by Bev Allen
“It’s a cover?”
“No,” Jon sighed. “Life would be a damn sight easier if it was. The Guild could then get it shut down in a heartbeat, but while things we don’t like may go on around it, the people who run it are honest. Mistaken, but honest.”
“About what they believe in,” Lucien said.
“Possibly, but they would say different. No, what they’re mistaken about is what they think The Tribes believe in. There was a bit of fancy legal chicanery a few years ago and as a result, we can’t stop selected groups from trying to contact the tribes for reasons having nothing to do with the exploitation of raw materials or trade or anything else like that. They do so at their own risk and they get no assistance from us, but it has meant a bunch of stupid do-gooders have made it their business to come and interfere with life here. Or try to.”
They had been following the course of the river and came to a bend where a small beach had formed, well sheltered by trees.
Jon surveyed it with an expert eye.
“We’ll set up camp here for tonight,” he said, unshipping his pack. “You find firewood and I’ll get some bait.”
By the time Jon had filled a large empty seed case with fat wriggling grubs dug from a rotten log, Lucien had a fire going and had laid out the bed rolls.
Jon left him to try his luck long lining for fish and disappeared into the woods for a while. When he returned he had a brace of rabbits slung over his shoulder and something that looked like a football, but turned out to be the biggest mushroom Lucien had ever seen.
As they ate he turned the conversation back to the subject of missionaries. “They don’t understand tribal customs, but they want to stop them.”
“What customs? What don’t the missionaries like?”
“I think the main one is that tribesman don’t believe what the missionaries believe,” Jon replied. “But they’ve latched on to a couple of other things as well. Their biggest bug bear is child marriage, or rather what they think child marriage is.”
He helped himself to another piece of the fish Lucien finally managed to catch, wrapped it in a thin slice of grilled mushroom and chewed on it ruminatively.
“I suppose it’s a difficult concept for people raised to a different set of values,” he said. “Among The People men own virtually nothing, only their weapons and tools of their trade. They don’t even own the clothes on their backs, they are provided either by their wife or mother or another female family member. Everything, literally everything else is owned by the girls, homes, food, children, the whole shooting match.”
Lucien’s eye brows flew up at this. His father had some very definite ideas of what was his and his alone, among them things Lucien considered to be either his or his mother’s.
“A woman’s status is governed by how wealthy she is,” Jon continued. “And she acquires wealth by the bride-price men, or rather their families, are willing to pay to marry her.”
“But she can’t get married too often, maybe twice or three times,” Lucien pointed out.
Jon laughed. “She can get married a lot more times than that. Most girls have been married a dozen times by the time they’re five!”
“That’s disgusting!” Lucien protested despite himself.
“And you’re making the same mistake as the missionaries,” Jon replied. “These aren’t real marriages; they’re short term contracts between families. A boy ‘marries’ a girl, usually his own age, and his family pays for the privilege. The marriage sometimes only lasts a couple of hours, especially in the case of babies, but as they get older the boy will go and live with his ‘wife’s’ family for a few weeks or months. He gets to mix with other people and he gets to learn from another father figure who may have skills his own doesn’t have.”
Jon paused to reflect. “Eventually, when a girl is old enough and has acquired enough wealth and status marriages, she’ll have a proper wedding and a proper bridegroom. Quite often it’ll be one of the lads she’s been ‘married’ to before, especially if he’s made enough high status marriages himself to prove he’s worthy of her. It’s a chance for everyone to build good relationships without the hazards of dating, and it allows them to cement strong family bonds and to break them without animosity or acrimony.”
Lucien pondered all this and filed it away for future reference. “But outsiders think it’s for real,” he guessed. “Kids being married as babies.”
Jon nodded. “And there’s worse, at least they think there is. When someone is admitted to a tribe it’s done by marrying in. My first wife was only three when we got hitched.”
He grinned as Lucien stopped dead, a slice of grilled mushroom suspended in mid-air, and stared at him.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Jon said. “She still had breakfast down her bridal gown and managed to wipe her nose on my arm before we were divorced.”
He laughed at the expression on Lucien’s face.
“We were ‘married’ for about ten minutes. Long enough for me to become a member of her tribe, and for her to add two pearls to her fortune.”
“That’s why you’ve only got nine left!” Lucien realised. “You used them as bride money!”
“Exactly,” Jon replied. “The rest only cost me a pearl each, but she was already a much married little girl of high status, which is why she cost me so much.”
Lucien did some quick thinking. He looked at the tattoos on Jon’s hands, remembered the single wolf on the hand of the tribesman he had seen and began to wonder.
Jon followed his gaze.
“Correct,” he said, guessing what was on Lucien’s mind. “This hand represents a man’s tribe. I’m a member of four, by marriage and by adoption. Most men only belong to one, but it’s not uncommon for them to be honorary members of others. And sometimes it’s good for a man to leave his own and join another- it spreads the genes around.”
“Will a tribe adopt me?”
“Maybe.”
