The Tattooed Tribes (14 page)

Lucien nodded,
but his bottom lip was out and Jon felt it was necessary to apply a
little more discipline.

“
Do you remember what I said about the
belt?” he asked.

“
Might do.”

“
Good, because I haven’t, and you could be
remembering it from first-hand experience if you’re not
careful.”

Lucien showed
him a face suggestive of compliance; one Jon did not entirely
believe, but one he felt he had to accept for the present.

To change the
subject he showed Lucien where they would sleep and where to
bathe.

Alone, soaking
in tepid water, Lucien retrieved what he had found in the clam many
days before. It was not a good shape and the colour was a bit
different. He would have liked to show it to Jon, but he was
annoyed with him and his threats and his orders, so he decided it
was going to be his secret.

Dinner with
Bweriit was as dull as Lucien had feared. His table manners were
not quite like tribal ones and he made a couple of mistakes despite
watching Jon like a hawk.

For a hungry
boy, and Lucien was at the age when he was almost permanently
hungry, the delayed formality of getting food down his throat in a
slow dignified fashion was purgatory.

The only
redeemable feature of the evening was the quality and quantity of
the tree syrup, something of which he was inordinately fond. He was
allowed to pour it over the small crisp nut cakes with a lavish
hand, but Jon would not allow him as much as a sip of the beer
brewed from it, and made him drink some sort of cordial, which was
pleasant enough, but not the same.

He went to
sleep surrounded by the images of the forest cat and, despite all
Jon had said, he was planning.

Chapter
10

The following
day Lucien found himself on his own. Jon was in deep discussions
with the elders and Vlic was catching up with his wife and his bow
making lessons.

Bored and with
nothing to do, he went looking for company and entertainment. It
struck him there were a lot of pretty girls around and he was not
unsusceptible to a roguish smile and a rolling hip, so he went in
search of closer contact.

He forgot
every single one of them was married and while their temporary
husbands might not have been overly bothered about them in the
normal course of events, the least hint of interest from a foreign
party and they became like dogs with a bone.

By mid-morning
even Lucien had worked out he was an unwilling pawn in several
maiden’s power plays, and decided to seek something where he was
not the day’s entertainment.

It took until
lunch time to explore the entire village and some of the
surrounding woods, but the afternoon stretched before him like a
wasteland.

After some
thought he decided it might be a good idea to practise
canoeing.

He ‘borrowed’
a single from the small flotilla hauled up on the bank and launched
it onto the river. All went rather well until he lost his paddle
and found himself drifting downstream.

Frantic work
with his hands and a lot of yelling finally attracted some
attention and he was rescued and taken back to the Men’s House.

Jon was not
pleased.

By the time he
had finished giving Lucien his unvarnished opinion of his
intelligence, manners and sense, the boy was crimson to his ears
and fighting a lump in his throat and burning resentment.

Dismissed with
orders to find and to offer sincere apologises to a number of
people, he stalked out of the building silent and fuming.

Duty
reluctantly done, he went to gaze over the edge of the bluff to the
forest on the other side, and brood. Eventually Vlic joined
him.

He had a face
like thunder, his brows drawn together and his lip out.

“
What’s up?” Lucien asked.

“
I’ve asked for a divorce,” Vlic replied.
“I’ve had enough of her and her bloody father.”

“
Can you do that?”

“
Yes, if I’m unhappy. And I’m sure
unhappy!” Vlic snarled. “Ma is making a fuss, of
course.”

“
Why?”

“
The little bitch cost a lot of money,”
Vlic replied resentfully. “I only agreed to do it because her
mother is Ma’s best friend. I think they’ve got hopes of us making
a go of it when we’re older.” He ground his teeth. “It’s never
going to happen. I’d rather spend the rest of my life with a dead
skunk.”

They
considered the river for a while and then Lucien gave Vlic an
edited version of his day.

“
Then he made me go and say sorry to a load
of different people,” he concluded bitterly.

“
Bastard!” Vlic said
supportively.

Again they
fell into silent contemplation.

“
Dad says it might be best if I made myself
scarce for a couple of days. Give Ma a chance to cool down,” Vlic
remarked. “Do you fancy going fishing? Just us two.”

“
Yes!” Lucien said eagerly.
“When?”

“
Now’s as good a time as any,” Vlic
replied. “I’ll get my gear.”

Lucien went
straight back to the Men’s House to collect his, but on the way it
occurred to him it might be a prudent gesture to ask permission and
he promptly fell into gloom at the prospect.

“
Don’t suppose I’ll be allowed,” he growled
to himself as he trudged off in search of Jon.

To his
surprise Jon, once he had been asked in a sufficiently respectful
tone, agreed to the plan.

“
You can learn a lot from Vlic,” he said.
“He’s been trained in surviving out here since he could walk. Be
sensible and take his advice.”

“
I will,” Lucien promised
eagerly.

“
Leave your rifle,” Jon added as he watched
Lucien assemble his pack.

“
But …”

“
Leave the rifle,” Jon repeated firmly.
“There is a reason.”

At first
Lucien was inclined to sulk, but suddenly a light dawned.

“
I mustn’t become dependent on it,” he
concluded.

Jon ruffled
his hair. “Good boy! You’re beginning to think like a
woodsman.”

Feeling quite
proud of himself, Lucien went to find his friend.

Vlic had his
own canoe, made for him by his sixth wife’s father, and he began
Lucien’s education in the art of paddling. Several hours of hard
work took them up to the confluence of a tributary stream and they
followed this for several miles.

Eventually
they came to a spot Vlic had obviously been making for and hauled
out.

Soon they had
a fire going and a tent rigged. Lucien realised just how
efficiently and quickly he had done it all, and his confidence took
another upwards turn.

