He gave her a shocked look. “You wouldn't! Consider! There are only three men now!”
“I'd rather there were no men, than to have to put up with you,” she told him coldly.
Camp was set up around Kerish and her baby. The day of relative leisure was welcome. Fintan went back to his hunting, taking with him some of the women who had shown skills at catching small game. Nanno and Ayn looked after the new mother, a task that
primarily consisted of keeping Byth from pestering them too much. He wanted to hold the baby, he wanted to ask Kerish how she felt, he wanted to do something for them. Anything.
He drove the others mad.
At last Nanno snapped, “If you want to help, gather more moss for diapering!”
Byth scurried away importantly. He spent the better part of the afternoon selecting, grading, and discarding bits of moss as if life or death might depend on them.
Ladra sat propped against his tree for a long time. The color slowly returned to his cheeks and the light to his eyes. Kesair was aware that those eyes followed her as she moved around the encampment. She began planning her paths so that trees interposed between herself and Ladra, blocking his vision.
Her warning had meant nothing to him. He did not take it seriously because it interfered with his fixed idea of reality.
She began to wonder if she would actually have to kill him eventuallyâkill him, or submit.
But it was not in her to submit.
That night they built a fire in a glade in the forest and roasted the game Fintan and his fellow hunters provided. Byth insisted the best parts, such as the liver, be given to Kerish. He forced more meat on her than she could possibly eat.
“Was he always like that, do you suppose?” Kerish asked Nanno.
The old woman's eyes were lost in wrinkles, but a smile lurked in their depths. “I knew him as a young man with his wife, and I assure you, he paid very little attention to his children then. Nor to the wife either. He had a wife and children because it was expected of him, and once he had them settled in his house he got on with his life. Oh, I'm sure he was fond of them in an absentminded way. But he took them for granted.
“Now he is no longer young, Kerish, and he has realized how fragile existence is. He is a different man.”
“We are all of us different people,” Kerish said. “I never imagined I would give birth in a forest and diaper my baby with moss. Me, who used to spend hours buffing my fingernails!”
“That was in another world,” Nanno reminded her.
“Do you miss it? Do you wish we could go back?”
“Of course I do. But that's like wishing you could be young
again. We only travel in one direction, Kerish. Forward. Remember that, and waste no time regretting.”
The baby at Kerish's breast whimpered and began seeking the teat again. His mother gazed down at him, then bent her neck to kiss the downy crown of his head.
Sitting opposite them, Kesair looked at mother and infant in the firelight. The picture they made was creating maternal stirrings in many of the women. She could not help noticing how they drew closer to their men, so that the three groups became more clearly delineated than usual. Even Ladra's women gathered around him, though of late they had been avoiding him whenever they could.
But it was Kesair his eyes sought.
She edged closer to Fintan. Salmé, sitting on his right, glared at her and refused to give ground. If Fintan was aware of the silent duel between the two women he gave no sign; he went on eating his food, his face impassive. With no word spoken, Kesair realized he would sleep with Salmé that night.
But she must talk to him. “Fintan,” she said in a low, urgent voice, “there is something I must discuss with you. Tonight. It's a serious problem. I need you.”
Salmé's lips tightened over her teeth and she moved still closer to Fintan.
Kesair reached past her, putting a hand on the man's arm. Immediately Salmé put her own hand on the arm, pinning it down. Her eyes were hot with challenge.
Kesair tried to make Fintan look at her but he would not. Nor did he respond to her touch. He sat immobilized, letting the women fight it out. Enjoying it, no doubt.
In that moment Kesair hated him.
She drew her dignity around her like an invisible cloak and relinquished her hold on his arm. “Very well. I shall handle the problem myself.” Her voice was cold. She stood up and left them, walking with a straight back and high head into the sheltering darkness of the trees.
She knew that Ladra was following her with his eyes. But he did not come after her.
He was still feeling weakened, so he remained where he was, biding his time. There would be other chances. Tomorrow. Or the day after.
He had a score to settle.
The next morning Kerish insisted she could get up and walk if they did not walk too fast or too far without resting. So they pitched camp and set out. A doting Byth carried the baby, refusing to surrender it to any of the women. He only gave it back to Kerish for feeding.
“What if he drops my baby?” she complained to Ramé.
“He won't. Just look at him. He would rather die than let anything happen to that child.”
They were soon out of the forest. Beyond lay a rolling meadowland that stretched to the horizon. “I'd say it's a central plain, if this really is an island as we think it is,” Fintan remarked.
Leel paused, squatted on her heels, dug in the earth with her fingers. It was loamy and dark. “Rich soil,” she said.
The plain was crisscrossed with watercourses, to which Kesair was inevitably drawn. They could not lose their way if they followed the water.
They were on open grassland under an open sky. Making sure there were others close by, she fell into step with Ladra. “This is good farmland, I'd say,” she told him. “Fertile. And since we've met no serious danger, you might want to claim this region for yourself while the rest of us look farther.”
“I'm in no hurry to leave you,” Ladra drawled, enjoying the discomfiture in her eyes. “I'll stay with you a while longer. You can never tell what we may discover up ahead. Better land, perhaps. Or something ⦠wonderful,” he added meaningfully. He ran his eyes over her body like impertinent hands.
Kesair edged away from him, repelled.
But Ladra made no move to pursue her. He seemed content to watch her and make her uncomfortable.
