by Bev Allen
The only other person less adept than him was Dr Riddett, who was allowed to observe everything, but not participate.
Lucien knew she was making notes and trying to get some of the women to talk to her. She annoyed him, but he had to admire the tenacity she showed for her pet theory.
Chapter 21
One morning, about three weeks after their return to the Forest Cat, Jon greeted Lucien by demanding to know when he had last had a really good wash.
Highly indignant Lucien told him.
Jon turned him around and inspected the back of his ears.
“Go and do it again.”
“I’ll be damned if I do!”
But he did, the carefully explained consequences of disobedience ringing in his ears.
When he returned he found Jon had laid out a new shirt for him and a beautifully made pair of tribal pants. The leather was as soft as butter and the hand of a talented woman had decorated them with a pattern of trailing leaves and the odd little disc of beaten river gold.
Lucien was well pleased with how he looked in them.
“You’ll do,” Jon informed him after a critical inspection. “Come on, you’ve got to get married.”
“What!”
Before Lucien could say anything or demand an explanation, Iesgood and several other men appeared and hauled him outside, Jon following at his leisure.
Outside the drums were throbbing and Lucien found himself in front of the meeting house with all the elders glaring at him.
“Iesgood liedwer,” Bweriit said. “Are you sure you wish this dheillwer admitted to The People?”
Lucien, held firmly by Iesgood, felt his chest begin to expand with joy and pride. There was even a suggestion of a lump in his throat he swallowed down hard. More than anything he wanted to be a part of them and he turned in eager anticipation to the circle of grim-faced old harridans gathered before him, but there were no smiles and no welcoming light in those eyes.
He had a dreadful feeling, whatever Iesgood and Jon thought, that he was not welcome.
“I do,” Iesgood replied. “And I speak for all the men of the Tribe.”
There was a huge cheer of male voices and Lucien twisted round to see a large group of them circled behind him, and his heart rose again.
“The wants of men are of little concern to us,” Bweriit replied with a curl of her lip. “Does any woman want this?”
The drum throb dropped to a low background noise and Lucien looked around anxiously to see if one of the women would speak for him. He saw Stacey standing off to one side, but she made no attempt to come forward.
‘Bitch,’ he thought. ‘Bloody bitch.’
He tried to find Vlic’s mother, but she was nowhere to be seen. Not a woman moved or spoke and the silence went on and on and on.
Lucien stole a glance at Iesgood and saw from the expression on his face that this was not normal. Turning, he found Jon and saw the crease between his eyebrows.
Finally Brigedh stepped forward. “I wish it.”
Lucien let out a pent up breath. He gave the little girl a big grateful smile, but she looked back without a hint of response.
“Enough to wed him, gwerl?” Bweriit asked.
“Enough to ask if a bride of low enough status can be found for him,” she replied, and Lucien felt indignation boil up inside of him.
The ungrateful brat!
“Don’t say a word,” Jon whispered in his ear.
“Why are they being so mean?” Lucien asked softly.
“I’m not sure,” Jon replied. “Maybe just because they can. Hold tight, I’ve a feeling it’s going to get tougher.”
There was some consultation amongst the dreadful old women and one of them left the circle to speak to people beyond Lucien’s circle of vision. It went on for a while, but eventually she returned and whispered something to Bweriit, who nodded and turned back to the assembled people.
“Is there anyone with a gwerl they’re prepared to sacrifice?” she demanded.
A man and a woman stepped forward pulling a girl in her late teens with them. She was pretty and Lucien became very interested until he noticed the baby strapped to her back.
There was a furious argument going on between the little mother and what appeared to be her parents, but finally she threw up her hands in disgusted surrender and stepped forward.
“This is Draviia,” she said, unhitching the baby. “She has no status and no hand fasting has been offered for her.”
She sounded bitter and she glared daggers at Lucien.
“Is this normal?” he asked.
“No,” Jon replied, equally puzzled. “What’s happening, Iesgood?”
Iesgood was frowning hard. “I didn’t think this was going to matter, but Bweriit did warn me there might be some problems and it looks like she was right.”
“I thought it was all agreed,” Jon protested.
“It was, between you, Bweriit and I, but a lot of the other women weren’t happy.” He paused and looked embarrassed. “It’s because it was Niifliinling the boy defeated. None of them are prepared to give up a gwerl because of it.”
He gestured to the baby.
“This little one was born as the result of an error and her mother has lost a lot of rank as a result and the baby has none.”
“The worthless as a reward for defeating the worthless,” Jon said sadly. “And this marriage to a penniless outsider isn’t going to get the poor little maid any status.”
“What about me?” Lucien demanded indignantly.
“You’ll be fine,” Jon replied. “None of it will affect you, apart from the insult, but you can swallow that.”
Lucien was not sure he could, but things were progressing.
“Are you prepared to wed your gwerl to this dheillwer?” Bweriit asked the young mother.
“I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?” she snapped back, giving Lucien another venomous look.
