Blood Brothers of Gor (34 page)

"Of course," I said. "My thanks, Mistress!"

"It will do you no good," she said. "You cannot see him there, if he is there. It is not permitted."

"I really seek Wopeton," I said. "Might he be in the council?"

"It is possible," she shrugged. She did not look up from her work.

"My thanks, Mistress," I said. "You have been very kind."

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"If he is in the council," she said, "you will not be able to see him either."

"My thanks, Mistress!" I said. I turned about and hurried from the place. She had been very helpful. I did not think that I would have managed as well had I been a white female slave. Had I been such she might have put me to labors or kept me on my belly, in the dirt, my mouth filled with dirt, before her, for hours. Women of the red savages bear little affection towards the lovely white properties of thier men. White slave girls will often flee at the mere approach of a red female and will almost never meet the eyes of one. In my intense awareness of this being the day of the great dance, pobably a function of Cuwignaka's almost overwhelming concern about it, and in my concern over the fate of Canka, and my concern with the information obtained from Oiputake, I had forgotten that this day, too, was the day of peace council, a day in which was to be seen, supposedly, at least the first stages of the ratiffication of a peace agreement between the Yellow Knives and the Kaiila. I made my way rapidly towards the council lodge. I di dnot know if I could draw Mahpiyasapa out of the council, or if it would be wise to do so, but I was confident that I could, somehow, if he were there, make contact with Grunt.

I was thrown rudely back by the two young warriors. "Kneel, Slave!" snarled one of them.

I knelt swiftly. Knives were drawn upon me.

"Forgive me, Masters," I said. "It is needful that I speak with Wopeton."

"He is not within," said one of the warriors.

"Convey then, I beg you," I said, "my need to speak with Mahpiyasapa."

"Neither is Mahpiyasapa within," said the warrior.

"Neither is within?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Forgive me, Masters," I said.

"They may come later," said one of the warriors. "The council has not yet begun."

"Yes, Master," I said. "Thank you, Masters." I crawled back a pace or two, on my knees, keeping my eyes on their knives. Then I rose to my feet and, facing the, backed away. They sheathed their knives and resumed their stance, arms folded, before the threshold of the great lodge. Its poles were

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fifty feet in height and it was covered with more than a hundred skins.

I looked about. Again I did not know what to do. I must wait, I suppose, to see if Grunt, or Mahpiyasapa, appeared. By now, however, I would have supposed they would have been within the council lodge. Surely the council was due to soon begin.

"Slave," said a fellow, sitting cross-legged, some yards off, beckoning to me.

I went to him and he indicated a place near him where I might kneel. I did so. He was grooving a stone for a hammerhead. This is done with a dampened rawhide string, dipped in sand, and drawn again and again, patiently, across the stone. I watched him work. "Today," he said, "the council will not hear the voice of Mahpiyasapa."

"Why today, will the council not hear his voice?" I asked.

"Today," said the man, drawing the rawhide string across the stone, "Mahpiyasapa is in sorrow. He has gone from the village, to purify himself."

"Why should he be in sorrow?" I asked. This was unwelcome news, indeed, that he might not be in the camp.

"I think it is because Canka tried to kill him," said the man, watching the movement of the string.

"Oh," I said. I did not know this man, and I did not see much point in conveying to him my suspicions as to what had actually occurred in this distrubing incident.

"You are Canka's slave, aren't you?" asked the man.

"Yes," I said.

"And you have not been taken, or slain," he said.

"No," I said.

"Interesting," he said, dipping the string again in water, and then in sand.

Mahpiyasapa's sorrow, I had little doubt, was occasioned by the perjury of Hci, and not by some putative treachery on the part of Canka. This, too, I had littel doubt, was in the mind of the man who had chosen to speak to me. He was not a fool. In his shame and sorrow Mahpiyasapa had not gone to the council. Perhaps he felt he could not, there, face his peers. In the small confines of a sweat lodge, fasting, and with steam and hot stones, he would try to come to grips with these things which had happened. He might then go to some lonely place, to seek a dream vision, that he might know what to do.

"Master," said I.

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"Yes," said the man.

"Is it your understanding that Wopeton accompanied Mahpiyasapa?"

"That is what I think," said the man, drawing the wet string, sand adhering to it, firmly and slowly, carefully, across the stone. He had probably been working for more than two days on the stone. I could see the beginngins of the groove in its surface.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"And that, too, is interesting," said the man, looking at the stone.

"Yes, Master," I said. The stones for use in the sweat lodge are heated in a fire outside the lodge and, held on sticks, taken within, where water is poured upon them, creating the needed heat and steam. When a stone cools it is then reheated. This part of the work, heating the stones, bringing the water, reheating the stones, and so on, ideally, is not done by the individual or individuals within the sweat lodge. Ideally,it is done by an assistant or helper. I had little doubt that Grunt was acting in this capacity for his friend, Mahpiyasapa. Mahpiyasapa, in this time, in his shame and misery, could not bring himself to face his own people.

