Chapter Nine: Child's Play

Ottavar woke on the third morning since their arrival at the Summermeet. His mouth was dry and his right arm was cold. He had dragged the hide over when he rolled onto his back in his sleep. His left side was cozy enough. Turning his head that way, he got his nose full of hair. It smelled pleasantly clean, at any rate. Radovin lay there like a child nestled at his mother's side, his head on Ottavar's shoulder.

He tugged the warm fur back over and moved his cold arm onto his chest; he wasn't quite ready to get up. His unconscious bedfellow made a muffled sound and squirmed up tighter. Ottavar had a flash from his last dream, a memory of sharing a bed with his grandfather in a small tent. They had gone off together to talk over Ottavar's interest in joining the ranks of the Dedicated--and to "do some serious fishing," as Kayotar put it. During that short camping trip he had declared his intention to dedicate himself completely.

Kayotar had halted him when he spoke of making a vow then and there. "Don't swear yourself into a hole, Ott," the old man said. "Leave your options open. A vow is as permanent as a tattoo. You're very young. Learn what it means to serve before you do anything you might regret later. It's a heavy responsibility, you'll be making decisions that affect other peoples' lives." Then he took Ottavar on his first guided visit to the Spirit World. It hadn't discouraged the young seeker one bit, but it did make him think. He had lain awake for some time after Kayotar was asleep, and then slept curled up close to his grandfather.

It made him think now. His mind rambled vaguely and he drifted near sleep. A sharp squeal of laughter jarred him out of his reverie. Havener and Anella thought something was funny. Ottavar roused his lagging motivation with some help from his full bladder and slithered out of bed, leaving Radovin half awake and looking bewildered. He grabbed his breechclout and hastened out the back way.

Though still cool in the early morning, the air had lost its bite. Summer was here at last. Dark clouds loomed over the southern horizon where flickering sky-fire had danced for two nights now. The storms of summer were unpredictable, but today there was no dew on the grass and a bloody tinge lingered in the eastern sky. Clear blue overhead held off the imminent promise of rain for a while. They had plenty of time to build a fire in the roasting-pit and tuck in the venison Tano and his sons and Baz had brought in yesterday. Once the pit was closed, rain could fall if it liked. Nothing would spoil their dinner.

When Ottavar went back in, most of the band had sat down to eat. He saw Radovin receive a portion of the breakfast broth. The scrawny youth avoided conversation or eye-contact with anyone; nodding, mumbling, and slipping away into a shadowy niche. Ottavar got his own bowl filled, along with a few words from his mother about staying up too late. She said nothing aloud about Radovin. He answered the question in her eyes with a shrug.

"Your eyes look like spear-holes in a bad hide," Lovaduc said beside him. The headman was in line for a refill already, idly tapping a fingernail on his empty bowl.

"Euhh. Thanks. I'll be a good boy tonight, I promise." They retreated a few steps from the hearth when Lovaduc's bowl was filled. Ottavar frowned as he caught another glimpse of Radovin, who was consuming the savory broth as if it were just another chore to get over with. He could understand developing a habit of concealing one's thoughts and feelings in Ivergan's presence. But Radovin should be rejoicing in his freedom, not looking as if...what, as if he were going to die tomorrow?

"What did Hacaben have besides hucha to keep you up so late, ah?"

Lovaduc's question jerked his attention back. "Some vague ideas...people who might speak up against their beloved leaders if somebody else speaks up first. It's not as bad as it sounds, I suppose. He thinks there's a good possibility of a stampede if we get the right one going. I wish we could get a better idea of how they really feel, though, and who would be best to call on."

"Yeah. Say this, think that. One more day to work at it." Lovaduc's blob of a nose wrinkled in displeasure. "It's a good thing Moshevar is presiding, we'll get a fair hearing."

Ottavar made a wry face. "Yeah. But that means Hac can't step out too far either." As spiritual head of the leading band, Hacaben would have to hold back overt support. Of course Ivergan would be ready to twist everything they said no matter what, and make his own side look good. Ottavar also suspected him of undue use of magic to enhance his persuasiveness. While it was not considered immoral to ask the spirits for help in a debate, controlling people without their knowledge was looked on with great disfavor. Exposing his chicanery on short notice, though...vahé. They didn't have enough problems?

