In such a community Nigh’s office was no sinecure. Another in his place might well have been oppressed with a sense of his responsibilities. But Nigh, gliding back from Hawkon’s house to make his report to the Old One, carried an all but blank mind. He had heard the voices; he had more than surmised the embraces; and these things had for the while excited him, making him grin in a troubled fashion, and roll his eyes, and bite his knuckles. But now, already, it was all forgotten. He was empty. His feet took him where, after a tour of the squat, they always took him. His lean curving shadow strode with him. He was an oldish man, in years not far short of thirty; he stooped; he breathed with the noise of a dog breathing. So much miscellaneous stuff had been poured through this sieve, so much hearsay and history, so much malice, so many bleeding scraps of his people’s life, that of himself there was little left. Nature had made him sickly, and so a prey to fear; habit had made him furtive and cruel; his mental life at its meagre best was an obscene phantasmagoria; what else there was of him eludes our scrutiny, being so small a spark so deeply hidden. Stooping, moving slantwise, and pawing the air in front of him as though he pulled at a rope, he carried his emptiness into the presence of his master the Old One, into that great house, that veritable nest of houses (for were there not three separate rooms of it?) where Koor lived and ruled, served by his woman and protected by Hasta the wise eunuch.
Koor’s squat—they had but one word to express the two things, the individual house and the encampment as a whole—was constructed on the same principle as Hawkon’s and all others in the community; and though much bigger than his, its size, when considered in relation to the number of people it accommodated, was not impressive. Nor was the interior worthy of the majesty it contained. It was unbeautiful and unsavoury, or would have been considered so by such a woman as Flint, that fastidious one. Yet no one outside the household entered it without something of awe and fear: the awe of mysterious and complex origin, the fear more definite and rational The large outer part, in which the Old One received such members of the family as were permitted to visit him, had been the scene of many an orgy, many a conference, many a judgement. Its mud floor was strewn with dead leaves, pebbles, and decaying grass; its walls were hung with animal skins imperfectly cured. At all seasons a fire burned or smouldered in the middle of the floor, the smoke escaping where it could. This was the tribal hearth, a symbol of great power, as well as a practical convenience to Koor, who in his old age suffered greatly from the cold. Near the fire, but not too near, he would sit, the Old One, with Hasta at hand, Nigh within reach, and perhaps one wife, supposedly the most devoted, squatting vigilant and adoring behind him. All other women, on these public occasions, were huddled away out of sight and left to meditate on their own unimportance.
Koor, today, was in a genial mood. His greeting was affable. He stopped munching, tore with his teeth a strip off the piece of meat he was engaged in eating, and handed it to Nigh with a grunt. Nigh received it eagerly, and the next few minutes were spent happily by father and son, while Hasta looked hungrily on. The last morsel swallowed, Koor’s manner changed. He eyed his tale-bearer sharply, and uttered a single interrogative noise that was like a threat.
‘Ugh?’ said Koor.
‘There is nothing,’ answered Nigh. He seemed to plead with the old man. For, as always, he felt guilty and afraid, fancying that on his rounds he must have seen and forgotten a hundred misdemeanours. ‘There is nothing.’
‘What of that one?’ Koor’s eyes shone with inquisitorial lust. ‘He stays?’
Nigh was at a loss. His glance fell. His hands fluttered. ‘That one? Is it . . . is it . . . is it the young Hawkon?’
Raising his eyes fearfully he received a quick cruel blow in the face from his father’s fist. He cowered, screaming with fear. He whimpered, and then was silent.
‘The name must not be spoken,’ remarked Hasta mildly. ‘The name must not be spoken, or that one will hear us. Tell the father, O Nigh, what you have seen and heard of that one.’
‘I saw him and heard him. He is with his woman.’
‘He stays?’ asked Koor again.
‘Yes. He is with his woman.’ He had already forgotten Koor’s castigation of him in recalling this earlier grievance, that Hawkon had a woman. ‘He stays.’
‘He does not go?’ There is nothing like making sure. But Koor’s question meant more than that.
‘If he goes, others go. There are comrades.’
‘If they go,’ said Koor . . . and was silent.
Not even to these intimates dared he say how glad he would be to see the last of these vigorous and enterprising young men. As hunters they were exceedingly valuable, but their existence had begun to trouble him. Their strength and skill were now a kind of insolence in his sight. And not they alone troubled him. He was beset by troubles on every side. The pains of his body, the weariness, the fears. Above all, the fears. He, the father, the Koor, was the greatest and strongest man in the tribe: in battle he could have killed any three of them in as many strokes: this was his creed and the creed of the tribe, and he dared admit in his mind no doubt of it. Moreover the gods were with him, working for his perpetual aggrandizement, protecting his person; and he in return served the gods by enforcing their laws. This was notorious, undeniable. But it did not comfort him. He was afraid. Every day he felt feebler in spirit; every day dreaded the least challenge to his authority; every day, to hide his fears from the sight of men, grew more greedy and testy and cruel. I am the Koor. They can’t touch me. They fear me. I am sacred. I am strong. I am the mighty one in battle, the great hunter, the lord of my people. All these women, they are mine. This house is the biggest house. When I say kill, the man is already dead. They daren’t touch me: I have good magic: the gods are my gods. Hasta says so, Hasta the wise one. . . . All day long, and sometimes half the night, his mind muttered these things; and at times his lips moved, too, without his knowing it. Mingled with his fears, fears none the less fearful for being shapeless, came fragmentary pictures of a vanished glory; but these, for the most part, he glanced at without recognition. They came and went quickly. Fear never went, except when driven away by appetite; and even then never went far. Fear watched for his waking, grinned him good day, and followed at his elbow like a sponging friend.
Koor shot glances this way and that: at Hasta the wise one, at Nigh the tale-bearer. They were afraid of him, and in their fear was solace and reassurance. His glance rested at last on Nigh, and became an angry stare. ‘Is there any more to tell?’ His tone was peremptory.
‘There is nothing,’ said Nigh.
‘That one is a good hunter, eh?’
Nigh grunted affirmatively.
‘Let him be careful what he’s up to,’ said Koor, with a fierce grin. ‘I am Koor.’