The Gathering Night Read online

  The Gathering Night

  Also by Margaret Elphinstone

  Available from McArthur & Company

  The Sea Road

  Hy Brasil

  Voyageurs

  Light

  THE GATHERING NIGHT

  a novel

  Margaret Elphinstone

  McArthur & Company

  Toronto

  For Caroline

  First published in Canada in 2009 by

  McArthur & Company

  322 King Street West, Suite 402

  Toronto, Ontario

  M5V 1J2

  www.mcarthur-co.com

  Copyright © 2009 Margaret Elphinstone

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the expressed written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of the copyright law.

  The writer acknowledges support from the Scottish Arts Council towards the writing of this title.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Elphinstone, Margaret

  The gathering night / Margaret Elphinstone.

  ISBN 978-1-55278-880-6

  I. Title.

  PR6055.L63G38 2010 823’.914 C2010-903951-3

  eISBN 978-1-77087-116-8

  Cover image: Mark Owen / Arcangel Images

  CONTENTS

  The People

  First Night: River Mouth Camp

  Second Night: White Beach Camp

  Third Night: Gathering Camp

  Fourth Night: Salmon Camp

  Fifth Night: Loch Island Camp

  Sixth Night: Gathering Camp

  Seventh Night: Gathering Camp

  Eighth Night: River Mouth Camp

  Author’s Afterword

  THE PEOPLE

  Bakar’s family

  Nekané

  Alaia

  Haizea

  Amets

  Esti and Alazne

  Hilargi and Sorné

  Sendoa, Itsaso and Ortzi

  mother of Bakar

  sister of Bakar

  sister of Bakar

  husband of Alaia

  daughters of Alaia and Amets

  aunts of Bakar

  cousins of Bakar

  Other members of the Auk People

  Aitor, Hodei, Zigor

  Edur, Zeru

  Arantxa

  Go-Betweens

  hunters

  mother of Osané, Oroitz, Koldo and Itzal

  Members of the Lynx People

  Kemen

  Basajaun

  Ekaitz

  hunter

  Kemen’s brother

  Kemen’s cousin

  FIRST NIGHT: RIVER MOUTH CAMP

  Haizea said:

  Bakar’s disappearance was my first loss. It’s also where this story begins. If my brother Bakar hadn’t gone, we wouldn’t all be sitting here now. And you two boys – listen to me, both of you! If Bakar hadn’t been lost, you two would never have become brothers. You might never even have known each other. And the lives of all us – of all the Auk People – would have unfolded differently. But I can’t even begin to think about that. No one can undo the threads of a story once they’re tied together. Not even the spirits can do that.

  I was still a child. But I remember very well that terrible winter my family spent alone at River Mouth Camp.

  There were only six of us at River Mouth Camp before Bakar went away in Yellow Leaf Moon. We became six again when my sister Alaia gave birth to Esti. After Esti was born we stayed on at River Mouth Camp, even though we’d been hunting there all winter. We were walking further every day to get enough dead wood for our fire. Alaia and I always managed to fill our baskets, but we couldn’t get enough meat. Only Amets could hunt, now that my brother was gone. Amets has never failed us, but you all know it takes more than one man to feed a family well all winter. Once we’d finished the hazelnuts and acorns and lily-seeds, we had to dig for roots more often. We got reed-root from the marshes. Alaia and I pulled lily-roots out of the freezing mud at the bottom of the hill-loch: it’s worst when you have to break the ice before you can wade in.

  My mother kept going away. She didn’t seem to want to be with us any more. She wouldn’t tell us where she’d been.

