A NOVEL SET IN PREHISTORY
The Oak People
Chapter 23: Ansa loses the Balqa stone
Bidari
The women are heating the kho to make death red, but Ansa is not with them. Bidari climbs up to his sleeping place but it is empty except for the body of his mother, covered over with a skin. He is glad not to have to see her face. He runs down the slope, across the uneven floor of the cave, and outside. A fresh wind is blowing. Ansa is not with the children either. He climbs up to the spring to drink and catches sight of her back, disappearing up the path.
‘Ansa! Wait!’
She turns and seems to see him, but then limps quickly away. Bidari catches up with her by a clump of buckthorn. She is panting, her eyes wild. He takes her hand and pulls her into the shelter of the trees, out of the cold wind.
‘It’s all right,’ he says, ‘don’t be frightened. You need to rest.’
He helps her down onto the ground. Now that he is beginning to understand, all he wants to do is comfort her. His wife is a seer, like Nuno. That’s how she knew about the calf. Why she is not like the other women. The strands of his thoughts are weaving together now, into something strong and sure.
Her knee is swollen and Bidari takes some wet leaves, gently wiping away the dried blood. Ansa is a seer. This thought is like a flower unfolding its petals and more thoughts come circling around it like bees. The Oak People have a new seer. What happened to Nuno up on the mountain top is his fault, as Koldo said. But he, Bidari, has brought Ansa to them and now the Oak People have someone new to journey to the spirit world for them.
Bidari wants to tell Ansa these thoughts but he doesn’t know how to say them. Instead, he spits onto his finger and begins to clean the mud from her thigh. Touching her soft flesh, warm from the climb, makes him hard, ready to mate. The dark night of death, with its terrors, is fading and lust is building inside him, ready to burst. He helps her back onto the wet ground and starts to climb on top of her, the day young and new, the wind whipping through the buckthorn leaves.
Before Bidari can get in between Ansa’s legs, he feels pain; she is tearing at his back with her nails. Astonished, he looks up to see her face, twisted with rage. Her lips begin to work and then she spits, the spittle landing on his nose and running down onto his lip. Now she is pummelling him with her fists, screeching at him to stop. Bidari pulls back from her and she sits up, her eyes wild.
‘She’s gone!’ she screams at him. ‘She’s left me. Did you take her away?’ Her fists flail out at him, one of the blows landing on Bidari’s swollen cheekbone.
The pain is so terrible that everything goes dark for half a breath. When Bidari comes to, Ansa’s face is close to his. Her lip is curled in a gloat and something inside him gives way. He grabs her by the shoulder and pushes her back down onto the ground, forcing her legs apart with his other hand. She tries to fight him but he is stronger. He lifts his arm and whips the back of his hand down hard across her face. He can feel teeth through her soft lips. For an instant, her face becomes Koldo’s face: Koldo with eyes wide in surprise, his lip split and bleeding. Bidari grins, spit running down his chin.
‘You’re my wife, do you hear?’ he shouts, beyond himself. ‘Don’t ever shame me again.’
She is shaking now and whimpering. Lust and rage spark through him like lightning. Pinning Ansa down with one arm, he forces himself inside her, thrusts twice, hard, and it is over. As he pulls out of her, his hand becomes caught up in her belt. Feeling the small bag tied there, he rips it away. He gets up and crosses to the path, where the mountain drops steeply down. With a yell, he throws the bag over the edge with all his strength. Frightened by the noise, a flock of bulbul rises from the treetops below. The tiny bag is not visible as it falls through the morning sky.
Thank you for reading. Chapter 24 coming soon …
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