Outlaw (12 page)

I brought my hands together in a sign of respect, bowing slightly.

“Come closer,” he said. “I would see what has caused me so much grief.”

Lela translated everything, even what I understood from the terms I knew and the context in which they were spoken. What she didn’t translate on the spot, she explained later that night.

We approached and stopped several paces from his bed. His skin was dark and clean; his nails were white and manicured; his hair was oiled, and sparkled like a starry night sky. He wore no golden bands or rattan, no jewelry at all. His well-muscled body was naked.

I remember staring at him and thinking that he was a beautiful man, particularly his face, his strong square jaw carved in black, his deep-set eyes. He was truly a lord in this jungle.

“Whatever grief we have brought you, we will repay a hundred times,” Lela said, dipping her head.

“Do you have a hundred lives to give? Then I might ask for a hundred deaths.”

He said it with the authority of one born and bred for nothing less than a throne, but I heard more in his voice. There was note of admiration in his reprimand. A hint of respect.

“Yes, my prince,” Lela said.

“My advisers demand I have you both taken to the cliffs tonight.”

With this single announcement my world crumbled. I felt panic well up in my chest. I should have known, of course. It had always only been a matter of time. I threw all caution to the wind and bowed to my outrage.

“Then you would lose the greatest treasure that has come into your valley since any of your advisers were born,” I said. “Tell him that.”

Lela hesitated, but did.

Wilam drilled me with a strong stare. “You know nothing of our ways. Kirutu’s hand was held back because he fears the spirits, but his bitterness knows no end.” He paused and drew a steady breath. “Butos will present Kirutu with a new wife tomorrow. The two tribes have threatened war if I don’t kill you before the feast.”

I held his gaze. Everything I had seen in Wilam told me that he recognized and admired strength.

“It was you who saved me, not them,” I said. “Now you will tell the world that you were wrong?”

“Watch yourself,” Melino said, but her tone wasn’t condemning. She was sincere.

Wilam offered a shallow smile. “I was curious, nothing more. But now Kirutu forces my hand and threatens to make me appear weak.”

“Then you called me here only to tell me that you’re going to kill me?” I asked. My mind was flaring with offense, and I knew I was speaking out of turn, but the desperation I’d felt upon first arriving was coming back, and strong.

“If not for my wife I wouldn’t have called you at all,” he said.

“Then your wife is wise,” I said. “You possess a great treasure in me. You must take full advantage of this treasure if you wish to defeat Kirutu.”

He chuckled. “So now the one our children call Yuliwam thinks she commands me?”

Melino mumbled something that I couldn’t understand. Nor did Lela translate.

Wilam stood from the bed and paced before me, arms across his chest. “Then speak. Tell this muhan how to conduct his affairs. Perhaps you could also tell me what food to eat, how to dress, how to produce many sons.”

“I could offer you a son,” I said.

“You believe I need you to produce a son?”

True. He was a prince. Surely he could have his pick of Tulim women.

“No. But a son from the slave you plucked out of Kirutu’s grasp.”

He eyed me, then went on, resolved.

“If I kill you as Kirutu demands, then he redeems himself and I look weak. If I don’t kill you, he has just cause for war. So I will neither have you thrown from the cliffs nor keep you. Instead I will present you to Kirutu tomorrow, as a wedding gift.”

My heart left me. I saw his reasoning immediately. By doing this he would appear both clever and compliant to the laws that governed them.

“Giving me to Kirutu—”

“Silence!”

“Let her speak before you consign her to her death,” Melino said.

Wilam hesitated. Clearly his wife had a voice.

“Speak,” he said.

I glanced between them, fully unnerved.

“You were right in seeing that I would be dangerous in Kirutu’s hands. If he has this treasure instead of you, he would surely—”

“Enough!” he snapped, snatching his hand into a fist.

“If you were going to kill me, why didn’t you just throw me from the cliffs long ago?” I demanded. “Your law demands that any wam who comes into the valley can live only if the council approves. Kirutu did not approve, but you showed great courage by defying him. Now you would throw away all of the value I offer you?”

He stepped up to me, took my cheeks between his thumbs and fingers, and squeezed.

“Remember whom you stand before,” he snapped. His eyes darted down to my mouth and I thought he might be looking at my teeth. He was showing his dominance, but there was also curiosity in his eyes. A softness that defied his tone, his grip.

“The value you once had to me has become a liability.”

He released my jaw, retreated to the bed, and sat down facing us, arms limp on his knees once more.

“Leave us. Both of you.”

Melino took a step forward and spoke before we could react.

“Is it true that you lost a son in the sea?” she asked.

I dipped my head. “It’s true. His name was Stephen and I loved him more than I loved my own life. He drowned.”

“Kirutu took his life?” she asked, surprised.

“No. The storm took his life.”

