ARVIL

 

Tal had been called to the enclave before. I had never been called but prayed for it. I had grown tall, and my voice had changed, was like that of a man. I would rub my face and long for the down to become the bristles of a beard. Soon, I hoped, I would be called.

Tal had brought me out of the enclave, so I had been there before, but I could not remember anything about it. Sometimes, I would have a dream: I was in a room with a soft covering under my feet, a covering softer than grass, but white instead of green. Someone was with me, and I would feel arms around me and smell flowers and rest my cheek against a shirt as soft as fur while a high voice sang to me. Sometimes, I was in a different place, and other times I was surrounded by darkness, but the voice was always singing. The voice was high and light, like a boy’s. The Lady had never sung to me when I was blessed in a shrine, so I might have been dreaming about my time inside the enclave. But I could not be sure, so I always told Tal I did not remember anything about that time.

Tal thought that was good. “You should not remember,” he would say. “Young ones who remember too much don’t last. They don’t learn fast enough. They keep hoping to get called back, but they never are called because they don’t live long enough to become men. You cried when you came out, and I had to beat your tears out of you, but you learned. Be glad you forgot.”

I accepted that during the first eleven winters I was with Tal, but in my twelfth winter, I began to question him more.

“Did you ever see a young one who remembered?” I asked him while we sheltered under an outcropping of rock, waiting for the snow to stop so that we could follow fresh animal tracks to game. We were alone, so I could ask him. The rest of our band was back at our winter camp.

“I did see one,” Tal answered. His eyes were as gray as the winter sky, and others had told me I had the same eyes. “It was before I brought you out, boy. This young one came out with Hasin. He had to carry the child back to our camp trussed and gagged because the lad wouldn’t stop crying. Hasin spoke gently, and when that didn’t work, he beat the boy. The child would cry at night when he thought we were asleep, but Hasin was sure that would pass.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“One night, the boy slipped away. We did not want to go after him, but Hasin said we must. I knew we would find him dead, if we found him at all, and I was right.”

I said, “An animal got him.”

Tal laughed. “An animal—yes. Somehow, the boy made his way toward the enclave. He should have known he could not go inside without being called—we had told him that often enough.” He paused. “Another band found him and killed him. We came upon them while they were stripping the body. We struck down two men, but before we drove them off, they had taken Arvil’s life as well.”

He had named me after Arvil, the man who had taken Tal out of the enclave when Tal was a boy. He had never told me before how Arvil had died. “So you were even. Two lives for two.”

“Yes, we were even. I wish we had killed their whole band. I saw the signs on those creatures—the shreds of cloth, the bits of metal they scavenged from the grounds near the enclave. Those signs showed that the band never ventured far from the wall. They lived on what they could find and on what they could steal from those coming out or those being called back. They were animals, not men.” Tal rubbed his hide-covered hands together, then folded his arms. “Such bands do not last long, and catch little game. Those who stay near the enclave are never called, and so no new young ones come out with them. But there are always other bands to take their place.”

I had heard about such scavengers often; Tal was one who said the same things many times. “Why do they stay there, then?”

Tal shrugged. “Because they are cowards. Because they grow weak, perhaps, and cannot leave.”

“When will I be called?”

Tal glanced at me, scowling under his blond beard. “I cannot say. When you are older. I had been with old Arvil for nearly sixteen summers before I was called.”

“I might be called sooner.”

Tal cuffed me on the side of my head. My eyes stung and my head throbbed a bit, but it was a gentle blow, meant to teach me my place and not to punish me. “Sooner! You think too much of yourself, Arvil. Do you think you’ll go before I did? Sixteen summers before I was called—you won’t be called before that. You will be lucky to be called then.”

Tal had been called three times—once before I knew him, again when he brought me out, and another time after that. Only Geab, our Headman, had been called as many times, and he was an old man with gray in his black beard.

Geab had not gone to an enclave in a long time. One day, I was sure, Tal would be called again, and then, when he returned, he would be the Headman and Geab would become an Elder. Geab would hunt his last meal, take his last hide, and make his last cloak, the one in which he would die and which the next Headman would take from his body. I believed that Tal would be called again, and hoped for it. If he were not, he would have to wait for Geab to die.

