In Search of Spice (35 page)

His leg shot out and knocked Suzanne’s legs sideways, and he caught her as she fell, realising bitterly she had come too close. Lifting her high, the Chief stepped backwards as his men came forward at speed, stepping uncaring on the gifts laid out prettily in front of the gate.

They came in a mad rush, each striving to reach and brain the white intruders before their friends, and crashed into the shields. The biggest soldiers wielded the shields, like Husk, who grunted and leaned their shoulders into the shield backs, while smaller soldiers slipped spears through strategic gaps into naked bodies on the other side. Husk cursed Little, whose left hand held a smaller shield over his head which rang as a war club thumped down on it.

The two lines strained against each other, while Pat and Grey Fox shot the few warriors coming round the sides. Pat tried to see Suzanne, but could see nothing behind the press of warriors trying to push over the shields. The closing of the shields under pressure snapped the few spears thrust through, and it degenerated into a shoving match, with the soldiers retreating inch by inch and the smaller soldiers helping to brace the wall, leaving Mactravis and Pat to pick off active attacks round the side, Grey Fox having added his strength to the wall. This took less than thirty seconds.

The Chief had not gone far. He twisted Suzanne down and ripped off her skimpy top, admiring her breasts and grinning as he moved his thigh to block her driven knee. “Ha! Little one, you are fiery! I will enjoy you and maybe I will keep you a little while!”

Suzanne twisted in his hands and tried for leverage, but could do nothing as he kept her in the air and laughed at her struggles. He only needed one hand, and with the other started to caress her. She slumped, and the Chief clucked in annoyance at her cutting his game short by fainting. He turned her upside down for a close inspection, holding her legs, and lifted his eyes to check on his men’s progress overwhelming the women soldiers. He frowned to see the stalemate developing and the bodies of more warriors than expected on the ground, a couple staring at small sticks projecting from their bodies.

He sucked in air to bellow instructions, when there came an excruciating pain from his groin and the bellow came out as an agonised scream as he fell to the ground, dropping Suzanne, who had come to life and grasped his testicles in both hands, grinding them together. She slid out from under him as he fell, and with a clever shuffling of her hands kept his testicles under control as she swung around onto his back, yanking them up so the skin stretched into the crevice of his buttocks, the strands of his grass skirt splayed on either side. He shouted in pain again.

The shout reverberated down the beach, frightening some wading birds into the air, and it froze the fighting; the warriors backed off and looked at the scene behind them.

A furious, red-faced and bare-breasted Suzanne glared at them, one dainty foot planted on the Chief’s buttock, both hands grasping the royal testicles.

A couple of warriors started to their Chief’s rescue, war clubs raised.

“STOP” shouted Suzanne in Belada. “Any further and I will rip them off! You will be ruled by a man defeated by a woman, a ball-less man! Will you do that to your chief? Stay where you are and he keeps his balls!”

The warriors hesitated. Not a situation they were expecting. The Chief broke the momentary silence by laughing.

He shouted something in his own language and the warriors started to laugh as well. They grinned at the soldiers and went to look at their injured men, ignoring the battle in which they had moments earlier been involved.

The soldiers relaxed, settling down their shields and rubbing their bruises. Little, at a quiet word from Mactravis, pulled out two men from the front line, one of whom unconscious and the other with a damaged and broken shoulder.

The Chief switched to Belada and spoke to Suzanne. “You are cunning and clever! Now I know your strength, so we can talk.”

“Talk!” Suzanne glared, her earlier pacifism replaced by a lust for vengeance. “You wanted to rape me and felt my body! Why should we talk?” She tweaked his testicles, hard. He grunted.

“Why you come here? What you want?”

“We came to trade, as friends, but you met us with war, rape and violence. We came in peace and you met us with anger.” Suzanne was becoming more and more worked up, as they gathered an interested group of spectators, both warriors and soldiers. One of the warriors, a young man, tall and spectacularly muscled, leant forward holding out a cloth.

