Old Mother studied the child of her line. Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle had shared the mating circle with the Speaker of Hunters and Warriors for five years. Together they had three children, though none at the breast, and all running with the other young ones in mock-battle, mock-hunting, mock-gathering, learning the ways of the older ones. “Is your mate troubled because you have changed your name?”
Her great granddaughter did not answer that question, but her mouth was hard and her jaw firm. Her voice was devoid of inflection, stating only fact, in the words of ceremony, whenshe said, “He has requested to enter the Womb Passage into the circle of Old Mother of Winter Trees.”
The firelight danced across the dark features of Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle. She was sitting back on her heels, like the men of war, knees spread, a breechclout around her hips and covering her womb entrance. She wore a stone knife sheathed at one hip. Though Warrior Woman had not entered her new vows, Old Mother knew that a battle ax lay atop the pile of furs she had left at the inner door.
Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle had painted herself in the marks of the hunter and warrior, with bloodstone-hematite pigmented bear-claw marks across both cheeks and her upper breasts. The three rolling waves of the great flood were marked in blue at both temples and on her upper chest below the notch at her neck. She had pierced her nose with the sharpened rib bone of a small seabird, a drop of blood still on the bone to indicate the freshness of the piercing. Woven in her vines were the bird’s white and gray feathers. Her areolas and nipples had been painted with chalk and animal fat to indicate that they would no longer give suckle to young. She had painted her hands with ocher and hematite and symbols of the hunt had been tattooed upon her shoulders, pricked with sharp stone and pigments rubbed into the wounds. Her pointed ears were pierced with the bones of fish and birds and had been hung with white feathers that were stained with her own blood. The blood of ceremony.
Old Mother of the Womb Circle should have noticed when her great granddaughter left the Circle of the Womb and moved into the Circle of the Hunters and Warriors, and she had not. Days and nights had passed since the vow of her change. The Woman of the Womb known as Summer Blossoms had been purified and brought into the Circle of the Hunters andWarriors. She had passed the rigors of the testing. She looked fierce. Shewasfierce.
Pride welled at the sight of this warrior, but such pride could wait, as could her own questions about the changes wrought by her daughter’s change. More important for now—a male wished to enter her circle.A male. This had happened only once in the oral tales and his ending had been a bad one.
Old Mother thought on this. According to the oldest teachings, Killer of Lion was the Speaker of the Men and Women Who Hunted and Made War. He was also Bearer of the Hunting Staff. His hunters guarded the entrance passage to the Men’s Circle. He taught the ways of the hunt, of battle and war, the ways of killing to the young. He punished the young men who brought shame upon themselves.
Killer of Lion was male. Passage into the Womb Circle was dangerous to men. Evil would befall him and much evil had already befallen Killer of Lion. In an autumn raid in his twelfth year, a defender of an enemy tribe—Weaves Baskets Tribe—had hit him with a battle ax. His men had avenged him, but he was deeply damaged by the blow and had slept for many days. Even his mother, a woman of great knowledge and medicinal lore, could not save the vision in his eye. Now one eye looked into the world of the people, brown as the earth, seeing much. The other eye was white and looked into the spirit world, seeing the darkness to come.
Though only thirty summers of age, his vision into both worlds had made him wise. If Killer of Lion asked to enter the Passage of the Womb, despite the known danger, he must have important news, strong reasons, great need, and much strength.
This had not been in her visions, for a man to crawl through the curved entrance of the Womb Circle. There was more than the strength of Killer of Lion, more than his need, to be considered in such a decision.
Had the Speaker simply forced his way in, Old Mother would have accepted his passage and allowed the evil to fall upon him, but if she allowedthisman passage and evil came upon him, there would be repercussions in the world of the spirits and in the world of the tribe. His two-eyes told her this.
Even as she considered, there was much evil coming. Killer of Lion was important in his own right. He was the son of the Staff Bearer of the Salt Tribe. Staff Bearer of Salt was an important woman among many tribes, as her tribe alone had kept alive the making of boats and rafts after the floods. War with the Salt Tribe would damage their ability to fight the coming war. The Old Mother of Salt was prideful and rash. She might declare war between tribes.
Most important to her own heart, Killer of Lion was the former mate of Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle. She had given up childbearing. If her former mate entered the Womb Passage, he would live with an evil that might prevent him from offering his seed to any woman. And her great granddaughter would grieve this.
So many things to consider in this seemingly simple request.
She asked, “Does Killer of Lion understand the danger that such a passage may bring upon him?”
“He does. He brings gifts and many questions,” Warrior Woman said.
Old Mother looked upon the child of her line. “You have lain with him. You have told him of my visions?”
“No, Old Mother,” she said, scowling in the flickering light of the flames and the dark of the winter circle. “When I chose my new name and told him I would bear no more daughters, he left me. We are mated no more.” Her voice went bitter as wormwood, but resolute. “If he survives entering the Womb Passage, he will place himself among the unmated menat the First Mating Moon in the spring’s First Gather. At Fish Famine Moon, in the language of the women, at Trout Salmon Moon in the hunters’ language, he will offer a different woman his trout and salmon and the seed that gives daughters.”
It was certain by her words, that Warrior Woman had told him she would lie with him no more. Had she then expected that his love would be enough to keep him close to her and living in her circle? Watching her great granddaughter, Old Mother sniffed the air. From her expression, hard like stone, and the pungent smell of her anger, yes. Her great granddaughter was seldom so foolish.
Killer of Lion was a man of great responsibility and power. Yet, he was still young, too young to be satisfied without mating. Old Mother had known this, and if her great granddaughter had told her of her plans before her oath, Old Mother would have warned her. But she had sworn to the Earth, upon the clay floor of the holy circle, and painted her intention upon her body without seeking counsel. Her life had changed because of this. It was too late to undo the acti
on. The visions would be true unto themselves, even if her daughter went to war.
“Ahhh,” Old Mother said at last. “Your sorrow is my sorrow. Tell him his request is being considered. But first send runners to the Salt Tribe where they camp, to the Staff Bearer of the Salt Women. You will not go yourself. Is this understood?”
Warrior Woman nodded reluctantly.
“Tell the Staff Bearer that her son has requested entrance to the Womb Passage. Tell her the passage will take place after full dark has fallen this night. If she wishes to counsel against this passage, she must send her marker and her staff with one who will speak, or come herself to counsel him against this danger.”
“It shall be as you have spoken, Old Mother of Winter Trees.” Her granddaughter fed the fire from dry fallen wood gathered among the trees, made sure the opening in the thatch for the smoke to escape was free of sleet and snow, and departed through the Womb Passage.
As the sun began to set, the cold grew. Winds howled. Sleet and ice fell and froze solid. Old Mother of Winter Trees waited.
???
Before sunset, Warrior Woman of Blood and Battle stood with two other women, guarding the Passage of the Womb Circle, facing to the west, as witnesses to the setting sun. The torn flesh of her wrists and ankles burned and cracked as she shifted and moved. The pain was a sharp reminder that soon—when the First Gather was called—she would no longer be counted among the women. At the gather, she would move her possessions from the Womb Circle into the Hunters and Warrior’s Circle.
She flexed her fists as the sun set, bringing blood to the surface of her skin as the wounds split open.
The night after her vow, she had walked deep into the forest to sleep beneath her tree. Like the earth, the trees had whispered of coming danger, and she woke with vines around her and thorns pressing into the flesh of her wrists and ankles. Her decision to join the hunters and warriors had been approved by the earth. Her decision to hunt and battle the Killers of Trees had been good.
