should not be a habit, but you must know by now what the Wild is.’
Peter spat again. ‘It’s every hand raised against every other hand,’ he said. He had trained to kill all his young life, and his first failure to kill another man had made him a slave. But this sudden success felt more like rape than victory. He was covered in blood and worse, and yet these men were congratulating him. ‘There is no law.’
Ota Qwan shook his head. ‘Don’t be foolish,’ he said. ‘There are many laws. But the greatest of them is that the strongest is the strongest. And every creature, weak or strong, makes a good meal.’ He laughed. ‘It’s no different at the king’s court. But here, it’s fair and honest, at least in that no one lies. Skadai is faster and deadlier than I will ever be. I will never challenge him. But another man might – or a woman – and the matrons would name a form of challenge, and the challenger would face Skadai. Or perhaps simply attack him – but that sort of victory does not always result in the killer gaining the power and prestige he seeks. Am I making sense?’
‘Too much sense,’ Peter said. ‘I want to wash.’ Peter wanted free of this alien man and his paint and his aura of violence.
‘I tell you this because now other warriors see you as a man and you may be challenged. Or simply killed. Up until now, I have protected you.’ Ota Qwan shrugged.
‘Why kill me?’ Peter asked.
Ota Qwan shrugged. ‘To raise the number of men they’ve killed? Or to claim Senegral, your woman?’ He laughed. ‘Grundag died easily because he thought you were a slave. He wasn’t much of a man, but he was a fighter, and his very stupidity made men afraid of him. They are not afraid of you – although the way you opened him and cut out his eyes may make some men afraid. But many men want Senegral, and she doesn’t like to say no.’
Peter had made it to the stream, and despite the cold and the sharp rocks, he threw himself into the low pool where the men washed their cups, heedless of the layer of water-swollen grains where a hundred wooden bowls had been washed after dinner. Heedless of leeches. Wanting only to get the sticky blood and intestinal matter off his hands and his belly and his groin.
From the water, he said, ‘Perhaps I should just kill her.’
Ota Qwan laughed. ‘An elegant solution, except that her brothers and sisters would then surely kill you.’
The water woke his brain and froze his skin. He put his head under the water and come up floundering, feet aching from trying to balance on sharp rocks. ‘What can I do?’ he asked.
‘Paint!’ Ota Qwan said. ‘As a warrior on a mission, you are exempt from such treatment. Unless you provoke it, of course. But men are not as swift as other animals, as deadly in a fight, as well-taloned, or as long limbed. Eh? But in a pack, we are the deadliest animals in the Wild, and when we paint, we are a pack. Do you understand?’
Peter shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I will paint. And that commits me to make war against people I do not know to gain a little peace at home.’ He laughed. His laughter was strange and wild and a little crazed. ‘But they enslaved me, so they can take the consequences.’
Ota Qwan nodded. ‘I knew you would make one of us from the moment I met you,’ he said. ‘Don’t disdain us. We do as other people do, we just don’t call it by pretty names. We make war now to support Thorn, but also so that all the other killers and all the other predators will see our strength and leave us in peace. Will fear us. So we can go home and grow squash. It is not all war and knives in the dark.’
Peter sighed. ‘I hope not.’
Ota Qwan made a noise. ‘You need to paint soon, I think. And have a name. But I will let someone else name you.’
He gave Peter a hand out of the stream, and then took him to a fire, where he removed the horde of leeches stuck to the former cook. On another day, the leeches would have appalled him, but Peter bore their removal with hardly a glance, earning a respectful grunt from an older man.
Then Ota Qwan spoke, and all the men and several women stiffened, paid close attention, and went to their blanket rolls, returning with pretty round boxes of pottery and wood – some covered in remarkable designs made with coloured hair or quills, and some made of gold or silver.
Every little vessel held paint – red, black, white, yellow, or blue.
‘May I paint you?’ Ota Qwan asked.
Peter smiled. ‘Of course,’ he said. He was exhausted and almost asleep.
Three men and a painted woman did the actual painting, under Ota Qwan’s direction. It took an hour, but when they were done Peter was black on one side of his body and red on the other.
But on his face they had painted something more intricate. He had felt the woman’s fingers on his face, around his eyes, her own rapt expression and slightly open mouth oddly transfigured by the fish she wore painted across her eyes.
When they were done one of the men brought a small round mirror in a horn case, and he looked at the mask over his face, the divisions of white and red and black like herring bones, and he nodded. It spoke to him, although he wasn’t sure what it meant.
He left them his shirt.
He walked though the firelit darkness, and the air was cool on his painted skin, and the fires burning at every camp were warm, even from a distance. Ota Qwan led him from fire to fire, and warriors murmured to him. He nodded and bowed his head.
‘What are they saying?’ he asked.
‘Mostly hello. A few comment on how much taller you are now. The old man tells you to keep your paint clean and sharp, and not muddy it as you used to do.’ Ota Qwan laughed. ‘Because, of course, you used to be Grundag. Understand?’
‘Christ,’ Peter said. And yet, the murmured welcomes straightened his spine. He had
He was alive, and tall, and strong, and he rather liked the paint.
At his own fire, Senegral had made all of Grundag’s belongings into a small display, and she gave him a cup of warm, spiced tea, and he drank it. Ota Qwan stood at the edge of the firelight and watched.
‘She says, look at the good bow you have. Some of your arrows are very poor. You should make better, or trade for them. And she says that she will try not to inflame other men, if you will only keep her the way she wishes to be kept.’
Peter went through the carefully laid out goods by the bark basket, holding each item up in the firelight. Two excellent knives and a good bow with no arrows to speak of; some furs, a pair of leggings and two pairs of unadorned moccasins. A horn container full of black paint, a glass jar with red paint. Two cups. A copper pot.
‘I thought women made their men shoes?’ Peter asked.
Ota Qwan laughed. ‘Woman who fancy their men make them magnificent moccasins,’ he said.
‘I see,’ Peter said. He packed everything back into the basket. The woman came and stood next to him, and he put a hand under her skirt and ran it up her leg to her thigh, and then around her thigh, and she made a sound, and soon enough, they were back where they had been when the dead man kicked him in the head.
At some point she moaned, and later he laughed aloud at the absurdity of it all. He wanted Ota Qwan to translate his thoughts to her, but of course, the man was gone.
And in the morning, all the painted men rose, took only the equipment they needed for violence, and followed Skadai. Peter took the bow and the best knife, and his paint and a single red wool blanket and strode naked, after Ota Qwan. He found it surprisingly easy to ask no questions, simply follow.
Later, he asked Ota Qwan how to get arrows, and the man silently gave him a dozen.
‘Why?’ Peter asked. ‘Is it not every man against every other man?’
Ota Qwan laughed. ‘You know nothing,’ he said. ‘Do you not follow me? Will you do my bidding when the arrows fly and the steel fills the air?’
Peter thought about it. ‘I suppose I will.’
Ota Qwan laughed. ‘Come. Let’s go find your name.’
South of Albinkirk – de Vrailly
Jean de Vrailly clamped down on his impatience and it turned, as it always did, to anger. The blossoming of his rage always made him feel sinful, dirty, and less of a man and a knight, and so, while riding easily through the high
