Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

“So, you’re the stranger.” Borri was taller than Aoife, and older, too, rangy under her furs. She untied a belt hung with tiny pouches and packets and dumped it on the bed.

“Marghe.”

“Marghe, then,” the woman acknowledged. “And I’m Borri.” She sat down, held big-wristed hands out to the fire. “Ah, that feels good. It’s a cold night and they ache from rubbing the phlegm from little Licha’s lungs.”

The talk unsettled Marghe. She had not realized how accustomed she had become to Aoife’s silent gestures. She wondered if she was supposed to do something for this woman, and if she would get beaten if she did not.

Borri was looking at her, head tilted to the side. Her eyes were gray and widely spaced. “I’ve got something for that cheek. It won’t soothe the pain much, but it should ease the bruise away quicker.”

“Thank you,” she said cautiously.

“We’ll need to heat some water.”

Borri filled a pot from one of the skins and showed Marghe how to settle it securely on the fire. “Aoife doesn’t mean to be cruel,” she said suddenly. “You mustn’t let her treat you as badly as she sometimes treats herself.”

Marghe was not quite sure how to respond to that. She wanted to grab this woman’s hand and shout, I don’t belong here, on this world ! Instead, she asked,

“Where’s Aoife?”

“With the Levarch.”

Marghe wondered if it was anything to do with her. “Does she go there often?”

Borri nodded. “She’s Agelast.” Marghe looked blank. “Agelast. The next Levarch.”

Marghe searched her memory for the word. Agelast: one who does not laugh.

Marghe stood in her stirrups to scan the taar herd. In the distance, Fion lifted her palo stick and flicked it to full length, slicing the air horizontally in a question; Marghe raised her hand in an all’s well gesture. Overhead, clouds raced by in tatters and streamers, and for the first time since Holme Valley Marghe caught glimpses of hard, deep blue sky. A pensel sky, Borri called it, after the pensels the riders wore fluttering from their spears during bollo games in the spring. Sunlight glittered on the snow that had fallen fresh the day before. Here and there, piles of taar droppings glistened, dark and smooth against the white.

It was her fourth day at the winter camp, her second riding with the herd. While she rode, Fion always kept her in sight. Aoife had told her that the younger tribeswoman was not as good with the sling as she: if Marghe tried to escape, Fion would go for a chest shot, perhaps breaking ribs, or worse.

Marghe was careful not to make any sudden moves. In time, she reasoned, Aoife and the others would relax, just a little. A little was all she needed. Whenever she could, she replenished her saddle bag with food. When the opportunity came, she would be ready. Until then, she would be patient and win their trust.

Meanwhile, there were things here to be observed.

She hooked her leg over her saddle horn, pulled off her right glove, touched RECORD. “The Echraidhe number one hundred and eighty-three, and occupy fifty-four tents, or yurtu. Although age is difficult to judge, I guess that about thirty are under fifteen, twenty-eight or -nine over sixty—two of whom are or appear to be very old. More than half the rest are between about forty-five and sixty. There is some evidence that the yurtu hold many fewer people than they were originally built for. I believe their population is declining, and suspect that the absence of trata has led to diet deficiencies which—”

Movement caught her eye; she touched OFF, slid her foot back into the stirrup, and pulled her pony after the straggling taar.

“Haii!” She did not have the extra reach of a palo, so she had to lean half out of the saddle to whip the animal across the rump. It leapt nimbly to rejoin the herd. Fion gave her a thumbs-up and Marghe smiled to herself. That sign had traveled to this world all the way from ancient Rome. Human cultures kept the oddest gestures.

Many too, were lost: in the minimal gravity of space communities, people did not nod or shake their heads; it caused inner ear disturbances.

She wondered if she would ever see any of those communities again. Don’t think of the future , she told herself, stay in the here and now .

In the far distance a woman sat on a horse, watching. Uaithne. After a while, the rider wheeled away. Marghe was glad. Uaithne’s constant scrutiny was unnerving; she did not understand it. She went back to her report.

“The yurtu and their occupants form economic and social units, each laying claim to, and having use of, a variable number of taars and horses. As the Echraidhe subsist on these animals, such divisions of property are vital. They are kept and tended in a communal herd; I am not yet sure at what point individuals or families take responsibility.” Or whether the women watching the herds day and night guarded them from more than just her escape attempts.

They drove the taars back into camp in the late afternoon. They passed a young woman heading out, empty sacks flapping behind her saddle: dung-collection detail.

Fion helped Marghe pen the animals. Children waited to groom their mounts.

Finally Marghe edged sideways into the yurti with the saddle. Aoife was squatting on the floor, feeding the cookfire, one chip at a time. She looked up and nodded. Borri stood near the entrance, filling her medicine belt with pouches and bundles of herbs.

She smiled briefly at Marghe, and the deep frown line above her nose disappeared and reappeared.

“It’s little Kaitlin this time.” She tucked her single braid down under her overfur and pulled up the hood. “Don’t save food.”

Marghe laced the flap after her, for the warmth. The fire would give enough light.

“Kaitlin?” she asked over her shoulder. It was a kinship question, one of the few Aoife would answer.

“Mairu’s youngest. Licha’s soestre.”

Marghe nodded. Soestre: those children, two or sometimes—rarely—more, born at the same time to different mothers who shared the same yurti—though not all children born this way were named soestre. The concept held a special significance which she had not yet been able to unravel. Marghe wondered if it was linked to the fact that the tribe celebrated the anniversaries of their childrens’ conception, not birth. Some yurtu were organized around two or more soestre and their tent sisters, who might or might not be biologically related. Borri and Aoife were tent sisters but not soestre, nor, as far as Marghe could tell, otherwise related.

By the light of the fire she checked the saddle over for wear. Scooping a gobbet of grease from the jar by the hearth, she began to rub it into the leather. Aoife had some water bubbling and was dribbling it over shavings of dap into a clay bowl. One braid hung down her back, the other dangled in front of her, almost dipping into the bowl; the firelight picked out strands of silver, staining them to red gold. Her eyes were soft with concentration. While the drink steeped, she ground coarse grain into meal, her movements graceful and precise. When the dap was ready, she strained it through a cloth into two smaller, wooden bowls.

Aoife dropped a handful of meal into her bowl and stirred it with a finger. To that, she added a scoop of taar butter, then mixed the mess until it formed a doughy, greasy ball the size of her fist. She tweaked off a piece and chewed it.

Marghe set the saddle aside and wiped her hands down her thighs before reaching for the tea. She preferred to drink half her dap down, enjoying the earthy, fragrant warmth, before adding the grain and fat she needed to survive here in winter. She longed for fresh fruit, or vegetables.