Bweriit stepped forward and took out a red cord. She wound it around the baby’s wrist and then around Lucien’s. A complex set of rituals followed, salt was brought and sap sugar, and an arrow was passed over their heads and then broken, the pieces being whisked away by a woman veiled from head to toe.
Finally the wrist cords were anointed with sweet smelling oil, then unbound and placed in a bag of bright red fish skin leather. This was tied shut and again the veiled woman took it away somewhere.
“Now,” Bweriit said. “It is normal for the breugeman to give a gift to the breid to seal the hand fasting, but as there is no family to provide such a thing I will …”
“No, you won’t,” Lucien said. ”I don’t take charity from anyone.”
Jon gave a gasp and stepped forward, but Bweriit held up her hand.
“Without doubt the most troublesome and disobedient cheed I have ever encountered,” she said, tapping her foot. “Be silent, Harabin, I will explain tribal matters to one I am told wishes to respects our ways. If your mother was of The People, she would have provided you with a suitable bridal gift. As she isn’t and Harabin dheillwer is not your father, only you or I can provide it.”
“I know,” Lucien replied, his eyes sparkling dangerously.
“Do you indeed,” she snorted. “I doubt if you know the seriousness of what you are saying.
“Lucien,” Jon said urgently. “You don’t understand. If it’s unacceptable, you’ll ruin the child’s chances forever and the insult will always be remembered.”
The familiar daredevil light was in Lucien’s eyes and Jon groaned.
Lucien laughed and patted him on the back,
“Piece of piss” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”
He turned back to the assembled women.
“I don’t need anyone to provide me with a gift; I can do it myself.”
He undid the strings of his flint pouch and took out what he had found in the clam all those weeks before.
He held out his closed fist to the young mother and she warily he
ld out her open hand. With a grin Lucien dropped the small, misshapen red pearl into it.
“My gift for my wife,” he said.
She stared at the object in her hand and then at Lucien. Bweriit stared as well and then a dozen women pushed forward and looked. There was complete silence and Lucien, who had been smug up until that moment, suddenly had a terrible feeling he had truly buggered things up this time.
“Jon?” he said anxiously.
“Quiet, you fool,” Jon hissed.
The little mother’s head suddenly went up and her fingers curled around the pearl. There was an audible groan of disappointment from the women.
“Take your wife, Devlin dheillwer,” she said, an expression of fierce triumph on her face, and suddenly Lucien was holding a baby for the first time in his life and scared witless.
He had no idea what to do with her and there was a worrying suggestion of damp and a smell he was in no hurry to identify. Before he could protest her mother had been swept away in a sea of overexcited women all talking at the same time.
“What the hell is happening?” he begged Jon, who was laughing so hard it was hurting his healing ribs.
“Ow … ow! You tell him, Iesgood.”
Iesgood grinned. “You just made this little maid one of the richest of her generation,” he said. “Her status has gone from nothing to the very highest. Her grandfather will have had a dozen offers of marriage by tomorrow morning. Maybe more.”
“But why?” Lucien asked, trying to hush the baby, who was showing early signs of disenchantment with her husband.
“You gave a red pearl,” Jon told him. “Probably the only one in the whole tribe. Where the hell did you find it?”
“When Vlic and I had that fight,” Lucien said, “I nearly swallowed it. I was going to show it to you, but it was such a funny shape I thought it wasn’t worth much.”
Jon began to laugh again, which upset the baby even more, but before she could get really annoyed her grandmother took her from Lucien.
“And what happens next?” Dr Riddett’s voice cut through.
Jon looked at her in some surprise. “What do you think happens next?”
Her lip curled in disgust. “I’ve just seen a teenage boy married to an infant. I want to know how short a time it will be before he is demanding his conjugal rights.”
Before either of the men could open their mouths, Stacey was there.
“Have you listened to a bloody word I’ve said?” she demanded. “You talked my father into letting you see my diary and you came up with this ridiculous idea from the jottings of an overexcited little girl. You know these marriages are symbolic. Why are you still persisting in this vendetta?”
“Yours may have been symbolic,” Dr Riddett retorted. “They wouldn’t have dared take advantage of a congressman’s daughter, but what about the real tribal girls? What choice do they have, poor abused little mites?”
“You have lived amongst these women for nearly a month; do you really believe they have been abused or that they would allow their daughters to be abused?”
“The example of female genital mutilation shows clear evidence that it was frequently the mothers and grandmothers who condoned the continuation of traditions that …”
“Shut up.” Stacey ordered. “Just shut the fuck up.”
“I beg your pardon,” Dr Riddett gasped in shock.
Lucien, a silent witness, almost broke into applause.
Go, Stacey, he thought to himself.
“You heard,” Stacey replied. “You really are a stupid bitch.”
Dr Riddett glared at her, but there was a look of deep satisfaction on her face as well.
“You can say what you like,” she replied. “But I have enough evidence to support my views and when I return to The Settlement I’ll be writing a paper that will send shock waves through society and it won’t be long before steps are taken to end this way of life.”
At this Lucien felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of icy water over him. He had fought and killed, and annoyed the only human being he had any respect for, in order to stop this plan, and now it seemed it had been in vain.
