The Tattooed Tribes by Bev Allen Page B

he preened
under it, surprised how much the silent compliment meant to
him.
    “ Bweriit, there’s much to talk about,” Jon
said. “May we go to the Meeting House and consult with your
sisters?”
    She inclined
her head and gestured to a young woman beside her who raised her
hands in some sort of signalling motion, and for the first time
Lucien heard tribal drums and the hairs of the back of his neck
stood up.
    In front of
the meeting house several women were beating out a complex rhythm
on what appeared to be a series of hollowed out logs, but when he
looked closer he could see they were huge carved drums.
    From cabins
all around women of various ages came towards the Meeting
House.
    “ Told you the girls were in charge,” Jon
whispered to Lucien. “This is another mouth shut time, by the way.
In fact, I won’t be opening mine without permission.”
    Lucien
followed Jon and Iesgood into the Meeting House. He looked around
for Vlic, but saw he, like most of the other men, had remained
outside.
    It was cool
inside the building. Light streamed in through windows set high up
in the walls and dust motes floated in the long shafts of
sunshine.
    There was a
half circle of chairs facing the centre of the room. Bweriit and
several of the older women went and sat in them, while the rest
formed the other half of the circle
    The few men
admitted stood in the middle.
    A young woman
handed Bweriit a carved ivory tusk about as long as her fore arm.
Lucien had no idea what sort of animal it had come from and he
would have liked to have asked, but the solemnity of the assembly
was enough to keep him quiet.
    “ Hear me,” Bweriit began, and the silence
was profound. “Let us consider what we know of the current
situation. We will dispense with the expressions of horror and
outrage at what has occurred; we all know how we feel and nothing
can be accomplished by wallowing in the details.”
    There was a
murmur of assent from the circling women; Bweriit silenced it with
a small gesture.
    “ First, Clieviis cheed Dhyra wasn’t the deepest of thinkers, but he
wasn’t quite the fool our men like to think he was. He would not
have taken his wife and child to a betrothal meeting without
believing and having cause to believe it was completely
genuine.”
    There were
nods from around the circle.
    “ He certainly would not have gone dressed
and equipped for peace if he had the slightest suspicion of war,”
Bweriit continued. “No lance was found, nor shield or war club. It
is possible they were taken away with the child, but no signs of a
fight were found, which means he must have known or trusted those
they went to meet.”
    Lucien could
feel the tension in the room. There was anger, but there was also a
sense of bafflement and shock. Something about the situation was
totally outside their experience. Again he ached to ask Jon for an
explanation, but the dignity of the seated women and the power
emanating from them kept his mouth shut.
    “ Let me hear your thoughts, sisters,”
Bweriit said, and handed the tusk back to the young
woman.
    Hands rose
slowly and, by some assent Lucien could not follow, the tusk was
passed to a middle-aged woman.
    “ I think we must conclude he believed he
was meeting members of The People,” she began slowly. “From the
first contact and through the negotiations, he must have had reason
to believe he was amongst friends and everything was
normal.”
    She paused and
looked deeply troubled.
    “ With regret,” she continued. “I can’t
believe any outsider would have sufficient knowledge of custom to
have deceived him.”
    Silence
greeted this; it was obvious a large number of those present had
come to more or less the same conclusion.
    Some hands
were raised, but the tusk passed back to Bweriit.
    “ Harabin dheillwer, you are our window on the world of the
newcomers . Do you know of
any who have sufficient knowledge of betrothal custom to have
deceived one of us?”
    Jon took the
tusk in his right