Читать книгу The Wanderers - Mary Johnston - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Vana lay awake at night pondering how to get riches for her children. Between the middle of the night and morning, not being able to sleep, she rose and stood in the doorway of her house of unburned brick. Mardurbo, the children’s father, had riches, but when he died, in a world where descent was counted from mother-side, his riches would go to his brother Kadoumin and other kindred. They would not go to his children because children did not take name nor inherit from fathers, but from mothers. That was order-of-nature, and accepted like the seasons, or sun at day and stars at night. When she, Vana, died, her possessions would go to the five children. Once they would have lapsed to her kindred in entirety—the five children, her sisters and brothers, the children of her sisters, and so on. But now old usage would give what she left chiefly to her nearest kin, and they were the children of her body. Her children would have her riches, such as they were, because over the earth, in her tribe and in all the tribes she had ever heard of, descent was reckoned from women. By the same token they would not have Mardurbo’s wealth.

It was all right as long as women had in the world the most wealth!—If she had much riches and Mardurbo little, she would not be standing here wrinkling her brow and not even seeing the round moon behind the juniper trees and the well and the cluster of sheep astray. It was right enough where there was equal wealth. But Mardurbo was much richer than Vana and growing richer all the time. All men, it seemed to Vana, were growing richer than women. Her lips parted. “They say that once-upon-a-time inside the house was richer than outside. …”

She stepped without her door upon the crooked, sun-baked street of the town that spread around. Many small houses of unburned brick, lanes and paths, knots of trees, rude, surrounding wall of stake and clay, the place lay still in the bright moonlight. She looked at her own house where she had left her children sleeping, and near them, sleeping too, her three bondwomen. Her house was not larger than another, but she thought with satisfaction of the goods that it contained. She had much household gear and garments and ornaments. In the moonlight she looked at the bracelets upon her arms. They were of silver, and her anklets were of silver. She was a most skilful weaver, and upon his next trading journey Mardurbo would take with him certain webs and bring to her in return earrings and frontlet of gold. She knew, better than any in the town, how to make rich patterns in her weaving, and she had taught her bondwomen. With her work she had bought those women from a trading band coming from the south, and now they worked for her and she sold the cloth they made and the finer stuff that she wove herself. She was richer than most women and the knowledge made her proud. And still Mardurbo was the richest. And when he died all that he had would go to his kindred, and his children would have naught of it.

The moon might have said to her: “It will be long before you die. You are young yet—you and Mardurbo.” That was true, but often persons died before they were old. Mardurbo went afar, trading in towns afar. Robber bands might attack his company—a rival trader might creep in and slay him—he might come to a tribe that believed in seizing goods and giving death in return—he might eat of poison, grow sick and die—as he crossed desert places a lion might spring! He would die and flock and herd and drove, sheep and ass, ox and horse, and all his bondmen, bronze and iron and silver, weapons and well-made garments and ornaments—all, all go to his kindred! She felt bitter toward that kindred, and bitter toward Mardurbo.

Especially she hated that Kadoumin should have Mardurbo’s wealth.

She stared at the moon above the juniper trees. It was like a silver shield. She wished that she had such a shield. She wished that she could weave silver and gold, and purchase many more bondwomen than three or seven or ten, and with them weave further in gold and silver and purchase more to weave more. One field she possessed, and she wished that she might make that one two and then set the two to breeding fields. She wished for sheep and oxen and wagons, asses and swift horses—wished to trade afar like Mardurbo and make quick increase. She had in her an able trader—a trader like Mardurbo. Vana drew a sharp breath. Win increase for the name of riches and for the children—for the children—for the children! So they would be great and proud in the tribe. “O my children!” she said; “Kadoumin who is already rich will reap, though he has not sowed, while the children of Mardurbo walk without the field. O my children! the field that I sow for you is not so great—no, not by many measures!”

