But first, there was something else which had to be done. Always when an Old Man had finished, what remained of him was gathered together and placed, daubed with bright ochre to signify blood and rebirth, in the stone walled chamber reserved for him, his place of rest, of the long sleep, in the great house of silence under the hill. That was the law, the never-changing way of things, for the long house was the body of Earth Mother herself, and the deep echoing chambers, the walls of her womb. And back into this womb must go all her children, so that they might one day be reborn and come again to rule the People of the Hill.
So men said, ‘Marrag is dead! Marrag is dead! But where is Marrag? Where are the flesh and bones to put back into Earth Mother? Unless we can put them inside her again, she will feel cheated. She will punish us all. The rain will not come. The seed will not spring next year. The winds will blow down our roofs and Old Hair will come from over the hill and crunch the bones of our children. Marrag must be put into the long house of sleep if we are to prosper.’
They said this and looked through the smoke with their bright dark beads of eyes towards Garroch. And at last he agreed with what they meant to do to him. He said no word of this to Asa Wolf for he was of another folk whose ways were different. He might have laughed and then Garroch would have to lay him on the stone. So Garroch said nothing to Asa, but asked him to stay out of the Chief’s house when the councillors met and spoke of this thing. Asa smiled and said that it was all the same to him. He was quite content to be free of such things.
So in the morning the villagers walked on to the hill, their bodies painted with the white clay, their heads covered with black cloth. They waited for the sun to strike across the land towards them and then in a loud voice they chanted, ‘Marrag is dead, O Mother of all! The Old Man is dead at last! Only wait until night comes, Mother, and we will bring you his body to keep.’
As they stood, their heads bowed, it seemed that the hill below them heaved a little and shuddered, and a keen wind blew up suddenly from nowhere, whipping the black cloths about their faces.
They took that as the voice of Earth Mother, though they were not sure whether she had believed what they said.
That day Garroch lay still on the sheepskins in his house. His body was plastered with the bright red ochre and then bound round and round with broad strips of linen, so that he could not move. The pits of his eyes were covered thick with clay so that he could not open them. His mouth was bound shut with a strip of bark held in place by a wide thong of hide, so that he should make no sound to arouse the suspicions of Earth Mother. His head was pillowed on the carcase of a sheep; his feet rested on the body of a hunting hound. His greenstone axe lay at one side, his flint knife at the other. By his head stood a clay beaker, holding barley corns and dried sheep meat. He was ready for the long journey. No one must call him Garroch now, for Marrag must be his name until it was over.
Asa Wolf had been in the house when Garroch’s wives had first begun to put the wrappings about him. He leaned over Garroch and said, ‘Have no fear, brother, I shall bring you something to eat and drink at night, when the watchers are asleep!’
Garroch smiled grimly and shook his head. ‘Earth Mother would see you, brother,’ he said. ‘She never sleeps. And she might ask me to lay you on the stone as a punishment, and I should not like to do that. No, Asa brother, go away and stay away until I come to you again, if I do come.’
After that they had bound his mouth and covered his eyes. He could say no more. Asa went out of the village with his sling to kill birds. His heart was heavy for his blood-brother, but light that he was not of this folk and so not subject to their strange laws. Those of the forest seemed much more sensible to him.
That day three slaves, with shoulder-blade shovels and antler picks, dug away the soil and then the tight-packed dry-stone walling which sealed the entrance to the long house. They worked hard in the sun, the sweat glistening on their bowed backs, but glad in their hearts that this was no real burial, for had it been their bodies would have formed the carpet over which the mourners must tread on their way to the chamber in which the Old Man must be laid.
When night came, the many torches were kindled and Garroch was carried, stiffly, by his wives and the most fertile of the other women out of the village. Behind them walked the drummers and the hornmen, their music heavy on the rising night wind. And after them the People of the Hill followed, wailing, their heads covered by strips of black cloth, their bodies white with clay.
As they passed away from the stockade, the cattle in the corral on the next hill heard them and lowed mournfully.
So they took the body of the Old Man to the long house. As they entered, bending beneath the stone lintels of the doorway, the damp and musty scent of the place struck into their nostrils, making them catch their breath. This was the smell that they all feared, the smell which came in dreams before the times of sacrifice. In the dark damp air, the torches fluttered and almost went out. The women coughed with the stench and their coughs echoed along the stone corridor back to them, but with a mocking overtone, as though Earth Mother knew well enough what they were about.
They were glad to lay Garroch down on the stone in the little room that was his, at the side of the corridor. They wished they could run out of the place into the air again, but another thing had to be done first.
