elbow of the fork. He heard the mutter of some prayer she was addressing to the mother tree, then she sat herself in her usual place.
'Only on his wedding day is a man permitted to sit here.'
'I'm sorry, my mother, I didn't know.'
'Nevertheless, you should be punished.'
They sat side by side for a while until her breathing slowed enough to weave into the sighing of the mother tree.
At last Carnelian could bear to be silent no longer. 'My mother -'
'What did you tell the Master?' Tell?'
Akaisha peered at his face as if searching for something. 'He sent us word that, should we attempt to harm either of you in any way, he'd reveal your presence among us to the Bluedancing.'
That Osidian was fighting for his life, even that he might have done this for his sake, did not leave Carnelian feeling anything but shame. like any other Master, Osidian had resorted to extortion. Akaisha was still watching him, waiting for his answer. Had she not confided in him that this was what the Elders most feared? He spoke not in his own defence, but to reassure her.
'I told him nothing.'
'How then did he guess?'
The Master was once intimate with those who sent the Gatherer.'
She frowned. 'Who else but the Standing Dead sent the Gatherer?'
Carnelian realized that even if he should manage to make her believe in the existence of the Wise, he would find it impossible to explain Osidian's access to their world without revealing who he had been. 'Did the Master not guess the Gatherer had come searching for us?'
'You told us that much.'
'My mother, did I not tell you this before it was confirmed by the Gatherer himself?' She nodded.
'Is it then too hard to believe the Master guessed the rest?'
'Would he really betray us to the Bluedancing?'
'It is not difficult to deduce that, given the immediate danger we pose to the Tribe, the Elders would wish to have us killed.'
'If the Master had wanted you to be found, he could have revealed himself to the Gatherer. His threat is empty.'
Carnelian grimaced. 'Don't underestimate the appetite the Standing Dead have for vengeance.'
Akaisha bowed her head in thought.
Carnelian could see no way out of the dilemma that would allow the Tribe to escape harm. The whole, long, weary journey from his northern isle to Osrakum had been slaked in the blood of massacres. The wounding of his father, the intrigues of the election, the escape from slavery and his decision to go with Fern, all had led finally to this moment. He could see no other way.
'You must kill us both.'
Akaisha lifted her head. 'How might we do that safely? Earlier, you told me he had influence among the young.
I'd go further: since he slew the ravener, there're many in the Tribe who idolize him.'
She peered into the night. 'Even now he has them with him out there somewhere. We daren't risk making the attempt.'
Carnelian's heart raced. He could see the path of hope she was showing him. 'I could go out and convince him we are in no danger.'
'I might let you go, but the other Elders wouldn't. By threatening you they hope to bring him in.'
Hopelessness returned. 'He'll not come.'
She nodded. 'He will have to when the Withering forces us to go to the mountains. Until then, as long as we have you, he'll not put us in the hands of the Bluedancing.'
'How can you be so sure of that, my mother?'
'I've seen the way he looks at you.'
'And will the Tribe be able to live with this?'
'If they found out about the Master's threat, there are those who might act and so bring disaster.' She fixed him with a glare. 'You understand?'
Carnelian nodded, not blaming them.
'Harth demanded that you should be bound but I argued that might give the Master enough of a pretext to betray us. I told the Assembly you could be bound by an oath. Promise me you'll make no attempt to join him.'
'Is my word guarantee enough?'
She took his hand and placed it firmly down on the root he was sitting on. 'Swear on my mother tree who is a part of the Mother.'
'I swear on her and also on my blood that I'll remain within the Koppie as your hostage.'
She gave his hand a squeeze. 'Well then, it seems that, for the moment at least, we have ourselves a deadlock.'
'You'll send Ravan to tell him this?'
'My treacherous son,' she said, bitterly. 'Yes, we'll send him back to his master in the morning.' She kissed him upon the cheek. 'At this moment, Carnie, you seem more Ochre to me than does my own son.'
'Don't blame him too much.' Carnelian remembered how, when he had thought his father dead from his wound, he had become involved in the intrigues of House Suth and so brought about the crucifixion of Fey, one of his father's marumaga half-sisters. Grief could blind those it struck.
He smiled at Akaisha. 'For the moment your son is in the Master's thrall, but I believe, in time, he will see what the Master is and then he'll return to his people.'
THE WITHERING
Death is the mother of life.
(a precept of the Plainsmen)
The next morning at breakfast, people asked where Ravan was and Akaisha informed them he had returned to join the Master. They looked at each other, knowing that Ravan and the others were meant to be warding with Father Crowrane.
'Why do you tolerate this affront to our ways?' asked Fern.
'It is every man's right to choose with whom he hunts,' retorted Akaisha, and no one dared to ask her anything more.
Carnelian listened to Sil and others whispering to each other the story going around about how the Master, with only a handful of their men, had not only managed to bring their earther home but had, besides, protected it all night from ravener attacks.
A few days later when they did not return to take their place in the ditches, their hearths began to worry. Father Crowrane and the few older men who were all that remained of his hunt worked as best they could, but when three days later they were supposed to go and fetch water, there was not enough of them and the rotas had to be readjusted, which caused a general anger.
During the day, Carnelian could suppress his fretting in his toil under the Bloodwood Tree, but in the evenings, by the hearth, he could not avoid seeing Akaisha's thinning face.
When Ravan appeared at the Horngate with Krow and others, the women at their butchery dropped everything and rushed to meet them. Carnelian and Fern lifted their heads and saw the hunters, their aquar hitched to a construction upon which lay an earther so immense that for a moment it seemed they would not be able to get it across the earthbridge. With a glance at each other they hurried after the women.
As the aquar came towards them through the fern-garden dragging the earther, children ran out from the drying racks to swarm the hunters and their catch. Carnelian watched one tiny pair clamber up onto its head, run
