The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories (79 page)

“Dasiyu,” I whispered, then turned to my son. “Teyendanaga.”

He shook his head slightly. “You forget - I am the sachem Sohaewahah now.” He gestured at one of the blankets that covered the floor; I sat down.

“I hoped you would come back,” Dasiyu said. “I wished for it, yet prayed that you would not.”

“Mother,” our son murmured. She pushed a bowl of hommony towards me, then sat back on her heels.

“I wanted to come to you right away,” I said. “I did not know if you were here. When the men of my own clan greeted me, I feared what they might say if I asked about you, so kept silent. I searched the crowd for you when I was speaking.”

“I was there,” Dasiyu said, “sitting behind the sachems among the women. Your eyes are failing you.”

I suspected that she had concealed herself behind others. “I thought you might have another husband by now.”

“I have never divorced you.” Her face was much the same, only lightly marked with lines. I thought of how I must look to her, leather-faced and broader in the belly, softened by the years in Yeke Geren. “I have never placed the few belongings you left with me outside my door. You are still my husband, Senadondo, but it is Sohaewahah who asked you to come to this house, not I.”

My son held up his hand. “I knew you would return to us, my father. I saw it in my vision. It is of that vision that I wish to speak now.”

That a vision might have come to him, I did not doubt. Many spirits lived in these lands, and the Ganeagaono, as do all wise men, trust their dreams. But evil spirits can deceive men, and even the wise can fail to understand what the spirits tell them.

“I would hear of your vision,” I said.

“Two summers past, not long after I became Sohaewahah, I fell ill with a fever. My body fought it, but even after it passed, I could not rise from my bed. It was then, after the fever was gone, that I had my vision and knew it to be truth.” He gazed directly at me, his eyes steady. “Beyond my doorway, I saw a great light, and then three men entered my dwelling. One carried a branch, another a red tomahawk, and the third bore the shorter bow and the firestick that are your people’s weapons. The man holding the branch spoke, and I knew that Hawenneyu was speaking to me through him. He told me of a storm gathering in the east, over the Ojikhadagega, the great ocean your people crossed, and said that it threatened all the nations of the Long House. He told me that some of those who might offer us peace would bring only the peace of death. Yet his words did not frighten me, for he went on to say that my father would return to me, and bring a brother to my side.”

He glanced at his mother, then looked back at me. “My father and the brother he brought to me,” he continued, “would help us stand against the coming storm - this was the Great Spirit’s promise. When my vision passed, I was able to rise. I left my house and went through the village, telling everyone of what I had been shown. Now you are here, and the people remember what my vision foretold, and yet I see no brother.”

“You have a brother,” I said, thinking of Ajiragha. “I left him in Yeke Geren.”

“But he is not here at my side, as my vision promised.”

“He is only an infant, and the Inglistanis are the storm that threatens you. More of them will cross the Great Salt Water.”

“A war against them would cost us many men. We might trade with them, as we do with you. Peace is what we have always desired - war is only our way to prove our courage and to bring that peace about. You should know that, having been one of us.”

“The Inglistanis will make false promises, and when more of them come, even the Long House may fall before their soldiers. You have no treaties with the Inglistanis, so you are in a state of war with them now. Two of the spirits who came to you bore weapons - the Great Spirit means for you to make war.”

“But against whom?” Dasiyu asked. She leaned forward and shook her fist. “Perhaps those who are on your island of Ganono are the storm that will come upon us, after we are weakened by battle with the pale-faced people you hate.”

“Foolish woman,” I muttered, “I am one of you. Would I come here to betray you?” Despite my words, she reminded me of my own doubts.

“You should not have come back,” she said. “Whenever I dreamed of your return, I saw you alone, not with others seeking to use us for their own purposes. Look at you - there is nothing of the Ganeagaono left in you. You speak our words, but your garments and your companions show where your true loyalty lies.”

“You are wrong.” I stared at her; she did not look away. “I have never forgotten my brothers here.”

“You come to spy on us. When you have fought with our warriors in this battle, you will see our weaknesses more clearly, the ways in which we might be defeated, and we will not be able to use your pale-faced enemies against you.”

“Is this what you have been saying to the other women? Have you gone before the men to speak against this war?”

Dasiyu drew in her breath; our son clutched her wrist. “You have said enough, Mother,” he whispered. “I believe what he says. My vision told me he would come, and the spirits held the weapons of war. Perhaps my brother is meant to join me later.” He got to his feet. “I go now to add my voice to the councils. It may be that I can persuade those who waver. If we are to follow the warpath now, I will set aside my office to fight with you.”

He left us before I could speak. “You will have your war,” Dasiyu said. “The other sachems will listen to my son, and ask him to speak for them to the people. The wise old women will heed his words, because they chose him for his position.”

“This war will serve you.”

She scowled, then pushed the bowl of hommony towards me. “You insult me by leaving my food untouched.”

I ate some of the dried corn, then set the bowl down. “Dasiyu, I did not come here only to speak of war. I swore an oath to myself that, when this campaign ends, I will live among you again.”

“And am I to rejoice over that?”

“Cursed woman, anything I do would stoke your rage. I went back to speak for the Long House in our councils. I asked you to come with me, and you refused.”

