Chapter 11
of Wisdom and Folly
Brave new world
Tanya was lying on a pallet, shaded from the sun by a canopy of jasmine, outside her mums taverna, The Vine, with her left thigh swathed in bandages.
“Don’t you listen, Tanya Vine? I told you. You didn’t come back for me like you promised, and I was trying to find you, when them stupid dogs just grabbed me and threw me up on their shoulders an’ ran all over the place, yelling and howling. Terrified I was, think I might have peed my britches as well. But anyway, Ma Nesbitt got that Flair to stop them, and when they put me down, my mum came over and called me a hussy and boxed my ears. Then she went all soppy, picks me up and hugs me and starts crying an’ that. Right embarrassing, in front of all them foreign folk. Me all grown up an’ all. Then old Nessie comes over as well, an’ I think she’s gone gaga on us at last, cos she asks me if them dogs had tried to get in my knicks, and I said to her that’s silly, everybody can see that they wouldn’t be nowhere big enough to fit ’em. Tanya?”
Sali went quiet at last. Her best friend, with 29 stitches in her left leg, was asleep again.
“And no more dreaming of goats, Tanya Vine.” Sali kissed her forehead and crept silently away.
The twelve wardogs had risked a good scorching (it’s a dog thing, best not to ask) when they had rigged the lottery that was run to determine which members of the superdog tribe would have the great honour of fighting alongside the madman, Marco and his seven amazons. The risks they had taken paid off big style, and they had gained enough stories to last them a lifetime from that crazy morning, especially when Mad Marco had stood up to the crimson monster on his own, with only his two trusty swords.
But there had been a bonus as well.
On their way back to camp, after the opposing armies had fled in terror from the monster, they had come across Sali Vorden wandering the battlefield, naked from the waist up, except for the bandolier of Tanya’s bloody knives over her shoulder. (Tan had borrowed her shirt to make a blindfold) The dogs were still on the edge of hysteria after seeing Marco slay the monster, and had let their imaginations run wild when they found ‘Vorden of the bloody knives’. The fact that she’d only been following Tanya’s gory trail of death, and passing the knives when asked, was irrelevant, for the legend of ‘Sali who passed the cutlery’ wouldn’t have had the same wow factor.
(Or was that, ‘bow wow’ factor?)
Of Jade’s group of twenty three archers, only she and Jimmy were still on the meadow after the monster had appeared. Even Anton had made a sudden exit. Jimmy had grabbed Jade’s arm as she turned to run as well, and quickly thrust his helmet into her hands and forced her to put it on. He had been following the ebb and flow of the battle on his helmet’s 3D vid screen and like Marco, saw the monster for what it was, an hallucination generated by the alien dragged to the battlefield on an ox cart.
Jade realised some of the truth as well, and she calmed down from sheer terror level to only mild hysteria. Jimmy then quickly recalled the other seven miners who in turn, managed to stop some of the terrified warriors, of both armies, in their inglorious flight from the field.
Hostilities had ceased instantly, and with the deaths of the alien, the high priestess and Violet, an uneasy calm descended over the valley floor, with awkward meetings between embarrassed relatives who had been on opposing sides. The wounded were patched up and sent home with escorts of unhappy ex-warriors to care for them, but a substantial group of leaders and gurus remained at Guardians Nest and sat under the pine trees in the old castle’s courtyard to discuss their options for the future.
Three days ago Tina Flake had been happy to be a captain of spears in Central’s militia, but now, after the chaos of Asher’s Farm, there was no one of higher rank left alive, so she was Central.
“I still can’t actually believe that we prayed to that… thing. How could we have been so stupid? It was just a strange creature in metal armour.”
An embarrassed silence sat uneasily on the group’s heads, then Sylvia cleared her throat and spoke for the Eastern villages.
“We’ve all been stupid. I’ve been North and seen Hood.” She went on, and briefly explained that the Hood they fervently prayed to each month was also a thing of metal, but in this case a machine that spoke with a woman’s voice.
“Well at least it talks to you,” said Tina glumly, “and gives you presents.”
She was referring to the two magic swords used by Caren and Denny.
“All that damned goat eater did was half frighten us to death with them weird pictures it showed us.”
