Blood Brothers of Gor

Chapter 18 I CONTINUE TO SEEK AN ASSESSMENT OF OIPUTAKE

"Where is Grunt!" I cried.

Wasnapohdi, startled, looked up. She was kneeling within the lodge which Mahpiyaspa had set aside for the use of Grunt, his friend.

"He is not here!" she said.

"Where is he?" I asked.

"I do not know!" she said. She seemed frightened. "Have you heard about Canka?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "But I do not believe it."

"Nor do I," she said. "It cannot be."

"Why are you alone in the lodge?" I asked. "Why are you not working?"

"I am hiding," she said.

"You need not be afraid," I said. "The business with Canka has nothing to do with you."

"I am not hiding because of that," she said.

"Do you have any idea where Grunt is?" I asked.

"He may be with Mahpiyasapa," she said. "He left after he found out about Cnaka."

"Thait is a splendid thought," I said. "I shall go to the lodg of Mahpiyasapa!" I turned to leave but then, suddenly, turned back. "Why are you hiding?" I asked.

"I have seen him!" she whispered.

"Canka?" I asked, startled.

"No," she said, "Waiyeyeca, One-Who-Finds-Much, he who once owned me!"

"Several have owned you," I said.

"I spoke to you of him," she said, "when first we met, shortly after Grunt, my master, had acquired me at the trading point."

"The boy?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

"I remember," I said. Long ago, at a Dust-Leg trading point, Grunt had obtained Wasnapohdi for three fine hatchets. In talking to me, afterwards, she had told me something of herself. She had been born in a Waniyanpi compound, one woned by the Kailiauk, a tribe federated with the Kaiila and speaking a closely related dialect. He who obtained her from this compound was a Kaiila warrior. At that time she was only eight years old. He had taken her home with him and given her, as a slave, to his ten-year-old son. She had thus learned to serve and placate men early. Yet as children they had been more as companions and playmates than as master and slave.

Then once, when they were alone, when she was but fifteen and he seventeen, far from thier camp, gathering berries together, he had been unable any longer not to see her as a woman. She had looked up to see him, almost angrily, cutting and carving at a branch, notching it at the ends for thong-holds. She was frightened and began to cry. She had seen such devices before, and knew their use. She was orderd to removed her clothing, and to lie down, with her legs widely apart. Then she felth her ankles tied in this position, the branch behind them, widely apart, by means of the notches and thongs. She had no doubt as to what would be her fate. She was to be used for the first time, and as the slave she was. By dusk, freed of the brand, she had lain on her belly before him, kissing his feet. That night, when they had returned to the village, she did not ride behind him in his kaiila, as she had that morning. She accompanined him, rather, on foot, marched at this stirrup, her hands bound behind her back, a thong on her neck, run to the pommel of his saddle. That morning two children had left the village; wht returned to it that night was a young master and his claimed slave.

Wasnapohdi put down her head, trembling.

I think that the young master and his slave had been much in love. His affection for the girl, for she was only a slave, had brought much ridicule on him from his peers. To this sort of thing, he, a red savage, had been extremely sensitive. In the end, perhaps because he suspected they might be true, and interpeted his feelings in such a matter as unseemly weakness in a young warrior, he had sold her. After that she had had several masters. Grunt, as I have mentioned, had finally acquired her from Dust-Legs.

"His name is Waiyeyeca?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"What is his band?" I asked.

"Napoktan," she said.

"The Bracelets band," I said.

"Yes," she said. Their territory lies roughly northwest of the Kaiila River, north fork of the Kaiila River, and east of the Snake River. Napoktan warriors commonly wear two copper bracelets on the left wrist.

"Did he see you?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Do you still love him?" I asked.

"I do not know," she said. "It has been a long time, years. He sold me!"

"You are a slave," I said. "Surely you do not object to being sold."

"I thought he loved me!" she said.

"Perhaps he did," I said.

"He sold me!" she said.

"Perhaps he did not regard you as sufficiently beautiful," I said.

"Perhaps!" she said, angrily.

"If he could see you now," I said, "if he could see how beautiful you have become, doubtless he would regret his earlier decision, keenly."

"Perhaps!" she said, in fury.