"Hmph. Well, let's sit down, eh? The broth is getting cold." Lovaduc returned to the long stuffed hide he shared with his mate. Ottavar sat on a smaller cushion beside them, trying to get rid of the glum look he could feel clinging to his face. The soup helped. Islands of rich marrowfat floated on top. Just enough ash had got into it, and there was plenty of garlic.

Sherilana peered around Lovaduc. "Good morning, Ott. No, Tookie," she said to the little girl at her other side. "You finish your breakfast. Then you can ask Rado to play with you."

"A'right, Mama." Tucali put on her "good little girl" face and sipped noisily.

Lovaduc smiled indulgently at his littlest. "No problem keeping Tookie out of trouble," he said to Ottavar, making a subtle gesture toward Radovin. "Guess we'll have to keep him," he added with a wink.

"Children!" Ottavar exclaimed.

"Ah?"

"We've been talking to the wrong people. Lovo, Sheri, would you mind if I ask Jero and Havo to help out? And Karina, maybe Anella?"

A grin spread wide on Lovaduc's face. "Hah! Of course. Kids hear everything. And tell each other everything. D'you think they can keep from letting out too much, though?"

Ottavar shrugged. "The meeting is tomorrow. We haven't got that much time before the boar is out of the bushes anyway."

"What if--they--find out and...." Sherilana frowned.

"We'll be careful. It'll just be for a little while, we're not going to push it. I don't think there'll be time for any trouble to start. The other kids wouldn't blab anything until dinnertime--if they go home to eat. You know how it is, once they've formed their packs."

Sherilana nodded, a smile easing her maternal worry-lines. Children loved to hang out with others their own age after being cooped up with family all winter; it was normal for them to show up at home only at meal-time, if even then. Often as not they would grab cold leftovers or a bit of meat right off a drying rack and run back to play. Everyone watched out for them, and the older ones watched out for their younger siblings when the grandmothers needed a break.

Ottavar continued, "I'll get things started and have a word with Hacaben, tell him what we're up to, then I'll come back and get Tiwa. Hai, Sumi, do me a favor, ah?"

Jesumi broke off her conversation with Sabani and Kewarratiwa. "Yes?"

"Would you go tell Balekara--or Damagi, whichever is there--that I'll be bringing Tiwa over at high sun, please-thank-you."

"Oh, I suppo-o-ose so," she replied with feigned reluctance.

"Thank you. If I'm not here when you get back, I'll be over at the Greatbuck's, probably in Hacaben's tent."

"Ott...."

"Hmm?"

"You should slow down a little, you look like you hardly slept last night," Jesumi said, her voice softer. Ottavar rolled his eyes, and she laughed.

"Hai! Three hoops in a row--you're getting good," Jerevan said.

The praise made Havener's back straight as his spear. He tossed his head, flipping sunbleached hair out of his eyes. "Shugo, you try an' beat that, ah?"

Shugonar stepped up to the mark scratched in the trampled earth. He tucked his spear under his arm, spat on one palm, and rubbed his hands together.

Jerevan caught the hoops one by one as another boy tossed them back. The effort caused his stiff muscles and bruises to complain. In another day or so he'd be limber enough to show off with a spear, but tossing hoops was easy. He knew he was good, anyway; he'd prove it soon enough in a real hunt with the men. "Whenever you're ready," he called to the boy at the throwing-line.

Shugonar held his spear ready. "Toss it, Jero," he called. An eye-blink later his spear thunked into the ground a hair's width ahead of the rolling hoop, which leaped wobbling into the air.

"Aw, almost," Havener said. Shugonar stalked out to get his spear and came back to wait for his next turn. "Do you want someone else to roll the hoops, Shugo?"

Jerevan waited, hoop in hand, two more hanging from his left wrist. He held down a smile; Havo was making sure no one thought he had an unfair advantage.

