Читать книгу The Constant Tower - Carole McDonnell - Страница 15

CHAPTER 9

THE WAR COUNCIL ON THE NEARBY HILL

Atop the nearby hill, Psal waited for his father to speak.

“I like this woman Ktwala and her clan,” the king said to Gaal and his captains. “No doubt some of you have also noticed the beauty of these Iden women.”

“That we have,” Seagen answered. “They’re all lovely.”

“Well,” Lebo said, “not all. But the lovely ones are lovely.”

The king laughed. “In the days of my Father, we stole such women. As many as we desired. In the past, I forbade it. But now…Tsbosso’s treachery, the edict of the neutral clans, and these years of war—well, we can hardly put down our weapons and go about seeking wives, can we? And the lack of women in our longhouses has caused turmoil.”

“But earlier.…” Psal tried to push away his growing fear. “You spoke of an alliance?”

“I cannot afford to leave their brothers alive.”

Psal looked down the hill at the Iden children playing with the Wheel Clan boys near a fire. The small boys in loincloths, their buttocks bare; the girls in hemp or buckskin skirts and beaded necklaces. His heart went out to them. “This is a small, small, small people, Nahas.”

“Not small enough.” Nahas looked down at Ktwala who stood speaking with Ephan.

“Put away your frowning, Chief Studier,” Orian said. “I’ll admit, I feared the consequences of your birth. Many thought Nahas had gone mad when he allowed you to live. Later, when word of your petulance was sung among our towers and we understood that we had a mad prince on our hands, we feared your weakness would influence our good king. And now you are Chief Studier for all our clan. Nevertheless I trust our king’s strength. When you rescued us from our longhouse, I saw a young man who seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, not the pitiful boy I had feared, but—”

“I care little for your fears, Orian.” Psal turned to Nahas. “I challenge the king because I see no logic in his decision. Why make unwanted enemies? Why not create new allies? Why must we murder innocents to take women?”

“With the arrival of Orian’s men, the number in our longhouse has increased,” the king answered. “Many died when Orian’s longhouse was burned. Wives, comfort women, daughters. Women are a necessity.”

“But,” Psal stammered. “You promised an alliance.”

“Strays and unallied they may be,” Seagen said, “But do you think a Peacock sub-clan will keep a covenant with us in time of war? Even a marriage alliance?”

“If we taught them how to keen…just a little, they would not betray us,” Psal said. “Their women would be living with us. Why would they betray the alliance? Remember, also, that in the old times, kidnapped women would put bitterness aside because they knew their men remained alive. But if we kill the Iden men, these women.…”

“Father,” Netophah said, and all eyes turned to the Wheel Clan heir. “The Firstborn’s counsel is wise. The Iden men would not betray us if their women lived among us. If we ally ourselves to them honorably, will we not benefit? Let us repair their tower, give them new keening trees, if they need any, some keening crystals. The Firstborn is well able to prevent their tower from hearing or meeting other Peacock towers.”

“You will dishonor our dead if you spare them,” Cyrt said, his eyes challenging Nahas. “And what will the Qerys longhouse and the others say of such sparing? Or have you forgotten that battle?”

Nahas looked up. The sky treacherously blue, the air fresh, the wind lovely. “No, I have not forgotten.” He took a deep breath, coughed. “The warriors of both clans will hunt together.”

“Father, they are hardly ‘warriors!’” Psal snapped.

“When night comes,” Nahas said, “all the males from both clans will feast together in the Iden longhouse. We’ll kill them there. Then we will send their tower to our stewards. The Iden women will not know of it. Rain is a wise woman. She will convince them their warriors are still alive even though they themselves have been kidnapped.”

“I will not allow it,” Psal insisted.

“Rain will inform them that we’re at war with the Peacock Clans and that their Iden brothers were spared because of their marriage to our warriors,” Nahas continued as though Psal had not spoken. “The Iden women will understand the implication.”

“Wheel Clan heir,” Psal said, grasping Netophah’s shoulder. “Brother, you should not allow it.”

“Firstborn,” Netophah replied, “Father rules our clan and his will is our will, even when it is not our will. Our king understands warfare. Perhaps he’s right and these Iden would have joined the Peacock alliance in time.”

