The Tattooed Tribes (13 page)

Bweriit
nodded. “Unthinkable indeed,” she agreed. “So, someone of The
People must have been involved. But who? I will hear thoughts upon
this.”

The tusk was
taken by a young woman on the far side of the circle.

“
We all know Clieviis’ decision to take his
family into isolation was nothing more than boastfulness,” she
said. “Tradition may demand that if a family do not wish marriages
for their daughters, they remove them to a place of isolation, but
how often is this tradition enforced? This was nothing more than
Clieviis proclaiming to the world his daughters’ status. It was the
subject of jokes and gossip and the only thing faster than a swift
canoe is gossip.”

A small ripple
of mirth ran around the circle.

“
Gossip can go a long away,” the woman
concluded. “Maybe to tribes we know little about.”

This was well
received; no-one liked the idea friends or neighbours were
responsible.

The tusk was
taken up by an elderly woman who was not a part of the seated
circle.

“
They wouldn’t have left seclusion without
the promise of an enormous bridal gift,” she began. “I know you are
all inclined to think my sister’s second son was a fool, but he
wasn’t when it came to his daughters. The youngest hasn’t the
status of her sisters and he would have been anxious to make her
equal with them. He would have been tempted if the amount was large
enough.”

There were
nods of agreement.

“
Not one family here would have refused
her, if they could have afforded her.”

Shoulders were
shrugged, but no-one argued.

“
So we must ask ourselves who could offer
and
prove
a gift of
sufficient value,” she continued. “Clieviis would have wanted to
see a portion before he accepted the match. Who could have shown
him enough?”

With a look of
sour triumph she passed the tusk back to Bweriit, who turned to her
fellow elders.

They drew
together in a huddle and conferred in soft tones. It took a
while.

“
Iesgood
cheed
Eedei,” she said, turning again to the assembly. “Do the
men know of any family beyond our bounds who could raise such
a
breid
price?”

Iesgood
thought for a while and then shook his head.

“
We thought not,” she replied. “Therefore
the killers must have been from a tribe far from here, one we
cannot know. What concerns me most is the girl. Why kill the
parents and take her? I will hear thoughts on this.”

A serious
faced woman took the tusk.

“
Liedwer
, we aren’t fools,” she said. “We’ve known
for some time there are many amongst The People who covet the goods
of the Settlers.”

There was a
murmur of protest, but she held the speech staff up and it died
away.

“
You know I speak the truth,” she said.
“Even we desire the silks, the iron cooking pans and the
blankets.
There are some
who want these and more, much more. And there are others whose
honour has been stolen by the leaf and the powders the traders feed
them. They know the incomers will give them those things in
exchange for the fruits of the river. Perhaps they want to exchange
the girl for her sisters’ marriage gifts.”

This was an
idea of startling novelty to the listeners and it outraged them;
the sound of angry conversation rose up and filled the room.

Bweriit took
back the tusk and her possession of it quietened them. She was very
serious.

“
I fear what you have said is true,” she
said, silencing the protests with a frown. “There has been much
activity in recent years of concern to me and it is my thought that
this girl may have been taken by someone of The People or with help
from them. While I cannot understand why they should have done such
a thing, I can see of no other possibility. Does anyone disagree
with me or can anyone offer a better solution? I would welcome
one.”

There were
expressions of horror around the room and of deep distress, but
there was not one voice of dissent.

Bweriit
sighed.

“
The question is who and why,” she said,
wearily. “I will hear thoughts upon this.”

Many women had
candidates and the tusk passed from hand to hand as suggestion
after suggestion was made. None of them had any real idea who was
to blame and all too often what they said came back to the unwanted
and unsavoury actions of outsiders and newcomers. There was a
belligerent atmosphere and, although silent, the men added to it by
loosening their knives in their sheaths or punching their clenched
fists into open palms. Lucien began to see why peacekeeper Jon was
so concerned.

“
Enough!” Bweriit said, taking back the
tusk and putting an end to the aggression. “It is obvious no-one
knows. This talk serves no purpose and has no basis in anything but
rumour. My mind keeps returning to the manner of Clieviis and his
wife’s death. I feel there may lie the path to discovering the who
and the why. Harabin
dheillwer,
I will hear
your
thoughts on
this.”

Jon took the
tusk.

“
Liedwer, I’ve travelled amongst The People
for all my adult life. I’ve spent time with the Bear and the Wolf,
the Moose and here with the Forest Cat. I have seen tribal conflict
and I have seen what men can do to other men. We have not spoken
today of how Clieviis and his wife died, but Iesgood told me what
they found. In all my years of traveling I’ve never seen or heard
of death meted out as it was delivered to them.”

A part of
Lucien wanted to know exactly what Jon had been told, but another
part of him was fairly sure he did not.

“
I’ve spoken to travellers who have been to
the far north and to the west,” Jon was saying, “But they’ve never
told of such horrors.” He drew a deep breath. “The only people I
know of who could this are my own kind.”

There was
total silence and Lucien was suddenly extremely scared. The menace
in the room was like a thick, smothering blanket. He instinctively
moved closer to Jon.

The tension
was broken by a snort of exasperation from Bweriit.

“
Peace, you fools!” she snapped. “No
settler could have fooled Clieviis. We will find some of our own
behind this, despite what Harabin says.”

Lucien let out
a breath he did not know he had been holding.

“
We are part way to understanding the why,”
said Bweriit. “Greed is a terrible thing. However, I believe we
must consider an even more distasteful motive.”

She had
everyone’s undivided attention.

“
Dissent amongst The People and anger
against the Settlement are ways to divide us or to unite us in war
against the newcomers. Either would be a disaster for both sides.
Avoiding this is one of my main aims in life. I believe we must do
all we can to discover who the renegades amongst us are. And we
must do all we can to find the girl.”

