Tribal Bonds Ch. 03

"The warrior women responded that they would sneak into Ulus farms and villages at night. They would kill every witness. They would dress as ghosts, in case they were ever seen. They would be the spirits of the Hayalet Valley. And they would use fear of the unknown to defeat a stronger enemy. These women carried the day. They left the Cadilar here, in the mountains, to guard the girls and to build longhouses, while they climbed down the mountains into the Valley. They reaped a terrible vengeance on the Ulus, drove them from the Valley. That is a story you already know.

"What's more, their fame traveled to every corner of the known world, such that no man dared enter the Valley. Stories were told that the Ghosts of the Hayalet took no prisoners. And for hundreds of years, those stories have been true. We live here in the mountains, we raise what crops we can and shepherd goats. And we keep a watchful eye on the Valley below. No one is allowed to pass unscathed. As you caravan learned, to their detriment."

For a moment, I simply let the story soak into my bones. The admiration I felt for the Ulus began to drain, slightly. I looked around at the young, vigorous women standing in the circle around me, their hardy young daughters playing. These were warrior women. They had grasped the reins of power that I had sensed among the men of the Buz. They had taken up weapons, trained themselves, and brought death to the enemies that had humiliated their men. My heart burned suddenly with the freedom that they experienced every day. But even my excitement and admiration could not blot out a point of confusion that remained.

"If you are the Hayalet, with the Hayalet's blood running through your veins," I said and Orospu nodded, "Then you must be hundreds of years old. How?"

"Hundreds of years?" Orospu asked, knitting her brow.

"As you said, no man of the Hayalet survived. There was no seed to replenish your stock. If you have captured other men, where are they? And are you still Hayalet if you've used their seed?" Orospu laughed gently at my questions.

"You are a Cadilar," she said, "You produce seed, do you not?" Suddenly, an image flashed through my mind from the previous night. Gul, on her hands and knees, in front of Orospu, begging Orospu to fuck another warrior into her womb.

"So..." I began, but Orospu spoke over me.

"As I stated before, the Cadilar, as priestesses, had taken a vow of chastity. However, our warrior women returned from battle triumphant, and lusty. The Cadilar wished to...reward our brave warriors in some way. What's more, we recognized the problem that you had diagnosed - no seed, no future. It wasn't so much that a decision was reached, but that nature took its course. The vow of chastity was not so much consciously eliminated as disregarded."

"The Cadilar began to fuck the women in the tribe?" I asked in my blunt fashion. Orospu smiled and shrugged.

"The Cadilar and the women in the tribe decided to couple, and marry," she said, "The Cadilar had been celibate for so long, and so devoted to their vows, that no one knew whether they even could impregnate a woman. The Hayalet were surprised, and delighted, to find that they, in fact, were fertile. In the years following the Massacre, babies were born here in these mountains. A first generation that had never known the soft life of the valley.

"According to the chronicles kept at the time, the Cadilar saw their role in the generation that experienced the Massacre, as the planter of an orchard. Cadilar would plant the seed and then watch as might trees grew through the generations and produced new fruit. In hundreds of years, men and women would grow abundant enough in these hold-fasts to return to the valley, and retake what was theirs.

"But it was not to be. We Hayalet were shocked to find that while the Cadilar were fertile, and could produce children, they could not produce male children. Daughters were born. Cadilar were born. But, for whatever reason, the seed of a Cadilar could not produce new men. The Hayalet could continue as a race, but it was a fundamentally changed race. A race of women and Cadilar.

"In the years that followed, the Hayalet learned many things. Cadilar are not as fertile as men. Most couplings will not result in an implanted seed. Women have fewer children when married to a Cadilar, as opposed to being married to a man. A woman may have only one or two children in her lifetime. It is a great rarity for a woman to have three. What is more, while men and women in the Old Times were born at a similar rate, roughly one man for each woman, that was not the case with the Cadilar. Nine out of ten children born to the Hayalet are female. The remainder are Cadilar.

"As a result, our marriages have changed to reflect the situation. A single woman does not marry a single Cadilar. There is a communal marriage. A marriage that contains one Cadilar and, on average, around 9 wives, though the actual number fluctuates. Every member is married to every other member. A Cadilar will then have anywhere from 10 to 20 children, only one or two of which will be Cadilar. And these large families, full of wives and daughters, live together in a longhouse. Like the one behind you."

