Chapter 2: The First Spear

But Yîgeke was not to have the peace she wished for that day.

She had much work awaiting her, and the sun would find slumber long before her. She would climb into a niche carved from a sandstone wall, with more than a dozen of her fellow slaves all around, many in their own niches. But even in the night, some would be at work; the courtyard that was their home and workspace was never quiet. The sounds would help lull her into dreams, in which the First Hand would rise; she would watch from a safe, quiet distance as he blazed a path to freedom, finally casting the Sixth Spear to the sky. When the chains were cast off, only then would she emerge from her hiding place to join her people in freedom.

And when she awoke, awash in the memories of this dream, she would be filled with guilt at the selfishness of her dream. For it had been the lot of scores of generations before her to toil in silence, timidly suffering, merely in hopes that someday one of their children's children's children might see the Six Spears and be free. To hope it to happen in her lifetime, that it might be her and not one of her grandchildren to see freedom, seemed inexcusably selfish.

But before she could have, then regret, this dream, there were many hides to be tanned, and meat to be trimmed and readied for the cooks, and water to be fetched from the well, and much more besides. The day before, her master had gone on a hunt. As was often the case, she had ridden one of his swifter horses, dodging into the small herd of aurochs they found on the plains, then subtly guiding its movement to separate one or two from the rest, so he and his archers could fell the beasts without their bodies being trampled, ruining the hides. It had been a good hunt; he'd even allowed her first pick of the meat from one of them, so pleased was he with her riding, and her finesse at guiding the great beasts.

But that meant the stack of aurochs hides she had to tan was as high as her forehead. As she scraped and pulled at one pelt, she could hear the distant sounds of people milling in the dusty Court of the Well, and she frowned; ire grew within her, though little hint of it would have been seen on her face, even if any had been there to see it. Fools. Kargöz will be beaten until even Kumzu's herbs cannot erase the bruises, and likely Qemik with him, and how many others? Why could they not see what had been before them their whole lives? Why could they not remain quiet like a sand-mouse and let the lynx slumber? As she turned to another hide from the stack she paused to listen. By now, wiser minds should have prevailed, but if anything, it seemed the Court had become more crowded, more restless.

She had shrugged and started scraping at the hide, with perhaps a bit more force than was usual, but only a few beats of her heart measured the space before Ulgî blundered into the courtyard. "Come," he said in his low, guttural voice. "Kumzu say come." He beckoned with one hand the size of a cook-pan; behind him, eddies of dust swirled, swept into the air by the vast bulk of his passing.

Yîgeke's voice was tender, as it always was when she spoke to Ulgî. "No, I have work to do." She could see, in the eyes of this simple brute, a kindness that few others recognized. And something more, that she couldn't put her finger on. She wondered if even Kumzu, whose emotion ran so deep she seemed only to feel rather than to see, knew what was within Ulgî's spirit. There must be something that made her choose to become his mate, but while Kumzu could hardly be dissuaded from whispering about romances that Yîgeke wished not for, she shared no insights about her own.

At first it seemed Ulgî would accept her refusal. Had Kumzu given him something more to say, he would be laboring to remember it, his lips moving silently, but he just stood there. Yîgeke turned back to her work, only to be interrupted a moment later as the great brute simply lifted her like a sack of palm-fruits and started to carry her out. Her protests were ignored. "Kumzu say must come. If not, bring." She railed, even pounded her small fists on his back, though she wondered if he could even feel it.

The hubbub of the Court of the Well grew louder as he carried her towards it, as she'd feared. But as they reached the dusty plaza, the sounds died away. She found herself being placed gently down to meet the gazes of nearly two dozen silent Haehînbór, all staring at her, as if expecting her to speak. Or perhaps to flap her arms and fly into the sky, from the way they stared.

Dust swirled, and the rope that hung into the well creaked, but the Court remained quiet. She gazed out over them, waiting for someone to speak. As always her eyes recoiled from the sights of the horrors visited upon them. Here, an older woman bent over, her frame weakened with disease; not even Kumzu knew how to treat the consumption from spoiled food and tainted water. There, cruel lash-marks had been wound around a young boy's leg, biting so deep that he could no longer walk save with a limp; the Ortheri that owned him didn't care that this made him incapable of work, for there were always new slaves to be bought. Everywhere her eye fell, she saw the signs of misery, and she had to stare at the stones instead, hoping someone might stand up to stop it. But not today. Not here. And certainly not her.

