Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [9]
It did not occur to the little boy that his uncle was hurrying by the hut in order to avoid him. He ran over to him and stood looking up at him expectantly.
Mal glanced guiltily right and left. Fortunately the cart was unattended now and they were alone.
‘Did you bring him? Where is he?’ Kiy cried. The sight of his uncle had raised all his hopes again.
Mal hesitated.
‘He’s in the forest,’ he prevaricated.
‘When are you bringing him here? Today?’ The little fellow’s eyes were sparkling with excitement now.
‘Soon. When winter comes.’
The boy’s face clouded with puzzlement and disappointment. Winter? Winter seemed half a lifetime away.
‘Why?’
Mal thought for a moment. ‘I had him. He was walking beside me with a rope round his neck, Little Kiy; but then the wind took him away. There was nothing I could do.’
‘The wind?’ His face fell. He knew that the wind was the oldest of all the gods. His uncle had often told him: ‘The sun god is great, Kiy, but the wind is older and greater.’ The wind blew by day, and also by night when the sun had departed. The wind blew whenever it wished, over the endless plain.
‘Where is he now?’
‘Far away, in the forest.’
The child looked heartbroken.
‘But the snow maidens will bring him back,’ his uncle went on. ‘You’ll see.’
Why did he have to lie? He gazed down at his trusting little nephew and knew very well. It was for the same reason that he lived with the two old men and defied the village elder. It was because they all despised him and because, worse, he was ashamed of himself. That was why he could not admit the truth to the eager child. I am foolish and useless, he thought. Yes, and he was lazy too. He had planned to work hard in the field that day, but now he felt like fleeing into the forest again to escape the ugly truth about his character. He could feel his resolution slipping away from him.
Yet perhaps there was still hope.
‘I know where the wind is hiding him though,’ he said.
‘You do? You do?’ Kiy’s face lit up. ‘Tell me.’
‘Deep in the forest, in the land of Three-times-Nine.’
‘Can you get there?’
‘Only if you know the way.’
‘And you know the way?’ Surely a fine hunter like his uncle would know the way even to magic lands. ‘Which way is it?’ he demanded.
Mal grinned.
‘To the east. Far to the east. But I can be there in a day,’ he boasted. And for a moment, he almost believed it himself.
‘Will you fetch him then?’ the little boy pleaded.
‘Perhaps I will. One day.’ Mal looked serious. ‘But that’s our secret. Not a word to anyone.’
The boy nodded.
Mal walked on, glad to have escaped from his embarrassment. Maybe in a few days he would think of another trap for the bear cub. He did not want to disappoint the little boy, who trusted him. He would find a way.
He felt better. He would work in the field that day.
Kiy watched him go sadly. He was thoughtful. He had heard the women laugh at his Uncle Mal, and the men curse him. He knew they called him Lazy-bones. Was it true after all that he could not be trusted? He looked up at the huge, vacant morning sky, and wondered what to do.
The line of women spread out across the golden field in a broad V, like a flight of swallows in the summer sky.
In the centre, with the line of women sweeping behind her to right and left, moved the large form of Lebed’s mother-in-law. The wife of the elder had died that past winter, and she was the senior woman of the village now.
It was a hot day. They had already been working for several hours and now it was nearing noon. For this work, the women wore only simple linen-like shifts, and shapeless bast shoes of woven birch bark. Each carried a sickle.
As they inched their way up the long field of barley, they sang. First the senior woman led with a single line, then the rest would chime in behind her, singing in a high, nasal tone that sounded sometimes harsh, sometimes mournful.
Lebed was covered in sweat; but she felt comfortable, working in that steady rhythm under the sun. Although they sometimes treated her scornfully,