Throwing back the deerskin that covered him, Thomas moved out into night. The storm was coming in from the north-west, from the opposite shore. It drew him down a little path to the water. There was a smaller beach there, away from the main bay now covered with the canoes of the tribe and their gathering allies. More chance to be alone. To think. To pray.
He would not get that solitude. One boat was drawn up on this less accessible beach, a fire before it. It was the rowboat from the Breath of St Etienne, grounded on the shore, parallel to the water’s edge but wedged up so it appeared to float on land. Crouched in its bow was Gianni Rombaud.
He had heard the footsteps, even recognized them, for the sound of European boots on the path was very different from the soft fall of a moccasin. But Gianni didn’t stop in his preparations. He didn’t have much time, if this storm finally brought some rain.
He had carefully measured the saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, mixed it, wrapped it in a page torn from his Bible – God’s work in God’s words – then rammed it down the falcon’s muzzle. Now he crammed in such pieces of metal as he could spare. Fronchard, the ship’s sailmaker and gunner, had been reluctant to give him any of the remaining three-pound shot. They might need them on the return voyage. But Gianni had scavenged an impressive amount of scrap metal, dismantling the hoops of barrels, stripping an old kettle. He wouldn’t use too much now. This was just practice after all.
The Jesuit halted a few paces away. Gianni ignored him, squinted along the weapon. In the sky the loudness of the storm showed the centre was getting ever closer.
‘Do you really think this is necessary?’
The Jesuit’s tone was calm, measured as always. As ever it annoyed Gianni but he kept his temper. He was in too good a mood.
‘Necessary? Oh, I think so, yes. It brings me a step closer to my victory.’
He moved to the front of the gun raising a fire-brand carelessly near to look down the barrel.
Thomas winced. ‘You’ll blow yourself up.’
Gianni chuckled. ‘No. Only my enemies.’
‘And who are they exactly? It’s become unclear to me.’
Gianni moved back into the boat, checked the grooved runners, beaten from barrel hoops, that he’d fixed onto the craft’s front bench. The small weapon’s wheels would run along them, allowing for its slight recoil. A thunderclap burst nearly overhead. They could feel the downward pressure. ‘My enemies? Anyone who prevents me getting what I desire. Anyone.’ For the first time, he looked up.
Thomas returned the stare. ‘And your friends?’
Gianni shifted the barrel of the gun, lowered it slightly. Fifty paces down the beach another fire burned before some huge sheets of cedar bark, the walls of a dismantled lodge that Gianni had propped up with staves.
He grunted. ‘I don’t need friends. These savages are means to an end, that’s all. They further God’s will.’
He was ready. The thunder was so close and if rain did come, it could wet his powder.
Thomas leaned down, so he could still speak softly yet be heard. ‘Why do you think you can trust this Black Snake? He has betrayed his people twice.’
‘Twice?’
‘The people he was born to. The people who adopted him.’
‘I see. But I don’t need to trust him. I have something he wants.’
‘And what is that?’
Gianni smiled. Thomas nearly didn’t hear the single word he said because of a thunderclap directly above them.
‘Power.’
A flame applied to a touch-hole. A flash at a muzzle. A roar louder than thunder. A cedar barrier snatched away as if by God’s own hand.
‘Rules? There are no rules. Yes, one – kill or be killed.’
As Sada spoke, he hopped over to the bark casket where the tobacco was kept. Wiping the moisture from his hands on a deer skin before reaching in – they had been inside the sweat lodge for an hour and perspiration streamed from their bodies – he continued.
‘He is taller than you, stronger than you, more experienced … have you ever killed a man?’
Tagay thought. ‘Yes. On the island, I killed one who guarded the canoes. I didn’t think. I just did it.’
Sada grunted. ‘In heat like that it doesn’t count. When you have time to think … your first takes something. Your second something less. But Black Snake has this many scalps’ – he stretched his arms wide – ‘and more, hanging from his lodge post. Taking another is nothing to him.’
