I watched them out of sight and then my only thought was to get to the cave, enter spirit-world and hold Hare. There were a few last minute gifts to get tidied away first. They were the things that people had found that they couldn’t take with them after all and didn’t want to be wasted or lost. It might rain or worse so I had to get them safely stored away. Sinotsu’s shelter came in useful for that. I wished him well in my mind though I had misgivings about his age, he might be too young for such a big responsibility.
When my boots were on and I’d collected up my pipe and spirit mixture to smoke I remembered the promise I’d made to Mother to never leave my shelter without a pack of weatherproof clothing. The pack bulged when all was in but I decided that the protection of the spirits was important too and put in the obsidian mammoth and the black claw from the northern bear. I smoored the fire, there would be no cooking today.
Hurrying to get to the cave didn’t prevent my being slowed by intruding thoughts of what might happen to my family and the whole group. They would be in our territory certainly today and tonight, probably tomorrow as well because they couldn’t travel as fast as the hunters would normally go. After that was unknown. The hunters could protect them from any animals, though rhinoceros were always unpredictable. But I think we all thought the greatest danger came from other people.
In the cave the amount of things that people had left surprised me. There was no food of course. Nobody had gone in deeper to the Enchanters’ passages and I was not surprised, it was frightening to be so deep in Earth Mother’s territory. My preparations went badly, I fumbled lighting my pipe and it seemed to take a long time to enter spirit-world, because I was upset I suppose.
Hare was waiting for me and jumped onto my lap. As I stroked that soft white fur tension slowly eased and I said
"Shall I call you ’he’? ’It’ sounds almost rude."
"Whatever suits you best. You know it doesn’t mean anything to me."
"No, it doesn’t. I shall then."
He stood up a little and put his front paws on my shoulder and I put my arms round him. The side of his face rested against my cheek. In silence he comforted me.
There was no need to speak of the dread I felt for the group as they migrated south.
"I thought Mammoth might be here, it doesn’t matter there’s no urgency. Do you think he would be willing to carry me south, before I’m too heavily pregnant and the winter sets in? I would like to check for myself that they are alright and to see what spirits they have found to help them."
"I’ll come with you of course. Mammoth will be glad of any excuse for a trip."
There was more to be done that day so after we’d enjoyed a few minutes comfortable silence I returned to the world. Though it was still summer I felt cold right through me and stamped my feet to get them warm. With boots on and my emergency pack strapped to my back I left the cave and started climbing up to Vezeru.
There was the expected cold wind when I got up there, but I danced round Vezeru’s shrine as homage and that warmed me up. I had come up to see how Ikaseraz was progressing.
The ravens had done better than I had expected at taking him to spirit-world. Perhaps foxes had helped. His bones were disarticulated already. Though I had thought that his skull and thigh bones would need to be buried for some time to clean them, they looked ready for preparing without having to go through that stage. I collected them respectfully, whispering to his spirit. He knew the process of course and would have been expecting me. Then I hurried back to get out of the wind.
At the cave I buried his bones temporarily, near his raven painting. They would be safe there until I had the necessary leather bag prepared.
I could start work on it as soon as I got back to my shelter. A snack that involved no work would do for today. There was plenty of leather. I had had good stocks myself and many people had given me some of theirs. Most still had the fur on, but I found a good large piece without that I could make a bag from. It wouldn’t need seams. I hated waterproofing seams and always doubted that it would hold. The decoration came first while the leather was flat and easier to work. By this time I could easily draw a female eider, but the scratching and stippling away at the surface to make the dyes take was a lot of work, and I finally fell asleep with exhaustion.
Waking the next morning to silence, instead of the usual sounds of the camp, was shocking and dismal. Hare quickly spoke in my mind to comfort me. It was cold and I roused the fire and got a hot drink going. There was the baby to think about now so I knew I must start eating properly and got a good meal of meat and roots going in the cooking bag. Honey and dried fruit made a welcome breakfast before starting on the painting of Ikaseraz’s bag. It was work that needed concentration because the right words had to be said at each stage. This bag had to be very different from a cooking bag, although of the same style, and the correct wording made that so.
The colours went on readily enough which meant that I had done enough preparation. This was a spirit eider so not all the colouring was realistic, I was determined to get some of Ikaseraz’s shellfish purple into it. The correct words came easily despite part of my mind working on getting the colours right.
