Celtic Tales 7

Tale 1: Mongols 

I was born not long before Mother died. The strangers who found us kept me alive for three days until one of their pregnant women had her own child. She suckled us both. The other child had trouble breathing from birth. On the second day it died. The village decided it balanced out, so I grew up with them even though they weren’t my people.

About twenty years ago almost all the Gong people were dead from a plague. There was one little old man whose leg didn’t work well. He was babbling about all the infants. We took one yurt and stripped it off so just the wheels were left. Some of my men went to the hills nearby and built a new platform to go on top of the wheels. They covered it with a small, odd looking yurt. It was big enough for those infants and some people to care for them until we could get them back to the clans.

When we got back we passed those infants out to women who had milk and were willing to nurse another baby. That was in the short days after the change of the year. In the middle of summer there came a great horde of armed men. We went out to meet them in battle fair.

The leader said, You will not be destroyed if you will give us back the children of our people. We have heard you have stolen them away and raised them.

I sent for the old man. He came up and talked to them. We had taken care of him too. We thought much of such a person, for he had damn near killed himself trying to feed those babies just water. There were over one hundred infants. It was ridiculous. Everybody in our group had been so amazed at that old man, so we took care of him. He told them what had happened and their leader looked ashamed.

The leader said, I have shame upon my family.

He cut off his mustaches and threw them on the ground. Other men were cutting off their braids.

I said, Don’t do that. There is no need to be ashamed. You’ve come to get your children back.

But you have saved their lives and been kind to them, as if they were your own people.

I said, But they are children.

Yes, but you have taken care of this old man as well as if he were an honored guest.

That man was there for over two weeks with dying people and then all those babies after everybody else died. I thought that was truly a story that songs are sung about.

He looked at me oddly and said, It is, isn’t it.

It is one of those terrific things. I looked right at him and said, You are going to have a bad problem.

What is that?

Our mothers have been nursing those babies at their breasts for half a year. You go down and tell them that you want those babies back.

Ah, well they’ve got to give them back.

What are you going to do with them?

We will find the bloodlines for their families and someone in their family will take care of them.

So you don’t know who it is?

I know some of them. At least one of them will belong to my sister.

Which one belonged to your sister? He looked horrified. What if you took the wrong one to the wrong group?

I invited them to stop and have a meal with us. They did. Our women gave them very bad looks. I made sure it was the comeliest of women that came up to serve them. The guys were embarrassed over the bad looks the women kept giving them. The women had them beat down.

I went to their leader and said, These children must go back, but let’s wait until they are older, so you can see from which family they came.

He looked like he was going to hug me. That is a fantastic idea.

We finally agreed that it would be bad for them to leave when they were so little; when they were older would be a better time. We decided upon the age of seven. They would be young enough to be molded by their clan, but old enough to know who and what they were. I promised that they would always know where they came from.

As the children grew they knew that they owed their lives to that little old man. He played with them. They played with our children and fought with them. Those little children were not Celtic, but neither were the people I lived with. They grew and ran and played. Mothers kissed the hurt things; fathers taught them the ways; uncles doted after them and taught them other ways. The whole clan was very happy to have them among us.

One day representatives from each of those families came and said, We will take the children home.

The children cried and clung to the women. Their brothers and sisters stood in front of them with naked blades. The pitiful ones were the little boys and girls with short eating knives.

The headwoman came out to me and said, There is no way these children are going to be taken from our families. They belong here.

Some of the children did not cry, but they outed their blades and stood with their brothers and sisters. I had given all of the plague children a red turban to wear. You could see them scattered about. No one knew what to do. The old man came shuffling up. He sat down, had something to drink, ate some of the light pastries that melt in your mouth, and cackled laughing. We all looked at him. It was such a tense time. I thought there would actually be war because we had saved the lives of those children.

The old man said, Why don’t you share them? Send the representatives from the different families and have them search through the children until they find the ones that are from their family. Share them. Let the children know that when they are in the manhood and womanhood passage, that they will go back and live with their own people for one year. At the end of that year they can choose between the two ways.

Nobody liked that, so it was decided that when they hit their tenth year they would go and live with their other family for three of the summer months. Then they could come back home, or stay with the other family. The next summer they could come and visit among the yurts again and either go back home or stay with their families. They could live year and year one with the other. Nobody was too happy with that, but it was decided that that was the way it would be.

I told the old man I was getting ulcers over that. He slapped me on the back and said, Twelve is years down the road, years down the road. One thing I have learned in my long life is things change.

The old man tried hard to live for that meeting, but he did not make it. The time came for the children to go and they would not. I talked to them; I coaxed them; I did everything. They were afraid if they went they would not be allowed to return. Those representatives the other people sent had been very blustery. I had had enough of it. I blew my horn. All of my legions of armies came and stood around the skyline. You know how far away you are on the steppes when people can barely be seen; it is many long miles. My horde darkened the entire skyline and more waited over the way. Those posturing, threatening little clowns sat there and turned very pale.

