Outlaw

Chapter Thirteen

I MADE the journey south with two thousand radiantly painted and adorned Impirum men, women, and children, and with each step my worry grew. A hundred times I looked at the heavy jungle, thinking that I could make a run for it, knowing that I wouldn’t get fifty paces before they hauled me down.

Tulim law was sacred, based on spiritual beliefs that ordered every aspect of their lives, particularly when it came to outsiders. To wam.

Lela had explained this to me. The Creator of all life was pierced in the side by Purum, the maker of evil spirits, as they battled high above the Tulim valley. When the Creator’s blood spilled to the ground, the first humans sprang to life in his image.

Seeing his offspring, the Creator sealed the valley for protection. Evil spirits could not enter the Tulim valley, where all humans lived. But Purum, which also means crocodile or snake, tricked a woman into fleeing the Tulim valley. The woman was impregnated by a pig. Now the earth was full of her evil offspring. Wam. In their eyes I was one such descendant, and as such not fully human. Killing any outsider was only an act of justice. This is what they believed, to their core. It explained their bigotry and their isolation.

What had I ever done to deserve the terrible events of these last months? Why had God taken my son? Raised by parents who could not show me love, and then married to a man who’d treated me with disdain, I had sworn to give Stephen all the love that had been withheld from me. I had believed in a God of love and committed my life to all the right prayers and intentions. Although I had stains on my conscience, as everyone has, my heart was a decent one. Even a good one.

Was God angry at me, his child? Was this his punishment because he couldn’t love me the way I loved Stephen, without condition?

The questions whirled through my head.

We traveled in two primary groups: the lords and their entourage had gone ahead to prepare the way; the rest followed with great celebration. Only those too old or too ill to travel remained at the village.

Lela’s face looked like a blue butterfly outlined in white with her own eyes trimmed in red where the butterfly’s eyes might be. Yellina held my hand most of the way, skipping beside me with the three yellow-and-blue flowers she’d collected from the underbrush tucked into her hair.

I felt like a stone.

The trek was a long dance in and of itself. Men ran back and forth hooting and hollering; women sang and swayed, catching the men’s eyes; children hopped and skipped in their best impersonation. Ten warriors flanked me, along with Momos, who barked many orders to the children around me. Despite his self-imposed air of authority, his grandeur could not compare to that of the muhan warriors, who strode stoically, eyes always on the jungle.

But my mind was far away and my legs were weak, as much from fear as from the trek.

We were close to the Warik village and could see the smoke from its fires when a warrior ran back to us and spoke quietly to Lela, who pulled me away from the main group.

“This wife, Melino, must speak to you, Yuliwam.” She grabbed my hand. “Come, come!”

Wilam’s wife. To what end?

Momos sent away Yellina and the other children who tried to follow with a stomp and a yell. Surrounded by the warriors, we made our way down a separate path on a ten-minute walk that brought us to a clearing at the top of a knoll.

Below us the Tulim valley gave way to the flat swamplands I had once traveled bound and bagged in a canoe. They stretched out as far as I could see, so vast that I was at once reminded of the futility of any escape. Ever.

I was so disturbed that I didn’t at first see the throngs gathered along the edge of a large meadow far below us. They stood in two large groups opposite each other, close to the trees, thousands adorned in ceremonial dress, like a black sea topped with red, blue, and white foam. I could just hear the distant percussive drums and their low chant above the constant cry of cicadas and birds.

Kirutu was down there. When he learned that Wilam had brought me, he would surely fly into a rage.

“Melino must speak with you, miss,” Lela whispered.

I turned and saw that Wilam’s wife had made her appearance from the trees to my left. Her headdress stood a foot above her gilded forehead, a magnificent display of red and yellow feathers taken from a bird of paradise. A single band had been painted across her eyes and ran past her temples, and she wore a brightly colored red skirt made from the finer muslin-looking fabric reserved for the muhan. Otherwise her skin was her only covering. But what lovely skin it was, unblemished and smooth in contrast to the coarse jungle.

Among all birds in the jungle, the bird of paradise is the most royal, with its long, brilliantly colored plumage. But the male, not the female, is by far the most decorated among these rare birds. In keeping with nature, the Tulim men, not the women, wore the most makeup and jewelry. A woman’s glory was to be found primarily in her natural beauty.

Looking at Melino, I could see why Wilam had chosen her for his bride.

She stepped to one side, away from her entourage, and Lela led me to her. Her brown eyes settled on mine.

“You look like a wam who has come to meet her death,” she said.

“Perhaps because I am,” I said.

She nodded and turned to Lela. “What I say now, no one must hear.”

