Chapter 18; Day 3- Decision Day
When Lar awoke, the sun was high in the sky. Above him, some one was blowing the ram’s horn for the mid day meal. “Watch Man..?”
He waited. “Watch Man?” came the voice again.
“Yes, little brother… I am here.”
It was Len, one of the boys charged with look out duties from the top of their world. “M…my father wishes me to share our mid day meal with Thee.”
“Really..?”
He got braver as he went, talking faster and faster as children will do. “Yes, Sir. Jav, my brother and two cousins are cooking a kid. All of the lookouts will be there. We would be blessed to share it with Thee.”
“Then, It would bless us both.”
“About thirty more minutes, then.”
“Yes… I would be honored, sir.”
Without another word, the boy dashed up the stairs to warn his brothers that they were to have an honored guest for their midday meal.
Lying still to calm his heart, he merged with the Watcher. Today, he searched for the small form of the red headed girl. For some reason, she was all he could think about. He was totally unaware of her methods of bewitching him. He swore that he could stil smell her. She had followed Mav’s instructions to the letter. Without his realizing it, she had rubbed the heavy oiled perfume from her hands all over his clothes and body. The smell of her consumed him until he simply could not get her out of his mind.
He settled into the Eye of the watcher. His vision was blurry at first until he steadied it on the area where the women were searching this morning for their jewels. He searched among the women until he found Jin. She was trudging back toward camp from her morning’s work. Today though, unlike ever before, she was talking gaily with her stepmother. He did not seek the Ear of the Watcher so he could not hear them. He was breaking enough banns just attempting to direct the Watcher even this much. Listening would have been too much.
Had he chosen to use the Ear of the Watcher as well, he would have discovered that he was the topic of their discussion. He would have either been frightened or seriously angered by the depth of advice that Jin was receiving about their future plans to bring him to Kal’s tent with a bride price in his hand. To him, it was just two women walking in from a day’s gathering.
From time to time, one or the other of them would stoop to pick up a stone and continue walking and talking about what ever they were cooking up. Had he not been so taken with the beauty of Jin, he might have noticed that Jin was giving every stone she gathered to her step-mother. She kept none for herself.
But, he wasn’t fit to analyze anything that she was doing. For now, he was content to watch her walk and talk. He wanted to learn all he could. Would she be the one to bring him new life, he wondered. She had a marvelous walk. He was entranced by the way she swayed her well-formed hips with just the right combination of athlete and courtesan. She waved and returned waves to each one she met. It was clear that she was sociable and well liked among the People.
The two young women ducked into their tent. He hesitated for a second. “Well…In for a pence, in for a pound,” he said to no one.
Then, he allowed the Eye to pass through the cloth veils of the tent wall. The Eye found Jin stopped at a set of large flat clay bowls used as washbasins. She held up her skirts and stepped into the first one. One of the servers rinsed the dust from her feet. She sat as her feet were dried and soft indoor slippers were slid onto them.
Then, she sat at a table with a silvered piece of reflecting glass. Her server loosened and brushed the blown dust and sand from her floor length red tresses. In a flash, she oiled and braided her hair in her signature style. Each girl had her own signature braid. It was both a contest and a statement of position as a woman of the People.
Lar looked at her closely. He was struck that she looked so tired. It never occurred to him what had tired her was sitting by his bed all night. Chasing him was the cause of her exhaustion. Attempting to follow her plan, Jin had to work in the gathering fields all day and then, get all girly and make her self available to his beck and call every night. It was this double duty that had her stretched so thin.
Following the directions of Mav, the servant girl gently washed Jin’s sun burned cheeks. From Mav’s pocket came a soft leather bag. The young girl applied pale unguents to the bottoms of Jin’s eyes and the shadows miraculously disappeared. This process fascinated Lar. Still, her tiredness disturbed him. Tonight, he must see that she sleeps much earlier.
It never occurred to Lar that he was beginning to plan his night around her needs instead of his. He was only following a deep instinct driven by a deeper need to care for some one who was alive. He shook his head to clear the Eye from his mind. It also never occurred to him that he had decided that she was going to sleep in his bed that night either.