The snow had stopped. We picked up our spears and left the outcropping, searching for fresh tracks.

 

 

We found only two rabbits on our way toward our camp. The sky was already darkening when Tal stopped, took my shoulder, and steered me east.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To the shrine.”

“But then we won’t get back before…”

Tal hit me, knocking me into the snow. “You listen. When you are near a shrine, you pay your respects, even if it means going out of your way.” He dragged me up and brushed the snow from my back.

I knew that he was right, but I wanted to get back to camp, to a fire and a meal. The shrine would be warm. That thought startled me. I should not have been thinking of a holy place as a spot for my comfort.

“You wonder why I have been called three times,” Tal went on as we stumbled through the snow. “It’s because I never miss a chance to pray, and the Lady knows it. Don’t ever forget to pray.”

“I pray every night.” Almost every night, I told myself silently, promising Her I would try to do better.

We came to the top of a hill. The shrine was below us. On top of its curved, metallic walls sat a golden dome with a white cap. The snow around the entrance to the shrine was unmarked. No one else was near; and although no man would attack another on holy ground, I preferred to pray alone.

We waded toward the shrine as I tried to banish unholy thoughts. I had prayed at shrines many times. When I was a young boy, my soul was sometimes called to the Lady, and an aspect wearing Her form would come to me and hold me gently. When I grew older, other aspects had shown me Her true blessings. At the thought of those blessings, I felt a powerful longing for Her. Suddenly I wondered if She would ever hear my prayers again, if She would withhold Her blessing from me, if She would turn from me, and trembled.

Tal’s big hand clutched my shoulder. “Easy, boy.”

I swallowed. I was thinking unholy thoughts on the shrine’s threshhold and prayed that I would not be punished. The door in front of us slid open, and we entered.

The shrine was warm and the air bore a musky scent; the dome overhead glowed as the small room grew lighter. We knelt, cupped our groins, and pressed our foreheads to the floor, then rose.

Twenty couches, covered with red cloth, stood in a row near one wall. Circlets of gold rested on each couch, and, above each, a round piece of glass set in the wall caught the light, winking. We walked past the couches and knelt again in front of the altar.

An image of the Lady smiled down at us. I lifted my eyes to the statue and was at peace. This shrine was to Mary, the aspect of the Lady I had always loved the most. I had seen Her in other guises, in other shrines—as the Warrior, with black hair, slanted eyes, and a spear, or as the Wise One, with slender glass tubes and strange tools, or as Venus the Lover of Men, with bright red hair and bare breasts—and I had heard that there were other aspects in more distant shrines. But it was Mary, the Mother, the most familiar aspect to me, to Whom I prayed most often.

We prayed for a few moments in the holy speech, the tongue I had known before I learned the words of men. Then Tal got up, went to a couch, and stretched out upon it. I took the couch next to his, put the circlet on my head, and waited. Tal, eyes closed, was still, his blond beard and hair as golden as the circlet on his brow. His lips moved, and I wondered if the Lady was speaking to him.

He twitched and began to moan. His arms slapped the couch as his body arched. He kicked with his long legs and moaned again and shook so much that I thought he would fall to the floor. At first, I believed only that the Lady had decided to bless him, and then he smiled. I had seen Tal smile like that only once before, in another shrine, when he had last been called.

I closed my eyes. Perhaps the Lady would call me, too. No joy I had known had been greater than Her blessing, and I burned with longing, but She did not speak, did not appear to me.

Tal would leave me once again for the enclave. I tried to give thanks for him, but could think only of myself; I had not been called. I pushed that thought from my mind. Tal would be our Headman when he returned. I knew I should not be thinking of that, either, but only of the Lady.

Tal was removing his circlet. I took mine off and said, “You were called.”

He sat up slowly and rubbed his arms. “Yes.”

“Your fourth time.”

“I must go to the enclave.”

“Take me with you.” The words were out before I could hold them back. I glanced toward the altar, afraid.

“Arvil, were you called?”

I shook my head.

“I thought not. You cannot deceive the Lady. If you haven’t been called, you cannot enter the wall. I shall have to leave you behind.”

“You’re going to make the Stalker my guardian again.”

“He did well enough last time.”

“He’ll try to beat me.”

