Chapter 4

Then a thought struck her, and she sounded worried, “What will become of Trogo if I become your concubine, High Chief?”

John smiled then realised she could not see his gesture. “Nothing: he will come with you and be one of my children. I am happy to have him in my family until he becomes a man; then it is up to him what he will do with his life as an adult.

Maranga declared, “If you come to live in my hut with Delica, there is no problem, except Trogo might have to leave the hut for a time whenever John makes love to one of us ladies. The boy is a bit young to get practical sex education in front of his eyes.”

“Oh, that is not a problem. I could send him to collect firewood, or deliver a message or something, but I have not had that need for a diversion for many years. Trogo is a good boy and will do as instructed. It may also be that he needs to go for training as a warrior or hunter.”

“They go out at night here, do they?”

“I have no idea, but he could learn to do things at night, couldn’t he?”

John told her, “My own warriors learned how to fight at night, Decala, and how to fight as a team following orders. They are good at it now, but fighting is always a risk. Being a warrior is a dangerous occupation unless properly managed.

He can be trained by my people if he decides to be a warrior. However, he may want to adopt a different occupation: hunter or healer or cook or weaver or maker of things or leather worker; no-one knows what he will want to be until we ask him. He has plenty of growing time to think about his future.”

Decala declared, “If he is here, near his Chief, he will be able to make wiser decisions, and be guided by his strong new father. I am happy with that proposal, and I will be most pleased to bear the High Chief’s child.” She smiled at John. “I will try to give you a healthy child if I am spared, High Chief; hopefully a boy.”

John informed her, “Boy or girl, I will be happy with either. Another thing: my concubines get to call me John, Decala. I have already told Delica about that, and now you know as well. In public, it is High Chief, but in our private life, it is John.”

“That is wonderful, John. I get to be fucked by the High Chief, and he does it well; making a woman happy when he does it. Sorry, you called it ‘loving’, John. I will try to remember to say that.

Do I continue to call you Chief, Chief Maranga?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but perhaps we should use the same rule: in public I am Chief Maranga, but in our family life, I am Maranga, as long as you pay heed to me being John’s wife, not his concubine, so I remain at the top of our little family tree in this tribe.”

Decala insisted, “You will always be recognised as the woman in charge, Maranga. I defer willingly to you now and always will, even in private.”

“Thank you. Once I give birth to my own baby, I will expect you and Delica to help look after him or her. It is part of your duties as John’s concubines, and an honourable task in assisting your Chief. Most of the time we will leave the two of you to deal with your weaving, and I will guarantee that your cloth will find a user, even if it is in John’s tribe. If the quality is high enough, we might even be able to trade it for something else. Has anyone in this tribe suggested trading cloth?”

Decala told her, “Hmm ... not that I remember, and I am sure I would have noticed if someone talked about that idea. Why do you think that is?”

“Which?” interposed John with a smile. “You not remembering, you not noticing, or no-one suggesting trading?”

She blinked, then smiled. “Trying to catch me out, eh? That was funny, John. No, I think that in the past, trading was decided only by the Chief, and as Mongo was a man, he wouldn’t think about cloth, would he?”

“I suppose not, though for myself, I have to think about anything that might be a tradeable item. It may be because I am not a local man. I will get both tribes to start thinking along the way of trade items, for I am open to more suggestions for trading.”

Maranga interceded, “If other tribes make cloth, that might making trading with them difficult with that item, John dear.”

“True, but if our cloth was of high quality and had attractive and unique patterns, that might make it special and worthy of trading. Quality always sells. Do you put any nice patterns in your cloth when you are weaving, Decala?”

She stared at John in wonder. “No. I was never asked to make a new pattern, just provide cloth to the pattern of the tribe. It was their standard pattern for normal clothing, to denote the tribe we belonged to. Why would you need a different pattern?”

John gave a short laugh. “Fashion, dear girl, fashion!”

Maranga was puzzled, and so was Decala.

“What is this ‘fashion’, John?” Maranga asked.

He gazed at her in amazement. “You ladies have not thought of wearing clothes that are distinctive and unique, so that other women don’t have clothes to match you?”

“No. Does it matter?”

“It should do. In my era, fashion was a massive business all over the world. Once women get the idea of being distinct ... special ... more socially or economically important ... clothes become a vital way of showing that status to others. It may fall to us to invent the idea of high fashion that you pay more for, as it is unique to the buyer, or almost unique in most examples.”

“Oh, so a woman may appear more important because she has better clothes? Is that what you mean?”

