Jim Crace - The Gift of Stones

Here were heads for hoes and mallets, scythes, with moulded holes and knobs to hold the wooden shaft. Here were blades with ribs, with spines, with knuckles where the swordsman put his thumb. And here were knives that matched the shape of chestnut leaves, the curve of carps’ tongues, the coolness of icicles. The merchants showed us axes that had wings, and helmets horned like rams, and beaten shields as round and gleaming as the sun, and knives with pommels engraved with claws or snakes or eyes. In rabbit skins were wrapped the finest works of bronze: necklaces and rings, pins and brooches, plates and harness bells.

The stoneys looked on in dismay. Their flint could not compete. It was too innocent and dull. They listened without comprehension while the passing traders told of how the bronze was mined and mixed and made. It took, they said, two hands of copper to each thumb of tin. And then you’d need some charcoal and a pit and some bellows with a mouth of clay. A fire was lit inside the pit. And when it cooled a metal plug was formed. That was the easy part. A child could tackle that. The craft was in the moulding and the beating of the bronze, the removal of the flashes and the casting jets, the details of design.

There was a question that they asked amongst themselves. The question was, Who found this out and why? Who first thought to mine for copper, tin, to measure it in hands and thumbs, to charge it in a pit with charcoal, to pour it in a mould? With what in mind? And why? It was quite clear how the first knappers got to work. You only need to throw a stone to see it break and view the sinews and the flesh within. An idle child with nothing else to do would soon find out that flint was sharp and hard. But bronze? It made no sense.

My father had some stories which would explain the mysteries of bronze. But the stoneys did not wish to hear. They knew their village was exposed. They were obsessed by that. The scripture — that they could not be touched because they had the gift of stones — had been proved false. They felt like carcasses while all around were gulls and rooks and wolves.

Have pity, then, on gulls and rooks and wolves. They’d not dine well. Our neighbours were as thin as Doe. Their carcasses were only skin and bone. The sockets of their eyes were large and rimmed from sleeplessness. Their skin was rough and dry, their noses damp. They lived on what was left from better days. They were too timorous to forage on the hillside or the shore. They couldn’t tell good food from weed. They’d drink salt water from the sea. They’d feed themselves with sand.

Of course, our merchants remained fat. They had reserves of food. They’d set aside some grain and meat to trade with in the early spring. So now they traded with themselves. A merchant who had dried fruit could make a friend of one with hams. But merchants are not merchants without fresh merchandise. It was not very long before some traders packed and left. There was no profit left in flint and they would have to start anew, elsewhere, before their riches were used up. They bartered for some horses and some sleds and, while we gathered round to watch, they packed all their possessions and set off towards the place where bronze was made. Their future was with bronze, they said. They only hoped that if the outside world was wild with horsemen and with war, their tongues and merchandise could purchase passage to a market which was as safe — and profitable — as ours had been. We did not wish them luck — or well. Not even when the final trader left. We did not doubt that they’d be wealthy once again. They’d pick up riches like a rabbit picks up ticks. That was their skill.

My father’s six cousins and his uncle were amongst the first to leave. His uncle did not say to father, ‘You are family. So is the girl. You both must come with us. I promised your dying mother years ago that I’d look after you.’ He simply disappeared at night.

When traders left, the stoneys squabbled over who should occupy their homes. The victors lived in grandeur without food and with no purpose to their lives. They maintained walls, of course. They observed the rigid courtesies of life. They made no noise at night. And there were some who still sat at their anvils working flint as if they thought that bronze, brought in by boat, would tire of us and go to sea again.

The wiser ones sat on the stones outside their homes to warm themselves in winter light. Why waste good wood on heating flint? They needed all the wood for night when, opened by their hunger to the cold, they could not sleep. They were not tired. Their muscles were unused. They had not spent the day silently engaged with stone. For once, low conversations filled the night. What if? What if? What if we stay here, will we live? What if we leave, what then?

And in the day what was there else to do but talk? The village seemed a shabby and a friendly place at last. People did not shut themselves inside. They strolled. They lingered. They paused for chat and gossip and for news. They took an interest in each other’s grieving, empty inside worlds and in the outside world as well. How could they not? The outside world was closing in like lichen on a stone. Unless the stone is busy, turning all day long, the lichen creeps and clothes and wraps. And so the hill, the forest and the sea wrapped us up too. The paths became unused, the pits fell in, the wind reorganized our lives. We lived like rabbits, sociable and bored and easy prey.

When horsemen came we hid. They did not come, of course, for arrowheads, or tools. They only came to ride between our homes and to shout obscenities and threats. They were our masters now. Some nights they used an empty merchant’s house for stables and for sleep. They drank, and were as rash and ragged as small boys. We feared the time when they would help themselves to women or to food. Was it in our lifetime or just a dream when stoneys had told such riders to dismount and leave their horses in the care of boys, when we could turn our backs on them and tell ourselves, ‘Anyone can ride a horse and shake a stick. Where is the skill in that?’

At last the truth was plain. My father broke his silence to pass his wisdom on. ‘So now you know,’ he said. ‘You can’t eat stone. You can’t burn stone. You can’t make clothes from flint. You’ll have to leave this village or you’ll die.’ His audience told him, ‘Hold your tongue.’ They preferred — we all preferred — the entertainment of his lies.

WE TOOK our leave in spring. There were old people there, too frail to walk. They chose to stay behind and take their chances in the village of their births. They would not be alone. There were the horsemen who passed through and might be grateful for some help with caring for their mounts or cooking food. A pair of sisters and their stoney men refused to leave as well. They’d spoken — or much more — with passing merchants. They thought that they’d survive by living off the trees. The merchants promised that they’d trade food for charcoal. The cost of charcoal was too high near where the bronze was made.

Leaf stopped behind as well. He hadn’t give up on flint. Through all the hunger and decay he’d stayed at work, producing blades. But now his box of tools had bronze amongst the antler tines and wood. He had no time to ponder on the irony of that. He only knew this fact — that bronze was tough and sharp. His spike of bronze when placed upon the fracture point of flint and hammered with some wood was better than a tine for separating tool from stone. He found he could make his perfect and unwanted flints more easily with bronze.

We left him there behind his draughtless walls, so focused on his anvil and his stone that our departure could force few farewells — and no tears — from him. He thought we were the foolish ones. He saw no sense in flight.