House of Tribes

by Garry Kilworth

  At Gorm’s right shoulder was Hakon, Gorm’s principal double, whose job it was to confuse the enemy simply by acting and looking like the great chieftain himself. Hakon was echoing Gorm’s words, copying his actions, and it was as if a looking-glass image was working alongside the chief. Those of the enemy who had the misfortune to be confronted by this duo were thrown into a state of panic and disorientation. Most turned and ran, not bothering to work out who was whom. Those brave enough to remain despite their bewilderment, suffered the full onslaught of twin pairs of incisors biting their flesh.

  A 13-K berserker who ran full tilt at Gorm was picked up and thrown bodily across the tiles by the quicker-moving Hakon. Hakon, and his twin brother Tostig, always fought like crazy to protect their lord from harm. There was a good, practical reason for this. Any wounds Gorm collected would be visited on his doubles after the battle. On the other hand, they had to be mighty careful not to receive any wounds themselves: Gorm was none too happy when he had to receive purposely duplicated wounds.

  Gorm’s second double, Tostig, was at that moment leading a foray against some invaders who were attempting to reach the cooking pot hanging over the kitchen range.

  Drenchie of the 13-K was spearheading this diversionary attack on the range and one of her warriors managed to run up the cold spit and leap on to the handle of the cooking pot. The idea was to dash around the lip and gather any pieces of stew stuck to the edge of the pot. Unfortunately for the poor creature the handle was greasy and the athletic warrior slipped and fell into the stew. There was one brief cry of terror followed by a sludgy plop. Then silence from the pot. Even though the range fire was out, and the pot’s contents cold, death by drowning in stew was an unpleasant end.

  ‘Bite their eyes out!’ came the rallying cry from Ulf, rebel leader and estranged son of Gorm, now youthful chieftain of the 13-K. ‘Tear their throats!’ he screamed.

  Ulf was surrounded by his protectors, the Chosen Ones, the most loyal and favoured of his gang, who repulsed any attempt by the Savage Tribe warriors at reaching their beloved and handsome chief. 13-K’s experience in battle was limited, but they had great enthusiasm and energy, and they fought with the valour of youth. Ulf steered his warriors with determination towards the open pantry door and managed to break through the defenders with some of his warriors, to enter the bounteous never-empty larder of the Savage Tribe. The 13-K who were able to stay with Ulf had the contents of the hallowed ever-full larder at their disposal, though they did have to fight and eat alternately.

  Gorm-the-old was furious at the breakthrough by the enemy and though his own personal bodyguards, the Immortals, had formed a semicircle around him and Hakon, Gorm could not manage to fight his way through the intruders to get to his alienated son.

  ‘My own flesh and blood!’ Gorm bellowed. ‘Robbed by my own son. I’ll rip his spleen out. I’ll strip his belly of skin and fur. I’ll have his gore!’

  Drenchie by this time had managed to counterattack Tostig’s forces, driving the defending mice back to the kitchen table. Two or three of her number scrambled up one of the legs and yelled in triumph when they found the surface laden with bread, cheese and vegetables. They sent pieces of food raining down on Drenchie’s warriors, who snatched them up eagerly and ran towards the kitchen door. Highstander, another 13-K captain, helped to force a passage for these warriors retreating with spoils.

  A milk bottle had fallen over in the corner of the kitchen and a pregnant 13-K warrior squeezed through the neck opening to get at an egg-cupful of milk inside. She drank the rich full cream until her belly was pendulous, then panicked when she found she couldn’t force her body out of the bottle again.

  ‘Roll in the milk,’ yelled one of her friends on the outside. ‘Get your coat wet and slippery.’

  The frantic doe did as she was bid and managed, with great effort, to squeeze through the neck with a plop.

  She hurried back to the woodshed, thoroughly frightened by her experience.

  ‘Assundoon! Assundoon!’ raged the leader of the Savage Tribe, rushing foolishly ahead of the Immortals that guarded his rear, as he chased after the 13-K brigands raping and pillaging his beloved larder.