Shugonar shook his head. He poised for the next toss, lips firm and straight, brows pulled down in concentration. Jerevan rolled the hoop out across the playing field. Shugonar cast his spear decisively. The spear embedded its fire-hardened point in the soil and the hoop spun once around it, trapped.

"All right!" cried Havener. Shugonar's band-mates and several other boys who were watching clapped their hands high over their heads and stamped on the ground. Shugonar's chest puffed out a bit as he retrieved his spear.

Jerevan watched his brother and their friend from the Bull band out of the corner of his eye while he readied the next hoop. He hoped this stalking-blind scheme would help. Too bad people likely wouldn't believe what Radovin said right off. Would they if he were the son of a headman? Probably. People could be dumb.

Radovin worried him, the way he was acting. "Crawl into a hole and pull it in after you" the saying was, and he'd never seen a truer example. Or a deeper hole, and Rado hadn't crawled in, he had dived. Speaking of holes, he wondered where Gambasor was hiding out. Silly kid. Anybody can be a little scared once in a while.

"Does she really?" Anella giggled at Ponikeli's imitation of Ambelda's hip-waggling walk.

"Yes. Mama got mad at me for laughing at the Feast, but she laughs when Belda-mada can't hear her. Hai, here's Meli now. Show Nella your scar, ah?" Ponikeli waved to a girl of ten summers who held the hands of a smaller boy and girl.

"Oh, Meli, that must have hurt!" Anella exclaimed when Melina bared her thigh.

"Yeah, I cried. It hurt taking out the pieces, there were a lot of big slivers."

"She hollered like ever," the boy piped in.

Melina gave her brother's hand a jerk. "Oh hoosh, Niko, you yelled just as loud when you whanged your thumb playing flint knapper."

Niko stuck out his tongue and got ignored. "I wanna go play with the big boys," he whined. "I don't wanna hang around with girls."

Karina stepped in. "Melina, I could take him over to where the boys are playing. Havener could watch him for a while. He wouldn't let him get hurt."

"Would you? Thank you. I hope Havener doesn't mind."

"He won't. Come on, Niko." Karina held out her hand and the little fellow took it happily.

"Thanks, Rina," Anella and Melina chimed together. Karina hastened away, towed by a bouncing Niko.

"Does it still hurt?" Anella asked Melina.

"A little, when I stretch it, and it's tender to touch. Rado said it would be for a while. Looks awful, doesn't it?"

"Who's Rado?" Anella tried to look and sound ingenuous.

"A sort of...um...healer we had." Melina frowned. "Not a shaman...exactly...but...."

"Rado ith nice." Melina's little sister stopped sucking on her thumb long enough to make the shy observation.

"I thought Ivergan was the only one of the Dedicated serving the Bull band," Anella said.

"Well, he is now, but Rado was an apprentice, sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Yeah, he didn't let him do much, except some healing, just using herbs, you know. He was supposed to be bad luck, see. Ivergan-anu kept him to teach and to get him, like, fixed? I don't know. Rado said once when I asked him that if he was real good and learned everything perfect maybe he could get unstuck from the bad luck and Ivergan would make him a real shaman."

"How come he let him do healing, if he was s'posed to be bad luck?"

"Mama says it's 'cause--" Melina glanced around to see who was listening. "Ivergan's a lousy healer. He's an old grouch, too. Rado was nice, and he could make you feel better just talking. He had a charm on him to make him safe. And he didn't--wasn't supposed to--call spirits or any of that. Just use herbs. Anybody can do that, I guess, if they know enough. Rado was smart."

Ponikeli laughed, short and humorless. "My Mama thinks Ivergan is a big fart, but she won't say it where he can hear. Rado was weird, though. But all the little kids miss him. And he was a good healer."

"What happened, did he die?" Anella thought she was doing rather well at this odd game.

