Outlaw. Part 18

Wilam led me away from the celebration late, followed by Melino and two of his ranking warriors. Much ado was made of how great the feast had been, but as we approached the Muhanim the air became quiet.

When we stepped into the hut, the elders were seated along the walls, watching us with somber eyes. I knew immediately that something was wrong.

Wilam guided me around the smoldering fire. "Get her a soft mat," he ordered one of his warriors. "Get her some water and some meat. Hurry." He looked at me. "You are hungry?"

"I just ate. What's happening?"

His hand touched my belly. "The child is good?"

I was growing accustomed to their hovering and Wilam's unyielding concern for my well-being. "All is well," I said.

"You shouldn't have danced so much."

"Then you should have thrown a smaller feast."

"You must not sit too quickly or run too much."

"Don't be silly. I've been with child less than a month."

"And I will see to it that you're with child another eight months. Now sit."

Melino had seated herself with her legs folded to one side. "Sit beside me, Yuli. Don't pay Wilam any mind, he's only a man who knows nothing about being a woman. He thinks you're made of flowers and will blow apart in the wind."

Normally this would have earned her a chuckle from the warriors and a scoff from Wilam, but tonight there was no mirth in the Muhanim.

I settled to my seat.

Wilam paced on the bark floor like a caged lion. This was not his typical calm behavior. "Because now you must know that everything has changed."

"Not so changed that I don't know what to do with my own body," I said.

His eyes darted to Melino, and by the concern etched on his face, I knew that something was indeed wrong.

She nodded once. "Listen to him, Yuli."

"What is it?"

Wilam faced me. "The Warik are wearing the black grease."

I glanced at the elders and saw the glint of fear in their eyes.

"What is the black grease?"

"We must not speak of this," one of the elders said.

Melino flashed a harsh glare at the men.

"She bears Wilam's child! She has the right to know."

Wilam crossed to the platform and sat, facing me with steady eyes. For a while he said nothing, but that silence worked fingers of terrible fear into my mind.

"The Warik know you carry my child. It was my hope that they would see my wisdom and strength and harden their hearts against Kirutu. This is the way of the Tulim, to offer greatest respect to those who bring life. They saw your beauty when you sang and danced with the children." He stopped.

"What is the black grease?" I asked again.

"But Kirutu and the witch of the Karun tribe have turned them with the black grease. It is made from the fat of a crocodile mixed with Sawim's blood. With this ceremony they call on the power of the evil spirits."

The fear in that room was palpable. I could hear the fire crackling and the night creatures crying in the jungle, and my ears heard the sounds of h.e.l.l.

"But spirits are only spirits," I said, trying to believe my own words. "They can't overpower the mighty Impirum."

His eyes shifted to Leweeg, the elder who had spoken. He was the closest the Impirum had to a shaman. Among the three clans-the Warik, the Impirum, and the Karun-a true shaman could come from and live among the Karun only, but each tribe had spiritual elders.

"She is incapable of understanding," the old man said. "She is a woman and she is wam."

"She is my wife!" Wilam snapped.

They exchanged a long look and the elder finally dipped his head.

"Forgive me."

I had been told that, compared to most tribes in the region, the Tulim regarded women with respect. But some biases are not easily washed from the hearts of men.

It was the least of my concerns at the moment.

"Sawim has declared our union and our child invalid," Wilam said.

"And you will tolerate this?" I demanded.

His eyes flashed with hatred. "I will see a thousand Warik die before I see any harm come to my son. The rule of the Tulim must not leave the Impirum clan."

With those words reality once again settled around me like a thick fog. My value to them was still a matter of political power. We had celebrated as if heaven itself had fallen to earth, but the celebration hadn't been for me. It had been for my unborn child.

Even more, it had been for Wilam.

For his river of his life that would extend his power for yet another generation. I was but a vessel.

I felt Melino's hand settle on my thigh. Tears welled in my eyes.

"You have nothing to fear, Yuli," Melino said. "Wilam will raise a thousand warriors to protect you. Our child will be born."

"It has been a hundred years since any have taken up the black grease," the elder said softly. "There will be war."

"Then let there be war," Wilam spat.

He turned to me, face stern.

"You will sleep in the spousal hut alone. You may never come or go without my men. There is nothing to fear. My men will protect you. We have heard that Kirutu is only making noise. This will take time and we will be ready."

His words should have been comforting.

Instead I felt utterly alone.

"Take her to the hut," he said. "Bring me my warriors." And then to me, meaning well, I know: "You will be safe."

Wilam was wrong. I wasn't safe.

Chapter Seventeen.

AFTER BEING delivered to my hut alone it took me two hours to drift into a fitful sleep. When I asked Melino to stay with me, she informed me that she could stay only until I slept and would then be otherwise occupied. It was crucial that I sleep. Nothing must disturb me.

The night was quiet and the three warriors stationed outside my hut spoke only occasionally in soft tones.

I don't know how the dark ones slipped through the perimeter guard Wilam had stationed around the village.