“Please, Great Mother, accept this cloth to cover yourself. My father is sorry for exposing you.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Chief. “I apologise for the manner of testing you, it was unseemly. It has allowed you to demonstrate your great strength and power. It was your hair, falling not standing, that misled me. Come, we drink kava and I will call my women to tend you and make your hair stand strong!”

“Come on Captain, let him up,” Mactravis joined the circle and grinning at her. “We need to tend the wounded when you stop playing.”

Suzanne glared at him, released the Chief with a final savage twist, accepted the cloth from the strapping young warrior with a glare that made him hurriedly avert his eyes from her chest, and stood up, wrapping it around her breasts. The warriors gave a deep sigh of regret, in which the soldiers joined to Suzanne’s annoyance.

“I’ve sent the pinnace back to get Perryn and Sara. The wounded need treating and we’ll teach these people how to clean arrow and sword wounds.”

Suzanne looked down the path and saw Pat and Little with a crowd of natives around a warrior with an arrow through his leg. She could hear Pat trying to explain a bodkin arrowhead, without barbs, designed to go through armour, so could be pushed through without damaging the muscle. Little was making them piss on the arrow shaft before pulling it through, to cleanse the wound. Suzanne scratched her head in puzzlement, unable to comprehend how the two sets of fighters could become friendly so quickly.

The Chief rose up gingerly, checking on the damage to his essentials. His son assisted, clucking in sympathy and trying not to laugh. He didn’t disguise this well enough, receiving a powerful clout round the ear. The Chief adjusted his grass skirt, gathered his dignity and turned to Suzanne.

“I am Ratu Ilikimi Nailatikau, the Great Ratu of the Vitu Levu, the strongest and most feared warrior in the kingdom. We are the great warrior people of Vitua, the kai Viti, feared throughout the islands, all come to us in fear to offer tribute.”

Suzanne took a moment to restore some equilibrium to her emotions before responding to this formality.

“I am Lieutenant Suzanne Delarosa of the great ship Queen Rose out of Rikklaw’s Port in Harrhein. We are the great warrior people of the Northern Ocean, so great we treat all people as friends for they fear to fight us.”

The Chief chuckled at this, turned and shouted with awesome force, “Kava!” The one word echoing down the valley. He sent a volley of commands at the watching men. They swung forward and formed a half circle behind him, all grinning, white teeth flashing in their handsome faces, as happy at this new command as to fight. The injured men were brought up and sat at the ends of the half circle, while Suzanne tried to work out the lack of corpses. Surely it had been a lethal engagement? She noted Pat’s arrows all pierced muscle, none in dangerous areas.

The soldiers gathered behind her in a similar formation and she realised that in some manner she couldn’t understand, these two different little armies had measured each other, respected each other and amazingly liked each other. She saw Husk rub a massive swelling on his head and grin at one monstrous warrior, who laughed, waved and indicated a deep stab wound in his thigh.

She still hungered for revenge, so forced the desire down in the face of this incomprehensible camaraderie. She concentrated on the scene unfolding in front of her.

Some girls, again huge, also with tightly curled black hair rising out in a bush, came running down from the hill behind the village. They were dressed in a brief loincloth and necklaces of shell and teeth bouncing on their breasts as they ran. They went up the steps into the Ratu’s house, and the first came out holding two stools. She stopped in front of the Ratu, knelt, held one of the stools above her head after placing the other on the ground and looked at him.

He nodded to the sand in front and she swept the stool from her head in a graceful arc that ended where he indicated. He nodded again at Suzanne, the girl’s eyes widened but she retrieved the second stool, went behind the Ratu to come round to Suzanne’s right, where she knelt, placed the stool on her head, bowed to Suzanne and swung the stool round in the beautiful ritual.

The Ratu sat, and nodded at Suzanne who seated herself on the stool. He barked an order and several men came forward and sat in a semi-circle, cross-legged on the sand.

Suzanne called out, “Mactravis, select half a dozen men to join us, you to my right, copy them.”

The Ratu nodded in approval and grinned, showing his teeth. He smiled at a young girl who knelt before him with a pack of large, thick leaves and a quantity of fleshy roots.

“My daughter. Virgin still, very clean. Good girl.” He grinned.

