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{87} 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.{88} 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{89} 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{90} 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{91} 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{92} 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{93} 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{94} 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{95} 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.{96}”
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{97} 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{98} brew from them, and in the smoke i shall see—i shall see—i shall see....”
her distaff twirled faster. “come to me three days hence,” she said, and called to her daughters to bring vana honey cakes and wine.
vana went home and brooded over what kadoumin and kamilil had said. a day and night passed and she determined to go to see uduma, who lived by herself. that was to leave the town and follow the brook until it narrowed and you reached a cypress wood. vana tied a measure of wheat in a square of fine cloth, and taking a staff in her hand set forth.
uduma was one that was held in awe. vana, as she went up the brook, thought first of her own fishing and the nets she was flinging over the future, then, the wood growing deep and the air darkly pure, her mood changed. she seemed to remember many things, only they were all blended, merged, fused. what came from it seemed to be a light-touched sadness, a chained and bound longing. vana sighed, and used energy to overcome that mood.
the trees grew thickly, the gliding water talked to itself. vana thought of offences against gods and goddesses, sprites and ministers. she made in the air kamilil’s sign to banish evil and beckon good, and pursued her journey with a quickened step.
before her broke a sunny space and here, in the midst, was the hut, round and low, of uduma the seer, and uduma herself seated on a stone, and near her an ewe and her lamb.
vana stood still. “hail, uduma!”
uduma turned. “hail, woman! come within the sunny ring.{99}”
vana came, and laid before the seer the wheat wrapped in fine cloth. “gift from one who would gain knowledge!”
“it is only to be gained,” said uduma, “by those who would gain it.—the wheat is good and the cloth is fine. sit in the sun and rest from the shadows.”
vana sat, cross-limbed, upon the short grass. uduma became silent, and vana, as was manners, held as quiet. the sun poured down its rays, but the dry and aromatic air was in motion, and the heat not oppressive. the light burned clear gold over the open round, the small hut and the deep, surrounding wood. time passed.
at last said uduma the seer: “to love children of one’s body is well. to think for children of one’s body is well. to hold the flower of the vine before the eyes is well. but it is not well to hide therewith earth and the ripened grape, the moon, the sun, and the stars.”
“o uduma!” said vana, “we are all flower of the vine for so many years that we live! will it not be well for all to take goods from our fathers as well as our mothers?”
“i do not say that it will not be well.... observe my ewe and her lamb. see, wherever she turns, the lamb turns with her.”
vana nodded. “she is all the lamb’s good.”
“you say well.— but now if the ram came and made magic so that the lamb got much good from him and then more good and more? would the lamb any more look wholly to the ewe?”
vana sat with an arrested look in the sunny round. at last she spoke. “fathers as well as mothers have praise from children.... i do not know—i do not remember—if it was ever otherwise.”
“praise, but not so great praise.{100}”
“when the people from the hills came against us, four barley harvests since, and broke down the wall and poured through the ways and struck against the houses, mardurbo fought mightily in our doorway. i also fought, but mardurbo fought with great blows. did not the children praise him then?”
“yes. were the ram and the ewe and the lamb together, in a close place, and there came a dog, the ram would fight mightily, and for the ewe and the lamb as for himself. and if he is hurt the ewe will fight for him, as always for the lamb. and doubtless in its heart the lamb praises the ram, and another day, if there comes a dog or a wolf, it looks to the ram as to the ewe to fight for it.... all that is true, and there is praise now in the earth from children to fathers. but the food is the continuing life, and the warmth is the continuing life, and the taking of care is the continuing life.... the lamb turns with the ewe.”
vana sat still. the light came down clear and dry. it might be seen why uduma liked this place. “if the ram has food to give, and garments for richness and warmth, and fields for gain and pleasantness—”
“while it is very little the lamb will yet turn with the ewe.”
vana sat cross-limbed, her eyes upon the earth. a great bird passed overhead; she knew it by its shadow on the ground. “this it was that crossed kadoumin’s mind and the mind of kamilil, but neither could gain its shape!” she sat still, in the dry light, but she was not wholly accustomed to that light—by no means wholly accustomed to that light. not even uduma was that.