  Seeing Gorm without protection, some of the 13-K turned to face him, hoping for a moment of glory in overcoming the chieftain of the fiercest tribe the world had ever known. Hakon rushed to his lord’s aid, hoping to reach him before he was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Captain Gunhild of the Immortals, too, ran towards the isolated Gorm. There was already a yell of triumph from the 13-K warriors as they swarmed towards the solitary magnificent figure.

  Suddenly, just when it seemed that Gorm would be overcome, the world was instantly bathed in blinding light and the battleground became a frozen tableau. A nudnik had come down from its sleep and had entered the kitchen. Mice scattered in all directions, heading for the nearest cover. Nudniks were stupid creatures, but they could also be very dangerous. No sensible mouse wanted a direct confrontation with a nudnik.

  The raid was over. 13-K members scrambled through holes in the skirting and made their way through passages in the walls. Savage Tribe mice retreated to their nests in various hidden areas of the kitchen. The flight from the battleground had been so swift that it was doubtful the sleepy-eyed nudnik had even noticed any mice at all.

  Later, once the intruder had gone, Gorm-the-old called a tribal Allthing, a meeting of the principal members of the clan, including Gytha Finewhiskers, Gunhild, Elfwin, Ketil, Skuli, Astrid and Thorkils Threelegs, as well as his trusted brother-doubles, Hakon and Tostig.

  First, Astrid the High Priestess gave thanks to the Lord of the Shadows for a timely intervention by the gods of Assundoon, in order to save their leader from injury or death. Then Gorm had his usual debriefing exercise, which the others all hated.

  ‘I want to know what happened tonight,’ growled Gorm, ‘and why the sentries weren’t alert. The 13-K should never have got past our odour-line. There were proper marks at the edges of the kitchen, I hope?’

  Gorm was referring to the method all mouse tribes, all mice anywhere, used to warn others that they were approaching occupied territory. This was the odour-line, where they marked their boundary with urine.

  He received some nods.

  ‘Then someone was asleep.’

  Elfwin studied the face of her chief, with his nose scarred from a hundred battles, his ear torn in single combat with the previous chief, his left jowl sagging lower than the right where it had been punctured by incisors. That Gorm was ugly, was a known fact. That Gorm had a foul temper, could not be contested. (Only Thorkils Three-legs, with the evil disposition that substituted for his missing front limb, had a worse choler.) That Gorm was clever and fearless in battle, was known throughout the House. Gorm was 400 nights old, but his strength and brilliance were undiminished. And, of course, all his battle scars were echoed by his doubles, Hakon and Tostig, who bore the marks of identical wounds.

  Elfwin asked, ‘Who posted the sentries tonight? Who was the captain of the guard?’

  There was a shuffling from the other members at the meeting and finally Ketil spoke.

  ‘I am the captain of the guard tonight. It must have been my warriors who were less than alert…’

  ‘Less than alert?’ thundered Gorm. ‘They were low-nose and in dreamland, that’s what they were! Were they, or were they not, your responsibility?’

  ‘They were my responsibility,’ murmured Ketil, realizing that someone was going to have to suffer for the attack tonight and, yes, it was going to be him.

  Gorm came right up to Ketil’s face and pushed his nose amongst the captain’s whiskers. ‘I ought to rip out your liver,’ he growled.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ketil, flinching.

  There was a long silence during which Ketil simply stood and shook with terror, the fur rippling down his back. Then someone spoke.

  ‘Three extra guard duties, no food for two hours and a loss of captain’s privileges for seven hours, ought to
do it Gorm,’ said Astrid quietly.

  Astrid was one of Gorm’s favourites, who had borne him several young (his hated and rebellious son Ulf not being among these particular offspring of his loins). She was now unable to have babies, but Gorm still called her to his nest. Astrid sometimes intervened on behalf of the other captains, when they had incurred the displeasure of their chieftain and stood in danger of being executed on the spot.

  Gorm continued to glare directly into Ketil’s eyes, making the poor captain’s legs shake with fear. Then finally the old chieftain said, ‘Think yourself lucky you have someone to speak up for you. The punishment stands. Thorkils, you will time the period by the chimes of the Great Clock in the hall. No food for two hours and seven – no, eight hours,’ he snarled, stamping his own authority on the punitive arrangements, ‘loss of privileges.’

  Ketil gulped, ‘Thank you. I shall see that the sentries are suitably punished.’

