Spiders' War. S. Fowler Wright

      She answered, with a sudden bewildered hope: “I could try.”

      “Then get on your feet. You’ll be able to walk after a bit. It’ll be dark in the next hour. There’s a job to be done outside before that.”

      She got up, with little care for stiffness and pain, feeling that the price of life might have been much greater, and yet nothing to grudge. He took a good fur from the wall, and threw it over her shoulders, and then, on somewhat unsteady feet, she followed her new lord (if such he were to be) out to where a sky, which she might never have seen again, was rose-coloured with sunset light.

      They came together to where the woman lay, face down on blood-soaked grass, her hands still under her belly.

      The man looked at the grass. He said: “She must have run round for a bit.” Gleda felt no surprise at that. She knew that the swine did so, which it was the custom of her land to slaughter in the same way. She could not be expected to feel dissatisfied by the event. She saw that she had come into the hands of a man of good judgment. One who could take a hint and act promptly.

      He picked up the dead woman’s fur, which had fallen from her shoulders as she had stumbled about, looked at its condition critically, and hung it over the fence. Then he stooped down, caught her by an ankle, and twitched her over. He said: “You had a good thought…she is heavier than you, but she will take longer to boil. I will have no mess in the house. We must hang her here. You will bring the largest platters that you can find.”

      Gleda made no reply, but she went back to the house alone. She had never previously (in either life) been involved in the killing of anything larger than a wasp, but the closeness of her own escape modified her reactions now. He seemed to have no fear that she would attempt flight. Well, it would not be possible to recross the river, and to be caught would mean to be back where she was before. She would be a fool to try that.

      She went into the kitchen, where she found some large flat dishes which she carried out. While she had been away, he had hung the carcass against a wall. In the new personality which she had assumed, she had certainly had no previous experience in the disembowelling of women; neither had it been a customary occupation in the civilization from which she came. If she did not find it unendurably repulsive now, it must not be overlooked that she was dealing with one who would have considered squeamishness incomprehensible. The hatred that she had felt as the woman had prodded her and licked anticipatory lips had not left her mind, and the thought that the positions would certainly have been reversed but for the man’s sound judgment in preferring herself dominated the revulsion which she might otherwise have experienced when the still-warm carcass was slit open and its contents distributed upon the dishes which she had brought.

      When he said, as the light failed: “We’d better finish inside. Go ahead, and get a pot on the fire,” she went willingly, noticing with satisfaction that he assumed her cooperation, and that she would find the kitchen utensils she might require.

      It was some minutes before he followed, and then it was with a half-carcass under each arm, for he had considered that, had he hung it inside, there would have been insufficient space to wield the axe in the low-roofed kitchen. But there was an in-built shelf or table at one end, of its entire breadth, on which he laid his burdens, and proceeded to quarter them, as had doubtless happened to numerous swine before.

      Gleda considered him speculatively as he did this. She sought to penetrate his character, which it had become very important for her to know. She reflected that a number of murderers of her previous existence must have treated their wives in the same way. There was Crippen—but she supposed that he had been urged by hatred in what he did. Probably he had had anticipatory pleasure in imagining what he might do, when he had been treated with indifference or contempt. Possibly the memory of indignities inflicted ultimately upon organs which had not been sufficiently complaisant to him had been consolation, even when he passed to the hangman’s hands. But this man must have acted on sudden impulse in what he did, on the suggestion which she had made, and now he showed no satisfaction, nor did he appear revolted by his occupation. Beyond a remark upon the size of her kidneys, which he was evidently comparing with those which he more frequently saw, he said nothing, and showed no emotion at all.

      This absence of tension was restful to her own nerves, which had been overexcited in the last hours. She did not entirely avoid speculating upon the possibility that she might be on the same table at a near date, but she had no acute or immediate fear.

      For the moment, there was food enough. And she felt sure that the cannibalism which she was to share was not customary. The fact that he had taken so extreme a risk for her capture showed how desperate the need for food must have become; it also showed that his people were not adopting the easier expedient of slaughtering the weak or friendless among themselves.

      It was true that, having obtained what he sought, he had substituted his own wife in what might be considered a most casual, and was certainly an unemotional, manner, but she could not doubt that it had been a sensible thing to do. She could never, surely, criticize him for that!

      She thought also the event showed that the wizard who was primarily responsible for her presence there had not made the mistake that she had been inclined to lay at his door. But, all the same, she must not forget a warning which he had given her at an earlier time—that her safety in the new life into which she would be launched must depend on her own wits. He could have no continuing control over what might occur. She became conscious that the man was gazing at her with the knife still in his hand, and a look in his eyes which she did not like. But then he said, as though she had spoken: “Yes, I see it’s boiling. Take it off. We’ll have fry tonight. But it won’t be wasted. We both need a good wash.”

      CHAPTER III: LEMNO SETTLES A DEBT

      Gleda shared a meal during which little was said. She was cautious, lest she might say the wrong thing, which it would have been easy to do; and he did not appear to observe the silence, nor were his eyes directly upon herself. Had they been married partners for twenty years, he might have acted naturally in the same way.

      When they finished, he rose, saying: “I will pay a debt before I am asked. Relf shall hear of this first. He might think—you can clear while I am gone. But no. You shall come with me. It will make it all plain.”

      He went to the kitchen door (it was there that they had had the meal) and opened it to the cold air. She saw that it was now quite dark outside, though there were stars. She wondered whether those stars would show any difference from their order in her own time. But, if they did, she would be unlikely to see it. Her knowledge of the constellations was too vague for that.

      The long fur garment hung loosely from his shoulders. Now, feeling the cold air, he drew it closely together, tying it down the front. Seeing this, she fastened her own in the same manner.

      He said: “It’s a short way to go. Can you carry a ham?”

      “I can carry hers.”

      He did not appear to observe the tone. But she had learned already that his thoughts were not easy to read. Her predecessor (if she were really destined to take the vacated place) had certainly not been more successful in this. That belly-thrust must have been quite a surprise! It was a pleasant thought, which would have been more pleasant still could she have been quite sure that she would not be surprised in the same way.

      They went by a narrow, tree-shadowed path, he going ahead, and she following closely behind. In a few minutes they came to a clearing with a low-roofed house in its midst, similar to that which they had left. There was no fence or garden round it, as she was vaguely aware, her eyes having become used to the darkness beneath the trees. They went up to a door which opened at once, showing a fire-lit interior similar to that from which they had come.

      A man faced them, with his back to the light, so that his features were not easy to see, but in build and height he was so nearly alike to the one who stood beside her that Gleda wondered whether there were a single pattern for all the men of that land.

      When he saw who was there, he stood aside, saying, in the same toneless manner of speech: “Come in, Lemno, come in.”