  In the Moon of Rushes the rest of us wanted to move on. Winter no longer held us; the wind from the High Sun Sky smelt of the coming spring. But now we were afraid my mother wouldn’t go with us. We still didn’t know what had happened to Bakar. That was the worst winter I ever spent. In the end we stayed at River Mouth Camp until just before Auk Moon. It seemed so long! I thought about running away. I knew how to find my cousins’ Camp. I’d only been there by boat, but I thought if I walked down the shores of the Long Strait I couldn’t possibly get lost. It would only have taken me two or three days . . . If Esti hadn’t come I think I would have run away. But that winter Esti gave us something to be happy about, in spite of everything.

  I think I was angry with my mother for not being there – I don’t know. I certainly never thought of her going Go-Between.

  I thought Go-Betweens were terrifying, distant men who spoke to the Animals about the Hunt. How could Go-Betweens be anything to do with my mother? I couldn’t understand what was happening. None of us did. At least – maybe Alaia and Amets guessed, but I never heard them speak about it. My father – I think my father . . . My father was the wisest man I ever knew. He understood everything. But he knew how to be silent too. He never spoke to me about it.

  Alaia said:

  And so my mother became Go-Between.

  I realise now that it started when Bakar was lost. I didn’t understand at first what was happening. It was only when Esti was born that Nekané really began to change. When my daughter was born I lost my mother – that’s what Nekané becoming Go-Between did to me.

  Esti was born in Thaw Moon. We had hardly any meat. Haizea told you how we chopped and ground lily-roots every day, and baked them in the ashes. We were getting mussels and crabs and limpets, wading into the cold sea at slack tide to pick them off the rocks underwater. Two nights before Esti was born the traps were full of lobsters. We roasted them in ashes of oakwood until the blue shells turned red. It was a good enough feast for Thaw Moon, and maybe it gave Esti the strength to come into the world. She took all night to come. Amets and my father – as you know, his name isn’t in the world now – had gone hunting upriver. We were alone in the winter house – just me and my mother and Haizea, and the sound of the River. The River sings many songs at River Mouth Camp, sometimes loud and angry, and sometimes in the gentlest of whispers. On the night of Esti’s birth the River sang with its whole throat. It told of snow melting in the hills, of water under the earth stirring deep roots, of white water filling empty streambeds, of overflowing banks and flooded marshes. In Thaw Moon the River sings of its own strength, and it’s death for People or Animals to meddle with it.

  When Esti arrived no one recognised her. I knew who my mother hoped it would be, though she hadn’t said anything about it. My mother didn’t hide her disappointment when she saw that my baby was a girl. Haizea cut the cord with her own knife. It’s good when the youngest does that. It makes a bond, and it’s right for a child to have someone younger than her own mother bonded to her. There were barely ten Years between Haizea and Esti, and see what came of it: they’ve never let anyone part them. Haizea never thought that Esti should be anyone other than who she is.

  My little girl lay across my stomach whimpering, taking her first breaths into her new body. I wanted to reach for her, but I knew what had to happen first. Haizea a
nd I waited, and the little one twitched and breathed against my skin. At last my mother took the baby in her hands and turned her over. I watched my mother’s face in the firelight. She looked into my baby’s eyes. A pine log flared in the hearth. Outside the rain fell softly. I could see Nekané didn’t recognise my daughter. All she said was, ‘The child says, “I am not him. I am not him.”’ And so my Esti brought grief with her, because she wasn’t the one my mother had hoped for.

  My daughter had no name for two days. You mothers, you’ll know what those two days were like for me. If she hadn’t been recognised on the third day we’d have had to cast her out. Amets and my father had not returned. The wind howled and gusts of sleet blew in from the sea. Between the showers the Sun came out, but it was pale and filled with water. I couldn’t go beyond the threshold because I had my baby in a sling. I dared not take her under the open sky when she had no name. My mother didn’t look into her eyes again.

  And then, just before sunset, the men returned. I heard voices outside: my mother’s, Amets’, my father’s, Amets’ again. Then Amets came into the winter house. He handed his wet cloak to Haizea, and looked across at me. I’d been sewing a foxfur into the back of my tunic to make a carrying pouch for the baby against my skin. I’d laid the fur down to feed the child, and when Amets came in I was holding her naked against my shoulder. I thought Amets might be angry that I was making preparations for my baby even though she had no name. Amets met my eyes.