  ‘Nip their whiskers off,’ growled Gorm, but he showed by a brief curl of the lower lip that he wasn’t altogether serious about this ghastly punishment. Then the great chief turned to his doubles. He showed Hakon and Tostig a new cut on his body, where he had been bitten in the recent battle. It was a bloody rip on the right foreleg. Hakon and Tostig looked upset to see this mark. Nevertheless they inspected the wound closely, noting how it twisted in the middle and then forked at the end.

  ‘How do you want to do it?’ asked Gorm, not totally insensitive to their feelings.

  ‘We’ll do it to each other,’ Tostig replied in a despondent voice.

  ‘Just so long as the scars are identical to this one,’ Gorm told them. ‘The next time I see you both, I shall expect it to be like staring into a brace of mirrors.’

  The pair nodded unhappily. It was ever thus after battle had taken place. Hakon and Tostig were forever trying to persuade Gorm that his place in battle was at the rear of the field, conducting his forces from a place of safety. ‘You’re too precious to us, to risk on the front line,’ they told him hopefully. But Savage Tribe chieftains had always been by nature bad-tempered and fierce creatures who loved fighting and wanted to be up where the killing and maiming was to be had. Having such a disposition was, after all, how they came to be chief in the first place. Hakon’s and Tostig’s flattery fell on deaf ears.

  When the Allthing was proclaimed over, and everyone stood while kings and captains went their various ways, Thorkils Threelegs followed the unhappy Ketil to ensure that punishment was carried out.

  ‘If I had my way,’ grumbled Thorkils, ‘I’d have bitten your leg off and have done with it.’

  ‘If you had your way,’ said Ketil, ‘you’d bite everybody’s leg off. You want everyone to suffer the way you do, you foul-tempered old rotbag.’

  ‘Watch your language, convict,’ snapped Thorkils, limping along with surprisingly deft grace. ‘I might have to sort you out myself after all.’

  ‘You and whose band of hopefuls?’ jeered Ketil.

  ‘Don’t push it, or I might just miscount the chimes, and it won’t be in your favour.’

  Ketil shut up after this threat, which had not occurred to him before now. Thorkils had real power over his immediate future, especially since he, Ketil, did not know how to count. He wondered whether he had ever told Thorkils this fact. It was a worrying thought…

  FOURME D’AMBERT

  Astrid, the visionary and prophetess of the Savage Tribe, went away to commune with the Shadows. Unable to make any sort of relationship with other mice, except for her almost furtive liaisons with Gorm, Astrid had formed a strange and exotic affinity with the Shadows around her. She talked to them, and they answered her. No other mice could hear these replies of course, which far from giving her concern, made her feel special and chosen by the gods.

  ‘Shadows,’ she said, her voice echoing amongst the pots and pans, ‘why didn’t you warn me of the attack that’s just taken place?’

  Her tone was censorious, for she was not afraid of the dark nebulous shapes with whom she conferred. Astrid felt she should have been given some sign to indicate that the 13-K would attack the opulent ever-full larder, so that she could have forewarned her tribe. It would have brought her great honour, if she had been able to raise the alarm prior to the incursion.

  The Shadows were quiet, not willing to communicate.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded.

  Finally the reply came, You have been neglecting us.

  ‘No I haven’t. I spoke to you not three hours ago.’

  But your mind was on other things. You were thinking of Gorm, not of us. You were savouring your last meeting with him, behind the vegetable rack. A priestess should not enjoy carnal encounters, she should be chaste.

  ‘It’s different for me. I’m now barren. I can no longer have any young.’

  We’re talking about the way you enjoy the company of this brute of a mouse. He has no sensitive feelings for you. He simply uses you for his own pleasure.

  ‘And I use him. I can’t help it. Anyway Gorm is the only one who wants me.’

  Astrid was close to tears now. The shadows were always chiding her for her liaisons with Gorm. They seemed jealous of him – of the fact that he could give her something which they could not. Yet she needed such meetings, otherwise she had nothing at all to look forward to in life.

  ‘It’s all right for you, you Shadows. You don’t have these – these feelings. You’re just envious because you don’t know how to be emotional with one another…’

  ‘Of course they’re envious.’

