Chapter 29 - Episodes in Oma
Camp of Oma, Leva soils north of the Serpentine Estuary. SE Britain
The northern shores of the estuary consisted of salt marshes, and small boggy islands laced by the wriggles of streams. The Leva seaboat of timbers delivered Ur’salla up one such waterway to berth at a primitive wharf serving a pioneer commune called Oma.
Ur’salla as a concubine was assigned by the council of these pioneers to serve a master named Paaxti. A stout, fat-bellied barbarian with a grey beard who as an elderman, happens to speak at the same council. There are few genuine elders among these folk. Their barbarian lives are too brutal. Even though assigned a concubine, Paaxti has no desire for any subsidiary wives. Only recently he has married a young girl. He treats Ur’salla as his serf.
Paaxti’s new wife named Gorka is no older than either myself or Ur’salla. She’s very much the junior of her ageing husband.
Ur’salla has observed, this odd couple have several children, some of whom are as old as Gorka herself. She can’t be their birth mother.
The eldest of Paaxti’s offspring is soon to don the leather hat of free manhood. This teenager’s name is Torixe. Already Ur’salla has learned to avoid his unkind company. Do you recall the earlier observation of young Amaia? Torixe is unpleasant even for a barbarian. Granting that Ur’salla is able to understand several dialects of wild nations, she struggles with the local Leva tongue. It’s strange and incomprehensible to her indigenous ears. Ur’salla learns through sting, each failure to understand an instruction of Paaxti is quickly met with punishment. Pain can be a great teacher of language.
This day she’s been tasked by Paaxti to forage the salt-marshes of Oma. This is an activity to which she was born. Foraging provides distraction for her damaged mind, until she returns laden to the earthy dens. There the fruits of Ur’salla’s endeavours are stolen away as further alienation. She isn't yet trusted to wade alone. A more trusted serf of elderman Paaxti has been assigned as her gaoler. It’s as she turns the fronds of seaweed in her search for mussels, that the more trusted serf watches from nearby.
This older man with toasted brown skin is of continental and mixed ancestry. Not himself a wildborn, his low status indicates that he’s of some recent savage descent. Ur’salla knows this serf with untrustworthy eyes is named Aarva. Furthermore she’s learned that he identifies with their masters. Ur’salla has witnessed Torixe, as he makes fun of him,
‘Aarva. When I don the leather hat and I’m master, I might grant to you rights of communal soils, a cow to milk, and with them a nice little Leva wife of your own’.
Ur’salla has seen Aarva go dreamy eyed at this bait. He doesn’t see when his tormenter turns away to chortle with mischief.
Out here in the shallow creeks, Aarva raises his false hopes with Ur’salla,
‘Torixe gives to me promise of wife. Ur’salla, you be kind to Aarva and I make you my wife one.’
This thought sickens Ur’salla. Her eyes catch the sight of a large, sharp mussel shell under the waters. A vision of picking it up to slash this moron’s throat plays through her mind. She knows Aarva would be too strong to throw into the waters and hold down.
Rather she chooses to respond by cultivating the seeds in Aarva’s mind already sown by cruel Torixe, ‘Should this be, then I shall obey your will dear Aarva’. She cannot bring herself to flirt any further than this.
Aarva does have value to Ur’salla. He knows a little of the indigenous language and helps her with the words of the Leva. Between them they've developed an exchange of communication. Through this medium Ur’salla learns more about her oppressors, ‘Did you float across the sea in one of the longboats of many timbers?’
In his broken tongue, he tries to answer, ‘No. Clans of other farmers cross in sturdy boats. Not we. Boat of cowskins. Protection of Ilua. Sea much perilous’.
‘Did Master Paaxti bring Gorka with him from the old country?’
‘Gorka be wife three of Paaxti. Wife one, wife two go to the ancestors place. Later Paaxti marry girl Gorka’.
Aarva scans across the salt-marshes as insurance they are out of earshot of others. He lowers his voice to gossip, ‘Young Torixe do bad, with Gorka. He make baby magic with step-mother!’
He registers disbelief in Ur’salla’s face and presses for her to believe his scandalous claim, ‘It is true! When Paaxti gone, Torixe dances with Gorka, wife of father!’ Aarva puts a hand across his mouth to sign for discretion.
Ur’salla’s initial surprise subsides. Torixe is a nasty bully and Gorka is a brittle girl. These thoughts of local scandal fade when she becomes aware of changes in the present. The flow of salt waters have settled from draining back out to the estuary.
She shares this observation with her gaoler, ‘Aarva, the tide is turning and soon it wouldn't be safe to remain so far from dry land’.
‘Yes’ he agrees. ‘We should return to farmstead quick. Not be here for flood time’. They turn. Aarva helps Ur’salla with her nets of catch. The two serfs of barbarians stagger back to the camp of Oma.
A Pioneer Camp
Oma is too fresh to warrant any construction of a pioneers’ hall on this side of the estuary. There are no sacred hilltop circles, nor any tombs of stones here. A simple dispersal of mud houses and shanties with roofs of straw thatch or of turf, across the clearance. Scorched and damaged wildwoods remain beyond the opened up ground. Its margins marked by ash promises future gardens of cultivation.
Only gradually, and by the sweat of these barbarians and their oxen, do they hack away at a resilient forest. Their beasts browse on coppiced stumps to further diminish regeneration of Nature. Bit by bit the temperate forests of our wild world diminishes.