I said to them, I have had enough of this. These will stay among us until they pass their adult rites. When they are adults they can come and visit if they wish, or they can stay here. In-between, if they decide that they wish to go to these places and meet their relatives, then they can do that, but they will come back. They will go freely between. We will come to your main city next year for trade and it will give the families time to meet. Your people may come among the yurts if they will, but they must come as guests, not as belligerents.

Those men were glad to go home with their heads still on their shoulders. They had not known who they had been threatening. I am known as Kamash. I have about four and a half million men who fight, and do not disallow the women. I travel with my own small group as all do, because a bigger group cannot be supported easily. Mine is so big you can’t support it easily, but it consists of the leading sharp people from each of the families. Each of the large families has a yurt in my group. So it is, my group is way too big, but how can I send them home. Every yurt in my group had at least one of these children it. They had taken these children into their hearts if not their clans. It was more than my wish; it was blood to honor. If that man had started war as he said, the rest of the blood of his people would have drained out and fed the grass of the steppes.

The children went and visited. Many of the children liked their families, and their families were proud of them. There were some disputes. One group stole away their children. They returned them back again, but the honor of the group whose children they had raised had been damaged. I tried to find a way to settle it, but the group who stole the children away was very pompous. They said that their blood had gone back into the end of time when there was no planet, even before all others, and therefore all others could bow before them.

They finally decided to elect one champion from each side. That never works, never. I had had enough of it. I went down and called all of those clans together.

I said to the people who had stolen the children, There will be champions. The people who follow me will honor it: the agreement, and the spirit, and the letter. I hope you will do the same, but I do not know you.

The two champions met. The champion of the people of mine had a bare blade. The champion of the other people had his blade sheathed. Just before they fought he took the sheath off. I saw a flash of a special metal and he cut the other man’s sword in two. He was so proud of that stroke that he grinned. Our boy stabbed him in the guts with what was left of that sword.

Our boy picked up that special sword that the other man dropped and he said, I claim this as a right and property of battle.

I thought we were going to have a war right there. They demanded their sword back.

I could see it hurt the other leader to say so, but he said, It is always the fruits of the battle. What you would not risk, you do not start a fight over, for winner takes all.

The man’s family said, But not that sword, you can’t take that sword. That is our family’s protection.

I thought, If that is all the protection your family has, then you are not much of a family.

Those people were not honoring that agreement in their hearts. They were very angry.

One man jumped up and said, This is not an agreement we can honor if you are just going to steal our property.

I heard steel going out of a scabbard. I thought, Oh no.

One of the young men who had been stolen stepped forward and said, I had been stolen away by trickery. I am very angry. You have insulted my honor and the honor of my brothers and sisters.

There is not much backing down from there. That man who had been going on about wanting the sword back claimed that he was the best fighter of all the people, but the boy didn’t care.

The man grew tired of the boy’s talk and finally said, Fine, I’ll kill you.

He turned to his people and sent for his good sword. The man who had won the special sword stepped forward and gave that sword to the boy. The man grew very serious.

You can’t do that!

The judge of the duel said, You sent for a sword. The boy has a right to send for a sword.

Yes, but that was my sword.

The man who won the special blade said, Well, this is the boy’s sword. I give it to him.

When the boy killed that man it solved a lot of problems in both groups. The boy stood above the dead man and said that all the children of the place were tired of this bickering. He said that all the leaders had tried again and again to make it so the children could safely and with honor go back and forth, visit both their groups, and decide for themselves where they wanted to be. Groups like this kept interfering. Did they realize that those children would never trust them again? They had lost any contact with them.

Some of the other children went and visited with their own people, but those who had been stolen never would go back and visit again. Most of the children stayed with the groups they’d grown up with. They were treated as brothers and sisters. They married back and forth with both groups.

One thing I have found very strange. Remember I gave those children red turbans to wear. They and all their children still wear red turbans. I guess they will wear them always. They call themselves Mongols, which means The Children of the Plague. They are good kids.

I remember going to Hajus Batur’s place. He had the most plague children, I think. In his yurts he had nineteen. They had more women nursing at that time. Each nursing woman picked a baby. We looked and there were fifty to sixty children in a big pile on the floor fighting, and laughing, and crying. You could not tell which children were plague children and which were not.

You wouldn’t think that fighting and death could start over people saving some children’s lives—horses, maybe; swords, definitely; land, grasslands, water, perhaps; even a woman at some weird time, but not babies.