  Astrid blinked, staring into the copper-bottomed pots and pans that gleamed in the moonlight. She could see nothing but her Shadows. Yet the last voice was surely not that of her critical friends? It had sounded more like another mouse. Someone had been eavesdropping, listening to her talking to her Shadows. This was sacrilege! Gorm would be informed.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded to know.

  ‘It is I, Iban!’ and a mouse stepped from behind a kettle, into a moonbeam. It was a yellow-neck, larger than Astrid who was a house mouse. The intruder however had a humble bearing and manner.

  ‘I know you,’ said Astrid, ‘you’re a Deathshead.’

  ‘I am called such,’ sighed Iban. ‘But I am an unworthy follower of the god Yo, the Dark One. As his disciple I must eradicate memory as well as self, but try as I might I am unable to forget who and what I am. I have immense difficulty in shedding knowledge and achieving Great Ignorance. Even at this moment the musk of your perfume threatens to overthrow my vows.’

  ‘What a shame,’ said Astrid, rather flattered by his confession. ‘But what did you mean when you said of course my Shadows are envious?’

  ‘I meant this – the gods, and their Shadow messengers, do not approve of you finding ecstasy with Gorm because it is they who promise ecstasy – in the Otherworld, in Assundoon, in the afterlife. It is their territory. It is the only thing they have to offer. So naturally they discourage the ecstasy that exists when bucks and does have feelings for each other.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about ecstasy?’

  ‘I am of course chaste, being a Deathshead.’

  ‘So, you think my Shadows are just jealous?’

  ‘I know they are. Anyone would be, of course. You are so beautiful.’

  ‘Me?’ she said, astonished. ‘I’m always called plain.’

  ‘Those who do so cannot see into your soul, as I can. It is a most wondrous place. A place of – of beauty. The thought of sharing a nest with you… ahh – I told you.’ Iban looked miserable. ‘I am unworthy of being called a Deathshead. You see, I still have wild, untamable thoughts. I must whip myself with my tail, to cleanse my mind, my spirit—’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ said Astrid, quickly.

  ‘I must, I must! I am so unworthy. I must go now before my vows are shattered beyond repair.’

  ‘Yes, you must go,’ Astrid whispered, half turning her back on him, a gesture which any other male would have re
cognized as an offer.

  A dry croak came from Iban’s throat.

  The scent of her wafted through the air, a fragrance too overwhelming to ignore. It caused Iban to choke his words back. He felt a deep tenderness towards her, even though such feelings were to him forbidden fruit. A great shudder went through his body. He could see her trembling, vulnerable, and he wanted to protect her. He wanted her to be his, to have and to hold. He wanted to watch over her.

  ‘You-are-so-lovely,’ he gasped.

  It was the first time Iban had ever been so close to a doe – he was a mouse of nearly 400 nights – and this fact alone made the experience celestial for him. There were bright lights in his head, flashes before his eyes. There were odours the chemistry of which caused his brain to reel with astonishment and delight. He loved the look of her soft pelt and the way her silken whiskers brushed his face.

  For Astrid it was like a dream, to be engulfed like this in someone else’s passion. When Gorm was with her it was always as if he was thinking about which guards to post on watch that night. Now, here she was, being adored, but by a mouse who had sworn to be celibate.

  Finally, Iban sat high-nose and stared down at her. ‘Perhaps – perhaps we shall meet again some hour?’

  ‘I would like that,’ said Astrid, noting how firm Iban’s muscles looked in the moonlight. ‘Are you quite sure you can’t stay for a while longer?’

  ‘Farewell, priestess.’

  ‘Farewell, Deathshead.’

  As Iban disappeared behind the utensils, Astrid whispered to his shadow, ‘Bring your master back again.’ Then she went to her bed, ready to dream delicious dreams.

  ROULÉ

  In the 13-K camp there was both rejoicing and sorrow. Everyone had made it back inside the woodshed except for the mouse who had drowned in the stew. There was sadness at this death, but mice do not mourn. In fact one or two thought it would have been fun to watch the nudniks dish up their dinner tomorrow night, but since the 13-K were more or less confined to the brick-built woodshed attached to the kitchen, there wasn’t much chance of that.