreading lagoon. At first, Carnelian maintained a careful watch on Loskai and his father. In full view of both hunts, Crowrane made a point of telling the Master that more heroics would not be tolerated. The Elder might as well have directed his tirade against a statue. Osidian's impassivity drove Crowrane and Loskai into an anger which only served to reveal how powerless they were.
That first day, water was brought back to the Koppie without mishap. The aquar pulled the drag-cradles right up to the Homeditch. From there it was unloaded and everyone made at least two journeys up the Lagooning
