Chapter 4

He found an answer inside himself, from who knew where.

“She is overwhelmed by being accepted, Numa. I suspect Sheila’s past life was one of always controlling her life as an individual, not linked emotionally to anyone, and she has just found a strong emotional tie to me and to you. It has been a powerful kick to her psyche, so she has to get over it. One way is through this burst of emotion.”

Numa took the woman by the shoulders and levered her off, to be face to face.

“Is this so, Sheila Newcomb?” she enquired gently.

Sheila nodded, unable to speak, but grunted, “Uh-huh.” Numa gave her a strong hug.

John commented, “A definite plus, Numa. Do you think she would now make a good wife?”

“Provided she acknowledges me as Chief Wife, I would have no problem with her as another wife equal with Noma. Would that be acceptable to you, Sheila, now that you have sampled our man?”

“Yes, please, Numa. John is just what I wanted, deep down. Every other male was too macho for me, but John is kind and considerate, as well as masterful when he has to be, when I want him to be. He makes me feel whole. I will like being a wife to him, I am sure.”

Numa assured her, “I have only been his wife for a short time, Sheila, but he is just what I needed too, so I think we can both get along with him, and we might even have our babies together.”

Sheila shuddered at the thought of motherhood, but it was a shudder of delightful anticipation, not revulsion.

They were interrupted by a call from the cave entrance.

“Chief! Something is happening.”

John immediately grabbed at his crossbow and his bolt belt, and staggered to his feet, his penis flaccid, his body not yet fully recovered from two bouts of lovemaking. Getting to the entrance, he looked in the direction of the girl’s pointing hand.

The squad of girls loading up the furs and meat had stopped their work and were back down at the stream, pulling something out of the water. Without a moment’s thought, John was running down to join them in facing whatever they had encountered.

By the time he arrived, it was out of the water and making a noise. The girls parted to let him see. It was a child, coughing and spluttering. At least not drowned, he thought with satisfaction. He took the child, and found it was a small boy a few years old, his teeth chattering with the cold. John knelt down and hugged him to his own warm torso, then he got back to his feet, announcing, “This boy must be warmed up before he gets hypothermia from the cold water. I’ll take him to the fire, while you girls complete your own task. Keep an eye open for his family.”

He led the way up to the cave, where Numa and Sheila were by now on their feet at the entrance, peering out. John ordered, “Wrap this child in furs and keep him near the fire, so he can get warm.”

Handing over the boy to Sheila, while Numa fetched a suitable fur, John returned to the girls who were now arriving with their loads.

“What happened, can you tell me?”

Gomla appointed herself spokeswoman.

“We heard splashing and frightened calls, and this child floated down the stream, half drowned. We thought he would die in the water, so we stepped in to catch him; it was not too deep for us. He could hardly say anything for the amount of water inside of him. We pulled him out, upended him, and tried to pour the water out of his mouth; then you arrived to save him, Chief.”

He corrected her. “No. You girls effected the rescue, Gomla, so YOU saved him. All I did was bring him to the warmth of the fire. You girls are the heroes of this event, so well done!”

She blinked, then realised that all the women were being praised for a brave action. It was unheard of for women to be lauded in this way. Only men could be heroes, in her tribal tradition. She corrected herself: In her OLD tribe’s traditions. In her new tribe, women could be heroes. She was astounded at how wonderful this made her feel, and she could sense a similar intake of breath as the other girls realised the same thing.

Being part of John’s Tribe was going to be a whole new and exciting world for them!

Numa collared John.

“Husband, was there not a parent about? This child is too young to be out here on his own.”

John whipped round to stare at her, and remembered his standard instruction to his women, to be proactive.

“Wise as usual, Numa. We must find the parents, if they are around nearby.”

He picked up his crossbow, and pointed to the spears they had gathered from the kidnap site.

“Noma, Gomla; pick up a spear each, and help me find the parents. Numa, you are in charge of defending the cave, if need be. Everyone else here, pick up a spear and think about how to use it if anyone was to attack us.”

