Dag stood up and stretched his back. “Well, with those fires we have the light. We really should get this meat processed before it draws more unwanted attention.”
The guts were carried down to the edge of the water, far away from both camps. The locals sent spear men out, but they hung back just warily watching. When Dag’s dive knife came out and the small team managed to skin it of its hide, and quarter it for easy transport before the sun was quite up over the horizon, they had a full audience of everyone in the new tribe. From the old chief down to slack jawed children.
◆◆◆
Sun Cult
Dag was soon invited in for breakfast. Especially as he offered up the bear meat for a communal feast. The morning fare was much simpler, just boiled wild rice from the local marshes with a few chunks of last night’s fish mixed in. Everyone was already talking about how well they would eat once the bear was cooked.
Dag soon found that he was a bit of a local celebrity. The killing of the bear, and more importantly the way it was killed from a distance, as well as his generosity in providing the meat to their whole clan afterward, had his praises being sung throughout the camp. Only the old chief and his younger shaman seemed to be less than happy with the turn of events. They were in a place too spooked to attempt any open confrontation. Not with a man who could shout a bear to death, which is how they had been explaining what had happened. Certainly not with one who was that popular with the people.
Eventually, the girl came to talk to Dag. They still didn’t share a language, but she was remarkably adept at signing and guessing the general intent of their questions. Dag was surprise that she was relatively clean by the local standards. Not in the bath every day way that his clan had all adopted. One a public bath was constructed, but maybe more like she didn’t do the work that the other women did to get dirty.
Dag pointed to the pendant on her forehead, and the girl pointed to the sky. Confused, Dag pointed to it again, and the girl pointed to the sky. When he still didn’t get it, she took off the little gold disk, and held it up to the sky and then made it travel in an arc, and Dag finally caught on. She was showing the rising and setting of the sun. The gold disk was a representation of the sun, which made these folks one of the earliest sun cults.
Dag took a closer inspection of the placement of the stones after this discovery and recognized a henge. Not tall standing stones like Stone Henge in England, but low flat stones, still positioned according to the seasonal movement of the sun in the sky. He quickly realized that these people were more sophisticated than he had given them credit for.
Dag wanted to trade for the gold. He wasn’t sure exactly how useful it would be as soft as it was, but to have metal again, even soft metal like gold, seemed like a dream come true. He knew he would need to trade with the old chief for this rare of a commodity, so while everyone was feasting on the roast bear that evening, he tried to communicate his desire to the old chief. It wasn’t going well until the girl spoke excitedly with the old man.
Dag was excited, thinking finally someone with a clue is in on this negotiation. He pointed to the disk on the girl’s head, and mimed taking it with him. Then he dumped out of the trade pack, salt, and ivory knives and combs, and even a good felt blanket. The chief seemed to want to hold out, but the pile of goods eventually had greed overcoming his reluctance and he signed that the deal was made.
It wasn’t until Dag held out his hand for the golden disk, and instead the girl took his hand, that Dag began to suspect that they had been bargaining for two totally different things. His suspicions were confirmed as the girl followed him around most of the day, and even to their camp that night.
At first he panicked and was more than a little freaked out by the situation. When he calmed down and thought about it, he realized that this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. He needed someone to teach him the language anyway, and while he wasn’t looking for another wife, maybe after the language issue was cleared up, he could find her a suitable husband or something.
The only real issue would come in a little over a week when he had to explain the situation to Lavern. If it had been a modern American woman, he would have dreaded the conversation, but Lavern wasn’t like that. Once he explained the situation, she would be understanding.... wouldn’t she? Suddenly, he felt a lot less confident than he had a few moments ago.
Dag’s men found no end of humor in his situation. Dag was actually happy that the girl couldn’t understand them. The men meant well, but the humor was crude, and he didn’t want the girl any more scared than she was already going to be about leaving her home and her family.
What he hadn’t counted on was her terror of the boats. She had seen them arrive by boat, so should understand it was safe, but Dag understood the difference between knowing something on an intellectual level, and trusting your life to it. He tried to be patient and work her through her fears, but eventually just picked her up and tossed her in the middle of his boat. As they pushed out into the middle of the river, he could see her knuckles turning white as she gripped the edges of the canoe.