“If he does, then you will deserve it, although I think he would find it harder to beat you now.”

“And Cor will beat me when the Stalker is out of sight.”

Tal sighed. “Stop whining. If you cannot get along with that boy, then fight him. You ought to be able to beat him by now—you have grown taller than Cor.”

“He’ll summon the Stalker then, and I cannot raise my hand to my guardian. Leave me with someone else.”

“If you don’t stop this talk, Arvil, I’ll beat you myself. You are in a shrine. You are the height of a man, but you’re still a boy, and the Lady doesn’t take kindly to boys who disobey their guardians.” Tal stretched out again. “Now, I want you to take the rabbits outside, skin them, and cook our supper. We’ll eat what is left tomorrow.”

“Aren’t we going back to the camp?”

“We’ll go in the morning. The Lady has favored me. The Mother will not mind if we sleep here. Now go outside and gather some wood before it grows darker.”

 

 

As we neared our camp, I worried again about what Geab might do when he learned about Tal’s fourth call. He might go to the shrine in the hope that the Lady would call him, too, but men his age were rarely called. He would have to hope that Tal did not return safely from the enclave. Perhaps Geab would even move our camp to make it harder for Tal to find us again.

I had seen a Headman become an Elder once before, two winters after Tal had become my guardian. The Wolf had led us then. He had broken his leg badly in a fall and knew that it would not heal. He had declared himself an Elder, knowing it was for the good of the band; caring for an old and crippled man would have made life harder for all of us.

The Wolf had gone on his last hunt, although others had to help him take his last hide. He had sewn his cloak and eaten his final meal, then given away his things. Geab, the new leader, had been given the Wolf’s precious knife, made with a sharp metal blade taken from a scavenger.

Geab struck the first blow with that knife, cutting the Wolf’s throat. By the time the rest of us pricked the Wolf with our spears, he was already dead.

The Wolf had met death willingly. Geab would not.

I had dreamed of the white room during our night in the shrine, but the Lady did not speak to me. Tal, however, had communicated with Her again, mumbling as he slept. Like all men, I had a stain on my soul, yet prayed for purification and the Lady’s blessing. Tal was a good man and had been called, but it was the fate of all men forever to fall away from grace and be forced from the enclaves. Again, I wondered: Could a man become so holy that he could dwell within an enclave’s wall and never come out?

As we came toward the hill leading to our camp, Tal suddenly grabbed me, startling me out of my daydreaming, and pointed at the ground. He had already loosed his spear from his back. The tracks of horses marked the snow and led up the hill toward our camp. I pulled at Tal’s arm, wanting to flee.

At that moment, a horse carrying two riders came around the hill and trotted toward us. Tal lifted his spear.

“Hold!” a familiar voice shouted. I recognized Cor’s furs and hides. He was sitting behind a stranger on the horse’s back; his legs dangled, and his arms were tight around the other man’s waist. I was too startled by the sight of Cor on a horse to be afraid then.

Cor released the other rider, slid awkwardly off the horse, sprawled in the snow, then stumbled to his feet. Tal saluted him with his spear. “Who is this man?” he asked as he waved his weapon at the stranger.

The horse whinnied, but the stranger was silent. Cor smiled, showing white teeth under his thin red mustache. “Another band is in our camp. We’re having a parley.”

Tal frowned as he glanced at me.

“You should have been back last night,” Cor went on. “This stranger here is helping me guard the hill. The rest are above.”

Tal adjusted his hood. “I shall go up.”

“Geab is busy with the parley.”

“So you told me.” Tal’s voice was angry.

We climbed the hill. Our winter camp was near the top, so that we could watch the land around it; but when the winds blew strong, we often had to take shelter in the hollow space we had dug below ground, where we stored the dried meat and plant food we had gathered for the cold season. In winter, we did not wander far from the land we knew. We knew about winter, and what we had to do to live through it. We did not know what dangers we might face if we left for lands where strange bands roamed.

Outside one lean-to, Geab sat in the cleared space around our fire. The stranger nearest to him was a large man in a bearskin. He looked well fed, as had the man with Cor. Ten other men were with him, all large, some dressed as he was. They did not sit but stood stiffly, their spears at their feet. Each held the reins of a horse, while one man held two horses.

