by Bev Allen
“That’s me all over, just plain dumb.”
“Yeah, that’s what your old man said. And he told me just how many of you are down there. You can’t stay there forever, boy! Give it up now and I might let you live.”
“My dad is a lying bastard, so why don’t you come on down and check!”
It went quiet above and Lucien turned to his companions.
“They’re up to something,” he said. “Dad has told them something. Brace yourselves.”
He pushed them all back deep into the shelf, making Brigedh and Dr Riddett crawl as far in among the roots as they could. Jon managed to ease himself back and Stacey leaned over her father to protect him. He had slipped back into unconsciousness and if he had the time to consider the matter, Jon would have warned her to be prepared for the worst.
Lucien wormed his way along to the end, in the hope of getting an idea of what was going on above.
“In!” he hissed to them. “Back in as far as you can go.”
There was barely time to do as he said before a huge boulder rolled down the slope and ripped away a section of the canopy, leaving a hanging curtain of foliage on either side of the gap.
Instantly Lucien fired up at the faces looking down on their handiwork; there was a grunt and the sound of a body falling to the ground, followed by the sounds of much activity and argument.
Briefly another face appeared, but Vlic grabbed the rifle Dr Riddett had put down and fired.
For a second it seemed as if the man’s chest had bloomed like a rose, scarlet petals opening outwards to show a dark centre.
“Good shot,” Lucien remarked.
Vlic, slightly green around the gills, nodded. “My father would be proud.”
“You can’t hold out forever, you little bastard!” Frain screamed down at them. “And when I get hold of you I’m going to make you watch while I kill your boss and then I’m going to take my time killing you.”
In the next twenty minutes more rocks of various sizes came down the slope and several flaming faggots, which did little more than add to the smoke twisting around the valley.
“Should we try and make a run for it come dark?” Dr Riddett asked.
“No!” Stacey replied. “That’s exactly what they want us to do. And even if we could go fast enough, we couldn’t do it carrying Jon and my father.”
“We could leave …”
Lucien said, “We know what we’re doing. You can go if you want, but Vlic, Stacey and I stay. And so does Mr Wainwright and Brigedh and Jon and all the rifles.”
She might have argued, but a sudden cascade of dirt and pebbles seemed to herald the start of another attack, so she returned to cowering with Brigedh. More disturbed earth fell, but it was not a rock that came tumbling down, it was Tim Frain.
He flashed passed them, two arrows protruding from his back.
“Dad!” Vlic exclaimed, leaping to his feet.
“Wait!” Jon ordered.
“But …”
“Wait, Vlic,” Lucien begged. “Please!”
They waited, every nerve strained. There were noises of a fight from above, cries of pain and alarm, followed by the sound of running feet, but finally it all died away and a face appeared over the edge. Lucien, unwilling to trust anything, lifted his rifle.
Iesgood’s face appeared and said, “You’ll be in even bigger trouble if you shoot me!”
Chapter 20
In the hours following some terrible deeds were done and by the time the sun came up in the morning there was not one of the Niifliinling left alive. Eldrien had made a last stand in the woods beyond the clearing, but it had been nothing more than a gesture.
Lucien learnt all this later from Vlic, who witnessed some of it. He had watched another battle, the one to keep Jon alive.
After Iesgood arrived, there had been a collapse and Lucien realised it had only been willpower keeping Jon going. The girls who had accompanied the war party fought to save him. When they were not feeding him a variety of potions, they applied dressings and salves to his wounds and bound up his broken ribs.
The red cords came out and they wove their magic, constantly knotting and unknotting and it must have worked, because he did not die.
They worked on Eric Wainwright as well, watched continuously by Stacey who wove her own complex patterns of knots as she sat by her father’s side.
The magic worked for Jon, but did not for Congressman Wainwright. Despite all the girls could do and did do, sometime during the night he could no longer endure the shock and loss of blood and he died quietly in the arms of his daughter.
Lucien, seeing her ravished face, tried to find something kind or helpful to say, but failed completely.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “And maybe it’s for the best. He would’ve hated prison.”
She did not cry and both Vlic and Lucien would have felt a lot better and more able to cope if she had. Dr Riddett, subdued but recovering fast, suggested the girl was incapable of depth of feeling, but everyone ignored her.
Brigedh would go and sit quietly beside Stacey, who in turn sat quietly beside Jon, helping to keep watch over him. And it was Brigedh who held Stacey’s hand when they buried her father far away from the place they threw the bodies of the Niifliinling.
“He was in error,” Iesgood had said. “But he does not deserve to lie with them.”
The passage back along the valley was not easy, Jon had to be carried on a litter and the going was tough. None of it helped his wounds, but once they reached the river and he was laid in a canoe, he showed signs of improvement.
The trip downstream was a period of constant anxiety for Lucien; he and Stacey took turns to kept watch over Jon. They were probably of no real assistance and a hindrance to the real nurses, but the girls did not seem to mind and encouraged them to keep vigil.
By necessity they had to make slower passage than the rest of the boats, which went on ahead to carry the news back home and to prepare for his arrival.