“Only in part, Maranga. Women like fashionable clothes because these declare to everyone that you can AFFORD such rare and expensive clothes, and that comes from your family being wealthy and willing to display that wealth. They show how important you are socially and economically in your land. The same applies to men, but not so flamboyantly. A Chief will want high quality clothes to make a statement that he is the Chief – or she is the Chief, in the case of you and Numa. Every Chief will want noticeable Chiefly clothes to wear as a sign of being Chief, and being noted as such. Other high-ups, noticing the fact, will also want specially-made clothes to show that they are important people too. They will pay extra for unique clothes; the flashier the better in many cases. By flashier I mean colourful and distinctive in the quality and style of the cloth being used.”

Maranga mused, “I can see the advantages of special clothes to indicate the Chief. Do you think every Chief will want different clothes from other Chiefs? I would expect that to be the case,” she concluded.

Decala was overwhelmed at such plans. “Who is going to devise all the patterns and designs? I have never done this before. Daddy determined the patterns he showed me, but I didn’t get the chance to use them.”

John explained, “In my home location, there were special people who designed clothes that were unique; one-off, for people who were very important. These designers were well paid for their work. We can probably find an artist among our two tribes, an artist who can make designs for clothes: that task can include how the clothes are shaped or draped in the way they are worn, another sign of uniqueness in their society.

Colours can also be an indicator of high social level. I recall from my own history lessons that at one time the top person in a large civilisation wore purple clothes to denote that, for the logical reason that purple dye cost a great deal to make and apply to clothes. The dye came from certain rare sea snails, and it took extracts from many hundreds of snails to produce enough dye for one set of clothes. That made it costly, so desirable by the high-ups as it showed they were important and wealthy men. That civilisation imposed a rule that ordinary folk could not wear purple, to emphasise this distinction. A phrase, ‘being born to the purple’ meant being of the royal family of that civilisation and so allowed to wear purple clothes.”

“What’s this you were saying about artists, John?” Maranga asked.

“Oh, didn’t I mention it? I got Chief Numa to find out who in the tribe might be a good artist: making pictures on wood or stone, or weaving a picture with grasses of varying colours, or making a model from stone or wood. A lad from the fisher village showed us some sculptures he had created with seashells and we were very taken with them. He has the makings of a great artist. My thought was to sell art objects as trade items. It wouldn’t do any harm for your tribe to find some artists among you, Maranga.”

“I see some benefit in asking, John. Any new trade items helps a tribe. How do you want it done?”

“We arranged that anyone who thought they had talent in that line would make something to show what they could do, and present it to us for our opinion as Chiefs. Each item had to be marked to identify the maker, so that we knew who to get back to if we wanted more proof of their ability. If it is just a few possible artists, you can do your own examination, but if you get a lot, you’ll need more helpers to sort out the best of the bunch.”

“But how will I know what is good?”

“It will be obvious. If you find yourself saying, ‘I like this; or, this is good, or I can see what he or she was aiming for,’ that will be ones to set aside for asking for more examples from the artist. Some artists might be good at one particular type of image making, such as drawing, but others may be better at making models of animals and such – what I call sculpture – and others may be good at everything.

Once you have all that sorted out, you will know who to discuss art with further.”

“Very well, John. I get the impression that this is a tidy-up discussion. Are you leaving us?”

“Yes, soon. I have to be back at the other tribe before my visitor arrives from the Invaders. I would be pleased if you three ladies were to accept my loving a last time before I leave, so that I have good memories to take with me.”

“You mean, so you can try to ensure both your concubines are pregnant, as much as you can? As for me, I take every chance of getting your loving, my husband. Take care with your visitor: you are High Chief, so do not let him away with anything unless it is to your and our advantage.”

Maranga arranged for another carer to go and be there for Trogo, to allow Delica to return to the Chief’s hut for more loving. In the meantime John had another go at bedding Maranga and Decala, one after the other. Maranga insisted on being present to advise Decala on technique, based on what she had learned that John liked.

“As a concubine, you need to know how best to please our man, Decala.”

“Yes, please, Chief ... I mean, Maranga.”

Later, Maranga said to John, “I must get Brando to adapt the design of my Chief’s hut at the new tribal site. I want him to make it large enough to have three rooms for sleeping, one for each of us, and another room for you to make love to one or more of us ladies without disturbing the others.”

Two satisfied women were ready to greet Delica as she arrived. Decala told her, “I have been informed and shown how John wants his women to behave in bed, sister, so I will pass this on to you. We must both be the best concubines we can be for our man.”

“You are happy to be John’s concubine along with me, Decala?” she asked.

“I am. I have been told the rules, and they are good rules, ones that any woman would be happy with. Being sisters is incidental, if we have a good man; and I think we have.”

Delica gave her a quick hug to show her accord.

John promised that once he had arranged matters at his other tribe, that he would see about bringing Decala over as a teacher of weaving. She promised to practice her father’s patterns while she waited.

