Blood Ties (53 page)

He looked again at all his people. Eyes averted, heads lowered. No one spoke for a long moment. Then Black Snake did.

‘I have a solution,’ he said. ‘Let Taviscaran and Iouskaha decide who lies.’

A voice called out, ‘Yes, the Twins!’ Another followed it, then another, till everyone’s voice was lifted, crying out the two names.

Anne saw Sada shift, unease on his face, felt Tagay’s grip tighten on her hand. She shouted above the swell of noise. ‘What does this mean, Tagay?’

‘I am not sure. The Twins are sons of the Earth Mother, Ataentsic, but …’ He faltered.

Sada leaned in. ‘They were the first men, the only ones,’ he said. ‘One good, one evil. They fought and the blood from their wounds created much that you see in the world.’ He raised his voice as the clamour around them grew. ‘When the truth cannot be resolved between two warriors, when all argument and debate fails, they must become like the Twins. They must fight. One must die. I have witnessed it only once in my life and then I was a child.’

Anne gasped. ‘Trial by combat!’

Tagay nodded. ‘It seems that the Tahontaenrat share more than Cain and Abel with your people.’

Anne pulled him to her. ‘Tagay! You cannot fight him. You are not a warrior trained as he is.’

Tagay turned to Sada. ‘Do I have a choice?’

The smaller man shrugged. ‘If you acknowledge he is right.’

‘So – no choice at all then.’

‘Tagay!’ Anne tried to retain the hand he was pulling away. But he withdrew it, gently, and stepped forward, as Tangled finally brought the crowd again to silence.

‘Tagay. Do you understand what Black Snake proposes?’

‘I do.’

‘And are you willing to submit to the judgement of the Twin Gods?’

Tagay looked at Anne, at Sada, at the identical look on both their faces. Then he turned back.

‘I am.’

‘Tomorrow then. Just before the sunrise, so that whoever is slain will die in honour of the War God, Ondoutaet, he who rises in the sun. Here on this field, before the whole of the tribe. I have spoken.’

The mob, with a shout, swept away, began to stream back to the cliff path, all save the clans who gathered around the two men. Anne was separated from Tagay by a wall of warriors. She looked for him, as his face came and went from her view. So concerned was she with keeping him in sight that she didn’t feel, for a while, the tugging of her hand.

‘Here,’ Gaka was saying, ‘here.’

Anne looked down. In her hand was another.

‘I saved it from the crowd. Keep it safe.’

She looked down at the skeleton, the six fingers. The touch gave her no sense, as it had so long ago, in that distant Tower, that world away, of the person the hand belonged to. She addressed her namesake, nonetheless.

‘Anne Boleyn,’ she said. ‘Oh, my lady. Is another man to die for you now?’

It was a succession of storms. The one that had guided Thomas to a lightning lit landfall and the saving of Tagay’s life had passed. A clear day had intervened, bright summer’s brief return. But that evening the air grew closer again, hummed and crackled with power. Thunder rode the sky, its deep explosions drawing the storm ever nearer. But somehow the rain always seemed to fall elsewhere.

Thomas was having difficulty sleeping anyway. He had returned, reluctantly, to the Nundawaono village, though his desire to paddle to Anne, to aid Tagay in her rescue, had been almost irresistible. Calm thought persuaded him otherwise, for a stranger arriving at a village going to war would be likely to achieve little except death. For now, he was better off near the man he’d been yoked to, like a reluctant coach horse.

Gianni Rombaud. However much Thomas disapproved of his methods, one thing was certain – his determination to achieve his ends was unshakeable. If anyone was going to get Anne back, it was her brother.

Throwing back the deerskin that covered him, Thomas moved out into night. The storm was coming in from the north-west, from the opposite shore. It drew him down a little path to the water. There was a smaller beach there, away from the main bay now covered with the canoes of the tribe and their gathering allies. More chance to be alone. To think. To pray.

He would not get that solitude. One boat was drawn up on this less accessible beach, a fire before it. It was the rowboat from the
Breath of St Etienne
, grounded on the shore, parallel to the water’s edge but wedged up so it appeared to float on land. Crouched in its bow was Gianni Rombaud.

He had heard the footsteps, even recognized them, for the sound of European boots on the path was very different from the soft fall of a moccasin. But Gianni didn’t stop in his preparations. He didn’t have much time, if this storm finally brought some rain.

