Gradually the going became easier. There were more trees and fewer bushes, and he could walk for the most part unimpeded. He wanted to rest again, but despite his dizziness he could hear a different sound of water somewhere ahead, and he wanted to see why. He found a bigger, deeper-channeled stream, from which the one he had been following ran away. It accounted for some of the difference in the sound, but not all. Dom walked beside the new stream, following it down, and stopped when he came through a screen of bushes hung with scarlet flowers. The mystery was solved: ahead of him the stream fell over a ledge of rock into a pool.
But there was something moving in the pool. An animal, he guessed, and his fingers tightened on the club which, despite his weakness, he had not stopped carrying: a hunter who laid down his club was dead, or soon would be. The shape moved, pale brown in the darkness of the water. It was not an animal after all, Dom saw with surprise. It was a girl.
Even though his sickness had made him come clumsily through the bushes, without a hunter’s proper stealth, she had not heard him. The sound of the water must have prevented her doing so. He realized something else: that the girl in the water was making sounds herself. They were strange—not talking, nor cries of pain or fear. It was a happy noise, sweet to the ear.
He watched her use her arms and legs to move through the water, as though she were a fish or a frog, and was fascinated by it. She went to the edge of the pool and pulled herself out by grasping a jutting spur of rock. She still had not noticed him standing there and she walked over the grass to a spot where blue and white flowers grew thickly. She picked several and twisted them together into a circlet and put the circlet on her head. Then she returned to the pool and sat there, looking at the reflection of her head and shoulders in the water.
The flowers looked good against the glossy blackness of her hair; it was pleasant to watch her as it had been pleasant to listen to the noise she made. Then, as though conscious of his gaze, she looked in his direction. For a moment she smiled, and started to call something, but her face changed almost immediately. Fear came into it, and she scrambled to her feet. Dom realized she was going to run away and was determined to stop her, so he shouted and ran round the side of the pool. She did not look back but ran off into the wood.
He chased her, trying to ignore the pain and weakness in his leg. He saw the brown slimness of her figure ahead of him, lost and then glimpsed again among the green. He shouted a second time, commanding her to stop and telling her he would beat her if she did not. It was the sort of shout the hunters used to the women of the tribe when they did something wrong, and it always caused them to cower in submission. But the girl ran on, and he felt she was outdistancing him. Trying to run faster, he put his foot into a hole, stumbled and fell. His head cracked against the low branch of a tree; he dropped and lay still.
• • •
Soft fingers touched him gently; a hand was cool against his brow. Dom opened his eyes and saw the girl very close, kneeling beside him and bending over him. But he was too weak to move, almost too weak to speak. Even when he saw the sharply pointed stone in her hand, he could do nothing. She would kill him now, he thought, and the shame of it troubled him more than the idea of death—a hunter, to be killed by a girl . . .
Yet she did not drive the stone into his throat or breast as he expected. Instead she used it to slash at the wound in his leg. The pain was wrenchingly sharp, and took away his senses again.
When they returned she was still there, sitting and watching him. There was something on his leg—he looked at it and saw that the wound was covered by a small mound of leaves, bound round and held in place by plaited grasses. He plucked at it with his fingers and the girl spoke to him.
He had no idea what the words meant but the tone was chiding. She put her hand over his and pulled it away. He realized that the pressure of the leaves against his flesh was soothing, and that the wound itself was throbbing less than before.
She said more words that he did not know. She had a small plant in her hand and she put this close to his face. Dom looked at her, shaking his head. Then she broke off a leaf from the plant, put it in her mouth, and chewed it. He understood that she was showing him it was good to eat, and when she offered him the plant a second time he broke off a leaf and chewed it as she had done. The taste was sour, and he spat it out. Again her tone rebuked him; she pointed to the plant and to his leg and nodded her head vigorously. She pushed another leaf toward his mouth and, as much out of weakness as anything, he let his lips open to take it. It still tasted sour but it was not really unpleasant. He chewed the leaf, and the girl smiled and nodded her approval.
She stayed with him all day. Later she brought him fruit and berries to eat, and water in a big leaf. Dom drowsed between sleeping and waking. Once he managed to get up and tried to walk, but he was very weak and it hurt too much. The girl shook her head and gently helped him lie down again.
During the afternoon she left him for a time, and returned with her arms full of leaves and springy moss. She made a bed for him to lie on, in a hollow between two trees, and then, sitting by him, made a covering, weaving grass and leaves and moss together into a kind of blanket. Dom watched her, astonished by the skill of her moving fingers.
She brought him more fruit and berries before the sun went down. Then she said something in her strange language, smiled and went away. Dom called after her; she turned and smiled again but did not come back. She went away through the trees and was lost to his view.
He awoke during the night. He was aware of being alone, for the first time in his life not hearing the breathing sounds of the sleeping tribe around him. And the girl had gone. She had helped him, but it made no difference. He was alone, away from the tribe, and certain to die.
