by Bev Allen
“Yes, sir. Why must I leave? I’m here to investigate a matter of some importance.”
“Nonsense!” the woman snapped.
“And you are?” Jon asked.
“I am Dr Evandne Riddett,” she replied. “I very much doubt if someone like you has heard of me, but …”
Away in the undergrowth Stacey gave a hiss of distaste. “I might have known,” she said. “Stupid bitch.”
“Who is she?” Lucien asked.
“She’s a child psychologist,” Stacey whispered back. “She’s spent years trying to prove tribal custom is child abuse. She has a lot of pull and there are a lot of people who listen to her.”
Lucien was puzzled. “But why would she …”
“If she could prove her theory, it would be just the excuse needed to put an end to the tribes and their ‘depraved’ habits’,” Stacey replied.
In the meantime, Jon had put a reputation to the name and his lips curved into a cynical smile.
“On the contrary, ma’am,” he interrupted. “I have most certainly heard of you.”
She seemed a little put out by this; an obviously well-rehearsed and frequently delivered speech had been hovering on her lips.
“Then you know about my work.”
“I do.”
“Well?” she said, after a pause.
“What would you like me to say?” he asked.
“What you know about my work?”
“I know you’ve done little or no field work amongst The People,” Jon replied. “And you’ve picked up some odd notions about their beliefs and practises.”
“Some rather disgusting and degrading practises,” she responded. “Not their fault, of course, but ignorance and savagery can’t be allowed to continue.”
Jon shook his head in disbelief. “Setting aside the inaccuracy of what you are saying … can I ask by what authority you’re this far above The First Cataract?”
“That would be by my authority, Master Harabin,” Eric Wainwright said. “I am fully authorised to enter the tribal lands when and where I choose. I asked Dr Riddett to accompany me this time on a fact finding expedition.”
“Fact finding?”
Involuntarily Wainwright glanced towards the lean-to.
“We needed proof of something,” he said.
“Proof of what?”
“Never mind,” Wainwright retorted. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find it’s very much my concern, Congressman,” Jon replied. “I think you have a little girl locked up in that shed and I want to know why.”
“As I said ...” Wainwright began, but Dr Riddett interrupted him.
“We’re not obliged to explain anything to him, Eric,” she said. “We have a witness in protective custody, nothing more. Someone who will make it possible for the authorities to put an end to the barbarism here and allow the light of education to come to these unfortunate people.”
Away in the bushes Vlic turned to Lucien and asked, “What people?”
“I think she means you,” Lucien replied, and watched the indignation race across his friend’s face.
“And what exactly is she supposed to have witnessed?” Jon was asking.
“You know as well as I do.” Dr Riddett exclaimed. “Child abuse. The selling of children for sex. Even babies handed over in exchange for a handful of beads. And your precious Guild condones it!”
Jon sighed. “This has been explained to you again and again. These marriages have nothing to do with sex. They are entirely an exchange of wealth and status. A means of oiling the wheels of society.”
She sneered at him and turned to the Congressman. “I know for a fact he’s indulged in this vile exploitation,” she said. “How old was your youngest ‘wife’, Harabin?”
The men around the fire had been following this conversation with varying degrees of interest. Eldrien had continued to shave layer after layer from the talking stick; he seemed to be paying little or no attention.
“Just out of curiosity,” Jon said. “Where exactly do you get your so-called facts?”
She flushed slightly. “I’ve spoken to a large number of people in direct contact with The Tribes and I’ve questioned a number of natives as well. Eldrien and his men have been most helpful.”
“So you’ve never spoken to a woman of The People and asked her?”
She gave him a triumphant smile. “I’ve been denied access until now, but this child will provide me with all the evidence I need once she knows she can trust me with the truth.”
Jon gave a snort of mirth. “I take it she’s not being co-operative.”
“She is, justifiably, unsure of us,” Wainwright said. “But Dr Riddett assures me she will tell us everything we need to know eventually.”
Jon glanced at the circle of faces around him and saw the expressions on several faces; they might have been expelled by their people, but customs bred in the bone are hard to ignore.
“Tell me, Congressman, do you think kidnapping a child is morally justified?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you and the good doctor believe it was right to kidnap the child?”
Wainwright became flustered again and began a speech full of false starts, but Dr Riddett interrupted him.
“It was necessary for the child’s protection to remove her,” she said.
“And the rest of it?”
“What rest?” she asked in some bewilderment.
“You do know how the child was removed, don’t you?”
It was her turn to be flustered. “It was arranged by a concerned party,” she told him. “They hired Eldrien and his men to carry out the rescue.”
“Did they indeed?” Jon replied. “I wonder who this interested party could be.”
Over in the bushes Lucien and Stacey’s eyes met.
“Eldrien liedwer,” Jon said, before Dr Riddett could expand on her theme. “The taking of a bride on her way to a hand fasting is not a good custom even for men with no tribe.”
Wainwright opened his mouth at this, but Eldrien held up his hand.
“It is perhaps as you say, Harabin dheillwer,” he replied “But unfortunately sometimes necessity must come before good custom.”
Dr Riddett gave Jon a gloating smirk of triumph at this.