“What would I have to do?”
“Learning to be a good apprentice would help,” Jon told him. “I’ll wrap the rest of this fish in leaves and it will do for breakfast. You can do the dishes in the morning.”
“Why me?” Lucien protested.
“You’re the apprentice,” Jon reminded him.
Chapter 8
The next day Lucien followed Jon on through a pristine world where a sparkling clean river flowed through virgin forest.
Amongst the trees Lucien sometimes caught the shadows of deer, and hares broke cover under his feet. Above him raptors circled high on the rising thermals.
There were squirrels and birds in the trees and ducks rose in great flocks from the river as they passed. Once Jon stopped him and pointed to the far bank where an otter had just slipped into the water, but it was gone before he could get a good look.
That night they ate a different fish fresh from the river, this time baked and stuffed with leaves that tasted of lemons and onions and something else Lucien could not place. Their damper bread was mixed with berries Jon found on a low bush during the afternoon. They burst in Lucien’s mouth, a sweet fragrant explosion of sugar.
“Why do the women own everything?” he asked when he could not eat more. It had been intriguing him all day.
“Custom born of necessity,” Jon replied. “This was a new Settlement when it was abandoned. Less than thirty years old. When it became clear they were on their own, it didn’t take long for it to fall into anarchy. There was vicious fighting over scarce resources and the one in shortest supply was women.”
Lucien looked surprised.
“New colonies tend to have a predominance of men,” Jon told him. “Anyway, they were a tough bunch of girls and had no intention of becoming gaming chips in the power games of men, and they certainly weren’t going to be exploited, so some of them got together and took off into the forest.”
He threw another piece of wood on the fire and the sparks rose up into the night like a hundred tiny stars.
&
nbsp; “The fighting soon degenerated into barbarism,” Jon said. “And the lack of food pushed some into unspeakable acts, but others followed the women into the forest. They had begun to learn to survive out there and were prepared to teach the newcomers in exchange for respect and children.”
He stretched out his hands to show Lucien the tattoos.
“The women decide when you get these,” he said. “Best not piss them off or you’ll be bare handed all your life and a bare handed man has no standing.”
“If I don’t annoy them will they let me be tattooed?” Lucien asked eagerly.
“If you’re admitted to a tribe,” Jon replied. “It will depend very much on you and the tribe.”
“Are some different to others?”
“They can be,” Jon answered. “The river ones tend to be similar, but away to the north and out on the flat lands to the east they’re different. And we’ve no idea what those to the south have become. We’re not even sure if people penetrated the jungle and beyond.”
“How far have you been?” Lucien asked.
“A long way,” Jon said with a smile. “But never far enough.”
In the week following Lucien absorbed more and more about surviving in the wilderness. He began to recognise which plants were good to eat and which were not. He still had much to learn and they had to stop for a whole day while the effects of one sort of berry made its painful passage through his guts and out the other end.
“You won’t eat them again,” was all Jon said.
Every day was a new source of interest to Lucien, when he was not spending it crouched over a hole. He locked away the names of birds and animals and plants, trying to remember everything Jon told him about their habits and their breeding seasons.
“Never take a bird when it could be on the nest,” he was told. “Protect the next generation and they’ll provide you with eating next year and every one after.”
He learnt roots, leaves and fruit were as important to find as meat, probably more so.
“You need the vitamins,” Jon warned him. “You can get some nasty things if you don’t eat enough of them. Even if they don’t taste so good!”
He introduced Lucien to a plant so bitter he thought his mouth would turn inside out.
“Bloody hell, Jon!” he protested.
“I know,” Jon replied. “It’s vile, but sometimes it’s the only source of vitamin C later in the year and if you don’t eat it your teeth could fall out.”
Lucien spat. “I think I’d rather be toothless.”
It was one of the few really unpleasant things Jon had him taste, most of it was either fairly bland or quite nice, and some was delicious. He also began to learn certain things needed special cooking or preparation if they were not to make him very ill at best or kill him at worst.
When he wondered why they bothered, Jon explained these things were sometimes all there was and he needed to know how to use them to survive.
There was so much to learn and it was fascinating, and Lucien, once the despair of a long list of teachers, absorbed knowledge like a sponge.
Jon watched him as he eagerly asked question after question and felt easier in his mind.
At first the total lack of people bothered Lucien. Although he had been brought up in a sparsely populated world, until now he had lived in a town where, if everyone did not actually know everyone else, there was a good chance they knew someone in common. It had been possible for him to walk down streets where he could guarantee no-one would greet him, but only if he was careful where he went.
He had never before been so alone and for a while he found he clung to Jon’s presence and was not comfortable if he was out of sight. However, he adjusted, and found he relished the silences and the ever present feeling of the land, experiencing it as a living breathing being unfettered by the hand of man.
It therefore came as a complete shock one hot afternoon, when they had been walking in the shade of the trees, to break out into a clearing and see a man skinning a wolf.
