Poul Anderson - The Corridors of Time

The fishermen relaxed still more. If these were a goddess and her attendant wandering incognito, at least they proposed to act like ordinary human beings. And their stories would enliven many an evening; envious visitors would come from miles around, to hear and see and bring home the importance of Avildaro; their presence might influence the Yuthoaz, whose scouts had lately been observed, to keep away. The group entered the village with much boisterous talk and merriment.

Auri, whose name meant Flower Feather, had said: “Do you truly wish to see the fowl marshes? I could be your guide.”

Lockridge had rubbed his chin, where the bristles were now a short beard, and glanced at Echegon. He expected anything from shocked disapproval to an indulgent chuckle. Instead, the headman fairly leaped at the chance, almost pathetically eager to send his daughter on a picnic with his guest. Lockridge wasn’t sure why.

Storm refused an invitation to join them, to Auri’s evident relief. The girl was more than a little frightened of the dark woman who held herself so aloof and spent so much time alone in the forest. Storm admitted to Lockridge that this was as much to confirm her own mana in the eyes of the tribe as for any other reason; but she seemed to have withdrawn from him too, he hadn’t seen a lot of her during the week and a half they had dwelt in Avildaro. Though he was too fascinated by what he experienced to feel deeply hurt, it had nonetheless reminded him what a gulf there was between them.

Now, as the sun declined, he dug in his paddle and sent the canoe homeward.

This was not one of the big skin coracles which went outside the Limfjord. He had already been on a seal hunt in one of those, a breakneck, bloody affair with a crew that whooped and sang and made horseplay amidst the long grey waves. Awkward with a bone-tipped harpoon, he got back respect when they hoisted the felt sail; steersmanship was not hard for one who had used the much trickier fore-and-aft rig of a twentieth-century racer. His canoe today was merely a light dugout with wicker bulwarks, calling for no more care than a green branch tied at the bow to keep the gods of the wet under control.

Still, reedy, but aswarm with ducks, geese, swans, storks, herons, the marsh fell behind. Lockridge paralleled the southern bayshore, which sloped in a greenness turned gold by the long light. On his left, the water shimmered to the horizon, disturbed only by a few circling gulls and the occasional leap of a fish. So quiet was the air that those remote sounds came almost as clear as the swirl and drip from his paddle. He caught a mingled smell of earth and salt, forest and kelp. The sky arched cloudless, deeply blue, darkening toward evening above Auri’s head where she sat in the bows.

Whoof! Lockridge thought. A nice day, but am I glad to be out of those mosquitoes! They didn’t bother her any . . . well, I reckon these natives are bitten so often they develop immunity.

His itches weren’t too bad, though, not even the unsatisfiable itch for a cigarette; and what he felt was compensated for by the sense of water turned alive by his strokes and the rubbery resurgence in his muscles. Also, of course, by having a pretty girl along.

“Did you find pleasure in the day?” she asked shyly.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Thanks so much for taking me.”

She looked astonished, and he recalled that the Tenil Orugaray, like the Navajo, spoke thanks only for very great favours. Everyday helpfulness was taken for granted. The diaglossa made him fluent in their language but didn’t override long-established habits.

Colour stained her face and throat and bare young bosom. She dropped her eyes and murmured, “No, I must thank you.”

He considered her. They didn’t keep track of birthdays here, but Auri was so slim, with such an endearing coltishness in her movements, that he supposed she was about fifteen. At that, he wondered why she was still a virgin. Other girls, wedded or not, enjoyed even younger a Sarnoan sort of liberty.

Naturally, he wouldn’t dream of jeopardising his position here by getting forward with the sole surviving female child in his host’s house. More important yet was honour—and inhibition, no doubt. He’d already refused the advances of some he felt were too young; they had plenty of older sisters. Auri’s innocence came to him like a breeze from the hawthorns flowering behind her home.

He must admit being a wee bit tempted. She was cute: immense blue eyes, freckle-dusted snub nose, soft mouth, the unbound hair of a maiden flowing in flaxen waves from under a garland of primroses and down her back. And she hung around him in the village to a downright embarrassing extent. However.

“You have nothing to thank me for, Auri,” Lockridge said. “You and yours have shown me more kindness than I deserve.”

“No, but much!” she protested. “You bless me.”

“How so? I have done nothing.”

Her fingers twisted together and she looked into her lap. It was so difficult for her to explain that he wished he hadn’t asked, but he couldn’t think of a way to stop her.

The story was simple. Among the Tenil Orugaray a maiden was sacred, inviolable. But when she herself felt the time had come, she named a man to initiate her at the spring sowing festival, a tender and awesome rite. Auri’s chosen had drowned at sea a few days before their moment. Clearly the Powers were angry, and the Wise Woman decided that, in addition to being purified, she must remain alone until the curse was somehow removed. That was more than a year ago.

It was a serious matter for her father (or, at least, the head of her household; paternity was anyone’s guess in this culture)—and, he being headman, for the tribe. While no women who were not grandmothers sat in council, the sexes had essentially equal rights, and descent was matrilineal. If Auri died childless, what became of the inheritance? As for herself, she was not precisely shunned, but there had been a bitter year of being left out of almost everything.

When the strangers came, bearing unheard-of marvels and bestowing some as gifts, that appeared to be a sign. The Wise Woman cast beech chips in the darkness of her hut and told Echegon that this was indeed so. Great and unknown Powers indwelt in The Storm and her (Her?) attendant Malcolm. By favouring Echegon’s house, they drew off evil. Today, when Malcolm himself had not scorned to go out on the ever-treacherous water with Auri—

“You could not stay?” she pleaded. “If you honoured me next spring, I would be . . . more than a woman. The curse would change to a blessing upon me.”

His cheeks burned. “I’m sorry,” he said, as kindly as might be. “We cannot wait, but must be gone with the first ship.”

She bent her head and caught her lip between white teeth.

“But I shall certainly see that the ban is removed,” he promised. “Tomorrow I will confer with the Wise Woman. Between us, she and I can doubtless find a way.”

Auri wiped away some tears and gave him an uncertain smile. “Thank you. I still wish you could remain—or come back in spring? But if you give me my life again—” She gulped. “There are no words to thank you for that.”

How cheaply one became a god.

Trying to put her at ease, he turned the talk to matters that were commonplace for her. She was so surprised that he should ask about potterymaking, which was woman’s work, that she quite forgot her troubles, especially since she was reckoned good at fashioning the handsome ware he had admired. It led her to remember the amber harvest: “When we go out after a storm,” she said breathlessly, eyes alight, “the whole people, out on the dunes to gather what has washed ashore . . . oh, then is a merry time, and the fish and oysters we bake! Why do you not raise a storm while you are here, Malcolm, so you may have the fun too? I will show you a place I know where the gulls come to your hand for food, and we will swim in the breakers after floating chunks, and, and everything!”