Salt tears of the heart

To die: to sleep; No more;
and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,
'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.
To die: to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream:
ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life

William Shakespeare

Grandmother, Mother and I had brought oils and reps for Enhasan's Father. Many had turned out for my own Father's pyre and it was a time to give back. Each clan has its own small ritual to add to the saying 'Be well' to the dead but I was taken aback by what I had heard was to be done by the salt hunters. The tale of its origin was an eloquent one but it did not lessen what was to be done. To me once the last breath leaves the body, we no longer exist inside our bodies but still .. the thought of sinking a quiva into the chest of a Tuchuk to pour salt into the heart... alive or dead just did not settle with me. The late elder had asked his youngest son to promise he would see to it after his death. Six son was adamant that it be done. Quite a virtue of an unsacrred boy of just six turnings. Sahnka would see it through and Six would stand as witness but that meant it was going to take several days before the rare mineral needed could be found. By the time I walked away from the outer fires fires I was deeply disturbed.

To keep a body preserved during the hot season was a tedious undertaking so I brought them new oils a few days later. It was a good will gesture that in hindsight I wished I had not. Sahnka's tirade had struck me at first as simply another warrior behaving like spoiled brat. A tantrum. Of late that did not seem so unusual. I'd witnessed quite a few now: men ... women ... slaves ... small furry animals, all demanding their wants to be heard with all the pleadings in their eyes of the two year old child inside that never grew up then storming off when they were not handed them instantly. That isn't fair to two year olds. Most of them have behaved well.

The salt hunter had felt like an insanity unleashed with his all over the place demands but it was when he spat the word 'Ubara' at me as if it were something tainted that it struck home.

No matter that I tried to explain I was not the Ubara and perchance may never be. Even if Ayguili and I were mated, there was no automatic that I would take the place of the woman that held that position. There was in many ways no need to, she was doing an excellent job seeing to the needs of the Tribe. My argument had no affect as if I had any need to argue this particular point in the first place with anyone but the Ubar himself. That only served to set him off again in an altogether varied tangent.

"Do something!'

'What do you want me to do?'

'Nothing.'

The reasoning escaped me.

No matter how hard I looked I found no logic in this ... in any of it. Could I chock it up to the ravages of grief as the weaver had suggested? Perhaps. I simply tried to shake it all off and continue along my day.

On a different plane a voice seemed to come from no where growled above me. Something low and gutteral without host to form it ... "You hate me don't you?" Before I could even question where it came from or why, I answered. 'I do not know you well enough to have an opinion one way or another' Then it was gone, as if it was never there in the first place.