He had carefully measured the saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, mixed it, wrapped it in a page torn from his Bible – God’s work in God’s words – then rammed it down the falcon’s muzzle. Now he crammed in such pieces of metal as he could spare. Fronchard, the ship’s sailmaker and gunner, had been reluctant to give him any of the remaining three-pound shot. They might need them on the return voyage. But Gianni had scavenged an impressive amount of scrap metal, dismantling the hoops of barrels, stripping an old kettle. He wouldn’t use too much now. This was just practice after all.

The Jesuit halted a few paces away. Gianni ignored him, squinted along the weapon. In the sky the loudness of the storm showed the centre was getting ever closer.

‘Do you really think this is necessary?’

The Jesuit’s tone was calm, measured as always. As ever it annoyed Gianni but he kept his temper. He was in too good a mood.

‘Necessary? Oh, I think so, yes. It brings me a step closer to my victory.’

He moved to the front of the gun raising a fire-brand carelessly near to look down the barrel.

Thomas winced. ‘You’ll blow yourself up.’

Gianni chuckled. ‘No. Only my enemies.’

‘And who are they exactly? It’s become unclear to me.’

Gianni moved back into the boat, checked the grooved runners, beaten from barrel hoops, that he’d fixed onto the craft’s front bench. The small weapon’s wheels would run along them, allowing for its slight recoil. A thunderclap burst nearly overhead. They could feel the downward pressure. ‘My enemies? Anyone who prevents me getting what I desire. Anyone.’ For the first time, he looked up.

Thomas returned the stare. ‘And your friends?’

Gianni shifted the barrel of the gun, lowered it slightly. Fifty paces down the beach another fire burned before some huge sheets of cedar bark, the walls of a dismantled lodge that Gianni had propped up with staves.

He grunted. ‘I don’t need friends. These savages are means to an end, that’s all. They further God’s will.’

He was ready. The thunder was so close and if rain did come, it could wet his powder.

Thomas leaned down, so he could still speak softly yet be heard. ‘Why do you think you can trust this Black Snake? He has betrayed his people twice.’

‘Twice?’

‘The people he was born to. The people who adopted him.’

‘I see. But I don’t need to trust him. I have something he wants.’

‘And what is that?’

Gianni smiled. Thomas nearly didn’t hear the single word he said because of a thunderclap directly above them.

‘Power.’

A flame applied to a touch-hole. A flash at a muzzle. A roar louder than thunder. A cedar barrier snatched away as if by God’s own hand.

‘Rules? There are no rules. Yes, one – kill or be killed.’

As Sada spoke, he hopped over to the bark casket where the tobacco was kept. Wiping the moisture from his hands on a deer skin before reaching in – they had been inside the sweat lodge for an hour and perspiration streamed from their bodies – he continued.

‘He is taller than you, stronger than you, more experienced … have you ever killed a man?’

Tagay thought. ‘Yes. On the island, I killed one who guarded the canoes. I didn’t think. I just did it.’

Sada grunted. ‘In heat like that it doesn’t count. When you have time to think … your first takes something. Your second something less. But Black Snake has this many scalps’ – he stretched his arms wide – ‘and more, hanging from his lodge post. Taking another is nothing to him.’

He hopped back, snatching up a taper of wood on the way. He sucked on the pipe, handed it across. Tagay sucked too before he spoke. He had discovered that, to his people, even the way to approach death must be conducted in calm voices, in contemplation. He had given up the choice of more sleep for this time with his cousin. In the sweat lodge, the only light came from the embers, Outside, the waxing moon rose to its zenith. The thunder clouds had moved east.

‘So what can I do against this older, stronger, wiser man?’

‘You can fight your fight, Tagay. Not his. No rules mean you can do what you want. You cannot hurl a spear or shoot him with an arrow. Beyond that, anything.’

Tagay coughed on a mouthful of smoke. ‘So there are rules! You mean I cannot stand in my oak tree and throw acorns at him?’

Sada pulled himself up, thrust his face close to the other’s. ‘Listen, Little Bear, jokes will not win you this fight.’

‘I am sorry. Then what will? How do I fight my fight?’

Sada settled back. ‘If he is taller than you, you are lower to the ground. If he is stronger, do not try to match his strength. And if he is older, he is slower, so use your speed. You are fast, Tagay, faster even than Otetian. Use that.’

