Chapter 29

The following nights and days were hard. They were cold, bitterly so, and not everyone was going to survive the winter months. Ivory was tested as she'd never been tested before. She could never have managed without the love of Ptarmigan who insisted on accompanying her lover on every visit to a villager who was ill, injured or about to give birth. This was well appreciated, especially by those who'd become villagers on account of having accidentally stumbled into the Mountain Valley. The River People had now learnt enough of the Mammoth Hunters' tongue to explain that they were known as such in their language because they lived along the banks of a great river.

Traditionally a Mammoth Hunter Chief, and especially his wife, wasn't normally as intimately involved in the daily concerns of the tribe as was Ptarmigan. Although this was a degree of pastoral care beyond what anyone expected, in a village beset by the trials of the miserable winter months and now dominated by women, children and the unfit Ptarmigan's attention was very much welcomed. This was especially so on those occasions when despite Ivory's best efforts the villagers had to mourn yet another death. Ivory was particularly distressed when two children expired within a day of each other. The population of the already sparsely populated village was being steadily reduced and its survival was now at risk. Then there were two deaths at the same time less than half a moon later, when Ivory was tending to the delivery of a new child and Ptarmigan was comforting the mother. The child could not breach the womb and the loss of blood was so great that the mother also died. Not only was this a double tragedy, but the village now had the responsibility of caring for two now motherless children.

Ptarmigan and Ivory worked hard to sustain the village's morale through dark days such as these when everyone was in mourning and feared for their survival. There were days when it was impossible to hunt or forage in the frozen earth, when the spirits of the mountains brought fresh coatings of deep snow and it was too dangerous to venture out. Rations could only spread so far and every soul in the village was hungry and weak. There were days when bears and lions roamed within sight of the villagers so desperate for fresh meat that it took a coordinated effort to chase the predators away. There were days when although the sun shone and no fresh snow had fallen, it was so cold that the villagers shivered no matter how many furs they piled on, urine turned to ice almost before it reached the ground, and fingers and toes threatened to turn blue: thereby risking the need for amputation. These were the days when the villagers most needed to be actively engaged in hunting and foraging. And in this activity, as much as any other, Ptarmigan and Ivory were as engaged as everyone else.

The River People's knowledge became ever more valuable as they revealed sources for food that the Mammoth Hunters had never known before. There were nuts hidden in trees; nests of lemming and other small animals hidden underground; bee hives hidden in the cavities of caves or high up the tall trees; truffles and exotic mushrooms that could be dug from under tree roots; and there were techniques for hunting the hibernating fish and frogs that the Mammoth Hunters learned from the River People just as they also shared the knowledge of their own culture.

Ivory ensured that it was only during the worst storms that the village didn't gather together around the communal fire to share the daily feast and also nourish the soul with songs, prayers and stories. When the repertoire of traditional entertainment was exhausted then new songs and stories were invented or existing ones further embellished. In this as well, the River People made an invaluable contribution especially as their understanding of and verbal dexterity in the Mammoth Hunters' language improved.

It was the River People also that made it easier for Ptarmigan and Ivory to announce their love for one another to the rest of the village. This became especially important when Spring had arrived and the Chief, the shaman and the other villagers still hadn't returned from the hunting grounds in the mountains. No one dared to voice what the Mammoth Hunters feared which was that Chief Cave Lion and his companions had perished and that all that was left of the former village were those who now shared the Mountain Valley with the River People. But there was a real problem that needed to be resolved. If the Chief wasn't going to return, then who should shoulder his responsibilities and duties? Could the village entrust their welfare on the Chief's wife, who could easily now be the Chief's widow? It could surely not be right that such responsibility should be shouldered by someone blighted with such a great loss. The whole community could collapse unless there was a way of conferring legitimacy on Ptarmigan's authority. It was the River People that proposed the solution. In their culture, a widow could inherit the responsibility and duty if it had been granted to her by her husband and that she had a partner, though normally a man, to assist her.

So it was that Ivory decided to tell the village that she was prepared to assume the duty of being Ptarmigan's husband should the Chief never return and that the spirits had sanctioned such an unconventional role. It was a difficult concept to expound to the village, but Ivory persevered nonetheless. As she explained, a shaman was already known to be a special type of person. After all, a precedent had already been set. The absent shaman was distinctly different with her dark skin and alien features. It was also known, although not much approved, that Chief Cave Lion regularly made love with both his wife and the shaman's apprentice. In practice, the union between the two women already had the Chief's blessing.

Ivory explained to the villagers during the evening festivities that she had always enjoyed sexual relations with women and was therefore spiritually a man. The fact that she also enjoyed having sex with men, specifically the Chief and the Reindeer Herders, was proof that she was biologically a woman. The spirits had a special mission for her and she was duty-bound to follow their calling. She took Ptarmigan in her arms and confirmed her love for the Chief's wife by kissing her on the lips. The villagers cheered and none of them questioned whether Ptarmigan by virtue of being the other half of this same sex relationship shouldn't also be considered spiritually a man.

A wedding was arranged, but it was explained that this was only a wedding of convenience. When Chief Cave Lion returned, Ptarmigan would return to her filial duties. When the shaman returned, Ivory would once again serve as her apprentice. But until this joyous day the village needed to be united around a chief and the chief's wife, and in the interim these roles would be occupied by Ptarmigan and Ivory. This was the wish of the spirits of the Mammoth Hunters in collaboration with the spirits of the River People. The River People had a very relaxed attitude towards women taking on the senior role of chief and had no notion that same sex relationships were anything but natural. Consequently, they were rather more enthusiastic about the arrangement than the Mammoth Hunters. But it was understood that these were extraordinary times. The village needed the traditional structures of leadership and decision-making. Furthermore, normal customs would be resumed when the rest of the Mammoth Hunters returned from the distant Winter hunting grounds.

