I woke up headachy after too little sleep; I sluiced myself down with cold water from the stream, which helped enough for me to face some food.
After breakfast, Stack and I wandered over to our guest to make sure he hadn’t died on us overnight. In fact he was surprisingly lively, given that he didn’t seem to have slept at all: strange really. Stack had given him three ways to get comfortable: he could pull his big toes off and kneel down, pull his thumbs off and lie down, or pull his balls off and sit down; yet he’d just not been able to make his mind up which to go for. Such indecision; but what do you expect in a coward.
To make sure he was comfortable, Stack had lit a fire conveniently close to him to keep him warm through the night. Always thinks of others, does Stack. Our guest’s skin was cherry-red where it had faced the fire, even though that had almost burned out. He whimpered when I touched it.
“Now,” I said, “I think you should tell us all you know about Bulken and everything else in this area.” He whimpered again. I put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and softly massaged it. He sobbed as the two broken ends of his collarbone ground together. “And the more you tell us, the easier it will be for me to keep Stack off you.”
“Yes yes yes! Please! Yes what –”
There was a sudden loud crash outside the camp. Stack leapt to his feet and up above the Gate. The rest of us followed.
“Are they back?” called Hawk.
Stack didn’t seem to hear. Even when we climbed up alongside him he was just staring out down the path.
Typical, I told myself, Just when I was going to have some fun, as well. It didn’t stop me being frightened, but it helped me not show it.
At the far end of the path a man was standing. He had a staff in his hand, but no other weapons that I could see. The staff was just hooked under the tripcord Stack had tied across the path – this man was no fool. Which did nothing for my nerves.
“What does he want, d’you think?” murmured Hawk. “He’s on his own – surely he’s not come to fight us?”
“Is he? Or is he a distraction?” Stack leaped down and I saw him run round our fence, his head held just below the top, except when he popped up for a quick look.
Meanwhile our visitor stared at us for a long minute. Then, very very slowly, he grasped his staff in both hands, lifted it in the air, and paused. Then, still very very slowly, he lowered it to the ground and left it there. He lifted his hands up again and paused again.
When I said very very slowly I meant it. Stack was back by this time. “No sign,” he muttered. “What’s he doing?”
“Proving he’s unarmed, I think,” muttered Hawk.
Next the man very very slowly untied the neckcord of his tunic, and then eased it gently off. Holding it at arm’s length in both hands, he lowered it to the ground. Then the same with his breeches He stood there naked a moment, arms held high, and then turned round with his back to us, paused again, and turned back to face us.
Hawk glanced at each of us and we nodded back. “Very well, we understand,” he called out. “You come alone and in peace. Dress yourself and come closer in safety.”
The man dressed himself again, still very very slowly, and then, keeping his hands very clearly visible, he strode towards us with a slow pace. He left his staff behind.
Meanwhile I had worked out what was likely to happen, and was running back to my tent. I was a shaman first of all: I needed to impress this visitor as a shaman. How do you impress someone you know nothing about? You guess and hope. And it would have been easier without a headache.
I knew these people regard nakedness as debasing – which was important for understanding what had just happened – and therefore I guessed that showing no skin would be the opposite. And I remembered our visit to a Town, and how the top man had worn very elaborate clothes. So I needed to cover up, and look complicated.
No dancing, then.
“Take off your tunic!” I ordered Whisper.
I snapped the stitching at the shoulders of my shift, slipped into it and dropped it to just hide my feet and brush the dust; I tied it in place both under my shoulders and at my waist – I didn’t want any accidents making me look stupid. Then I put my dress on which covered my arms and shoulders as well as my ties, and then I turned Whisper’s tunic half inside out and pushed and twisted it into a headdress that covered everything above my collar except my mouth and chin – even my eyes were hidden behind its fringe, although I could see out perfectly well. So I was completely covered, head to toe, except for my hands and just half my face.
It was a guess, and it would have to do. The rest I would have to carry off by sheer personality. Yes, well…
Whisper, on the other hand, would have to go naked; but he’s only a kid anyway so that wasn’t a problem from the status point of view. From the temperature point of view, though, he had problems. Serious problems.
Tough.
While I was doing all this, I was listening to what was going on outside.
“Very well,” I heard Hawk’s voice. “Who are you?”
“I am Dae Graam’s son, of Dae’s Farm,” came the reply. Low pitched, clear, but edgy.
“Are you alone?”
“I am alone.”
“Do you come in peace?”
“I come in peace.”
I heard the gate being opened. There were a few more formalities of the same sort which all went as you’d expect. I stepped out onto the dancing floor and stood, very still, my hands across my chest and each tucked in the other sleeve so that they didn’t show any skin, my head slightly bowed as if I wasn’t looking at our new visitor. Which of course I was.
He was middling height – taller than Stack, shorter than Hawk (but who isn’t!) but very heavy across the shoulders. His legs were a little short for his body, but his feet were big and heavy. His hair was black with just a few streaks of grey, and curly like his beard. His face was relaxed, but nothing else about him was.