Words useless, brotherly pleading useless, Psal turned toward the bottom of the hill where the Iden men were gathering the tools Nahas’ warriors had brought them, unaware the gifted knives and axes would soon be used to slay them. They laughed with Wheel Clan warriors, strapped their pouches to their sides, readied themselves to hunt, unaware they were Wheel Clan prey.

The Iden girls, lithe and graceful, innocent, were carrying baskets of grain on their heads, their contribution to the planned feast. They sang loudly, dancing as they walked, their hemp or grass skirts swinging around them:

We have met strangers who are friends

We have met family from afar

Daily the world spins

Daily it turns

And today it has brought us to you.

Nahas called to five Wheel Clan youths standing at the entrance of the Iden longhouse, then pointed to the Iden boys. “The fish in the lake are abundant now. Bring pole hooks.” He turned to his captains again. “The Iden male children must be killed also.”

“The little ones as well?” Cyrt and Psal spoke at once.

“Why kill the children, Nahas?” Cyrt continued. “Yes, the adult warriors must be killed but let the night take the little ones. We should not be as that treacherous clan and murder little ones.”

“Truly, this treachery offends me as well,” the king answered, sighing. “But caves abound in this region. Today, the young ones will surely search the place out and discover them. If we kill their fathers in the field, will they not know? Will they not hide within those caves and remain in this region? Will they not gather against our own stewards? If we kill their fathers in the Iden longhouse, will they not know soon enough?”

“You speak wisely,” Cyrt responded. “Yet, I wish it was not so.”

The king continued. “Every male three years and older must be killed. Wait until the second moon rises, when the Iden men are well drunk and celebrate the hunt. Do nothing until you hear my whistle. We attack…only when I’m at your side.”

Psal began walking away from the group. “Father, the Orian wounded await me in our longhouse. Let me be far from this cruelty.”

“Stay here, Firstborn. You must fight with us. You and Ephan both.” Nahas shaded his eyes from the yellow-white midday sun as they walked downhill toward two trees. “Firstborn, you wear both the studier’s cap and the prince’s cap. A chief must learn to kill…even if he has taken a studier’s vow.”

At the bottom of the hill, Ktwala approached and the king, smiling, took her hand. Together they walked toward the eastern meadow. Nearby Netophah spoke to Lan and Ephan, then he and Kwin led Maharai away, together with the Iden boys toward the western caverns. Fuming, Psal walked to Lan and Ephan.

“So they will kill the children in the cave?” Ephan said. “What Netophah spoke just now, that the king has commanded these innocents be killed…it is difficult to believe. I cannot—”

“He means for me to kill, Cloud, not you.”

“The air crackles,” Ephan said, looking about ominously. “Do you hear it?” He smiled, a sad smile. “These Peacock children are always dancing.”

Psal looked in the direction Ephan pointed. A little girl no older than three tugged at Maharai’s skirt and was swept into Maharai’s arms. They danced together, swaying round and round, as Maharai’s grass skirt swung around her tiny waist. Beside them stood Netophah.

“The heir stalks the daughter as the king stalks the mother,” Ephan said. “To love and to deceive all at once. It is a thing to learn, I suppose, if one chooses to become a chief.”

* * * *

In the far meadow, Nahas and Ktwala lay naked at each other’s side. Ktwala had asked him the reason for the corpses. He had told her of the war, how the women in all the Wheel Clan, including his children, had been slaughtered in one treacherous day. But the name of his enemy he would not speak.

Ktwala had wept to hear his tale. “A hard and long task, burying one’s dead,” she had said. And she had told him of her life and had answered his unasked question about the marriage tattoo.

“My husband lost his footing in one of the cold climes. He has gone to The Permanent Place.”

That morning Ktwala had dreamed a dream full of foreboding, a dream in which a great wheel rolled into the longhouse and crushed it. One of her brothers had dreamed of the Iden women marrying men from another clan. Her father’s interpretations had piled warning upon warning. How wrong they all had been! Each day brought surprises, of course. Fears as well. But Ktwala had not expected the pleasure of a sudden love. And now she had to steel her heart to lose the very love the day had brought. It had been years since she felt both the joy—and the fear of losing—love. Yet, if the day had to take Nahas, it could leave her with some good: some improvement in the clan’s tower science.

