The Tattooed Tribes (25 page)

He caught a
glimpse of the latrine standing twenty yards from the building; it
looked as if it was nothing more than a hole screened from view by
couple of panels of woven willow.

He gave a snort of derision. “There
is
no
way
my father is down
there,” he whispered.

“
How do you know?” Vlic asked.

“
He thinks we live like pigs back at The
Settlement,” Lucien replied. “He wouldn’t put up with
this.”

“
I hope you’re right,” Stacey said. “Mine’s
down there, I’m sure of it.”

Lucien was not
as certain, or did not want to be sure. To admit she might be right
would be to accept everything she said and, until he had better
evidence, he was not prepared to do that. However, this was hardly
the time or the place for them to start arguing again, so he kept
this to himself.

“
What now?” she asked.

“
I … I’m not sure,” Lucien
admitted.

“
We should stay put for a while,” Vlic
said. “Harabin
dheillwer
will
want to scout the whole camp to see how many of them there are and
who they are, before he makes any move. If we go down there, he
might find us.”

Lucien’s old
grin crept out, despite the situation. “He’d probably make me eat
my indenture papers,” he said, with a soft laugh. “Then he’d kill
me.”

Even Stacey,
who was not finding anything about the situation to amuse her,
found herself smiling at this and said, “He must have been mad when
he took you on.”

At a
suggestion from her, they found a tree well covered in leaf and
helped each other up into its branches. From this place of
concealment they had a better view and hoped if Jon did come by, he
would not spot them.

Lucien was not
happy; he wanted to keep a closer watch to make sure Jon was safe.
He did not want to be discovered or to jeopardise the mission, but
found being ignorant of potential danger was unbearable.

After half an
hour he said, “I’m going to scout around a bit, like Jon.”

Vlic took his
arm before he could leave the tree. “Once he lets them know he’s
there, they’ll be watching for others,” he pointed out. “We don’t
want to get caught.”

“
Then wouldn’t it be better if we moved
about, rather than staying in one spot to be found?” Stacey
said.

She was as
anxious as Lucien to know what was going on down there, but Vlic,
far more conscience of Jon’s orders than the other two, was
reluctant; he felt he ought to make some effort to keep them from
further disobedience.

“
Perhaps we could find a closer place where
we could watch without being seen.”

“
Good idea,” Lucien replied. “And we can
scout about for a bit while we look for it.”

Vlic gave up
the struggle at that point.

The open meadow
created by the beavers gave little or no cover. They retreated back
up the stream and then waded across to take advantage of the tree
line on the opposite bank. They kept well back in the woods,
treading carefully to leave as little sign as they could, stepping
into each other’s foot prints to disguise how many they were.

At various
places the trees grew right to the edge of the bank, some hanging
on only by their roots where floods had swept the soil from under
them. It made the going hard.

Vlic had
point, Stacey was in the middle and Lucien concentrated on
following them as quietly as he could, when Vlic suddenly
disappeared from view. Hastily suppressing a cry of horror, he and
Stacey ran to the point where Vlic had vanished.

“
I’m all right,” a soft voice whispered up
to them. “There’s some sort of overhang here, it goes back a fair
way and you can’t see it with the vegetation.”

Lucien lowered
himself and found Vlic crouched on a ledge hidden under a canopy of
vines and branches. Inside the tree’s roots stood like a series of
columns with crawl spaces going back into the earth. It was quite
dry inside and they found evidence that some creature had used it
as a lair.

“
I guess the river must have cut this
before the beavers dammed it,” Vlic said.

They scrambled
back up, climbed out over the lip of the depression and returned to
the tree line, watching carefully in case there were other traps
for the unwary along the way.

Keeping within
the safety of the tree cover, while staying in visual touch with
the valley, was proving hard. A couple of times they found they had
ventured far deeper into the woods than they wanted. Once they
unwittingly walked straight out of cover and into the open, had Jon
or an enemy scout been around they would have been seen
immediately.

It gave them a
fright and they were far more careful afterwards. The delays meant
it was well past noon before they reached a place behind the camp
where they could observe without being seen.

To their
surprise they saw no sign of Jon and no sign of the sort of
activity that would signify his presence.

They were
close enough to see the tents were made from bison hides stretched
over larch poles.

Vlic caught Lucien’s eye and mouthed
‘
Tribal
’ to him,
confirming their suspicions of the previous day.

Slowly and
silently, they moved around a little, hoping to get a better view.
At first they thought the whole place was deserted, but smoke
trickling from the banked fire in the pit told them there were
people here.

They listened
for sounds and Lucien thought he caught the faint buzz of someone
snoring, but it was hard to be sure.

Stacey touched
him on the arm and pointed towards the lean-to built up against the
side of the cabin. There was a sound coming from it and it was easy
to identify; someone was singing and sounded very young.

Vlic stiffened
and listened hard. “Women’s magic,” he breathed.

Stacey nodded
confirmation. “A cursing song by the sound of it.”

The door of
the cabin opened and a woman came out. She was small and round and
looked ill at ease in her deer-hide jacket and knee-high boots.

“
For god’s sake,” she snapped at someone in
the house. “I’ll shut her up, but why you’re so upset by a little
girl singing I’ve no idea.”

She stamped
off towards the lean-to as a man emerged from the darkness
within.

“
Tell her if she doesn’t stop she won’t be
fed,” he said in a peevish tone.

This time it
was Stacey who stiffened.

‘
Father
?’ Lucien mouthed.

She nodded,
her jaws clamped so hard together a muscle in her cheek gave an
involuntary spasm.

