Chapter 19

It was every Autumn of her life that Ivory and the rest of her clan made the same trek south. Every Spring she returned the same way. She reasoned that the journey would seem less arduous as each year came by, but this year the wind was colder, the snow heavier and the ground more treacherous. Ivory wondered whether the migration only seemed worse because it was the first time her mother wasn't there to accompany her, but Glade was as good a companion as her mother had ever been and in certain ways a rather better one.

Where the soil wasn't frozen, it was churned up by the hooves of mammoth, rhinoceros and horse as they were funnelled rather too close for mutual comfort along narrow valleys where lions, hyenas and wolves gathered in their greatest numbers.

"This reminds me of my long journey northwards with Demure," said Glade as she scraped off as much as she could of the glutinous muck that coated her fur boots.

"I still don't understand why you stayed with the conniving bitch," said Ivory.

"Often, if nothing else, it was for companionship alone," Glade reflected. "It's not easy to be alone in strange and unfamiliar landscapes. There were so many wild animals that we'd never seen before and for many days and nights we didn't dare approach any of the villages along the sea-shore."

"Why not? Surely, they would have sheltered you?"

"The fires that blazed above the hills along the shore were used to send very precise messages and they would, of course, have spread news of our exile. When we lived by the sea, we were kept informed about the affairs of far-away villages, so we knew that every one of the Ocean People's villages had been warned to shun a certain black woman and her lighter skinned female companion."

"So, if you didn't go along the sea-shore, where did you travel?"

"We couldn't head towards the South and the Sun, because Queen Mimosa's people would find us and almost certainly kill not only Demure, but me for consorting with her. So, we were forced to walk away from the Sun towards the North. We didn't know then that the Sun ascends less high in the sky as you walk away from it and that it shines less heartily. Although we never strayed far from the sight and sound of the sea, we didn't dare walk along the sand or too close to the pebbles that settled in its wake. But beyond the shore was a desolate landscape: often nothing more than sand that extended far, far, far into the distance with no sign of another sea."

Glade remembered this earlier trek with a shudder. On her trek with Ivory and the Mammoth Hunters, her principal concern was the cold that penetrated the layers of thick fur, but at that time it had been the overwhelming heat. The two woman urgently sought out any shade they could find from the unforgiving Sun. After even a few moments of exposure they were dazed and their skin would burn. Today, Glade was protected by other travellers who would help her if she missed a step or fell ill or was pursued by a leopard. Then, there were just two naked women, who carried all they had in skin pouches secured by leather straps over their shoulders.

"Just where the fuck are we going?" Demure asked bitterly.

Glade smiled. Demure's anger at her predicament gave the women the strength to ward off despair. But all it took for hope to vanish was to gaze beyond the mottled shade of scrubby bushes between which they darted across the dusty, sometimes sandy, soil. Beyond was an unforgiving endless barren plain.

Glade gestured towards the empty dune-strewn horizon to the East. "We can't go that way because we don't know where the next spring or oasis might be." She gestured towards the distant blue aura of the ocean. "And we can't go that way because you fucked it up with the Ocean People,"

"It's not my fault they took against me," protested Demure disingenuously.

Glade resisted the temptation of countering her lover's claim of innocence. The couple had engaged in this argument many times before and Glade knew that there was nothing more to be gained. She was in possession of the inviolable truth whilst Demure possessed a self-righteousness that exceeded rational argument.

"And we can't head south because Mimosa's tribe will lynch us..."

"You can't blame me for that."

"I'm not sure I can't, you know," countered Glade who remembered only too well Demure's harsh treatment of her slaves. "So, all that's left is to walk towards the North and with the Sun forever on our backs."

"Well, at least, it keeps the Sun out of my eyes," remarked Demure, who retained her sense of humour despite their misfortune.