"Have you no work to do?" I asked.

"I am hiding," she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"I am afraid for him to see me," she said, tears in her eyes. "He sold me! I loved him! I do not want to open these old wounds! I do not want to go through all that heartache again! I have suffered enough!"

"Nonsense," I said. "You are merely looking for an excuse to get out of work. I know the tricks of a lazy girl when I see them."

"No," she said, agonized, "really!"

"What are you supposed to be doing?" I asked.

"Polishing trade goods," she said.

"Inside the lodge or outside?" I asked. I knew what the answer must be.

"Outside, I suppose," she said, "so that I may better see what I am doing."

"Then get outside and polish trade goods," I said.

"Please, no," she said. "He might see me!"

"The Napoktan camp is not close," I said. "That is highly unlikely."

"He might see me!" she protested.

"What if he does?" I asked.

"What if he sees me, and wants me?" she asked. "What if he carries me away, or buys me?"

"He will not simply carry you away," I said. "Grunt is a guest of the Kaiila."

"But what if he wishes to buy me?" she asked in misery.

"Then that is simply a matter of prices." I said.

"No, no," she wept. "You do not understand!"

"I understand very well," I said. "You are a slave. You are a piece of property. A man sees you and decides whether or not he is interested in you. If he is, he makes Grunt an offer. It is accepted or rejected. Perhaps bargaining ensues. If they do not come to terms, then you simply have a new master, whom you must then serve completely and with total perfection."

She collapsed on the robe in the lodge, clutching at it with her small fingers, weeping bitterly.

"I believe you were given a command," I said. "I trust that you do not desire for me to repeat it, as your discharge of the task might well, then, be preceded by a severe whipping."

"No, Master," she wept. "I do not desire for you to repeat your cmmand."

"If your obedience is insufficiently prompt," I said, "I may add to my command the stipulations that you will polish trade goods the lodge naked."

"My obedience is prompt, Master," she wept, getting up. She began to gather together several pots and pans from Grunt's store of trade goods.

"I am well aware of the tricks of lazy girls to escape from their work," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she wept. "Yes, Master."

I then hurried from the lodge. I wished to find Grunt, to query him as to the possible significance, if any, of the information I had earlier received from Oiputake, as to the identity of the Yellow Knives in the camp.

"Tatankasa!" called a little boy. "Throw the hoop for me! Throw the hoop for me!"

"Have you seen Wopeton, the Trader?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Throw the hoop!"

"Forgive, me, Small Master," I said. "I am on business."

"Very well," he said.

I sped on, toward the lodge of Mahpiyasapa.

"Hold!" called a lad.

I stopped, and fell to my knees before him. It was the lad who had been first among the herders, when I had carried the beaded quirt to the girl herd.

"Greetings," said he.

"Greetings, Master," I said.

"The blond slave whom you took for wench sport," he said, "is no longer in the herd. She was exchanged in a giveaway and her new master, reportedly, is quite pleased with her. It seems she is now to serve in hos low lodge, away from the herd, convenient to him, as a prize slave."

"That is good news, Master," I said.

"The credit fot this goes to you, I think," said the lad. "You melted the ice in her belly. You made her become a woman, and need men."

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"She has been named Oiputake," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. "Master!" I said, suddenly.

"Yes," he said.

"Why are you in the village now," I asked, "at this time of day?"

"The herds have been brought in," he said, "to the edges of te village."

"What of the guards and pickets?" I asked.

"They, too, have been brought in," he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"It is upon the orders of Watonka," said the lad.

"The western edge of the camp, then, is unguarded," I said. The security for this perimeter was the responsibility of the Isanna.

"It is all right," said the lad. "It is the time of the feasts, of the festivals."

"Have you seen Wopeton, the Trader?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"May I leave?" I asked.

"Surely," said the lad, puzzled.

I leaped up and again hurried toward the lodge of Mahpiyasapa. I passed within a hundred yars of the great dance lodge, formed of towering walls of brush. Within would be the pole, the ropes and the skewers, and pained and bedecked, dancing, the young men.

"Mahpiyasapa is not here," said the woman, kneeling near his lodge, one of his wives. Her gnarled fingers held a bone scraper. She was sharpening the scraper on a stone in front of her. On the scraper there were six dots. It has been used for six years. Two of her fingers had been cut ff at the first joint. She had lost two sons.