When they finally rounded the bend of the river and the bluffs came into view, Lucien saw their return had been watched for and there was a crowd waiting on the beach.
Bweriit herself came down to the landing to examine Jon. She laid a hand on his forehead, felt his ribs and stomach, making him gasp with pain.
“Take him to my cabin,” she ordered.
Jon was lifted gently from the canoe and carried up the slope towards the village. He protested a little, telling those doing the carrying he was able to walk, but they ignored him.
Lucien made to follow, but Bweriit stopped him.
“Not you!” she said. “The last thing I need is you underfoot.”
“But …”
She ignored him, turning her artic eye to Stacey instead.
“You, gwerl. Come with me and do not argue.”
Stacey gave Lucien a look of mute apology before obediently following the Elder, leaving him alone and ignored on the beach, until Geelbrie came up beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.
“He’s going to be all right,” she told him. “We were fairly certain ourselves, but now Bweriit liedwer has him in her care, there can be no doubt.”
“Are you sure?” Lucien asked.
“Yes.”
“Really sure?”
“Yes.”
Then, to his eternal shame, he began to cry. Quietly at first, then in great racking sobs that tore his throat and chest.
Within a minute Vlic’s mother appeared and led him away. She put him to bed and whatever she made him drink sent him off to sleep for the rest of the day and all of the night.
When he finally woke his first concern was for Jon, but he was not allowed to see him. Bweriit turned him away at the door.
“He is better, but he needs rest,” she told him. “What he doesn’t need is a disobedient and troublesome cheed bothering him.”
With this, any idea Lucien may have harboured about being feted for his ingenuity, insight and courage, took a body
blow.
His main concern had been for Jon, but underneath his worry a small part of him had been trying hard not to preen. Although he concealed it as best he could, he was well pleased with himself.
He knew he had been scared, but he had not given in to his fear. He had killed a man, probably several men and, while he was not proud of this, he was satisfied with his resolve in the face of something repugnant.
Also, he was rather proud of the way he had dealt with his father. Marcus had not been amongst the dead, which had not surprised Lucien or disappoint him, as he was rather looking forward to hunting him down.
What he would do when he found him was a source of some grim and enjoyable day dreams.
But none of this seemed to count with anyone else and, although knowing Jon was on the road to recovery was a source of happiness, it did not prevent his ego from feeling a little bruised, and he was inclined to brood as a result.
He found Vlic also sulking and for much the same reason.
“I thought dad would be pleased with me … us!” he said. “But instead he gave me a right bollocking for going off without permission.” He glowered at the memory.
“I guess I’ve got that to come,” Lucien replied.
They reflected on the injustice of it all for a while.
“We did though, didn’t we,” Lucien said at last, a grin breaking out.
“Yeah,” Vlic replied. “We sure did.”
They whooped about for a while and decided it would be fun to go fishing by way of celebration, only to be thwarted by Iesgood. He told them they had done nothing to deserve a treat and made them spend the next week chopping wood, hoeing truck gardens, turning compost heaps and, if his imagination failed to come up with anything more physical, babysitting.
By the end of it, all ideas of heroism and the acceptability of defying orders had been fully exorcised.
They might have sulked even more if they had not met up with Stacey. She was still subdued by grief, but was also highly indignant at being made to spend her time on the maidenly pursuits of hemming shirts, preserving huge piles of fruit and making soap under the supervision of a couple of stern matrons.
The boys had smelt the soap making and were prepared to be sympathetic as a result.
Lucien removed himself from Vlic’s family home as soon as he possibly could. Feilda had shown marked signs of wanting to mother him, and thus he had taken up residence in the men’s house.
Vlic would have joined him, but found to his utter disgust his promised divorce had not gone ahead and he was required to once again go and live in his father-in-law’s house and finish his education on bow making.
Every protest and reasoned argument fell on deaf ears. Even the irrational loathing his wife felt for him was answered by the news she had promised to behave herself. Vlic treated this pronouncement with the cynicism it deserved.
In the absence of entertainment Lucien was reduced to spending his evenings reading the TLG rule book. He was highly amused to discover how often he had broken the instructions concerning the conduct of apprentices, but his face burned with shame when he came across the one forbidding any master to allow his charge to go into obvious danger.
He was alone and cleaning his rifle when Jon limped in. He still looked a little haggard and his arm was in a sling, but he was mobile and obviously recovering his strength.
“Should you be up?” Lucien asked anxiously.
“I’m fine,” Jon replied. “I was getting bored and I thought it was about time we had our talk.”
“It can wait,” Lucien said. “There’s no rush.”
Jon grinned. “Bad luck, son, you don’t get out of it that easily. Tell me everything that happened after I left you. I’m a bit hazy on details.”
Without vainglory or exaggeration, Lucien recounted the events and Jon listened in silence.
“And I know I disobeyed you,” Lucien concluded, defiantly. “But I don’t really care.”
Jon nodded thoughtfully. “Don’t you? We might have to see about that. Is there any way I’m going to get you to obey me?”
Lucien went crimson, but he sat and gave the matter a little thought.