Then he slept again.
4
VA SLIPPED INTO THE VILLAGE through the gap in the hedge just as the cattle were being brought in. She went to her mother’s hut and was greeted by her lovingly; they embraced and kissed each other as they always did when they met, however brief the separation had been.
Her mother asked her: “Have you been to your wood, Va?”
Va nodded. “Yes.”
She had told her mother, and the Village Mother, about the wood, but no one else. It was her secret—the wood itself, the pool where she bathed, the animals that had learned to come and feed from her hands. None of the other girls in the village had such a secret, because none of them liked to slip away on their own as she did. But she, as she knew, was a special person, the only granddaughter of the Village Mother whose wisdom guided the life and destiny of all their people.
She thought of telling her mother about the boy she had found, or who, rather, had found her—of how she had run away when he chased her, and then he had fallen and lain still and she had gone back to find him unconscious, and afterward had tended him.
She almost did tell her but at the last moment drew back from it. Because she realized that if she told her that she would have to tell her something else also—that the boy had carried a club of bone. This meant, as she had known when she first saw him standing by the pool, watching her, that he belonged to the savages, those men who had slaughtered the grazing cattle and afterward attacked the village. And for that the Village Mother had pronounced doom on them.
Once such a thing was told it must be told to the Village Mother also, and Va guessed the order that would be given once she heard of the wounded boy in the wood. There would still be time to send men with knives to kill him, before the rest of the savages returned.
So Va did not speak about the boy. That night, before she went to sleep, she thought of him, alone and ill under the trees. She had lanced his wound and put healing herbs on it to draw out the poison, and given him leaves to chew from the plant that was a remedy for fevers, but he still might die. The edges of the wound had been red and ugly, the skin swollen all round, and his head burningly ho
t to her touch.
It might be better, after all, if he did die. Because there could be no doubt that he was one of the savages—the club, which he had insisted on keeping by him even while she tended him, was proof enough. She remembered the way he had run after her, the great club swinging as he pursued her. Once he was strong again he would be as evil and murderous as the others.
She had not spoken to her mother about him because she could not bear the thought of being the cause of the death of someone whom, less than an hour before, she had been nursing. She realized, though, that she had been wrong in keeping silent. The Village Mother had pronounced doom on the savages, and so what she had done amounted to defiance and disobedience. She shivered, not from fear but from shame at her own disloyalty. In the morning she would tell.
• • •
But when the morning came she still could not bring herself to do so. And it might not be necessary, she told herself: the boy might have died in the night. She left the village as soon as the opening was made in the hedge and made her way along the valley to the wood. As she drew near the spot where she had left him she felt a sudden fear, remembering how wild and fierce he had looked when he was chasing her. She went cautiously and warily through the trees, alert for a lurking figure. Then she saw him lying in the bed she had made for him, and guessed that he was dead.
Fear turned to sorrow; then to pleasure as, kneeling to look at him, she saw his eyes open. They stared at each other. His face was different from the faces of the boys and men she knew—darker, heavier, more powerful. Fiercer, too, she thought, with a small shudder of apprehension. But the features changed as he recognized her—not quite into a smile but at least into a look of welcome and greeting.
Va said: “Let me see your wound.”
He frowned in bewilderment but nodded when she pointed to his leg. She stripped away the bandage of leaves and examined it. The wound was still ugly and inflamed, but the flesh surrounding it was less swollen. She felt his forehead and found it cooler.
“You are getting better,” she said, “but I will put more herbs on to make sure.”
He said something as meaningless to her as her words had been to him. She went away to find the herbs she needed, and fresh leaves to hold them in place. When she came back he was sitting up, looking for her. She smiled, and saw his lips move slightly in response.
Sitting beside him she plaited grass into a cord to bind the dressing. As she did so, not thinking, she began singing softly. The boy said something in his strange language and she stopped. He shook his head and spoke again, asking for something but she did not know what.
“What is the matter?” she asked. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? I will get you water and find berries for you as soon as I have seen to your wound.”
He spoke more and Va shook her head. Then he made even weirder noises. At first she thought he was in pain—they were more like howls of agony than anything else. Then she realized what he was doing and burst out laughing: he was trying to imitate her singing!
He said other words, and she realized that he wanted her to sing for him. She laughed again, and did so. The song was one that mothers sang to their babies, gentle and low. She could see from his face that he liked it, and was pleased.
Until she remembered who he was, and the doom the Village Mother had pronounced on all the savages. The song died on her lips. He looked at her and said something urgently, clearly asking her to go on. What she ought to do, in obedience to the Village Mother, was to run back to the village and tell them, so that the men could come with spears to kill him. But thinking of that she knew she could not do it. It did not matter that he was a savage, did not matter that he had chased her and threatened her with his club. What mattered was that she had found him helpless and had nursed him, that she had saved him from the poison that otherwise would have taken his life. She could not let him die.
