A LIFE BEYOND

 by Richard Banks

It was on her birthday that Ava spoke the notion about going to Ludon. It would be OK, she said, no one lives there any more. How do you know, I thought but did not say. If I had we would only have quarrelled and this was not the time or place. Like most of us around the campfire, she had drunk too much beer. In the morning, thoughts of Ludon would likely be forgotten.

         Kolo appears not to have heard her. He throws a log on the fire and says we should sing Ava the birthday song, so we do three times. Joy gives her a rabbit’s foot for good luck. I also have a gift, a neck chain I once found in the ruins of an old tumbled down place where people use to live. There’s some writing on it which I tell her says Ava, but I don’t know. Only Wanda reads. She has a book. It is, she says, a book of days, days that have numbers and names. We too have names which she writes in the book on different pages. Each page is a day and the day that has our name on is our birthday. Each morning she turns the open page to the next until she reaches the end of the book, then she starts again. This she tells us is a year.

         Kolo, who is head man, says that Wanda is the keeper of time and that, providing we have the book, Spring will always follow Winter. We keep it safe from the wind and rain. Wanda says that once there were many books. This her grandmother told her. When Wanda dies, and she is old beyond memory, no one will know the secret of the words. Kolo throws another log on the fire, the last one he says. While the fire burns, the roaming dogs keep their distance and we can see each other in the dark.

         The village prospers, our numbers increase. Kay and Heny who died in the winter have been replaced by four healthy children, two boys and two girls. Soon they will be weaned and, like the rest of us, feeding on the corn we grow and the beasts we hunt. Those of us who are hunters know the woods like the back of our hands and every type of creature living there. The women and children tend the field and gather the fruit that hangs from trees and bushes. We eat well. The woods are our woods and no other tribe comes near. There are two that we know off from their camp fires many miles to the north and west. Once some of them came close enough to be seen, but only once. Like the dogs, they keep their distance, as do we.

         The last of the beer is drunk and the uneaten meat and bones were taken to the edge of the village and thrown down in a heap for the dogs to devour. We go back to our huts, Ava with me to the one I built two summers ago when she left her father’s hut. She said we would have many sons but so far her belly is empty of child. If none come soon I will return her to her father and take another wife. A man must have sons.

         We lie beneath the hides she has stitched together. In winter our bed will have more coverings and we will cling to each other for warmth, but for now the air is warm and there is little need for covers. In the next hut Mal and Viv are also in their bed, loud and lusty in their linking. Mal has chosen well, he already has a son. At last, they are quiet and the only noises to be heard are those of the night-time creatures. The beer was strong and all I want to do is sleep.

                                                                        *****

         I wake up to find the door is open and the sun shining in my eyes. A hazy figure stands in the doorway. At first, I think it is Ava but she is lying by my side. I shade my eyes and see Kolo. He tells me to get up and bring my bow. I am needed for a hunting party. Ro-be, who should be going is unwell from the beer. “Now!” he says, impatient to be off, “the other men are waiting.” I get up and put on the belt that holds my knife and axe. There is no need to dress, the sun is hot and clothes will only slow us down. We must be as free as the beasts. When they run we must chase them, as best we can. I take my bow and quiver from the wall and join the other men outside.

         We set off, pausing at the river to drink and wash our faces. The water is no more than knee-deep and we wade across into the woods and check the pits we have dug. There are six. In the fourth one is a cow, legs broken from the fall. It is loud in its pain. Kolo drops down onto its back and slits its throat. The body we cut it up into pieces small enough to be carried back to the village on spits. Two men do this; a third guards what they can not carry, until they return. While he waits he will make good the thin covering of leaves and branches that hides the pit. The rest of us press on to the other pits but the coverings there have not been broken.

         We continue on to a clearing in the woods through which a small stream flows. Although there are many such streams this is a favourite place for drinking. We go to the tree line and lie down in the grass. We are not long in waiting. A deer comes with two fawns. She is sharp-eyed, smelling the air for the scent of other beasts, but we are downwind. We watch for Kolo’s signal and when he gives it we rise up and let off our arrows, but none find their mark. They flee, and for an hour no other creatures come. When they do, we are in luck, a flock of sleep. Gathered together, drinking at the water’s edge, they are too big a target to miss. Two fall and the rest race back into the woods. We run forward, one is still alive and I end its pain quickly with my knife. As is our custom Kolo dips his finger in the blood of the sheep I killed and makes a cross on my forehead. The man who kills a man-horse or bull will also drink its blood so that he takes into himself the strength and spirit of such beasts, but no one drinks the blood of a sheep. Its woolly hide, however, is much favoured for warm clothing in winter which while no longer than sixty days can sometimes cause the rain to freeze and lay white upon the ground.

         We return to the village where we strip the meat from the skins and give everyone their share. Women and children get less than the men and the men who hunt, more than those who don’t. There is also bread and fruit. No one goes hungry. We are busy in our work. If not, our bellies would be large.

         Kolo takes me to one side. “What is this about going to Ludon?”

         I tell him that Ava was silly with the drink and that neither of us will be going, even if we knew where it was. 

         He sighs. “The old story. Everyone has it, told by their mother who heard it from their mother, and them from mothers long before. One story but never quite the same. Most talk of a great sickness that killed the people of that place, others of a high rising of the sea that drowned it and all those within. Some say there was both. Others that there was more than one sickness, that it came and went many times. Still, others that the place was called Norwic or Colches. Best you stay here where life is good and there is much to eat and drink. No sickness here;  in another place, who knows. If you leave you can never come back.”

         This is the most I have ever heard him say. I give him my blood oath that we will be staying. He watches me cut both my arms and let the blood trickle down towards the ground. He catches some in the palm of his hand and with his tongue, takes it into his mouth.

         He smiles. “We are brothers,” he says, “everyone here is a brother. We work together, stay together, we live by most-men laws.” He smiles again and changes the subject. “How are the chickens that Ava tends?”

         I answer that since we built the pen in which they live they lay many eggs.

         “Yes,” he says, “it is better than before when we roamed the forest for their nests. The pen was Ava’s idea, was it not?”

         I say, “yes.” Everyone knows that why does he ask?

         He comes to the point. “When Wanda sleeps the unwaking sleep we will need a wise woman to take her place, to keep the book that turns the night today and makes the seasons turn. Ava has been chosen. From tomorrow she will live in Wanda’s hut learning the secrets that only Wanda knows. Your coupling tonight will be the last. Tomorrow you will pick another wife, maybe one that suits you better makes you many sons. You like Cora, don’t you? I see the way you look at her. She is wide of hip and quiet of mouth. She will suit you well. Her father knows you want her and will say yes. He is of the Council. This is a good match.”

         I agree. How can I not?

         I go home to tell Ava, but she has been talking to Wanda and already knows. In the morning she gathers up the things that are hers and takes them to Wanda’s hut. I speak with Cora’s father and take her back with me. She couples well but burns the mid-day meal. In the afternoon she goes foraging with the other women and I cut wood with Wil and Hal. The sun shines hot upon us and the sweat upon our bodies turns to salt. We go to the river, drink, and cool ourselves by swimming with the fishes. We are as one with earth, stream and sky. Long may it be.   

Copyright Richard Banks