“Probably not,” he replied at last, chin up and brave. “At least … I’ll do as I’m told as far as learning is concerned and I won’t go off on my own again without permission, but I won’t be left behind while you go off somewhere you might be killed.”
Jon never took his eyes from Lucien’s face. “What if I sack you?”
The possibility of Jon sacking him had been keeping Lucien awake at night. It not only bothered him during the hours of darkness, but at odd moments during the day when there was nothing to occupy his mind.
“Then you’ll have no right to tell me what to do and I’ll follow you anyway,” Lucien replied.
Jon nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
He was silent for a while and Lucien carried on cleaning, trying to keep his hands busy and stop them from shaking.
“Are you going to sack me?” he asked in a small voice.
“I should,” Jon replied. “But as you saved my life it seems a touch ungrateful.”
“What are you going to do then?” Lucien asked, avoiding Jon’s eye.
“Oh, I think I might drag you off some place where I can teach you exactly what will happen if you ever dare defy me again,” Jon replied cheerfully.
Lucien swallowed. “I guess I deserve that,” he said. “Where?”
“I thought finding the sea of flowers I’ve heard talk about might be a good place to start.”
Lucien’s head came up. “Do you mean it?” he demanded, eyes blazing with excitement.
“We’ll have to wait until I’m fit,” Jon replied, laughing at him. “And we’ll have to go home first to get permission. You might be able to get away with disobedience, but I can’t.”
“When?” Lucien asked. “Today?”
“My God, you’re an impatient brat!” Jon replied. “No, not today or tomorrow either. When I say.”
“But …”
“As I’ve told you before, don’t push your luck.”
Lucien grinned. “Yes, sir.”
“And besides,” Jon said, “we can’t go until we’ve taken Stacey back and she’s signed her indenture papers.”
“What!”
“There’s no law that says I can’t have two apprentices,” Jon told him. “It will do you good to have a little competition from someone with a great deal more skill and knowledge.”
Lucien’s indignation was matched by Stacey’s when Jon told her.
“What?”
“It’s been decided you’ll return with me and Lucien and be formally apprenticed,” Jon told her. “That way I can keep a proper eye on you.”
She shook her head. “Thank you for the offer. It is kind of you, but it’s too late. Now Dad’s gone I’m not sure what I’ll do. I need time to think.” She dashed a tear away. “It might be best if I go home to the Lynx for a while.”
Lucien was about to endorse this plan wholeheartedly when Jon said, “You’re not going anywhere without my permission.”
She stared at him in surprise.
“Word came up the river after we left. The Lady of the Lynx sent out a message about you being on the prowl without company or permission. She handed her responsibility for you to any Elders you encountered.”
Lucien knew a little about the authority the older women had over the men, but it had not occurred to him this authority might extend to the younger women.
“Elder Bweriit has accepted the task, as I believe you may have noticed recently, and she has ordered me to see to your welfare, as you are also a maiden of my people. The Lady of the Lynx will back her in this and you know it.”
“But …”
Jon silenced her. “I’ll allow you a choice, although I can see no reason why I should. You can return to the Settlement with me under arrest, to be handed over to The Guild for multiple violations of the regulations
on tribal contact, or you can come back to sign indenture papers and start learning to obey the rules like the brat.”
“Hey!” Lucien protested.
“You’ve exactly thirty seconds to make up your mind,” Jon told her, ignoring the interruption.
“You can’t …”
“Twenty-seven seconds.”
“Please let me explain. I need time to think and …”
“Twenty seconds.”
“You can’t make me do this. You just can’t.”
“Watch me,” Jon replied. “And you’ve got about ten seconds left.”
She stared at him in mute appeal, but he merely looked back with uncompromising sternness. For one glorious moment Lucien thought she would say no, but suddenly all the fight seemed to drain out of her and she just nodded her head.
“I’ll sign.”
“Good,” was all Jon said, and went away leaving his two prodigies alone together.
Lucien was not happy. He did not dislike Stacey. In fact he had come to respect her as a comrade in arms, but he certainly did not want her sharing his role, and Jon’s time.
He was also pretty sure she was a damn sight better at woodcraft than he was. She would not have made his mistake with the Sweller vine and the undercooked tubers or eaten the wrong berries.
She made the journey to the valley alone and his newfound experience made him doubt if he could have done it, arriving fit and well and ready to fight.
He scowled at her. “I’m the senior apprentice,” he growled.
This had the power to drag her back from her shock and her misery and she gave him back look for look.
A nasty smile spread across her face and she wriggled her hands at him and he saw the newly tattooed pearls.
“How can a barehanded biey be senior?” she asked and walked away with her nose in the air.
Lucien was so cross he thought he was going to explode and went back to the men’s house in a raging temper.
Things did not improve over the next couple of days. Once Jon was well enough, there were a number of celebrations and ceremonies. Separated from Vlic, Lucien made a few mistakes when it came to etiquette, nothing major, just the equivalent of elbows on the table or drinking from the finger bowl, but it was embarrassing, and the knowledge that Stacey never put a foot wrong was galling.