Tale 2: Lower Lake 

I had an old friend named Macross who recommended me for a job. I met him by saving him in the desert. He had hired a bunch of dour, strong fighters incase he should run across bandits in the desert. He got in the middle of the desert and found the tough, dour fighters were the bandits. They left him a small pouch with high energy foods like dates, a skin of water, and his clothes. They didn’t beat him up or anything; they just dropped him there. We found him three days after his water skin ran out of water.

Macross was trading at the university. By that time he had built himself up well. They told him that they had one really fine scientist that wished to go to the lower lake and talk to the old people there. Some of those old people were very important, because they knew structures, were scientists and builders, and this and that in the olden times. The college wanted someone to take the scientists there very quickly. They had a pressing question and they wanted to get to the lower lake before winter. They planned to spend the winter there and return the next spring. Macross sent for me.

I went east by ship to the big, rare kingdom, Zanda. It is a huge place that sits on the banks of the breathing river upstream from the delta, but not far from it. It is hot there. They have a great place of learning down there, a college.

I went down to the city with the college and met with the man who wanted to go. I told him that we’d travel fast. He could take one assistant for him and one servant for the two of them, because they looked like they required servants. That was a small gift for the old professor. He was spluttering. He took me to an area that was like a small village with about two thousand people.

He pointed to them and said, These are my assistants, my lab workers, and the absolute minimum I need to get any real work done.

The head of the college was there. His eyes were sheepish.

I said, I can take you and this group to the lower sea. It will take us the better part of a year or two to get there. I don’t know how you are going to live. You are going to have to buy a lot of food and other things to support this number of people. It is going to be like an invasion coming in. They won’t have places for you to stay. Have you ever been there?

He said, No, of course not.

It is very small scale up there. I don’t think they can stand a permanent invasion by thousands of people. A few of you can be welcome guests, but that many, no way. We probably won’t be too welcome for bringing the number of soldiers we’ll have.

He said, How many soldiers are you going to have?

We’ll cut it back to fifty.

I get two and you get fifty?

I said, We could do it the other way around. I get two and you get fifty. The chancellor of the university was already shaking his head in a negative way. I said, When it comes fighting time, your people can stand right up there first protecting me and the other man instead of us protecting you. After the slaughter and we kill the bandits, if there is one of us left, we’ll take you and whoever is left on to the city.

He said, You’re just being nasty.

In the end they decided they would not pay for a thing the size I wanted. They wanted to hire and pay for each man extra. They’d pay for this, and they’d pay for that. They had all this money, because academics are the tightest people. They took three, because I wouldn’t take anymore. He wound up with an assistant who was a pretty good man, a bookish man. They brought him, because he was athletically skilled, they said. I guess for them he was; he could run a couple of miles without getting completely winded. The servant was the bad problem; the professor brought his granddaughter to clean, cook, and such. She was a red headed stunning girl with flawless skin. She looked small, thin, and dainty, but she was tough. She had eyes like I had never seen before; they were almost purple. I got lost in them. Her hair was like the trees in the Northlands in the fall, but silky.

I told her she could bring a woman to look after her, but she didn’t. I asked to have a meal with her so we could talk about things we might run into and what kind of supplies to bring that wouldn’t be too bulky. At the meal I told her ideally you only take what you can carry, but we would have horses, so I’d give them a little extra luggage. We usually had one packhorse for every four people to carry food and what not.

I said, On this trip there will be my ten men, myself, a co-captain that I will pay for out of my money, and the three of you. I am going to hire a horse boy. We are taking one packhorse for every two people. That will be quite a few for the boy to take care of. You can bring enough clothing and weight for one and a half pack horses for the three of you.

Her eyes widened. She said, That’s not enough space to carry the clothes for a senior man, much less the assistant. They change clothes six to eight times a day.

I explained that they should take one fancy outfit to impress sultans and such and two really good travel outfits. That was quite a bit. I explained the kind of food cakes she should pack. I recommended that she wear pants with wide floppy legs, but I told her she could wear what she would as long as it wasn’t too revealing. We were going to be with real men for a long time, and I didn’t want any trouble with my men over her. I would try to head it off up front, but men would be men. I told her that she knew she was very attractive. She got irritated with me. At the time I thought she was angry because academic people like to be thought of as intelligent, not attractive. Later on I found out she was angry because she thought ofherself as beautiful, gorgeous, and irresistible, not just attractive.

I said, If you are smart, you will save half your weight space for trade goods and you could manage to turn a profit off this trip.

She got all snooty. She said, The kind of things I am looking for are things of learning, not of trade.

I said, What are these things of learning like? She was talking about old artifacts. I said, I hate to tell you, but if somebody has gone to the trouble of keeping something for twelve hundred years, they aren’t just going to give it to you, lady. You are going to have to trade for it. She was shocked. You are in academics. You aren’t where people work for a living. But even your academics…. I pointed at a rock in the center of the garden area where we were eating. This rock was brought back from Datar, I bet.