Eleanor Arnason - A Woman of the Iron People

“I will stay here for another day or so. Then I plan to go north and visit Tanajin.”

“After that?” I asked.

She made the gesture of uncertainty, stood up and hugged me. A tight hard hug that left me breathless.

“Come to our village,” I said.

She made the gesture that meant “maybe.”

“Go,” said Angai.

The oracle started off. Ivanova and I followed.

When we reached the children again, they were playing with a ball. So much for the game of hairlessness.

I said, “We’re leaving in the morning. Close to dawn, I think. Come down then if you want to see our boats.”

“We will,” one of the children said.

We walked to the edge of the bluff. Ivanova stopped and looked back at the village and the plain.

“Come on,” the oracle said.

“The oracle is impatient,” I said.

“I want to remember this.”

She stood for another minute or two. The oracle fidgeted. I waved him on. Finally she looked at me. “I have not been especially clever in the last year. But I am not stupid. I have a good idea of what is going to happen to Mesrop and me.”

She went down the bluff, following the oracle.

They would be tried for crimes against democracy and for endangering the lives of the people they had frozen. Maybe for murder. We had no provision for rehabilitation and no place to send people who had committed serious crimes. The only thing we could do was freeze them until we returned to Earth or until our colony had evolved far enough to have a really advanced psychotherapeutic facility or a prison.

This might be the last time that Ivanova saw a native village or a landscape like this one. I took another look at the windy plain and the children chasing their ball. Then I followed Ivanova down the bluff.

The hairless people left in the morning. The people of the village began packing in the afternoon. Nia helped Angai, but only with the things in the front room of the tent. The back room was the place where Angai kept her magic. Everything there was hidden by a curtain of red cloth embroidered with animals and spirits. The curtain went across the tent from top to bottom and side to side. Nothing came through it except the aroma of dry herbs and the feeling of magic. The feeling made Nia’s skin itch and prickle.

She stayed as far from the curtain as possible, kneeling by the front door in the afternoon sunlight, folding clothing, and putting it in a chest made of leather.

On the other side of the room Hua knelt. She was right next to the curtain, below a picture of a spirit: an old man, naked, with his sexual member clearly visible. His back was hunched, and he leaned on a cane. The Dark One, thought Nia, in one of her many disguises.

Hua had laid out tools and was counting them before she packed them: knives of many sizes, needles, spoons made of polished wood and horn.

Angai was behind the curtain, packing up whatever she kept there, objects that Nia did not want to see.

“How can you bear to stay here?” Nia asked.

Hua looked up and made the gesture of inquiry.

“By the curtain. In this tent.”

Hua repeated the gesture of inquiry.

“Nia has never liked magic,” Angai said.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Hua said.

“A good thing,” said Nia. “If you are going to be the next shamaness.”

“Of course I am,” said Hua. “Who else is there?” She was counting combs now. She laid them out, big ones and little ones, made of wood and horn and metal.

Nia realized her entire skin was itching. The feeling was especially bad between her shoulder blades and along her spine. “Keep some of those out. It’s a long time since I’ve had a grooming done the proper way—by a friend or a female relative.”

“All right,” said Hua. She put two of the combs aside: one of ordinary size and a big one with wide gaps between the teeth.

Nia made a satisfied noise. “It will be something to remember when I am out on the plain.”

“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked Hua. Her voice sounded sharp and high.

“No.”

“Why not? Has someone been giving you trouble? You aren’t worried about Anhar, are you? Hasn’t Angai told you that you can stay?”

Nia laid a tunic on the floor. It had long sleeves. She folded them in over the body of the tunic, smoothing the fabric. It was fine and soft, a gift from people living in the distant south.

“When I lived in the Iron Hills, I was with you and Anasu and Enshi. When I lived in the east, I was at the edge of the village, as far out as a man. I’m not used to being with a lot of people. I no longer know how to live in a village.”

“You never really knew,” said Angai through the curtain. “You always acted as if you were alone.”

Nia felt surprised. She made the gesture that asked “is that really true?” But Angai couldn’t see, of course.

Hua said, “My mother wants to know if you are certain.”

“Yes.” The curtain fluttered. Angai must have brushed against it. “I know you better than anyone, Nia. You are like a rock! You are like an arrow! You are what you are, and nothing can change you. You go where you go, and nothing can make you turn. You have never been an ordinary person.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Nia.

Hua said, “I wanted you to stay with us. I wanted to hear your stories.”

“I’m not going away forever. But I need time alone.”

Angai said, “This is the right decision. I’d like Nia to stay. But I’ve seen the way the people of the village look at her. She makes them uneasy. If she goes, they will settle down after a while. Then—I think—she will be able to come back. But if she stays now, they will get angry. Too much has happened. They have seen too much that is new. If she stays now, they will drive her off.”

Hua made the gesture of regret.

They kept working until the sky began to darken. Angai came out from behind the curtain. They ate dinner. Angai combed Nia’s fur. Aiya! It felt good! Especially when Angai combed the thick fur on her back. She leaned against the comb—the big one—and groaned with pleasure.

When that was done, they talked for a while. Nothing important was said. Angai described the trail that she wanted to follow going south and the place she wanted to spend the winter. Nia asked a question now and then. Hua listened in silence.

At last they went to sleep. Nia kept waking. The tent door was open. But there was little wind. The air in the tent was motionless and warm. She looked out the door. There were stars above the tents of her former neighbors. So many! So thick and bright!

They got up at dawn and began to load the wagon. Anasu brought the wagon-pullers in: six fine bowhorn geldings. They hitched them up. The sky was clear. The day was going to be hot. Nia could feel it.

Angai said, “I’d like you to go back out and get an animal for Nia. White Spot or Sturdy or Broken Horn, whichever you find.”

“Why does she need one?” asked Anasu. “I thought she was going to ride in the wagon.”

“She is leaving us,” Hua said.

“Why?”

“She wants to be alone.”

“Aiya! What a family I have!” He turned his bowhorn and rode away.

Nia asked, “Is he angry?”

“Maybe a little,” Hua said. “It has not been easy having you for a mother, even though Angai has protected us.”

Nia made the gesture of apology.

“It could have been worse,” Hua said. “We could have had Anhar for a mother. Or Ti-antai. A malicious woman. A woman who is a coward.”

“Is that what you think about Ti-antai?”

“Maybe she isn’t a coward,” Hua said. “Maybe she has a little mind. She never thinks about anything except her children and their children and the neighbors.”