A youth whose birthday fell on that day was brought forward, the chosen one, the companion of the Old Man who must go with him where he had to go. This youth had not been told that this was not the real thing, the thing of blood, and he whimpered all the while they held him, thinking of the dog he was leaving behind and the new greenstone axe that his uncle had given him only that morning.
Then Gwraig, the eldest wife, passed her stone knife across his chest, not deeply but just hard enough to make the blood come. They forced him to his knees as though he had fallen, dead, and then each of the mourners dipped her fingers in the blood and placed it on her lips. When the real thing was done, the flesh of the chosen one was eaten in the long house, as a last and sacred meal in the presence of the sleeper.
But this was only a pretence to deceive Earth Mother. Though to the boy, it was the terrible thing, the thing one dreamed about before one woke sweating. He gave a little scream and struggled to get up. Gwraig clapped her hand over his mouth, afraid lest he should disturb Earth Mother, and the women forced him down again, on to the floor, pressing their bodies against him to smother his cries.
Then the torches were put out, one by one, each wife kissed the stiff face of the Old Man, and it was over. They all crept as silently as they could from the echoing chamber into the fresh evening air. The youth who had been chosen as the companion could hardly wait to get out again and see his hound and his axe. He jostled against the back of Gwraig’s legs and almost had her down. Outside she gave him a cuff that loosened two of his teeth.
‘Clumsy dog!’ she said. ‘I will see that you lie on the stone one day. Have no fear, Earth Mother will lay all the blame on you.’
The lad crept back to his father’s hut and lay in the darkness, his hands over his eyes, his cut chest forgotten, afraid lest something should come to him out of the shadows and drag him back to that stinking place of dead echoes.
Garroch also lay in the dark, his back and buttocks chilled by the cold stone, his nose full of the stench of decay. Now it was so thick about him that it seemed a solid thing, something that blocked his nostrils and kept him from breathing. They had piled the earth back against the entrance when they left and no air from outside came into the long house of sleep.
He slept for a while, but came to his senses when he heard a low muffled wail sounding through the chambers. At first his heart began to thump with fear, then he remembered that there was a hole at the far end of the corridor, the hole through which the spirit might get out when Earth Mother had given it her permission to go free. The wind that came down the hill would blow over that hole, thought Garroch, and make such a noise.
As he listened, he heard another sound. It was something slowly dripping on to the stone floor outside his chamber. His fear told him that this was blood; his sense that it was water from the clay roof of the great mound.
He slept again, out of sheer exhaustion, his limbs cramped and stiff already, his teeth chattering with cold through their binding.
He did not know how long this sleep lasted, an hour or a day. At times he did not know whether it was sleep or waking. They had bound him so that he could not move, could not make a sound, things which the waking man can do. But the pictures in the mind are the same in waking as in sleeping, when there is only darkness about a man. And Garroch did not know whether he woke or slept. He knew only the cold and the loss of self that great cold brings, as though one lived in the body of another.
And in this sleep it seemed to him that footsteps came along the corridor and stopped outside the little chamber where he lay. It seemed that he felt a touch on his breast at last, a cold touch, that stayed so long that he did not know when it went away, for it still seemed to be there.
And a voice seemed to whisper, so low, though, that it was hard to tell whether he was imagining it, whether it was the sound of the wind in the spirit-hole, or that of the blood-water on the stones.
And the voice seemed to say to him: ‘I am Rua, daughter of Kraka of the Fishers. Rua, who killed Kraka so that she could go with Garroch of the Hill and be his wife. Rua killed her father for Garroch, but Garroch spurned her and treated her as he would a dog. And Garroch’s folk spurned her, and treated her as a stinking fish, to be thrown into the midden; yet it was Rua who saved the folk of the hill, Rua’s baskets of fish that saved them when they starved with hunger after a bad winter.’
Garroch shifted on the stone slab, wanting to cry out that it was not his fault. He had wives enough, he had not wanted another woman. He wanted to say that he had told her father so in her presence, that he was not to blame. She must go back to her own folk. That was where she belonged. We must all go back to our own folk, he wanted to say. That was the law, the old custom, the peoples must live in their own tribes, they must not try to join with other tribes for that angered the gods.
But he could not say this. Yet the voice answered him as though he had spoken: ‘Rua whom you call the Fish could not go back to her folk for she has killed her father. The Fishers would wrap her in the skin of the shark, which is their god, and drag her through the shallow salt water till she choked. They would push their harpoons into her body and then hang her over a great fire, saying that they had caught a wonderful fish that day. Rua cannot go back.’
Then Garroch seemed to hear a great sobbing and the loneliness of that mournful sound woke him, weeping, to the other sounds of the spirit-hole and the dripping water. Yet the touch of the cold fingers was still on his breast as though he tried to move and shake them off, they remained, despite all his efforts.