“Was it also an unfortunate necessity to torture her father to death and to rape her mother?” Jon asked.
“It wasn’t,” Eldrien replied. “Their deaths were a necessity, but the manner was not.”
The smirk on Dr Riddett’s face faded. “I don’t believe you,” she stated.
There was an angry stirring amongst the men. They may have lost their home and their status by failing to observe custom, but this did not stop their belief in some of its adherence- lying and accusing a man of doing it was one such.
Eldrien gave her look of total contempt and sent another jet of saliva to sizzle into the embers of the fire.
“I will not be called a liar by a bare-wristed woman of no worth,” he said in a low dangerous voice.
“Now see here ...”Dr Riddett began, but Congressman Wainwright was a politician of long standing and experience; once his initial shock had subsided, he rose majestically to the situation.
“Thank you, Dr Riddett, for your useful impute,” he said smoothly. “But I believe as senior representative of The Tribal First Nation and Colonial Resources Department, it is my responsibility to get to the bottom of this unexpected development.”
He turned a professional smile upon Eldrien.
“I believe there has been some misunderstanding,” he began. “Possibly arising from the inherent difficulties that always occur when two different cultures begin to co-operate. I’m sure there has been just such a misunderstanding here and Eldrien will confirm that no harm came to anyone during the rescue.”
The silence that greeted this piece of spin went on for long enough to make the congressman fidget.
“Eldrien?”
/> Eldrien shrugged. “I gave instructions for the child to be taken alive. If the parents resisted, they were to be killed. They resisted; they died.”
Wainwright stared at him in open-mouthed horror.
“Is this true?” he asked, turning to Jon.
“Of course it isn’t!” Dr Riddett cried, but there was a hint of doubt in her voice.
Jon held up his hand to silence her. “Was it necessary for them to die as they did?” he asked Eldrien. “The father tortured and the mother raped?”
Eldrien whittled some more of the stick. “I dealt with those responsible,” Eldrien said. “The dust had taken away their wits as well as their honour. I wrecked their canoe and left them alone with one knife between them and a bag of dust.”
“I don’t understand?” Wainwright said.
Eldrien smiled “One bag of dust between five of them. It would not have been long before there was only one of them alive and the dust and the crows would have seen to him.”
Recovering from his shock Wainwright became pompous again. “I believe I have expressed to you my feeling on the use of drugs amongst your people. I was assured you did not have access to them; therefore I demand to know who gave you this dust. I will not permit any of you to use it.”
“You will not permit it?” Eldrien repeated.
“No,” Wainwright stated. “It’s the only thing I am in total agreement with The Guild about. Whatever happens, all recreational drugs will be forbidden to the tribes.”
The expressions of the men around the fire went blank.
“Careful, Congressman,” Jon said and there must have been something in his tone or something in the atmosphere to alert Wainwright, because he fell silent.
“Why did you allow these things, Eldrien liedwer?” Jon asked, conversationally “Give me your thoughts on this.”
“Why should it concern you, Harabin dheillwer?”
“Because the child must be returned to The Elders of her people.”
At this Dr Riddett spoke up. “The girl is going nowhere!”
Jon ignored her and kept his eyes on Eldrien. “Isn’t that what custom says, liedwer?”
Before the tribesman could answer, Dr Riddett rushed forward and snatched the talking stick from his hand.
“Enough of this!” she said, throwing it onto the fire.
There was a deep growl of annoyance from the assembled warriors, but she ignored it.
“The child was taken to save her. She’ll provide me with the evidence I need to rescue every other little girl on this planet from the abominations practised here. You people are disgusting; your way of life is disgusting. If you can’t or won’t conform to civilisation, you will be made to do it. By force, if necessary!”
There was a horrified gasp from Stacey, a hiss of anger from Vlic and Lucien brought his rifle up to his shoulder in preparation for what he was sure would follow.
“I believe Dr Riddett would like to apologise for that outburst,” Wainwright said desperately as Eldrien rose to his feet. “My government is fully committed to the protection of Tribal Rights and I can assure you …”
“Only because they don’t understand,” Dr Riddett said, obviously either unaware of the danger or indifferent to it. “Once the child has been made to tell the truth …”
“Having much success?” Jon asked cynically.
Dr Riddett flushed. “All she needs is the proper counselling.”
Seeing the expression on his face, she played her trump card.
“And what is more, these men … tribal men … all agree with me and they will be witnesses as well.”
She looked at Jon in triumph.
“What?” Jon said in total astonishment.
“Why else do you think they have helped us,” she returned. “Tell him, Eric.”
Jon turned to Wainwright, who managed to look both pompous and apologetic.
“Well,” he said, “we were led to believe these men were no longer part of their tribes because they had lost faith in the cultural values expressed …”
Jon turned to Eldrien. “Is this right? Have you moved so far away from the ways of the People you no longer respect true words?”
“Eldrien has shown himself to be in complete agreement with me,” Dr Riddett announced.
“I have never spoken those words,” Eldrien replied.
She gaped in astonishment. “But you did everything we asked you to do,” she said, “Agreed with everything we said.”
