Passing by the Quailor Camp, Sur Sceaf noticed several men chatting around a barber’s wagon waiting to get their haircuts. Boys were fishing along the river and the women and girls were busy around the campfires. Men with oxen and horses in need of shoeing clustered around the black smith wagon close to the water where several groups of boys were casting their lines in the Umpqua River.
An elderly Quailor man hailed Sur Sceaf, “Thou hast brought us safely through the mountains with no losses. We thank thee, Lord Sur Sceaf. When my wagon wheels slipped past the edge of a cliff and my dear granddaughter slept within, I would have lost everything I had, had thy fyrds not rectified it. Ye Herewardi are truly good shepherds.”
Strolling out further into the grasslands, several braves led by Redelfis were returning from an early morning hunt with deer strapped over their ponies’ backs.
“Looks like there will be venison for the evening.” Sur Sceaf remarked as he returned their salute.
“The children will be happy,” Redelfis answered. “They’ve grown tired of eating white man’s beef and pork.”
Taneshewa bowed at the neck to Redelfis as he passed.
Coming to a familiar hill Sur Sceaf asked, “Shall we walk up that hill for a better view of things?”
Ahy squeezed his arm firm and planted a kiss on his arm. “A little privacy would be a good thing. I get tired of the stares the black crows give me when we pass through their camps. I just hope the White Eyes of Witan Jewell won’t be anything like that.”
Sur Sceaf smiled. “Well, if they are, it will only be because of your eye-catching beauty.”
As they crested the hill, a quilted pattern of farmsteads appeared before them. Ahy exclaimed at the view of the river, the distant mountains, and the rolling savannah lands, “Which way is your land?”
“Well, we have already passed through some of my land, but,” he pointed further to the west, “there, just beyond those rolling hills is my home.”
“Do you have a big house?” She asked.
An eagle sailed overhead on a gust of wind.
“Yes, I have a large lodge with seven houses adjacent to it. Each wife has her own home and plot of land over which she has full authority very much like you with your own tipi. You will find we are not altogether different than you Sharaka.”
“Then where do you live, in lodge or in a home?”
“We have a common mess where we eat most of our meals.” He watched the wind play in waves over the grassy hillock. “Then I take turns sleeping with my wives.”
She cringed and squeezed his arm. “That just doesn’t sound right. I can’t believe I’m going to be trading my man back and forth. It’s really hard when I know you will be doing the same intimate things with them as I suspect you will be doing with me.”
“I can see that is still hard for you to grasp. It’s all a matter of acculturation.”
“Where do all the children sleep and eat?”
“Kids sleep in their own rooms and we eat in the mess hall.”
“You mean all of you, including all of the children?”
The eagle shrieked as it dove for an unsuspecting jack rabbit.
“Yes, very much like the feasts you have with Little Doe, Dancing Rabbit, and Sparrow Hawk. The wives help each other, the same as you help Sparrow Hawk and Dancing Rabbit.” He could tell this was making a positive impression on her. He was encouraged to tell her more.
“The wives like to get together for their tea and cakes in the afternoon and tell stories or put on skits. They also meet to solve familial problems, such as discipline, schooling, and division of chores.”
“Don’t the women argue among themselves? Don’t they worry about you paying more attention to one than the other?”
A strong waft of tar weed was carried on the rising breeze and low clouds flowed around the hill.
“You must understand, that most of my wives grew up in homes very much like mine. They are used to many mothers and the rotational system of their husband. Honestly, there have been very few such arguments. Swan Hilde, alone, is a jealous woman, but she firmly believes in our way of marriage. It’s just her nature to contend and she openly admits it. The other wives help her to laugh about it.”
“Is Shining Moon the only one of your wives that isn’t Herewardi?”
“No, I have chosen from Quailor and Jywdic women to be my wives as well.”
“Oh, are you and Pyrsyrus the only ones who have Quailor wives?”
He felt corned by her question. He twisted a Queen Anne’s lace off to smell the strong scent of carrot and then tossed it to the side. “Quite a few of our men have found the Quailor women to be most appealing and I suspect the Quailor women have found Herewardi culture very freeing.”