I backed off a bit, on my knees, and then rose to my feet, and then withdrew from the presence of the fellow who was patienly working on the stone. I turned about and looked again at the huge council lodge. The two guards were still a the threshold. Between them, various men were entering. Expected to attend such a council, of couse, on the part of the Kaiila but thier high men, as well, the councils of the various bands, and trusted warriors, and men of probity and wisdom. Such councils tend to be open to the noble, the proven and worth. In that lodge, this afternoon, would be gathered, for most pracitical purposes, the leadership and aristocracy of the Kaiila nation. How absurd, then, to me, appeared my suspicions and fears. Where men so numerous, and noble and wise, were gathered, surely naught could be concern myself with their affairs? Too, Oiputake must have been mistaken. The Yellow Knives in camp could not be war chiefs. That would make no sense.

I took my way from the vicinity of the council lodge.

"Where is Watonka?" I heard a man ask.

"He has not yet arrived," said another man.

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"Is he making medicine?" asked a man.

"I do not know," said another.

"He is waiting for the shadow to shrink," said another. "He will then come to the council."

I then, for no reason I clearly understood, gurned my steps toward the lodges of the Isanna.

The three men, arms folded, standing in the vicinity of Watonka, who stood on a bit of high ground, near the Isanna lodges, I did not doubt were Yellow Knives. It was not that there was anything in particular about them that seemed to differentiate them from the Kaiila, but rather that there seemed something as a whole about them which was different, doubtless the cumulative effect of many tiny details, perhpas in the beading of their clothing, the manner in which certain ornaments were carved, the notching of their sleeves, the manner of fringing leggings, the tugting at the base of the feathers in their hair, the cut and style of their moccasins. They were not Kaiila. They were something else. They seemed stolid and expressionless. Watonka was looking to the sky, to the southeast. At the feet of Watonka there was a slim, upright stick. In the dirt, about the stick, were drawn two circles, a larger and a smaller. In the morning, when the sun ws high enough to cast a shadow, the shadow, I surmised, would have come to a point on the outer circle. At noon the sun, it seemed, in this latitude, casting its shortest shadow, would bring the shadow to or within the smaller of the two circles. When the shadow, again, began to lengthen, the sun would be past meridian. I looked up at the sun, and down to the stick and its shadow. It was, I conjectured, less than half of an Ahn before noon.

Watonka, in marked contrast to the three warriors, whom I took to be Yellow Knives, seemed clearly ill at ease. He looked to the warriors, and then, again, looked to the sky, to the southeast. The day was bright and clear. Near the men, a bit to one side, were Bloketu and Iwoso. Bloketu, too, seemed ill at ease. Iwoso, on the other hand, like the other three, who were presumably Yellow Knives, seemed quite calm. These six, and two others, nearby Isanna warriors, with lances, wore yellow scarves diagonally about their bodies, running from the left shoulder to the right hip. The purpose of these scarves, I supposed, was to identify them as, and protect them as, members of the peace-making party. Too, of course,

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they might have been intended to fulfill some medicine purpose, perhaps suggested in a dream to one of them.

I did not know if Blioketu would be permitted inot the council or not. Normally women are not permitted in such places. The red savages, though often listening with great attention to their free women, and according them great honor and respect, do not choose to relinquish the least bit of their sovereignity to them. They will make the decisions. They are the men. The women will obey. Iwoso, on the other hand, I supposed, would be required in the council lodge. She was probably the only person in the camp who spoke both Yellow Knife and kaiila fluently. Iwoso, interestingly, had a coil of slender, supple rope at her belt. Judging by the sun, and the shadow by the stick, I would have supposed that WAtonka and his party should have been making their way to the council lodge. The council, as I understood it, was to begin at noon. The manner in which the men wore their yellow scarves, I noted, gave maximum free play, if they were right handed, to their weapon hands.

"Bloketu," I said, going to her.

"Mistress!" she corrected me.

"Mistress," I said.

"Why are you not kneeling?" she asked.

I fell to my knees. "I would speak with you, if I might," I said.

"It was your master, Canka," she said, angrily, "who tried to kill Mahpiyasapa this morning."

"May I speak with you?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Alone," I asked.

Iwoso looked suddenly, sharply, at me.

"You may speak before my maiden," said Bloketu. "What does it matter? Why should a slave not speak before a slave?"

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said. "I may be ignorant, and a fool."

"That is not unlikely," she said.

"But I have reason to believe that the three men with your father, the Yellow Knives, are not as they seem."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I think they are not civil cheiftains of the Yellow Knives," I said. "I think it is possible they are war chiefs."

"Lying slave!" cried Iwoso angrily, lunging at me and striking me. I tasted blood at my mouth.

"What is going on?" asked Watonka, looking towards us.

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"This slave is an amusing fool," laughed Bloketu. "He thinks our guests are not civil chieftains of the Yellow Knives, soon to be our friends, but war chiefs."

This was translated by Iwoso speedily to the three Yellow Knives. Their expressions did not change.

"That is absurd," said Watonka, looking rapidly about. "I vouch for these men myself."

"You could not know such a thing," said Bloketu.

"There is a slave in camp," I said, "a blond female who was owned my Yellow Knives for a time. It was she who recognized them. It was she from whom I learned this."

"She is obviously mistaken," said Bloketu. These things, and what follows, were being translated, quickly, by Iwoso for the Yellow Knives.

"The tongues of lying slaves may well be slit," said Watonka, angrily. He drew his knife.

At this point one of the Yellow Knives put his hand on Watonka's arm. He spoke, and his words, for all of us, were translated by Iwoso.

"Do not harm the slave," he said. "This is a time of happiness and peace."

I looked up, startled. The man must indeed by a civil chieftain.