As Orospu spoke, I looked around, as if seeing the village for the first time. No longer wondering where the men might be. This was the entire civilization. Women and girls. I never would have imagined that such a thing could exist. It was all so different from life in the far North. I could not even imagine how a society could function, without men in charge. Even knowing that I wished for more of a say in the affairs of the Buz, I never dreamed of a world in which men didn't have the greatest say. It sounded...lovely, but impossible.

I turned back to Orospu in a slight daze. She was looking at me with a sort of amused countenance, like she was reading my thoughts. Something about her crooked smile cast my mind back to the night in the longhouse, when I'd first seen Orospu.

"So Gul and Otuzbes and the other women..." I started.

"You heard and saw more than my wives imagined," Orospu said, answering my question before it was asked.

"They are you wives?" I asked.

"And each others wives," she explained, "We are all married to one another. We raise our children together."

"How many children?"

"Let's see, with Gul's daughter, I now have 8. One is a Cadilar. But I am still relatively young. My wives are young and healthy. There will be more." I started counting up the numbers. Orospu with her wives and children, a total of 12 longhouses (I now counted). No more than around 300 people in this village. Maybe more if there were widows living in their daughters' homes.

"How many villages are there like this?" I asked.

"Like this? No others," she said.

"So this is all that remains of the Hayalet?" I asked. And she laughed.

"No, not at all," Orospu said, shaking her head, "This large village with a palisade wall is, by far, the largest settlement of the Hayalet. That is what I meant. A dozen longhouses and defenses is large by our standard. But there are smaller villages of five or six longhouses throughout the mountains. There are families that live in isolated homesteads. There are even Hayalet living in the mountains on the other side of the river. We surround the valley. And yet we are invisible."

I had no conception of the size of the valley. Nor how many villages or homesteads it might contain. I felt that Orospu would not be inclined to share that information. Still, she sensed the source of my curiosity.

"Our numbers are small. With warriors sometimes falling battle and sickness taking others, we have about as many Hayalet today as there were when we regrouped after the Massacre. We grow food when we can, we try to tend to our sick. Each drop of Hayalet blood is precious," she explained.

"The Buz have men and our women give birth to many more children. But we tread water as well. The North is not forgiving," I said. Orospu nodded.

"I am sure your tribe sometimes takes prisoners, women, to replenish the stock," she said, and I thought of Hapis, my uncle's wife, who had been captured in a raid as a child. I nodded.

"We do not force women to join our tribe, but we sometimes offer it to slaves that we liberate. It does not happen often. But we try to keep up our numbers when we can. It is even rarer to find a Cadilar. The Chronicles indicate that one of my ancestors, four generations back, was a Cadilar who wondered into the mountains by chance, was captured, and joined our tribe. But that is the last recorded instance. Then, just a few days ago, two Cadilar fell into our hands. You and your friend..."

"Not my friend," My eyes flashed angrily at Orospu, "My sworn enemy" and I spat. Orospu raised her hands in supplication.

"I did not know," she said.

"I am Kedi of the Buz, a proud tribe with a proud god. She...Cilek," he name coming out like a hiss, "Is a weak Kabile girl. I have said the words. I must kill her and four others of her tribe."

"You will not touch her here," Orospu said coldly, "She is a guest here, as you are. I have guaranteed your safety. Others have guaranteed hers." My hatred of the Kabile burned as bright as ever, but I would not dishonor the people who had rescued me. I bowed my head.

"I will respect your wishes. Here," I said. Orospu's cold face warmed.

"Excellent," she said, "Besides, she might not be Kabile much longer."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You might not be Buz much longer," she said in response, and I flared with anger.

"One is born into the Buz. Even being sold into slavery did not change that. I will always be Buz," I raged. Orospu put her hands together soothingly.

"And so you shall. What I am saying, perhaps too subtly, is that the Hayalet are always in need of Cadilar. There are few of us, but we are necessary to sow the seeds of future generations. You are our guest here, and you may leave if you desire when the time comes. But we extend an invitation for you to join here. To have wives, to raise children, to be honored," Orospu said. Looking back, it seemed obvious that Orospu had been building up to this offer, but at the time, I was so overcome with my hatred from the Kabile and for Cilek, that I hadn't realized what she was saying. I was caught flat-footed, off-balance.