"Do you know where he is?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Thank you, Mistress," I said. I rose to my feet, and stepped back. I did not know what to do now, or where to go.

"Why should he not be in the council?" she asked, not looking up.

"Of course," I said. "My thanks, Mistress!"

"It will do you no good," she said. "You cannot see him there, if he is there. It is not permitted."

"I really seek Wopeton," I said. "Might he be in the council?"

"It is possible," she shrugged. She did not look up from her work.

"My thanks, Mistress," I said. "You have been very kind."

"If he is in the council," she said, "you will not be able to see him either."

"My thanks, Mistress!" I said. I turned about and hurried from the place. She had been very helpful. I did not think that I would have managed as well had I been a white female slave. Had I been such she might have put me to labors or kept me on my belly, in the dirt, my mouth filled with dirt, before her, for hours. Women of the red savages bear little affection towards the lovely white properties of thier men. White slave girls will often flee at the mere approach of a red female and will almost never meet the eyes of one. In my intense awareness of this being the day of the great dance, pobably a function of Cuwignaka's almost overwhelming concern about it, and in my concern over the fate of Canka, and my concern with the information obtained from Oiputake, I had forgotten that this day, too, was the day of peace council, a day in which was to be seen, supposedly, at least the first stages of the ratiffication of a peace agreement between the Yellow Knives and the Kaiila. I made my way rapidly towards the council lodge. I di dnot know if I could draw Mahpiyasapa out of the council, or if it would be wise to do so, but I was confident that I could, somehow, if he were there, make contact with Grunt.

I was thrown rudely back by the two young warriors. "Kneel, Slave!" snarled one of them.

I knelt swiftly. Knives were drawn upon me.

"Forgive me, Masters," I said. "It is needful that I speak with Wopeton."

"He is not within," said one of the warriors.

"Convey then, I beg you," I said, "my need to speak with Mahpiyasapa."

"Neither is Mahpiyasapa within," said the warrior.

"Neither is within?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Forgive me, Masters," I said.

"They may come later," said one of the warriors. "The council has not yet begun."

"Yes, Master," I said. "Thank you, Masters." I crawled back a pace or two, on my knees, keeping my eyes on their knives. Then I rose to my feet and, facing the, backed away. They sheathed their knives and resumed their stance, arms folded, before the threshold of the great lodge. Its poles were fifty feet in height and it was covered with more than a hundred skins.

I looked about. Again I did not know what to do. I must wait, I suppose, to see if Grunt, or Mahpiyasapa, appeared. By now, however, I would have supposed they would have been within the council lodge. Surely the council was due to soon begin.

"Slave," said a fellow, sitting cross-legged, some yards off, beckoning to me.

I went to him and he indicated a place near him where I might kneel. I did so. He was grooving a stone for a hammerhead. This is done with a dampened rawhide string, dipped in sand, and drawn again and again, patiently, across the stone. I watched him work. "Today," he said, "the council will not hear the voice of Mahpiyasapa."

"Why today, will the council not hear his voice?" I asked.

"Today," said the man, drawing the rawhide string across the stone, "Mahpiyasapa is in sorrow. He has gone from the village, to purify himself."

"Why should he be in sorrow?" I asked. This was unwelcome news, indeed, that he might not be in the camp.

"I think it is because Canka tried to kill him," said the man, watching the movement of the string.

"Oh," I said. I did not know this man, and I did not see much point in conveying to him my suspicions as to what had actually occurred in this distrubing incident.

"You are Canka's slave, aren't you?" asked the man.

"Yes," I said.

"And you have not been taken, or slain," he said.

"No," I said.

"Interesting," he said, dipping the string again in water, and then in sand.

Mahpiyasapa's sorrow, I had little doubt, was occasioned by the perjury of Hci, and not by some putative treachery on the part of Canka. This, too, I had littel doubt, was in the mind of the man who had chosen to speak to me. He was not a fool. In his shame and sorrow Mahpiyasapa had not gone to the council. Perhaps he felt he could not, there, face his peers. In the small confines of a sweat lodge, fasting, and with steam and hot stones, he would try to come to grips with these things which had happened. He might then go to some lonely place, to seek a dream vision, that he might know what to do.