The challenge that confronted Glade and Demure after being exiled from the Cave Dwellers' society was to return to living together as they'd last done when they were younger and lived in a much warmer part of the world. It wouldn't be easy for them. The two women were several years older now and Demure at least somewhat less attractive. They also had to deal with the inevitable prejudice against women whose skin was significantly darker than that of anyone else they encountered.

It was very difficult to begin with. They were shunned by the tribes they encountered who sometimes chased them away in the belief that they were demons. The language they spoke was understood by progressively fewer people as they followed the shore first north and then east away from the lands of the Cave Dwellers. Although each tribe had its own distinct language, there was another language that was widely spoken and understood and this was the language of the Cave Painters. Glade's skill at learning new languages was again sorely tested, but she was soon able to exchange words in the Cave Painters' language in addition to languages less widely spoken like that of the Shell People, the Aurochs Riders, the Lion Skin People and even the distantly known tribe of the far north that hunted mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.

The two women survived by virtue of their knowledge of living off the land, but there were still many days when they had little to eat. When the intense icy wind blew, their shelters shook during the night from the cruel gusts and sometimes collapsed on top of them. The women begged from the people they passed. When that didn't work they exchanged sexual favours for food and furs. This wasn't as lucrative as it might have been several years earlier. Glade was the younger woman and, unlike Demure, she had no disfiguring scars, so hers was the more valued body in such exchanges. This was no consolation to Demure who resented the fact that Glade could so easily earn a fuck while she was often left with at best the final jerks of ejaculation from men who'd already enjoyed Glade's body.

It was by chance, however, that Glade discovered that there was a better way in which the couple could gain acceptance and receive the food and provisions they needed so much. When she'd become sufficiently fluent in the languages of the northern lands, she was able to chat with villagers and told them of her status as a shaman's wife when she lived with the Cave Dwellers.

"Can you help my mother?" asked one of the men who'd just been fucking her while they were in an Aurochs Rider village. "She is ill and our shaman says that she will die within the cycle of the moon."

Glade agreed, although Demure was more hesitant. She didn't believe it was right to offer services for no further reward, but Glade was overwhelmed by compassion for the unhealthy woman. She had a huge swelling on her leg near the ankle which Glade could see was swollen with pus. It was a similar symptom to another ailment she'd seen Flint deal with and was generally caused when a person had waded out into stagnant muddy water. Glade lanced the swelling with a specially sharpened flint knife which she heated up for a long time over a fire. She then applied a warm fruit over the wound which she tied to the leg with a binding of straw and sinew. She also gave the woman some special herbs that lessened her pain during the painful surgery. A wound like this would normally take a day or so to heal, but what was most important, as she explained to the woman's son, was that the wound should be kept clean and the poultice re-applied when it disintegrated.

What astonished Glade, and also Demure, was not that the woman's wounds did indeed heal after a day or so, but that this remedy which was common knowledge amongst the Cave Dwellers was unknown to the Aurochs Riders. The village shaman was especially impressed when she explained that she'd learnt her skills amongst the Cave Dwellers in the south. He expressed more respect towards Glade than she'd received since she and Demure were first exiled.

"There are two tribes of great wisdom and sophistication," the shaman said. "They are both tribes that live in caves. The Cave Painters excel in the arts, but the Cave Dwellers excel more in craft and medicine. Our tribe excels in bravery and cunning in the capture and hunt of the aurochs, but we have much to learn from the tribes of the caves."

Glade was invited to stay with the shaman and his husband in the oxen-hide shelter they'd erected in the branches of the oak trees where most of the Aurochs Riders lived. It was a precarious shelter but secure enough to hold Demure as well under the furs where Glade was permitted to sleep. Demure was less than delighted by the arrangement even though it was the most luxury she'd enjoyed since living amongst the Cave Dwellers. This was mostly because she was aware that she was now very much the junior partner in her relationship with Glade. She was tolerated at best by the shaman who confided in Glade his belief that it was a demons' curse that had turned Demure's skin so dark. And although she could enjoy Glade's flesh she wasn't able to savour that of the shaman and his husband whose lovemaking was intense, noisy and very physical and from which Demure was totally excluded.

This interlude came to an end when the Aurochs Riders dismantled their shelters to pursue their trail of the aurochs through the forests and the village chief made clear that he believed that the shaman had learnt enough from the accursed dark skinned harlots. He had very little time for women and especially those he suspected of distracting his Aurochs Riders from their manly pursuits.

Even so, although Glade and Demure had lost a home they had discovered a vocation.

For the next few years, the two exotic women became familiar figures along the migration routes, the river ways, the sea shores and the mammoth trails of the land south of the high snow-covered mountains and north of the Great Sea. They were not only famed for their unusual appearance, but also for the services they provided for the price of food, provisions and furs. They traded flints, shiny stones, carved ivory and exotic furs to the various tribes. They provided sexual services for those prepared to relish exotic flesh. But what raised them above the few other itinerants who also made such a precarious living was their shamanic talents that rumour had it came not only from the almost mythical Cave Dwellers but from distant lands beyond the furthest horizon of the Great Sea.