He hopped back, snatching up a taper of wood on the way. He sucked on the pipe, handed it across. Tagay sucked too before he spoke. He had discovered that, to his people, even the way to approach death must be conducted in calm voices, in contemplation. He had given up the choice of more sleep for this time with his cousin. In the sweat lodge, the only light came from the embers, Outside, the waxing moon rose to its zenith. The thunder clouds had moved east.
‘So what can I do against this older, stronger, wiser man?’
‘You can fight your fight, Tagay. Not his. No rules mean you can do what you want. You cannot hurl a spear or shoot him with an arrow. Beyond that, anything.’
Tagay coughed on a mouthful of smoke. ‘So there are rules! You mean I cannot stand in my oak tree and throw acorns at him?’
Sada pulled himself up, thrust his face close to the other’s. ‘Listen, Little Bear, jokes will not win you this fight.’
‘I am sorry. Then what will? How do I fight my fight?’
Sada settled back. ‘If he is taller than you, you are lower to the ground. If he is stronger, do not try to match his strength. And if he is older, he is slower, so use your speed. You are fast, Tagay, faster even than Otetian. Use that.’
‘And avenge Otetian’s death.’ All humour had left Tagay with the image of the man who’d died for him on the island. ‘He killed him, you know.’
‘I know.’ Sada’s voice was low, hard. ‘I believe all you say about him. But for the tribe to believe you must kill him. For then it will be the judgement of the Twin Gods.’
There was a scratching at the deer skin flap, a voice outside calling, ‘We have the armour, Sada.’
‘Good.’ The warrior rose, reached for the crutch that Anne had fashioned for him. ‘We will choose you a fine weapon. But first, you must plunge in the river. If you are to journey to the Village of the Dead, you do not want to arrive stinking like a beaver in the spring.’
‘I thought you said no jokes.’ Tagay rose and followed the limping man.
The last deer hide strap was tied into place. The clan member stepped back to study the result.
Tagay lifted his arms, jumped to the side, swung an imaginary war club. ‘It is still tight. It constricts me.’
He was encased in slats of yew, each two fingers in width, linked together with cords. One plate of them covered his torso, a skirt of them covered his groin and thighs. Smaller panels protected his arms and legs.
‘No, Sada, I cannot move in these. I thank you for the idea but …’
‘Tagay, if he catches you and hits you with his war club and you do not have this armour to protect you, you will be dead.’
Tagay was fiddling with the straps. Others of the clan came to help him. ‘I think, if he catches me, I will be dead anyway.’ The chest and back slats were pulled over his head. ‘I may keep this one that covers my fighting arm. And this.’ He picked up a small, round shield from the ground. Made from curled slats of kilned cedar bark, it was of a shape and size near to the steel bucklers he had practised with in France. It had two straps, one to push his forearm through, one to grip with his hand.
With many disapproving grunts the rest of the armour was stripped off.
‘And what will you hold in your fighting arm, Little Bear?’
An array of clubs had been laid out in a line. They were all similar, hewn from ironwood. Some had a grooved stone bound with twisted hide into their heads, while others were carved from one piece of wood, their ends a huge ball. They were all h
eavy.
‘What will he use?’ Tagay asked.
Sada pointed at one of the all-carved ones. ‘Except his will be twice the size to go with his strength.’
Someone said, ‘It should be half the size to go with his manhood.’ While they all laughed, Tagay came to the end of the line and saw something different.
‘What is this?’
The weapon was the same length as the clubs but not as wide, oval in cross-section. Red stained grooves ran parallel down each brown side. At its tip was a hawk with carved eye and sharp beak while its butt end had a fish. Just above that was a rawhide handgrip, sewed with sinew.
But what really drew Tagay’s eye was the blade that thrust straight down just behind and beneath the hawk’s head.
‘Steel,’ he said. He ran his finger down the rusted dullness. ‘How can that be?’
He knew his people had little of it. The blade had been taken from a knife and fixed into this club with a rivet and a circular nail.
Sada grunted. ‘Choose another, Tagay. No one knows how to use that club. No one knows where it comes from.’
‘I know.’
