Witan Jewell

by Russ L. Howard

  Andrimnir jested, “Like a certain daughter of Cherokee Turtle Duck?”

  * * *

  I hope I’m not late for our meeting,” Mendaho said as she was led into the Manor House Hall of Namen Jewell by the fire headed maiden, Miss Brekka.

  “You could never be late, Mendaho, Milkchild is always sorting over the old records and books for answers to our past. Working with her is like stepping into a river. It will always be there, though never twice in the same form as before.”

  Indeed, they discovered Milkchild was stooped over a table in the family mess hall with piles of her dusty books scattered all around her like a woman sorts through piles of clothes. Her hair was a bit mussed and she had dirt marks on her face from handling the dust laden books. She was carefully copying passages from the books, comparing two books at once, and then adding glosses and scribbling notes in the gutters for future reference as Meny so oft did herself.

  “Looks like you are hard at it, Milkchild.”

  “Oh, Mendaho.” She looked up in surprise. “So glad you could come. I can’t believe somebody besides Long Swan and I are interested in plumbing the depths of the past. Most people are just content to leave it sleeping in the dust. To me it contains the answers that will keep us from repeating the mistakes of the past.”

  “Books have always been my love, ever since I attended my first skaldic class as a young maid. I read much and am greatly intrigued by what secrets we may discover about our past, but I honestly fear, man is stupid enough to repeat all the mistakes of the past again.”

  “Then please, join with me. I believe it will be a noble quest to unravel these mysteries.” Milkchild turned to Brekka, who was hovering to get a better view of the open pages. “Brekka, dear, would you get us some bagels and kefir?”

  “I’d be glad to. Then may I join you all in the noble quest.”

  “Certainly! You can help us sort. Meny, just as soon as we iron out some of the wrinkles, we will present it to the Roufytrof. We are working with very old records and the pieces don’t always fit. I am finding, these Amerikans were a very complex people.”

  The books and manuscripts were more numerous than Meny had imagined, some in fragments strewn across the table, others stacked in wooden boxes under the table. The room was well lit by lamps and candles, though ample morning light poured through the broad windows.

  “Where did you get all these, Milkchild? I’ve never seen books this old.”

  “Fyrd members found these writings in the giants’ houses that lay in ruins down in the Arid Zone and they are but fragments, so we must handle them with great care. They are like a many pieced wooden puzzle with too many pieces missing to make it fit, but we’ll at least get some pictures of the way life was lived in those days. Then there is the problem of too many unkown words whose meaning we are having difficulty deciphering.”

  Meny felt excitement run through her, she loved puzzles. “What do you mean? What words?”

  “Words that have no meaning in our culture, like ca-pit-al-ism, com-mun-ism, fas-cism. Yet they appear over and over and over. But we found from what we could cipher that the Evil Generation was most unnatural and oppressive. They based their government on the same principle as what the Pitters call ‘libido dominandi.’

  Mendaho frowned, “Libodo dum mandy!”

  “I’m sorry, that is a phrase from the Pitter Tongue of Oppression. It means the lust to dominate others through political and military means or what they also call Pax Pittorum.”

  “Were there no good men and women in Amerika?”

  “Oddly, it would at least appear there were spells and times when groups of good men and women emerged to champion the true culture; our ideas of freedom, religious tolerance, free enterprise, like what we have here today.”

  Mendaho scratched her head, “The Amerikans lived way before any of the times I have ever worked with in the Mountain Scrolls, but the Scrolls do make mention of their horrible treatment of the Red Man. I hope you explain more to me if I’m to help, because it’s starting to sound confusing.”

  “Patience my friend, it was a complete puzzle to me at first, Meny. Only after painstaking hours of pondering were Long Swan and I able to decipher a portion of the meanings in these books. But my God, how enlightening!”

  “You said there were good groups of people. Were the Sharaka one of those? Are they ever mentioned?”

  “Yes, we found the Amerikans devolved and allowed Black slavery, the wholesale slaughter and extermination of millions of Red Folk, and they opposed any religions that did not conform to their ideas of orthodox religions without regard for truth or any other consideration even though their laws expressly disallowed such.”