She nodded slowly. “My heart aches for you.” She cast a sideways glance at Wilam. “The child came easily?”

I knew what she was asking. “I was with child the first month,” I said.

For a few moments no one spoke. Wilam was watching me without interest. Melino seemed satisfied to let the statement work its own magic. I was thinking it would make no difference.

“Now I will bear Kirutu a son,” I said.

“Leave,” Wilam snapped. “Now.”

We left.

I MADE the journey south with two thousand radiantly painted and adorned Impirum men, women, and children, and with each step my worry grew. A hundred times I looked at the heavy jungle, thinking that I could make a run for it, knowing that I wouldn’t get fifty paces before they hauled me down.

Tulim law was sacred, based on spiritual beliefs that ordered every aspect of their lives, particularly when it came to outsiders. To wam.

Lela had explained this to me. The Creator of all life was pierced in the side by Purum, the maker of evil spirits, as they battled high above the Tulim valley. When the Creator’s blood spilled to the ground, the first humans sprang to life in his image.

Seeing his offspring, the Creator sealed the valley for protection. Evil spirits could not enter the Tulim valley, where all humans lived. But Purum, which also means crocodile or snake, tricked a woman into fleeing the Tulim valley. The woman was impregnated by a pig. Now the earth was full of her evil offspring. Wam. In their eyes I was one such descendant, and as such not fully human. Killing any outsider was only an act of justice. This is what they believed, to their core. It explained their bigotry and their isolation.

What had I ever done to deserve the terrible events of these last months? Why had God taken my son? Raised by parents who could not show me love, and then married to a man who’d treated me with disdain, I had sworn to give Stephen all the love that had been withheld from me. I had believed in a God of love and committed my life to all the right prayers and intentions. Although I had stains on my conscience, as everyone has, my heart was a decent one. Even a good one.

Was God angry at me, his child? Was this his punishment because he couldn’t love me the way I loved Stephen, without condition?

The questions whirled through my head.

We traveled in two primary groups: the lords and their entourage had gone ahead to prepare the way; the rest followed with great celebration. Only those too old or too ill to travel remained at the village.

Lela’s face looked like a blue butterfly outlined in white with her own eyes trimmed in red where the butterfly’s eyes might be. Yellina held my hand most of the way, skipping beside me with the three yellow-and-blue flowers she’d collected from the underbrush tucked into her hair.

I felt like a stone.

The trek was a long dance in and of itself. Men ran back and forth hooting and hollering; women sang and swayed, catching the men’s eyes; children hopped and skipped in their best impersonation. Ten warriors flanked me, along with Momos, who barked many orders to the children around me. Despite his self-imposed air of authority, his grandeur could not compare to that of the muhan warriors, who strode stoically, eyes always on the jungle.

But my mind was far away and my legs were weak, as much from fear as from the trek.

We were close to the Warik village and could see the smoke from its fires when a warrior ran back to us and spoke quietly to Lela, who pulled me away from the main group.

“This wife, Melino, must speak to you, Yuliwam.” She grabbed my hand. “Come, come!”

Wilam’s wife. To what end?

Momos sent away Yellina and the other children who tried to follow with a stomp and a yell. Surrounded by the warriors, we made our way down a separate path on a ten-minute walk that brought us to a clearing at the top of a knoll.

Below us the Tulim valley gave way to the flat swamplands I had once traveled bound and bagged in a canoe. They stretched out as far as I could see, so vast that I was at once reminded of the futility of any escape. Ever.

I was so disturbed that I didn’t at first see the throngs gathered along the edge of a large meadow far below us. They stood in two large groups opposite each other, close to the trees, thousands adorned in ceremonial dress, like a black sea topped with red, blue, and white foam. I could just hear the distant percussive drums and their low chant above the constant cry of cicadas and birds.

Kirutu was down there. When he learned that Wilam had brought me, he would surely fly into a rage.

“Melino must speak with you, miss,” Lela whispered.

I turned and saw that Wilam’s wife had made her appearance from the trees to my left. Her headdress stood a foot above her gilded forehead, a magnificent display of red and yellow feathers taken from a bird of paradise. A single band had been painted across her eyes and ran past her temples, and she wore a brightly colored red skirt made from the finer muslin-looking fabric reserved for the muhan. Otherwise her skin was her only covering. But what lovely skin it was, unblemished and smooth in contrast to the coarse jungle.

Among all birds in the jungle, the bird of paradise is the most royal, with its long, brilliantly colored plumage. But the male, not the female, is by far the most decorated among these rare birds. In keeping with nature, the Tulim men, not the women, wore the most makeup and jewelry. A woman’s glory was to be found primarily in her natural beauty.

Looking at Melino, I could see why Wilam had chosen her for his bride.

She stepped to one side, away from her entourage, and Lela led me to her. Her brown eyes settled on mine.