Dag just sighed. He hadn’t wanted to do it that way, but she had really left him with no other option. Besides, it was only a little more than a week to float downriver with the current on their side for a change. It would have him home soon. Of course, that also meant he would have less time to come up with a good way to explain how it happened to Lavern.
Back Home
Nissa
Getting the girl into the boat on the second day was marginally less difficult, but when Dag lost patience and simply tossed her in, the fight just went out of her. Each evening, when they stopped and she could scramble for the bank, she turned into a completely different person. As accommodating and easygoing as you please. It was just that each morning, getting her aboard the canoe that became a wrestling match.
Each day she white knuckle gripped the sides of the canoe the whole way, her face in a mask of terror. At night, though, she curled up next to Dag and behaved as any women in the clans were expected to act. To him, it was more than a little confusing. He was able to learn that her name was Nissa, and the words in her language for fire, river, eat, and sleep, but very little else. Not that she was trying to hold back on him, but time was short on land, and no amount of calming seemed to work when she was on the boat.
The girl didn’t seem unhappy with them, and even spared Dag coy smiles when they were on the land, and as close as she slept to him, left him in no doubt that she saw herself as a wife to him. More over, that she wasn’t unhappy with that, as long as he didn’t put her in any boats.
Frustrating as she was about boat travel, Dag found that he actually liked the girl and even respected her sharp intellect. No one with eyes could mistake her for a fool. She was always looking around and absorbing the world that passed them by. At least as much of it as could break through her terror of boat travel. On land she diligently tried to learn English, while providing Dag with her clan’s words for any item he could ask, assuming that he was asking the right questions, or more accurately that she understood the question he was asking.
He felt a little guilty. She was sweet. A bit spoiled, but kind and open to him. She actually tried to make him happy. It reminded him of a teenager with a crush, and with Lavern still weighing on his mind, he felt bad taking advantage of the girl’s efforts. It seemed wrong for her to think that he was her husband, when he already had a wife, and yet, he had no way of explaining what had happened to her because of their language barrier.
Lavern was unlikely to be happy about this, and Nissa was likely to feel betrayed when she understood enough to know what had happened. Dag could see himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, and instead of finding a way out, just smashing both the rock and the hard place just to survive. When did his life become this complicated?
◆◆◆
Out Numbered
Lavern wasn’t happy. “How could you let this happen? Have I displeased you? Have I not given you children and taken care of your home? Do I no longer excite you?”
Dag groaned, this wasn’t the first time he had gone through answering these questions. “Look, how hard is it for you to understand that I didn’t realize what I was trading for until it was ‘too late’ to back out without risking a fight?”
“You say this, but I’ve seen the girl, and she is beautiful!” Lavern pouted.
“You are beautiful. Why are you mad at me?” Dag asked.
“You are choosing to replace me!” Lavern accused.
Dag rolled his eyes, “Of course I’m not planning to replace you! You are driving me a little crazy over this mix up. I’ve not touched the girl, so we just explain that there was a mistake when she understands our language enough to understand.”
Lavern looked at him like he had just threated to kill the girl. “You would just discard her?” The tone of her voice confusing Dag.
Dag shook his head, “No! She can still be part of the tribe, but she just finds out that unlike what her chief had planned, she hasn’t been sold to me for a bundle of trade goods. That she is, in fact a free woman, and can find a husband from any of the people.”
Lavern shook her head and looked like she was in tears, “You would just cast her off like that? She was promised to a clan chief, but you would just throw her to one of your men like a gift?”
Dag blinked hard, trying to understand why he was having this argument. “What? Why would you put it like that?”
Lavern looked at him angrily and snapped, “It is how she will see it, and her father. If his clan really is that big, you don’t want her getting word to him that she was treated so disrespectfully.”
Dag hung his head and rested it on the palms of his hands. He had already tried to explain this to Nissa and been less than successful in conveying his message. Only to come back and get the third degree from Lavern. Complete with shifting reasons for disapproving of his actions. He really was at the point of tossing both of them into a tower and locking the door. In a last desperate attempt to understand what the crazy women wanted, Dag just asked. “So, what do you want from me? Because it sounds like you’re arguing for me to keep her, but will be mad at me for doing so!”
It was Lavern’s time to stop, blink, and rub her hands over her face. “I was surprised by the situation, and was hurt to think that you were getting rid of me...”