As an afterthought, he asked, “Sheila? Do you know how to use a spear? If not, get one of the girls to show you how it is used.”

“I’ll soon learn, my love.” she replied. John beamed at her welcome words.

John and his two sidekicks set off. John gestured to the stream side of the grassy area. “One further up and one further down, and listen for sounds of humans. The child came down the stream, so the parents are probably upstream, but they might not be friendly, so take care.”

The stream was within the treeline except at the bottom of the slope, which was free of trees. John set himself to a visual scan, looking for movement of any kind. Within moments, Gomla waved to get his attention. She pointed to a spot higher up.

At the edge of the trees stood a man, looking frantically. Not seeing who he was looking for, he vanished back into the trees. The trio continued to watch and listen, and John could hear a slight sound of wailing in the trees. A couple of minutes later, the man appeared, wading down the stream, a woman staggering unsteadily behind him, wailing to herself. She was clearly very pregnant and extremely unhappy.

John guessed that they were the parents, and shouted to them.

“Hey! Your boy is with us!”

The man stopped his frantic searching, and looked up towards John. Having caught his attention, John repeated himself.

“Your boy is here with us, in the cave, getting warm again.”

The man, not recognising the crossbow as a weapon, headed for John, his eyes flicking between the two girls wielding spears.

“Is he unharmed?” the man demanded anxiously, with a threat behind his words, should the boy be harmed.

“I think so,” affirmed John. “My wife has him wrapped in furs by the fire.”

The man appeared mollified by this, but kept his eyes on the spear girls.

He asked, “Who are these women with the spears? They look dangerous, women with spears. It is not right.”

“I hope so; they are meant to be. One is my wife, one is my concubine.”

“Your wife? But ... oh, you have two wives? Great hunter, are you?”

“Great hunter, yes, but Chief of my tribe, too.”

“Ah.” He turned and gestured. “This is my wife. The boy is our son. He is four summers in age.”

John encouraged them. “You must be cold from that water. Come up to the fire and get warm again.”

“You can guarantee our safety, Chief?”

“I do. You are safe with us. What is your boy’s name? He was terrified when my girls dragged him out of the stream. He probably thought he was dead, but his squeals said otherwise!”

“He is called Tompa, named after my late father.”

“And you, sir?”

“I am Tarka, and my wife is Belory. She is of the Farfarers tribe, and I am of the Talltree tribe We were living with the Talltree tribe until the other day. What tribe are you Chief of?”

“John’s Tribe, and I am John, the Chief. We are small at the moment, but we are a powerful tribe.”

They arrived at the cave entrance, where Numa was cuddling the boy, still wrapped in furs. He was keening plaintively, “I want my Daddy! I want my Mummy!”

“Tompa! My son!” exclaimed Tarka. “Give him to me!” he ordered the strange woman.

She glanced at him in disgust. “If you ask nicely, perhaps.” John grinned at this example of his new tribe’s traditions.

Tarka stepped back, at this challenge by a woman. John laid a hand on his arm.

“Ask nicely, Tarka. In John’s tribe, women are important people.”

He smarted at this gentle rebuke, but recognised this was a different tribe. He began again.

“May I have my son, young lady?”

“Certainly, sir, as you are a gentleman. I am Numa, John’s Chief wife.”

“Hello, Numa. I am pleased to meet you ... I think,” he ended tentatively.

She giggled, but stood up, the boy in her arms, and offered him to his father. “Tompa, here is your Daddy, come to collect you.”

Tarka accepted the bundle, and the child wrapped himself around his father’s neck.

“Daddy! Daddy! These nice people saved me!” then he changed his line of attack, “I want Mummy!”

His mother came forward from her subservient position behind her husband, and silently took the anxious boy into her embrace, tears of joy running down her face at the recovery of her child. John noticed her pregnancy and gestured to Numa.