I had seen such men only once before, at a distance, and they and their tamed horses had struck fear into me. Seeing such men in our camp frightened me even more.

Our band had always been small. There were Geab, Tal and me, Cor and the Stalker, Eagle Eyes and the boy Hawk, and Arrow. Arrow had brought our newest member, Stel, out of the enclave to the north the winter before. Hasin was dead, struck down in a battle with another band. We could not have fought these strangers and their horses, so I well understood why Geab had agreed to talk instead. But what could such men want with us? Why hadn’t they attacked us, when they could have so easily?

Tal squatted near a small snowbank as he watched the parley. I turned and went to a lean-to under the trees, a shelter I had built myself of wood and branches covered with hides. Hawk was sitting under it with Stel.

“Who are they?” I asked Hawk as I sat down.

“A band from the south.”

“And they came north in winter? What are they doing here?”

Stel giggled. His chubby, dark brown face reminded me of his guardian’s; Arrow was the only dark man I had ever seen. I poked Stel with my elbow and told him not to giggle. He rolled his dark eyes. I poked him again, and he blinked back tears. He was small and afraid to hit back.

Hawk rubbed his pointed chin. “They are treating with Geab. They came here at dawn when I was on watch, put down their spears, and asked for truce. It was hard for me to understand them at first, for they use strange words, but their leader and another man know our speech, and we all know holy words, so we were able to talk. Did Tal bring us some fresh meat?”

“We found nothing except two rabbits, and we ate those.” I took off my empty pack.

Hawk pouted. “Those horses would make good meat. The dried meat is…”

“What about the strangers?” I said.

“They want us to join them.”

“Join them!”

“That’s what their leader said. They have a large band, Arvil. That is only part of it there. The leader held up ten fingers, and then ten more, until he had held out his fingers nine times. They number ninety, and they have built a wall, and have huts, and plenty of food, too—that is why they’re so fat. The leader told us that their men have been called to two different enclaves and that they control the paths to four shrines.”

“I don’t believe it.”

Hawk drew up his hood, hiding his brown braids. “He says they do. They fed us dried meat of their own before, and leaves with grain. He says they grow some of their own grain and don’t often have to forage for it. He says they keep herds of animals with them and have fresh food in the winter without having to hunt for it.”

“If he has such a large band, then what does he want with ours?”

Hawk leaned forward. “Unity. He spoke of unity—strength in numbers, he called it. He says bands do not have to fight other bands or avoid them. He says that one day, they will be so strong that they’ll destroy any band that isn’t part of theirs, and that all the weaker bands will die out, and that some day, they will be as strong as an enclave. And then…”

Stel’s eyes were wide as he listened. Hawk shoved the boy. “Go away, Stel.”

“Why?”

“Just go. Practice with your spear or gather wood.”

Stel wandered away from the lean-to as Hawk drew closer to me. “And then,” he whispered, “they will go to an enclave when they want to, and not just when they’re called.”

I hid my face with my hand for a moment. “Do not say it. The Lady will hear.”

“Their leader says he serves the Lady. He says he can hear Her even when he is not in a shrine wearing the Lady’s crown. He’s touched with holiness, and, when he is entranced, the Lady speaks through him. He says that She has told him that a new day is dawning for all men.”

It sounded unholy to me. I sent up a silent prayer to ward off the Lady’s anger. “What happens if we don’t join them?”

“We shall have a truce for now, but in the spring they will declare us their enemies and be free to hunt us down. They can do it, too. We cannot fight men on horseback.”

“We can run from them.”

“We would have to run far.”

“Tal will never agree,” I said.

“He’ll have to go along with what the others decide.”

I wrapped my arms around my legs. Tal was watching the strangers, but I could not read his face.

 

 

When the parley was over, the strangers rode down the hillside to make camp below and sent Cor up to us. They moved in a line, one horse following another, each man holding his reins in the same fashion, as if the thoughts of one ruled all.

We gathered around the fire while Geab talked of what the strangers had said.

“What do you think, Headman?” the Stalker asked.

“I say we join,” Geab answered. “We need no new enemies, and their band has been blessed. We must join them.”

“I agree,” the Stalker said.