Knowing this she took up the song again, and the boy listened to her, his face not fierce but peaceful. Va finished making the cord, and bandaged up his wound. It was a good song for him, she thought. He was something like a baby—in his present helplessness, at least.
• • •
Va brought fruit and berries and water, and watched him while he ate and drank. Squatting near him, she asked:
“What is your name?”
He stared at her but made no answer.
“My name is Va.” She touched her breast lightly with her hand. “Va.”
“Va. . . .”
It came strangely from his lips, the syllable thick and heavy, making her name sound quite different from any other time she had heard it. She pointed to him.
“What is your name?” He shook his head. “I am Va—who are you?”
She pointed to herself when she said “Va,” then to him. He understood, and said:
“Dom.”
She smiled and said the name herself. “Dom. . . .” She liked the sound of it.
They played a game of naming: trees, bushes, the sky, water, the parts of the body. Sometimes they failed to understand each other, even with many repetitions, and many of the words she quickly forgot; but it was pleasant to play the game, to have their minds make fleeting contact across the barrier of their alien languages.
Eventually Dom struggled to his feet. Va offered to help him but he showed her he could manage on his own. He used his club to assist himself, and swung it from his hand when he was upright. Va looked at it with loathing, but if he noticed that he did not pay attention. He hobbled in the direction of the pool and she followed him.
At the edge of the pool there was more naming: the pool itself, water—she bent down and cupped some in her hands to show him—a bird that flew away from its perch on a rock at the far side. Then Dom made funny motions with his arms. It took her some time to realize that he was mimicking the motions of swimming. She told him what the word was but that did not satisfy him; he pointed first to her and then to the pool.
He wanted to see her swim. Va smiled and nodded and, throwing off her dress, stepped into the water. She swam about in the pool for a time and then beckoned to him to join her. He shook his head. His leg, of course, would prevent him swimming—he could only just walk on it.
She got out of the pool and found him fingering the material of her dress, examining it curiously. He himself wore a short tunic made of animal skin, antelope she guessed. Her own people wore skins in the cold weather, but the dress had been made by weaving fibers from the stems of the blue-flowered plants that grew higher up the valley. His people almost certainly lacked such skills; they were, after all, savages, as the Village Mother had said. . . . Va recalled her disobedience, and quickly put the thought away.
She took the dress from him and put it on. He picked up her belt from the ground and looked at the stone knife she kept in it. He fingered this as he had fingered the dress, trying the point against the flesh of his arm. Perhaps they did not have stone knives, either; did not have anything but the clubs and daggers taken from the skeletons of dead animals.
She drew the knife from her belt and put it in his hand. She said:
“You can keep it, Dom.”
He stared at her, not understanding.
“Keep it,” she said. “We have lots of knives in the village.”
He was still puzzled. Va closed his hand over it with her own, then pushed the hand away. He understood at last and nodded, smiling.
So the day passed. They played the naming game, and Va found fruit and berries for them both; at times they simply sat together by the pool, or Va sang for him. In late afternoon, before she went away, she dressed his wound again. It was much cleaner and healthier in appearance. He still walked with difficulty but most of the poison had been drawn out: she was sure he would get better. She pointed to the sky, where the sun was sinking behind the leafy branches of the trees, and then in the direction of the village.
He understood and watched her go, leaning on his great club.
This time there could be no question of Va telling her mother what had happened; she had made up her mind to protect Dom even from her own people. Next morning, impatient, she set out as soon as the hedge was opened and the scouts had gone to keep watch against the possibility of the savages returning early. She saw one of them as she made her way toward the wood—a boy not much older than herself called Gri. He wanted her to stay and talk to him, but she would not. She liked him well enough but now she thought how soft and weak his face was compared with Dom’s.
The moss-bed was empty when she got there. She wondered if Dom had gone away, back to his savage people, and was sad. She called and got no answer except from the birds. She went then to the pool and sat on a flat rock that overhung the water. The sun was shining but here under the trees it was dark, with a gloom that matched her mood.
There was a flash of movement along the branch of one of the trees that fringed the pool. She knew what it was: one of the squirrels which in the past had learned to come and take nuts from her hand. They had not come near yesterday because Dom had been with her, but they knew she was alone again.
The squirrel raced down the trunk of the tree and along the ground to where she sat. It perched on its haunches and looked up at her comically. Va showed her empty hands, but it still stared at her with its black beads of eyes. She said:
“I will find you some nuts, squirrel. But not yet. There is all day to find nuts for you.”
As though it had understood her words, the squirrel whisked away and darted back up into the tree. Va looked down into the pool. A shaft of sunlight struck between the branches and turned the water on the far side to gold. Nearer it was dark and limpid, and bending over she could see her own face reflected. She stared at it, wondering how it looked to other people, how it had looked to Dom. She wondered if he would remember her.