He was gone five days. Then he rode back in, looking tired and dirty. The villagers glared. Enshi ignored them. He rode to his mother’s tent and dismounted.
Nuha, who was short and fat, ran out and hugged her son.
“Disgusting,” Suhai said. “May the Mother of Mothers teach that woman shame.”
“Are you cursing the woman?” Nia asked. “If so, I’m going to make the gesture that averts. Who can tell what spirit will hear a curse? Or what it will do about it?”
“Are you planning to become a shamaness, my foster daughter?”
“No.”
Suhai glowered, then made the gesture that averts.
“Good,” said Nia.
The next morning, early, the old women went to the shamaness. They stood at the entrance to her tent and complained. Nia heard their shrill voices and went out. The day was bright. The air smelled of wood smoke and leather and the dry summer plain.
Nia watched the shamaness walk across the village. She wore a robe covered with red embroidery and a big necklace made of bronze. Hu! What an impressive woman!
The old crones hobbled after her. Nia watched.
They all stopped at the tent of Nuha.
“Enshi!” the shamaness cried.
After a moment Enshi came out. Nia couldn’t see his expression.
“Have you no sense of what is right?” the shamaness asked loudly.
Enshi looked down, then up. He mumbled something that Nia couldn’t hear.
“It’s time you left,” the shamaness said.
Enshi made the gesture of assent. His shoulders were sagging now. He looked discouraged.
“Go today. And don’t come back. You have become an embarrassment.”
Enshi made the gesture of assent a second time. Then he turned and went into his mother’s tent.
The shamaness left. But the old women sat down and waited.
Nia went to the forge and worked alone. Late in the afternoon Hua came.
“He is gone,” she said. “We told him we would curse him if he ever came back.”
“Is that so?” Nia said. She straightened up and rubbed her neck. “How I ache today.”
The village went south. The weather remained dry. The herd kicked up a cloud of dust that went most of the way to the sky. Day after day they saw the cloud in front of them. It was dark brown in color. Nia thought, Anasu is there, riding in the dust. And Enshi, too, the poor buffoon.
They reached the Winter Land. Usually they camped to the north of the herd. But this year they went south and east to the Great Rush Lake. Now they were at the eastern edge of their pasturage. Across the lake was the land of the Amber People. They pitched their tents. The shamaness went to visit the Amber People. Angai went with her, also nine other women. They all led pack animals, laden with gifts.
They were gone thirty days. The weather remained dry, though Hua kept saying that rain was coming. She could feel it in her bones.
When they returned, they brought gifts from the Amber People: amber, of course, colored shells, and copper.
“Hu! What an experience,” Angai said. “We had to go around the lake. On the far side are marshes. Beyond the marshes is a river. It is wide and deep. We had to cross it. That was dangerous. Animals live in it. They are like river lizards. But larger. Much larger. They will eat anything, my mother says.”
“Hu!” said Nia. “Tell me more.”
“We made rafts. That’s how we got across the river. I didn’t see any of the animals. They are called divers or killers of the deep water.”
“Aiya!” said Nia.
“On the far side of the river is the land of the Amber People.” Angai paused and frowned. “They are the same height as we are, but broader; and a lot of them are fat. Their fur is dark. Their shamaness is huge. She wears a hat made of feathers. I could barely understand them. They talk so strangely. They are very hospitable, though. And they drink a kind of beer I’ve never had before. Nia, I heard a story there I don’t believe. But they swear it is true.”
Angai paused to drink a little milk. Nia waited.
“They say to the east of them are a people who stay in one place. They never move.”
Nia made the gesture of astonishment.
“They live in houses made of wood. The houses can’t be folded or taken apart. They are solid like boxes.
“They live next to a forest, the Amber People say. And their men live in the forest. They don’t herd animals the way men ought to. Instead they hunt and catch fish. The women don’t think much of them. They say, all men are savage and nasty.”
“The Amber People say this?”
“No! No! The people who never move. In fact, the Amber People say, some of the women refuse to mate with men.”
Nia scratched her head. “How can that be?”
“When the spring lust comes, they go out in pairs, two women together. They mate with one another.”
For a moment Nia sat quietly and stared at the fire. “How do they produce children?”
“The usual way. The Amber People say, few of the women mate only with women. Most of them want children. They mate with men until they have as many children as they want.”
Nia scratched her head again. “This is a very strange story.”
“Yes. I’d like to go and visit those people.”
“They are perverts!” Hua said. “And the Amber People are liars. No such people exist. Houses of wood! What a crazy idea!”
Angai looked angry.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Nia said. “This story makes me uneasy.”
The winter was cold. At night, in the northern sky, lights shone. They were green and white and yellow.
“The winter fire,” said Hua. “Up north it fills the sky. We don’t often see it down here.”
Ti-antai said, “It is bad luck.”
Snow fell. There was a coughing sickness in the village. A number of people died. Most were old women or very young children.
Suhai got the sickness. For a while, in the dark time after the solstice, everyone thought she would die. In the end she recovered, though slowly. All the rest of the winter she stayed in her tent. Nia and Ti-antai looked after her. It was hard for Nia to go and see her, hunched by the fire. Her fur was more gray than brown. She looked bony and unhappy.
Why, Nia wondered, did her throat contract at the sight of the old woman? She didn’t even like her foster mother.
Spring came at last. It was cold and rainy. Hua’s hands became so stiff that she could not work at the forge. “This place is full of bad luck,” she cried.
“I think you are right,” Nia said.
The trees put out leaves, pale blue in color. Among the dry reeds in the lake, flowers blossomed. They were yellow and orange. Other flowers, tiny and white, appeared at the edge of the plain. Nia began to feel restless. The spring lust, she thought. She began to assemble supplies.
“Why don’t I feel the lust?” asked Angai.
“You are younger than I am.” Nia crouched and stared at the things she had made in the winter: long knives and needles, brooches, files and awls. What was the right gift?
“I’m half a year younger,” Angai said. “That isn’t much.”
“Why do you ask me? What do I know? Ask your mother.”
Angai left. She was angry, Nia realized. Too bad. She reached out and picked up a knife. It had a good blade, made of iron that had been folded and refolded. That would do, she thought. And needles and a brooch, also—maybe—leather from the tanner.
She stood up. Now, food for the trip.
That night she dreamt of Anasu and of riding on the plain. She woke, feeling more restless than before. She pulled up the tent flap and fastened it. Sunlight came in. The air was still and mild. It smelled of the new vegetation. She thought, I will go today, before the lust gets any stronger. I will ride until I forget this terrible winter. She turned and looked at Hua.