“
I’m starving,” he told Vlic. “What did you
bring to eat?”

“
Nothing,” he replied with a grin. “I
didn’t want to risk meeting Ma again.”

Lucien face
fell, it was a bit late in the day to start hunting and his stomach
was rumbling.

Vlic grinned.
“That’s why we’ve come here,” he said and led Lucien down to where
tall reeds grew in the shallow water.

Reaching down
to the bottom of the stems he dug into the soft mud and began to
pull up white tubers.

“
Save the stems and the leaves,” he told
Lucien, “We can use them tomorrow.”

“
What for?”

“
To make a trap,” Vlic replied. “And
fishing line.”

The tubers
were roasted in the hot embers, together with half a dozen clams
and some fungi Lucien would not have touched if Vlic had not
promised him faithfully it would not poison him. Stomachs full and
nursing cups of leaf tea, they talked until the fire died to
glowing embers.

Lucien told
Vlic about his frustration with the constraints of town life, the
evils of formal education and the problems arising from parents who
had no understanding of any of this.

And Vlic began
to tell Lucien some of the customs of his people. He spoke of great
marriage feasts where the drums beat all day and all night, the
simpler child marriages sometimes over and done within an hour; of
betrothals and the payment of bride price and of divorce done in
the time it took to gut and cook a fish.

He told Lucien
of his various brides, most of whom he seemed to regard as good
playmates or with indifference. The only one he did not like had
been the last- even with a good distance between them his eyes
smouldered at the thought of her.

They spoke of
the tribal tattoos and what they meant. Lucien realised there were
things he was not being told and when he asked, Vlic blushed and
said he could not divulge the secrets to someone who was not a
member of the tribe, but he did tell of his pride when the women
had taken him to one side and put the first mark on his hand.

As he fell
asleep listening to the sounds of the forest about him it occurred
to Lucien there was a lot more to the tribal people than he had
first thought. His face grew warm under cover of darkness as he
realised he had not been completely untouched by his father’s
continuous assertion they were illiterate savages in need of
teaching and guidance.

Some of his notions about Tribal Liaison
work had been tinged by ideas of superiority over the ignorant
natives. ‘
Liaison
’ had
read as ‘
guidance
’
somewhere in the back of his head and now he had to do some serious
rethinking.

After a
breakfast of more roasted roots, Lucien experienced one of the most
enjoyable times of his life.

Vlic showed
him how to strip the fibres from the reeds and to roll and twist
them into a strong, supple cord. A wild rose provided wicked thorns
for fish hooks, and digging in the leaf litter yielded them a
supply of grubs.

Lucien found a
couple of young saplings to provide poles and while he stripped the
twigs and leaves, Vlic carved a couple of crude but efficient
floats.

They crept
upstream to where a great tree leaned out over the water, casting a
protective shadow over the surface. Silently Vlic pointed to the
bubbles where large bass rose to take fallen insects.

It took Lucien
a couple of tries to get the idea of casting, but in the next few
hours they landed three good sized fish between them.

That night
they ate fresh fish wrapped and stuffed with the same leaves Jon
had used and a different type of root, one from a small shrub with
long wiry stems. They were smaller and more fibrous, but Vlic
showed Lucien how to strip the starch from the fibres with his
teeth and discard the stringy parts.

As they sat
watching the firelight and talking more about the tribal ways, Vlic
wove the stems into a funnel shaped basket. Before they went to
sleep he staked it down in the river with the heads and guts of
their fish inside.

In the morning
it was full of crayfish feasting on the remains. Vlic showed Lucien
how to kill them with a knife straight through the back of their
heads and they breakfasted on fresh crustacean, sucking the sweet
flesh from the claws.

“
There’s a clearing inland a ways,” Vlic
said. “There should be plenty of berries there this time of year.
They’re Ma’s favourite and it might be an idea to take her a small
peace offering.”

They took
their bows, intending to try for a hare for supper, and fur as a
further token of filial affection and apology. As they went, Vlic
showed Lucien how to weave strips of bark into serviceable square
baskets.

Eventually the
trees parted and the sky was visible above them. Beaver had blocked
a small stream, but the dam and the lodge had been abandoned and
the trees had not yet re-established their dominance over the
land.

Berries grew
in profusion on the shrubs that had taken advantage of the damp
conditions. The boys filled their baskets and ate as many again,
before retreating to the edge of the clearing away from the
sun.

There they lay
in wait for hares or a small water deer to come to the still pool
to drink.

Full of
crayfish, berries and the remains of the previous night’s roasted
fish, they both drifted off to sleep.

When Lucien
woke the shadows were spreading over the clearing. Slowly his eyes
adjusted to the change in light and he instinctively scanned the
surrounding for signs of game. Moving as slowly as he could, he
laid a hand on Vlic and squeezed to wake him up.

Vlic was
immediately awake, but made no sudden movement or sound; his
instincts as a hunter had been bred into him.

Before them in
the long grass tentatively making its way to water was a large
hare. It was nervous, wary of any sound or movement.

Lucien slowly
reached down and picked up his bow, keeping the action low to the
ground and Vlic carefully retrieved an arrow from the quiver beside
him and passed it over.

Neither of
them had made a sound.

Lucien notched
the arrow into the string and drew back, rising to his feet in one
fluid movement to be finished as he loosed the arrow, but as he did
so there was a flash of mottled fur from the undergrowth behind the
hare and a forest cat snatched the animal from the water’s
edge.

Lucien’s arrow
fell several feet from her and she turned to look, the still
twitching corpse in her jaws. For an instant her eyes met his, a
glowing flash of amber savagery and wild untamed passion.

They both
stared at each other, motionless for a second, and then she was
gone, taking her prey with her, melting back into the undergrowth
as swiftly as she had come.