Martin Walker - The Caves of Perigord

“I seek your pardon for my clumsiness and anger,” Deer said as the Keeper of the Bison stood before him. The old man leaned on his stick, studying the youth as his breathing eased. Then he hawked and spat to one side. Deer kept down the blaze of anger. The old fool must know that he had simply slipped and fallen, that Deer had not jolted him from his perch. Maybe by now he had convinced himself it really was Deer’s fault. He kept his eyes downcast.

“I collected these, to ease your bruises,” Deer went on, proffering the three kinds of herbs on the flat stone. The old woman had told him what kind to gather, and he had been in the woods before dawn broke to seek them.

Seeing the old man remain immobile, the Keeper of the Horses bent and took the flat stone. “The boy has some sense, after all. These are the same that I was given, when I fell from the honey tree,” he said. “It seems he means it, his apology.”

“Perhaps,” said the old man, studying Deer. “How good do you think he is?”

“At the work? I don’t have to tell you. I’ll show you,” and the two Keepers walked uphill into the cave. Deer remained on his knees, waiting, knowing that the old man was being taken far into the cave, down the cluster of rocks at the end, and around the narrow twist into the next chamber to see the deer he had painted, swimming in the river of rock. He hoped the old man kept his feet. Deer’s knees hurt him, although he had thought to bring handfuls of soft leaves to kneel on. As he waited, he fingered his bare neck, wondering whether this would be enough to let him wear the feather of the apprentice painter again.

They kept him waiting all through the day, as the sun rose high in the sky to clear the mist. He could see the fishers haul the long, curving fence of woven reeds and twigs deep into the water, as the older children were sent upstream to splash and throw stones and drive the fish into the calm water where the fishers waited, their spears poised. As the excited children came closer, shrieking and tossing great fans of water droplets into the air to catch the sunlight, Deer saw the boiling on the surface of the water as the fish darted for cover. The spears of the fishers rose and fell, like herons’ beaks. The boiling suddenly became intense inside the lagoon made by the reed fence, and the men in midstream began pushing the end of the fence back to the shore, turning it back upon itself to capture the fish within. The women clambered into the river, pushing their reed baskets beneath the surface and then hauling them out, gleaming flashes of silver as the fish jerked and tossed as they were carried back to the bank.

The distraction took his mind from the numbing pain in his knees and the heat of the sun upon his sweating body. There were two bright fires inside each of his knees, burning deep into the bone. If he sank back to rest his weight on his haunches, his feet blazed with agony from the tiny pebbles on the ground. If he rose to ease his feet, his thighs groaned achingly. He dared not lean forward to rest his weight upon his hands. Twice, he heard a shuffling sound from the mouth of the cave, as if someone had come out to watch him. Once, he saw a flash of eyes in the woods to his left. He kept his gaze firmly forward, wondering if the children might start throwing stones to torment him, hoping that the fishing would keep them down by the river all day.

He was still there at dusk, when the Keepers came out of the cave, and the fires down by the river were beginning to flare in the long twilight of summer. The other apprentices were told to go home, and three Keepers suddenly loomed over him.

“I am getting old, and need young bones to fetch my water and take the ache from my shoulders after a day in the cave,” said the Keeper of the Bison. “You seem to have some knowledge of the healing plants. You will come with me and do my bidding, but you are too clumsy to work with me in the cave.”

His head still bowed in contrition, Deer fought to understand. He was no longer to serve the women, but to be nursemaid to an old man. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to get back to the work of the cave. His face twisted, and he began to shake his head.

“You will be apprenticed to me in the cave,” said Keeper of the Horses, quickly, warningly. “I have much work to do, and need the extra hands.”

“Here,” said the Keeper of the Bulls, holding out a leather thong with a small feather attached. “Go with the Keeper of the Bison, and give him your young arm to clamber back up the hill tomorrow. Then make colors, and when they are done, join your new master. He spoke for you. And remember this time of your banishment from the cave. One more mistake, and out you go, forever.”

As they walked off, Deer collapsed onto his side, trying to roll onto his back, but his legs would not obey him. His knees would not straighten. He groaned aloud as he tried to shuffle on his hands down the hill after the Keepers, dragging his useless, fiery legs behind him. Suddenly there were feet beside him, the shocking coolness of water splashed onto his back, a great handful of dripping moss wiped across his face and he sucked greedily at the moisture as firm hands began to slap and grip his thighs. He felt a great softness as someone sat on his legs, trying to straighten his locked knees. His joints blazed with a final pain, and then eased, and Little Moon helped him stagger to his feet and down the hill to the river.

At his sister’s fire, the Keeper of the Bulls sat watching his newborn daughter gurgle in her sleep. He had taken her to his chest, listened to her heart, acknowledging that she was his, wondering if in some years to come she would grow to resemble her mother, and benefit some future man with her advice as her mother had helped him. The baby stirred, and his sister casually put the infant to her breast.

“Where will you sleep now?” she asked.

“Here,” he grunted. Near his new daughter. He owed his wife that much. If she cried, he could always move. All fires were open to the Keeper of the Bulls. He took a twig, peeled it, and began probing at his teeth where some of the fish was stuck. He should have saved one of the fish bones from his meal. That was the kind of thing wives remembered to do.

“You need another woman now,” his sister said. She gestured at the baby. “Her mother would have been the first to say so.”

“I know.” He looked into the fire. “I will speak to the Keeper of the Horses. He has a daughter, I hear.”

“She is young. But comely.”

“Too young?”

“Girls are never too young, at least to warm your bed and tend your fire and your meals,” she said lightly, passing her hand softly over the beating pulse in the head of the baby at her breast. “But you want more than that. You want company, like you always talked to this child’s mother, talking and murmuring into the night. You never talked much with the other men, even when you were a boy. You always liked talking with women. And Little Moon is too young for that. She has everything you need except wisdom.”

“All the better. I can teach her wisdom myself, my wisdom.”

“You could, but then you’d never know if you were hearing her wisdom or just your own. You want more than that,” she said.

He considered her, his youngest sister, whose eyes were as cool a gray as his own. She had always been close to him, since he was a youth and she was an infant, accustomed to crawling into his lap and settling there to sleep. He had taken great care over her marriage, entrusting her to the bravest of the young hunters, the one who would lead the hunting pack someday. That had not worked out too well, since her man had come back with a leg mangled after fighting some hungry wolves away from a new-killed deer. He walked with a limp, still the most cunning of the hunters, but he would never lead the pack. He shrugged; men could not order the ways of the beasts.