"Abandon my tribe and become a Hayalet?" I asked after a long minute. I began to shake my head.

"Do not answer now," Orospu said, "My wives, and the women in a neighboring longhouse, have just returned from their raid. And brought you back. Two other longhouses sent out patrols last night. You cannot leave until those patrols return and another two longhouses set out. The next two longhouses will take you, blindfolded, back to the Valley. If you determine that that is what you actually want. But for now, you will live with the Hayalet. And, in doing so, you can decide whether you want to stay with us."

"I do not need your permission, as a guest, to leave. I will follow streams down into the Valley and leave tonight," I said. Orospu's eyes closed to slits.

"We cannot allow you, or anyone, to know the paths that lead out of this village. Because they can lead right back into it. You will be sworn to secrecy if you choose to leave this place, on the honor of our Gods and yours. Until that time, eyes will be on you at all times. You cannot escape. If you leave, you will leave when we allow it," Orospu said finally. So I was still a prisoner. At least for a little while. I would not argue with her, not now.

"How long?" I asked.

"How long for what?" Orospu asked.

"How long until the raiders return, and then next patrol heads out? How long before I can leave these mountains and begin my trip home, to the Far North, to be with my people?" I said. Orospu sighed.

"The next patrol will leave in three weeks," she said, and I felt my heart lurch. Three weeks! It would be early winter by then! I was just about to protest when Orospu suddenly stood.

"Wait a moment..." I demanded, thinking that Orospu was just going to leave me there.

"Ah, good, they have heard that you awakened and have arrived!" Orospu said. Who was here? And why? I turned to follow Orospu's line of sight and I saw three women standing just a few yards away from the longhouse. One I recognized instantly as Cilek. She was standing between two other women, who I did not recognize. They had not been in Orospu's longhouse. But they were at least as beautiful as any of the women who had been. They looked quite similar to one another. They were young, perhaps just turned twenty. They were short and lean with long, straight, almost black hair. One had her hair cascading freely over her shoulders, the other had it tied back in a ponytail that fell down to the small of her back. The two women had light brown skin, large eyes, and small noses. They had thin necks, wispy arms, and delicate legs. Their breasts were small and high on their chests, their stomachs were flat and thin, their hips flared more widely than their breasts. They walked with purpose and were smiling gently.

"Omuzlar, Geri," Orospu said, "I introduced you to Kedi, a Cadilar of the Buz tribe from the far North. Kedi, this is Omuzlar," Orospu gestured to the woman with free hair, "and Geri," she gestured to the woman with the ponytail, "They are Hayalet. And they are the former wives of my late friend Olu."

"Welcome to our village," Omuzlar said.

"We are gratified to have new Cadilar here, with us," Geri said. I nodded, but I was barely thinking about them or what they said.

"Why is she here?" I said, pointing rudely at Cilek.

"I am sorry to hear about your friend, and your wife," Cilek said, looking at the other women and not speaking to me.

"Alas, it was her time," Orospu said, gazing up the clouds, "the Gods gave her 58 years. Neither to much, nor too little."

"Whatever years the Gods grant," Geri and Omuzlar stated in unison, indicating that this was some sort of ritual statement.

"They are here," Orospu said, turning to me, "Because I asked them to be."

"I don't want to be around the Kabile girl," I said. Looking at Cilek in the day light, freed from her chains, I found that I could barely contain the rage I felt towards her, towards her tribe. I know that some of it was just fear and frustration at being stuck with the Hayalet for the better part of a month. But it didn't change the fact that Cilek had defiled me, and I had absolutely no desire to spend even a moment in her presence.

"Remember your pledge," Orospu said quietly, after sensing my surging rage. I was a woman of honor, I would respect the vow that I made. But I saw no reason to treat Cilek with anything other than the disdain I felt for her.

"She is safe," I hissed.

"Good," Orospu said louder, "Now, I have asked Omuzlar and Geri to be here because they have a keen interest in your presence here. I will allow them to explain." Omuzlar and Geri looked at one another, but then both began to speak. Omuzlar spoke louder and, Geri fell silent.