“what else?” asked vana at last, and she spoke in a dulled and weary voice.{101}
“if the ram can do all that,” said uduma, “if the lamb at last turns with him, then the ewe must seek her gain elsewhere.”
vana beat her hands together. “there is no gain elsewhere!”
“i have not dug deep enough nor built high enough,” said uduma, “to find out about that. and this is all that i can tell you now of the matter, for the eyes with which i see grow tired.”
vana took ceremonious leave of uduma. she went out of the still and sunny round into the wood where the day murmured and was dim under roof, above roof, and down the stream where the clay thickened and coloured the water. as she went her mind was torn within her, and she saw, as it were arising in the wood before her, mardurbo making wealth, and her own loom and the web within and her field and three bondwomen, and afterwards the five children, and how they grew, and the little she would have for each. vana’s children, and they should go in purple through the town.... this talk of ewes and women—and who ever saw a lamb turn from its dam or children turn from women?
mardurbo—mardurbo! vana walked slowly, sat down at last upon the stream bank. the five bending toward mardurbo—mardurbo demanding from the five since he fought and was strong, and besides was going to make them rich—mardurbo’s favour, mardurbo’s disfavour—in the children’s eyes mardurbo the waxing moon and she the waning—vana drew sharp breath, struck at the air with her staff. “fly, bad dream!” she said. but it would not avoid—it seemed to come toward her, between the trees, the strongest in fight and the richest—! vana{102} uttered a strangling cry. “mardurbo! i know not if i wish life for you!”
she stared at the dark trees and the dark places between them. slowly there rose in her mind mardurbo as she had known him first—mardurbo and she as striplings amid the wheat and the vines—mardurbo before they came into the same house, and afterwards for a time, before the eldest boy was born, and the two years of her suckling him—mardurbo before the days of the bondwoman whom he bought and to whom he gave a house.... mardurbo and vana, striplings among the wheat and the vines. slow tears rose in vana’s eyes. “mardurbo! mardurbo!” she breathed.
she took up her staff, rose to her knees and then to her feet, and went on down the stream to the clay-built town. and here, even outside the wall, she heard that mardurbo had come home.
the men who told her exaggerated the wealth mardurbo had brought. according to them it was exceeding much—in metals, in cattle and bondmen, in stuffs and weapons and tools to work with, in salt, in ornaments of silver, and all such matters! mardurbo had come with a train—now the cattle were stalled without the wall, and the other goods heaped beside and within the house. to-morrow and the next day and the next mardurbo would hold market. horses were what were wanted in exchange.
inside the wall vana still heard of that much wealth the trader had brought. it seemed that the people by the sea had been hungry for horses. the town was excited over mardurbo’s return.
approaching her own house, she saw in the distance that goods were, indeed, heaped beside it and before it, and{103} mardurbo in the midst of his men directing the goods’ bestowal, and children and bondwomen and a number of town-folk watching. sound came to her in a gush, and a perception as of bees at work. her hand closed hard upon her staff. the honey—all the honey—to go to kadoumin and the other kindred!
the children saw her and ran to her, the bondwomen saw her and snatched up distaff or water-jar. mardurbo turned from sacks of salt and goods in bales that the people by the sea traded with. he came through the press to vana as she came through it to him.
“ha, woman!” cried mardurbo. “i am back alive!”
vana put her hands upon his. they drew each to each, with suddenness they embraced. each felt, each showed a rude, a passionate fondness. “glad i am that you live!”
“i have brought the fairest earrings and frontlet—”
their hold each of the other loosened. manners of the tribe demanded restraint in the open in love-tokens. but their faces still shone. then the shining lessened, and there dropped between, neither knew from where, the sundering force.
“wealth and wealth!” said vana. “kadoumin dreamed that he saw you dipping riches from the sea!”