The woman’s voice was behind them. They turned to see Gaka there.
‘It was your father’s, Tagay – Hasdaweh, who was Tangled’s brother. He made it from a knife that he traded for a fur with the first of the Pale Thieves. It was said he killed a thousand enemies with it, though he and Tangled had nearly as many legends about them as the Twins.’
She came forward as she spoke, stooped before Tagay. ‘When your mother was taken with Donnaconna by the Pale Thieves the next year, your father lost all heart to live. He died on the next war raid. Tangled brought back this. I do not think that anyone has used it since.’
Tagay took the weapon again from Sada. When he’d lifted it before, it had felt good to his hand, lighter than the ironwood clubs with their heavy heads, a beautiful heft. He practised a slashing stroke, then a strike down. With its cutting edge and point, it felt a little like the swords King Henri had ordered him to train with.
His father’s weapon. It felt perfect. But he found he couldn’t state that, or anything else, because something had moved into his throat. So he simply nodded his choice and tried another cut through the air.
She followed the light of the reed and tallow torch, though the moon was still bright enough to see the beach path by. But the torch was held aloft by Do-ne and it obviously gave the boy pleasure to have the title and function of ‘lightbearer’. He would not leave her side, even though it was known that Black Snake was locked into the seclusion of his clan. He was the protector of White Cedar, all knew that, and it gave him a status the limping boy had never had among his young peers.
When they reached the shale of the beach, Anne called him to stop, let her eyes relax from the glare of flame, scanned the beach. When she located the glow ahead, she turned back to the boy.
‘You must leave me here, Do-ne. I must go on alone. Just a little way.’
He shook his head.
‘Please, Do-ne. I will not go far. There is someone I must see. Just up there.’
‘Then I will wait just down here,’ he said, falling onto the ground, planting the torch end into the ground. ‘And if you call me I will come. I have this.’ He pulled a small bone knife from his belt.
‘Good.’ She bent, touched his head. ‘I will return in a moment.’
Her feet slipped on the pebbles and, though the moon was bright, she still managed to trip over some larger stones. But the noise did not matter. He whom she sought would be expecting her anyway.
She followed the glow of embers to its source. Tagay was sitting cross-legged, facing the water. Before him, some kind of club was laid out. She could see the scroll work down its side, the hawk head, a blade beneath. Beside it she saw the striped stone, Donnaconna’s Oki. She stood silently and watched as Tagay dropped tobacco into the flames. It glowed, caught, and a sweet scent rose from it.
‘Who do you burn it for, Tagay?’
‘Everyone. Everything. Myself.’ His voice was calm.
‘Do you also burn it for me?’ She hated that her voice could not match his, heard the hardness in it.
‘For you?’ He paused, thought. ‘Of course, for you. I fight for you.’
‘Do you?’ She knelt beside him. ‘Then don’t. I don’t want another man to die for me.’
‘Thank you. Are you so sure that I will die?’
‘He is a warrior, trained from birth to kill.’
‘And I am not. It is true. But I am a warrior’s son.’ He leaned forward, ran his fingers gently up the shaft of his club. ‘And I come from a warrior people. Besides, I have no choice. You heard. They will kill you as a witch.’
She reached to either side of his head, turned him. ‘Listen to me. You do have a choice. You have a choice whether to live or die. Uncle Pierre promised to return with the full moon. There are canoes here, right here. We can take one, hide, wait for him.’
‘Creep back to France while my people are massacred?’
‘If you die they will be massacred anyway.’
He turned fully around to her, his voice now urgent. ‘And you, White Cedar? What of your quest? The hand you must bury.’
She reached behind her, pulled the hand from its pouch. The moonlight made the bones glow green, as if they were possessed of a sickness.
‘This?’ Her disgust was clear. ‘This is a collection of bones, of a woman who died twenty years ago. I will drop it into the ocean on the voyage back.’
‘You could have done that on the voyage across.’ He reached forward. One hand touched her chest, the other rested on her head. ‘You know, you heard it in here, Anne, and here, the voice that told you that you must bury it, just as she who gave it to your father asked for it to be buried. Safely, by the light of the full moon. Two nights from now.’