Sylvia put forward the theory discussed by Connie and Mona earlier.
“Our best guess as to what has happened, is that after all this time, religion and history have got muddled in our heads, and our devotion to the Lady of the Night has got mixed up by the Hood crashing into the moon, while fighting those alien things, and going round with Her.”
“Chiggers!” Swore Polly Jugg, Ibis’s first sword, “all that blood and death out there, and for what? Two false gods who turn out to be old enemies. We’ve been had.”
“So the only true god is The Lady after all,” stated Tina.
Then Connie Nesbitt butted in, “not necessarily true,” she said slowly.
The others looked at her expectantly.
“We’ll pray to The Lady as usual and speak nicely to the Hood, but we’d do well to keep one eye on little Tanya. As far as we can make out, a quarter of the Central dead are down to her alone. And the way she ran blindfolded across that field, dodging all the stuff the armies had dropped seems a bit, well… goaty to me.”
There were raised eyebrows, and Connie explained her theory. “Seems like Tanya’s been chosen to be a certain god’s representative on Earth. Not sure who that might be yet, but for now, we’ll call her the queen god of goats. I heard Tanya say that once. Who knows what other strange things there are in this world of ours?”
They talked of other things as well, like trade for example, and precious supplies of iron, smoked fish and cider would be passing through the valley below them in the near future. Connie and Sylvie absolutely refused to talk about the dogs. What went on between dog city and Homestead would be kept secret, except from the Crampton girls, who had already moved into Homestead’s vacant cottages, and would eventually become Homesteaders themselves.
Then the meeting got round to the delicate subject of men.
Endgame
“Well I’m not going, and that’s final.”
“Simon, listen to reason,” Margaret pleaded, “you can’t all stay here. The gene pool’s got to be managed. You can’t just father children willy nilly, with whoever happens to be nearest at the time.”
“I’m not. From now on anyway. I’m staying here with Frankie, she understands me.”
She stood silently for a moment, trying to find the right
words.
“What’s happened to the Simon we knew a year ago?”
He turned to face her at last, “he did a job, a good job. He kept you alive when others might have failed, and now? He’s got a new career, so leave him in peace will you?”
He turned back to the stove and stirred the goat stew, then tasted it.
“Needs a bay leaf, I think, and some rosemary?”
Margaret gave up and went back to the others sitting at the benches outside The Vine.
“Well?” asked Jade.
“It’s doing my head in,” fumed Margaret, “he’s gone all Freudian on us.”
There were blank looks from the two villagers, while Gudrun nodded her head.
“What’s that then?” asked Connie.
“It means dear,” said Gudrun, “that he’s had enough warfare to last him a lifetime, and he’s being awkward. Stamping his foot, that sort of thing.”
“Still don’t get it.”
“Look over there,” said Gudrun, pointing to Marco who was still dressed in his barbarian outfit, and surrounded by laughing amazons. “A year ago, he was happy to work in the galley on the Hood, but then the aliens came, and when we went to war he was terrified, and had nightmares all the time. Simon was our rock, knew when to fight and when to run. There were ninety of us from the Hood. We eight are all that are left, and even we few might not have survived without him.”
“The true warrior,” Jade added.
“Yes. He was one of twelve marines, warriors, that we had on the Hood, the rest of us were engineers and the like. Now, he and Marco have subconsciously swapped roles, and he’s determined to stay with Frankie and work in the Vine’s kitchen.”
They drank a little more wine, and called for omelettes all round. Kirsty came out to them. “Sorry, but chef says that omelettes aren’t on the menu after midday, but would you like some goat surprise?”
They reluctantly agreed then Connie said, “you keep talking to him dear, and eventually he’ll see sense.”
The goat stew came, and after the first hesitant mouthfuls, they set to and finished it all, the only sounds being the scraping of spoons as they cleaned their bowls.
Ma Nesbitt sat back licking her lips and burped gently. “Ooh, pardon me.”
She sat a moment surveying the empty dishes.
“With Tony the Bear refusing to leave Billie, it’s perhaps a good job the forge is to the South of the green, and The Vine on the North. They’ll just have to stay their own side of the village I reckon.”
They drank some more wine.