“kadoumin!... i have brought a gift for each of the children.”
a bale threatened falling. mardurbo lifted it on strong shoulders, bore it to the room for storing built beside the main room. bondmen followed, carrying much goods. the children chattered like monkeys, the watching town-folk, men and women, made admiration or offered help; over the place played red sunshine of the shutting day. largely the gathered crowd were mardurbo’s kindred. vana stood{104} still. in times before to-day assuredly she would have laid hand to matters herself, lifted and borne and called her bondwomen to the task. but now she saw vana and her children one kindred, and mardurbo with kadoumin and the others one kindred, and between strangeness. she would not help put away kadoumin’s goods—but lightly she would have helped to put away goods of the five children! desire of riches that had trembled toward departure, came back and held her with full force. standing in the bronze light, she knew covetousness—she knew hatred of kadoumin and the other kindred—knew for that moment hatred of mardurbo. stronger, stronger!—richer, richer!—and how could she take the children with her, going trading to make them rich?... those who spoke to her she answered shortly, standing in a brown study, then went into the house and, calling her women, fell to preparing supper.
the meal was over. mardurbo’s followers gone away, the precious, the weighty things that he had brought home bestowed against further trading. reclined upon an ox-skin spread without the door, mardurbo watched the five children at play with other children in the pinky, twilight street. they ran up and down, they joined hands and swung in circles, they played at hunting and at war, stalking and capturing one another. then they played the tribe by the sea and the tribe in the hills and mardurbo with his horses trading from the plain to the hills and the sea. the children of vana and mardurbo claimed to play mardurbo. it seemed that their claim was good. but other children set up shrill objection, put in an opposing claim. mardurbo was their kinsman. contention arose. “mardurbo is our father!”—“mardurbo is our kin!”—“he lives{105} with us!”—“ho! if he and your mother part he will come back to grandmother’s house!”—“he brought us presents!”—“ho! your presents are only little bits! all the big things belong to kin! we’ve got horses and bondmen and salt and copper and silver!”—“anyhow, we’re mardurbo!”—“no, you aren’t! we’re mardurbo!”
mardurbo turned on his ox-skin. “what does a man toil and journey for? kadoumin, and the children of istara?”
twilight deepened, earth faced night. the town went to sleep—all save prowling dogs and winged or creeping things of the dark, and human folk in pain of body or of mind. vana and mardurbo lay awake. they heard the children’s breathing and the breathing of the bondwomen and of mardurbo’s men who slept at the door of the treasure chamber. mardurbo turned again.
vana spoke. “did you have your fill of sleeping between here and the sea?”
“i slept little upon this journey. there were many to watch against.”
vana rose from that couch of skins. “whether one goes or stays there are many to watch against.... a lion and a lioness and their cubs....”
“what put that into your heart?” asked mardurbo.
“i do not know..... how large is the heart, seeing that everything finds room?” she moved from the couch to the door, stood upon the threshold and looked at the town asleep.
mardurbo followed her. “i want to talk. in there the others will waken.”
vana let fall behind them the mat that made the door. she sat down upon the threshold step, and mardurbo{106} beside her. the breathing was now withdrawn. in front of them lay the hot, still night with nothing moving save a dog by a distant wall.
“i should have drunk sweetness upon this journey,” said mardurbo, “but instead i have drunk bitterness.—why should not my riches go to my children?”
“why not? why not?”
“saba the harp-player says, and all men know, that women are seen to be mothers of their children. but men are not seen to be fathers. so we count from our mothers, knowing that we are theirs. men must take it from women that they are fathers. it is ‘faith,’ like ‘faith’ when we ask from the powers.”
“do you not know that the five are yours and mine? they are yours and mine.”
“i have ‘faith,’” answered mardurbo.
“it is evil for kadoumin and for istara and her children to have wealth that should be our children’s! how to change that—how to make magic that shall change that—!”
“i know a way,” said mardurbo. “it came to me in the desert while i lay awake. just like a falling star it fell into my heart!”
“what is it, mardurbo? what is it?”
mardurbo looked at the sky and around at the silent town. he made upon the earth at his feet one of dardin’s signs. he was a bold man, but change is a difficult thing in the world, and what is now has all the honour and observance! “count kindred another way,” said mardurbo, and he dropped his voice yet lower and looked somewhat fearfully at his companion. “have a great council of the tribe and determine it! let children come into father’s kindred.{107}”
“how can that work?” asked vana. “how can they be reckoned of fathers’ kin when already they are of mothers’ kin, and the two kins are separate?”
mardurbo traced another sign upon the earth. “take them from mother-kin and put them in father-kin.”
vana’s lips moved. “is that your way?”
