The Wanderers

by Mary Johnston

Vana left the golden-lighted circle and went through the dark wood, down the falling stream. As on yesterday she had thought of Mardurbo, so to-day she thought of Mardurbo. But first she said, and said it thrice, “I do not believe that I shall be less in the world by this one and that one saying ‘Mardurbo’s children!’—Who is it that knows not that they are my children?—It will be nothing but a saying!” For since yesterday she was the more set to gain for the five those riches from the seashore and the country between the hills.

Mardurbo—Mardurbo! To-day she felt affection for Mardurbo. She was glad that no lion had felled him with a stroke, and no serpent crept into his tent, and no man-foe sent arrow against him. Mardurbo loved the children as she did, and he would make for them wealth and more wealth. It was not much of a price to pay—to say “son of Mardurbo—daughter of Mardurbo!” Especially when it would be naught but a saying. The tribe would continue to know that Vana had borne them in agony, had suckled them and wrought for them, day and night. Mardurbo ... Mardurbo! To-morrow she might again feel anger against him, desire to see him gone, and care not for his dangers. To-day, all was as oil and wine. The will of Vana was set to obtain that turning of wealth from Kadoumin and from Istara and her children to the five in the house of the loom. To feel for any cause violence and bitterness against Mardurbo would make difficulties more difficult, and therefore she felt it not.

The sun was in the west when she reëntered the town, and the greater part of the town hovered yet about Mardurbo’s market. The town fed desire with strange, precious goods, and gave to Mardurbo in exchange home-made matters. Home-made matters seeming nothing like so precious, the town’s giving outweighed its taking. Mardurbo would have much of fine and precious with which to feed the desire of the people by the sea and the people between the rivers, who in turn would outweigh that much with their homely, home-furnished matters. So Mardurbo prospered. And much to his liking were the horses that the plain now gave him.

So he knew satisfaction, and the men and women of his town knew satisfaction. A rich and expansive mood pervaded the place of the booths. Except for a few scattering thrusts trading, that had gone on since dawn, was over. Covetousness, fed, rested with sleepy, half-shut lids. Minds that, as each had thought, had shrewdly bargained, relaxed tension. Saba the harp-player sat against a wall and made music to tread the harp’s stretched chords. Dardin the magic-man had, in return for his spells bringing health and successful trading, a great dish of bronze. With it in his hands he looked at the noble sickle that Kadoumin the wily had bought with a brown foal. Bardanin the hunter had shoes that would tread thorns like gods, and Targad had a painted quiver and baldric. Harran had a silver armlet. Lonami had given her greatest web for an ewer and dish of well-wrought metal, Istara had an ivory spindle made by the people between the rivers, and the daughters of Kamilil had garments dyed and fashioned by the seashore folk. The town made a deep, contented, murmurous sound.

Mardurbo rested near Saba the harp-player. He looked at the horses in the staked enclosure the bondmen had made, and he thought of other steeds that he was to examine in the morning before the change goods left his hands. The people by the sea were lean with hunger for horses. He looked at a row of new bondmen, and he looked at goods that his town made, piled like tall anthills. Mardurbo sat embrowned, weary and satisfied, still observed by the town, granted to be the greatest trader, and good beside in war or council.

Vana, making her way to him, met likewise with observance. Vana and Mardurbo ... Mardurbo and Vana!

Vana stood beside him. “Let us speak now to the elders, and let them call the folk to council to-morrow.” Her hand rested on the head of the eldest of the five, the boy straight as a reed, strong as a master bow, and handsome as a deer of the hills. “Mardurbin, when he goes trading, shall have somewhat to begin with!”

They spoke, and when men and women understood the subject-matter there lacked no interest. The grass was dry fuel for the dropped fire.

There stood in the middle of the town a council-tree, huge of bole, many-branched and forest-leaved. Beneath it the tribe had held council since the days of the far-back mother from whom it took origin and name. The day that followed the market they held the council here. The elders sat around the trunk of the tree, and about these the chief men and women and the others in their degrees made larger and larger rings.

All the chief men and women spoke, and some spake twice. All day that council held, a council to be marked by the tribe, in their annals of the earth, with a stone and a pillar and an altar smoke. When it began the eastern side of the tree was golden, when it ended the western.