'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.
Chapter 19
I SPEAK WITH CUWIGNAKA
'Cuwignaka!' I cried, startled, entering the inerior of our lodge.
He was sitting, cross-legged, within the lodge. His head was down. His head was in his hands. He lifted his head. 'They would not let me dance,' he said. 'Cancega, himself, medicine chief of all the Kaiila, at the behest of Hci, refused me entrance into the dance lodge.'
'You must have heard,' I said, 'of the alleged attack by Canka on Mahpiyasapa?'
'Yes,' he said, bitterly. 'Hci has won,' he said. 'Hci has won all.'
'I am sorry, my friend,' I said, 'about the dance. I am sorry.' I sat down, cross-legged, near him.
'If I am not permitted to dance,' asked Cuwignaka, 'how can I prove to them I am a man?'
'I am sorry, my friend,' I said. In these moments, in my sorrow for Cuwignaka, I forgot my own bruises and pain. I knew that Cuwignaka, for years, had dreamed of entering the lodge of the great dance, there to test and prove the manhood from which his people seemed determined to preclude him. It was there, too, perhaps, in the loneliness and pain of the dance, that he wished himeself to learn the truth in this secret and momentous matter.
'Tatankasa,' said Cuwignaka, suddenly, 'what is wrong?'
'Nothing,' I said.
'You are hurt,' he said, concerned.
'It is nothing,' I said.
Cuwignaka crawled over to where I sat. He put his hand at the side of my head. 'Your head has been gashed,' he said.
I winched. 'I was beaten,' I said.
He went then to the side of the lodge and brought back a cloth. He wiped blood away from the side of my head.
'Who did this?' he asked.
'Two men, warriors of the Isanna, on the command of Watonka,' I said.
'What did you do?' asked Cuwignaka.
'It was foolishness,' I said. 'I meddled in matters in which I knew nothing. I should have known better.'
'But what did you do?' he asked.
'It is nothing,' I said. I did not want him in his great disappintment, to concern himself with my foolishness.
'Tell me,' he said. I took the cloth from him and folded it, and held it against the wound, to stanch te flow of blood.
'I am sorry about the dance,' I said. 'I know how keenly you desired to enter the lodge.'
'Why were you beaten, my friend?' he asked.
'This morning,' I said, 'converse did I hold with a blond slave, after amusing myself with her. I had used her before. She was formerly a herd girl. A woman once of the high city of Ar, she had been captured by Dust Legs and suitably enslaved. seh was later traded to Sleen who, in turn, traded her to Yellow Knives. She came to the Isanna among the frits of a girl raid. On the basis of her experience with the Yellow Knives she had told me that the three Yellow Knives in the camp are not civil cheiftains, as is claimed, but war chiefs.'
'She is obviously mistaken,' said Cuwignaka.
'Obviously,' I said. I moved my body. It hurt to move it.
'You told this to Watonka?' asked Cuwignaka.
'I would rather,' I said, ruefully, 'have toldit to someone else, and, acutally, it was to Bloketu that I told it. It was only that Watonka was there.'
'It is too bad to be beaten over such a thing.' said Cuwignaka.
'I agree,' I smiled. I pulled the cloth from my head. It stuck with the blood, and then pulled free. But the wound did not begin again to bleed. 'I do not think WAtonka would have paid us attention,' I said, 'except that Iwoso leaped at me, striking me, crying out that I was a lying slave.'
'That reaction seems excessive on her part,' said Cuwignaka. 'After all, what business is it of hers?'
'Watonka, too, was very angry,' I said. 'I feared he might attack me with his knife. One of the Yellow Knives, one of the civil chieftains, intervened. I was only beaten.'
'That seems throughful for a Yellow Knife,' said Cuwignaka.
'He said it was a time of happiness and peace.' I said.
