Glade believed that she'd arrived at the point in her life where events had directed her. The trials she'd endured from the time her tribe was reduced to slavery; her travels across the southern and northern lands; her marriage to Flint; and, of course, the ever-present shadow of Demure: all of this was destined to culminate where she was now. The pinnacle of her life was to be a peripatetic shaman in the company of her black lover in the white glacial foothills of the Great Mountains.
What could be more perfect? And now of the two women, it was Glade who was the dominant partner. She and Demure were fated to stay together forever until they died in one another's arms in the encroaching snow that crept so slowly down the flat bottomed valleys. This was surely how it was meant to be.
But, alas, this was not how it would be.
In her role as shaman, Glade had the duty to care and succour many different and diverse people. Demure accompanied her wherever she went. Her chief duties were to chant, sing and occasionally dance, which she did with rather less natural fluidity than Glade. But like her lover, Demure was constantly and intimately exposed to the ill and diseased. Many illnesses made their presence known by perspiration and delirium. Some had much stranger and often rather disgusting symptoms. These included vomiting, diarrhoea, huge pustules, foul swellings, great blood-filled gashes and even limbs that were chewed away by an invisible force that began its predation at such extremities as the toes, the fingers and the nose. Often, the illnesses were easily treated. A boil was lanced. A poultice on a pus-filled wound. Herbs and spices to anaesthetise the patient. In some cases, despite Glade's best efforts and after all the treatment and care, the only end was death. The cause of death might be the bite of a wild beast or the sharp edge of a flint weapon. There was always a toll from pure accident. But the worst of all were the epidemics which spread like the concentric rings of water in a pond into which a stone was thrown. First one victim. And then another. And within a few days or even a half cycle of the moon, many more people would suffer from the same illness. Most survived or did so in a weakened state. Some died. These were mostly the old, the young and the pregnant. In such epidemics, it was the shaman who most often had to confront disease, death and distress.
Flint had been a wise shaman. One example of his advice which Glade always remembered was that she should wash and clean any part of her body that might come in contact with a patient both before and after providing treatment and care. In those cases where the invalid coughed or spat blood she would cover her mouth and nose with a thin deer-hide mask that she would later wash. Cleanliness was a necessary part of the ritual of healing and was sometimes the most awkward. Clean water wasn't always readily available. But Glade believed that such attention to cleanliness was why neither Flint nor Glade ever contracted any of the illnesses she treated.
Demure was not so lucky.
It had been easy to dismiss the symptoms when she first showed signs of sickness. With the cold, the damp and the piercing wind, who wouldn't feel unwell on occasion? Then Demure collapsed onto the bare earth where the two lovers were walking, on a path beaten by horse and aurochs across grasslands beside a bush and a trickling stream. Glade knew exactly what to do. She dragged her lover across the grass to a copse where she lay Demure down on a bed of moss and ferns beneath as many furs as she could pile on top of her.
When the contagion tightened its grip Demure was pasted in a cold dank sweat; foul scabby pustules covered her skin; and she coughed up dark green mucus. Her last few days were ones of unceasing pain during which Glade sat constantly by her side and tried to persuade her to eat and drink. She would periodically yell or curse, but mostly she had only the energy to mumble, moan or simply wince. Her body was racked by spasms of agony and the phlegm she coughed up was soon stained with blood. Sometimes she lost consciousness, but the pain would return her to consciousness. And then she would stare around her in confusion and evident distress. Bit by bit, all hope of recovery vanished.
Life faded away from Demure. By now, she probably welcomed its departure but Glade was devastated. She had hoped, against the evidence accumulated during her years as a shaman, that just this time, for once, the spirits would look kindly on the afflicted. But this was not to be. One moment the same temporal space was occupied both by Demure's body and by Demure the woman Glade had loved more than anyone else in her life. The next moment the body was nothing more than an empty shell. Death came unannounced. Her halting breath halted altogether. The eyes that flashed before with agitated hopelessness became dull and characterless. The incessant rhythm of her heart ceased to beat.
All that was left for Glade to do was to bury the body. There were tribes she'd encountered who believed this was a necessary ritual to pacify the spirits. Others preferred to burn the body and some even deliberately left the body on an exposed hill to be scavenged by wild beasts or vultures. Glade had no religious preference, but she would rather that the animals that ate her lover would do so underground and not where Glade might suffer the anguish of seeing a jackal or a hyena run away with Demure's limbs or vital organs.
And once the body was buried, all Glade could do now was weep.
And weep she did. For day after day. And she did so under the shadow of the tree where she'd cared for her dying lover for so long. The tears were sometimes soft and salty. They were more often accompanied by chokes and stabbing pains of regret. Glade's eyes were swollen, her mouth was raw and salty, and a dark shadow followed her gaze wherever it roamed.
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Much as Ivory loved Ptarmigan, her love was still split between the woman she was with and the woman who might still be alive high up in the distant mountains. But as the seasons went by and Autumn once more gave way to Winter, it seemed increasingly likely that the newly settled Cave Painters were right to be pessimistic. Glade would never return. Were vultures and hyenas at that moment gnawing at her bones in the plains near the Great Tongue Glacier? The horrifying image haunted Ivory. She'd much rather imagine Glade shivering in the icy wind up in the mountains. She preferred to envision her alive and struggling back, perhaps alone, across the snowy wastes to return to the arms of the woman who, despite everything, was still in love with her.
"We have to move from the valley," advised Murex the Cave Painter in the Autumn. "The valley doesn't have enough game and forage to sustain the village for another year."
"We must wait for my husband to return," said Ptarmigan. "It is my duty."
"It is also your duty to protect and guide the village," said Murex. "Your husband will not return. He and the other Mammoth Hunters are dead. They cannot have survived in the lands where they settled. There are other valleys where we can settle. There are other plains, rivers, forests and caves."
"When is the best time for us to seek out such places?" asked Ivory.
"Not now," said Murex glancing up at the sky from which a few isolated snowflakes were falling. "In Winter we should hoard what food we have and stay put. But come Spring, we should venture on."
