Grandmothers
A Heroic Tale
Laura Haglund
Copyright 2013 Laura H. Haglund
Author's Note:
This is an in-between sequel to my fantasy novel, A Drum Is Empty. The only magic in it is that of love.
Long ago, before television, even before books could be written, history was passed on orally. Children learned about what mattered from experienced adults. The past and the present were not completely separate; there was continuity, passed from generation to generation. There were grandmothers.
Grandmothers
The White Horse band, all twenty and five of them, marched steadily up the hills and down again, singing and joking as much as they had breath for. Everyone carried a fair amount on their backs, even the children. The longest tent poles had been turned into four travois, loaded with tents, extra food, and trade-goods. Both men and women took turns dragging them.
This year's Summermeet was on the south side of the River Veselta, a little beyond the Great Salt Springs. It was less handy for the White Horse Band than for some. However, they had easy going much of the way after crossing the upper river. A vague trail followed well above the brush and bogs of the river bottom, skirting around the more rugged hills to the south that gradually rose toward cold mountain peaks. The river frequently came in sight, giving them a reference to navigate by.
Radovin was happy to pull his fair share, no matter what the terrain. Nothing could weigh down his lightened heart. This was his first time to travel with the band at this season. Everyone was well, there were two new babies, there seemed to be nothing to trouble their spirits. So what made Zhamavi lag and drag more and more as they went on? She was nowhere in sight now.
He wondered if anyone else had noticed. "Hai, Koro," he said to the young man just ahead of him. "Can you take the drag for me now? I have to go behind a bush." It was true, he needed to pee soon. Korovel laughed and maneuvered smoothly into place. Radovin fell back, pausing to whisper a few words to Ottavar, the band's senior shaman. No, he was not the only one who had noticed. Then he trotted off, following the trail back.
There was plenty of cover, with every leaf at the peak of growth. The land wore a rich garment of green sprinkled with flowers. Fragrant blossoms covered bushes along the beds of small streams. When the band came back this way, the stream beds would be dry, the grass yellow, and the leaves full of bug-holes, but there would be plenty of berries. Radovin took a quick splatter, then backtracked up and over the last rise.
He found Zhamavi seated on a large boulder, just beyond a tiny steam hidden by low trees. The hillside behind her was a riot of bloom, all aglow in the late afternoon sun, but she looked tired and downcast. He didn't think that it was the weight of her pack that bothered her. She was as strong as many younger women, and her pack was not over-heavy.
An inner vision overlaid his sight--Zhamavi as a young woman, her braided and coiled hair all dark auburn, her skin as fresh as the sweet flowers that framed the view. Ah...eveyone is young once and always, he had heard a wise old woman say.
Radovin walked up to her, making just enough noise with his feet so that he wouldn't startle her, and lowered himself to the ground nearby. He sat still, hands folded over his crossed ankles.
At last she spoke. "Did Lovo send you back to look for me?"
"No. I had to stop for something. I just wondered...that you didn't catch up."
Zhamavi sighed. "Summer...." She lifted her head and looked off over the trail that the rest of the band had made, and beyond. "You look forward to seeing all your friends again, ah?"
"Yeah." Radovin shrugged, holding back a grin. He was, for sure. Last summer he had been to his first Summermeet in some years. It had been a pretty crazy time, but the best part of it was finding out how many friends he could have. After years of living under the stigma of a bad-luck curse and spending the heart of summer alone, it was like the miracle of spring all over again. "You do too, ah?"
"I used to, Rado. I used to. But every year more of them are gone." She shook her head and let it droop again.
He could see how it might be hard to look forward to, a festive gathering riddled with dark holes of memory. Many people that Zhamavi had known all her life had died in the great sickness that took most of the band Radovin had been born to, and this was only the third summer since the death of her true-mate of many years. Ludoven had been headman of the White Horse band. Radovin knew without ever having met him that he was a good man. The band, now headed by Ludoven's son, was a living testimonial.
Last summer he had come to the White Horse band to help them prove that Ludoven's death was not an accident. The band had received him with a warmth that amazed him. Threw him into shock, in fact--he had hardly known what to make of it, being more accustomed to ill treatment.
He looked up at Zhamavi. A tear fell onto her hands. She shook her head again. "Ah, sometimes I wish I was with him," she said.
"Sometimes I've wished I had gone with my mother," Radovin said softly.
"Pah! You're so young, you have your whole life ahead of you, you have a lot to do yet. Me, I'm done. I raised my children, and now I'm just an old woman with no mate. Going to another Summermeet...." she trailed off with a sigh.
"But you're not so old. You've seen--what, hardly more'n five of two hands of summers? I knew someone twice that old." He may have been exaggerating slightly, but he never knew exactly how old Vezanidi was anyway. She had lost many friends and relatives too. He recalled the last day of her life, when she had said, all too truly, that she would never see another Spring. As inevitable as her death had been by that time, it had still hurt to see her life cut short without a compelling need and with ill intent. Zhamavi was young and strong compared to his old friend.
"Ayah, but what's the point? I feel old. Old and useless. Useless and alone. I was young once, and everything looked so much brighter then. Going to a Summermeet was a big thing. Ah, the dancing around the big fire, all the handsome young fellows."
And the pretty young girls...Radovin rubbed his chin, trying to feel the one hair that he was pretty sure had started growing there. "You danced with a lot of 'em, ah?"
"Enough, if you need to know, young man." Zhamavi's gaze turned inward as she continued, "I stopped counting when Ludo whirled me off around the fire." She sighed again. "Ah, he was a fine fellow in those days, tall as a tentpole and quick as a deer."
Radovin heard a dreamy note in her voice. A good memory could go a long way toward improving a person's state of mind. "Good-looking, was he? There were a lot of girls after him, ah?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. He wasn't the best looking buck in the herd by most folks' measure--too tall, some said, and he thought so too. Always banging his head in the lodge. The sun burnt spots on him. And his nose...." She chuckled and wagged her head sideways. "It was such a silly bump. But his eyes were the prettiest blue, just like forget-me-nots, and when he smiled you knew he meant it."
"You had your eyes on him a while, ah?"
"Phah! Before that night I'd never looked twice at him, headman's son or no. But all it took was that one dance. And the next dance, and the dance after that...you know what I mean, you young rascal."
He nodded, his own anticipation of the festivities to come--and last year's memories--inspiring a grin. The bed-dance often as not followed the regular dancing around the bonfire. "So he asked you to join with him then?"
"Not right away, no, but he hung around my band's camp from then on. No mistaking what was on his mind. Mama and Papa were two ways about it. On the one side, they liked it; on the other, him being a headman's eldest son and me a youngest daughter, they figured maybe he wasn't interested in a real tie. And if he was, then I'd be leaving, and Mama didn't like that at all. Nor did Pa
pa, but they couldn't very well say no. Me, I was in a swither over him and didn't care what anybody thought. It was a little scary, though, thinking about leaving my own band.
"Well, finally he got up the nerve to put it to me, and I gave it to him in one word. He took me along to tell his folks, and they were so nice I wasn't worried about the change at all any more. His father, Sanducar, wasn't as tall as him but his heart was just as big."
"Did you wed up right away, then?"
"Indeed we did. What a feast we had, it was like the Fire Festival all over again." A broad smile crinkled up Zhamavi's face. "After that, it was time to go home--his home, and oh, the weeping! My sisters, and Mama, all over me with tears. I was crying too, happy as I was. But once we got on the trail I cheered up again. Ludo and I kept close together all the way. He pulled a good-size drag most of the time; I