Blood Ties

by C. C. Humphreys

  ‘Well reminded,’ Thomas muttered to himself. From where he sat he could see through the dancers and between a gap in the lodgehouses and the trees to the river. It was lit by the sudden appearance of the moon and black shapes moved on its surface, like insects on the surface of a pond. He struggled up and onto his knees and, as another war song started, began his prayers.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, hearken to my pleas. Keep safe your daughter Anne. Holy Jesus, Blessed Saviour, listen to …’

  ‘Ah-aaaaa -Ah.’ The war whoop rang out again and again, drowning the words of his prayer, even in his own ears and heart. ‘Ah-aaaaa -Ah.’

  ‘Ha-eh-eh, Ha-eh-eh.’

  The last group of the procession had arrived from the village. They were from one of the destroyed villages and they took their allotted place at the circular pit’s edge. The women laid out the bundles of presents that they had managed to save from the destruction of their homes, supplemented with gifts from their relatives and clan fellows in Stadacona. The men of the group clambered up onto the wooden platform that had been erected around one half of the pit. There they attached the bundles of skin that contained the bones of their dead to poles and wedged these so they reached out above the void.

  Anne stood with the people of Gaka’s lodge, their aunt’s body still wrapped in skins at their feet, as were all the other bodies of the recent dead. The pit she stood above was at least two large men deep and perhaps five across, its floor completely lined in beaver robes.

  As the cries of the last of the arrivals died away, Tangled stepped forward and raised his arms. Drums murmured lightly under the words that followed.

  ‘You are all welcome here, both you who have brought your dead and those you have brought who continue their journey this night.’ He reached behind him and was handed a large wooden ladle. He stretched it out over the pit. ‘Let us give them our gifts, so that their journey to the next village will be easy and they will have many feasts on the way.’

  He dropped the ladle. Instantly, from all around the pit, utensils were thrown in, kettles, bowls, sieves and trays, pipes and mortars and deer hide bags. When the last of the gifts had fallen, Tangled spoke again.

  ‘Now, let us feast our relatives.’

  Immediately, food was produced, bowls of stew ladled out from kettles, dried deer meat handed around, roasted fish on skewers. The Tahontaenrat sat and ate and talked as if they had all the time in the world.

  Anne felt it was her, and her alone, who could not eat, was the only one who looked back now beyond the village, over the water. Toward their men, the other ghosts at this feast.

  At last the thunder came, in the wake of a stab of lightning that cut down in jagged lines to strike the high country, lighting the white-daubed warriors as if they were shards of its power. And the roll that followed coincided with the sound of their canoes grounding on the beach. It was like a small shoal of fish joining a huge host of them, for the canoes of their enemy were drawn up rank on rank, hundreds and hundreds, from little two-man craft to boats that could hold twenty. On and on they stretched, from water’s edge to the first trees.

  They had sent one canoe in first, men of the dark mud who had swiftly killed the two men who watched the water. They came to Tagay and reported now.

  ‘They are holding their feast in the open space at the centre of their village,’ one said.

  The other added. ‘This path here leads to it. It is the only one to the beach, but four paths join it up ahead to the different gates of their palisade.’

  ‘Which gate lies closest to the forest?’ Tagay asked.

  ‘The west,’ the first man replied. ‘Low bushes run almost up to it.’

  Tagay spoke swiftly to the clan leaders. The plan had been decided before they set out, it just needed refining now. The ten youngest men were to stay on the beach and destroy the canoes and the more solid rafts. Ten more, who were the best archers, would go to the crossroads of paths ahead and wait for the swift return of the rest – sixty of them, who would enter the village by the west gate. Tagay knew it would only be a matter of time before a Tattooed warrior came across them on the beach and raised the alarm. He didn’t want to be trapped there by overwhelming odds. The only way to get enough time to do the job was to create panic at the feast fires of their enemies.

  To the sound of cedar bark splintering behind them, they set off from the beach. Twice they saw pairs of men coming their way, twice a dozen arrows sang through the night. At the crossroads of the four paths, the ten dispersed through the trees, some to climb, some to take advantage of a slight rise of ground where they planted arrows tip down in the earth before them.

