"The forest where I was born is far, far to the South," Glade told Ivory the following day after her apprentice had returned from foraging duties in the woods and removed her clothes on the shaman's request. "It's a very different land. The sun shines high in the sky. At midday it's almost directly overhead. It is always warm. My people never wore clothes. I never knew what it meant to cover my flesh. The need to do so just did not exist."
"It sounds like paradise," said Ivory.
"Paradise? The mystical place where the spirits take you when you die?" Glade mocked, reminding Ivory of the gulf between their beliefs that could never be bridged. "The
paradise
you imagine and which I invoke to comfort the dying is no paradise at all compared to the land I come from. Your
paradise
is a cold dry treeless plain, whereas the forest where I lived was warm, moist and full of trees. In comparison to the Southern forests, your small woodlands are nothing more than pitiful. The trees were alive with beautiful birds whose gorgeous feathers were more splendid than those of any ptarmigan or crane. Most animals that live there never venture to the cold forests of the North."
"What type of beast are they?"
"You have no words for them. There were monkeys and apes. There were frogs whose skin was more brightly coloured than flowers in the Spring. It was never cold. There were no seasons. We had no word for 'year' or 'season'. The course of our lives was measured only by the Moon we could but dimly glimpse through the forest canopy. We knew no other world than the forest. If given the choice we would never exchange the warmth and bounty of our
paradise
for the cruel cold of the frozen North."
The young Glade had no notion that one day in her future she would live in a land dominated by seasons and populated by large animals such as woolly rhinoceros, aurochs or mammoth. There were a few dangerous animals under the forest canopy, but the leopards and wolves generally left people alone. The chimpanzees and gorillas were wary of humans. Most of the animals that lived in the dense forest were small. The Forest People didn't live in villages. They slept on the forest floor at night on whatever spot their roving had taken them during the day and they relied on campfires to ward off predators. Occasionally, a lion or hyena might stumble into the forest by accident, but there were not many rich pickings to whet their appetite.
The Forest People had ways of life and traditions appropriate to a life of foraging and hunting in the woods. The custom of permanent settlement was not one of them. If an area of the forest was full of fruits and small game, a settled community of more than thirty people would soon denude it of everything edible. It was best for the tribe to be constantly wandering.
The forest was home to many itinerant clans of Forest People and there was great celebration when their paths crossed. There was no suspicion or hostility in such encounters. Everyone knew the encounter would be brief and that the two clans would soon part, but these gatherings were a time when all inhibition were wholly abandoned.
Many of Glade's happiest childhood memories were of such encounters. There was the exchange of gifts and food. There was feasting under the shadow of the trees. And when enough palm wine had been drunk, there was the inevitable fucking. It was on such an occasion that Glade first lost her virginity and did so more than once that night. Although she enjoyed sex with the men in her clan, what Glade most enjoyed was sex with new friends she might never see again. It was commented on, but never understood, that nine moons after such an encounter was a fruitful time for new brothers and sisters. This was always a cause for celebration. Nobody understood that sex and pregnancy were related. It was enjoyed too frequently and with too many different partners for anyone to establish the link between the two.
It was an innocent world. It was innocence so absolute that when it came crashing to an end the awakening into a harsher, less forgiving world was that much more terrible.
"Did you believe in the spirits when you were young?" Ivory wondered. She was sure that Glade couldn't always have been an apostate.
"Yes," the shaman admitted. "But these weren't the spirits you revere. Our spirits were the spirits of the trees, which we believed were people like ourselves. We would never harm a tree. We gave praise to the trees whenever we made a kill. We believed that the deer or antelope whose life we'd taken was a gift from the trees that had given them life. The Forest People had many myths and legends which we embellished and enriched around the campfire at night. It wasn't only sex we relished when we met other clans in the forest. It was also the exchange of new stories. This is where I learnt my skill at story-telling which I employ to such good advantage here. I discovered early on that the essence of a good story is not to simply give an account of what actually happened or what might have happened: it is in the telling of that story. People want to hear stories that have a satisfying and happy conclusion. The story must be resolved in a way that reinforces what people want to believe. This is another lesson you must never forget. When you tell a story, you must find out what your listener wants to hear and ensure that this is how the story ends. Any other ending and the listener is not satisfied and is less likely to trust you."
"Did you also believe that man and woman were born from ice and snow, and that the world began in a snowstorm?"
"Of course not. No one in the forest knew what snow or ice is. We believed that the world was like a tree but one that had lived forever. There were new branches in the history of the world and the appearance of the first man and woman was one such new branch. Our tales were of a happy first birth. Not like your myths. There was no tradition of punishment and guilt. We believed that nature is always bountiful. Our prayers were to express gratitude for nature's beneficence. They weren't an appeal for forgiveness and mercy."
The Forest People had no concept of sin. People could be greedy. They could be naughty. They could even be angry. But they could never be sinful. There was no malice or avarice because everyone shared everything: their food, their fire and their bodies. How could sin ever come to pass?
Glade discovered that not only was she a gifted story-teller, but that she was also a skilled and passionate lover. She was proud to be known as an easy lay and a good fuck. She did whatever she could to further the opinion that made her so popular with her clan. After she made love to one man or boy, she would roll over, semen still trickling down her thighs, and take another man's penis in her mouth in anticipation of another bout of sex. She often made love to two, three or four men: sometimes serially and sometimes together. When men were in need of sex, it was Glade who was the most willing to provide it.
"I loved cock. I couldn't get enough of it. There was not a day, except when I was ill, that I didn't make love at least a couple of times."
"How many children did you have?" wondered Ivory. She understood that sex was a gift from the spirits to compensate for the burden of motherhood.