"Master," said I.

"Yes," said the man.

"Is it your understanding that Wopeton accompanied Mahpiyasapa?"

"That is what I think," said the man, drawing the wet string, sand adhering to it, firmly and slowly, carefully, across the stone. He had probably been working for more than two days on the stone. I could see the beginngins of the groove in its surface.

"Thank you, Master," I said.

"And that, too, is interesting," said the man, looking at the stone.

"Yes, Master," I said. The stones for use in the sweat lodge are heated in a fire outside the lodge and, held on sticks, taken within, where water is poured upon them, creating the needed heat and steam. When a stone cools it is then reheated. This part of the work, heating the stones, bringing the water, reheating the stones, and so on, ideally, is not done by the individual or individuals within the sweat lodge. Ideally,it is done by an assistant or helper. I had little doubt that Grunt was acting in this capacity for his friend, Mahpiyasapa. Mahpiyasapa, in this time, in his shame and misery, could not bring himself to face his own people.

I backed off a bit, on my knees, and then rose to my feet, and then withdrew from the presence of the fellow who was patienly working on the stone. I turned about and looked again at the huge council lodge. The two guards were still a the threshold. Between them, various men were entering. Expected to attend such a council, of couse, on the part of the Kaiila but thier high men, as well, the councils of the various bands, and trusted warriors, and men of probity and wisdom. Such councils tend to be open to the noble, the proven and worth. In that lodge, this afternoon, would be gathered, for most pracitical purposes, the leadership and aristocracy of the Kaiila nation. How absurd, then, to me, appeared my suspicions and fears. Where men so numerous, and noble and wise, were gathered, surely naught could be concern myself with their affairs? Too, Oiputake must have been mistaken. The Yellow Knives in camp could not be war chiefs. That would make no sense.

I took my way from the vicinity of the council lodge.

"Where is Watonka?" I heard a man ask.

"He has not yet arrived," said another man.

"Is he making medicine?" asked a man.

"I do not know," said another.

"He is waiting for the shadow to shrink," said another. "He will then come to the council."

I then, for no reason I clearly understood, gurned my steps toward the lodges of the Isanna.

The three men, arms folded, standing in the vicinity of Watonka, who stood on a bit of high ground, near the Isanna lodges, I did not doubt were Yellow Knives. It was not that there was anything in particular about them that seemed to differentiate them from the Kaiila, but rather that there seemed something as a whole about them which was different, doubtless the cumulative effect of many tiny details, perhpas in the beading of their clothing, the manner in which certain ornaments were carved, the notching of their sleeves, the manner of fringing leggings, the tugting at the base of the feathers in their hair, the cut and style of their moccasins. They were not Kaiila. They were something else. They seemed stolid and expressionless. Watonka was looking to the sky, to the southeast. At the feet of Watonka there was a slim, upright stick. In the dirt, about the stick, were drawn two circles, a larger and a smaller. In the morning, when the sun ws high enough to cast a shadow, the shadow, I surmised, would have come to a point on the outer circle. At noon the sun, it seemed, in this latitude, casting its shortest shadow, would bring the shadow to or within the smaller of the two circles. When the shadow, again, began to lengthen, the sun would be past meridian. I looked up at the sun, and down to the stick and its shadow. It was, I conjectured, less than half of an Ahn before noon.

Watonka, in marked contrast to the three warriors, whom I took to be Yellow Knives, seemed clearly ill at ease. He looked to the warriors, and then, again, looked to the sky, to the southeast. The day was bright and clear. Near the men, a bit to one side, were Bloketu and Iwoso. Bloketu, too, seemed ill at ease. Iwoso, on the other hand, like the other three, who were presumably Yellow Knives, seemed quite calm. These six, and two others, nearby Isanna warriors, with lances, wore yellow scarves diagonally about their bodies, running from the left shoulder to the right hip. The purpose of these scarves, I supposed, was to identify them as, and protect them as, members of the peace-making party. Too, of course, they might have been intended to fulfill some medicine purpose, perhaps suggested in a dream to one of them.