His trek back to his own tribe was uneventful, despite his careful attention to the wildlife around him. Nothing proved dangerous on the way, suggesting that stripies were now rarer. This notion caused his mind to move onto a new track: come to think of it, up until now he had simply accepted the presence of stripies, but stripies did not exist in his home time or at any time in his home world, so this had to be a different world that he was living in. Stripies were like a cross between tiger and lion; with tiger stripes, but lion pride or pack behaviour. Even so, working as quartets was not even lion behaviour, and if he was in Central America, lions and tigers did not exist on that continent in his native world. The nearest was the jaguar, but it did not hunt in packs either.

This was not Earth as it evolved in his world, but something similar to his world; not just a different timeline but also a slightly different evolutionary line. Humans had evolved here just as at home, thank the Earth Mother; witness his ability to impregnate local women, but not all animals and plants were identical to what he knew before. It was not only different names, for names were local choices, but slightly different genetics that were involved; not a drastic variation, but enough to be certain it was not his own Earth but another reality based on differences occurring millennia earlier at a minimum.

However, the other time travellers were also in this reality. Why?

One would expect a random choice of possible realities, unless there was something that applied to both examples. His mind pondered the question, and what had supposedly happened to the machine that brought him here.

After a few minutes he came to a conclusion. It was that even if the machine had been dismantled, someone in government had prevented the design documents being destroyed and archived them, so that years later someone else had come across them and had a new machine built. With the new machine being identical to the earlier one, it was susceptible to the same faults, so the human test subjects ended up in the same new reality, but at a slightly different time. That would be feasible, given that a new time machine, even identical in design, might have minor variations in the control unit. The final reality might be the same, but the exact time and place within that reality could be slightly out by a tiny amount. Over thousands of years, that minor variation resulted in a number of years earlier, but could just as readily have been later. It also changed the location to another part of the same continent, thus no interaction for many years.

He was pleased with his thought experiment, fairly sure it was pretty near the truth.

As he got nearer the cave, he switched his thoughts to art, and wondered what the tribe had come up with. He was determined not to denigrate early attempts that were very poor; after all, he was not the only arbiter of taste in art. Everyone has to start somewhere, as art maker or consumer, and if you have never heard of art before now, coming up with a wonderful first attempt would be phenomenal. The artists would have to be given training in techniques and materials.

When he was challenged as expected near the edge of the forest, he smiled at Jean and Raka, standing together with spears pointed at him until they recognised the new arrival. They both smiled and John greeted them.

“Hi, ladies. Operating in pairs now?”

Raka rushed to hug and kiss him, then replied, “Just to help Jean with her confidence, John my love. She knows the routine, but was hesitant about challenging strangers in case they were people she should recognise from past visits. I volunteered to be with her for a few of her guard stints, but it has been fairly quiet. I have told her about stripies, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of them for ages.”

“No, I suspect they have been cleared out for some distance around the local tribes, and no new packs have found this vacated area yet.”

The pregnant teenage Maker told him, “While we have been waiting around, Jean showed me how to make patterns on the trunks of trees with just dots marked in the smooth bark with a knife. She demonstrated how to make a picture of a human head by simply putting holes in the bark in the right pattern. Making the shape of a woman’s head compared to a man’s head is not easy, as both can have long hair. Is there some way that a face can be shown as female rather than male, do you think, John? Oh, sorry, Jean, I am in your way to welcome John.”

She stepped back to allow the older woman to come forward and give John a similar hug and a hungry kiss to show her new responsive attitude to her husband. John gratefully hugged her in return, glad that there was no holding back now. He thought about Raka’s comments as he stood with his arm now round the former FBI woman’s still slim waist, then shook his head.

“Not easy to do, I admit,” he said. “It takes a real talent to show a face as specifically female or male. In my time, hair styles, hats and clothes were the deciding factors for most artists, but the finest artists were able to picture a woman’s face such that you knew immediately that this was a woman. You know what I mean, Jean? Your head shape made with just holes is amazing, by the way.”

She ignored the compliment.

“Yes. Body shape with lots of curves counted for a great deal in identifying the sitter as female.: breasts, thin waist, and dainty hands let you know she was a woman in a picture. A few women were occasionally able to pass themselves off as men by strapping their breasts down. I remember a pirate woman was always depicted in illustrations with one breast or both breasts exposed to show you that she was female. Anne Bonny and Mary Read were the examples, I believe.”

Raka asked her, “What are pirate women, Jean?” The term meant nothing in stone age society.

Jean told her, “Remember John fighting that big ship some time ago? The men who had captured that ship and were raiding villages? These were pirates, in my meaning of the word. Pirates are like seaborne wanderers or slavers: stealing by force, instead of trading, to get what they want.”