“it came as though there were light all around it—or as though you ate up the desert on the swiftest horse. it seemed so hard, and then it seemed so easy! everything to stay as it is,” said mardurbo, “save that, after the council, children take name from father-side. name makes kindred—when men die kindred take their goods.”
vana’s breath came quick and thin. “do you think the folk will agree to that?”
“men will agree quickly,” said mardurbo the trader.
“the men—the men! but the women—”
“men grow richer than women, for the outside is bigger than the inside of the house. you wish the five to have my riches when i die. lonami wishes eninumo to have the goods of harran. innina wishes her three to have the flocks of akarnad. it will be so with other women.”
“children to go from mother-kin into father-kin—”
“still they would be your children—as now they are my children—and yet i have no honour from them, and when my kindred gather to a feast they come not with them!”
“i give them no longer my name, nor the name of my mother!”
mardurbo was deep in love with the plan that had fallen like the shooting star. he struck the threshold stone. “what harm to women if they take name from fathers instead of from mothers?{108}”
“if they take name from men!”
“to this night,” said mardurbo, “men have taken name from women.”
“i go to see kamilil,” said vana.
she went when the sun was pushing above the plain. kamilil was already twisting red wool, while in the rear of the house the daughters sang like birds. “mother kamilil,” said vana, “what did you see in the smoke of the plants you gathered?”
“i saw,” said kamilil, “that there is much restlessness in life, and that when gain perches on one person’s shoulder it has not come out of nothing, but has flown from the shoulder of another.... cease thinking of great riches for your children after you.”
“that i cannot do,” said vana. “my children are my dear life.”
“then the bird,” said kamilil, “will fly from your shoulder to mardurbo’s shoulder.—and that is all that i saw in the smoke from the plants.”
vana, returning home, found mardurbo and the bondmen establishing booths for the market. ordinarily she would have given great help, but to-day there was abstraction in her gaze.
mardurbo came to her where she stood. “every one will be here to trade or to look. i will speak to the elders about the council.”
“say nothing until i return,” said vana. “i am going to see uduma the seer.”
she left the town wall behind her, and followed the winding of the brook, walking with a silver tinkling of her anklets. presently she found again the clear, sunny space, and uduma carding wool.{109}
“hail, uduma!”
“hail, woman-who-was-here-yesterday!”
vana sat upon the grass before uduma. “uduma, uduma! the lamb must take the name of the ram as well as his riches!”
uduma, who had put by her carding sat with her eyes upon a bright place in the sky. she sat very still, her body unbowed, her hands folded in her lap. “uduma, uduma! if the lamb learns to say, ‘i am son or daughter of the ram’—and thinks nothing of the ewe—”
uduma still looked at the bright sky. time went by. the place was golden, warm and dry, and possessed an aromatic breath. the breath seemed to come slow-drawn, and uduma’s breath the same. at last she spoke. “i see what i had not seen.... for a long, long time, for a long, long time, the lamb thought all of the ewe and nothing of the ram.... the wind goes to and the wind goes fro. the summer is, and then the winter is. the day is, and then the night is. the winter is, and then the summer is. the night is, and then the day is.”
“the two,” said vana, “are evened in night-and-day and summer-and-winter.”
“there is more wisdom in you,” said uduma, “than shows every day! why do you give milk to pride and greed?”
“i do not so. i give milk to my children.”
“pride-for-children and greed-for-children are long names for short things.”
vana with her long, embrowned fingers moved her silver anklets. “o uduma, will not mardurbo remember that, for the children, i let the council be called, and said in my turn, ‘change the old ways’?{110}”
“mardurbo—mardurbo! look in your own heart for mardurbo and his thoughts!”
“will we make evil, o uduma, changing the old? if there were evil to tribe-women, would istal, the mother of the gods, let me make it?”