The communal cattle enclosure is empty. The herd of longhorns are being ranged through modified woodlands by conehead cowboys assisted by dogs. It’s been several weeks since the last attack on the herd by wild savages of the Lynx. The Leva brought many cousins over from south of the estuary to teach the wild people a severe lesson. Barbarians employ watch dogs, tethered close to where ashy outfields meet with the remaining stand of forest trees. While wolves and savages remain a threat, pigs haven’t yet been introduced to the woods of Oma.
It is into the setting of this agricultural camp that Ur’salla returns with Aarva from the salt-marshes. They deliver their produce of shellfish to a miserable grey mother, who scowls as she tips it into her large cooking pot. In exchange she rips off two shares of flatbread and hands one to each serf as their own supper. Followed by her gaoler, Ur’salla carries her own bland sustenance towards a tiny cramped den. A shelter of the savage type built adjacent to a stinking pit where locals tan their leathers. She climbs inside on hands and knees. Aarva plugs up the hatch from outside, and props it tight. This dark den is her prison cell.
Elsewhere within Oma, a small girl lies ill upon a nest of furs. The rattling cough didn’t dim. A tearful mother wipes sweat away from Xagu’s brow. Poor little Vole. As her mother does this, the part time strawman-priest named Mazde, chants prayers to his deities, while he rings the necks of a few small birds. These birds he sends as messengers to beseech the ancestors to refuse Xagu’s soul. Her father leans in from the lintel doorway. Brazille’s own heart is deeply pained to see his beloved young daughter suffer. He has no faith in the magic of Mazde, nor in his strawman rituals. Rudely he grunts to his wife,
‘It is a daughter of Athiratu, the magic of a frog-witch that we need to save our girl. Not this strawman pretender.’
His wife blushes in the presence of Mazde, and wails back, ‘Husband, we’ve no such priestess here in Oma. It was you who foolishly brought us to this cursed land’.
This stings Brazille, who angrily stares at Mazde as he waggles the carcasses of songbirds. Bitterly, he blames Oma’s gods for the suffering of his daughter. Xagu’s own breathing grows more shallow.
A fresh day, and Ur’salla has been tasked to assist in the laying down of turf walls for the lodge of Torixe and an unfortunate bride. Soon the monster will take his leather cap of Leva manhood, and marry the girl named Amaia. Yes, the pleasant girl who played games with Xagu and other young playmates.
Using tools of wood and ox-bone, Ur’salla helps Aarva cut the sodden turf, then stack it as the walls of a new house. Their works are overseen by the groom’s father, their own master named Paaxti. Ur’salla cannot help but gaze sorrowfully at nearby wildwoods. These she knows to have until recently been a wilderness of the Lynx. They remain as the sole obstacle between herself and home.
Aarva keeps catching her dreamy gaze, and loudly accuses her, ‘Ur’salla stop idling and help. Lift turf before Master Paaxti beat you bad!’
Reluctantly she stores away her thoughts of escape and returns to labour. She turns her attention to the purpose of this muddy den, muttering quietly to herself,
‘Poor Amaia, to be wed to that foul bully’. Ur’salla has warmed towards that barbarian girl. A pretty maiden of the Leva not much younger than herself. Often Ur’salla sees Amaia skipping around and playing with younger children, whilst wearing wild flowers in her dark brown hair. She reflects,
These foreign men treat brides no better than they treat their cattle.
It is as Paaxti busies himself watching over their construction, that his son, Torixe visits his father’s own hovel. Poor Gorka. She tries to run, but he blocks her escape. When she bravely attempts to force past, he reacts by grabbing hold of her plaited hair. He swings his stepmother around, dragging Gorka back inside towards a nest of furs.
She’s learned she must suppress her screams. Otherwise this monster will bruise her features. Should Paaxti know what’s going on with his son in his hovel, he would only blame his young wife. The elderman would have her shamed and stoned by the entire commune. Gorka has no hope to cling to, and that is hard for her to bear. Rather than scream out, she weeps in submission and her tears excite Torixe as much as the violence. With a hushed tone she makes an appeal,
‘Please no, please Torixe this is wrong. It must cease. Let me go, I beg of you!’ He’s too strong and laughs as he throws her into the furs of his own father’s bed.
He boasts, ‘My old father is too old to enjoy you. I shall breed my own new siblings’. Torixe really is the monster.
The turf walls are stacked high. A roof will be constructed and thatched with straw. Ur’salla is permitted to visit the grey mother of Oma, who grumpily issues a ration of flatbread. Ur’salla returns to her stinking, dark den but where is her gaoler? When she dutifully climbs inside she finds the traitor, naked and waiting for her.
Before she can recover from the unpleasant shock, he takes hold of her free hand, and places it onto his stiffness, ‘Ur’salla you be nice to Aarva. I make you wife one’ he smugly promises her.
She gently brushes her calloused fingers along his warmness. Aarva groans in pleasure. Then she punches him hard into his soft parts. This violence is her earnest answer to his proposal of marriage. He rolls away in agony, and back to the hatchway. Expletives of several tongues burst from his mouth, as he slaps Ur’salla’s face. Her lip swells fast, and in retaliation, she reigns punches onto her assailant, ‘Get out of my den you filthy viper’.
He edges further back and climbs outside. Before he plugs the hatch, he releases words of poison, ‘Soon Master Torixe he teaches you lesson… Behave as concubine of man. Paaxti give you as wedding gift to son. You be property of Torixe. He breeds with you hurtful to make grandsons of Paaxti.’ Aarva blocks the exit to leave Ur’salla in the stink and darkness brewing on his poison.
She rolls herself into a ball, hugs her knees and cries.