Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 18

Mirselene smiled kindly but with a slightly wistful regret.

"I must say, Wildchild," she spoke at last. "It's a real pleasure seeing you again. I expect you get told this a lot but you are a beautiful young woman and most accomplished. I fully understand if you think your talents need a larger arena than our modest little tribe can provide."

"Thank you, Madam," Wildchild answered. "I hope I can live up to the high expectations everyone has of me."

"That's something I cannot doubt. ... Very well, young lady, I'm already prepared and I do understand. Give me the bad news."

"I have no news at all, Madam, good or bad. I have only a request."

"What's your request?"

"Please may I bring a friend home with me when I return to the forest in a fortnight?"

"Return? Home? ... Of course you can bring a friend. Who is she?"

"Her name is Hazel Violetsdaughter Farmer. She's my bedmate."

"Your bedmate? Well, I'll be buggered!"

Wildchild suppressed a laugh.

"Oh, please excuse my language, child, but you do have a habit of tripping up everyone around you."

Mirselene couldn't have been more pleased with the girl, calling the forest 'home' and wanting to bring a friend, someone who might join the tribe.

"I had you wrong, young lady. I thought you weren't coming back to us."

"Where else would I go," Wildchild asked, somewhat naively, "if not back to my tribe?"

"Now don't be modest. You know that every tribe would fight to have you join them. And, of course, Hazel is welcome to stay with us. She must be someone special to be your bedmate."

"She is, Madam. She was the head of the Juniors during the last Cloner Fair."

"I remember her. She was most attentive and remarkably pretty. I'll be honoured to welcome Hazel to the Woodlanders. ... But, can I ask a personal question?"

"Of course, Madam."

"Please don't answer me if it's none of my business or if you're embarrassed."

"I will answer if I can."

"Tamar has often said that you and she will be bedmates when she's eighteen. Does she know that you and Hazel are bedmates?"

"She knows. Do you remember I visited the Forest Camp about a week after joining the Juniors?"

"I do."

"That was to ask Tamar's permission to be bedmates with Hazel."

"I see. So Tamar won't be jealous of Hazel?"

Mirselene considered it an important duty to combat any feelings of jealousy, sexual or otherwise, in her small tribe.

"She won't be jealous, Madam," Wildchild assured her. "Tamar and I were brought up as Herders."

She seemed to think this was a complete explanation. The Herders were well-known as sexually free women who had orgies most nights and few fixed bedmates. Both jealousy and fidelity were rare among the lusty horsewomen. Although Mirselene knew this, she wasn't fully convinced the three girls could remain friends.

"And how does Hazel feel about you and Tamar?" Mirselene asked.

"She knows I've always loved Tamar and that I always will."

Mirselene paused to think for a minute. Would they be importing a potential problem into the tribe: a future heartbreak and maybe a jealous fight? On the other hand, Wildchild was already an assured young woman and quickly maturing. Her year as a Junior had given her a different kind of confidence, which Miselene admired.

She decided to let things work themselves out naturally. She certainly wasn't going to reject a potential new member of the tribe because of something that may not happen nearly two years hence.

"Very well," she said. "I look forward to welcoming Hazel Violetsdaughter to the Forest Camp."

"Thank you, Madam. I told Hazel I was asking your permission but please will you invite her personally? It will guarantee she'll come and not feel she's imposing herself uninvited."

"Of course, I will. Will you bring her here?"

"Yes, Madam, right away. She's just outside."

Mirselene smiled as Wildchild left and rehearsed a handsome speech to invite the pretty blonde Farmer to come and stay with the Woodlanders.

******

On the last day of the Cloner Fair, Belena sneaked into the Cloning Laboratory and started smashing up the apparatus there with a stick, spilling the nanotech on the floor.

Crystal had been running an errand for Madam Scientist and she heard a noise. She saw the lab door open and Belena standing amid the smashed beakers and petri-dishes, piles of coloured powder on the floor. Crystal ran inside, crying out in horror:

"What are you doing?"

Shocked out of her hysteria, Belena span around, still holding the stick, which caught Crystal a glancing blow on her head. The girl collapsed to the ground. Blood spilled from a gash on her temple.

Belena screamed, threw down the stick and ran out of the lab, crying wildly: "No, no, no ..."

She ran dementedly out of the Council Hall, across the shallow river and out to the north along the grassy plain.