‘And avenge Otetian’s death.’ All humour had left Tagay with the image of the man who’d died for him on the island. ‘He killed him, you know.’

‘I know.’ Sada’s voice was low, hard. ‘I believe all you say about him. But for the tribe to believe you must kill him. For then it will be the judgement of the Twin Gods.’

There was a scratching at the deer skin flap, a voice outside calling, ‘We have the armour, Sada.’

‘Good.’ The warrior rose, reached for the crutch that Anne had fashioned for him. ‘We will choose you a fine weapon. But first, you must plunge in the river. If you
are
to journey to the Village of the Dead, you do not want to arrive stinking like a beaver in the spring.’

‘I thought you said no jokes.’ Tagay rose and followed the limping man.

The last deer hide strap was tied into place. The clan member stepped back to study the result.

Tagay lifted his arms, jumped to the side, swung an imaginary war club. ‘It is still tight. It constricts me.’

He was encased in slats of yew, each two fingers in width, linked together with cords. One plate of them covered his torso, a skirt of them covered his groin and thighs. Smaller panels protected his arms and legs.

‘No, Sada, I cannot move in these. I thank you for the idea but …’

‘Tagay, if he catches you and hits you with his war club and you do not have this armour to protect you, you will be dead.’

Tagay was fiddling with the straps. Others of the clan came to help him. ‘I think, if he catches me, I will be dead anyway.’ The chest and back slats were pulled over his head. ‘I may keep this one that covers my fighting arm. And this.’ He picked up a small, round shield from the ground. Made from curled slats of kilned cedar bark, it was of a shape and size near to the steel bucklers he had practised with in France. It had two straps, one to push his forearm through, one to grip with his hand.

With many disapproving grunts the rest of the armour was stripped off.

‘And what will you hold in your fighting arm, Little Bear?’

An array of clubs had been laid out in a line. They were all similar, hewn from ironwood. Some had a grooved stone bound with twisted hide into their heads, while others were carved from one piece of wood, their ends a huge ball. They were all heavy.

‘What will he use?’ Tagay asked.

Sada pointed at one of the all-carved ones. ‘Except his will be twice the size to go with his strength.’

Someone said, ‘It should be half the size to go with his manhood.’ While they all laughed, Tagay came to the end of the line and saw something different.

‘What is this?’

The weapon was the same length as the clubs but not as wide, oval in cross-section. Red stained grooves ran parallel down each brown side. At its tip was a hawk with carved eye and sharp beak while its butt end had a fish. Just above that was a rawhide handgrip, sewed with sinew.

But what really drew Tagay’s eye was the blade that thrust straight down just behind and beneath the hawk’s head.

‘Steel,’ he said. He ran his finger down the rusted dullness. ‘How can that be?’

He knew his people had little of it. The blade had been taken from a knife and fixed into this club with a rivet and a circular nail.

Sada grunted. ‘Choose another, Tagay. No one knows how to use that club. No one knows where it comes from.’

‘I know.’

The woman’s voice was behind them. They turned to see Gaka there.

‘It was your father’s, Tagay – Hasdaweh, who was Tangled’s brother. He made it from a knife that he traded for a fur with the first of the Pale Thieves. It was said he killed a thousand enemies with it, though he and Tangled had nearly as many legends about them as the Twins.’

She came forward as she spoke, stooped before Tagay. ‘When your mother was taken with Donnaconna by the Pale Thieves the next year, your father lost all heart to live. He died on the next war raid. Tangled brought back this. I do not think that anyone has used it since.’

Tagay took the weapon again from Sada. When he’d lifted it before, it had felt good to his hand, lighter than the ironwood clubs with their heavy heads, a beautiful heft. He practised a slashing stroke, then a strike down. With its cutting edge and point, it felt a little like the swords King Henri had ordered him to train with.

His father’s weapon
. It felt perfect. But he found he couldn’t state that, or anything else, because something had moved into his throat. So he simply nodded his choice and tried another cut through the air.

She followed the light of the reed and tallow torch, though the moon was still bright enough to see the beach path by. But the torch was held aloft by Do-ne and it obviously gave the boy pleasure to have the title and function of ‘lightbearer’. He would not leave her side, even though it was known that Black Snake was locked into the seclusion of his clan. He was the protector of White Cedar, all knew that, and it gave him a status the limping boy had never had among his young peers.