"He ran away." Ponikeli said. She sounded bitter. "Bodisar-nabu says that he made my great-grandmama Vezanidi fall and that's why he ran off. But I don't believe that. Gran-gran liked Rado. He helped her with her bone-aches. She always said that he ought to be initiated properly, but Ivergan told her to keep her nose out of spirit business. I don't know about the bad luck. If you ask me--"

"Your Mama doesn't like Ivergan, ah?"

"Mamari, Nella, nobody likes him, except Bodisar and Ambelda. He's scary and he doesn't like kids. All shamans are scary."

"Ottavar isn't," Anella retorted. "He's nice. And so's Hacaben."

"You're lucky," Melina said. "All we ever see is sour old Ivergan. I wish everybody had been nicer to Rado, maybe he wouldn't have run away. But Ivergan wouldn't let him talk to anybody if he wasn't, you know, doing something, healing or fetching stuff. He--um, used to hit him a lot. And nobody was supposed to talk about him, either, 'cause the spirits hear everything and we'd catch the bad luck. Doesn't matter now he's gone. I wish...."

"He snuck around all the time," Ponikeli put in, "like he was...trying to be invisible. Kind of creepy." She made a wry grimace. "I guess I would've too, if I was him. But the little kids would catch him and make him tell stories."

"Yeah, and I saw you hanging around listening, Keli." Melina laughed.

Ponikeli, technically a woman since last summer, sniffed and tossed her head. "You were always right there, and you're not such a baby any more. Another couple of years you'll be a woman too. Then see what fun you'll have." Her face looked like she meant the opposite of fun.

"I have to watch Niko and Tami when Mama's busy," replied Melina smugly.

Sherilana sat under one end of an airy woven cattail awning supported by a framework of rickety poles and the north side of the big tent. She had bundles of water-soaked withies and grass from which she was rapidly weaving simple, wide baskets. Her other excuse for staying home was to help guard Kewarratiwa. That could have been left to Zhamavi, but she had taken Tucali down to the pool to bathe and get rid of some of her excess energy. Jesumi kept Tiwa company inside for now. Radovin was no fit companion for anyone, sitting there all wrapped up in himself. She shook her head at that. Ottavar had a job cut out for him there.

Lovaduc had gone a-visiting. One couldn't put off social chores forever without arousing suspicion. His sister Brinavisti and the other women had gone across the circle to trade basketry designs and news with the women of the Bison band. They took their digging sticks along, though if the weather continued to look threatening they wouldn't leave the camp. Except for Bazenaber, the rest of the men had dispersed as well, to talk of trade and hunting. Baz sat beneath the other end of the sunshade, peeling bark off potential spear shafts. His main purpose was to help keep an eye on things. The headwoman was comforted by his presence.

She gazed intently over the broad center of the campground. Jerevan was still playing hoop-and-spear with a gaggle of boys. He couldn't be kept down long, bruises or no. She smiled, and sighed--to think that her first boy would soon be a man.

The girls had congregated down by the sweat lodge, mostly out of sight from here but close enough to the Grouse band's tents. It seemed as though Ottavar had been right; no adults were taking any interest in their doings. The only disturbing event so far had been the arrival of a group of hunters from west of the creek a short time ago.

That had given her a case of the willies. The five men had crossed the stream at the near ford, just behind the White Horse camp, and passed between their tents and the Greatbucks'. Pavolen had given Sherilana a curt greeting and an unpleasant look, rudely ignoring Bazenaber, who ignored him right back. She shuddered again. Neither she nor Baz had been watching that way, though they could see well in both directions from here. They were not accustomed to thinking of their fellow human beings as enemies. The Good Spirits forbid!

She closed off the edge of her third basket. They were simple carriers for dishwashing and other chores, made to last a few moons at most. She nested the baskets and got up to take them inside. The approaching clouds made her glad she had racked the drying meat inside, even if Lovo had to duck all the time.

"Tchah! You look like you've seen a bahoga," Jesumi said, looking up from her sewing as Sherilana entered.

"I did. That defiled Pavolen and his band of scavengers came back from their hunt. Empty-handed," she added with a grim smile and nod toward Radovin.