"As Orospu stated, our wife and the Cadilar of our family, Olu died three months ago," Omuzlar's final words came out slightly choked. I saw Geri bite her lower lip and rub her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. The passing of Olu had, evidently, caused them pain which they still felt.

"Our family consisted of Olu and ten wives, including me and Geri," Omuzlar explained, "Three of those wives have decided to retire from active participation in our marriage. They will live as honored elders in our home, but they are beyond child bearing years and will no longer fight. Still, that leaves seven fertile wives. And no Cadilar to provide us with seed. There are a sufficient number of us to remarry."

"We have been waiting," Geri said, cutting in, "Waiting for negotiations to occur, to find a new Cadilar from another village, of farmstead. But finding a new Cadilar for an already-formed family can be difficult. There are alliances and political considerations to make..."

"And there is always consanguinity to consider," Orospu interjected, "We are a small civilization, with few Cadilar. Bloodlines can become entangled without care and thought. A Cadilar must consult the Ancestor Books before agreeing to any marriage."

"What does this have to do with me?" I asked, again blunt, "I am sorry your wife is dead. But it does not concern me." I saw Omuzlar's eyes flash with anger. Orospu held up her hand soothingly.

"You, and Cilek, provide an opportunity," Geri said, "You have no existing marriage alliances. You have new blood from far away lands..." Omuzlar cut in now.

"We are here to convince you to join the Hayalet. One of you could marry into our family, be our Cadilar, and providing us with daughters and warriors," she explained. Even before Omuzlar finished speaking, I was shaking my head. I wasn't staying with the Hayalet. I wasn't marrying anyone. And I wasn't going to give anyone daughters.

"You would want me?" Cilek said, her cheeks red with flattery.

"Every family dreams of a young, beautiful Cadilar," Omuzlar said, turning and smiling at Cilek. My lip curled back in disgust. How could she consider leaving her tribe? But then, I guess if I was Kabile instead of Buz, I would want out as well. I was a little surprised to see Geri appeared to have a look of disgust as well.

"Did you love Olu less because she was old? Because you did not find her as beautiful as these girls?" Geri asked of her wife. Omuzlar rolled her eyes dramatically.

"Olu was a fine wife and a productive Cadilar," Omuzlar said, "I never said anything otherwise. I was complimenting our guest."

"She always loved you more, and it never made any sense. You never honored her..." Geri began. I sensed the long-running tensions and fissures that ran between Omuzlar and Geri. While I knew little about them, I could sense Geri's loyalty, even to a dead woman. I could not help but respect it. Still, Orospu did not seem pleased.

"Is this why you are here?" Orospu asked, "To bicker and air your family's private matters before our guests?" Geri, chastened, shook her head. Orospu softened, "Excellent. Well, why don't you two take our guests into my longhouse. It is empty now, and you can all be comfortable." Both Geri and Omuzlar nodded their heads. They turned towards the door of the longhouse and walked inside. Cilek, without protest, entered behind them.

"I am not going to stay here," I said to Orospu, when the others were inside, "I don't see any reason to listen to their persuasion. I am a Buz. I will return to the North as soon as I am permitted to leave." I spoke coolly, but not rudely. These were simply facts. Nothing was going to change my mind. Orospu smiled and gave out a short, gentle laugh.

"Oh Kedi...you're here for three weeks, no matter what. I know you say you're leaving. And I won't stop you if you want to leave. But going with Omuzlar and Geri isn't going to hurt you in the meantime. If you allow yourself, you might even enjoy your experiences here. Now go," Orospu said, and she pointed to the door of the longhouse. I looked around briefly, realized that there really wasn't anywhere for me to go if I decided to resist, and then I gave in. I shrugged a little a sighed, then threw open the animal skin over the door, and ducked inside.

The flap closed behind me and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I blinked several times and the torches came into focus. I recognized the inside of the longhouse, though I was now standing on the opposite side. There were no people on the benches, no one sleeping on the mats. No one was present, except for Cilek, Omuzlar, and Geri. And they were rapidly disrobing.

My eyes grew wide as the thin, white fabric the women wore fell from their bodies. Geri turned as she disrobed and looked at me. A bare smile emerged and she pointed at me.