Blood Ties (57 page)

The boy rarely left Anne’s side. Now, on hearing his name, he came up to his great-aunt’s bed, staring with undisguised interest at Gaka’s rolled over eye.

‘Do-ne,’ Gaka said fondly. ‘You must do something for me and for White Cedar. You must go to the council. You must take a message to my brother, Tangled. Tell him’ – and here she reached out and took Anne’s hand with her good one – ‘tell him I have had a dream. And tell him that I request andac-wanda.’

The boy’s eyes widened and he looked between the two women. ‘But, Aunt …’

‘Go, little one. Tell them.’

He looked as if he would speak again. But then he turned and limped from the lodgehouse.

‘What have you asked him to do, Aunt? What is this “andac-wanda”? Is it a powerful medicine.’

‘Oh yes, child. One of the most powerful.’

‘Will it make you better?’

‘Perhaps. But the medicine is really for you.’

‘And that is my thought on this matter.’

The war chief of the Turtle clan bowed toward the centre of the circle and then returned to his place, accompanied by the voices of his peers chanting, ‘Haauu, Haauu, Haauu.’ By this, his third hour in the debate, Tagay was able to distinguish the level of support within those chants. These were muted, merely polite. The Turtle’s desire to retreat to the clifftops and fight from there did not receive much support.

Despite the desperate nature of the situation under discussion, every speaker was listened to in silence, allowed to have his full say and each speech went on for some time, full as each was with the rhetorical flourishes, the delight in wordplay that Tagay had discovered was the essence of every Tahontaenrat debate.

As the Turtle chief sat, Tangled rose again. As overall chief, it was his duty to sum up the arguments put forward so far, incorporating the last one, and to call upon the next speaker to make his. As the subject debated was war, it was those chiefs, rather than the civil ones, who had spoken. Seven of them, one for each clan. Only the war chief of the Bear clan had remained unheard.

Tagay shifted. The wooden floor was hard and his limbs ached still from the fight. He watched as Tangled went to the centre, smoke trailing him like morning mist rising from a pool. He felt dread, a hollowness in the stomach, as he knew his turn had come, knew he was expected to put forward, not only his own view but that of the Bear clan as Sada had expressed it to him. The problem was only partly his nervousness at having to speak. It was mainly that his clan was as divided as the chiefs within the lodge. And a decision, Tagay had learnt, had to be unanimous. Consensus must be achieved, or a final decision would need to be put off. And that, in the present crisis, was unacceptable. The time for discussion, like the life of the Tahontaenrat as they had known it, would end with the coming of the full moon.

So Tagay strained forward through the smoke, watching Tangled, listening to his detailed summation. The options were to fight here; to fight on other ground; or to flee, either inland or upriver and into the country where their brother tribes already lived. Each option had its own merits and special problems. Hence the deadlock.

What had Sada said to him?
‘
Listen with your heart
’. Tangled’s sonorous voice drew him. His heart, which had been beating loud in his ears, slowed and he heard what was behind the even tone of the chief’s summation. Tangled wanted to go, to join their brother tribes who dwelt near the Big Lakes. Others had told how there was plenty of room there, good hunting and fishing, fertile land for their crops, all far beyond the reach of the Tattooed people’s war clubs. But how did you move a whole people, men, women and children, the old and the new born, along the river when their enemies’ canoes were thicker in the water than spawning salmon in a stream? When they would be overtaken as they fled?

‘And that is my thought on this matter,’ Tangled concluded. ‘Does anyone have an answer for this?’ He turned to Tagay, addressed him by his hereditary name. ‘Tonessah. Only you have not spoken. Can we hear your voice?’

The ritualistic words were succeeded by the sounds of the chiefs sucking deep on their pipes. As all eyes turned to him, he sucked deep too, as he had learned to do in his time there, and as his mind moved, what he saw before him changed. Figures emerged in the haze, drawn from memory, a voice from a time before. From when his Old World was young, as those who taught him there in France said the world of the Tahontaenrat was young. And the voice was of a monk, Brother Raymond, a gentle man filled with learning and the love of all things ancient, who had told the lonely boy stories of a world of heroes, of Troy and Greece, of Hector, Theseus, Jason. And there, before him in the lodge, heroes from those stories strode from the smoke. Huge bronze helms crowned in horsehair plumes rested on their heads, giant shields painted with stars, a leaf-bladed spear in one hand, a double-edged short sword at their belts. Two mist warriors clashed, he could hear the ringing of metal on metal, see the plunging spear strike home, hear their cries.