“I would have had to abandon my clan. My son would never have been chosen as a sachem then. You would not be promising to stay with us unless you believed you have failed as our voice.”

Even after the years apart, she saw what lay inside me. “Whatever comes,” I said, “my place is here.”

She said nothing for a long time. The warmth inside the long house was growing oppressive. I opened my coat, then took off my headband to mop my brow.

“Look at you,” she said, leaning towards me to touch the braids coiled behind my ears. Her hand brushed the top of my shaven head lightly. “You had such a fine scalplock - how could you have given it up?” She poked at my mustache. “I do not understand why a man would want hair over his lip.” She fingered the fabric of my tunic. “And this - a woman might wear such a garment. I used to admire you so when I watched you dance. You were the shortest of the men, but no man here had such strong arms and broad shoulders, and now you hide them under these clothes.”

I drew her to me. She was not as she had been, nor was I; once, every moment in her arms had only fed the flames inside me. Our fires were banked now, the fever gone, but her welcoming warmth remained.

“You have changed in another way, Senadondo,” she said afterwards. “You are not so hasty as you were.”

“I am no longer a young man, Dasiyu. I must make the most of what moments I am given.”

She pulled a blanket over us. I held her until she was asleep; she nestled against me as she once had, her cheek against my shoulder, a leg looped around mine. I did not know how to keep my promise to stay with her. Yesuntai might want a spy among the Flint People when this campaign was concluded; he might believe I was his man for the task.

I slept uneasily. A war whoop awakened me at dawn. I slipped away from my wife, pulled on my trousers, and went to the door.

A young chief was running through the village. Rattles were bound to his knees with leather bands, and he held a red tomahawk; beads of black wampum dangled from his weapon. He halted in front of the war post, lifted his arm, and embedded the tomahawk in the painted wood. He began to dance, and other men raced towards him, until it seemed most of the village’s warriors had enlisted in the war.

They danced, bodies bent from the waist, arms lifting as if to strike enemies, hands out to ward off attack. Their feet beat against the ground as drums throbbed. I saw Yesuntai then; he walked towards them, his head thrown back, a bow in one hand. I stepped from the doorway, felt my heels drumming against the earth, and joined the dancers.

* * * *

3

Yesuntai, a Khan’s son, was used to absolute obedience. The Ganeagaono, following the custom of all the Long House people, would obey any war chiefs in whom they had confidence. I had warned Yesuntai that no chief could command the Flint People to join in this war, and that even the women were free to offer their opinions of the venture.

“So be it,” the young Noyan had said to that. “Our own women were fierce and brave before they were softened by other ways, and my ancestor Bortai Khatun often advised her husband Genghis Khan, although even that great lady would not have dared to address a war kuriltai. If these women are as formidable as you say, then they must have bred brave sons.” I was grateful for his tolerance.

But the people of Skanechtade had agreed to join us, and soon their messengers returned from other villages with word that chiefs in every Ganeagaono settlement had agreed to go on the warpath. My son had advised us to follow the custom of the Hodenosaunee when all of their nations fought in a common war, and to choose two supreme commanders so that there would be unanimity in all decisions. Yesuntai, it was agreed, would command, since he had proposed this war, and Aroniateka, a cousin of my son’s, would be Yesuntai’s equal. Aroniateka, happily, was a man avid to learn a new way of warfare.

This was essential to our purpose, since to have any chance against the Inglistanis, the Ganeagaono could not fight in their usual fashion. The Long House people were still new to organized campaigns with many warriors, and most of their battles had been little more than raids by small parties. Their men were used to war, which, along with the hunt, was their favorite pursuit, but this war would be more than a ritual test of valor.

The Flint People had acquired horses from us in trade, but had never used them in warfare. Their warriors moved so rapidly on foot through the forests that mounts would only slow their progress. We would have to travel on foot, and take any horses we might need later from the Inglistanis. The men I had chosen in Yeke Geren had hunted and traded with the Hodenosaunee, and were used to their ways. Those Yesuntai had brought were veterans of European campaigns, but willing to adapt.

The whoops of Skanechtade’s warriors echoed through the village as they danced. The women busied themselves making moccasins and preparing provisions for their men. Runners moved between villages with the orders of our two commanders and returned with promises that the other war parties would follow them. Yesuntai would have preferred more time for planning, to send out more scouts before we left Ganeagaono territory, but we had little time. War had been declared, and our allies were impatient to fight. We needed a swift victory over our enemy. If we did not defeat the Inglistanis by late autumn, the Ganeagaono, their honor satisfied by whatever they had won by then, might abandon us.

A chill remained in the early spring air, but most of the Ganeagaono men had shed the cloaks and blankets that covered their upper bodies in winter. Our Mongols followed their example and stripped to the waist, and I advised Yesuntai’s men to trade their felt boots for moccasins. Dasiyu gave me a kilt and a pair of deerskin moccasins; I easily gave up my Mongol tunic and trousers for the garb I had once worn.

Eight days after we had come to Skanechtade, the warriors performed their last war dance. Men streamed from the village towards the river; Dasiyu followed me to the high wall that surrounded the long houses and handed me dried meat and a pouch of corn flour mixed with maple sugar.