Crystal was later found unconscious in a pool of blood and the cry went up throughout the Fair: Who had done it?

There was anger and dismay. Under the care of Madam Medic, Crystal was revived. She had a headache but was strong enough to tell the Cloner Council what had happened.

The crowd that gathered outside the Council Hall went silent when the Councillors came out to address them.

"Belena smashed up the cloning laboratory," Gloria said, "and attacked Crystal. She ran away, we think to the north. Samothea, please will you take your horse and ride after her? Bring her back for a trial."

"Take your bow," Mirselene advised, earning her a disapproving look from Madam Lawspeaker; but Gloria didn't countermand the Woodlander chief.

"Take a posse of Herders with you," Galatea offered. "To bring her back alive."

This was sensible. If it was Wildchild on her own, she might have to injure Belena to bring her back.

"Why bring her back at all?" Mirselene asked, as Wildchild ran to change into her man's clothes. "She'll only be tried, convicted and sent into exile again. Why not let her go?"

"No one can survive overnight without shelter," Madam Lawspeaker said. "Whatever evil she's accused of, she should be tried and punished legally, not left outside to die."

Gloria secretly sympathised with Mirselene but her aunt was correct.

"Ezra, will you go with the posse?" she asked. "Your strength may be useful."

"I don't think I should, Madam," he replied. "I know how much Belena hates me. I would only provoke her to more violence."

Wildchild was back in two minutes and strode out of the Council Hall with the purpose and confidence of a natural leader.

"Glynn, Helen, Lorna," she commanded three nearby Herder women. "Come with me. Bring your lassoes."

Happy to see Wildchild growing into her leadership role, the three Herder women ran after her to their horses, quickly mounted and galloped out of the City.

In her madness, Belena ran five miles along the coast. She was easy to track. The riders caught her in their lassoes and carried her back to the city, bound to the back of a horse. Hysterical at first, she was quiet and subdued by the time they returned.

A trial was convened in the Council Chamber. Crystal was brave and faced her attacker, testifying that Belena hadn't deliberately struck her.

Asked what she had to say for herself, Belena only ranted.

"You've no right to treat me so unfairly," she complained, calling Calliope a usurper, Ezra a traitor; and saying that the Cloner Council was ganging up on her.

"I'm a chief," she proclaimed, plaintively. "Not a fake chief, like Calliope, nor a mere acting-chief like Galatea. A real chief! And I demand the respect due to my position."

"You are not a chief, Belena Cathasdaughter," Madam Lawspeaker replied. "You were rightfully deposed by the laws of the Mariners."

"Even if you hadn't been deposed, Belena, your term of office expired a year ago," Calliope added.

"Traitor! Mutineer!" Belena hissed at her. "And you Cloners: you think you're so important, just because you're rich, while my daughter and I have to live among the Farmers and dig earth like peasants! ... Yes, I broke your stupid cloning lab and I'd do it again. That's what I think of your 'superiority'."

It was the self-damning testimony of a bitterly unhappy woman. Madam Lawspeaker spoke as gently as her naturally rasping voice allowed.

"That statement alone condemns you, Belena. Do you have nothing to say in your defence? Do you have nothing to say to the girl you wounded?"

Belena folded her arms and looked defiant.

"Mother!" Gerta protested. "Crystal never harmed you, but you attacked her. That was a wicked thing to do!"

Gerta finally got through to the unhinged woman. Belena deflated. Tears started in her eyes. Her own daughter's judgment actually meant something to her. She turned to Crystal, remembering her chief's dignity.

"Young lady," she said, "what I did to you was reprehensible. I promise you, it was an accident. Please forgive me?"

Crystal was good-hearted and seemed not to have suffered permanent damage. There might be a scar, which she could hide under her hair or, more likely, display as a mark of pride.

"I forgive you," she said.

"Belena Cathasdaughter," Madam Lawspeaker said. "Crystal is kinder than you deserve. None the less, you are guilty of vandalism. We sentence you to exile from the Cloner City and its Farms for five years."

Belena looked shocked.

"That is too cruel," she pleaded. "I have a daughter and a granddaughter. Where can we go? Where can we live?"

"You must ask the outer tribes if they will take you," the Lawspeaker said.

Calliope's face was stone. There was no sympathy or mercy there; nor with Mirselene, who stared straight ahead, ignoring Belena's imploring looks.