Another story came, of a Greek tribe, their land invaded, outnumbered, desperate. A small band of their warriors painted themselves as white as smoke so they could tell friend from foe in the deepest part of the night, and they went into the enemy camp where they lay dozing after their feast and slew them in great numbers, and in that slaughter saved their people.

So Tagay rose and told the tale as he remembered it. Told the council of the Tahontaenrat the story of the Ghost Warriors.

‘Let the tribe embark on the river. At the same time, let me lead across the water eighty warriors, daubed in white, ten from each clan. We will destroy their canoes where they sit on the beach, so that our people can pass in safety to the lands of our brothers.’

He paused. The smoke had cleared, taking the Greek heroes away. His knees suddenly felt weak. ‘That is my thought on the subject,’ he remembered to say, just before he took his place again in the circle.

For a long moment, there was silence. Tagay unsure now of what his heart had told him, waited for the ritual of politeness, the acknowledgement of his views and the inevitable moving on to the opinions of wiser, more experienced men.

Then the silence ended in a roar – ‘Haauu! Haauu! Haauu! Haauu!’ – and the elders were all on their feet, those nearest to him pulling him up as well.

Tangled came forward again. ‘The Hunter of the Sunrise has spoken well. This is a warrior’s answer to our problem. We cannot sit in our lodges and wait for what comes, like the wolf caught in a snare waits the singing of the hunter’s arrow. We must go out and prove who we are. For are we not the Tahontaenrat?’

Another cry of, ‘Haauu!’ greeted him. And more punctuated his speech, and the speeches that followed, as the chiefs debated no more but decided who would do what. Many men would be assigned to the building of the rafts necessary to ferry the entire tribe. Women would prepare the dried meat and the corn meal that would have to last the journey to the land of the Big Lakes. And several of each sex would be assigned a final, essential task.

‘For they will continue to prepare the Kettle, the Feast of the Dead,’ said Tangled. ‘We cannot leave the bones of our families, all those of our tribe who have died since the feast three summers gone by, to be picked over by the dogs of our enemy. The Kettle will be held, as we planned it, under the full moon that rises above us tomorrow night. And after each family throws the bones of their relatives into the pit, they will go to the water and board the rafts.’

The details were discussed only a little longer, each clan leader, for peace and war, knowing the area of their responsibility. ‘Is there anything more?’ Tangled announced.

The chiefs all looked around at each other. They were eager to be gone. Then the flap of tanned hide that covered the entrance to the lodge was thrown back and one of the warriors who guarded it and had brought tobacco or water when it was needed now came in. He went up to Tangled and whispered in his ear.

The chief raised his arms. ‘There is yet one matter,’ he said. ‘Though it needs no debate. Gaka, my sister, mother to some of you here, grandmother and great-aunt to many of our people, is sick. She has had a dream. All here know the power of her dreams, for many times has she helped the people with her visions. Now she has seen the only way for her to get well in this life or to journey in safety to the life beyond. So she asks for andac-wanda. She asks for it tonight, for her need is urgent.’ He paused, and a slight smile came to his face. ‘Tonessah, who she still calls by his nephew-name, Tagay, is asked to lead the ceremony.’

‘But I know nothing about this.’ Tagay saw all in the lodge turn to him, each chief with the same, slight smile that remained on Tangled’s face. ‘What is this andac-wanda? How will I know what to do?’

‘It is … magic. And I think you will know.’ The smile widened as he saw Tagay’s puzzlement grow. ‘Come with me, nephew.’ Tangled stretched out his hand. ‘Come and you will see.’

The evening star sparkled in a sky half-orange, half-blue. As Tangled led him from the council lodge across the central open space of the village, the chiefs scattered to their clans. Each cluster of people immediately began to buzz, messengers running from the groups to bear the news to the lodges where the evening meal was being prepared. Before Gaka’s lodge, his home since his arrival, Sada awaited him with the rest of the Bear clan.