By the middle of the day the eider was finished. It was warmest then so I went to check my traps while the painting dried. There were several fishes in the river traps and I prepared them and set them to dry before going back to the eider bag.
I set the leather painting facing downwards on a clean piece of woven fabric, just in case the dyes had not quite taken yet, and set to making evenly spaced holes around the edges with a very sharp awl to pass the needle through. No needle I had would sew through leather. When I had made a double row of holes, I laid a long and strong leather thong between the rows, doubled over the edge and sewed through the holes with twine. I then pulled the thong up tight as a drawstring and had finished Ikaseraz’s eider bag.
It was still daylight so I filled the bag with water and hung it from the spit over the fire. The water would be heating up while I went along to the cave to retrieve Ikaseraz’s bones. When I got back I added some salt to the water. It was ready then for the sacred herbs. The brank ursine was sometimes used in healing but the germander was never used for anything except to bring the strength of the dead person’s spirit into the skull and thigh bones. It was most important to get the next part right so I rehearsed the incantation in my mind and then went through it with Hare so he could correct me if I started to make a mistake. Then it just had to be done. I grasped the right thigh bone, intoned carefully and thrust it into the eider bag. It went well and gave me confidence. When the left thigh was in as well I prepared myself for the climax of the ritual. Both Hare and I felt it to be a very sacred moment as I sank Ikaseraz’s skull into the hot water. The longest song of all came there at the end and that went well too, I was word perfect. That could have been the end of the ceremony but I felt it necessary to play the closing song on my harp, which had been part of our lives together.
The contents of the eider bag would be simmering all night. There would be no sleep that night as I had to guard it constantly with words to avert evil. The sky was clear of clouds for an hour or two during the night and I called for the blessing of the stars. Hare called down the moon’s blessing on our work and we felt it a good sign that they had appeared to us, if only briefly.
Next morning I took the clean white bones from the bag and arranged them on a piece of rhinoceros skin. The thick coarse fur would help them to dry. Then I went to the cave again carrying the eider bag full of sacred water. It was hard to get down the narrow enchanters’ passageway without getting the bag stuck or spilling any of its contents, and I was glad that my pregnancy was not yet making it even harder. I got to the carving of the eider without spilling any and after touching some of the liquid to my forehead, hands and feet I poured it to the ground below the eider thanking Earth Mother for the time that Ikaseraz had spent in the world.
On the way out I touched Hare’s carving. He understood that I couldn’t go through to be with him today. Back at my shelter I found that the long bones were dry but the skull was not perfectly so. An old piece of lemming fur took most of the wet off, but it had to be completely dry for the glue to work, so I put it outside the door in the sunshine. I turned the eider bag inside out and put it beside the skull.
Everything was prepared for the next stage so I brewed up a leaf infusion and took it outside, with a chunk of honeycomb to eat and rested in the sun for a while.
The skull felt dry before the bag, I could have rested for longer but wanted to get on with it. With the skull resting on the old piece of leather that was my work surface I put one of the prepared pieces of white quartz up through the base of the skull and held it with my left hand in one of the eye sockets. With my right hand I could then make small marks on the quartz, with a pointed piece of charcoal, to mark the area that would show through the eye socket. Carefully taking out the quartz I then used my boar bristle brush to put the glue around the outside of the marked area, put the quartz piece back inside, made sure it was properly aligned, laid the skull face down on the work surface and put a stone as weight to hold the quartz in place until the glue set.
That was all I could do for that day, it would be the next day before the glue was dry. I was hungry anyway and ate my evening meal quickly. The meat and roots were good but I wanted more. There was plenty of dried fruit, as well as the freshly gathered, so I ate both until I felt less empty. It amused me that that tired old phrase ’eating for two’ turned out to be true.
The following day the glue was set and the quartz, even at that stage, looked quite like an eye. I did the other eye in the same way and left that to set. In preparation for the next part I took down the plaits that were pinned up on my head as usual and cut them off with my sharpest knife. I had hoped that the plaiting would stay in and I could just tie up the cut ends but that didn’t work. They unravelled before I could catch them and I had a lot of work to re-plait them. You would think it would be easier to do with the hair in front of you where you can see it, but it isn’t. I suppose it’s the years of practice doing it on your head that make that much the easier of the two. A lifetime’s growth of hair is heavy and my head felt ridiculously light, cold too so I put on my lemming fur hood. I realised how much I had depended on my hair to keep me warm. The hood would not be enough in the winter.