She stood in the doorway until the moon rose high, then within the house threw herself down upon her bed of dressed skins and strove to sleep. But it was become an obsession—that thought of riches. She could not sleep. The bondwomen breathed deep in the inner room. A ray of moonlight entering struck upon the looms where they and Vana worked. Mardurbo was away—Mardurbo was journeying toward a town that would trade metals for horses such as Mardurbo bred, and for weapons that the men of his tribe made and webs that the women wove. Vana saw Mardurbo journeying. Ordinarily her feeling for him was a curious one, half fond, half estranged. She divined that he had for her a like feeling. At times they were as close as hand and hand, allied as two strings of Saba’s harp. The very next day might fall a misliking, dark and cold as iron in winter. Coming thus, sometimes it worked with one emotion, sometimes with another.

The moon paled, the pink dawn came, the trees rustled in the morning breeze. The town awoke. Without the wall shepherds and herdsmen moved with their charges far upon the plain. The light strengthened, cocks crowed, dogs barked, there arose spirals of smoke, voices conversed and called and sang. The morning meal was toward. Women and men renewed their work. Tones of children and pattering feet of children made a song of spring.

Without the wall spread fields of wheat and barley, of millet and of flax. Women and men went to the fields. Outside, too, slid a slow, murmuring brook. Women washed here, and on the banks in the sun women bleached webs that women wove. And near by, in a shady place, they had vats where they dyed their webs. Without the wall was the clayey place where bricks were made and dried and here also was a rude rope-walk. Men and women made brick, and cords and rope, though more men than women. But within the wall women moved in the greatest number and here the industries were chiefly theirs. And again, where men worked, without wall or within wall, they were, with some exceptions, the slower, the gentler, the older, the less strong of body among men. These, and bondmen, of whom there were many. Gone from the town were trading bands, and a war-band raiding the tents of trespassers, and a hunting band. At home, however, stayed Dardin the magic-man and his sons, and Saba the harp-player, and Kadoumin the wily, and others. But all the women stayed in the town or in the fields just without—the strong and the young women with the old and the weak, the skilled with the dull, the adventurous with the sluggish, those without children with those who had children, branching natures with sheathed natures, travelling minds with rooted minds. Kamilil the magic-woman said that once women wandered abroad like men. Not just like men, for there were always the children, but yet wandered and hunted and fought. But few really believed Kamilil. As things were, so must they always have been!

Vana went to see Bardanin her brother. She took with her her eldest son, a boy straight as a reed, strong as a master bow, and handsome as a deer of the hills. As they went through the lanes of the town all remarked the two. Vana herself had “looks.” Moreover, none failed of knowing how skilful she was and richer than most. Every one knew every one else, and what they did and how they did it.

Bardanin was a hunter. He lived in a house by the wall, and he had just returned with his son Targad from hunting in the hills that bordered the plain. They had brought two antelope and had cast them down upon the ground beneath a tree. Vana found Bardanin and Targad seated beside the house door, between them a bowl of lamb’s flesh and a platter of barley cakes. They welcomed her and she sat down near them. While they ate she watched the women of the household lift and shoulder the game beneath the tree and carry it to the open-air place of all work behind the house.

Said Bardanin: “Hunting is not what it used to be.—Mardurbo has not returned?”

“No. He was going to the people between the rivers and the people by the sea. He will gather handful and armful. … Bardanin, my brother, it is hard that this boy and the four I have left at home will not have Mardurbo’s wealth when he dies!”

Bardanin broke a barley cake. “The five will have your wealth—and it is known that you gather by the handful!”

“What matters that when Mardurbo gathers by the armful? Mardurbo will be the richest man between the hills and the sea. Why should Kadoumin who has twelve fields have Mardurbo’s wealth?”

“Kadoumin is his brother.”

“Bardanin, I know that! But I ask are not his children nearer to Mardurbo than is Kadoumin?”

Bardanin stared at his sister. He was a great hunter, but a slow mind. Targad laughed. Bardanin drank from a pitcher of milk, then set the vessel down thoughtfully. “Nearer in his liking,” said Bardanin. “Just as I like Targad and his brothers and sisters more than I like my own brothers and sisters. But if the lion that we met had slain me my goods would belong to my kindred. Targad and the others take their mother’s goods.”

“You are unsorrowing, Bardanin, because you have so little!”