"The Herders will take her," Galatea said. "She was once friends with Madam Solange and might listen to her; but she will serve her exile in the Southern Mountains, away from the main tribe, where she can do no harm."

Belena sank her head.

"I am a chief!" she whispered.

Then she wept. They were real tears of self-pity and self-recrimination. Her knees sagged and Gerta rushed to her side to hold her up. Belena wept on her daughter's shoulder.

"The southern mountains!," Belena wailed. "What will we do in the southern mountains? But Solange is a friend. She'll help us. She'll treat us properly, as a chief and her daughter should be treated."

"Mum, however sorry I am for you having to go into exile, you brought this on yourself. I've supported you while you complained about the Mariners and the Cloners. I've wept for you and shared your exile; but this is the end."

"I don't understand, Darling," Belena said, trying to focus on what Gerta said.

"I'm not going to live in the southern mountains with you, Mum. I've got my own life to lead and I want to lead it in the tribe I was born into, with the friends I grew up with. If they'll have me back. Otherwise, I'll stay with the Farmers and dig the earth. I don't mind being a peasant and working hard for the sake of a full belly at the end of the day and a simple life, hurting no one, fighting with no one."

Belena couldn't deflate any further. Everyone was against her, even her own daughter.

"You don't mean that, Darling," she said hopefully. "You won't leave me?"

"Gerta is under no obligation to share your exile, Belena Cathasdaughter," intoned the Lawspeaker.

"Her own mother! She'd not leave her own mother," Belena protested.

"I will if the Mariners will take me," Gerta said.

This was the final betrayal. Belena had been demented for a while now, though it hadn't shown until today; but the shock of Gerta's statement, rather than make her more deranged, seemed to sober her up and make her face reality. Belena wept silently and, when she ran out of tears, she quietly accepted the judgment.

Calliope started to speak but Galatea interrupted and said:

"Come on, Belena. We have to leave now. Solange is at the Southern Camp. Let's hope, for your sake, she approves what I've done."

When Belena and the Herders left, Calliope said what Galatea had prevented her from saying:

"Gerta, you have always been free to return to us Mariners, whenever you wanted. Come back with us today."

******

The Fair was over and the visitors returned to their homes. The cloning team cleaned up the mess in the laboratory and found that the damage was less extensive than they feared. Nor was there much worry that the small amount of nanotech that spilled would contaminate the planet. The largest supply of nanotech was stored away from the main laboratory. Most of the cloning kits for the cows and sheep were with the mobile team. It was human cloning kits that were damaged.

Madam Medic declared a temporary moratorium on human cloning but was confident that the laboratory would be fully functioning again in less than a month. There was popular relief; but the experiment Madam Medic wanted to perform using Ezra's cells would have to wait until he visited the City again.

3 In the forest

Before Wildchild left the Cloner City to return to the forest, two-weeks after the Cloner Fair, Gloria summoned her for a last game of chess. Wildchild won and they relaxed afterward.

Gloria said: "I'm sorry we can't entice you to stay with us in the City, Samothea. You fit in perfectly. Everyone likes you. I don't think the Juniors have been so well led."

"Thank you, Madam. I like everyone here and I've learned a great deal, especially from Hazel, who taught me how to be a Junior. As for leaving: I promised Madam Mirselene I would return to the forest."

"But for how long?"

"Madam?"

"Did you say you'd live in the forest the rest of your life? What if you could belong to two tribes and share your time between them?"

"Is that possible?"

"Why not? You're the first Woodlander who became a Junior, as you and Yael were the first Herders to become Woodlanders. Why can't you be the first woman to be both a Woodlander and a Cloner?"

"I don't know Madam. May I think about it?"

"Of course, you may. Meanwhile, I hope to see you back here often. I suppose you managed to persuade Hazel to go with you?"

"Yes, Madam."

"I expected nothing less. Maybe there is something for you to learn in the forest, especially from Mirselene. I think you should try to see Solange often as well. She's a devious chess-player."

Wildchild knew that Solange didn't play chess but Gloria didn't mean the board-game.

"Can I ask you something, Madam?"

"Go ahead."

"Why did you allow my mother to out-manoeuvre you regarding the new currency committee?"

"Do you think that's what happened?"

"I did at the time. Clearly I was wrong. Wouldn't giving up the Cloner Tokens weaken the Cloner Tribe?"