  “Didn’t anyone try to stop them?”

  “Some, but their secret combinations and ghost rulers twisted the laws to only favor their beliefs. Worst of all there were judges who were supposed to be impartial, but who were in fact complicit at turning everything to favor the elite they were beholden to. And there were presidents who trampled the very constitution that guaranteed liberty. You can’t ever have justice if it’s for purchase. They were only concerned with the appearance of tolerance and justice, but, in truth, were themselves usurpers, exploiters, and power mongers. They simply found ways around the law and used the laws to mask their real intent, which was the acquisition of power and resources. No sooner would another religion emerge based on the value of individual conscience than it was hi-jacked by usurpers in league with the ruling orthodoxy, who degraded all their founding truths and gave watered down, polluted versions, or insipid versions of the truth which they chewed up and fed back to the people.”

  Mendaho knew little of what the white eyes called religion, but knew it was like spirit medicine. “What sort of religions do you mean?”

  Milkchild jerked her head up from writing a note. “One of the early ones was a dark force led by high priests, who wished to only amass power and control over their believers. In many cases if the people resisted, that’s when all their religious and governmental powers were brought to bear against the heretic. Worst of all, apostates were put to death, even unto the millions.”

  “Millions killed! How could they have yielded? Why did they not retaliate?”

  “They could not. You see, from what we were able to glean, it was always a rigged game. There were no resources or numbers to effectively resist their dark priestcrafts. And only the orthodoxy and ruling class were allowed weapons.”

  “Without their bows and arrows, how did they feed themselves?”

  “The state dispensed bread and circuses. You know, the games and entertainment.”

  “Well, what surprises did you discover?”

  “Apparently, from what we deciphered, they had weapons that could even spit fire.” Milkchild carefully ruffled through her papers and brought out a picture of one. “Long Swan believes this is a picture of one of their soldiers.”

  Mendaho took up the picture and studied it, “This soldier is cute, but that helm looks like a pot on his head.”

  “We have not yet determined how they reckoned time, but from what we read, apparently much earlier, there was a group called the Albigensians, obliterated without any crime other than they believed differently.”

  “Well, different, how? What does that mean?”

  “We don’t know exactly, but we do know that they thought very much as the Herewardi do today.”

  “And so the Evil Generation had them destroyed.”

  “Yes,” Milkchild looked straight on at her with her sharp grey eyes, “They created an abomination called the Inquisition and clothed it in religious robes of a most diabolical priestcraft whose designs were to cover the world in darkness and intolerance for hundreds of years. They used all means of torture and torturing devices to extract confessions of heresy and crushed anyone who thought differently, revealed truth, or expressed dissent in any form. God help you if you were a woman or a Jywd. Now, are they beginning to sound like the Pit
ters to you Meny?”

  “Exactly like them, from what I’ve been told.”

  “In addition to these priestcrafts, there were horrible monstrosities of governments that killed millions for thinking wrong or simply for being of another tribe. One such culture even polluted the use of the Ur Fyr by misusing the powerful image of the medicine wheel to work evil in the earth. Making the medicine wheel hated for a long period of time before it was restored to the people as the holy symbol it is.”

  The door opened and Brekka returned carrying a plate of golden bagels, a pitcher of kefir and three glasses. She sat the tray down in a cleared space on the table. “Bagel, anyone?” she asked.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Meny licked her lips.

  Mendaho took a buttered bagel and a mug of kefir. She could hardly refrain from smacking her lips. “Does this ever look good!”

  Milkchild grabbed a seedy bagel and took a hasty bite.

  “But Milkchild, how did we ever manage to grab the freedom in so evil of a world bent on suppressing it?”

  “There have always been bands of free people. Some were forced to have invisible kingdoms governed by strict secrecy, worshiping in secret, meeting in secret lodges, till the rays of truth and life could cause them to throw off their dark cover, sprout again, and come out among the general population. Somehow they kept the lamp of holiness alive and kept the Ur Fyr burning. The Herewardi, or their predecessors, are such a group and have re-surfaced from their dormancy several times throughout history.”

