Saran stood forth with Endar just behind him. “O valley women, war-men have been hunting, and are tired!—Go you and bring in our game!”
CHAPTER V
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Vana lay awake at night pondering how to get riches for her children. Between the middle of the night and morning, not being able to sleep, she rose and stood in the doorway of her house of unburned brick. Mardurbo, the children’s father, had riches, but when he died, in a world where descent was counted from mother-side, his riches would go to his brother Kadoumin and other kindred. They would not go to his children because children did not take name nor inherit from fathers, but from mothers. That was order-of-nature, and accepted like the seasons, or sun at day and stars at night. When she, Vana, died, her possessions would go to the five children. Once they would have lapsed to her kindred in entirety—the five children, her sisters and brothers, the children of her sisters, and so on. But now old usage would give what she left chiefly to her nearest kin, and they were the children of her body. Her children would have her riches, such as they were, because over the earth, in her tribe and in all the tribes she had ever heard of, descent was reckoned from women. By the same token they would not have Mardurbo’s wealth.
It was all right as long as women had in the world the most wealth!—If she had much riches and Mardurbo little, she would not be standing here wrinkling her brow and not even seeing the round moon behind the juniper trees and the well and the cluster of sheep astray. It was right enough where there was equal wealth. But Mardurbo was much richer than Vana and growing richer all the time. All men, it seemed to Vana, were growing richer than women. Her lips parted. “They say that once-upon-a-time inside the house was richer than outside....”
She stepped without her door upon the crooked, sun-baked street of the town that spread around. Many small houses of unburned brick, lanes and paths, knots of trees, rude, surrounding wall of stake and clay, the place lay still in the bright moonlight. She looked at her own house where she had left her children sleeping, and near them, sleeping too, her three bondwomen. Her house was not larger than another, but she thought with satisfaction of the goods that it contained. She had much household gear and garments and ornaments. In the moonlight she looked at the bracelets upon her arms. They were of silver, and her anklets were of silver. She was a most skilful weaver, and upon his next trading journey Mardurbo would take with him certain webs and bring to her in return earrings and frontlet of gold. She knew, better than any in the town, how to make rich patterns in her weaving, and she had taught her bondwomen. With her work she had bought those women from a trading band coming from the south, and now they worked for her and she sold the cloth they made and the finer stuff that she wove herself. She was richer than most women and the knowledge made her proud. And still Mardurbo was the richest. And when he died all that he had would go to his kindred, and his children would have naught of it.
The moon might have said to her: “It will be long before you die. You are young yet—you and Mardurbo.” That was true, but often persons died before they were old. Mardurbo went afar, trading in towns afar. Robber bands might attack his company—a rival trader might creep in and slay him—he might come to a tribe that believed in seizing goods and giving death in return—he might eat of poison, grow sick and die—as he crossed desert places a lion might spring! He would die and flock and herd and drove, sheep and ass, ox and horse, and all his bondmen, bronze and iron and silver, weapons and well-made garments and ornaments—all, all go to his kindred! She felt bitter toward that kindred, and bitter toward Mardurbo.
Especially she hated that Kadoumin should have Mardurbo’s wealth.
She stared at the moon above the juniper trees. It was like a silver shield. She wished that she had such a shield. She wished that she could weave silver and gold, and purchase many more bondwomen than three or seven or ten, and with them weave further in gold and silver and purchase more to weave more. One field she possessed, and she wished that she might make that one two and then set the two to breeding fields. She wished for sheep and oxen and wagons, asses and swift horses—wished to trade afar like Mardurbo and make quick increase. She had in her an able trader—a trader like Mardurbo. Vana drew a sharp breath. Win increase for the name of riches and for the children—for the children—for the children! So they would be great and proud in the tribe. “O my children!” she said; “Kadoumin who is already rich will reap, though he has not sowed, while the children of Mardurbo walk without the field. O my children! the field that I sow for you is not so great—no, not by many measures!”
She stood in the doorway until the moon rose high, then within the house threw herself down upon her bed of dressed skins and strove to sleep. But it was become an obsession—that thought of riches. She could not sleep. The bondwomen breathed deep in the inner room. A ray of moonlight entering struck upon the looms where they and Vana worked. Mardurbo was away—Mardurbo was journeying toward a town that would trade metals for horses such as Mardurbo bred, and for weapons that the men of his tribe made and webs that the women wove. Vana saw Mardurbo journeying. Ordinarily her feeling for him was a curious one, half fond, half estranged. She divined that he had for her a like feeling. At times they were as close as hand and hand, allied as two strings of Saba’s harp. The very next day might fall a misliking, dark and cold as iron in winter. Coming thus, sometimes it worked with one emotion, sometimes with another.
The moon paled, the pink dawn came, the trees rustled in the morning breeze. The town awoke. Without the wall shepherds and herdsmen moved with their charges far upon the plain. The light strengthened, cocks crowed, dogs barked, there arose spirals of smoke, voices conversed and called and sang. The morning meal was toward. Women and men renewed their work. Tones of children and pattering feet of children made a song of spring.