Chapter nineteen

The Southern Plains

 

To begin with the child wasn’t sure about the strange old man in the shabby grey clothes who greeted her at the well at the edge of the village. She had drawn two full buckets and poured them into her water skin. Now, she was just lowering the bucket in for the last time. He appeared from nowhere, with no more than a tremor of noise. His voice was very quiet.

‘Can I help you with that?’

The child shrugged. She really didn’t mind either way. He took the bucket from her and had to stare at it and its rope for a long time before he worked out how to lower it down.

‘Who you?’ she asked, fascinated by his lack of skill. She couldn’t imagine an adult being worse at anything than she was – but it seemed that this one was.

‘I’m just a wanderer’

‘Like nomad? Like Algharian?’

The man frowned.

‘A bit like that – but I’m not as good at it as a real nomad’

‘You speak common tongue good... like merchant...’

He smiled. The filled bucket was coming up again, but he seemed to be finding it hard work.

‘And so do you... have you been learning it for long?’

‘We learn new language now; since Rem, our healer, return from ruined city...’

He nodded.

‘And why did your healer want you to change your language?’

She was a quick learner; she knew the answer to this very well.

‘Because our god hate the old language and he choosed better one’

He nodded again.

‘What’s your name?’

She started to tell him but then remembered something.

 ‘I have new name...’ she said

He nodded a third time. She found this odd – if he already knew the answers to her questions, why was he asking them.

‘What is your new name?’

‘Flax – it is the name of big plant growing on hill top’

She gestured round at the clusters of tall plants with their rosette of spiky leaves. They were scattered about, as common as the cows that munched lazily among them. The man followed her hand movements. He was still struggling to pull up the bucket.

‘What was your old name?’

She thought for a moment. Her old language had become rusty in her mind.

‘Flax’ she said in the Tlaxacan tongue.

The man smiled. His eyes, which had seemed dull before, seemed to swirl, like grey clouds in a bright sky. The child felt her heart jump – she had never seen a living creature with eyes like that before. But it wasn’t scary, it was more like seeing something wonderful but powerful, but at a safe distance; it was like the time the rhinoceros had wandered into their village and stood there looking at them. She had watched it from the threshold of her hut, ready to close the heavy wooden door if it came any closer.

‘I prefer your new name’ he said

‘It’s same name really...’ she said

‘I know...’ he murmured

This made her a bit cross. He kept doing it. It was also taking him so long to pull up that bucket.

‘You can’t know everything’ she said, accusingly, ‘no-one does’

‘Are you sure?’

She narrowed her eyes – what did that mean?

‘I knew almost everything once...’  

She put her hand on her hips. She was too over-awed to say ‘liar’ but her stance shouted it.

‘...but now I’m learning to forget as much of that as I can’

She was used to adults talking nonsense, but this was too much.

‘That’s silly!’

He had finally pulled the bucket up and he handed it to her.

‘Maybe it is’ he said, ‘but not everything I have learned has been useful ...’

The child, who was good really, remembered her manners.

‘Thank you’ she said, giving a little nod.

The man smiled at her and looked off at the horizon. He didn’t seem to have anything else to say.

‘Do you want a drink?’ asked the child, seeing now how old and tired he looked.

He shook his head.

‘You could eat here...’ she suggested, ‘there’s much food’

He paused for a second and looked over to the cluster of little huts and the big central fire. A group of adults were preparing vegetables, and some of the children were baking newly stripped maize cobs, dangling them on long pointed sticks over the fire. He made a little noise, breathing out deeply from his mouth. The child thought that it sounded funny.

He shook his head again, a little more slowly.  His eyes lingered on the fire, but then he turned away.

‘I must be on my way’ he said. The sun was high in the sky.

‘The adults say not travel at noon – too hot...’

‘I know’ he said, ‘but I’ll be fine’

He took a few steps down the road, waving goodbye to her as he went.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked, almost tempted to run after him. He was strange, but he seemed very nice.

He thought for a moment and when the words came, even though, again, they seemed very silly to her, he seemed somehow happy about them.

‘Where am I going? Well, kind little plains dweller – I have no idea’