“My wife, please offer Belory somewhere to sit. She has a lot to carry, with a child plus a baby on the way.”

Numa jumped to the task.

“Belory, my dear, come and sit down on a stone near the fire. You need warming up and you need to take a load off your feet. Come and we can have a chat. You can tell me your tale of danger.”

“Your wife seems to be in charge, Chief.” Tarka’s words implied criticism, though indirectly. John knew what to say.

“A Chief has to know what is best for his tribe, Tarka. Is that not so?”

The man agreed, “It is as you say.”

“In my tribe, a woman is a valuable member and should be heard; sometimes her words should be followed, if they are wise. If you tell a child, ‘Do not put your hand in the fire’, these are wise words of instruction, but need not come from the Chief.”

“Your words are true, Chief,” Tarka acknowledged.

“If my wife tells me something I need to know, I should listen to her. Her advice can be very important if I do not know what I should know, such as that a certain predator hunts in packs of four, the Stripies being an example. Is that her being in charge, or merely acting as an adviser?”

Tarka stared at him. “You did not know they travel in packs of four?”

John admitted, “It is true. I am a newcomer to this land, so I am like a small child like your boy in many ways. I need to learn, and if my wives and concubines can help me learn, that will make me stronger and wiser. In turn, I know some things that appear to be unknown here, so I can do my own teaching. Take for example, soap for washing. The Farfarers tribe seem to know nothing of soap, except for the plant soapwort, but I know how to make it, at least in theory. We will have to perfect the formula, for it is more than simply lye and oil. One has to find the ingredients, and we do not have any plant oil.”

Tarka let slip, “I have oil in my pack, but I know nothing about lye.”

John blinked in surprise. “You have some oil? Do you want to trade for it? We need some to do experiments for the best soap formula.”

“Chief, you have given me back my lost son, so you can have the oil for free. It is only just. I cannot help you find the lye, though. The word means nothing to me.”

“In the morning, I will show you how to make lye, Tarka. It is a tribal secret that I give you freely, as a friend of John’s tribe. I only ask that you do not pass on that secret to your own tribe.”

“Now there is no likelihood of that, Chief. My Belory fell foul of the Farfarer Shaman, who is a monster in my eyes, so we moved back to the Talltree Tribe. I had a similar problem with the Chief over a dispute about what I made. We decided to find another tribe, and we got to here today. Thus we have no tribe at present, I am sorry to say. Do you know of any other tribes near here? Belory’s old tribe live some days from here, and anyway I am not sure if they would ever welcome us back, for I am not a hunter able to help feed the tribe.”

“What do you do then, Tarka, if you do not hunt?” John wanted to know.

“I am a Maker, which caused me a problem with the Chief. I make things that I think the tribe needs, or they need more of. That can be weapons, spear-throwers, fire-starter kits, even things that look nice when hung around the neck.”

“Oh, I get it: jewellery. Do you make rings for the fingers as well as neck ornaments?”

“Sorry. I do not know what you mean by ‘rings’: rings of what? Wood, stone, or something else. Baubles for girls are made by women. I make totems for hanging on the neck, using large teeth to show what predators you have killed; or polished stone things to put on display; stone things that look like an animal, but these require a special stone, usually green in tinge and worked and polished. That is difficult to find.”

“I think I know the stone your mean. We call it jade. There is an even softer similar stone that we call soapstone.” John was surprised at what he now knew. It just popped into his head. He added, “Soapstone is also heat-resistant, so you could use it around the edge of your fire; it will not heat up very much. I don’t know where that knowledge came from: I just knew it when I needed to say it.”

Tarka said, in a subdued voice, “I know of these two type of stones for carving, but not with these names. I did not know about the heat properties you mention. That could be useful knowledge.

Anyway, the Talltree Chief wanted me to make something that I had no idea how to make: I thought it impossible. You don’t tell a Chief that what he wants, he cannot get! That brings us here. Is there any chance we could join your tribe, Chief? What did you say is it’s name?”