“Ah. I understand. Not nice people at all.”

“You have the idea. Female pirates had one way of escaping justice if they were captured: if they were found to be pregnant, they were not killed, but allowed to go free. There was a general feeling that women were the gentler sex and if they were going to be mothers, they would no longer be nasty people!”

Raka laughed, “I am going to be a mother, but I won’t change from the person I am now. Why would any woman change because she is pregnant? It makes no sense to me.”

Jean admitted, “Perhaps it was for the good of the child. Having your mother looking after you at home is much preferable to your mother being in prison; or worse, hanged!”

“Hanged?”

It was a form of punishment for killing someone; you get a rope noose put round your neck and then you are hoisted up quickly, to either break your neck or strangle you as you hang there by the neck. It is not a nice punishment.”

“By the Earth Mother, that is terrible, but if you have deliberately killed someone, I suppose you deserve killing in return.”

“Yes. We started off talking about patterns and faces. Can we get back to that subject, Raka?”

“I suppose. But I got to thinking about clothes differences between men and women. Even our leather clothes have a wider top for us women. The men don’t need that space; their breasts are flat, so a picture of a woman will show her breasts to be prominent, unlike a man.”

“Need we talk about breasts?” Jean was sensitive on the subject, due to her sheltered upbringing.

“Of course we do. Breasts are important for giving milk to your children, and they are an attraction for your man as well. John likes playing with my breasts. Doesn’t he like yours as well?”

After a pause, Jean confessed, “Hmm ... Yes, he does like to fondle them. I was not used to that for a very long time, so I was uncomfortable at first when he pawed me like that; then I found I liked the feeling.”

“Being fucked is even better, I find. John calls it loving, but no matter what you call it, the process of starting a baby is fun. You enjoy doing it over and over again, long after you become pregnant.”

“Do you?”

“Of course. Talk to any of the others and they will tell you. But you are a recent addition to the family, Jean., so perhaps you haven’t asked about such details.”

“The only detail I have been warned about is being sick during pregnancy. It sounds horrible.”

“I haven’t had the pregnancy sickness times; not so far, anyway. Not everyone gets it, you know. You might be lucky that way.”

“We’ll see,” concluded Jean. “I’m at an early stage, thank goodness.”

Raka told her, “I am looking forward to being mother of one of John’s children. I foresee that we will be a major tribe in the future, controlling a large area without needing to use fighting and killing to gain power. Other tribes will come to us to ask to join the alliance that started with John’s Tribe and the Farfarers. It will be magnificent.”

“If it makes life a bit easier for me, I will be glad to see it arrive. What do we do about diapers here?”

“Diapers? Strange word, Jean.”

Jean explained, “The cloth that is wrapped round the baby’s lower parts, to catch the poo and wee when it comes out.”

John chuckled, and interposed, “I had better report in, ladies, so I will leave you to your discussion about babies shitting and peeing.”

Raka now got the meanings. “Everyone seems to have different words for dung and piss, but I see what you are talking about, Jean. In the past, young children just did their stuff onto the ground, when we had huts with earth floors. The huts tended to smell a lot, but living in a cave with a stone floor we had to solve the problem quickly, so we put the youngest children in leather pants stuffed with dry grass and leaves. Once they shitted, as John says, the mothers took them outside and removed the pants; dumped the messed up grass and leaves in the latrine trench, and put a fresh lot in the pants before pulling them on again. It works fairly well.”

Jean offered, “It would probably work even better if we had cloth diapers as pants. Cloth is easy to wash out if it gets peed on.”

John was by now out of earshot, so didn’t hear the comment about cloth, and proceeded to the cave mouth. Two more of his wives were standing chatting, and one looking in his direction spotted him coming.

Gomla exclaimed, “John! Welcome home, dear man.”

Gimla echoed her. “Great to have you back, husband. You have a load of wives needing your loving attention, you should know by now.”

John steered himself to meet the pair and kiss them passionately to show his enthusiasm. “How are your baby bumps doing, girls?”

Gomla told him, “Growing larger by the day, John, and starting to become a nuisance in much that we do. We will soon not be able to lie on our backs for you to fuck us in your usual way. We may have to back to the animal style, on all fours.”

“You have not noticed that sometimes certain of my ladies use a different position, where I am the one to lie on my back? She sits on my prick and bounces up and down instead of me doing the energetic bit.”

“No, I haven’t seen that, but I usually ignore you fucking other wives. My interest is in me getting that fun. I am willing to try that method. Did you know about it, Gimla?”

“I did see it happen, once. I thought it looked odd, and now that I think about it, will it not disturb the baby inside me, being shook up like that?”