At last, she could not bear the silence. "Why are you all here? Do you know not that the Ortheril Cowr himself is to visit our horse-market this very day? Go back to your dwellings in silence before the lynx awakens!" But the slaves in the Court made no answer. At the far side of the Court she saw Ulgî taking Kumzu's hand; near them were Oyana, Qemik, and Kargöz, which meant that Qemik's plan must have worked, whatever it was. They too were staring at her; if anything, her friends seemed even more awe-struck at the sight of her than the other slaves whose names she knew not. "Go back, quietly!" she said once more, trying to catch Kumzu's eye, and failing.

"Did you butcher the Cowr's horse?" These words came slowly, interrupted by coughs; the disease-wracked woman had taken a few steps closer, holding a horse-hide in her gnarled, bent fingers as she cast the words like stones at Yîgeke.

The question left her agape. Was she being accused of some wrongdoing? She flinched, fearing punishment, and even more, fearing how this misdeed might fall upon her brethren. But the hue of the hide in the crone's hands caught her eye. "I did," she said slowly as recollection crept into her thoughts. This confession elicited another hush from the crowd. Quickly, she protested, "The horse was lame, and old. The Cowr had brought it here and sold it to my master; this is why he is to be here today, buying a new horse. My master bade me to butcher it and prepare the meat…"

Her voice trailed off as she noticed that the wide-eyed stares, which lashed at her like sandstorms on bare skin, were not accusatory. They were something she'd never seen before, could not name, but no less unwelcome for that. She would much rather not be noticed at all, but if she must, definitely not with these rapt, almost awestruck, eyes. "What? What is it?" she asked, her heart racing, her hands shaking.

"The First Hand!" the young boy said, pointing to her.

She started to whirl around to see who was behind her, but there wasn't room for someone to stand there, as she had, habitually, backed up while speaking until the wall had come up against her. It seemed that words themselves hid from her, for she could find none to say. The ailing woman had taken two steps closer, then turned the pelt around, showing the inner surface, where the horse's thews had been cut away to be stewed.

The hide of any beast, and especially a beast of burden, bears markings and whorls, striations and patterns, that arise from the way the beast moves, happenstances of its life, and whatever whims nature itself took in shaping skin and muscle. The skins clearest and plainest were saved for parchment, but far more had grains and lines that made them better suited to other uses. This hide showed many discolorations and splotches, which was no surprise. The horse had been ridden by the Ortheril Cowr for at least six years, and had before that come to his hand from a merchant trader who claimed to have brought the horse from a faraway land. Of course it had markings; a life like that would not result in a pristine, pale sheet.

And of course it had been her who had butchered the beast. That was one of the tasks always assigned to her, and everyone knew it, so why had they asked? Ignoring the boy's pointing finger, she protested, with a hint of ire in her voice, "Why do you bother me with this? I have many more hides of the like to tan this day."

But then her eyes betrayed her voice into silence, for at last, the hide, rotated in the old woman's hands, revealed to her what had brought these people together. There, amongst the natural whorls and lines of the hide, a pattern could be seen. A spear, within a circle. They were only darkenings and creases in the natural hide, formed not by the hand of man but by nature itself; but the image was unmistakable in its likeness.

The crone was intoning, and behind her, the others murmured the same words in time. Even Yîgeke, having recited them under the sun of a thousand mornings, couldn't help follow along. "The First Hand shall fell, trembling, a beast of noble blood, within whose very flesh will be scribed a spear circled; and thus shall the First Spear be seen, and the First Hand known." And into the silence that followed, the old woman pointed at Yîgeke, and repeated the boy's declaration: "The First Hand."

The sky seemed to spin, and the Well threatened to hurl itself up over her and cast her to the stones. Yîgeke turned and ran, as fast as bare feet on sand could carry her, away from the Court of the Well, away from this impossible portent. This burden must fall to another. She could sense soft footsteps behind her, hear Kumzu's voice calling for her, but she fled, heedless, without a thought to where she went, just wishing to be as far from that hide as she could. As far from the truth, grown in the sinews of a horse, as she could run.