“We just call it John’s Tribe, Tarka. We don’t need any fancy title for it. If you feel you and Belory would fit in, then by all means, join us. You will have plenty of females to mother your son, and also your new baby, when it comes. Would you like to be our official Maker – our jeweller, totem-maker, inventor and manufacturer, all rolled into one. I can probably give you ideas to work on. My idea with soap is as a trading item, but we could do with more things to use for trade. Perhaps spear-throwers? I only ask for what you can reasonably make.”

“Yes, I agree with your general concept. I would need to work on my ideas and bring them to you, to see what could be a trade item for this tribe. I should go and collect my pack from where I left it among the trees. It was too heavy to carry around on the search for our son.”

“You carry everything?” John asked in surprise.

“Of course. How else would I move it?”

“We used what I call a travois, on our way here. It uses two long sticks tied together at one point, with skins between the poles to support the load. There is a cross-bar near the top, so that a man can stand inside and push the bar. It produces a shape that is easy to push, with the two long ends of the poles at the back, dragging along the ground. It carries a good load without very much effort.”

“That sounds clever, John. You must show me how it works, then if we can make examples in such a way as to make it look very complicated, we could possibly trade some without the other tribes simply copying the design.”

“That’s right. There is no copyright law here; in fact, no law at all. Perhaps we should invent law, and make a good deal from that.”

Tarka looked intrigued. “What is this law that you talk about? Is it a new idea that you have come up with?”

“In a way. It is a method of codifying tradition, such that a tradition applying to all is laid down in detail.”

Tarka found this puzzling. “What would be the point of that, John?”

“For a start, in negotiations between tribes, everyone would use the same understanding of what the meaning of each tradition was. Each tribe probably has a different idea of an inheritance tradition, so if there was a case involving inheritance between two tribes, there could be confusion about the rules.”

Tarka could see the general concept, but argued, “I have seen that problem, but most inheritance is in one tribe, so the problems you mention do not arise.”

“Tell that to your wife, Tarka! You and she are from different tribes. Each tribe probably has different measures for things. One gourd may be one amount in one tribe, and a differing amount in a tribe that uses a larger or smaller gourd.

As well, it could be as simple as names. One person may be known to his family as James the hunter, but his friends might know him as James the Fool, and other people might know him as James the elder. If there are several men named James in the one family, how can you be certain which James is the intended heritor? If the old one has said, I want my tent to go to to my cousin James, the one that I love, and there are two James that could be meant, how do you know which one is meant? And what if he said ‘my better tent’, and there is not much difference between them, which tent is meant? Do you get the idea?”

“I see. Law enables clarity in the details. That sounds sensible and very straightforward.”

“It is, in the beginning; but when the laws become more extensive – and there will eventually be hundreds of laws – it takes an expert to know all the laws and interpret them. Then you need such experts to tell you what the law actually says, as opposed to what you thought it said.”

“That sounds unnecessary complicated. Why?”

“Because the complications gives power to the men who interpret law. It is in their interest to make it complicated. They could avoid that by making the terms of the law simple, so that everyone could understand the basics of it, and leave it to the Chiefs to sort out any niggling details later. You record what the chief decided, and use that as a guide for the next time a similar case turns up. It will be known as Case Law.

But that will not suit the men of law, as they don’t gain much return from simplicity. It is like hunters, who gain from their specific prowess. The men of law gain from their own specific prowess.

In complicated societies, the rulers end up with complicated laws, and the men of law have immense power and influence in such societies. Getting in at the beginning might be a good thing for us to do. We would be able to instruct tribes in what makes a good law.”

“But if you were able to tell the Chiefs what the law says, or should say, you are gaining power over the Chiefs!”

“Quite right. Handy way of gaining power and influence, eh, Tarka?”

“By damn, you are a fiendishly clever man, John. You think of completely new ways to run our society, without appearing to be in charge at all! Neat. No wonder you are a Chief of your tribe.”