Eldrien shrugged. “Let us say … I chose not to disagree.”
“Then why did you help?” she asked in bewilderment.
“Because of this!” a voice from behind them announced.
Chapter 18
Lucien, Vlic and Stacey nearly gave themselves away. Sheer luck kept Lucien’s trigger finger from squeezing. A man had walked out of the woods within yards of them, but they had not seen or heard him until he spoke.
The tribesmen around the fire gave out a huge yell and began to pound the ground with their axes and clubs.
Tim Frain strode over to the fire and threw a couple of bags onto the ground.
“Dust!” he shouted. “Dust enough for all of you!”
“That is why, Harabin dheillwer!” Eldrien said and, at a signal, Jon was jumped by a couple of the men who stripped him of his weapons and bound him hand and foot.
Vlic grabbed Lucien’s arm, but he did not need to worry, his friend was unmoving, frozen with horror.
“Mr Frain,” Wainwright said in amazement, “what’s this all about? Why have you given the men that stuff?”
Frain levelled a rifle at him. “You really are a bloody fool. It’s their pay of course.”
“Pay?”
“Yes, pay. What I give them for getting you here and keeping you alive.”
“I don’t understand,” Dr Riddett said in confusion.
Frain walked over to Jon and kicked him savagely.
“You’ve worked it out, haven’t you, Master Traveller?”
“Most of it,” Jon replied, gasping slightly.
“What are you talking about?” Wainwright demanded.
“Good old Tim here wants a hell of a lot more trouble between the tribes and the Settlement than you do,” Jon said, trying to get into a kneeling position, but Frain kicked him again.
“That’s not true.” Dr Riddett protested. “Mr Frain is as appalled by the customs here as I am.”
Despite his pain Jon laughed. “Timmy boy doesn’t give a flying fuck about custom, do you?”
“Not even that much, “Frain agreed, giving Jon yet another kick.
“Tell them what you do want,” Jon gasped.
Frain pulled him into a sitting position by his hair.
“Pearls, gold, furs and timber. Wealth!” he snarled. “What you and those pious bastards on the Council denied me.”
“You always were a little shit,” Jon remarked, and grunted with pain as the foot landed in his ribs again.
“Hey!” Wainwright protested, moving forward to stop the assault.
“Back off!” Frain ordered, levelling his rifle. “Killing you is part of the plan and I don’t care if I do it now or later.”
“What! You can’t …”
The retort of the rifle made everyone jump. Stacey managed to stop a cry of protest in her throat, but Evandne Riddett screamed and rushed to where Wainwright had fallen.
“Someone help me,” she pleaded, trying to stop the blood flowing from a wound in the man’s side.
“He’s only grazed,” Frain said in disgust, but he signalled to one of the men to help her.
Stacey watched her father’s shirt ripped open and a brief examination of the wound made. A wad of something was thrust against it and strip of rawhide tied around to keep it in place.
“Why?” Dr Riddett asked in bewilderment, as much to herself as Frain.
“Work it out, woman,” Frain jeered. “First a bride is kidnapped and her parents are murdered. There’s enough evidence
to show it wasn’t a tribal killing, or at least enough for The Tribes, but not enough for a colonial court, who will come up with a thousand logical reasons why no blame can be attached to any civilised colonist. Next the kid turns up dead. Bit of a shame this, because it’s going to have to be obvious she didn’t die quickly and a lot of pretty nasty stuff happened to her before she did. That’ll send the Tribes into frenzy. No tribesman would do such a thing to a maiden, so there can be only one explanation- someone from The Settlement did it.”
He laughed at this.
“They’re as blinded by their own feelings of superiority and bigotry as the newcomers. My boys here would do anything for a bag of dust, wouldn’t you?”
Eldrien, who was in the process of inhaling a quantity of the dark brown powder, shot Frain a look of loathing and disgust, but he ducked his head in shame-faced agreement.
Frain laughed again.
“Then you and good old Eric will turn up dead as well, stuffed full of tribal arrows. Everyone knows neither of you are supporters of tribal custom and it won’t be long before the killing of an eminent academic and a distinguished congressmen by savages will be hot political stuff. There will be calls for action.”
He grinned in delight.
“It should be a short war, but a merry one. And when it’s all over, the land will be free of the bloody tribes and open to those who know just how to milk it.”
Jon had managed to struggle to his knees.
“Do you want this, Eldrien?” he asked, blood trickling from his split lips, but Eldrien’s eyes had already glazed over and he began to sink into a state of semi-conscious oblivion.
Frain bent so he was face to face with Jon.
“You’re a bonus I wasn’t expecting,” he said. “Killing you is a pleasure I intend to keep for myself and I’m going to take my time doing it.”
He stood and looked around at the circle of men. The dust had done its work; not one of them was able to stand.
“Fuck it,” Frain muttered. “Useless bastards.”
He turned and pointed the rifle at Dr Riddett and Wainwright, who was now sitting, leaning against her shoulder.
“Get in the shed with the brat!” he ordered.
Dr Riddett protested, but he retrieved one of the discarded war clubs and gave her a sickening blow on the side of her head.