A design for a head warmer started to take shape in my mind. The shape of my lemming hood was a good one so I would copy that. I would need two layers of tightly woven goats’ wool cloth which I could sew together with the down from eiders between them. There was plenty of goat wool thread, already spun, in my stores but my loom was only narrow. I needed Mother’s wider one. It was too heavy to carry over here, so I would need to light a fire in my parents’ shelter. The taboo against touching anyone else’s fire stopped me for a while, but after a while I could see Mother smiling and telling me to re-light her fire because she wanted me to be warm. Of course she did.
I took my own fuel over to their shelter because if they came back unexpectedly they would need the stock they had there. The loom was against the wall so I pulled it out to see what thread it had set up as warp. It would have been very lucky if it was already goats’ wool and of course it wasn’t. It was a very coarse flax thread which wouldn’t do at all. Resetting it with my wool took a long time because it was a big loom with many weights. But I would be glad of the width of the cloth when it was done and the fine gauge. I enjoyed the work, feeling a strong connection with Mother as I handled her antler shuttle and beating down comb.
At first I sang her songs aloud and imagined her joining in. But later I fell silent as I followed them all south in my thoughts. It was hard to imagine how they would be getting along. They would surely come to forest eventually, but fir trees or beech and oak? There would be boar to hunt, lovely meat and useful tusks, but dangerous. Had anyone been injured? Sinotsu knew all about what to do with wounds. What spirits lived among the trees? There are high mountains to the south-west which was the direction they started in. I would have gone that way too, the sunset feels warmer than the sunrise. Would they be able to get around the mountains or have to go over them. Where mountains came down to the sea, the sea traders went around in boats. Going on the sea in boats seemed very dangerous to me, but was it less so than going up into those mountains? There were a lot of unknowns and I felt so ignorant.
It was a good piece of cloth though when it was finished at last. I put the loom back, doused the fire and went home to eat.
After eating I brought in the eider bag, which was nearly dry by then, and put it to finish drying by the fire. Just before sleeping I carefully place the bag, with the eider facing upwards, where Ikaseraz’s pillow used to be.
The next day would see the work on the bones finished. The glue was set firm and I could start on the painting which I was looking forward to. Eyes first then I would feel that he was here with me. In spite of the hours that I had previously spent trying to get the two pieces of quartz smooth, there were still some uneven parts which made getting perfectly circular black pupils and then dark brown irises around them very hard. I had to use my finest brush and even then there was much reworking to do. It was all worthwhile. After the last touching up I stood back and there was Ikaseraz looking into my eyes.
The hair was comparatively easy. The thicker braids that I had plaited up from my cut off hair were arranged on the top of the skull, and the thin braids with small shells and coloured cords incorporated attached to the lower jaw. A little glue fixed all the plaits when I was satisfied that they looked right. He looked young with dark hair and though I had never seen him like that I thought he would be pleased.
Painting his beautiful indigo face tattoo was the last touch. Or I had thought it was until I pulled up a detailed picture of it in my mind. Then I saw that there was a lower curl of it where he had cheek but no cheekbone, so I had to build up the skull with white clay. While doing it I thought that it could not look right without that grand nose that Ikaseraz had and I modelled that too. Even Ikaseraz hadn’t had the fine big nose that my ice giant had though. I set it to dry by the fire though not too close or the bone would scorch. Only at the last moment had I remembered to add that grey lichen, which the reindeer like to eat, to prevent the clay cracking.
That would take a while to set hard, and even then it would need glazing with a mixture of egg white, juniper resin and flax oil to make a painting surface. I would not finish it that day after all.
For the rest of the day we went round checking that everything was prepared for winter. Hare seemed to think he was responsible for all three of us, and I enjoyed being told what to do, it was like being a child again. There was more than enough food even for the harshest of winters with what everybody had given me. And I thought that even well on into pregnancy I would be able to empty the fish traps. Obviously no jumping into the river though. In case of deep snow and blizzards, I built a cold store near my shelter. The ones on the tundra could become inaccessible.
