Still struggling with the violent woman, I told him that I was not inviting him to join in on an orgy. I wanted him to get some rope and some more help, and to get her immobilized.
In the end, it took five of us to get her properly trussed up. I explained to them that she had entered without permission, at night, and with a weapon in her hand. This was not ordinarily considered to be a friendly act, and therefore we would keep her tied up until further notice. I told the second lance that they would have the rewarding task of teaching her to speak Pidgin, and to have the job done within the week.
They carried her away, and eventually I got to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
From the Journal of Josip Sobieski
WRITTEN MARCH 9, 1251, CONCERNING FEBRUARY 26, 1250
OVER THE next few days, four other men tried their luck at getting friendly with the natives, each with as little success as I'd had. They'd all used different approaches, but because of the universal aggressiveness of the natives, I'd insisted that they wear armor, and nobody objected.
To make matters worse, Fritz was doing just fine on the south side of the river. On the radio, he said that the natives were fascinated with steel tools and were making good progress at learning Pidgin. Neither Captain Odon nor Kiejstut could offer us any useful advice, either.
It was our captive who eventually solved the problem.
The first morning after her capture, someone found a set of manacles and leg irons in our supplies. They were apparently put there in anticipation of one of our people going crazy, as had happened once near the Arctic Circle, but they worked just fine on a supposedly sane native woman who merely wanted to kill me. They were safer, since she couldn't chew herself loose, and more humane, with no chance of cutting off her blood supply.
We soon discovered that her skin coloration was as artificial as that of her hair. She was actually covered from head to foot with white paint, which was now wearing off. Under it, her skin was the same color as all the rest of the native people, but considerably lighter. We speculated that the white paint stopped her from getting a suntan.
The first day, she resisted all attempts at teaching her Pidgin, until they decided they had to use the same methods one uses to train a dog. By giving her small bits of food, or even better, salt, along with lavish praise, whenever she did anything right, and a scolding when she did things wrong, they eventually got through to her. I would have forbidden the use of any actual abuse, of course, but no one ever suggested that they use it.
The second lance kept at least two men on her at all times, from dawn until quite late, and in a week they had her in a meaningful conversation.
She refused to tell us her name, since if we knew it, she said, we could work magic and witchcraft against her. We still needed to call her something, so after trying out the "Captive Princess," a particularly unsuitable name, we simply settled on calling her Jane.
She said that at first she and her people thought I was a ghost! It seems that the local ghosts are all big, bulky things that are pure white in color. She now agreed I was not a ghost, but she felt that it was a perfectly reasonable mistake.
When I pointed out that she, too, was colored white, Jane said that her people did that to scare their enemies, and anyway, she could not be confused with a ghost because her nipples were painted red. Everyone knew that ghosts did not paint their nipples red, so she was safe from any mistake.
I said this was obviously true, since Christian ghosts did not paint their nipples red, either. In fact, I had never heard of a ghost painting anything any color at all. It was all I could think of to say about a subject so weird.
She was gratified to hear this.
I told her that our ghosts were not white, and that our coveralls were white because that was the natural color of cotton. I asked, if we painted them a different color, would she still think we looked like ghosts?
She said, of course not. If we were not white, we could not be ghosts.
We lacked a supply of clothing dye on board, but with her help, we found a tree with a dark brown sap that did a decent job of coloring our armored coveralls to a dark tan. We steamed back to the first village we had stopped at, and people came out to see what we had to offer.
Their reaction to our tools was remarkable. It took me a while to realize that, except for the bones and teeth of certain fish and animals, these people had nothing they could cut with. They not only lacked flint for toolmaking, they lacked any sort of stone at all. These were not a Stone Age people. They hadn't gotten that far along!
I'd put a good edge on one of the machetes, and let the natives see me slicing up some shrubbery.
Bear in mind that these people had spent their lives living in the most tangled forest imaginable. Every day of their lives had been spent crawling under plants, stepping over them, walking around them, and getting swatted in the face by them. And up until the moment they had a good knife, there hadn't been anything they could do about it.
One fellow in particular was fascinated, staring and grinning as I easily chopped the branches from a strange-looking bush. I grinned back at him and handed him the machete
He took it and gave the bush a tentative chop. Leaves and branches fell to the ground. He screamed in triumph! He took off at a dead run, laughing and shouting, slashing away at the underbrush. We heard him making all manner of noises out in the forest for well over an hour before he finally came back, dripping with sweat and tree sap.
The look on his face was like that of a young man who had finally attained sexual relief!
We explorers attained sexual relief of a more substantial sort from the young ladies of the village.
It all started with the elders inviting us over for a drink, and I think there must have been something in that brew that encouraged sexual license. Soon, I was handed a very attractive young woman who turned out to be the chief's favorite new wife. I was required to have sex with her as a proof of my friendship with the chief!
The young women of the tribe were all very appreciative of the small gifts my men gave to them, and the elders of the tribe were seen to be actively encouraging their daughters to please us.
I would be most embarrassed if my mother ever heard about the mass sexual orgy that ensued. While I had made no promises to Maude concerning my own chastity, it had been my firm intention to stay sexually true to her. This proved to be impossible in the induced madness that enveloped us.
Perhaps I am merely making excuses for my own conduct, but in later conversations with my men, I learned that the most subdued of them copulated with at least seven of the natives, and I have mental images of literally dozens of different young ladies under me. We could not possibly have been that virile without some sort of external stimulation!
That drink would make a very profitable product if sold in Europe, but I don't think the Church would approve of its sale!
All this fornication was accompanied by equally heavy drinking by everyone in the village. I thought that my own people drank too much, but we were but children compared to these native villagers. They continued on with the party long after we were comatose. At least, when I awoke in the night to relieve myself, the dancing and drinking were still going strong, with not an explorer in sight near the campfire.
It was the following afternoon before most of us departed that village.
We left a lance of men behind, confident that they would get along well with the natives.
That evening, we thanked Jane, the warrior woman, for her help. We gave her a knife, a machete, and an axe, along with some necklaces she liked, a sharpening stone, and a bag of salt tablets that all of the natives craved. We then offered to take her back to her home village.