Tarashana by Rachel Neumeier (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

lay too far apart for our people to encounter one another often, and we did not have allies or enemies in common, so we had no reason to notice people of the other tribe. Then there was this Convocation. My mother had been married to our father for less than one year. She had sixteen winters. He had nineteen.”

“Very young,” said Aras. “I imagine Sinowa inGara was hard-tempered when he was that age?”

Gayata nodded. “Hard-tempered and proud of his new wife. Yaro inTasiyo was much the same. Yaro was heavy for his age, strong, tall. He came to his size young. Many young women admired him. His grandfather was lord of the inTasiyo, so many young women admired him for that as well. Perhaps he was not accustomed to encountering young women who did not admire him. During this Convocation, he encountered Tasig and thought her beautiful, as no doubt she was. He thought she should forget Sinowa inGara and come with him.”

“Wait!” Suyet said. “She was married! Surely even among Ugaro, a woman can’t just leave her husband and go off with another man?” I looked at him, and Gayata raised his eyebrows. Suyet added hastily, “I do not mean to offend! If my words were careless, please correct me.”

Gayata smiled. The story was not one he wished to tell and he had been frowning, but he liked Suyet, as everyone did. He said, “You gave no offense. One does not expect a young woman who has recently married to do such a thing, but sometimes it happens. Then people talk for a year about whether someone was at fault and against whom the fault should be set.” He turned back to me. “I can tell you how it happened, but this is not how the inTasiyo tell this story. They lied about how it happened then and they still lie today.”

I nodded. Tano gripped his hands together so hard his knuckles had paled. He had not looked up, and did not now.

“Tasig told Yaro she was content with her name and her people and her husband,” Gayata told us. “But Yaro did not like this answer. He took her by force to the place his people had camped. This was near the end of the Convocation and different tribes were leaving every day. No one thought anything when the inTasiyo suddenly set out for their own lands. But before they had gone any great distance, Tasig stole a pony and escaped. She told Sinowa what had happened. He did not wait to set a charge against the inTasiyo or against Yaro. If he had done that, everything might be different, but he went at once after the inTasiyo. He fought Yaro.” Gayata paused, looking at me. He glanced at Tano, whose gaze was still fixed on his tense hands.

“Yaro inTasiyo won that fight,” my brother told us both. “Later, after he had recovered from his injuries, Sinowa brought the charge against the inTasiyo. They lied, denying everything, and too much time had passed for anyone to know what was true. The Convocation was long past, every tribe scattered. Doroya inKarano was king then. He declined to decide the matter, saying the two tribes involved should settle the problem.”

I said, “He should have decided. When two tribes say different things and no one else knows what is true, that is a time the king should decide.”

“That may be so,” Gayata agreed. “But everyone involved was young. I am sure Doroya thought the young men would raid and fight and perhaps one would kill the other and the matter would go no further than that. But the trouble quickly became wider than anyone expected. First Sinowa slipped all the way west to the inTasiyo lands. He meant to kill Yaro, but he killed someone else instead, one of Yaro’s brothers. This was an older man, a respected warrior. The inTasiyo were very angry. Sinowa barely made it back into inGara lands, and there was a battle when he did, because the inTasiyo warriors pursuing him met inGara warriors. Four inGara warriors were killed, all respected warriors, and some number of inTasiyo. After that, for two years, warriors of both tribes raided back and forth with increasing bitterness. Allies of both tribes were drawn into the trouble and raided one another as well, until anyone would have to agree that the trouble had become a war.”

“That part, I knew,” I said.

Gayata nodded. “Yes, everyone knows that part. You also know that, no matter how many people were killed or what else happened, no one was content to say the matter had been settled. Doroya saw that if he did nothing, then the war between the inGara and the inTasiyo would not stop until some tribes on one side were destroyed, and by that time some other tribes would have been weakened, and then their enemies would attack them, and the trouble would go on and on.”

“That is when the king set the ban.”

Gayata nodded. “Yes. No one would admit fault or agree to any kind of resolution. Finally Doroya inKarano set this ban between inGara and inTasiyo and between their allies.” He explained to the Lau, “The king forbade raiding and declared that if any person on either side trespassed, he should be put to death—by his enemies, if he were caught; or by his own lord if he escaped. Doroya declared that if either the inGara or the inTasiyo disobeyed this order and continued the war, he would join the other tribe to crush the one who disobeyed. That finally ended the problem.” He turned back to me. “All this happened twice twenty winters in the past, but I think our father is unlikely to have forgotten anything.”

I nodded. I did not know what to say. I had not known anything important of that tale. “We do not tell that story? Does our father forbid it?”