It was after this that the cold became heat. Garroch’s body, which had at first been numb, was now torn and shredded by shooting pains, through all his suffering organs. And his heart halted in her steady beat to flutter and bounce, until he thought she would come through the scar in his throat where the bitch wolf had bitten him.
Unable to stand it any longer, he tried to bite through the bark and the thongs about his mouth, but their pressure forced his lips between his teeth and he bit them to rags before the pain reached his knowing. Then he slept again and Rua came to him once more:
‘Rua loved Garroch who despised her. Now perhaps Rua hates Garroch, for whom she killed her own father. What should Rua do? With this little flint knife, this scraping knife, Rua could cut Garroch up between the thighs, and on up into the belly, until he could love no one, no one, ever again. How would that please Garroch as he lies bound on the stone? Would that seem a fair bargain to him, think you, Marrag?’
Garroch’s throat filled with his own blood from his torn and ravaged lips. He choked in his sleep and the voice went away. But when exhaustion claimed him again, it came back:
‘There is always blood in the land, the breaking of bone, the tearing of sinews, the slicing through of flesh. What does that matter, Garroch? The body is nothing; it breaks, it mends; or it breaks and one dies. That is nothing. It is the fear while it is breaking that matters, the agony of fear, the love for one’s own flesh. That is all. It is silly, isn’t it, Garroch, for a warrior to fear the breaking of the flesh?’
There was a silence then and Garroch began to jerk in agony as he thought the knife bit into him. Then he decided that the pain had been a dream and he lay still again. This time he slept without hearing Rua’s voice. He heard only the water dripping and the wind at the spirit-hole.
And in this sleep he tried to count the number of wolves he had killed, Harvest Suppers he had eaten, Fire-sacrifices he had seen his father conduct. But always he lost count, for his hands were tied and he could not use his fingers.
Then the voice of Brach spoke in his ear: ‘Father, Father, Father! I love you, father. Even if they break your body I shall love you, father. I shall lead you if you are blinded, carry you if they lame you, hunt for you if they cut off your bow-hand, eat for you if they cut your throat.’
This voice went quickly and Rua’s came back in its place:
‘It is time now; the moment has come. This cannot go on for ever. You will freeze, you will choke, you will starve to death. They have left you for ever, they have forgotten you, they will never come and fetch you out of this place. It was a trick, Garroch! You fool, you did not see through it! Now you are finished. But I could end it all for you, quickly, without waiting, with my little flint scraping knife. Look, I will show you, just there, on your throat, where the she-wolf bit and the flesh is still thin—there it would be easy. Come now, come now, Earth Mother would like that! Then she would not feel cheated! And I would not feel cheated! For I wanted Garroch, and so I might have him, for his other wives would not want him any longer, would they?’
Then Garroch heard another voice that he did not know; it was like Rua’s and Brach’s, but deeper, like the blowing of the wind over the spirit-hole and it was a damp voice, like the dripping of the water outside the chamber where he must lie. It said:
‘Yes, yes, Garroch, I should not feel cheated! Just one little slash where the she-wolf bit your throat and I should not feel cheated, for you would be with me always and I love you, love you, love you, Garroch, my son, my father, my husband! Come, come, come to me, Garroch, for I killed a father for you, I am your father whom you will kill with your hatred, I am your wife, your daughter, yourself. Come, Garroch, it is easy—like this—don’t scream!’
Then Garroch began to scream inside his thongs and wrappings, scream deeply in his throat, again and again and again, until the pain of the old wound spoke through his head like a voice, screaming with him . . .
Then the light burst in through the entrance door and the slaves stood away, with bowed heads, as the young warriors came into the tomb, holding their noses.
‘There is the new Old Man,’ said one. ‘We have found him. He is reborn again.’
The other man bent over Garroch and said, ‘Look at his throat, it is bleeding. Look at his eyes!’
The clay had dried and fallen from them in his rolling. He stared whitely up at them like a blind man, his eyes like clay themselves.
They lifted him roughly, trying to get out of the long house as quickly as they could. Once they almost dropped him, for his body was cold, cold as that of a corpse, cold to the bone, to the very heart.
‘Look,’ whispered one of the slaves as they passed between the stone lintels. ‘Three days ago his hair was black as the crow’s wing. Now it is all streaked with snow. It is pretty.’
Then they began to laugh, for the party had passed, and shovelled the stone and earth back into the entrance way. They were practical folk, and knew what it was like to suffer. They had each lost an eye after their capture, and the warrior who had used the thorn on them had not been gentle.