With everything done in camp I went to the cave to check on all the things people had left there in storage. I didn’t think a bear could get in through the low entrance but rodents can do as much damage. A last moment decision had made me bring spare clothing, lamps and oil, and a supply of smoking mixture, so that I wouldn’t have to carry them to the cave when entering spirit-world. Once the baby was born I wouldn’t be able to go into that world. I couldn’t leave the baby unprotected in this world.
Ikaseraz’s skull really was finished the next day. Painting with the indigo blue was a great pleasure. I marked the pattern out in charcoal first and when I filled in with indigo the charcoal merged into the edges giving an unexpected but I thought very attractive effect. The pattern might be wholly abstract. I had never thought to ask. Next time I met Ikaseraz in spirit-world I would have to ask him if it symbolised something. He might be offended, he treated me as another enchanter now not as his apprentice.
The thigh bones were quickly painted. It was a traditional pattern and done in basic ochre colours.
I could really see Ikaseraz when it was finished, and I had arranged the skull on a base of the thigh bones on the eider bag facing my sleeping-place. When I woke in the mornings he would be there looking at me.
I should have left Mother’s loom out. With concentrating on the work for setting up Ikaseraz’s shrine, it had gone out of my head that I had got to make the baby’s clothes. And some more nappies too. There were some old ones in Mother’s shelter but they looked very worn and some more would be needed.
I’d left it set up with the soft goats’ wool so started with a baby-sized down suit with hood. I wove it in separate parts so that I could put in inserts as the baby grew. It was tricky to get the pieces so that they would line up when the down was inside, but I just turned in any bits that were too big and sewed them down. There was a flap at the back so that I could get in for nappy changing. Once I’d stuffed it with eider down and sewed up the stuffing seams there was the underwear finished. Outerwear was skins with the fur on which was hard work. The jacket and trousers I made from back-to-back skins so there was fur inside and out, reindeer fur of course to be hardwearing as well as warm. The trousers had feet on them because boots would not be needed yet. Someone had given me some lovely felt which they had dyed a rich red colour so I made a summerweight jacket and trousers from that. The baby would be born in Spring and the Summer just might be warm. With those made and stored away the only thing left to make was a carrying-sling. There were two in Mother’s stores I knew but I wanted the new baby to have a new sling and I had already decided that it would be made from Ikaseraz’s sleeping furs. He would like that I thought.
It took a long time to make, with a lot of holes to be punched through leather to sew through and attach the straps to it. Everything had to be double sewn for safety. Anything carrying a baby had to be as strong as possible. But finally I had everything finished and Hare and I spent some quiet moments by the fire.
It was he who brought up the proposed trip south. I asked
"Has Mammoth been asked if he’s willing?"
"Willing? He can hardly wait. He’s been seen hopping from one foot to another with impatience, then stopping and trying to look dignified."
We laughed but I was sorry to have kept him waiting.
"It’s alright" Hare said "he understood that you had to get your preparations done and even more important the ancestral shrine to Ikaseraz. He had no relations and depended on you for that."
There could be no excuse for keeping Mammoth waiting any longer so the next day I went to the cave and smoked to get my spirit through the rock face.
Mammoth trumpeted a greeting when he saw me and I shouted my pleasure to him. We ran to each other and he wrapped his trunk round my waist. But he was only the leader of quite a large gathering which it soon turned out were all coming on the expedition. I picked up Hare for a quick cuddle before having to greet everybody else. Sinotsu’s crane was there which I was very glad to see. We couldn’t have a better guide to where the group had reached. He was the only crane there so I asked him if it was alright to call him ’Crane’.
"Of course it is. Whatever else would you call me? And it’s ’she’. "
I hadn’t intended to offend her and had somehow thought she might show me the respect expected from an apprentice.
Turning to greet the others I saw Owl and Eagle and hurried over to them, it felt as though they were old friends.
"Salmon and Toad are torpid at the moment or they would have come too." said Owl. Eagle added
"We haven’t seen Stag or Blackbird for a while and don’t know where they are."
"Starling’s here though." Owl said as he flew up.
"Yes, yes, I’m here and you can call me Starling, and have you got everything and are we ready to go now?"
"Not until I’ve introduced Kizkur and Leopard." Owl flew over to a most beautiful Snow Leopard, I could only gaze and quite forgot my manners. It was definitely a ’she’, with longer fur than any I had ever seen, markings that made me feel weak in the midriff and gorgeous blue eyes. Owl covered for my rudeness by distracting her attention with a long and formal introduction.