Tangled thrust Tagay through their ranks to the lodge entrance. ‘I will tell you when I come back,’ he said curtly, before throwing back the skin that covered the doorway. But before he could push the young man inside, several young women ran out, each looking up to meet Tagay’s eyes, then colouring and looking swiftly away. He heard them say, ‘Andac-wanda’ to the waiting men. There was the sound of indrawn breath but the falling skin cut off further reaction.

It was as dark as ever in there, as murky, the one hole in the ceiling a poor exit for what the hearth fires produced. Tangled led him through to the end where, on a raised platform, Gaka lay. She was propped up now, lying on and wrapped in many skins, both beaver and bear.

Tangled flopped down beside her, took her hand, then spoke, his voice gentle. ‘How are you, sister?’

‘I am better if you have brought me who I need.’ She squinted up, her one eye fixing in the space before Tagay. ‘Is that you, nephew?’

Tagay felt tears in his eyes. In the short time he had been there, this woman had been his family. ‘I am here, Aunt.’

‘Sit beside me.’ She motioned with a gnarled hand. ‘There are things we must talk about.’

As he sat, Tangled rose. ‘I will return, sister, with the moon.’

‘You will take care of everything?’

‘I will.’ He sighed. ‘It is not as if I have anything else of importance to do.’

He left. His aunt’s gnarled hand seemed to be searching for something on the skin before her. Tagay took it, pressed it to his lips.

‘I cannot see you so well, Tagay. But I remember your touch. Did I tell you that when I first held you in my arms it was like holding your father again.’

‘My father?’ Tagay raised his head. ‘You … and my father?’

‘You know it is our way. A maiden may choose many until the day she chooses just the one and marries him. And your father was one of the best looking young men I knew. I thought, for a little while …’ She sighed. ‘But it was always my sister, your mother, Sonosase, whom he loved, who loved him, even as children.’ She squeezed Tagay’s hand. ‘But sometimes I remember him, his hand like your hand, his skin like your skin. And I remember these things well because he and I were called upon. He and I were andac-wanda. As you will be. For I saw you in my dream, when I journeyed to the lodge of my people in the sunset.’

‘Will you tell me what this is, Aunt?’

She began to cough. He swiftly raised a flask of river water to her lips. Much splashed down her, but she swallowed enough and her spasm passed.

‘You know how it is with our people. We live altogether here, so close, and it gives us much comfort to hear the breathing of our family around us in the night. But we do not hear anything else. Because we sleep, we eat, we tell our stories here yet we do not come together as man and woman within the lodge. We go to the woods, to the banks of river and stream, in the land above the cliff. It is a thing for two people alone. It is our way.’

Tagay said, gently, ‘I know this, Aunt.’

‘Well, know this also. There is one time, and only one, when we do not seek the quiet place away from others’ eyes. It is in a time of need, when a dream tells one who has visited the world of dreams that we need a special Oki, a special power, and that power can only be made by a man and a woman, together here, before the lodge. The calling is ‘andac-wanda’. Your father and I were called, once. Now I call you. Tonight.’

Tagay flushed, his hand suddenly hot in hers. ‘Aunt!’ he stuttered. ‘I am honoured to be chosen. But you are unwell. Should this not wait till you are better?’

The one eye regarded him, searched his face. The silence that followed lengthened, as he felt his colour grow, the sweat forming on the skin that touched hers. Then, suddenly, Gaka began to laugh, coughing and choking at the same time. More water finally calmed her, but the merriment did not leave her.

‘Oh, Tagay. You poor boy! You thought I …’ She laughed again. ‘No, nephew, though there was a time when a handsome young man like you … and I … but no matter.’ She used his hand to pull herself up from where she had sunk down in the bed. ‘No, nephew. You are called and a woman is called also.’

The relief mingled with a different feeling, which brought a further flush to his face. He had seen many of the unmarried girls of the village, many who were beautiful. His mind and body had been distracted by all the conflicts of returning to this world. But he was a man who had always loved women. When he spoke, his voice was lower.

‘And whom have you chosen, Aunt?’

‘She waits behind me, Tagay. Can you not see her?’

The raised platform on which his aunt lay was almost flush against the walls of the lodge. There was the slightest space created by the gap between them. Peering into it now, he saw a shape that must always have been there, a shape that, as his aunt finished speaking, rose from the shadows.