Stacey gave a cry of rage and made for the woman, her hand going to the knife at her side. Despite the seriousness of the situation Lucien was impressed, but Jon caught her wrist before she could do anything.
“You will stop that,” he said.
“I’m going to kill her,” Stacey hissed, trying to snatch her arm away.
Jon swung her round to face him, dragging her forward until her face was inches from his.
“You will obey my orders or it will be very much the worse for you, my girl.”
Go, Jon, Lucien thought in admiration. Even he would not have dared to argue if Jon had spoken to him like that.
Apparently Stacey did not dare either, because she reluctantly relaxed and stepped back.
“Dr Riddett, “Jon began. “There’s nothing I or anyone else can do to stop you writing what you wish; however, you’ll have to be somewhere you can publish before anyone else can read it.”
“I’ll make sure it reaches the widest possible audience,” she assured him.
“I’m sure you will, but how will you do that?”
She was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you have to be somewhere you can contact your audience.”
“I can do that from The Settlement.”
“And just how do you propose to get there?”
“I’ll return downriver with you,” she replied, but there was a note of doubt.
“Only if I take you.”
“But you’ve got to,” she said. “You must!”
“There is no must about it,” he replied. “You’re here without Guild permission. Technically I should arrest you and transport you back for trial, but as Iesgood has offered to keep you here for a while, I feel no real need.”
“I’ll escape,” she said. “I’ll make my own way home.”
Jon gestured to the great forests and the wide river beyond the village.
“Be my guest.”
“You can’t leave me here.”
She was near begging, but saw no pity or weakness on his face.
“A year or two amongst The People should help you to learn the truth about their ways and traditions.”
“What!”
“If I take you back, you can expect a minimum of three years prison time,” Jon told her. “Personally I think a couple of years here with The People is showing you more mercy than you deserve.”
With that he turned on his heel and headed off towards one of the cabins.
“Stacey! Lucien! Come with me.”
After one last reprehensible smirk at a bewildered and frustrated Dr Riddett, his apprentices trotted after him.
Catching up, Lucien asked the question that was foremost in his mind. “How long until I can get a divorce?”
“After a gift like that, it’ll probably be a week or so,” Jon replied. “And then you’ll need this.”
He handed Lucien a single pearl from the bag he carried.
“What for?” Lucien asked taking hold of the precious thing.
“To give Stacey when you marry her, of course.”
“What? No!”
“Yes,” Jon replied. “Bweriit wants Stacey tied to the Forest Cat and the best way is for her to marry in. She’s a high status girl and unfortunately of proper marriageable age, so there will be plenty of young men lining up.”
He looked over at Stacey, who was torn between horror at the thought of being tied to Lucien, even if only for a few hours, and the pleasure of knowing she was an expensive object of desire for a lot of eligible parties.
“If she marries you, there’ll be no complications about permanency.”
“I won’t do it,” Lucien growled.
“You will do ask you are told,” Jon replied.
“Don’t worry,” Stacey sneered at Lucien. “I won’t be accepting any bare handed biey like you
.”
“You will also do as you are told,” Jon informed her. “And we’re going to do something about the bare hand.”
He pushed Lucien through the door of the cabin, where a determined looking old woman arranged small bowls of ink and a set of sharp fine needles.
“Sit!” she ordered, pushing Lucien into a chair.
She grabbed his hands and held them firmly down on the table. “What is required?”
“One pearl,” Jon told her. “A red one.”
“Red? That must honour the right hand.”
“Ow!” Lucien yelped as she began to rapidly stab at one of his fingers creating the circular outline.
“What else?” she asked, ignoring the flinching and attacking the centre, preparing it for the red ink.
“Not much,” Lucien said. “And it can wait.”
“And disappoint Stacey on your wedding day?” Jon said. “I think not. I make it clam, crawfish, trout, common duck, hare and bass.”
Stacey could not keep the smirk from her face.
“You wanted to be tattooed,” Jon reminded him with a grin.
“I might have changed my mind,” Lucien growled, wincing. “Ow!”
“Don’t be a baby!” Jon replied, unsympathetically. “You’re the one who wants to become a Tribal Liaison Officer.”
~ The End ~
About the Author
I fell in love with my first soldier outside Buckingham Palace. He was a Coldstream on guard and I was four. Later I fell in love with reading and writing, and later still with scific and tales of fantasy and high adventure, but that first admiration for the military has never faded. Now I am married to an amateur military historian who drags me around every military museum he can find. We are both members of The Victorian Military Society.
I’ve always told stories, but I am dyslexic and the process of writing them down was always hard, and the results unsatisfactory, until I discovered word processing, and for a few years I just wrote and wrote and wrote. Most of it wasn’t good, but I was learning my craft and eventually I sent a short story to SFX for their Pulp Fiction competition and I was a winner! One of ten authors whose story was printed in an anthology. Soon after I was contacted by Big Finish, who published Dr Who stories under licence from the BBC. On the strength of my SFX story, they commissioned me to write for one of their anthologies. It was a real thrill.