  He took his daughter from my arms. She lay still between his hands. He looked into her eyes. She felt safe. Amets said to his little daughter, ‘I didn’t recognise you at first, grandmother. I last saw you long ago, far away under the Sunless Sky. You are Esti. You’ve come again to bring sweetness into our lives.’

  Because Amets recognised his daughter she was able to live. As the days grew longer she grew with them. She’d always be a newcomer among the Auk People because she had a name that was new to us. But she was welcome, just as Amets was welcome when he came to Gathering Camp looking for a wife. And now Esti is a name belonging to our family as well.

  But all the while my mother was becoming Go-Between and I was losing her.

  I hated it. But if she hadn’t, I don’t think you Auk People would be sitting round this fire listening to us now. That’s why this story we’re telling you is so important. Listen, and you’ll hear how fiercely the spirits tested the Auk People. You’ll see how close we came to being broken apart for ever.

  But when my mother went Go-Between it was hard. Usually women who live to be grandmothers want to help with a new baby. Itsaso, you’re always complaining that your mother wants to help too much! I think you’re lucky. Even a woman who doesn’t like her daughter often wants to love her grandchild. My mother became more distant than ever. Even if she was present in body she was often far away from us. And sometimes even in the body she had to travel, so we saw little of her.

  Haizea said:

  I think Amets should speak next.

  Everyone knows Amets, of course! But perhaps some of you younger ones don’t know how Amets came into our family. Amets came to us from the Seal People under the Sunless Sky. He met my sister Alaia at Gathering Camp. Amets could have found a place in any family among the Auk People where there was a daughter looking for a man! Lots of Auk men wanted my sister too, but it was Amets, the stranger, who finally got her.

  Alaia’s hair is thick and curly like mine, only, as you can see, mine is the colour of dead grass while hers gleams like the seaweed forests that shine gold in the Sun at low tide. While I was as skinny as a stick, Alaia was all curves – but for all she seemed a soft armful, I can tell you she was hard to please! If her face is good to look at, why then so must mine be, because women always say how alike we are. Men used to make fools of themselves just looking at Alaia. She’d look back at them out of those clear blue eyes, pitiless as the sky at noon in the middle of a drought. Except when she smiled – only I never saw her smiling at any men. But then, I was too young to go to High Clearing Camp. That’s where she found Amets. She brought him straight back to our hearth at Gathering Camp. She didn’t ask anyone; she just brought him. And he’s been in this family ever since.

  Amets said:

  I last hunted with my wife’s brother Bakar at River Mouth Camp, three Moons before my daughter Esti was born. We left Gathering Camp at the beginning of Yellow Leaf Moon. The Sun was getting old, but he wasn’t tired yet. It was mild when we arrived at River Mouth Camp. A circle of hills shelters it from all the winds. For those of you who’ve not seen it, our River flows down through many little gorges into a wide valley where it winds among the marshes, always heading for the Sunless Sky, until it reaches the salt flats and open water. River Mouth Camp lies on dry ground at the foot of a craggy hillock. Every Year we clear the saplings from the top of Lookout Hill so we can see out over the marshes, through the Narrows to the Open Sea, and the islets off Sand Island.

  There were still plenty of berries, hazelnuts and crab-apples when we arrived. There’d been a lot of rain, and on our first day the women’s baskets were overflowing with every kind of mushroom. It looked as if we were going to live well. Our family was very small – too small – but I was looking forward to hunting with Bakar through the winter. We needed meat to store and furs for our winter clothes. He and I planned to hunt in the hills, as much as the Winter would let us, between Swan Moon and Moon of Rushes. The best hunting grounds I know for winter pelts aren’t far from River Mouth Camp, and you can trap small Birds and Animals from River Mouth Camp itself. That was just as well because I had to stay close to home after Bakar was gone, and yet I also had to get enough furs to clothe the whole family. My wife’s father said we should never let River Mouth Camp go out of our hands because the hunting was so good. He was right, and I’ve kept my word to him.