“I notice that Lana does not dress as a Quailor and Meny has told me that Shining Moon sometimes wears our traditional skins and other times dresses in the silks of the Herewardi.”
A gobble from a tom turkey was heard coming from a nearby madrone thicket. Before long the tom emerged strutting and posing into full view, leading a harem of hens behind him.
“That’s one of the advantages of the Herewardi culture. For instance, I and my father enjoy dressing in the leathers of the gentry rather than the traditional silks of the royalty. When my other wives saw how comfortable Shining Moon was in her skins, many of them dressed alike when riding or traveling. Faechild, who’s the most creative and artistic of my wives has even taken up beading. You’ll have to ask her to see her works. Maybe spend a few nights at her house.”
They held each other and looked to the sky. A river of swans flew overhead, heading due west.
“If we could but follow that train of swans we would be home in a flash.”
Sur Sceaf asked, “Have you ever seen this well before?”
“No! I’ve never seen this far before.” Taneshewa exclaimed, “I’ve never been this far west before. Nor seen such farmsteads as this before. It’s so different than the mountains of Eloheh. Neither have I seen oaks so huge and massive. It’s so open and grassy, I could ride my horse forever, or run barefoot in the soft grasses. It all just looks so comforting and beckoning.”
He directed her gaze by standing behind her and pointing with his extended arm at a body of water below, that appeared like a silver-jade spot in the midst of a delta shaped sward hemmed in by a ragged ravine.
“See that pond there. That is where I slew a grizzly.”
Her expression registered astonishment. “Alone?” she asked. “I’ve never known one person to take on a grizzly alone. Unless the grizzly was a cub.”
He laughed. “I wish it had been. It was an onslaught that I would have never chosen.”
“Then why did you.”
“I had to. It was attacking my sweet daughter, Brekka.”
“By the Thunder Gods, whatever happened? Was she injured.” Taneshewa turned swiftly in his arms to face him and nuzzle her face into his chest, the sweet fresh scent of sage drifting up from her hair.
“He managed to claw her arm before I got there. I had just received my commission to the Sharaka and was riding through here on my way to Eloheh because I wanted to say goodbye to my son, Arundel, who was to act in my stead. As I crested that hill with the madrone trees I heard shrieking coming from a maiden in distress. At the same time, I heard the roar of a bear and took off like the shot of an arrow toward that swale over there.” He pointed, “That’s where I saw a great slaughter of mauled goats and sheep that my son was supposed to be shepherding. To my horror, at the bottom of the hill I saw my little redheaded daughter shaking her spear at this monster grizzly. She had climbed upon that large rock and was attempting to ward him off from our flocks.” He threw his hands Heaven ward. “Thank the gods for White Fire. He pummeled the bear with his hooves and I sprang from my saddle and slit its throat.”
“A Sharaka would be wearing the trophy of the bear claws if he had completed such a feat. Stories would be told around the campfires.” Tanesh
ewa placed her hand to cover a suppressed gasp. “It raises the hair on my neck to think of how you might have been injured.”
“To be honest, I was terrified, but the instinct to protect my child drove me on.”
“I’m not a mother, but I can understand those feelings from my love for my nieces. How old is your Brekka?”
“She has seen fourteen winters,” Sur Sceaf declared, noting the mist of fog descending on them.
“Good grief when I was fourteen I could never have done that.” She laughed. “Fact is, I couldn’t even face a grizzly now.”
“From the time Brekka was a toddler she was always getting into battles, like the time when she was three, she faced off a mean gander. Her poor mother swears that she knows she will be totally grey by the time Brekka is married.”
Taneshewa asked, “Which wife is her mother?”
“Why my second wife, Lana.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he had just struck the hornet’s nest.
“How interesting.” Ahy observed.
“What?”
“That Pyrsyrus has a wife by that same name. Is it a common Quailor name?”
Sur Sceaf looked off toward Witan Jewell. The time had come to tell her the truth and it didn’t feel any more like the right time than it did when Lana told him it was. He realized the sands of his deception had run out on him. He told himself he could not have done it any other way. Now that the moment had come he was full of doubts. Here it was, he was going to lose Ahy.