  Milkchild turned to Brekka. “My dear, it would help if you started taking notes now Brekka while Meny and I go over the books and make our observations.”

  Mendaho snatched another bagel and glanced over the books. “Well, I’m ready to solve the puzzle. How about you, Brekka?”

  “Let’s do it!” Brekka said out of a fresh kefir mustache. “You speak. I write. But first let me finish this delicious buttered bagel.”

  Chapter 10 : Flies in the Ointment

  Two days after Sur Sceaf's departure for Ur Ford, Taneshewa, Sparrow Hawk, and Little Doe were laughing inside Taneshewa's tipi as they watched Mendaho put on a parody of Fromer the Quailor in her squeaky-scratchy voice. She grabbed a piece of stick bread they were making from the fire in the center of the tipi and stuck it to her nose. “Damned savages they are. Running around naked through the woods like they were Adam and Eve.”

  Just then someone outside of her tipi said, “Yoohoo! Is Mendaho the daughter of Burnt Tobacco the Bear Killer in there?”

  Mendaho rushed across the straw mats on the tipi floor and popped open the flap. Shining Moon stood there with her newborn child.

  “Moony,” Mendaho called out. “Please, come in, come in.”

  Shining Moon stepped through the tipi door. “Os-Frith, Ahy. I went to Sagwi's tent and she was not there, but there was a little fellow that told me you were in this tipi. I came to visit you and show off my new son.”

  Shining Moon unwrapped the baby. A dark wavy haired, bright eyed, baby boy wrapped in fleece wiggled and squirmed.

  Mendaho stroked the child's cheek with the back of her fingers. “He's adorable. What's his name?”

  “Surrey and I named him Herewulf.”

  Taneshewa could not resist the urge to place her finger in the palm of the infant's hand. He squeezed and she laughed.

  Taneshewa smiled, “So this is where a kiss ends.” She said laughing.

  “Oh, the kiss of Surrey has no end, but you should know that by now, Taneshewa.”

  She smiled, “I suppose I do.”

  Mendaho snickered, “But does Surrey kiss as well as Standing Bull did?”

  “Hah!” Taneshewa laughed. “When Surrey kissed me, I felt it wrap all the way around my heart. It was like I was melting into him. Standing Bull's kisses always felt like he was eating a piece of corn.”

  “I knew it. I knew Surrey'd be a good kisser,” Meny said, half giggling. “I mean with all the practice he gets from his six wives. Right, Moony?”

  “We do put him to much practice.” She smiled and fondled the baby's foot. “Practice, practice, practice.” She laughed.

  Taneshewa slapped Mendaho playfully. “You jest too much, girl. I swear, what am I going to do with you? Did you have to put up with all this horse play Shining Moon.”

  “Oh, it was much worse in those days. We were both crazy maidens back then. Boy crazy that is.”

  Sparrow Hawk said, “I had already married by the time you two went nuts.”

  Little Doe said, “I remember those days. Didn't know if either of you would make it.”

  Ahy proffered, “Why don't you all sit down and let me put a pot of tea on the fire.” She walked over to the fire and reached into a nearby crock, pulled out some lemon balm and nettle and threw the herbs in a pot of water. She was still smiling as she placed the iron pot over the coals.

  “And Ahy,” Shining Moon said, “Now that Sur Sceaf has left for the deep, we will want you to spend more time at each wife’s house. That way, we can all get to know you and you can get a feel for how things work.”

  “Oh, I don't know, that all sounds so frightening, Moony.” Taneshewa looked down at her hands and noticed they were in fists. She forced them to relax. “It’s hard enough adjusting to a new place. Now I have to adjust to six new homes.”

  Meny offered, “What do you mean? It's like being an honored guest in six palaces.”

  “Not really, Meny.” She turned to Shining Moon who was adjusting the baby to her other shoulder. “To be honest, Moony, I don't know about this. I feel as if my every move would be scrutinized. Sur Sceaf told me the wives would examine me, but I did not realize I had to be under their eyes all day and night. Most of them are older and probably resent my youthfulness. I already got that feeling from Swan Hilde, loud and clear.”