“Time for lunch,” he said. He headed up the stairs to the top of the headwhere he knew a kid was being cooked.
When he got to the top, he stopped and sniffed, “Mmmmmm…that smells marvelous.”
There was a familiar look to this camp among the huntsmen. All of the men of Kiv’s tribe were required to know how to cook and bake. Women rarely were taken on the long hunts. Boys learned to kill and clean a, make fires and cook early in life or they would not ever be taken out of camp.
This team was well versed in their roles. On one side of the fire, four of them were baking using the customary smooth rocks half in and half out of the coals. These heated rocks were being used to cook the flat bread that would make the meat easier to eat. A mealy gruel was poured on the heated flat surface. In a flash, it became a chewey, flat piece of bread.
The oldest of the Kiv’s boys was on lookout up on top of the crown of the Watcher. “Ket… all quiet?”
The boy looked up from his meal and swallowed a giant bite that he had been chewing. “All quiet, dear Uncle.”
“Thank you for inviting me to your meal.”
“It is a blessing to us to eat with the Watch Man.”
Lar pounded him on the shoulder and he returned to his duties and his meal. All around the fire, the rest of the crew was working on some part of the meal. One was slicing and one was catching the slices on a wooden plate. As he approached, another one of them took slices off the big plate and placed them on flat bread on a smaller plate and brought it to Lar. He neither said nor did anything until all were served. He raised his plate, “Bless the Watcher…”
The boys raised their plates or cups. “And the Watcher blesses us,” intoned the boys. They passed skins of new wine from the Great City and shared their joy together as only men can do who are in tune with their God and with their life.
“Starting with out me, boys…”
“I remember a story told to me by a great Hunts man…oh, yes, it was you…about birds…and getting…or in your case, not getting…worms.”
His father grabbed him in a huge bear hug and began to tickle him, “Ewww,” he said,”I hate worms…” and he put the boy down.
Zev, the second son, offered him a wooden plate, “Try some lamb and bread then.” They all laughed at the old routines. Lar remembered the same interchanges between Kiv and his father from long ago and far away.
Even as great as it was to eat like a Huntsman, Lars mind drifted back to the smell of a red headed girl. Sitting with his nephews and chewing thoughtfully, a beautiful face and deepest emerald green eyes. The others at the fire left him to his deep thoughts. With the dedication of boys, they concentrated on the food and the drink.
The other men could smell the strange woodsy scent on him, but, they did not comment. It was some potion only the witch women knew of. They just sniffed and went on eating. Men do not know the machinations of the female psyche. That is why they are so easily led astray by the whiles of females.
Finished, Lar stood, “That was a grand meal, my little brothers…” He returned to his rooms and his thoughts.
All the rest of the day, Lar sat and
thought. By day’s end, he still did not know the true course of this evening’s work. He held the tear, tossing it from hand to hand and finally returned it to its hiding place under his pillow. He headed down the stairs.
He ran into a boy coming up the stairs. The boy knelt for a blessing. Lar placed both hands on his head, “I give Thee a blessing.
“Bless the Watcher in return.”
Together, they intoned, “O main”
“Uncle?”
“Yes, boy?”
“Your mother requests the pleasure of your company this evening at the fire of Loi, the Shiree.”
“Really..?”
“She gave me a stone that my father says will easily trade for new bow and a steel knife at Trading Time.”
“Then, Thee are truly blessed. Will you carry my response back to my mother?”
”The boy stood and looked him full in the face, gravely, “Anything for Thee, Sir.”
“Go then to the Widow’s tent. Find the widow called Lov.”
“I remember your mother well, Sir.”
“Good…good… Tell her I will want to see Loi this evening and wish her to be in attendance. ”
“Yes, Sir…” The boy turned to go. He knew the talk in his father’s house. This was a great day. The Watch Man would take a bride tonight. He ran all the way to the Widow’s Tent, found his great Aunt Lov,
Then, ran even more quickly to tell his father, Kiv. His father was very glad to hear the news and gave the boy the rest of the Gathering time off as his reward.