Heget's Blatherings

See First Chapter for Notes and Summary.

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The people of his tribe would say two things about that act of Ingwë's mother, when she lost the use of her arm to drag her husband from the leopard's deadly embrace. First that Maktâmê did it for Alakô was her mate, and it was tribal lore that the first concern of a woman was to the one at her side, he that she saw first when she awoke. That he would always be the primary concern.^[3]

Second that it was foolish of her to do it. The man was too badly injured by the predator, and that by going after him all the woman truly accomplished was to injure herself and thus place two burdens upon her people instead of one. She would have better served her son and tribe and the legacy of her husband had she let him die that day, and kept her body strong and whole.

None said what should have been, and was, what the truth should have been said.

That there was one of the Kwendî screaming out in pain, and compassion would not allow anyone to stand aside, to attempt nothing to stop the pain of a fellow being.

That compassion was the greatest strength of her, and the greatest gift she gave into her daughter Indis.

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The broken man that his tribe called terrible names like Skarwô and Ulgundô, Khyannô and Nukottô had been grievously injured in body, it is true. But the long years of pain had weakened his resolve and spirit. To be so cruelly shunned by one's only home, to have no hope of recovery, no one's strength could have mastered that in the end. Thus the woman with her scarred arms, one that was useless to lift and stroke the faces of her family, held onto the man as he sat by the edge of the camp. Her good arm would thread through his remaining fingers, squeezing them tight in her fear. The hand she held would rarely echo her gesture.

The father of the young man who would become Ingwë watched the waves that gently lapped the shores of the Great Mother Lake. One day, Skarnâ-Maktê knew, the despair would grow too great, that emptiness that she could not fill, not when there was so little spirit inside her as well, and her husband would walk into the embrace of the lake. When the suffering was too burdensome, the Kwendî already knew, one could abandon the body, return to the stars, or that darkness between. And yet the father of the man who would become Ingwë lingered, held back by the feeling of those fingers.

But his eye was empty and looked out upon the lake.

Their son could not watch. To the camps of the Tatyar and Nelyar he walked instead, to find peace among the forest or even to hunt alone among the tall grass, anything to avoid his home. To the Tatyar boy Finwë who had no parents, lost long ago in a tragedy forgotten, and raised as the clever and tolerated nephew of all and none, the man that would be Ingwë went and watched the younger man mold clay vessels for storing food and invent names for the markings Rúmil drew in the clay. To the Nelyar boy Elwë who had two younger brothers, the man that would be Ingwë went and helped his taller friend chase after the boys and their friends, to clean mud from their faces and learn to swim on the lake. Joy was to be hunted outside his village, thus knew the man that would be known as Ingwë Ingweron. He could not continue to bite his tongue and say nothing as the chieftain and highest among his tribe mocked his parents and him, not after he became a man grown. To improve his family's standing drove him like the need for air and water. And the man who would become Ingwë Ingweron could not bear to be witness to the last fading of his father.

One last attempt to save her husband did Maktâmê devise, and begged for another child. A child, she hoped, might give her husband a task to focus on, a reason to not fade. Or at least give her one. And perhaps she knew he was lost to her, and hoped to preserve that last bit of his spirit, create one more thing of joy, something that would be born unscarred.

This plan was mostly unspoken, for it would have been mocked if her tribe learned she wished a child from the weak and grotesque. "Neither of you have the strength for a child," they would have told her. That any child from two with inner fires so low and guttering would be one with a spirit so weakly glowing as to be embers easily stamped out. This was the wisdom of the tribes. But they were wrong, the woman knew, as she watched the first child of her and her husband approach. Her strong son, who carried three dead hares in his hand and knelt before them, swiftly and expertly skinning the animals, spitting the meat and roasting the flesh, then pulling off the best parts to feed his father. All the while with bright blue eyes that refused to release their tears. "My first son is powerful, and learned to make the hunting snares of Tatyar boy," the woman called Skarnâ-Maktê said.

To which, with a helplessness born from many mothers, the young man who would be called Ingwë corrected her, "The snares were from Belekô, a Nelyar."

"It does not matter if the child is not strong," Maktâmê said, "or brings home glory and gifts." Of heartbreaking loveliness was the smile she turned to her son, the one that glanced beyond him to where his father sat near the ring of campfires and picket stakes that ordained the border between the safety of the village and the dangers of the dark wild. "But that child would be mine, and of Alakô. A new life, like you, my son." She left unsaid that any chances for another child grew slim. That the call of the water and the darkness was stronger than her voice and her arms.

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