He saw me and paused, and then took a few steps towards me. This brought him into the line of sight of our other guest.
“Dae! Oh thank the Powers, Dae! You’ve come for me! Oh at last! Dae, you don’t know what they’ve been doing to me – what they’re fucking going to do! Oh thank the Powers you’ve come for me, Dae!” and so on until he ran out of steam. But Dae just took one quick glance at the coward and then stared straight ahead at me.
Stack thumped his spearbutt to the ground, I assumed to get attention; if so, it worked.
“Friend of yours?”
Dae Graam’s son opened his mouth, but paused before he spoke. “Wife’s cousin.”
“And you’ve come for him?” Stack’s tone was almost sneering – hardly the tone for a guest, I thought.
“No. I might have done. I knew he was here. But why I have come ben’t that.”
“Then why have you come?”
“The courtesy of our Tribe has been tested of late,” I interrupted. “Our normal hospitality is therefore not as evident as it should be. We apologise to you, Dae Graam’s son, of Dae’s Farm.”
“That you have been tested, I have heard. As for your hospitality, that you have let me in is already better than I feared, Lady.”
“But the Shaman of the Causeway Tribe is right – as ever,” said Hawk, sitting on a stump and doing his chief pose. “Whisper, fetch food and drink for our guest.”
Whisper was struggling to hold my cloak in place around him with almost no success. He ran off into my house and soon reappeared with a bowl of meat – my lunch, to be precise. Meanwhile Stack fetched another log over and gestured to our guest to sit down.
Stack took the bowl from Whisper and presented it to our new friend. “Now get some mead!” he hissed at Whisper.
Our guest waited until the mead had arrived, and then put both down beside him on the log.
“I want not to trick you,” he said. It seemed to me that he was weighing every word, judging how it was received. I was glad I’d veiled my face – or at least my eyes; it gave me a big advantage. “I come not to be neighbourly, though we are neighbours. I come for a favour.”
“So we assumed,” said Hawk. “But still, let us share with you, and then you may ask your favour. I, Hawk-on-high-bough, chief of the Causeway Tribe, promise you that whatever you ask will be listened to, and whether or not we grant it, no ill will be held against you for asking.”
Well, that’s generous of you, Hawk!
Our guest paused, and then took a morsel of meat and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly. He washed it down with a sip – no more – of mead.
I approved of that; it meant I was likely to have some lunch left.
“You are very generous,” he said at last. “I hope we will be good neighbours.”
“Indeed,” answered Hawk.
“And so I’m bold enough to ask. They say you were the people selling salves last Brothy Big Market. Secrets Of The Savages, or some such name. You had some tale of a fake shaman plundering the savages of their tricks and medicines.”
“True,” said Hawk.
“The tale is just a tale, of course, with all honour to you. But the salves, everyone says they were gradely in their power.”
Ah. Whatever gradely meant, it certainly sounded like a compliment. Nice to know someone appreciates my skills.
“And they say that you treated old Paedr of Toram’s Farm, that had a bad arm this two months, and it healed in five days, as clean as a plent.”
“True,” said Hawk again. He sounded surprised – I certainly was. I’d’ve expected Paedr to keep that tale to himself.
“Though they say you got little thanks for it.”
Hawk – wisely, I felt – kept silent. Mind, it didn’t take a shaman to work out what was coming.
“Now I have a daughter, who’s been fevered this four days, and she gets worse day by day – hour by hour this day. And so the favour I ask is, would you tell me what thanks I could offer you for curing my daughter – or at least, treating her – that might…” His voice cracked. “We fear to lose her…”
“No thanks we ask,” answered Hawk. “Not for such a gift. But our shaman will go or stay as the Spirits lead her, and either with my good will.” Hawk is really good at the formal, impressive phrase that, in cold blood, says nothing at all except perhaps “I am passing the buck.” And the shaman has to pick it up, as usual.
I had stood completely still so far, except just that one little speech. Now I reached up and drew more cloth over my face, hiding it completely, and then went back to the same pose. But now I started murmuring a song (the Song Of Acceptance, as a matter of fact – the first one to come into my head) and then I threw the cloth back off my face.
“The Spirits approve,” I stated. “I will come with you and do what I can. But the Spirits do not promise a cure.”
“Well enough for me,” Dae answered, and I think he almost sighed. “I said true, I came alone to your farm, but two hundred paces away my eldest son and my fourth daughter are waiting in Raspberry Glade. They will stay here until your shaman returns safely.”
“No they will not!” I exclaimed. “Are you enemies that we should take hostages from you? And do not the Spirits walk beside me, keeping me from harm?” Well, no, they don’t, because they don’t exist. At least, I think they don’t. I’m not sure of very much nowadays.
Furthermore, hostages need feeding, and I still wanted my lunch.
Comments (0)
See all