“That may be true,” said Bardanin. “When you gather riches you think more, but you sleep less.”

“It is true that I have not slept,” said Vana. “Mardurbo’s riches should come to Mardurbo’s children.”

“There are always good reasons for things being as they are,” answered Bardanin, and stretched his arms, for he had lost sleep in the hills.

Vana went to see her sister Lonami. Lonami lived in the street of the well, and it being now afternoon the two, sitting upon the doorstep, could watch a procession of women bringing pitchers and jars and water-skins for filling against the night.

Said Lonami: “Have you finished the web with the purple border?”

“Not yet.”

“Any chief will give you oxen for it.—I make a patterned web myself, but it is not like yours.”

“Lonami, men journey and make war. They take all manner of cattle and trade for what they do not take. The sheep and cattle, the asses and horses, breed fast, and they have great flocks and herds. Then they trade with these, and always it grows! Men say that theirs are the metals that come out of the earth. How big the earth is I do not know, nor when she gave them the copper and silver and iron! They go to war and bring back rich and strange things and many bond-folk. A woman must weave much cloth or dye many webs, or make many pots or baskets, or plant much grain before she can buy a bondman on a bondwoman. Men grow richer than women, and that to me is like a cloud in the sky when the brook is already flooding!”

“It is true enough!” said Lonami.

“I think of my children! If I die, what do I leave them? A field and three bondwomen, a house and its gear and a few webs of cloth! But Mardurbo dies, and what is not taken by Kadoumin!”

“Harran is not rich like Mardurbo,” said Lonami, “as I am not rich like you, Vana! Yet I would that Harran’s great bow and his bronze-handled long knife might go to Eninumo his son! Harran would so, too—and Eninumo.”

“I knew that you would understand! When no one was richer than any one else, it did not matter. But now it matters—if you wish your children to go fine in the world!”

“I do not see that anything can be done about it,” said Lonami.

Vana looked at her out of dark eyes beneath dark-red hair. “There are long reasons why one makes patterns in cloth that is woven and one makes them not!”

That night she watched the moon again. The next morning she went to Kadoumin’s house where it was told her that Kadoumin was in the barley-fields. Vana betook herself to the fields, moving swiftly, with a clinking of silver anklets. Kadoumin, mounted upon an ass, was watching five bondmen reaping the field with sickles of iron.

“A bounteous day, Vana!” said Kadoumin.

“A bounteous to Kadoumin!” answered Vana, her eyes travelling down the swathes.

Kadoumin dismounted from his ass and sat in the shade of a tree and Vana sat beside him. “I had a dream of Mardurbo,” said Kadoumin. “He was by the sea and he had a jar which he dipped into the wave. When it was filled he emptied it upon a tent cloth spread beside him, and the water was not water, but earrings of gold and pieces of silver as large as your fist. It seems to me a lucky dream!”

“A lucky dream for you, Kadoumin, who when Mardurbo dies will get the gold and silver, the tent cloth and the jar!”

Kadoumin regarded the barley-fields. “I am an older man than Mardurbo. He is more like to get my fields from me.—It is true, however, that he trades in dangerous places.”

“He has a charm against deaths.—I was not in earnest when I said ‘A lucky dream for you!’ for Mardurbo is marked for long life.”

Kadoumin, who ailed inwardly and showed an outward leanness, made a sign for health that Dardin the magic-man had taught him. As he did so he looked aslant at his visitor. “Istara, Mardurbo’s mother and mine, was killed by a falling beam, but Matara, her mother, lived long, and Matara’s mother, Innannu, very long.—It is a good barley year, Vana of the silver anklets! Is it a good year for weaving and for purple dyeing?”

“It is good, Kadoumin.—I have a web with a purple border made like the vine, and another with a yellow pattern like a wheel, and another that is fine and white as mist over the brook—Would you have them?”

“A free gift or in trade, Vana, mother of the five fairest children?”

“Kadoumin, the stars and next year are very well, but the wise man considers the field before him.—For the three webs—seeing that Mardurbo is the younger man and should outlive—will you, witnesses sitting by, give over to Mardurbo’s children Mardurbo’s goods when he dies?”

