The Tattooed Tribes (12 page)

He staggered a
little, blood beginning to trickle from his nose, but he rushed
Lucien, making up for his lack of inches with the ferocity of his
attack.

The two of
them went under the water again, but this time Lucien came up with
the makings of a black eye and painful ribs.

At this point
stopping seemed the best idea to both of them, but neither was
prepared to suggest it by either word or deed, so they circled
again looking for a new opening.

Lucien feinted
forwards and Vlic stepped back to avoid the blow and found he was
in far deeper water than he had anticipated. A current caught him
and he was suddenly in trouble.

At first
Lucien thought it was a ruse, but the panic on Vlic’s face as he
fought to regain his feet in the fast flowing water brought him to
his senses and he plunged in, swimming to Vlic as hard and fast as
he could.

They fought
the river together, keeping each other afloat as they kicked hard
towards the bank. For a brief moment Lucien thought they would not
make it, but the river was kinder than either of them deserved and
the bottom unexpectedly rose up under their feet and they were able
to drag themselves onto the bank.

They lay
gasping for breath and then the enormity of what had happened hit
them. Lucien shuddered and Vlic shivered from cold and shock.

“
We need a fire,” Lucien said, his teeth
chattering.

Together they
managed to find wood and kindling. Lucien’s trembling fingers went
to the flint bag around his neck.

“
I’ve lost my knife,” he said.

Vlic handed
him his and Lucien struck enough sparks to ignite the dried
grass.

Once the
warmth began to still their quivering limbs they were better able
to assess the situation. More wood was found and another fire lit
and they sat between the two, drying themselves and their
clothes.

Neither spoke
for a while, and then Vlic said, “It’s a good idea to keep your
flint around your neck.”

Lucien nodded.
“Jon told me to do it.”

They were
silent again.

“
I wish I hadn’t lost my knife,” Lucien
said.

“
I saw where you dropped it,” Vlic replied.
“We should be able to find it.”

Again the
awkward silence fell, but at last Lucien’s grin crept out. “We’re
going to be in deep shit over this.”

Vlic glared at
him for a second and then a reluctant smile came to his face as
well.

“
My dad’s going to kill me,” he said
ruefully.

Lucien
mentally reviewed Jon’s possible reaction and thought he might not
live either. They sat and considered a possibly uncomfortable
future.

“
We don’t have to tell them,” Lucien
suggested.

He saw the
shock on Vlic’s face and remembered what Jon had said about the
tribes and their respect for the truth.

“
Not lie,” he assured him. “Just not tell
them everything.”

“
How?”

“
Well, we can tell them you missed your
footing and got out of your depth and I lost my knife trying to
pull you back, which is all true, just not the whole
truth.”

Vlic grinned.
“And how do you explain your eye and my nose?”

“
They got hit by something while we were in
the water,” Lucien improvised.

“
Which is also true,” Vlic
conceded.

They laughed,
shaking off the last of the horrors and made their way back to
their abandoned baskets and digging sticks. Luck was on their side,
they had not lost many clams and Lucien stripped off his damp
clothes and found his knife after a couple of dives.

Prudently they
dug up a lot more clams in the hope this would explain their long
absence, before they made their way back to camp.

The four men
were too busy to notice them, so Vlic showed Lucien how to cook
clams by wrapping them in wet leaves and laying them in a hole
filled with hot rocks, before sealing the whole thing with
earth.

Lucien
carefully made damper bread, optimistic that food would divert
Jon’s attention.

Neither boy
much enjoyed the meal they had cooked; Jon and Iesgood gave them
one comprehensive look and said nothing. The lack of enquiry
bothered them far more than any interrogation.

They fidgeted
and wriggled uncomfortably through the evening, waiting for the
inevitable questions, but none came.

Both passed a
disturbed night full of drowning dreams and anxious anticipation of
the morrow, but the morning was also free from embarrassing
enquires.

Over the next
few days the boys drew closer and closer together as they waited
for the axe to fall. In order to delay the event, they avoided
their elders as much as possible, offering to collect wood, water
and to hunt for berries and leaves at the end of each day’s paddle.
They volunteered to dig the latrine and willingly went down to wash
the dishes, anything that would put distance between them and their
guardians and avoid the retribution they were both convinced was
coming.

During these
self-imposed exiles Vlic taught Lucien how to find his way amongst
the trees by checking which side the moss grew, and widened his
knowledge of edible planets. In return Lucien read over Vlic’s
written work and helped him with the long words.

They talked a
lot, mainly about hunting and girls, the two subjects uppermost in
both their minds, and by the time they reached the tribal village
they were staunch friends and Iesgood and Jon still had not asked
them how they got hurt.

Chapter
9

The village was
on a broad bluff high above the river, well clear of spring floods.
Lucien had been expecting tents for some reason, and was therefore
surprised by the neat, tidy rows of log built cabins. None were
large, but each was sturdy and well roofed against the harsh winter
weather and each was surrounded by a generous truck garden bursting
with produce.

In the middle
was a wide open space flanked by two much larger buildings.

“
The Men’s house,” Vlic explained to
Lucien, pointing to the one over to the left. “Somewhere to go when
your wife is giving you hell. The Meeting House is on the other
side.”

A thought
struck Lucien. “Are you married?” he asked.

Vlic nodded
moodily. “Yes,” he growled. “She’s a right little bitch and I’ve
refused to live anywhere near her. She was okay when we were kids,
but once she got to twelve she started getting all full of herself.
Then her mother and mine decided it was a good marriage for
us.”

He ground his
teeth at the memory.

“
I stayed about a week. She never stopped
snipping at me the whole time.”

