Free The Shore of Women by Pamela Sargent Page B

Wanderer grabbed my hand. “No. I know this kind of snare—a band I have treated with near here set it. We must leave it for them.”
    “They won’t know who took it,” I said.
    “The Goddess will know, and we may soon meet this band along the way. My truce would be at an end if they saw me with their game, and the snare has marked that rabbit on its limb. Leave it.”
    We walked on, satisfying our thirst with handfuls of melted snow, and soon came upon two red-haired young men. I readied my spear, then lowered it as the men greeted Wanderer and Shadow. As Wanderer spoke to them in their own speech, they glared suspiciously at me. I longed to run from the strangers but controlled my fear. I could make out only a few words of their talk; some were northern words, while others resembled the holy speech of the shrine. Most of the words were unfamiliar.
    “What is he saying?” I asked Shadow.
    “Wanderer says you are his charge and that the Goddess guided you to him.” One of the young men uttered a stream of words. “He says that his camp will give us meat for one of Wanderer’s stories.”
    I was astonished. “They will feed us in return for words? You have an easy life.”
    “Do not think that, Arvil,” he answered as we followed the young men. “Last season, we were offered food for a story, but that band did not like the tale and drove us away with beatings from their spears. Only our truce with them saved us from death. Usually, it is better to do our own hunting, or to aid a band with theirs in return for a share.”
    The men led us to tents on a hillside, where the haunch of a deer was cooking over a fire. Five older men with reddish-brown beards sat with four towheaded boys. As with another band I had once seen, they had grown to resemble one another.
    We squatted near the fire to warm ourselves, and Wanderer began his story. He sang the words and, at times, leaped to his feet, waving his arms while his deep voice swelled.
    “What is he saying?” I murmured to Shadow.
    “This is a new one. He told it to another band a moon ago, and they liked it so much that we got extra portions.”
    “What is it about?” Wanderer was kneeling now, bowing toward the ground as he spoke.
    “He is telling them of a band far to the south, where it never snows and the water never grows stiff. Once, there was a boy who was the best hunter and the best tracker and the best forager who ever lived. The Goddess loved him so much that he was called to an enclave six times, for his looks were fair and pleasing to all and his spirit was brave. But when he grew older, he became unhappy and went to live in a shrine so that he could always be near the Goddess. Men for many paces around brought him food and pleasured him and prayed with him because they believed he was holy—otherwise, the Goddess would have ordered him from the shrine, as She will if someone tarries there too long.”
    The red-haired men were staring at Wanderer, their mouths open. “One day,” Shadow continued in a low voice, “when the man’s own band came to him, they saw that, under his shirt, he had grown breasts. He disrobed before them, and they saw that his member was gone and that he bore the pouch instead.”
    Wanderer, still chanting, was holding his arms to the sky.
    “Then,” Shadow went on, “the Goddess spoke, and said, ‘This is My Child, in Whom I am well pleased.’ And the man, who had become one of Her aspects, was lifted up and taken to the moon, where he lives with Her in bliss. You can see him there when the moon is full.”
    I gaped at him. “Is that true?”
    “There is more to it than that,” Shadow said. “Wanderer puts in more details.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It isn’t really true, but Wanderer found out long ago that most bands like a story with bits of truth and a lot of invention more than one that is all true.” He paused. “We did hear a tale from a band long ago about a man who tried to live in a