  Bakar and I had hunted together for a Year and two Moons. Haizea just told you how I took his sister Alaia when I first came to the Auk People’s Gathering, and after that I went with her family. I come from the Seal People under the Sunless Sky, but I couldn’t find a girl there – I’d plenty of cousins but not one that was far-off enough. Though Bakar and I first met as strangers, by now we knew each other well. We trusted each other.

  Two days after we got to River Mouth Camp Bakar and I set off before dawn. We took spears and knives, a bark-rope to make a trap and a basket of broken mushrooms. We left the marshes behind us and turned towards the Morning Sun Sky. We climbed through oak-woods, and followed the course of a small stream rushing to join our own River. We had my dog – the one who came into Alaia’s family with me – he was a great hunter. He’d soon made himself the leader, but now he was getting old, and wasn’t so fast any more. We had Bakar’s good dog, two bitches who were reliable and a young dog in training. First we went to the marshy pond where the pigs wallow to see if there were any around. Sometimes when we arrive at River Mouth Camp the wolves are in our hunting territory and the pigs have gone inland to get away. The wolves always retreat when we come back with our dogs.

  Above River Mouth Camp there’s a hollow like two hands cupped together where the trees begin to thin. It holds a shallow lochan in its palm. Some pigs had drunk at the lochan the day before. We followed the path they’d made. Three sows had passed that way, heading uphill, yesterday afternoon, with a couple of half-grown piglets. The boar’s tracks were fresher; he’d come down to the pool in the evening, and gone back a little later. We found a good place for a trap under an overhanging birch tree. We hung the noose across the path, and fixed the weighted rope to the branch. I scattered the mushrooms I’d brought as bait. Then we went on very quietly, taking the pigs’ path uphill, the old dog leading. The path led over rocky broken ground, crossing swollen streams and bright mosses.

  We came to a clearing. Saplings were shooting up in the light where an old birch had fallen. Brown fungi grew out of the dead tree, and it was all overgrown with brambles and old man’s beard. Flies danced in the patch of sun
light. We skirted the thicket, following the pig path.

  The lead dog barked.

  The other dogs cocked their heads – so! The thicket was still.

  When the first dog barks to the stillness, he barks to wake the sleeping Animal – that’s when the Hunt begins. In one heartbeat we all wake to the Hunt at once: dogs, men and the still-hidden Animal.

  That dog was the bravest dog I ever had. He knew what was in that thicket – he could smell it plainly. If I’d known what he knew, I’d have hesitated – this wasn’t one of the great hunts of Deer Moon. This was just Bakar and me, and a hand-full of dogs. But that brave dog of mine never held back. As soon as I raised my hand – like this – he ran round the thicket to flush the pigs out. Bakar’s dog and the two bitches followed. I kept the young dog with me. I didn’t trust him. One to the left and one to the right, with the thicket before us, Bakar and I crept in close – like this – spears ready. Bakar whistled. The dogs barked. They pushed into the thicket. A pig crashed in the brambles. The dogs barked, but kept their distance. The thicket swayed and rustled. I balanced my spear. We crouched, waiting. The brambles parted.

  It was the boar. Not a sow. A full-grown boar – this big!

  The boar rushed out. My heart was in my throat. And there was my brave dog coming up behind – like this! – lashing out at the boar as he rushed towards me. That wily boar suddenly twisted in his tracks. My dog was too slow. The boar had him by the throat. He let go and tossed him high into the air. I ran forward. My dog yelped when the tusk pierced him. He hit the ground and lay still. The boar charged me, head lowered. I jumped out of his way, and before he could turn I thrust my spear.