The two women wandered along the desert periphery for almost the whole cycle of the moon, during which Glade discovered for the first time that she and her lover's menstrual cycle was in perfect synchrony. This curiously reassuring fact was the only happy thought in a time during which both women were constantly thirsty and had become increasingly scrawny. The women pooled together their different survival skills and lore, augmented by what Demure had learnt from the now-deceased Quagga whose original home had been in a drought-prone expanse of savannah before Demure's tribe seized her. There were succulent plants that could be ripped apart for their store of water; ants and beetles that could be dug out of the parched soil; and leaves that eventually released nutrition after considerable chewing.

When the Sun was high in the sky it was too hot to walk, so the two lovers rested in what shade they could find. During the night it was too cold and dark for the women to venture far. So, it was during twilight and dawn that the women made most progress and at midday and night when they rested.

"I'm sure you had each other's bodies to keep yourselves warm in the cold nights," sniffed Ivory, who was oddly jealous of Glade's love for a woman who was now dead.

"It was never as cold as the tundra or the Mammoth steppes," Glade remarked. "If either of us had known then how to make and stitch clothes then we'd have rather cuddled up in a bear-hide. Yes, we did embrace each other. Our body's shared warmth was the most heat we could find. There were too few sticks or branches to feed a reasonably warm fire. But there was very little lovemaking. However much we'd have liked to, we were too weak and hungry for that."

Ivory felt she knew all she ever needed to know about exhaustion, thirst and hunger at this moment and in this place, along a valley that was steadily narrowing towards the still distant mountains. Only her wind-lacerated cheeks and numb nose could be seen through the thick furs that swaddled her. Ivory squeezed her nose between a thumb and fingers that were bunched inside a mitten tied by cord around her wrist. Her grip was more like that of an otter or seal than of a squirrel or rat. She stared ahead through the lashing wind and hoped that the shelter of the winter retreat was just that much closer. Sadly, the white peaks of the Southern Mountains appeared as distant as they were the day before or any other day since they were first glimpsed over the horizon.

Winter offered little comfort for Ivory and her tribe. The South was warmer than the North but it was still very cold. Every winter, the Mammoth Hunters slept in the same mountain caves in the same Southern valley, so this was home for them; but it was a home shared with other animals that had also fled south to escape the oppressive snow and brutal cold. Some beasts, like elk, bison, aurochs and Mammoth, were welcome prey. As they were crowded so much more densely together they were easier to hunt and kill. But the Mammoth Hunters weren't the only ones who wanted to feast on the unwillingly stockaded game. There were many predators, such as wolf, hyena, lion and leopard, and, unsurprisingly, hunters from other tribes.

Winter was also the only time that Ivory and her tribe ever came into contact with tribes that spoke different languages, worshipped different spirits and dressed in different ways, although none appeared as odd and none with as dark skin as Glade. They might have rounder faces, darker hair, longer noses, and be more slight or stocky. Those who migrated from the North were in the same predicament as the Mammoth Hunters, so there was mutual respect for each other. Relations could sometimes even be almost amicable.

This was unlikely to be the case with those they might encounter who lived in the South in Summer as well as Winter. They might welcome the onrush of fresh game but they didn't necessarily welcome the influx of the Northerners. Ivory didn't know much about the Southern tribes. They were often tall and dressed rather less in furs and more in hides. They were more likely to feast on horse and deer rather than Mammoth and elk.

Ivory asked Glade what she knew about the Southern tribes.

"Didn't you know that I lived in their company for many years before I became a shaman for your tribe?" said Glade.

"Were you a shaman for these people, too?"

"Not as I am in your tribe," said Glade. "Many of the Southern tribes have a very sophisticated faith, quite different from yours. Their rites are mysterious and complex. I speak their language, but even after several years I understood their culture rather less well than I do that of your people."

As the Mammoth Hunters trekked further south the looming distant mountains filled ever more of the horizon.

"Not far now," the Chief reassured the tribe at the end of the day as everyone settled around the fires. They crouched under aurochs-hide shelters supported over the frozen soil by branches and mammoth tusk while the gentle patter of light snow fell above their heads. "We shall follow the Wide River for three days and then enter the pass that opens to our left. There, at last, we shall be in the shelter of the mountains and just two days trudge from our winter home."