Evolution

Sion was still suspicious. "I didn’t think Tori was lying with anybody yet. Apart from Acta, of course." Acta was one of the oldest of the men — not to mention the fattest — but he continued to prove his strength with his wily leadership of the hunts, and so he continued to assert his rights over the boys and young men. "I know Tori’s getting sick of being poked with Acta’s stinking dick; that’s what Jaypee told me! Soon he’s going to want to be with a woman, but not yet—"

Juna couldn’t meet her sister’s eyes — for the truth was, she had lain with Tori, just as Sion suspected. It had been out in the bush, with Tori boastfully full of beer. She didn’t know why she’d let him do it. She hadn’t even been sure he had done it right. She longed to tell her sister everything — how her bleeding had stopped, how she already felt the new life moving inside her — but how could she? Times were hard — times were always hard — and it wasn’t a good time to be producing a baby by a feckless boy. She hadn’t yet told Tori himself. She hadn’t even told her mother, Pepule, who was herself expecting a child. "Sion, I—"

There was a hand on her arm, hot and heavy, a breath redolent with unfamiliar spices. "Hello, girls. Something on your mind?" Juna flinched away, pulling her arm free.

This was Cahl, the beer man. He was a big man, fatter even than Acta, and he wore strangely constraining clothes: a tightly sewn jacket and trousers, heavy leather shoes, a hat stuffed with straw. On his back was a heavy skin full of ale; it sloshed as he squatted down beside them. His skin was cratered, like soil after rain, and his teeth were ugly brown stumps. But his gaze, as he smiled at Juna, had a kind of predator’s intensity.

Sion glared at him. "Why don’t you go back where you came from? Nobody wants you here."

He frowned briefly, striving to translate what she had said. His language was different from theirs. It was a common speculation that Cahl’s folk had come from somewhere far to the east, bringing their peculiar language with them. "Oh," he said at last, "plenty of people want me here. Some want me an awful lot. You’d be surprised what people will give me, in return for what I can give them." And he leered again, showing a mouthful of brown, rotten teeth. "Maybe we should talk about it, you and me," he said to Juna. "Maybe we should find out what we can do for each other."

"Keep away from me," Juna said tremulously.

But Cahl kept on staring at her, a snake’s stare, hard and intense.

It was with relief that she heard the footsteps of the returning men, their bare feet grinding in the dirt. Their naked bodies were caked with dust, and they were obviously weary. Juna saw that once again the dozen men had returned home empty-handed save for a few rabbits and rats; bigger game was very rare.

Old man Acta had his fat arm draped over Tori’s shoulders. Juna didn’t want to meet the slim boy’s gaze, and yet she longed to know what he was thinking. How would he react if she told him what had happened as a result of their foolish fumble?

Cahl broke away from the girls, stood up, and raised his sack of beer over his head. "Welcome the hunters!"

Acta strode up to him. His tongue hung out doglike, as if the pendulous sack contained the only drink in the world. "Cahl, my friend. I hoped you would be here. You are a better shaman than that old fool in the hut."

Sion gasped at that casual blasphemy.

Cahl handed over the beer sack. "You look like you need this."

Acta grabbed it and held it close. But a trace of his old wiliness showed in his deep, piglike eyes. "And the payment? You can see how we are. We have little enough meat for ourselves. But—"

"But," said Cahl evenly, "you will take the beer anyway. Won’t you?" And he kept staring, until he had faced down Acta. Some of the men muttered uncomfortably at this show of weakness. But what Cahl said was obviously true. Cahl slapped Acta’s shoulder amiably. "We can talk about it later. Go rest in the shade. And as for me—"

"Take her," Acta mumbled, gazing at the beer. "Do what you like." He shambled toward the men’s hut. The other failed hunters dumped their meat outside the women’s huts and followed Acta, eager for a share in the beer. Soon Juna heard the growling of the shaman, who was always quickly revived by the stink of ale.

Cahl came back to the girls. He shook his head. "In my home such a depraved oaf would be cast out."

Sion prickled at this new insult. "The boys live with the men, in the men’s hut. It is a place of wisdom, where the boys learn to be men. And each man has a small house for his wife and his daughters and his infant sons. It is our way. It has always been our way."

"It might be your way, but it isn’t mine," Cahl said bluntly.

Juna found her curiosity pricked by that.