But the memory lingered, tantalizing, for the feelings he had felt then had been very much like those he was experiencing now; the same excitement. When Armun bent again to pick up the tray he put his hand on her bare arm. It was warm, not cool. Soft.

Armun stopped, trembling, feeling his hand on her flesh, not knowing what to do. Without thinking she turned to look at him, his face close to hers. He did not laugh or turn away. Then the voices outside, coming closer, penetrated the silence.

“How is Kerrick?” It was Herilak who spoke.

“I go there now,” Fraken answered.

The strange moment ended. Kerrick dropped his hand and Armun hurried away with the tray. Fraken pushed his way into the tent, his old eyes blinking in the darkness, Herilak close behind him. Fraken pulled at the leather straps that held Kerrick’s leg tight to the wooden frame and nodded happily.

“All as it should be. The leg will heal straight. If these straps hurt you must pad them with dry grass. I go now to sing about Ulfadan.”

Kerrick would have liked to have been there when the old man sang. The more hunters who chanted the happier Ulfadan’s tharm would be. When the singing was finished Ulfadan’s empty body would be wrapped in soft leather and tied high in a tree to dry in the wind. The body did not matter any more, once the tharm of the hunter had gone. Still, it would not have been proper to leave it where the carrion eaters could find it.

“I would be with you,” Kerrick said.

“It is understood,” Herilak said. “But it would not do to hurt the leg any more.”

When they had gone Armun came from the rear of the tent, but still stood hesitatingly to one side. When he turned towards her she reached quickly for her hair — then let her hand drop because there was still no laughter in his face when he looked at her. It had happened and she did not question it. But she was still unaccustomed to being stared at.

“I heard you when you talked about being captured by the murgu.” She spoke quickly, trying to hide her confusion. “Weren’t you frightened, alone like that?”

“Frightened? In the beginning, I suppose I was. But I wasn’t alone, they had also captured this girl, I forget her name. But they killed her.” The memory was still just as clear, the emotion just as strong. The murgu with the girl’s blood on it turning towards him. Vaintè. “Yes, I was afraid, very afraid. I should have kept quiet, but I talked to the murgu. I would have been killed as well if I hadn’t talked to the one who held me. I did, I was that afraid. But I should not have talked.”

“Why should you have kept quiet if talking saved your life?”

Why indeed? He was no hunter then, brave in the face of death. He had just been a child, the sole survivor of his sammad. There had been no shame in speaking out, he realized now. It had saved his life, brought him here, brought him here to Armun who understood.

“No reason, no reason at all,” he said, smiling up at her. “I think that was when I stopped being afraid. Once they could talk to me they wanted me alive. At times they even needed me.”

“I think that you were as brave as a hunter, even though you were just a boy.”

These words disarmed him, he didn’t know why. For some reason he felt close to tears and had to turn away from her. Tears, now, he a hunter? Without reason? Good reason perhaps, they were the unshed tears of that little boy alone among the murgu. Well, that was well past, he was no longer little, no longer a boy. He looked back at Armun and without intending to reached out and took her hand. She did not pull away.

Kerrick was confused by what he felt now, for he did not know what it meant, could relate the powerful and unknown emotions within him only to what had happened those times alone with Vaintè, when she had seized him. He did not want to think about Vaintè now, or anything else Yilanè. Unknowingly his hand closed, hard, hurting her, but she did not pull away. A warmth swept over him as though from an unseen sun. Something important was happening to him, but he did not know what it was.

Not so Armun. She knew. She had listened often enough when the young women had talked, listened also to the older women who had children, when they told about their experiences, what went on in the night, in the tents when they were alone with a hunter. She knew what was happening now and welcomed it, opened herself to the sensations that overwhelmed her. More so because she had always had little hope, even less expectation. If only it were night now and they were alone! The women had been explicit, graphic about what was done. But it was day, not night. Yet it was so quiet. And she was too close to him now. When she pulled gently Kerrick opened his hand and she moved away. Rose and turned away from the look in his eyes.

Armun stepped outside the tent and looked about her. There was no one in sight; even the children were silent, gone. What did it mean?

The singing, of course, and when she realized this she began to tremble. Ulfadan had been a sammadar. They would all be at his singing, all the sammads, everyone. She and Kerrick were alone now.

With careful, deliberate movements she turned and went back into the tent. With sure hands laced shut the tent flap.

Just as surely opened the laces of her own clothing and knelt, pulling aside the furs, entering the warm darkness beneath them.

Her figure loomed, half-seen above him. He could not move much because of his leg. But he did not want to, and soon forgot about the leg completely. Her flesh was soft, unexpectedly warm, her hair brushing over his face in silent caress. When he put his arms about her the warmth of her body matched his as well. Memories of a cool body began slipping away. She was closer, closer still. She had no hard ribs, just warm flesh, round and firm, pushing with unexpected pleasure against his chest. His arms tightened, pressing her to him, her lips to his ear speaking sounds without words.

Outside the morning sun was burning through the mist, lifting it, taking the chill from the air.

Inside the tent, beneath the warmth of the furs, the heat of their bodies melted his memories of a cooler, harsher body. Pushed aside memories of a different life, a different existence, putting in their place a tender reality of infinitely greater worth.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Alpèasak churned with life, seethed and writhed from first light until dark. Where a few fargi had once moved along the broad avenues of the city between the trees there now paraded Yilanè on foot, Yilanè of rank born on palanquins, fargi alone and in crowds laden with burdens, even well-guarded groups of males, round-eyed and silent as they looked about at the incessant movement. The harbor had been greatly enlarged, yet was still not large enough to accommodate all of the arrivals, so that the dark forms of uruketo coming in from the ocean had to stay in the river, nuzzling against the bank, awaiting their turns. Once they were docked struggling masses of fargi unloaded their cargo, were pushed aside by the Yilanè passengers anxious to set foot on land after the long voyage.

Vaintè looked down at all the bustle with excitement, with pride in every taut line of her body. Her city, her labors, her ambition now fulfilled. Inegban* had come to Alpèasak at last. The union of the two cities brought an excitement with it that was impossible to resist. The youth and rawness of Alpèasak was now tempered with the age and wisdom of Inegban*. This union had produced an amalgam that seemed to be far superior to either of them alone. It was the world born anew, the egg of time just hatched, with all things possible, all promise bright.