"You may call me Leopard." she said. "We will be friends."
"I am very pleased to meet you, Leopard, and glad that we will be friends." She gave me a strange quick look, like a half smile.
That was all of us gathered and introduced and we prepared to start out. I was still holding Hare so Mammoth picked us both up with his trunk and put us behind his head. Crane flew up and stood behind us.
"Are you not flying with the other birds then?"
"I am not other birds."
I supposed I would get used to her and grabbed Mammoth’s fur with two hands because I could feel that he was about to move off.
After we had travelled quite a good distance Crane suddenly flew up and was soon lost to sight ahead. The draught of her wings had ruffled Hare’s fur and my loose bits of hair so I smoothed us down again. We kept moving on until Crane came back.
"All move somewhat to your right. We’re going too far East. Not that far Mammoth, follow me." She flew off and Hare and I were rather relieved.
Perhaps we slept because the next thing I knew we were in woodland. It was oak mainly - the trees seemed very large to me - though there were a few elm and birch. One kind I had never seen before and I asked Owl when we caught up with her. She said it was called poplar. The leaves were the new bright Spring green and all the woodland flowers were out, even bluebells which I know flower later, it looked unreally beautiful.
"Haven’t you got used to spirit-world yet?" Hare murmured in my head. Of course, it was not necessarily Autumn here. The scent of it was so intense I nearly hallucinated.
We stopped for a rest much to Crane’s displeasure. She just wanted to get out of the trees again and plainly saw herself as expedition leader. With her flapping about and tutting the others of us cut our rest short. Even so Owl had to be woken up. She’d fallen asleep on a branch, leaning against the tree’s trunk. Crane had insisted it be daylight so she could see where we were going. Sensible enough though I didn’t want to think so. With a shake of her feathers and a quick preen Owl was ready and we set off again.
It must have been a good while later because I was feeling tired and Mammoth was rumbling encouragement to me when Owl and Eagle flew off fast along our line of progress. Crane immediately took off after them though she seemed to be having trouble flying amongst trees. We kept going in a straight line though I think we were all anxious with no birds to guide us. Mammoth seemed the calmest but I could see Leopard’s tail twitching sideways at intervals. We were all pleased when we saw Owl returning. She landed on Mammoth’s head and told us all that she and Eagle had found Stag and Blackbird in the wood and that they would be with us soon. Crane and Eagle were taking a ride on Stag’s back. And poor Stag finally arrived covered in birds, Blackbird was perched on one of his antlers as usual. Sunlight shining through the leaf canopy hit the white crescent on his breast and he seemed to be moving deliberately so that it would dazzle me. When he saw that he had my attention he flew over and startled me by landing on my head.
"What?" he asked. But he left me no time for a reply in the unlikely event of my thinking of one, and flew down to Mammoth’s head, pointed his beak at my middle and said
"When?"
"In the Spring." I said.
He nodded firmly and flew back to Stag’s antler. Hare and Mammoth were amazed and said together
"You understood him?"
"I think he asked when I am due to give birth. I assumed that."
"But you don’t look pregnant."
"No. But he is very old. The Ancients must have learned so much that we will probably never know."
While we had been talking Crane had got everybody organised. It seemed that Stag and Blackbird were coming with us and that Stag had said that the end of the woodland was not far away. He had seen our group pass through not long ago.
"Why does nobody listen to me?" said Crane. "I told you that. I told you Sinotsu was beyond the end of this wood."
It was true she had. But I, for one, hadn’t taken any notice. I resolved to do better, half knowing that I probably wouldn’t. Blackbird was still looking at me as we set off again and I really saw him for the first time. It wasn’t the sunshine this time, his beak was glowing golden above his shining silver crescent, and rainbow colours reflected off his black feathers. In that moment of his shining at me, his prophecy fell into place. It ended ’boy’, so he must mean that my baby was a boy. The tooth must be the mammoth’s tooth that my ice giant had given me, and I had left it as an offering at the river source. Perhaps understanding showed on my face because Blackbird flew over to me and then into a rising spiral over my head. Hare and I laughed together as he returned to Stag. I saw Stag give Mammoth a look, some acknowledgement passed between them.
So, my baby would be a boy. And it could only mean that he would have something to do with the ice retreating.