  “No, no, no. It's not like that at all. You will be our guest,” Shining Moon insisted. “It's more for your sake than ours. Because you are not Herewardi yet, it'll give you a feel for the way we do things.”

  Ahy frowned. “Did you have to do that?”

  “Yes, and I remember how it felt, I was very nervous and worried, but those feelings lifted as fast as the fog lifted this morning. There is much joy in a Herewardi home and I had a wonderful time. I predict you will find it the same. There is work, but there is also much play and much love. It's like having a house full of Mendahos surrounding you.”

  “To be honest, Shining Moon, there are many of the aspects of Herewardi culture that utterly terrify me.”

  Little Doe declared, “That's only natural, Ahy. I urge you that if you have a concern, share it with the bride-sisters.”

  * * *

  The moonths passed like a long train of slow drippy clouds in the twilight days of the winter shut-up. Mendaho found she absolutely hated the Mud Moonth with its endless rain, grey skies, and unending mud. The Lamb Moonth had been little better, but as the Skipping Moonth progressed, the sun began warming the air up, and drying the mud. Birds were returning, flowers flushed, and game was more plentiful.

  The mornings were still crisp, but the weather was entirely too pleasant to stay inside. The sap was running in the trees and Meny’s blood was stirring. Meny and Ahy stepped out of their tipis at the same time and each had a basket of laundry. It was unusual for Meny to be up this early.

  Ahy approached her tipi and hailed her with a question. “Meny, how is it going with you and the Black Hatter?”

  Meny walked toward her, careful to avoid the few puddles that remained. “Frankly, Ahy, he has not called on me once since Surrey's welcome home party. And it hurts.”

  Ahy set down her basket. “That surprises me. He was clearly having a wonderful time in your company and smiling more than I have ever seen him before.”

  “That's what I thought too, but Mendaka said he suspected Mosquito Beak might have something to do with this. Sagwi said, if he hasn't shown continued interest, then most likely he's lost desire for me. Men usually go
after what they want.”

  “Did she scry for you?”

  “She gave it a try, but the vision wouldn't come.”

  “You can’t drop it at this! What are you going to do about it?”

  “I'm certainly not going to go looking for him. He knows where I live. Now, enough about my love woes. Let’s get the clothes done and spend the morning in the sun at the river. Might even see a handsome young blood or two.”

  Taneshewa gathered her laundry basket into her arms, waited for Meny to pick her basket up and then together they headed for the river. Ahy glanced side long at Meny’s sad face while they traipsed along the path. She felt sorry for her. She wondered what Surrey would be doing on the coasts today, when she faintly noticed a disturbance in the bushes ahead. She disregarded it as a pheasant or quail. Suddenly, a dark form leaped out before them. She screamed and dropped her basket, clothes spilling over into the dirt.

  “Aelfheah, you scared the livin hell out of me. I thought you were a panther.” She leaned over to collect the spilled laundry.

  Meny declared, “If I hadn’t had this basket you’d have a knife in your gut right now. Don’t be jumpin out at us like that. Ya hear?”

  Surrey's son was dressed in brown leather pants and a white smock with the traditional red sash about his waist. “I apologize. I didn't mean to frighten you lovelies.”

  “Then why are you here hiding away in the bushes like some sort of creep?”

  “I’m here to see you, Taneshewa.”

  Ahy was not pleased. But polite as always she asked, “What is it Aelfheah?”

  He took a few steps closer only for her to back up. “Taneshewa, I’ve come to tell you how beautiful I think you are and don't wish to see you wither as a seventh bride. My father is much too old for you. I’m much more suited to loving you and it is I, you should be with. Please, steal away from this place with me. We could go live with my Fa Bro, Melyngoch, at Charly Harbor. I could run his horse stud and--”

  “Please! Stop it.” Ahy ordered, stomping her foot for added effect. “I have no interest in you at all. Let there be no doubt that there is no man, but Sur Sceaf, that I love. Nor would I ever even remotely consider another.”