Arrow was nodding, and so was Eagle Eyes. Hawk, Cor, and I had no right to vote since we had not yet been called, and Stel was only a child.

Tal shook his head. “We cannot do this. We live well enough.”

Geab said, “We can live better.”

“We’ll have to do what they tell us and live among strangers. We don’t know their speech. We may not have our own Headman.”

“We all know holy speech, and I’ll still be our Headman,” Geab replied. “They have something they call a council, and I will speak for our band there, but we must obey their Headman.”

“You will speak for us?” Tal scowled. “Do we not speak for ourselves?”

“You will speak to me, and then I’ll speak to them.”

“But you will not be our Headman then, Geab.” Tal showed his teeth. “I spent the night in Mary’s shrine. I’ve been called again. When I return, I shall be the Headman, and you will be an Elder.” Tal had saved that news.

Geab narrowed his brown eyes and grinned; he did not seem disturbed. “There are no Elders in their camp. Their leader told me that. He says that they keep their old men and listen to their tales and make use of their wisdom. I’ll still be our Headman until I die—and, in a place like that, I may grow very old.”

“We haven’t joined them yet.”

“But we will.”

“You must wait until I return from the enclave.”

“We cannot. They leave tomorrow and have asked us to ride with them. They can tell you how to follow us to their home ground. We will join them, Tal.”

Geab was right. I could see it in the eyes of the others as they dreamed of food and huts. Geab was afraid of death; he would give up being a true Headman in order to live. And if Tal never reached the land of the strangers, that too would serve Geab’s aims, for he would then have no rival.

“It is unholy,” I cried out.

“Silence!” Geab shouted at me. “Your body may be much like a man’s, Arvil, but you’re a boy until you are called.”

“It’s unholy. Hawk told me that they dream of becoming as strong as an enclave and of going to enclaves without being called.”

“Is that true?” Tal asked.

Geab nodded.

“Then it is unholy. I serve the Lady, and She has favored me again. I won’t join them.”

Arrow pulled at his kinky black beard; Eagle Eyes was frowning. The Stalker waved an arm. “I’m with Geab,” the Stalker said. “The Lady has favored the strangers, has She not? They say they have brought many young ones out of the enclaves. They shared food with us willingly, for they have much more. I say we go.” I knew then that Eagle Eyes and Arrow would follow Geab as well.

Tal rose. “I must go to the enclave. I must pray, and purify myself in a shrine, and travel to the Lady. But I won’t return to you if you go with them.”

Geab laughed. “Then you will die. You’ll be alone, with no band.”

“I am at the mercy of the Lady. We shall see what She wills for me. I may find a new band. The Lady will know I wasn’t tempted by evil.” Then Tal spoke these words, chilling me. “I withdraw my allegiance from you, Geab. You are no longer my Headman, and I am no longer of this band.”

“And I expel you,” Geab answered as he jumped up. “If the Lady hadn’t called you, you would die now. But I believe death will come for you soon enough.”

Tal gazed down at me. The other men were watching him. I was frightened; I was still Tal’s charge, and what became of me now was in his hands. I could not go with him to the enclave and wondered if he would leave me here alone to survive however I could while I waited.

Tal pulled me to my feet and led me to the Stalker. “Will you be Arvil’s guardian?” he asked. The Stalker nodded. “Very well, then—it is done. Farewell, Arvil.”

I wanted to cry out, but that would have been unseemly. Tal stood near me while I struggled with myself, wanting to cling to him. “You were not called,” he said, “and I cannot take you along.” He drew me to one side, away from the men and the warmth of the fire. “You must go with them to that unholy place, for you would die here alone, but the Lady will guide you. Pray often, and follow Her way—reject unholiness. We may meet again when I can take you from that place.”

“Do not lie to me, Tal. We’ll never be together.”

His fingers dug into my arm. “Resist evil. Whatever they tell you, don’t fall into evil ways.”

I said, “I must live as they do while I am among them.”

“Think of the Lady. Your only chance at life is to go with them now, and that is why you must, but if they punish you for keeping to holiness, then you will have to bear that punishment.” He released me. “Farewell, Arvil.”

Tal picked up his spear and bow, shouldered his quiver, and walked down the hill alone.