‘And if you are dead by then?’ Her voice had become a whisper. ‘Then none of it will happen, for I will be dead too.’
‘You may not be.’ Tagay came onto his knees. ‘There is something I didn’t tell you about the hunt. They used guns there to kill my people.’
‘Guns?’
‘Pistols.’
‘But how?’
‘I think,’ he sighed, ‘your brother gave the pistols to them.’
‘My broth …’
It felt as if she’d been struck. She fell back, sat on the beach, her knees drawn up, her forehead lowered onto them, scarcely breathing. He let her stay that way for a while, then reached forward again, nearly touched her hair.
‘You could go to him now,’ he said, gently. ‘Take one of the canoes. It is dangerous but less dangerous than staying, perhaps. He is your brother. He will not turn you away. Especially if you take him what he seeks.’ He pointed at the skeletal hand she still held. ‘You say your family have sacrificed enough. If you believe it, then give this to your brother. Let him take it back across the water. Let him take you with it.’
Anne rose, stumbled slightly, then stood straight. Reaching back, she put the hand away in the pouch, replacing it with something else.
‘This is all I will give to my brother.’ She lifted the tiny silver cross so Tagay could see its glimmer in the moonlight. ‘I found it in a tree in Tuscany. It was a gift to him from our father, in the days when we were all still happy. Gianni placed it in the branches, hoping some day to take it back.’
She turned, took a couple of steps up the path, stopped. ‘You are right, Tagay. You have your task clear before you. And Gianni’s coming here reminds me of mine. So I tell you this, in a way our mother, both Gianni’s and mine, would have told you: Black Snake? Kill the fucker.’
Then she was gone. Her feet slipping on shale meant she could not see his smile, nor hear his reply. But he said it anyway.
‘I will try, White Cedar. Believe me, I will try.’
The torches were placed at intervals of a dozen paces around the perimeter of the field. Between them, the entire tribe of the
Tahontaenrat had gathered, every man, woman and child, from babies on their carry boards to the eldest in bark chairs. They came from the village below the cliffs and from every village the length and breadth of their country; yet they mustered, not by village, but by clan. Every member of each clan was hungry, for the influx of refugees had sorely tested the reserves of food. But no one was any hungrier than the person standing next to them, for what they had was shared out equally according to the custom of their people. Yet it was quite unlike the time when Tagay had first beheld the gathering for the Game, when voices had risen, solely and in unison like a thousand geese in flight. Now the people were silent. Not even the newborn cried out though they all seemed awake, as watchful as their parents.
He waited at one end of the field, behind the posts through which Sada had shot the knot ball. Around him, the Bear clan massed, some nearest him commenting on, or fussing around, his armour – or lack of it. Most were simply staring toward the far end of the field where, behind their own posts, the clan of the Wolf stared back.
While his aunt, Gaka, finished the painting of his body in swirling red patterns, Sada was the most fussy of the Bears, bending over Tagay’s arm, checking and rechecking the straps of the forearm guard, cinching the straps to make sure each cedar slat overlapped perfectly. The buckler’s hand grip was next, reinforced with more stitches of hide thread.
While he was pushing the bone needle through against the skin of a hand that seemed made of wood, another clan member ran up and whispered something in his ear. Sada just grunted and carried on with the stitch.
Tagay said, ‘What are the odds now, cousin?’
Sada looked up, shock on his face. ‘Odds? This is a ceremony, Tagay, as well as a fight. It is part of the religion of our people. We do not bet on our Gods’ favours. If you had been raised amongst us, and not among people who have no religion, you would know that.’ He went back to his stitching, putting the thread end in his mouth.
‘Sada?’
‘What?’
‘The odds?’
The warrior spat to the side, while keeping the thread in his mouth, a difficult feat. ‘Eight beaver skins to one,’ he grumbled. ‘It was only five at nightfall. But then you appeared this morning with no armour.’ He put the final stitch in place.
Blood Ties Page 42