I could resist all the others, but for Sparkle I would give up even Heaven.
If she was merely one more of the widows, she would be free to leave my feasting place and transfer to another man’s. I wanted Sparkle more than anyone or anything else I could imagine, but she must be mine alone.
“I will marry you and no one else!” I said, hearing mutters of disapproval. A crowd was gathering around us as the unmarried women moved in. The platform sank lower.
“But Pebble?” Sparkle wailed.
“Pebble is dead. Say you will be my wife, or I am going—and going now!”
She glanced around the angry throng. The whole world seemed to stop, hanging breathless on her decision. But I knew. Only Sparkle among all of them would risk the tribe’s censure—that was why Sparkle was special to me. And suddenly a small smile of triumph escaped at the corner of that seductive mouth… She had known what I would say, had foreseen every word. She raised her chin in defiance and nodded agreement at me. “Will be my husband, Golden?”
Without a word I kissed her until I was giddy with arousal, then hustled her off to her bower to quench my lust. I did not even wait for all the good wishes and congratulations being showered on us. Cheers and wedding songs had broken out. Seafolk cannot mourn for long.
So I killed my best friend through selfishness. Before my tears were dry I stole his wife and her future children and thereby dishonored his memory. I betrayed my promise to Violet. I discarded forever my ambition to become an angel.
From then on my affairs with the other women were no longer merely mutual fun, they were deliberate baby-making.
I laid down rules for the hunters to reduce the dying. They smiled and obeyed—until the next time I wasn’t looking.
I might as well have tried to regiment the great ones.
I became a seaman.
Forgotten and unwanted, my collection of driftwood crawled away across the plain until it disappeared in the heat haze.
—5—
BROWN-YELLOW-WHITE
WITH SALT STILL DRYING ON MY SKIN, I crept in through the door of Sparkle’s bower and paused to make sure I had not wakened her. Then I started picking my way as quietly as I could over the sprinkle of yellow leaves on the floor. The grove itself helped me, its creakings and rustlings much louder in the rough water near the beach. Below that continuing chorus I could still hear the jabber of the great ones. They had been very excited for some time now, but no one in the tribe could understand their distress. I had just cut short my swim because they had been pestering me so much.
At the far end of the bower, Merry muttered and stirred, crinkling the blanket of bronze leaves that had settled upon him. Then he seemed to go back to sleep, and silence returned. Merry was Merry-son-of-Pebble, because Sparkle claimed that she had been bearing him when I married her. I had accepted that obvious falsehood and so the tribe had also, but Merry had straight hair.
So did Sea Wave’s boy and Wave’s, and Silver’s daughter and many others. Many of their mothers, like Sparkle, were big again. My second crop, a herdman would have said, but I was careful not to use that expression among the seafolk.
I reached my wife and settled down beside her as quietly as I could. I don’t know why I bothered—I doubt that any husband in the history of Vernier ever managed to be quiet enough under those circumstances.
“Who was it this time?” she inquired drowsily.
She had been asleep when I departed. She needed much sleep now, for her time was near.
“Don’t remember.”
With a great heaving, as if a storm had struck the grove, she rolled over to face me. We adjusted position, but it was hard to cuddle her present bulk satisfactorily.
“Not funny.”
“Whoever it was,” I said, “wasn’t pretty like you. Not as lovable. Couldn’t be.”
She frowned and spoke very quietly, in case there might be listeners beyond the wicker walls. “Must not go to wives, Golden.”
How do women know such things? Still, Sparkle was jealous of my other duties, and I loved it. “You know I would make waves only with you if I could, love,” I assured her. “You’re always my favorite.”
She bit her lip, so I tried to kiss it better. She wouldn’t let me.
“Never mind worrying, my dearest Sparkle,” I said. “You concentrate on that baby of yours. She’s going to be my first, remember!”
“He!” she insisted automatically. “And who shouting at?”
I must have been louder than I thought. “Sand. Young weed-brain!” I had caught Sand hunting alone again. I told them and told them… Since Pebble died, though, we’d only lost one man. A shark had bitten off Clamshell’s foot and he had bled to death. Great ones could outrun sharks, but they could not apply tourniquets. We had lost one man, but many others had been just plain lucky. They promised, and they forgot again, and I screamed again…
“And the great ones are getting worse,” I muttered, hearing the constant clicking and booming. Then the old cracked voice of Icegleam rose in triumph from some nearby bower.
“Visitor!” he yelled with sudden comprehension. “Is what have been trying to tell us! Visitor coming!”
Sparkle’s big eyes widened. “Visitor? What sort of visitor?”
I could guess what sort of visitor.
His chariot was brown and streaked with salt; mainsail yellow, foresail white. It approached very slowly in the fitful wind, flanked by a leaping escort of great ones almost to the place where its wheels grounded on shingle. Momentarily it bounced and twisted in the surf, then dozens of willing hands grabbed it and rushed it up to dry land.
The angel stood tall and lean against the sky as he furled his sails, quickly and efficiently. Then he vaulted nimbly over side of his chariot, landing with a crunch of boots on shingle.
His hair was a chestnut plume, hanging thick behind his ears and held by a beaded headband. Sun and wind had burnt his face almost the same umber shade as his fringed buckskins, and its bony planes projected endurance and authority and wry good humor. He was as unlike Violet as anyone could be.
We spent more time on shore now, and I made sure there was a supply of shoes there, but there were not enough for everyone. Thus the tribe had spread itself in a long line along the water’s edge to wait for the angel’s greetings. The women came first, each speaking her name and embracing him with fervor. He responded conscientiously, obviously wise to the amorous ways of seafolk and aware that any response less than ardor would be a slight.
He was flushed and grinning as he embraced the last, who happened to be the youthfully alluring and enthusiastic Surge. She prolonged the encounter, squirming against him erotically. Sand grinned proudly nearby.
The angel broke free from her. He rolled his eyes and took a deep breath, and the men smiled. Then each of them also offered a hug and spoke welcome. When he arrived at me, I was tempted to shake his hand and say “Knobil,” but I embraced him in seafolk fashion and gave my seaman name. Nevertheless, he held my shoulder for a moment, studying me with shrewd gray eyes.
Finally, of course, he had to meet all the children. He knelt on the shingle to hug and kiss, as was expected. Then he rose and glanced around as if counting. His gaze lingered again on me, the fair-haired obvious misfit.
The grove lay close to shore now, more gold than green. We no longer dared light fires, even on the floating hearths, so I had set some of the men to building a bonfire on the beach—a hellish task, with the heat of the flames adding to the sun’s crippling glare. I was worried, although no one else seemed to be.