“It’s a long story, Ahy.” He took her hand and led her over to a large smooth rock that years of wind had uncovered and polished. Ahy sat on the rock with a puzzled look while Sur Sceaf stood over her.
“The first time I saw you was unlike any other experience in my life. I looked at you and I felt as if I had discovered a whole new world I didn’t even know existed and you were the center of it. Somehow, I just knew that the gods had led me to you. And in that very moment, I loved you and knew I would always love you whether you rejected me or not.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Surrey, you have to know, I felt the same way. When I was being so foolish about losing Standing Bull, Thunder Horse scryed that I would meet and marry a man from the White Swan People. Until I saw you, I didn’t believe him. For I never cared for any white man before. Now I realize, he saw true.”
His heart soared until he realized there was more that had to be said and had to be said now. But he found it almost impossible to mouth the words. Once again, fears of her wrath and rejection filled his mind with all the ways he had imagined it could run. He tried to build a foundation to ease her into the truth. “Are you telling me, you can accept the fact that you would be my seventh wife?”
“I have to.” Taneshewa said. “I know it won’t be easy for me, but there’s no other way. So I’m asking you to be patient with me.”
“I can forever be patient with you. If only you knew how my soul unites with yours. I could not be happier and of course whatever you need, I will give you, but in return I would ask you to forgive me. I don’t know how to tell you.”
Taneshewa looked puzzled. “Forgive! For what? Tell me? What? You’re being evasive and it’s scaring me.”
“Remember how angry and upset you were when you found out I had six wives?”
She nodded. “Don’t tell me there’s even more.”
“No, not at all.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Then what?”
“I knew if there was any chance in hell of us ever being together, I would have to give you time to learn of my culture and adjust to the idea of having other wives around, and when Mendaho offered to answer your questions I leaped at the chance. I thought by the time I returned you might be more open and receptive.”
“And that’s exactly what happened. Isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Sur Sceaf’s stomach turned over. “What I didn’t know was that one of my wives was coming to accompany me on this journey.”
A look of shock cut across her face. She blinked in confusion. “What do you mean? Where is she?”
“She’s with us on the trek.” He paused to take a deep breath. “Her name is Lana.”
Taneshewa’s mouth dropped open before she demanded, “You’re not talking about Pyrsyrus’ wife, Lana the redhead, are you? Is she married to both of you?”
“No, no, it doesn’t work like that. She is my second wife, Brekka’s mother, not Pyr’s wife. She only accompanied his bride-troupe til I could find a safe way of telling you that she’s mine.”
Taneshewa’s face turned beet red and her grey eyes turned icy as a blade, skewering him like a fish on a gig. She sat tall, the corner of her mouth twitching as she clenched her teeth. “You...Both of you... let me make a total ass of myself. Flirting with you while she pretended to be my friend. I knew she had it for you, yet you allowed me to go on and on about it without revealing the truth to me. Where’s the trust in that? Damn you, Surrey, she and those other women must have been laughing at me the whole time.”
“No, no it wasn’t like that. Lana is without guile. Just the opposite. She--”
“I hate that you did this. I hate you. I hate both of you. How could you have done this to me?” She jumped up and slapped Sur Sceaf across the face hard enough to make his eyes smart.
“Taneshewa, please!” Sur Sceaf grabbed her by the shoulders while she pummeled his chest with her fists and sobbed aloud.
“Leave me alone. I don’t want any part of you or your damned wives!”
He released her from his grip, powerless as she ran off into the approaching fog of an oak grove and disappeared like a faery in the mist. He shook his head, looked to the heavens, and prayed. God, my God, All Father Odhin, what have I done? Please don’t take her love away from me.
* * *
After some primal screaming Taneshewa took a stick from the ground and began beheading the chicory and Queen Anne’s lace that had the misfortune of being in her path. With each blow she railed at Sur Sceaf. “A fox in the hen house. That’s all the hell he is. There he is sitting with all the hens and all the while stealing eggs right out from underneath me.”