  Tagay led the remaining men west at a gentle run. Within a minute, they were crouched in bushes before the palisade gate. It was closed and would be barred on the inside. Two points glowed atop it, showing where the night guards sucked on their pipes. From beyond them, came the cries of the feast, the never ceasing beating of drums.

  At a signal, each man slipped an arrow onto a bow string. Tagay strung the one given him as war chief by Sada, the Arrow That Flies True. The best archers may have been left behind at the crossroads but of the sixty arrows that were given flight, more than enough struck home to send the two men reeling backwards, their pipes a crescent of sparks in the darkness. Pale wraiths moved forward, throwing hide lassoes over the palisade posts, then climbing swiftly up. A moment later the gates swung open and the warriors of the Tahontaenrat were inside the stronghold of their foe.

  They gathered just within the gateway. Tagay knew that they would not have much time before discovery and the fight that would follow. They would kill silently for as long as they could do so. They would spread through the camp in their groups of ten and try to wait for his signal.

  ‘Our people should now be embarking on the rafts,’ he said. ‘Soon our wives, our children, our parents, our sisters and brothers will be past us and on their way to safety in our new lands. We only have to stay and hurt them here a little, to give our brothers on the beach time to destroy their boats. Listen for the cry we discussed, the call of the crane, for when I, or if I am killed, one of my ten, give it, then it is time to run for the beach. Do not stay for scalps and do not stay too long to prove your bravery. It is already proved by being a Ghost Warrior. I want us to sing the song of this night together to our grandchildren in the new lodges our people will build.’

  From sixty throats came a grunted assent: ‘Haauu.’

  ‘Good then.’ Tagay smiled. ‘Let us now honour our ancestors.’

  The village was more organized than the random construction of the Tahontaenrat. The four roads from the four gates led straight to the central open space. With arrows strung they ran down this west one, groups of ten wheeling off every twenty paces or so to spread through the narrower alleys between the lodges. Tagay and his ten ran directly down the path and when they came to within fifty paces of its end, when they could clearly see the backs of the people gathered, a huge circle of warriors, women, children, all facing inward to the dance, only then did they peel off left, to shelter behind the biggest hut. There, one of the warriors produced a wooden bowl he’d carefully sheltered all the way across. Embers tumbled from it, lighting some dried straw. Dipping a special arrow, whose tip was wrapped in a cloth steeped with deer fat, he lifted the bow, pulled back the string …

  To any in the circle who looked up, it could have been a shooting star. That’s what Thomas thought at first and he wished on it, as he had on many a cloudless night as a youth in Shropshire. But no star he saw there ever fell into a tree. And none was followed, a few seconds later, by twenty, forty, fifty more. Most rose into the sky in flaming arcs and plunged into the roofs of houses which immediately began to burn. Some fell into the circle of dancers. But the drums continued for a few beats more, the dancers leapt and chanted, and it was only when their leader seemed to swallow a shot of flame and fell suddenly to the ground that Thomas, and everyone else, suddenly realized that some
thing was very wrong.

  Or maybe it was the cry of, ‘Tahontaenrat’ that broke in from outside their circle. Or the sight of the running ghost, the first of many, who burst into the middle of the circle swinging his huge war club, striking down another of the dancers and running out the other side. The circle surged inwards on itself, and screams were heard from those nearest the outside, from those who were dying first.

  Many of his men struck at any bodies that came near them, be it child, woman or man. But Tagay sought a warrior for his first encounter and soon had him, a huge and tattooed brute who had seized a war club from the porch of the nearest lodge and now ran at him. The blow was raised from on high and swept down, down to where Tagay had been, thumping into the earth. Lunging to the side, Tagay cut with his father’s club, the blade’s point slicing down into the giant’s foot. As he howled in pain, Tagay jerked it hard, pulling the blade out. The warrior fell and Tagay lunged low again, the metal biting into the exposed neck. Leaping over the body he saw a white warrior holding off three of the enemy with swings of his club. Tagay joined, cutting high for a face, ripping low for a leg. Flailing limbs fell around them and, when the heavy war club crushed a skull, the two Tahontaenrat were suddenly alone.

