The Salt Road by Jane Johnson Read Free Book Online Page B

length. ‘You give yourself such airs, filling the children’s heads with your stupid tales, boasting about your family, holding the Kel Taitok above us as if we are just some filthy vassal tribe. It’s time you were taught a lesson –’ He thrust his free hand hard between her legs and began to drag her robe up.
    Mariata, crushed against him, was outraged. To touch a woman without her permission was taboo: forbidden, punishable by exile, or even death.
    Down in the valley a wild dog’s howl shivered in the air, followed by another and another and another. Something had disturbed them: normally they lay like dry, yellow carcases in untidy heaps in the shadows cast by the drystone terrace walls, while the harratin dug and weeded and watered on the other side. The howl hung in the valley like a vulture, buoyed up by the hot air currents; then faded away.
    But the disturbance had broken the moment for Rhossi: his head came up; then he pushed Mariata away from him and walked fast to the crest of the hill, shading his eyes to see what had caught the dogs’ attention. Keeping a good distance between them, Mariata moved to where she could also stare down into the valley, but all there was to see was a figure making its way up the mountain path, a figure that eventually resolved itself into a woman in a black headscarf and a long, patched blue robe, her head bowed, her shoulders bent as if she bore a burden on her back. Mariata did not recognize her, but since she had only been with the Bazgan tribe for a few weeks, that was no surprise.
    But Rhossi was staring at the woman as if he had seen a ghost. Mariata watched as he adjusted his veil, wrapping it swiftly around his face until just a slit remained. His eyes glimmered through the slit. He looked scared.
    As if attracted by the movement, the woman looked up briefly and Mariata was surprised to see that she was old, her face a bag of wrinkles, her skin dark as acacia wood. She looked sad and exhausted; she looked as if she must have been driven by powerful forces to make this hard journey, up this steep, rocky path into another tribe’s territory. Was it hunger that drove her, Mariata wondered? Or did she bring news? Strangers usually had a tale to tell.
    As if it was the most natural reaction in the world, Rhossi picked up a rock and hurled it at the old woman, hurled it with real venom. It struck the stranger hard and she cried out, spun and lost her footing, slipping on the loose scree of the path and falling with some force. At once, Rhossi was off and running, leaving Mariata fixed in place, staring down at the injured woman, complicit in the attack by the mere fact of her presence.
    When the woman did not get up, Mariata shook off her torpor and climbed down through the scrub and thorn and rock. By the time she reached the stranger’s side, the old woman was groaning and trying to sit up. ‘ Salaam aleikum ,’ Mariata greeted her. Peace be upon you.
    ‘ Aleikum as salaam ,’ the old woman responded. On you be peace. Her voice was as harsh as a crow’s.
    A claw-like hand clutched at Mariata’s robe, found her shoulder and began to haul. Mariata helped the old woman to sit upright. Her head-covering had fallen off, revealing a twist of dark braids that had been intricately plaited and knotted with scraps of coloured leather, beads and shells. Here and there were bright threads of silver: these were no ornament but hairs coloured by age. The eyes that searched Mariata’s face were a bright, deep brown, without the cloud of cataract: and though they were buried in a wealth of deep sun-lines, it seemed the visitor was not such a crone after all.
    ‘Are you all right?’ Mariata asked her.
    ‘Thanks be, I am well.’ But the woman winced as she moved her arm, and blood was beginning to soak through her robe where the rock had struck her.
    ‘You are bleeding. Let me look.’
    But as Mariata reached to examine the wound, the woman caught her by the chin and stared