Mystified, Suzanne nodded and watched the girl accept some water from another girl, rinse her mouth out noisily but somehow daintily at the same time, and spat it to the sand behind the circle. Another girl placed a large, reddish-brown, shallow bowl, with a dozen tapering legs, in the sand between the Ratu and Suzanne. A greyish-white coating inside gleamed like a rain-filled cloud at sunset.

The girl proceeded to bite off a chunk of root and chew it, then spat it onto a leaf, a very liquid and copious squirt. Another girl gathered this with care not to spill any, and poured it into the bowl, where the third girl picked up a whisk of fibrous wood and started to stir it as the second added a little water. They repeated the process and the bowl began to fill up with a dirty, greyish liquid.

Mactravis leant forward and whispered, “Have fun!”

Suzanne replied without moving her lips. “You’re going to be drinking it too!”

The third girl removed the whisk, passed it over her shoulder and to be collected by a fourth girl who flicked it in a ceremonial manner, bits of root going flying, and passed the whisk back again.

The Ratu stood and started to speak in his own language, to his people, his voice loud and sonorous. He translated to Belada.

“We welcome you to our land of plenty, this very island Vitu Levu given to his people by Kalou-Vu. You demonstrated you are mighty warriors and we give you our respect. By this ceremony we are pleased to welcome you and get to know you. If it is the pleasure of Kalou-Vu, we shall talk trade later.”

The stirrer stopped sat back and nodded to the Ratu, whereupon his daughter stopped chewing. The Ratu looked up, grinned again, and said, “I must act as Orator as well as Ratu as only I know your name! You must help me by doing the same for the rest of your people and I will do it for mine!”

Suzanne nodded.

“When you are introduced, you must clap with your hands like this.” He cupped his hands and clapped once, with an echoing sound. “Then you say ‘Bula,’ loudly. Then drink, all, quick. Then you clap three times and say ‘Mat-hey!’ Understand?”

She nodded again.

“Lieutenant Suzanne Delarosa, Great Witch Woman, Leader of Men, Mighty Warrior, Great Trickster, Possessor of Succulent Breasts and Eyes from the Sky, welcome to the land of Kalou-Vu.”

A warrior stepped forward, and taking a polished half shell of coconut, swept up some of the dirty grey water. With a courtly bow, he offered it to Suzanne with a sweeping right to left gesture.

Suzanne blinked, clapped once with some hesitation, then again fearing it hadn’t been loud enough, shouted “Bula,” accepted it, and drained the draught in one. She handed back the shell, clapped three times and shouted “Mat Hay!” The locals all grinned, slapped their thighs and “hau, hau” echoed from their lips.

“No,” said the Ratu, laughing . “Very good but you clap twice before saying bula. You must do it again.”

Suzanne glared at him but accepted the shell again, grimacing at the taste. This time she made certain she followed the instructions with precision. She got to her feet, smiling although she found the liquid flat, insipid and bitter. “Thank you, Ratu Ilikimi Nailatikau, the Great Ratu of the Island Vitu Levu, the Strongest and Most Feared Warrior in the Kingdom, Violator of Women, Possessor of the Mighty Penis that creates Beauteous Daughters..” She got no further as the locals all roared with laughter and the warrior re-filled the shell and gave it to the Ratu with a much less precise gesture as he tried to suppress his laughter.

The Ratu was delighted.

He proceeded to introduce his councillors and three of his sons, alternating with Suzanne introducing her own subordinates. Each drained a cup of kava after being introduced. Only Mactravis got it right first time, while Little needed four goes which Suzanne suspected and Mactravis knew to be deliberate.

After the kava ceremony the Ratu assured her anyone greeted with such a ceremony benefited from safe conduct throughout his kingdom until a formal declaration of war. Instructing Pat to come with her as escort, which ensured Mot accompanied them, she accepted the Ratu’s invitation to tour the village.

First though, the Ratu wanted to meet Mot, never having seen a dog before, though he realised her potential for war. Suzanne realised this was no ignorant savage, but a very intelligent and capable leader of men.