There was a
murmur of assent from the assembly.

“
Nothing more can be achieved today,” she
announced. “We shall think more on this and call you back once we
have reached a decision. Go to your homes.”

She handed the
tusk to the young woman and came over to Jon.

“
You and your
biey
will eat with me tonight,” she told him and left
the meeting hall.

Jon bowed to
her retreating back, but muttered “shit” under his breath. He
tapped Lucien on the shoulder.

“
Come on,” he said. “We’d better get
cleaned up.”

Iesgood
grinned at them. “Bad luck,” he said. “I was going to invite you to
my table.”

Lucien had a
feeling it would to be more fun to eat with Vlic’s family than with
the formidable old lady, so he suggested they might take a rain
check, but the laughter of the two men made him guess
non-attendance was not an option.

Jon led him
across the assembly ground to the Men’s House. As they went in he
laid his weapons on one of many shelves, including his knife.

“
We don’t take weapons in,” he told Lucien.
“At least, not this sort.”

Beyond the
entrance was a darkened hall, the only light coming from tall
narrow windows set all around the walls in pairs.

“
Arrow slits,” Jon told him. “This is the
last place of defence if the tribe need it. There are cellars under
here for stores and to hide the children.”

He began to
set a taper to lamps around the room and as the soft light
penetrated the corners Lucien let out of gasp of amazement.

The bow was a
weapon for the hunt and for final defence, but before him,
decorating the far wall and piled high on the floor, were the
weapons of war.

Lances with
needle pointed ends, short throwing axes and longer handled killing
ones; carved war clubs which could split a man’s head open like a
dropped egg, and between these bringers of death were great round
shields, metal bound and decorated with fine detail and the painted
image of the mottled forest cat, its eyes glowing with inlaid river
gold.

“
Don’t touch,” Jon warned as Lucien moved
instinctively towards the weapons. “I know you wouldn’t damage
anything, but it’s considered bad form to touch another man’s toys
without his permission.”

Lucien nodded,
gripping his hands behind his back to prevent temptation.

Eventually
another flash of gold caught his eye and he turned to the other
walls and this time his feet took him without his even being aware
of it.

A dozen deer
hides hung there, each one painted with an image of a forest cat.
The artist or artists had great skill and in the flickering light
the animals seemed to be alive, the mottled greys, browns and
yellows of their fur pulsating with an inner life.

Lucien moved
from one to the next; here a mother nursed her cubs, there two
adults stalked a wood bison; now a single animal leapt for a prong
horned antelope and there one lay in shadows, its jaws clamped to
the neck of a recently killed water deer. Elusive images of cats
flowed beneath trees, barely distinguishable from the undergrowth
or crouched amid leaves waiting in perfect ambush.

Never in his
life had Lucien felt such a rush of desire. He wanted one of these
animals. He was not sure why he wanted it or what form his wanting
took, but somehow and in some way he felt he must possess one.

“
Can we go after one?” he asked.

“
Why?” Jon asked.

Lucien was
taken aback by this response. His need had no rational base and
being asked to give one threw him and he stared at Jon.

“
You can’t eat it,” Jon said. “So why do
you want it?”

“
I don’t know,” Lucien replied, turning
back to gaze on the hides. “Why did you kill one?”

He gestured
towards Jon’s right hand.

“
I didn’t,” Jon replied with a
smile.

“
But …”

“
Left hand is for food animals,” Jon told
him. “Necessary for survival. The right hand is for totem animals.
Those you capture alive and touch.”

Lucien, who
had turned back to the objects of his desire, swung round at
this.

“
Touch?” he repeated, his voice wobbling
from its normal baritone to the adolescent squeak he had not heard
in many months. He stared from Jon to the fine set of teeth one
image displayed and then back again.

“
With your bare right hand,” Jon stated.
“Then you let them go. That part can sometimes be even more
exciting than the catching part.”

He laughed at
Lucien’s expression.

“
They often aren’t pleased about the honour
we have just taken from them.”

Lucien turned
again to gaze at the images for the cat.

“
How big are they?” he asked.

“
Big enough,” Jon replied. “But not as big
as a bear.”

“
You’ve hunted bear for fur and food,”
Lucien said. “You’ve got one on the left.”

“
That is the smaller black bear,” Jon
replied. “Good for eating. The right hand bear is one of the big
yellow kind.”

He showed
Lucien the tattoo and how enormous it was in comparison to the
cat.

“
How big are they then?” Lucien
demanded.

“
Twice the height of a man,” Jon
replied.

“
Oh, shit,” Lucien whispered awed. “And
you’ve
touched
one?”

Jon nodded.
“And a wild wolf and a moose.”

“
But moose aren’t all that big, are
they?”

“
They are
huge
,” Jon replied. “At least a mature bull is and when they’re
really pissed off with you, they seem a whole lot
bigger.”

Lucien was
inclined to dismissed this truth as mere hyperbole and let his eye
be drawn back again to the forest cats.

“
I want to see one of these,” he said. “And
touch it.”

“
Maybe you will one day,” Jon said. “But
not in the foreseeable future.”

Lucien face
took on the mulish expression it did when he had to listen to an
order he was not keen on obeying; it was one Jon was beginning to
recognise and one he intended stop.

“
You may be starting to think of yourself
as a woodsman,” he said sternly. “But you’ve hardly begun. When
and
if
you’re
accepted as a member of a tribe, they
might
invite you to share a totem hunt. But even if it
happened tomorrow, you’re under my orders and I won’t allow you
anywhere near a forest cat or any other totem animal for a long,
long time. Got it?”