Jesumi's eyes widened. "Thank the Good Ones it was just me and Tiwa talking in here. I didn't notice anything from outside. We should have some kind of signal."

"I know." Sherilana sighed deeply. "I hope we don't have to get used to this sort of thing."

"Vahé!"

"My people always keep watch," Kewarratiwa said. "Not much good it does, some times." Her eyes turned to Radovin, who sat cross-legged in front of the painted hide that concealed the shaman's accessories, as still as if he were painted there.

"It's terrible," Jesumi declared. "I just can't understand how they could let things like that go on! As if it was right just because Bodisar-nabu"--she made the honorific sound like an insult--"says so, and it's his son doing it. And that mother-defiling disgrace to the Dedicated--pah!"

Sherilana nodded. "People like to avoid trouble. That's what makes most of it, Kayotar always said. I think he's being proven right." She reached up to pinch one of the pieces of drying meat on the hanging racks. Not too bad, but it should be drying faster. Better get the fire going a little better in here, warm or not. Badly cured meat could attract spirits that cause sickness. She sniffed her fingers. All right so far. Would rain blow in the smokehole? No, Lovo had rigged the cover close, and the angle should be right.

"A bad leader is punishment itself," Kewarratiwa said. "But for all people, for the good more than those who wish ill upon others. Like in story I tell you, you remember that, Sumi?"

"Yes, about the animals that chose the wrong leader. We have a story like that too."

"Yes, and we shall hope when they see what is wrong, they will blame not only the headman and shose wrong again."

"Choose," Jesumi corrected her. "Yes, I suppose you're right, they may--oh, why are people so stupid sometimes?"

Kewarratiwa replied to her rhetorical question. "Because they are afraid, and fear makes more fear. Always it is so. Your grandfather, he was a wise man. I would like to have knowed him. Ottavar, he onderstand. He is wise too." She smiled softly.

Jesumi hugged her sister-to-be.

Havener took over the little Bull band boy with a resigned shrug. Anella would be pulling his hair if he didn't. It wasn't a big deal. The hoop-spearing game was informal today, no one was really keeping score. Serious competition never began until levels got sorted out. That would be soon now that all bands had arrived. Havener figured that he was assured of a good standing this year, with boys a year or more older, thanks to diligent practice and his brother's coaching.

He moved back into the irregular line of watchers that also served to catch unspeared hoops and toss them back. Jelko was at the throwing line now. He had been pretty good last year. So was Shugo, though kind of distracted today, but he was in higher spirits after making his own three in a row.

"You got stuck with the pup, ah?" Shugonar rumpled Niko's hair and grinned at Havener.

"Yeah. My sister--hai!--no you don't!" Havener caught a desperate handful of Niko's loose sleeveless tunic just in time to keep the boy from running out and competing with the hoop as a target.

"I wanna spear too!" Niko jumped up and down in place.

Havener saw Jerevan grinning at him. Little sisters weren't so bad after all. "I'll let you use my spear, Niko. You can take a turn after Jelko, before me. Be quiet now, or everybody will think you're a big baby."

"I am not--" Niko started, but shut his mouth when Havener put a finger to his lips and raised his eyebrows.

"There's Pavolen and his pack of jagals," Shugonar said, head turned toward a group of hunters crossing the common ground. "Looks like they didn't catch anything." His lips sucked in and pressed together tightly for a moment. He looked down at Niko, then back at the passing group. "I'm glad."

"Eh? Why?" Havener gave him a puzzled look, then a sick feeling that he knew what, or rather who, they'd been hunting grabbed his stomach.

"They weren't hunting meat." Shugonar looked disgusted. He kicked the ground with his toes. "My own brother, with that bunch of crap. I wouldn't go back with 'em if they did catch him. I'd join another band. I've got an aunt in Grouse band."

"Uh...catch who?" Havener pretended ignorance as best he could with his heart jumping in his throat. He hadn't realized that Shugo's brother was one of the raiders. Coming in right past their tent--Bogu vahé!

"Radovin."

"Where is Rado?" Niko gave Shugonar's breechclout a perilous yank.