Taneshewa looked behind her to see if he was following. But all she saw was the beheaded flowers mangled in her wake. She muttered, “It’s a damned good thing he didn’t follow me or I’d let him feel this stick.” With an angry cry she smashed the stick across the trunk of a large oak. After one final look back, she stalked down the hill in search of Sagwi. She passed through the gawking camp of Quailor crows and headed straight for her own encampment. As she entered the Sharaka camp, she passed Mendaho laughing with some of the younger Sharaka women. As soon as Meny caught sight of her, Meny stopped her laughing and said, “Ahy, what’s wrong? You look mad as Hell.”
“That’s because I am furious. Please just let me talk to Sagwi for now.”
Her eyes were focused on Sagwi’s tipi. Three Doves ran up to her and asked, “Ahy, can you play sticks with us?”
“Do I look like I want to play?” She didn’t mean to hurt the girl’s feelings. There was a dejected look on her face. “Forgive me child. I’ve got to take care of some important business.”
Blooms Alone stopped playing with her friends and stared in dismay at Taneshewa, but she pressed on. She covered the ground between her and Sagwi’s tent and politely passed around Snake Horse’s tipi and ran along the horse corral until she was within hailing distance of Sagwi’s tipi which was along the river bank in a grove of oaks. Sagwi was busy a safe distance from her tipi. She was near the campfire cutting up strips of venison for the stew that night.
Looking up from her cross legged position, Sagwi put the knife down on the leather cutting board and asked, “Ahy, what da matter child? Ju look like ju have a murderous spirit in ju.”
Ahy sunk down on the ground and leaned forward. “Oh Sagwi! I have been shamed beyond shame and utterly humiliated by those damned Herewardi liars, Sur Sceaf and Lana. I thought Standing Bull was bad, but this
is as low down and conniving as I’ve ever seen. They wolf-packed me! All this time, I thought Lana was married to Pyrsyrus and now I learn she’s married to Sur Sceaf.”
Sagwi furrowed her brow, “Now, don’t ju go blamin’ Lana none. She and I done told Surrey he ought to have told ju from da beginin.”
“What the hell am I hearing?” Taneshewa exploded. “You knew Lana was his wife! And you didn’t tell me! You’re part of the wolf-pack. Damit ain’t I adult enough to know what’s happening. Do you all want to treat me like a child?”
“Yes, I knowed she be’d his wife. I done told you if you want dis man he comes wif oder wives.”
“But you didn’t tell me one of them was right here in camp watching all my dallying with him like it was some kind of Booger Dance for you and all the other wives. Hell, I suppose Little Doe knew it as well and maybe even Meny. Damn it, Sagwi, I thought you were the one person I could rely on. Was I ever wrong!”
She jumped up to leave, but Sagwi grabbed her by the ankle. Look here chil’, don’t ya go sayin no mean stuff to me. I didn’t tell you cause I understood just like Surrey, it takes some gettin used to. Him not want to hurt ju. Same ting happened to me when I’s your age. I was so deeply in love wif Elf Beard, but when I done seen his wife, it done scared me off. Dhat because I didn’t have a chance to chew it up first. Dhen Hat’s Loss ast me to marry him. Dhat why I gave away true love cause I’s so mad and hurt I couldn’t dink right no more. I cheated my own heart and libbed wif it ever since. I done told ju, yo got to follow dhat rope of love no matter where it leads, Ahy. Nothun in life is easy, specially love. Not everyone finds dhat special person, some, like me gets hooked up wif da wrong person cause da pain made me run away and not follow dhat rope. You’s mad now. So you can’t see. But Surrey, him be one special man. When he love, him love pure. He done messed wif yo heart. I’s sees dhat, he only done it cause him afraid he lose you if’n he tells you too soon. You’s got to get past da hurt to see clear. If he done told you at da DiAhman bout Lana, you’d whuda run off like some scared rabbit, just like I did. Didn’t give Elf Beard no chance at splainin bout how love be workin in Herewardi homes. If ju be honest that mad ju got goin is half hurt pride on account of you think ya got fooled and all dhis was done to hurt ju. But dhat ain’t da way dis got done. Quit seein only wif yo eyes and try to see wif Sur Sceaf’s. Listen to jour heart for it’s too late.”
The Frightful Dance (The King of Three Bloods Book 2) Page 34