Kadoumin took up a stalk of barley and drew it between his lips. “Mardurbo is a rich man. Three webs, even though their like was never seen, weight light against sheep and oxen and Mardurbo’s swift horses.”

“You know that field I have by the brook. I would add it to the webs.”

Kadoumin drew the barley stalk again between his lips. “Why do you consider the stars and next year?”

“I know not, but I do.—Children, children—men do not know how that feels!”

“I left the town at first light. Perhaps a swift runner has come with news that the tribe by the sea or a lion out of the forest has slain Mardurbo?”

“By Air the goddess, no!” said Vana.

“Then I will think,” said Kadoumin, “of what you say until Mardurbo returns.—Dardin has taught me, too, a great spell that gives long life.”

Vana in her turn looked at him aslant. “It does not show—that spell. The webs are fair and the field joins yours. Better the lowing of one heifer before the door than the seeing of herds in the clouds of the sky!”

“I will think,” said Kadoumin, “of what you say until Mardurbo’s return. If there were more advantage yet. …” He seemed to fall to dreaming. “Mardurbo, I know not why, is fonder of children than of brothers. I have no children and so I know not why. … Mardurbo might add to the webs and the field. … If all the men in town and plain—and all the women—would agree, all men might leave their goods to their own children.”

Vana struck her hands together. “Kadoumin the wise! I have thought that, lying on my bed at night! But I thought that it was my thought only, and it seemed to me too strange to tell!”

Kadoumin drew the barley stalk through his hands. “The matter is one of kindred, and there is no rope like kindred, and no bull with its strength!”

“Nearly all have children. Children are loved more than are sisters and brothers. It is wise to lay a gift upon the ground if thereby you take two from the tree!”

“I have no children.”

“So we make you the webs and the field and what Mardurbo will give!”

Kadoumin laid down the barley stalk, and the sun being at height and the reapers coming to the tree, got slowly to his feet. “You see much with your eyes, Vana, maker of fine webs! but there is, in this matter, something down the lane and beside the wall. … I do not clearly see what it is myself, but it is there. … I shall go talk to Dardin the magic-man.”

Vana went to Kamilil the magic-woman, taking with her a gift. Kamilil lived near the gate in the wall, in a very clean house with two daughters to care for it. She smiled when any one spoke to her of Dardin and said that many made magic, but that few made it well.

Vana gave her present of two hens into the daughters’ hands and sat down at Kamilil’s feet. The daughters went away.

Kamilil was spinning wool. “Do you come for magic, Vana, rich in many ways?”

“Mother Kamilil,” said Vana, “mothers want more magic than most!—I lie awake at night to think how to make my children rich and great!”

“They must do some of that themselves,” said Kamilil, and put red wool upon her distaff.

“Yes,” said Vana, but still she thought that she could do it for them. “Mother Kamilil, is there a magic to make all men, no less than all women, desire to leave their goods when they die to their children?”

“A weak magic will do that,” answered Kamilil, “seeing that in their hearts most men desire it now.”

“Then is there a magic to make every man’s kindred ready to give over claiming when he dies and the children stand forth?”

Kamilil span and span. “There is the magic that you see that what you do for others others will do for you.”

“So!” said Vana. “Give me a magic, Kamilil, that shall make all this tribe see that!”

Kamilil leaned back from her spinning. “That is a greater thing than I thought you came about. … That means to think of many children and many years and many men and women!”

“Yes,” said Vana. “How can it hurt children to have fathers as well as mothers leave to them?”

Kamilil fingered the red strands. “Change spreads. … When a river is in its bounds you know what you have to do with. You say, ‘It waters this field—it flows by these trees.’ Flood comes—that is, change—and you say, ‘Where are its banks?’ Throw a stone into a great pool. A little ring—a wider ring—a wider yet! As great as is the pool, so far the rings widen. That is change. … There is something in this that you talk about that I do not see clearly. To-night I will gather plants, and to-morrow I will brew from them, and in the smoke I shall see—I shall see—I shall see. …”