  Flames crackled. The roofs caught swiftly, burnt in moments and collapsed inwards in a volcano of sparks. The heat was ferocious near them. Between the infernos, warriors fought, flame lit. The open space had cleared, the crowd streaming away, crushing those who fell. For a strange moment of clarity, Tagay felt the first fat drops of rain that had long been promised, striking his face.

  ‘This way,’ he yelled to the other warrior. He could see a bigger fight developing down the east road, where some of the enemy had rallied and many of the Tahontaenrat had chased them. They ran down the avenue toward the mêlée.

  At first, Gianni thought it was merely a different form of dance, louder, noisier than even the ones before. Then he heard the devouring sound of fire and with that the screams took on a different meaning. He had just finished cleaning and loading the second of his pistols. Lowering the pan cover on it, he thrust it into his belt next to its twin and, picking up his sword, stepped from the lodge.

  Into mayhem. The deerskin opened up a world of horror. Ghouls chased through the streets, clubbing at the backs of tattooed warriors. Sheets of flame rose to the west and the smoke from an immense burning immediately stung his eyes. Thunder rode the air, and tipping his head up for a brief moment, he felt the first heavy raindrops. As yet another man was chased down and slain before him, it felt like blood falling from the skies.

  His sword was out. Whoever they were, these white ghouls were killing, if not his friends, then the people who promised to get him what he desired. So, as yet another of them ran past, pursued by his demon, Gianni took the sword in a double grip and sliced parallel to the ground. The blade bit into the white-painted neck, cutting off his war whoop with his life.

  To his left, some of his allies had rallied. Their cries rose with their clubs to challenge the invader. A skirmish of twenty men developed, blows fell, shields clashed. He stepped toward the fray, looking for an opening. Then, behind him, he heard running steps. He turned, drawing one of his pistols. Two white warriors were ten paces away. Aiming at the nearest one, he pulled the trigger. The ball erupted from the barrel, smoke partially obscuring his view for just one moment. The next it had cleared, enough for him to see the first warrior on the ground and the second running at him, a slim, curving club swept high and back.

  To shoot, he had put his sword into his left hand, so he was forced to parry wrong-handed. Also, he’d expected the shock of one of the heavy balled war clubs. This one cut at him, like a sword, and he only just got his blade between it and his flesh. But the weapon was lighter than his and the warrior wielding it had pulled it back, struck again. Gianni felt something push into his hip bone, grating there. It took him a moment to realize that he’d been cut.

  ‘Sacred Jesus!’ he cried and it was those words that made Tagay realize who it was he was fighting. Till that moment, he had just reacted, seeing his comrade fall to the pistol shot, leaping on to avenge him. Now he noticed the face, lit by the flames of a burning lodge. He had seen it before, through the broken skin of a canoe. And once before that, in the back alleys of Montmartre.

  ‘Gianni Rombaud,’ he said and, in saying it, he hesitated. Long enough for the other man to reel back, switch sword hands and return his stare with an equal measure of disbelief, then with fury.

  ‘Tagay.’ He attacked on the word, his long blade cutting the air. Tagay knew he couldn’t take a blow to his own weapon, the metal would shatter it, so he ducked and feinted, let the man push him back.

  Gianni tripped on the body of the man he’d just killed. He skittered onto one knee but his last lunge, point to chest, had pushed Tagay back so that he fell too, onto his back. He was up in a moment but it only took that moment for the Italian to pull his second pistol from his belt.

  The fight behind them rounded a corner. Suddenly, though screams and flames still filled the night, they were alone.

  ‘Now,’ Gianni said, squinting along the gunbarrel, ‘what have you done with my sister?’

  The rain had begun to fall just as the last few bundles of bones were dropped into the pit. The families moved away as each package disgorged its contents, as last prayers were uttered, last tears shed. They moved slowly at first, then swifter as the men who led them to the water urged them on. By the time the last of them left, the rain was heavy.