"Only economically, and only for a time, until things found a natural balance again. But I can't think of it as a bad thing for the community as a whole. Too much power concentrated in one tribe is destabilizing. On Earth, governments have checks and balances to avoid the problem of concentrated power."

"Will you sit on the new committee?"

"Do you think I ought?"

"Of course, Madam. Who is wiser than you?"

"Lots of people, starting with your mother and not ending with my Aunt Dolly."

"No Madam, you're wiser than all of them combined."

Gloria smiled.

"And I think you've got a different plan for the currency committee," Wildchild said.

"Let me tell you something else I know about old-Earth politics. They say that, if you set up a committee to solve a problem, then you'll never be rid of either the committee or the problem."

Wildchild laughed and Gloria laughed with her.

"I notice you wear your pendant all the time now, Samothea."

"Yes, Madam. It's pretty and it makes my mother happy to see me wear it."

"Have you observed that the more independent you are from your mother, the more respect you show her?"

"Yes, Madam."

Gloria smiled again.

"I will miss our chess games, Samothea."

"So will I, Madam."

There was no sentimental leave-taking and no hugging. Wildchild curtsied to the Cloner Chief for the last time and walked pensively to the Junior dormitory.

She packed her backpack that night, including her yellow dress. It was a gift from Gloria, who said she could take one item of clothing from the Juniors' store.

Wildchild cleaned the pink frilly dress, dried it and hung it in the wardrobe for a future Junior to use. Next morning she kissed the Juniors, curtsied a last time to those members of the Cloner Council up early in the morning and walked proudly with her backpack and bow to meet Hazel at the stable for the ride home.

******

The Woodlanders made Hazel very welcome. With so many women nursing their daughters, the tribe needed more strong workers. She willingly got her hands dirty in the small cultivated fields next to the meadow, where Jemima the cow grazed peacefully and the chickens took their daily strolls to peck for seeds and insects.

However, farming in the forest was different from farming on the foothills of the White Mountains, up-river from the Cloner City, where the night-rain had mostly discharged itself before it reached the fields. The Farmers dug drainage ditches to guide water from fast-flowing mountain-streams into the fields of golden corn. By contrast, in the forest, the drainage ditches carried night-rain away from the field, to prevent them getting water-logged.

Here, the crops were root vegetables: potatoes, turnips, carrots and beetroot would survive the trampling effects of freezing rain. To combat the rain, the arable fields abutted the trees, whose shade caused the crops to grow more slowly but also protected them from all but the heaviest downpours.

Hazel could do to the existing system but she wanted to try an experiment. Helped by Wildchild, Carlin and Tamar, she dug a new patch at the edge of the existing fields, in the middle of the meadow, in full sunlight. They planted it with wheat. Then they built frames with detachable sloping roofs and put them out in the evening to protect the crop from the night-rain, removing them again next morning to expose the wheat to the sun.

In six or seven weeks, they hoped for a small crop of wheat to harvest, so long as they could keep the pigeons away. The girls had a good answer for that: they took Hazel hunting. Every day, they went into the forest with their bows and arrows and hunted pigeons. Hazel quickly proved herself adept.

Hazel was not just a beautiful girl, she was the exactly right companion for Wildchild because she was skilful, fast, strong and very competitive, giving Wildchild a healthy challenge as well as unconditional love. When they weren't hunting, the four girls raced around the forest, exploring, joking, laughing, interested in everything they found, but mostly interested in discovering their own strengths.

They had running races and races to climb trees. They competed to chop the most wood for the fire. They wrestled (Wildchild always won) and swam in the river (but Hazel couldn't swim yet and only splashed about).

The girls cut dogwood and wild rose shoots for arrows and yew branches for Dagma and Sharne to show them how to make bows. They had archery competitions with the new weapons.

They dug a new pit for the crapper and surrounded it with a strong fence, now that Freya and the other toddlers were active explorers.

Their tests of strength and agility often excluded ten-year-old Pepi, however, who was too slow to keep up and too small for a bow and arrow. Pepi also had her chores. She looked after Jemima the cow and had daily lessons from Mirselene or Casti, besides spending time with her beloved grandmother and her baby sister.

The result was that Pepi, who hated being left out of anything, was feeling rejected and let everyone else in the camp know it. Pepi was never one to keep her feelings to herself.