Martin Walker: The Caves of Perigord

Still, there were men here whose skills he envied, not for himself, but for the greater power of the cave itself. His Keeper of the Bison-only to himself did he ever think of his colleagues as “his” men-was old, half-blind, and barely adequate. The bull he had worked on today had almost openly showed his contempt, painting over a crude red bison that he thought of as little more than a stain on the wall. He hadn’t even bothered to consult its Keeper about painting over it. He caught himself. He must not do that. There was an etiquette in the cave, as the Keeper of the Horses had come to him in the morning to consult about the placing of his horse between the horns of the bull. That was the proper way, showing respect. That was how it must be done, he cautioned himself. But it was hard. It was his vision, his cave, not to be demeaned by the daubs of second-raters. In their hearts, his colleagues must know this, which made it all the more important that he be seen to show them proper deference.

He would miss this woman, lying dead before him, about to go into the flame. Not just her body or her care, but her counsel. She had understood his vision from the moment that the hunters had first entered the miraculous cave and summoned him to see the great white space of the walls, the perfect round of the ceiling where it narrowed. He remembered the sense of lust as he had first seen it, probing into the belly of the earth as he had later probed into the belly of his woman. She had understood that this could be the holiest cave of them all, and it was her counsel that made him raise the idea so carefully. She had told him to sound out the oldest Keepers first, to make it sound like their idea, while she had subtly worked on their women. He would miss that, miss her gentle reminders of the need to pay respect to their other Keepers, to praise the crude work of that fool, the Keeper of the Bison. He had only himself now to keep voicing the warnings, to bite down on the urgency that seized him when he saw how the cave should be, and to keep silent when his heart cried out in pain at the sad daubings others made as they carried out his vision.

The flames were catching hold now, and he smelled the first warm, cooking smell of his woman’s dead flesh. Like boar. He bit back the sudden rush of saliva in his moth. The smell would turn sour soon enough, as sour as the loneliness of his own hearth with no woman to clutch for warmth in the nights. He must take a new woman before the winter came, a young one, ready to make more sons. As soon as the ashes of the funeral pyre had cooled and been scattered by the wind and rain, he would talk to the Keeper of the Horses. Most of all, he must keep talking to himself, reminding himself, imposing that discipline upon his own imperious spirit, which might otherwise tear asunder the Keepers in division and rivalry. They must be guided, not commanded, gently steered rather than driven. Perhaps this was his woman’s last farewell to him, her last gift in death. The wisdom of her counsel, not the girl child he had yet to see, was how he would remember her.

He watched as the flames died, waiting until the ashes were just a glow, and turned to his colleagues on either side. The Keeper of the Horses and the Keeper of the Deer both nodded, and as he led the way uphill they marshaled into line the others who would be granted the honor of the cave. First the leaders of his own people, the flint man and the hunter, the waterman and the woodman. Then in courtesy, the Keepers of the other clans, almost humble at the knowledge that they were about to enter into a place far greater than their own caves. Then from each clan, a chosen leader. He looked back. Perhaps forty men, none of them young, were climbing the hill behind him, their way lighted by his apprentices carrying torches that had been kindled at the pyre.

When he reached the cave, the oldest apprentice scurried forward, using his torch to light each of the small stone lamps that the elders would carry. When they were ready, he stepped into the mouth of the cave and began his chant to the beasts, the song of supplication that sought their permission to enter and display their pride and strength to the men who would enter to worship. Once, as a young apprentice at another, lesser cave, he had stood with the torch as another Keeper made this same song, and a great bolt of lightning had crashed down from a clear night sky to strike and break a tree nearby. They had all fled the wrath of the beasts. That moment had always stayed with him. Even though he came to this cave each day, although he worked here and had made this place and the great bulls had grown under his own hand, he was reminded that this was their place even more than his. A power had been engendered here that had reached and grown far beyond his art and beyond his skill. And as he led the way into the darkness, and saw the first flickerings of the lamps begin to invest his bulls with life and power, he felt awe.

Deer, his arms folded across his hairless chest, watched grimly as the line of men disappeared into the cave, and the other apprentices, with whom he should have stood and held the torches, spread out into a line of sentries in front of the entrance. They could not see him, but he could not be part of the ceremony, could take no pride in the paints that he had mixed, the colors that he had applied, the first beginnings of what he knew would be his life’s work. He would be lucky if he were allowed back into the fold before the next festival. It would be midsummer, he calculated, the feast of the longest day. It would be up to the beasts themselves, he thought automatically. And then he examined that instinctive thought. Up to the beasts? No. Up to the old men who spoke and ruled in their name. His fate rested with the Keepers. With men.

He edged back deeper into the trees, and squatted, aware that his head was reeling with this strange, invasive idea. He had always been told that the beasts themselves were the governors of the cave and all the hierarchy and structure that flowed from it. His people were the people of the cave, the servants of the beasts, the blessed folk who had been chosen by their skill to breathe life and holiness into the bare rock and darkness. Did not all the clans along the river come this night to pay homage to the beasts of the cave that the Keepers had conjured from the skill? Surely they had.

But he shared that skill in abundance. He was touched by the beasts, infused by them with the skill that made him the most gifted of the apprentices. He knew that his colors were the purest, his work with the moss the most sure and precise, his touch the most assured of all those young men who stood now with their guttering torches outside the cave. And he was not among them because an old man had slipped and fallen from his scaffolding and blamed him for the tumble. The beasts had been silent. The old man’s petulance had shifted his life, forced him from the cave to work for the women, until such time as the Keepers judged his sin atoned, and summoned him back to the work.

How dare they block his skill in this way, these stubborn old men? Some of them had less skill than he, despite their life’s work. The bison in the cave were a disgrace. The deer were a strange fancy, antlers tangled like brambles-like the thoughts of their elderly Keeper who drank too much of the soured honey that sent men reeling. They had no place in the cave. They breathed no spirit into the rock. His own deer were better.

He closed his eyes, remembering the cave. The Keeper of the Horses was a worthy custodian of his beasts, a Keeper who could judge colors and form, from whose every line Deer knew he was learning some addition to the skill. And the Keeper of the Bulls was an artist touched by the very beasts he conjured, of a gift so rich and true that Deer marveled at the perfection of the memories in his mind. They were the very essence of bull.