“I will tell no one,” Lela said. “I am only here because she does not speak Tulim so well.”

Melino shot a glance toward the others. “Walk with me,” she said.

We stepped gingerly up a path that led into the jungle. Above us a flock of parrots squawked. Sweat etched trails down my neck and my back.

“I can see that you are a wise woman with soft eyes,” Melino said. “The children like you.”

“They are beautiful children.”

She nodded. “As are you.” She stared up at the trees. “Among the muhan there is a knowing that one day a great warrior will come to reclaim the land beyond this valley and end the threat of Purum as far as the eye can see. Have you been told this?”

“No.”

“They say that the Nameless One is an evil spirit,” she said. “Sawim has declared it.”

“The Nameless One?”

“The man who spoke to Kirutu under the tree. Do you remember?”

“Yes. Kugi Meli?”

She frowned. “Did you see his eyes?”

I looked into hers. “Yes.”

“He came to me once. No one knows except Wilam and no one must know. It could be dangerous for me, you understand?”

Lela’s voice held a slight tremor as she translated for Melino.

“I understand.”

“He did not speak to me. He only laid his palm against my face. But I saw.”

We remained silent, bound by the mystery in her voice.

“He was not evil. He was something very different and very powerful. Something very good, I think. Perhaps he is the one.”

“The great warrior who will come?”

“Or perhaps he values your life because you will bear that great warrior. On more than one occasion I convinced Wilam to keep you. But he refuses to hear me any longer. He has his own power in his eyes, you see?”

So then Melino had been my greatest advocate all along. In that moment she became my savior.

“The power to rule,” I said.

“Yes. To rule. The thirst for power blinds them all.”

“Do you know what the Nameless One said to Kirutu?”

“Enough to make him leave. But Kirutu is blinded by his own power. Whatever he heard has been long forgotten. He sees only vengeance now. If he accepts you as Wilam intends, he will either kill you or force you to bear him children.”

I harbored no doubts.

She stopped and looked back at the warriors who were eyeing us, a hundred yards distant now.

“Wilam’s a strong man, bound by the ways of his father. His mind isn’t easily changed. There is only one way to save yourself now.”

A sliver of hope sliced through the darkness in my mind.

“Tell me what to do,” I blurted. “I’ll do anything.”

She eyed me thoughtfully, then nodded at my blouse. “Let me see your body.”

Lela was already unbuttoning my blouse. “This is good, miss. You must show your beauty.”

My blouse fell open and Melino looked at me for a moment before making the reason for her request apparent.

“You don’t look like a woman who has suckled a child. I must know the truth, how is it that you’ve given birth to a child?”

I understood the issue immediately. Wilam had seen me at the council meeting and had concluded the same.

“I bore a son but was unable to produce enough milk. I used a special…gourd…a gourd to feed my child.”

“And you were impregnated in your first month, as you say?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can bear another child?”

“Yes.”

“And the first child…it is dead?”

Two months after his death, the truth of it was still a knife in my heart. I could barely manage the answer.

“Yes.”

After a moment she nodded once, satisfied. “Then you must make yourself beautiful. And you must win Wilam’s favor before all the people.”

“I am wam with white skin!” I objected. “He sees me as ugly.”

“You are a woman! I know my husband, and although he pretends not to notice you, he is fascinated by you. I would have you become his wife.”

“His wife?”

The Tulim took many wives and concubines, naturally, but I’d been told that my being wam precluded me.

“There’s a way,” she said. She paced before me slowly, thoughtfully. “The rivalry between Wilam and Kirutu began when Kirutu was sent to the Warik by their father, Isaka.”

“Kirutu was once Impirum?”

“He is the son of Isaka, Wilam’s blood brother from another wife. His heart has been turned black with jealousy because Isaka sent him, rather than Wilam, away. Neither will bow to the other. If you are seen as something truly valuable, Wilam may risk war to keep you. Kirutu doesn’t know that you are intended as a gift. We must not allow Wilam to give you away.”

“You would approve of Wilam taking me as his wife?”

“I fear that I will never bear a child,” Melino said, staring off into the jungle. “I will always be the lesser of any Tulim wife who does bear him a child.” She set her jaw and turned to me. “But if he has a son from you at my request, I will be as worthy.”

Melino was as shrewd as her husband.

I didn’t understand the complexities of how childbearing influenced a woman’s status within Tulim society, but I caught the essence of her suggestion. She stood to gain considerable prestige if I could bear Wilam a child. I would be her surrogate.

My child might be more important than any other child in her view. The great warrior who was to come.

“Then tell me what to do,” I said.

“My servants will make you beautiful. You must win my husband. It’s the only way.”

“Then I will try,” I said.