I don't know why the three warriors at my door didn't put up a fight or call out a warning.

I know only that I was in deep sleep when a crushing blow struck my head. I remember thinking that the roof had collapsed before darkness swallowed me completely.

But the moment I awoke I knew that a falling roof was not my problem. My being wam, on the other hand, was.

I was bound hand and foot, hanging from a pole. A bag was over my throbbing head and a gag cut deeply into my mouth. I had been in that position before, swinging a foot off the ground between two Warik warriors who rushed me through the jungle.

I struggled and cried into my gag, thinking we might still be close enough to the Impirum village to be heard, but my resistance only earned me a hard blow to my head and a harsh grunt of rebuke.

"Koneh." Shut up.

A hundred thoughts badgered my mind-nightmares of the worst kind. Surely Kirutu would not allow me to live.

If only it had been so simple.

Only one thought gave me a moment's hope as I hung from that pole and silently cried into my bag: I was alive. I should have died with Stephen in the sea, but I was alive. I should have been executed the day after entering the valley, but I was alive. I should have been given to Kirutu at his wedding and paid him back with my life, but I was alive.

If Kirutu had wanted me dead now, he could have instructed his warriors to kill me in my hut.

But then even that hope was quickly dashed, because being alive in Kirutu's hut would be only a different kind of death. Whatever his plans for me might be, they could not be favorable.

The vines they'd used to bind my hands and feet to the pole dug into my skin with each bounce as they ran. If we had gone on much longer, my arms might have come out of their sockets, but we were much closer to the Warik village than I had a.s.sumed. Indeed, I briefly wondered if we hadn't gone south after all, but to the house of an embittered Impirum villager.

No more than twenty minutes after I'd awakened to find myself bound, my carriers hauled me into a hut, dumped me on the bark floor, and left me p.r.o.ne with a crackling fire near my feet.

My every thought cried out to G.o.d. And for Wilam to come before Kirutu could begin whatever harm he intended.

And yet I knew even as I lay bound and gagged, like one of the pigs my prince had slaughtered to honor the life in my womb, that Wilam could not save me from Kirutu. The man was too shrewd and too angry to allow his enemy another victory. He'd been scorned and mocked, and his revenge would be carefully orchestrated to end his shame once and for all.

If Wilam had failed to keep me safe in his own fortress, he could do nothing here, even if he knew I was missing.

The only thing I could do was play Kirutu's game with the thinnest hope that I, not Wilam, could foil him long enough to give my prince the time he needed to find me and save our child.

"I have heard it said that the children of some wam have blue eyes because they are evil spirits." The man spoke in a low tone, only feet from where I lay, and a chill washed down my spine. I could not mistake Kirutu's voice.

"But when I see your child, I do not see an evil spirit," he said. "I see only a child who does not know where it belongs."

The Tulim often spoke of unborn children as if they were already walking about the village, and they used metaphors regarding the ways of the spirit world. But his meaning hardly mattered; I was still consumed with the sound of Kirutu's haunting voice.

"But if I am wrong and the child is evil, then the mother must also be a demon. Only this would explain how you have escaped my grasp and bewitched the Impirum."

You must be calm, Julian. For the sake of your child, you must still your mind and think very carefully.

A hand s.n.a.t.c.hed the bag from my head. I blinked and saw that I was inside the same hut I'd visited during my first night among the Tulim, presumably one belonging to Kirutu, perhaps one on the outskirts of the village reserved for liaisons or for hunting.

Kirutu stepped into firelight, unadorned except for a rattan waistband and a necklace of cowrie sh.e.l.ls bearing a single boar's tusk. The scar on his side stood out angrily on his shiny skin covered in black grease-crocodile fat and Sawim's blood mixed with whatever other ingredients turned it black. He watched me with dark eyes set deeply into his hardened face.

"I should have crushed your skull with my paddle in the sea where I found you," he said. "But now I have the pleasure of crushing your child's head as well."

It was to my benefit that he hadn't yet removed my gag, for I would have lashed out at him then. Instead I took great pains to calm myself. My sole objective became to stall him as long as I could, even if that meant compromising myself.

He leaned over, grasped the gag with strong fingers, and jerked it over my chin, freeing my mouth. "You will now wish I had left you dead."

"Then you were foolish for not killing what you could never have," I said. "Now all the Tulim see that Wilam made what you could not."

His eyes lowered to my belly. "So they tell me."

"Any man can take a woman, but only the strongest can win her heart the way he wins the heart of all Tulim," I said.

A wicked grin twisted his mouth. "Your intelligence surprises me. It's true, I will never be favored in a struggle for the people's affections. But I won't have to. Your offspring will give the people to me."

He was playing games, I was sure of it. I had no power over the people.

"I am not so weak."

"No, I hope you aren't. You will need to be strong to kill Wilam."

Again, a game. But there was something in his voice that frightened me. His composure was not that of a bluffing man.

"I would die before I killed Wilam," I said.

"Yes, you would. But would you also take the life of your child?"

"The life of my child is no longer in my hands."