  Only one family remained, along with the men who stirred the bones together in the pit with long paddles, mixing the bones of the Tahontaenrat into a common grave. Anne watched two of the nieces, helped by little Do-ne, now pull back the skins, revealing Gaka to the rest of the grieving relatives.

  ‘My sister was happy, at the end.’ Tangled spoke from beside her. He had moved down from the platform where he had directed the ceremony. Taking his wampum belts, he knelt and laid these carefully down now beside the body. He spoke words to her, words for her alone. When he rose, he turned to Anne and said, ‘Is there anything you wish to give her?’

  Her throat was thick. ‘I have nothing … nothing except …’ She felt in the pouch at her back. She touched two objects there. The silver cross of her brother … and the hand of Anne Boleyn. And with that touch came memories, flashes of moments, presenting in her mind like a series of living paintings. That first moment when she had touched the hand in the Tower of London and she had sensed the lost queen so near, disturbed from her rest once more by the desires of evil men. Other moments: a rune-vision of destruction and redemption in a grove of silver birch; another hand with the red brand of a murderer sitting in a casket; a bear tied to a stake in a palace yard and the man who was also a bear pulling her from the wreckage of a sugar castle; her father’s sword sailing over the prow of her ship with the strength of a courage re-found. Finally, a memory so recent not even a sleep had come between her and it – of waking beside the man she had spent the night loving and rushing to see the woman who had made that love possible. That woman, Gaka, had died with a smile on her lips – and a six-fingered hand clutched in hers.

  And then Anne knew! Suddenly, there could be no doubt. Gaka had spoken to her, even after she had died. She was willing to take the hand on, to bring rest to both the Annes. This was the gift the old woman had spoken of, to be brought to the Village of her Dead.

  Bending swiftly, she placed the skeletal six fingers in the hand of the one who lay there. ‘Thank you,’ was all she said. Stepping back, the rest of the family came forward, with their gifts, their words of parting. Then this last body was tipped over into the pit where the men with paddles blended the flesh with other flesh, other bones, finally pulling the finest beaver skin robes over the surface of the entire area. These were stretched tight, pegged down, sand and earth piled in on top.

  ‘Come,’ said Tangled, tugging gently at her arm. ‘The last of the rafts waits for us. Come.�
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  Tagay stared down the muzzle of the gun. Strangely he felt no fear, seeing his death waiting there.

  ‘Your sister is safe and beyond your reach. And so is the thing you desire, that has drawn you across the world.’

  Gianni tipped his head. ‘And what do you think that is?’

  ‘The hand of the queen. The hand you killed your father for. It is buried. Anne will have buried it by now.’

  The mention of his family’s names made him feel strange, a void that spread from his stomach, filling his chest. He didn’t like the feeling so, to disperse it, he reached for his ready anger.

  ‘Oh well,’ he spat, ‘she’ll just have to dig it up again.’

  He squeezed the trigger. The flintlock wheel struck a spark which fell into the gunpowder pan. Tagay waited for the explosion and the pain that would follow it, raising his club in futile defence. But the rain had got heavier, much heavier so the powder produced a wisp of smoke, a sound like a sigh, and nothing else.

  Tagay breathed out. ‘Misfire.’ He smiled. ‘Happens all the time.’

  With a roar, Gianni threw the pistol at him, brought his sword again into his right hand. Then the noise of fighting that had all but disappeared returned in full measure, as ten Ghost Warriors burst round the bend of lodges. Striking at their backs were a greater number of their enemies. Then, as suddenly, more of the painted appeared, Nishane at their head. The three groups collided just where Tagay and Gianni faced each other at a sword’s length. Both men were swept up in the crowd, swept apart.

  ‘Come, Tonessah.’ Nishane was beside him. ‘We have seen the fire arrows in the sky from our village. The last raft is on the water.’

  At Tagay’s nod, both men threw back their heads and gave the cry of the whooping crane. It was taken up by those around them and turning, the Ghost Warriors ran yelling just ahead of their enemies. In the open space, more white figures joined.

  Gianni managed, with shouts and blows, to halt some of the pursuers. ‘This way,’ he screamed. Half a dozen, who had tried to master the fire sticks, followed him at a run down to the other bay.