He had never toyed with a woman in that way before, and he found he enjoyed it. It gave him a sense of power. It also was a form of revenge, and revenge was power too.
Ladra speculated as to whether Kesair might have told Fintan about the attack. Probably not, or Fintan would have done something. Or perhaps he was just waiting for Ladra to try it again, and catch him in the act. Then there would be a fight between them.
I am bigger, Ladra told himself. I would win.
He imagined bludgeoning the other man to the earth. The idea gave him an almost sensual pleasure. He strolled along with a tiny smile playing around the corners of his mouth, dreaming with his eyes open.
But Kesair had not told Fintan. After the scene with Salmé, she spoke to him no more than she must. His use of the other woman's body did not upset her, that was inevitable. But she could not forget how meekly he had submitted to Salmé and rejected Kesair when she needed him.
Crossing the central plain, they came to a valley of abundance at the confluence of three rivers. When they pitched camp for the night Kesair spoke to Ladra again. “This would be a fine place for you and your women.”
“There is something I have to settle before we separate from the rest of you, Kesair,” he replied. “I think we'll just stay with you a while longer. Until.”
That night, wrapped in her blankets, Kesair fingered the knife she had taken to bed with her and wondered what it would be like to kill a man. Could she make herself do it? And what would the others do to her if she diminished the adult male population by a third?
I should discuss this with someone, she thought. But ever since she first joined the crafts colony, she had kept a certain distance between herself and the other women. Their talk seemed superficial to her, their interests were rarely her interests. And men had represented an area of life she had chosen to ignore.
Old Byth, fond as she was of him, would be little help to her in the present situation. And Fintan had rejected her.
Lying alone on the yielding earth, Kesair fingered the knife and thought of past and future. She was suspended between them.
We thought we were so highly developed, she mused. We believed humankind masters of the universe.
Now we are fifty-three people on an island. And I am contemplating murder.
Why can you not give in to Ladra? her rational mind demanded to know. Any one of the three would do as well as any other for the purpose of procreation. Surely it is not worth destroying what little civilization we have left, just to deny yourself to him.
But she could not submit to Ladra. Rationality had no power over
elemental emotion. She had once been terribly hurt by a man, and she had been hurt again by Fintan's recent rejection. Some quality in him had begun the slow process of thawing her frozen passions, but that was now reversed. All she had left was the integrity of her inmost self, and she would rather die than surrender it to any man on demand.
Dying, killing, repeated her rational mind. After all that has happened, still you think these thoughts. Are you not revolted by the unquenchable darkness of the human soul?
I am, she answered. Yet she ran her finger down the knife blade again, testing its sharpness. She felt balanced on a knife blade between the old world and the new.
The blade was killing-sharp.
Close to her head, something crackled.
Kesair stiffened. Someone was creeping toward her in the darkness.
Her fingers closed on the hilt of the knife, easing it out from under the blankets. Suddenly she felt more alive than she could remember feeling. Every cell in her body tingled.
Whoever it was came closer.
The night was very still. The air was damp and heavy, and brought her an ominous, sour scent.
Ladra was stealthily approaching her bed.
Kesair felt a shock of surprise that he would risk such a move in the open, where one cry would alert the others. She was ten paces from the nearest sleeper.
Now she regretted even that distance, though keeping space between herself and the others was a well-established habit. She wished she were lying pressed close against Elisbut or Sorcha or even Salmé.
Her straining eyes made out the dim outline of the approaching head and shoulders. Ladra was actually crawling toward her on his belly, she realized with revulsion. Her hand made a small, convulsive movement, eager to use the knife.
“Kesair.” His whisper was so soft she would not have heard it if her senses had not become preternaturally sharp with tension. “Kesair.”
“Get away from me,” she said in a low voice. She was embarrassed; she did not want the others to know.
“I have to talk to you.” He wriggled closer.
“Talk? Talk isn't what you want from me.”
“Oh but it is. Just listen.” Ladra lay down beside her. He made no effort to touch her. “You tried to kill me,” he said in that same insidious whisper. “But I forgive you. I want you to know I forgive you.”
His unctuous tone infuriated her. “You can't forgive me for something I didn't do. I never tried to kill you. But I promise you, if you try to lay a hand on me now, I will.”
“You should be nicer to me, Kesair. I'm the only one who appreciates you.”
“They follow me as their leader,” she said proudly.
“It isn't the same thing. You are the leader because you're ⦠different. I understand that, I'm different too, in my own way. I could show you. We could make something very special together.” His voice was soft, insinuating.
“You're different because you're insane,” she said bluntly.
To her surprise, he chuckled. “Is that what you think? I'm insane because I don't subscribe to the same behavior as the rest of you? I am the sanest person among us, Kesair. I'm the only one who realizes that everything is different now; none of the old laws and restrictions apply. We can do what we like here, don't you understand? Don't you know how wonderful that is? We are free.
Free.”
The word hissed between them.
“Take advantage of your freedom, Kesair. Don't limit yourself to that wretched Fintan. Come to me. Be with me. Together we can explore ourselves, each other, this island, the whole world. It's all ours to take and shape, don't you see?
“You're still tied to the past. You wanted to burn the rubbish, rather than simply walk away from it. You can walk away from everything now. No more responsibilities. Just pleasure. Pleasure ⦔