“When night comes, my Tender Friend,” she said to Nahas, “we’ll be lost to each other forever.”

“We need not lose each other.” He played with her graying hair, played with it as if it were not graying, and as if she was still young. “I lost one whom I thought time would never replace. I had not thought I would ever love another.”

“Not lose each other?” she asked. “Do you mean…you will…that our towers will meet again. Yes, yes. Do return to me. When our longhouse warred against itself, my father’s brother took all the elders with him and all our knowledge—tower science, herbal knowledge, all other knowledge too—and left us bereft of all wisdom. Family as well. We have not met our brothers again in more than ten years. And always those we meet, we never meet again. Who would have thought Odunao was so large?”

“Surely not all your wisdom was lost?” His eyes—sky blue and sky bright—examined her face. “Did I not see the old studier, Jion by name? Does he not know how to keen?”

“He was no true studier. And what he once knew he has forgotten.” Her fingers found the juncture of his thighs, wet, moist. A mass of red hair, darkly-bright like the sunset. “We do remember a few things.”

He burst out laughing. “I am glad of it.”

“I never knew a Peacock Clan woman could make a Wheel Clan king laugh so hard.”

“Nor I,” he said, and she giggled, like a young girl, surprised at love, surprised at being thought a beautiful woman again “I do not laugh as easily as I once did. But you, Ktwala, you could make a Wheel Clan king do anything.”

Naked, she climbed atop his body. His fingers played on her cheek, gently stroked her, from her neck to her stomach. She remembered her husband. He had been a good man, a satisfactory lover, a patient father. But he had gone to The Permanent Place and now her body rejoiced at the tender touch of a king whose hair was like the sunset in a winter sky, gray streaks against red.

“You’re silent,” she said, feeling his warmth inside her. “You’re thinking of your dead wife.”

“No, you’re thinking of my dead wife.”

“My dead husband was a very jealous man. If he were alive and found me here with you, he would cut off your…head.”

“I’m glad, then, that he is not here to cut off my…head.”

Laughing, she tugged at the curly hair between his legs.

“Woman,” he shouted, laughing. “you don’t need to hurt me. I am quite ready to do your will. But you are talking at the most inopportune time. Do you always talk so much?”

She intertwined her finger in his. “Everyone accuses me of talking too much.”

“Well, we must change that.”

“The Ever-Present One knows I cannot change my talkativeness. Many have tried.”

“You believe in The Silent One?” His words almost pitied her.

The Silent One. That’s their name for the Ever-Present One. She saw his pity, pitied him his unbelief. “I have heard you in the Wheel Clan are distant from the Ever-Present One, that you don’t believe in the Unfleshed Ones either.”

“Samat? And spirits who roam the world seeking to live in human bodies? No, I do not believe.”

“Tender Friend,” she began, but his kiss cut off her words. How warm his lips!

He touched her breasts, pressing her nipples with his thumbs. “Forgive me. I didn’t aim to mock. Of late, I always seem to mock those I love. It’s only…my people don’t think about the Silent One. Not generally. Bleeding, on the edge of a dagger, perhaps, but not generally. The Ever-Present One has always been silent to me. The Silent One was not silent to my father, but his beliefs were his own. Mine are mine. His belief made him weak at times, cruel at others.”

“He has been praised by many.”

Nahas looked past her toward the treetops. “Only the strong praised him.”

“Is it true that you kill your imperfect male children? We Peacock people would rather live crowded in a longhouse or add new rooms rather…than deprive a child of life. We love all children, no matter how sickly they are.”

“It’s a necessity. We have had to survive. And yet, I am not as cruel as my father was.”

He lay on the grass, stroking her breasts, and Ktwala—naturally curious and not one to stop talking once she started asked, “Would your Father have spared your son’s life?”

“Ktwala, how bold you are!” Nahas stared at her in wide-eyed admiration. “No, my father would not have spared my sons’ lives.”

“Sons?” she asked. “How many damaged sons have you sired?”

Nahas laughed. “One day I shall tell you, but now…to the joyful task at hand.”

“How happy life must be for you, Nahas! Visiting women from region to region, and not committing your love to any!”

“Ktwala, I have no women waiting for me anywhere.” He pulled her close, bent her toward him. “Indeed, I am lying here, your servant, waiting for you. And only you.”