Hawkon, squatting at ease in his house, glanced at Flint and thought suddenly of Ogo. He was indulging in one of his rare moments of reflection. For as long as he could remember, the tribe of Koor had lived in this valley, though sometimes in dreams there came to him fragmentary pictures, derived from hearsay, of another squat, another valley, whence they had migrated. But he took small account of dreams, if only because for the most part he forgot them in the moment of waking. He lived not at all in the past; a very little in the future; most of all, in common with his kind, he lived in the present, which is action. Where he differed from most of his fellows was in the degree of his looking forward. They, with rare exceptions, could look no further than from the moment of waking to the moment of sleep, and in practice seldom looked so far. From the kill to the feast, from the feast to the next hunt: this was the usual measure of their fancy. But Hawkon had greatness in him: his imagination, given rein, could range over tomorrow and even into the next day; and, more than that, unknown to him, working secretly, it could carry him forward to a goal that he had never consciously aimed at. He was crafty as well as ambitious, but he was more ambitious than crafty. His ambition was a pure instinct, unhampered by intelligence. Every plan that formed in his mind he instantly translated into action. He was incapable of waiting. And because the obscure force working in him was always timely, never premature, in releasing an idea into his mind, he seldom made a mistake with consequences too big for his energy to override. Although young he was already a leader in the hunt, and he accepted his position without question, almost without noticing it. Even the dogs recognized his quality: the two best of them, swiftest and fiercest, followed him fondly wherever he went and would sleep nowhere but at his side. When his tongue was loosened he would boast indeed: but only as a child boasts, in a naive impersonal fashion, as though the deeds he celebrated were but distantly related to himself. It was so he thought of them, or so would have thought if he had thought of the matter at all. These things, though they had issued from him, were not in any intimate sense his: having happened, they belonged to the external world, the world of action. Of the internal world he was unaware: its events, for him, were of one kind with the rest, or differing only in a degree that caused but momentary doubt and perplexity.
His latest exploit had brought him a higher prestige, and a deeper personal satisfaction, than he had ever known before. The woman Flint was a good woman: of that there could be no doubt. Hasta the Wise had asked and obtained the gods’ approval of her; Koor the Father had uttered the words of sanction; and the tribe had received her with envious admiration. And so the alliance was sealed with the bond of law. Koor, being in his ripe age woefully short-sighted, could not see the woman clearly enough to desire her for himself; moreover he had learnt the wisdom first of allowing, later of encouraging, such youthful enterprise as this of Hawkon’s. For he was obscurely aware that, law or no law, every young man was his potential rival for the possession of the younger women, and the fact that he himself happened to be too feeble to enjoy his rights made him the more implacably jealous of their possible infringement. The young men themselves, all but Hawkon, secretly thought it very poor fun that Flint should be Hawkon’s alone, when there was such a lamentable dearth of women; but they kept their thoughts to themselves, and Hawkon, in his simplicity, never doubted that they were as pleased as he was. But to this there was one obvious exception. Even Hawkon could see that he had made an enemy of Ogo. And though he had not foreseen this hostility, having in fact never given the problem of Ogo a moment’s thought, it did not surprise him in the event. It was Ogo who had helped him to build this magnificent house, and had shared it with him ever since: a broad shallow trench, eight feet by six, paved with pebbles, carpeted with ferns and rushes, and sheltered by a roof of wattle and daub. A wall of piled slabs of stone surmounted the trench and doubled the height of the house, so that a man could stand upright under his own roof-tree; and there were steps leading into it. That two people alone should have had the sole use of a house that could have sheltered ten is eloquent of the respect with which Hawkon was regarded in the tribe. For many moons he and Ogo and the two dogs had shared this house, and now, remembering Ogo, he missed him; and the odd thought flashed into his mind that there would be no more of that queer agreeable talk with which Ogo had been wont to enliven the dark hours until sleep came. He will never sleep here again, thought Hawkon. And so, he went on, painfully thinking it all out, he will sleep somewhere else. His face cleared. His spasm of thinking was over. Ogo dropped back into oblivion.
With Ogo gone, there was room again in his mind for the woman he was staring at. He called her. She came obediently, and knelt, awaiting his pleasure. The only light in the room came from the small square aperture at the top of four rough-hewn steps leading to the outer world, and the woman’s face was in shadow. Hawkon seized her long black hair and pulled her nearer. He stared intently at her face; and she, proudly, with a half-smile, gave back his stare. He was mightily pleased, and obscurely flattered, that she gave no sign of fearing him. From the first moment of her capture, that had delighted him. She had shewn fight but no fear. She had fought tigerishly, rousing anger in him. But the anger, his and hers, had been innocent of malice or hatred: and she had seemed, in the end, as proud in her defeat as he in his victory. They had now been together three days. His joy in her was fresh. The fire that had won her her name burned fiercely.
‘Listen,’ commanded Hawkon.
The half-smile vanished. The eyes widened. She was all listening.
‘This woman,’ said Hawkon—he touched her head, her feet—‘this woman is Hawkon’s woman.’
‘She is Hawkon’s woman,’ answered Flint solemnly: by which she meant: Hawkon is my man.
He grunted satisfaction and made her come nearer still. They began fondling each other. Every day since their coming together, and several times a day, Hawkon had demanded and received this assurance. He was not aware of repeating himself, and Flint was far from weary of his repetitions. She thought him the strongest, bravest, most desirable man in the world; she thought him a very god among men. She also thought him likely to prove a better master than the man he had slain to get her. That one, too, in his time, had been a god; but now he was dead and forgotten. Enough of him. He was not to be compared with this wonderful Hawkon; for Hawkon was alive, and though she did not know clearly what death meant she did know that between being dead and being alive there is all the difference in the world, especially when husbands are in question. Hawkon in her eyes was perfection, but for a certain uncouthness he had in common with his fellow tribesmen. This house he had brought her to was a good house, though she had lived in better. But its condition did not please her. Having by ample smiles and wondering gestures professed the greatest admiration for everything, she lost no time in making everything as different as possible. This was put there and that was put here. The whole place was drastically cleansed, so that Hawkon, returning after a day’s absence, found himself ill at ease in it, and had to be cajoled into accepting the new order. Indeed she could not help making a wry face when she thought of the squalor he had been content with. But she was happy. She was wanted. And it was, after all, part of Hawkon’s perfection that he so evidently needed looking after. This her heart knew, though she was racially too young, by about five thousand years, to have a mind capable of formulating such an idea.