“You look like a wam who has come to meet her death,” she said.

“Perhaps because I am,” I said.

She nodded and turned to Lela. “What I say now, no one must hear.”

“I will tell no one,” Lela said. “I am only here because she does not speak Tulim so well.”

Melino shot a glance toward the others. “Walk with me,” she said.

We stepped gingerly up a path that led into the jungle. Above us a flock of parrots squawked. Sweat etched trails down my neck and my back.

“I can see that you are a wise woman with soft eyes,” Melino said. “The children like you.”

“They are beautiful children.”

She nodded. “As are you.” She stared up at the trees. “Among the muhan there is a knowing that one day a great warrior will come to reclaim the land beyond this valley and end the threat of Purum as far as the eye can see. Have you been told this?”

“No.”

“They say that the Nameless One is an evil spirit,” she said. “Sawim has declared it.”

“The Nameless One?”

“The man who spoke to Kirutu under the tree. Do you remember?”

“Yes. Kugi Meli?”

She frowned. “Did you see his eyes?”

I looked into hers. “Yes.”

“He came to me once. No one knows except Wilam and no one must know. It could be dangerous for me, you understand?”

Lela’s voice held a slight tremor as she translated for Melino.

“I understand.”

“He did not speak to me. He only laid his palm against my face. But I saw.”

We remained silent, bound by the mystery in her voice.

“He was not evil. He was something very different and very powerful. Something very good, I think. Perhaps he is the one.”

“The great warrior who will come?”

“Or perhaps he values your life because you will bear that great warrior. On more than one occasion I convinced Wilam to keep you. But he refuses to hear me any longer. He has his own power in his eyes, you see?”

So then Melino had been my greatest advocate all along. In that moment she became my savior.

“The power to rule,” I said.

“Yes. To rule. The thirst for power blinds them all.”

“Do you know what the Nameless One said to Kirutu?”

“Enough to make him leave. But Kirutu is blinded by his own power. Whatever he heard has been long forgotten. He sees only vengeance now. If he accepts you as Wilam intends, he will either kill you or force you to bear him children.”

I harbored no doubts.

She stopped and looked back at the warriors who were eyeing us, a hundred yards distant now.

“Wilam’s a strong man, bound by the ways of his father. His mind isn’t easily changed. There is only one way to save yourself now.”

A sliver of hope sliced through the darkness in my mind.

“Tell me what to do,” I blurted. “I’ll do anything.”

She eyed me thoughtfully, then nodded at my blouse. “Let me see your body.”

Lela was already unbuttoning my blouse. “This is good, miss. You must show your beauty.”

My blouse fell open and Melino looked at me for a moment before making the reason for her request apparent.

“You don’t look like a woman who has suckled a child. I must know the truth, how is it that you’ve given birth to a child?”

I understood the issue immediately. Wilam had seen me at the council meeting and had concluded the same.

“I bore a son but was unable to produce enough milk. I used a special…gourd…a gourd to feed my child.”

“And you were impregnated in your first month, as you say?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can bear another child?”

“Yes.”

“And the first child…it is dead?”

Two months after his death, the truth of it was still a knife in my heart. I could barely manage the answer.

“Yes.”

After a moment she nodded once, satisfied. “Then you must make yourself beautiful. And you must win Wilam’s favor before all the people.”

“I am wam with white skin!” I objected. “He sees me as ugly.”

“You are a woman! I know my husband, and although he pretends not to notice you, he is fascinated by you. I would have you become his wife.”

“His wife?”

The Tulim took many wives and concubines, naturally, but I’d been told that my being wam precluded me.

“There’s a way,” she said. She paced before me slowly, thoughtfully. “The rivalry between Wilam and Kirutu began when Kirutu was sent to the Warik by their father, Isaka.”

“Kirutu was once Impirum?”

“He is the son of Isaka, Wilam’s blood brother from another wife. His heart has been turned black with jealousy because Isaka sent him, rather than Wilam, away. Neither will bow to the other. If you are seen as something truly valuable, Wilam may risk war to keep you. Kirutu doesn’t know that you are intended as a gift. We must not allow Wilam to give you away.”

“You would approve of Wilam taking me as his wife?”

“I fear that I will never bear a child,” Melino said, staring off into the jungle. “I will always be the lesser of any Tulim wife who does bear him a child.” She set her jaw and turned to me. “But if he has a son from you at my request, I will be as worthy.”

Melino was as shrewd as her husband.

I didn’t understand the complexities of how childbearing influenced a woman’s status within Tulim society, but I caught the essence of her suggestion. She stood to gain considerable prestige if I could bear Wilam a child. I would be her surrogate.

My child might be more important than any other child in her view. The great warrior who was to come.

“Then tell me what to do,” I said.

“My servants will make you beautiful. You must win my husband. It’s the only way.”

“Then I will try,” I said.