“
Why?”

“
I dunno. Girls are like that, they’re okay
when they’re little and they sure are fine when they’re older, but
in between they’re a pain. I still have to go there to learn bow
making from her father. He’s a mean bastard; probably where she
gets it from. He thrashed me once for what he called ‘larking
about’ when I should’ve been paying attention. I was really pleased
when Dad said I could go downriver with him.”

Ahead of them
men, women and children began to gather in the open space. Jon
caught hold of Lucien and swung him round.

“
Listen carefully,” he said. “You follow me
when greeting adults. You know the procedure with the men, but it’s
different for the women.”

Lucien
nodded.

“
And try not to get into any more fights,”
Jon added.

Before Lucien
could deny everything, Jon was striding forwards towards an elderly
lady standing in the centre of the field. He bowed low, taking both
her hands and kissed the palms.

“
Bweriit
Liedwer,”
he said respectfully. “May I find rest and safety
amongst your sisters this day?”

“
Welcome back, Harabin
dheillwer
,” she replied. “You are welcome this day
and for many more.”

Jon gestured
Lucien forward to follow his example, kissing the woman’s hands and
stumbling only slightly over the new word.

He looked at
the hands before him and saw they were covered in pearl tattoos,
while her wrists were circled by dozens of s-shaped whorls.

“
My marriages,” she told him, seeing his
interest. “I lost count long before I was finally wed.”

She looked up
at him with shrewd grey eyes and Lucien felt in those few seconds
she had learnt everything she needed to know about him and he
flushed a deep crimson.

She
smiled.

“
Welcome, Devlin
dheillwer,
”
she
said, turning then to Jon. “You’ve taken on a lively one here, my
son.”

“
I know,” Jon replied with a grin. “But
we’re making progress.”

He ruffled
Lucien’s hair, which far from gratified him. He shot Jon a
resentful look, but there was a certain amount of pride in the grin
he got back, pride he realised was directed at him and he preened
under it, surprised how much the silent compliment meant to
him.

“
Bweriit, there’s much to talk about,” Jon
said. “May we go to the Meeting House and consult with your
sisters?”

She inclined
her head and gestured to a young woman beside her who raised her
hands in some sort of signalling motion, and for the first time
Lucien heard tribal drums and the hairs of the back of his neck
stood up.

In front of
the meeting house several women were beating out a complex rhythm
on what appeared to be a series of hollowed out logs, but when he
looked closer he could see they were huge carved drums.

From cabins
all around women of various ages came towards the Meeting
House.

“
Told you the girls were in charge,” Jon
whispered to Lucien. “This is another mouth shut time, by the way.
In fact, I won’t be opening mine without permission.”

Lucien
followed Jon and Iesgood into the Meeting House. He looked around
for Vlic, but saw he, like most of the other men, had remained
outside.

It was cool
inside the building. Light streamed in through windows set high up
in the walls and dust motes floated in the long shafts of
sunshine.

There was a
half circle of chairs facing the centre of the room. Bweriit and
several of the older women went and sat in them, while the rest
formed the other half of the circle

The few men
admitted stood in the middle.

A young woman
handed Bweriit a carved ivory tusk about as long as her fore arm.
Lucien had no idea what sort of animal it had come from and he
would have liked to have asked, but the solemnity of the assembly
was enough to keep him quiet.

“
Hear me,” Bweriit began, and the silence
was profound. “Let us consider what we know of the current
situation. We will dispense with the expressions of horror and
outrage at what has occurred; we all know how we feel and nothing
can be accomplished by wallowing in the details.”

There was a
murmur of assent from the circling women; Bweriit silenced it with
a small gesture.

“
First, Clieviis
cheed
Dhyra wasn’t the deepest of thinkers, but he
wasn’t quite the fool our men like to think he was. He would not
have taken his wife and child to a betrothal meeting without
believing and having cause to believe it was completely
genuine.”

There were
nods from around the circle.

“
He certainly would not have gone dressed
and equipped for peace if he had the slightest suspicion of war,”
Bweriit continued. “No lance was found, nor shield or war club. It
is possible they were taken away with the child, but no signs of a
fight were found, which means he must have known or trusted those
they went to meet.”

Lucien could
feel the tension in the room. There was anger, but there was also a
sense of bafflement and shock. Something about the situation was
totally outside their experience. Again he ached to ask Jon for an
explanation, but the dignity of the seated women and the power
emanating from them kept his mouth shut.

“
Let me hear your thoughts, sisters,”
Bweriit said, and handed the tusk back to the young
woman.

Hands rose
slowly and, by some assent Lucien could not follow, the tusk was
passed to a middle-aged woman.

“
I think we must conclude he believed he
was meeting members of The People,” she began slowly. “From the
first contact and through the negotiations, he must have had reason
to believe he was amongst friends and everything was
normal.”

She paused and
looked deeply troubled.

“
With regret,” she continued. “I can’t
believe any outsider would have sufficient knowledge of custom to
have deceived him.”

Silence
greeted this; it was obvious a large number of those present had
come to more or less the same conclusion.

Some hands
were raised, but the tusk passed back to Bweriit.

“
Harabin
dheillwer,
you are our window on the world of the
newcomers
.
Do you know of
any who have sufficient knowledge of betrothal custom to have
deceived one of us?”

Jon took the
tusk in his right hand.

“
I do not,
liedwer,”
he replied
.
“I
know I could not arrange a betrothal or a marriage according to
custom. And I doubt if anyone born outside the tribes could, except
perhaps for The Grand Master, and it is unthinkable he would have
betrayed the wisdom.”