I did not know if Blioketu would be permitted inot the council or not. Normally women are not permitted in such places. The red savages, though often listening with great attention to their free women, and according them great honor and respect, do not choose to relinquish the least bit of their sovereignity to them. They will make the decisions. They are the men. The women will obey. Iwoso, on the other hand, I supposed, would be required in the council lodge. She was probably the only person in the camp who spoke both Yellow Knife and kaiila fluently. Iwoso, interestingly, had a coil of slender, supple rope at her belt. Judging by the sun, and the shadow by the stick, I would have supposed that WAtonka and his party should have been making their way to the council lodge. The council, as I understood it, was to begin at noon. The manner in which the men wore their yellow scarves, I noted, gave maximum free play, if they were right handed, to their weapon hands.

"Bloketu," I said, going to her.

"Mistress!" she corrected me.

"Mistress," I said.

"Why are you not kneeling?" she asked.

I fell to my knees. "I would speak with you, if I might," I said.

"It was your master, Canka," she said, angrily, "who tried to kill Mahpiyasapa this morning."

"May I speak with you?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Alone," I asked.

Iwoso looked suddenly, sharply, at me.

"You may speak before my maiden," said Bloketu. "What does it matter? Why should a slave not speak before a slave?"

"Forgive me, Mistress," I said. "I may be ignorant, and a fool."

"That is not unlikely," she said.

"But I have reason to believe that the three men with your father, the Yellow Knives, are not as they seem."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I think they are not civil cheiftains of the Yellow Knives," I said. "I think it is possible they are war chiefs."

"Lying slave!" cried Iwoso angrily, lunging at me and striking me. I tasted blood at my mouth.

"What is going on?" asked Watonka, looking towards us.

"This slave is an amusing fool," laughed Bloketu. "He thinks our guests are not civil chieftains of the Yellow Knives, soon to be our friends, but war chiefs."

This was translated by Iwoso speedily to the three Yellow Knives. Their expressions did not change.

"That is absurd," said Watonka, looking rapidly about. "I vouch for these men myself."

"You could not know such a thing," said Bloketu.

"There is a slave in camp," I said, "a blond female who was owned my Yellow Knives for a time. It was she who recognized them. It was she from whom I learned this."

"She is obviously mistaken," said Bloketu. These things, and what follows, were being translated, quickly, by Iwoso for the Yellow Knives.

"The tongues of lying slaves may well be slit," said Watonka, angrily. He drew his knife.

At this point one of the Yellow Knives put his hand on Watonka's arm. He spoke, and his words, for all of us, were translated by Iwoso.

"Do not harm the slave," he said. "This is a time of happiness and peace."

I looked up, startled. The man must indeed by a civil chieftain.

"Dismiss him," suggested the Yellow Knife.

"You are dismissed," said watonka, angrily.

"Yes, Master," I said, getting up.

"Beat him," said Watonka to the two Isanna warriors.

Suddenly I was prodded with the butts of the two lances, and then struck viciously about the head, the shoulders and body. I fell to my knees, my head covered, my body shuddering under the lashing and jabbing of the wood.

"Let him go," suggested the Yellow Knife.

"Go," said Watonka.

I struggled to my feet and, my face bloody, my body aching, stumbled backward, and then turned, and limped away. I heard laughter behind me. I had been well beaten. No bones, it seemed, were broken. I had little doubt that my body was black and blue. I spit up, into the dirt. I almost fainted. Then I staggered away, laughter ringing about me, a humiliated and punished slave. I had done, however, what I could. I had brought Oiputake's information to the attention of one even so great as to be a civil chieftain of the Kaiila, to Watonka, the civil chieftain of the Isanna. It seemed to me I could not have done better unless I had managed to speak, perhaps, to one such as Mahpiyasapa. Suddenly I felt anger, irrationally, towards Mahpiyasapa and Grunt, and toward Canka, and even towards my friend, Cuwignaka. I had not been able to speak to them. In my sickness and misery it seemed almost as though it was they who, thus, had been responsible for my beating. Then I shook the foolishness of this from my mind, and made my way back towards the lodge I shared with Cuwignaka.

It was at this time, I think, about a quarter of an Ahn until noon.