The woman
disappeared into the lean-to and after a moment or two the singing
stopped and she came out again and returned to the cabin. Almost
immediately there was a rhythmic sound, like someone tapping out a
dance tune.

Vlic’s face
broke into a grin. “More women’s magic,” he whispered.

“
Oh, yes,” Stacey answered.

The cabin door
flew opened and the woman stormed out and into the lean-to; there
was the sound of an angry raised voice and the tapping stopped, but
by the time the woman was back inside the cabin, the singing had
started again.

“
You stop her!” she was heard to shout at
someone inside. “She won’t listen to me.”

There was the
muffled the sound of an argument.

The angry
voices or perhaps the singing had disturbed others, and tent flaps
were being thrown back and men began to emerge. They yawned and
scratched as if they had been woken from deep sleep.

One went to
stir up the embers of the fire, another to fetch more wood from the
pile, while the others went to relieve themselves in the general
vicinity of the latrine, but not with any accuracy.

There were
well over a dozen of them and from their dress they were
tribesmen.

One banged on
the wall of the lean-to and said something, but whatever the reply
was, it made him jump back as if afraid.

He said
something else, but he made sure he was a good way off. He then
staggered over to the fire to hear some mocking remarks from his
fellows.

It struck
Lucien the area was filthy, something he had never seen before. Jon
was strict about camp cleanliness and even stricter about hygiene,
and he nearly gagged when a slight change in the wind brought the
smell of the latrine searing up his nostrils. It was bad enough to
make his eyes water.

During his
time with the Forest Cat he had never seen anything to disgust him
or anything below the standards he had been taught, but here it
appeared that even a proper midden was beyond the inhabitants.

There were
also far more flies than he was accustomed to seeing; they were
settled on the bones, rotting remains and detritus that littered
the site and, as one of the men moved close to some pile of ordure,
they rose in a thick black cloud only to sink down again.

Looking up,
Lucien saw several scavenging raptors hanging on a thermal above
them and Vlic, who had been following his gaze, had a stunned
expression on his face.

He shook his
head in bewilderment. No woman or man of his acquaintance would
ever have allowed this level of slovenliness.

Stacey seemed
too have withdrawn inside herself for a while; the sight of her
father had affected her more than she thought it would. She had
been expecting it, but reality was cruel. What now assaulted her
nostrils dragged her out of her reverie and she also stared at what
was before them.

She touched
Lucien’s arm and whispered, “No women.”

He was about
to protest when he realised she meant tribal women, and this was
another surprise. Hunters might go off in small all-male groups
occasionally, but women’s magic was considered by most tribesmen
essential to a successful outcome of any such expedition. Plus the
women saw no reason why men should have all the fun.

There was a
shout of greeting from the woods away to their right and four more
tribesmen stepped out from cover and into the clearing; one of them
had a deer slung over his shoulders.

Their
appearance was hailed by those now gathered around the fire and a
quick head count showed there were about a fifteen of them in
total. It also brought the woman out from the cabin.

She stood
talking to one of the hunters, who listened with patience but no
sign of enjoyment. Whatever she said resulted in a long fillet of
venison loin being delivered to the cabin door when the deer was
butchered.

The smell of
spit roasting meat, even mixed with the other viler smells, was
enough to remind three young people they were hungry again and
there was nothing for them to eat.

Silently they
slid further round the camp to get up wind of the tormenting aroma.
As they came around they had a clearer view of the lake and the
three canoes pulled up onto the bank.

Retreating
deep into the cover of the woods they hunkered in a small stand of
young pine trees to consult.

“
What tribe are they?” Lucien
asked.

“
I don’t know,” Vlic replied. “We’re too
far away to see their hands and I didn’t see any
shields.”

“
Neither did I,” Lucien admitted. “But I
think it was Clieviis’ daughter we heard singing in the
hut.”

Stacey nodded
in agreement. “It was women’s magic, but she was using the girl
theme and rhythms.”

“
Why are they keeping her locked up like
that?” Lucien wondered

“
Knowing what my little sister is like, I
bet she’s tried to escape a couple of times,” Vlic
replied.

“
Any idea who the woman is?” Lucien asked
Stacey.

“
I’m not sure,” she replied. “I thought I
recognised her, but I can’t remember when or where.” She paused.
“You saw my father.”

Lucien nodded.
“No sign of mine,” he remarked and watched with satisfaction as the
chagrin stole across her face and then felt a stab of guilt.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “That was …”

He could not
bring himself to apologise, so he changed the subject.

“
Where the hell is Jon?”

Vlic shrugged.
“The best we can do now is watch and wait,” he said, hoping his
mercurial friend would see the sense of this.

Apparently he
did, but he was brooding and restless as they watched the meal
before them progress. Tubers were thrown into the ashes and a
variety of herbs, leaves and nuts appeared.

The woman from
the cabin emerged again and after some debate was given a share of
these. She appeared, from the smell floating out of the cabin and
across the camp site, to have made damper bread, but she did not
offer to the men gathered around the fire.

Judging from
the gestures they made in her direction, this was not well
received.

Flour was a
luxury among the tribes; they had substitutes, but had neither the
technology, nor the inclination to grow and harvest wheat.

It was
sometime before food was taken to the little girl locked in the
lean-to, and all three of them frowned over the amount on the
plate.

“
Looks like your father was hungrier than
usual today,” Lucien said, watching Stacey to see the
reaction.

Even as he
said it, he was angry with himself. He felt bad enough the last
time he goaded her, but here he was doing it again. He had no idea
why he needed to keep on, but no matter how hard he tried to stop
himself, all she had said about his father kept coming back to him.
And the more often it came, the more feasible it sounded.