“look in your heart for tribe-women, and look in your heart for istal!... you will do what you will do, and there will come out of it what there will come out of it. as for me, i am a watcher, but my eyes are not very good. i do not know what the gods wish— and now i am tired, and i will speak no more, woman-who-came-yesterday!”
vana left the golden-lighted circle and went through the dark wood, down the falling stream. as on yesterday she had thought of mardurbo, so to-day she thought of mardurbo. but first she said, and said it thrice, “i do not believe that i shall be less in the world by this one and that one saying ‘mardurbo’s children!’—who is it that knows not that they are my children?—it will be nothing but a saying!” for since yesterday she was the more set to gain for the five those riches from the seashore and the country between the hills.
mardurbo—mardurbo! to-day she felt affection for mardurbo. she was glad that no lion had felled him with a stroke, and no serpent crept into his tent, and no man-foe sent arrow against him. mardurbo loved the children as she did, and he would make for them wealth and more wealth. it was not much of a price to pay—to say “son of mardurbo—daughter of mardurbo!” especially when it would be naught but a saying. the tribe would continue to know that vana had borne them in agony, had suckled them and wrought for them, day and night. mardurbo ... mardurbo! to-morrow she might again feel{111} anger against him, desire to see him gone, and care not for his dangers. to-day, all was as oil and wine. the will of vana was set to obtain that turning of wealth from kadoumin and from istara and her children to the five in the house of the loom. to feel for any cause violence and bitterness against mardurbo would make difficulties more difficult, and therefore she felt it not.
the sun was in the west when she re?ntered the town, and the greater part of the town hovered yet about mardurbo’s market. the town fed desire with strange, precious goods, and gave to mardurbo in exchange home-made matters. home-made matters seeming nothing like so precious, the town’s giving outweighed its taking. mardurbo would have much of fine and precious with which to feed the desire of the people by the sea and the people between the rivers, who in turn would outweigh that much with their homely, home-furnished matters. so mardurbo prospered. and much to his liking were the horses that the plain now gave him.
so he knew satisfaction, and the men and women of his town knew satisfaction. a rich and expansive mood pervaded the place of the booths. except for a few scattering thrusts trading, that had gone on since dawn, was over. covetousness, fed, rested with sleepy, half-shut lids. minds that, as each had thought, had shrewdly bargained, relaxed tension. saba the harp-player sat against a wall and made music to tread the harp’s stretched chords. dardin the magic-man had, in return for his spells bringing health and successful trading, a great dish of bronze. with it in his hands he looked at the noble sickle that kadoumin the wily had bought with a brown foal. bardanin the hunter had shoes that would tread thorns like gods, and{112} targad had a painted quiver and baldric. harran had a silver armlet. lonami had given her greatest web for an ewer and dish of well-wrought metal, istara had an ivory spindle made by the people between the rivers, and the daughters of kamilil had garments dyed and fashioned by the seashore folk. the town made a deep, contented, murmurous sound.
mardurbo rested near saba the harp-player. he looked at the horses in the staked enclosure the bondmen had made, and he thought of other steeds that he was to examine in the morning before the change goods left his hands. the people by the sea were lean with hunger for horses. he looked at a row of new bondmen, and he looked at goods that his town made, piled like tall anthills. mardurbo sat embrowned, weary and satisfied, still observed by the town, granted to be the greatest trader, and good beside in war or council.
vana, making her way to him, met likewise with observance. vana and mardurbo ... mardurbo and vana!
vana stood beside him. “let us speak now to the elders, and let them call the folk to council to-morrow.” her hand rested on the head of the eldest of the five, the boy straight as a reed, strong as a master bow, and handsome as a deer of the hills. “mardurbin, when he goes trading, shall have somewhat to begin with!”
they spoke, and when men and women understood the subject-matter there lacked no interest. the grass was dry fuel for the dropped fire.
there stood in the middle of the town a council-tree, huge of bole, many-branched and forest-leaved. beneath it the tribe had held council since the days of the far-back mother from whom it took origin and name. the day that{113} followed the market they held the council here. the elders sat around the trunk of the tree, and about these the chief men and women and the others in their degrees made larger and larger rings.
all the chief men and women spoke, and some spake twice. all day that council held, a council to be marked by the tribe, in their annals of the earth, with a stone and a pillar and an altar smoke. when it began the eastern side of the tree was golden, when it ended the western.
it ended with choice made, with a great number crying out for the choice that was made. a few voices differed from the most, but faintly and more faintly, until they were like distant cicadas. the earth was bondwoman to the voice of the many. at the close of day the law of this tribe was changed.... when the eastern side of the tree was gold there held the ancient mother-right; when the western side was gold there came upon the plain father-right.