Lucien was frozen to the spot, he had no idea what to do or what was expected of him.
Jon took the decision out of his hands.
“Stay here!” he ordered and advanced on the man, hand going to his knife.
The man had jerked his head up in surprise at the sound and as the bloody skinning knife slipped from his fingers, Jon rushed him.
Lucien watched in horror as the poacher flung himself backwards reaching for a rifle. Without thinking, he pulled his own from over his shoulder, levered a bullet up from the magazine into the chamber and levelled it.
Jon reached his quarry before the man’s hand could reach his weapon and they went down in a fighting tumble. Lucien had trouble following, but he kept the gun on them. It crossed his mind if Jon was killed he would have to face this enemy and kill him; then he would be all alone in the wildness.
The end of the barrel trembled as his hands shook.
Jon swung a fist and even from where he was, Lucien heard the crack and Jon swear in pain. His opponent fell back for a second and Jon was on his feet, backing away from him, knife in hand.
For a moment Lucien thought it was all over, but the poacher had an ace up his sleeve in the shape of a second knife in his boot. He was on his feet again and advancing on Jon, looking for an opening.
Sighting, Lucien thought he had a clean shot. His finger found the trigger, he fixed an aiming point on the man’s chest, although he could not stop the end of the barrel wavering like a leaf in the wind, and he squeezed.
At least a part of his brain told him to squeeze, screamed at him to squeeze, but another part told him if he did he would have killed a man.
The decision was taken from him as Jon threw his own second knife and it buried itself hilt deep in the man’s throat.
Elated, desperately thankful he had not pulled the trigger, Lucien was about to shout a crow of relieved triumph when Jon descended on him.
He slapped the rifle to one side and shook him until his teeth rattled.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” he demanded.
“I … you ... he,” Lucien stuttered, shattered by the rage on Jon’s face.
“What the hell would you have done if you’d killed me?” Jon demanded.
“I’m a good shot,” Lucien protested. “I could have taken him.”
“Could you? Could you really have shot him in cold blood?”
“Yes!” Lucien replied and knew as he said it; he could have done no such thing.
And even if he had found the resolve to fire, what if he had missed and by some terrible misfortune got Jon? He would have been at the complete mercy of the man lying on the grass.
He turned his head away and vomited on the ground.
Jon waited until he stopped and then he said, “Don’t ever aim a gun at anyone unless you’re prepared to kill them and you know they have to die.”
“I couldn’t,” Lucien whispered, “I wanted to, but I couldn’t do it.”
Some of the hard angry lines on Jon’s face softened.
“Good,” he said. “One day you may have to, but I hope it won’t be for a long, long time, if ever. Go down to the river, wash your face and don’t come back until I call you.”
Much later, sitting by the camp fire and drinking tea Jon had made him, Lucien felt the horrors of the day slowly draining away. He suspected there was something in the tea making him able to relax and he was grateful for it.
“Have you ever killed anyone before,” he asked.
“Yes,” Jon replied. “But never anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me.”
“What did you do with the wolf?” For some reason this was important.
“I buried her with the bastard who killed her,” Jon replied. “She deserved better, but he deserved less.”
Lucien nodded and away in the darkness a pack howled for their lost one to return to them
Hard walking and fresh air did much to take Lucien’s mind off things. Every d
ay was filled with new sights and new experiences. He had never before realised how many different birds there were in the world or how many small biting insects. And he never suspected what beauty could be found in small flowering things that hide their shy loveliness amongst grasses and trees.
The exercise burned away any remaining fat living rough had left and he was lean, fit and full of restless energy. The thought of female company filled a great deal of his resting time and he confided some of his difficulties to Jon, who just laughed and recommended a cold swim.
Early one morning he was in the middle of an enjoyable and highly erotic dream, when an unexpected and repetitive pain jerked him from the arms of a delightfully large breasted girl who was eager to join him in the river for a ‘swim’.
He sat up with a jolt as a boy about his own age drew back his foot to kick him again.
Shocked and outraged, his hand went for his knife, but the boy just smirked down at him and dodged away.
“He’s awake,” he yelled to others gathered on the shore line.
Lucien shot to his feet, and saw Jon exchanging an embrace with one of the strangers.
There were three of them, two young men and another one nearer Jon’s age, probably a little older. Lucien thought he had once seen a tribesman on the street near his home, but it had been dusk, so he had never been really sure if he had or not.
Apart from this dubious glimpse, the only others he had seen were the shambling wrecks of drug addiction at The First cataract- now he saw the real thing.
They were not a tall people, but they were sturdy. Broad shouldered, narrow hipped and deeply bronzed by sun and weather. All of them were broad across the nose and full lipped, but their hair, worn in a long single braid down their backs, ran from a couple of shades of dark brown on the two young men to a much lighter colour for the older man and boy who had kicked him.
And they all had grey eyes. Lucien had never seen anyone with true grey eyes before. There was no suggestion of blue; they all looked as if they were seeing the world through ice cubes or the sky before rain.