Festival City was quite considerably larger than Gunnlod's village, which itself was the largest village of the Robin Hood clan. Festival City belonged to no clan. It was occupied and defended by warriors of all clans and their families, who took tours of duty that ranged from one to five years long. Only the families of the clan leaders were exempt from this duty, as they were too busy attending to their own clans. Tarvos had only visited Festival City for a few days at a time for the council meetings, therefore, and was less familiar with the place than some of the men who'd accompanied him, his father and his brother for the journey.

  It was a hot day, which bothered him. The days should have been getting steadily cooler, now that they were past the middle of the four-month-long hot season. Instead every day was as hot, ot hotter, than the day before. The natural world knew what it meant, and every living creature was responding in its own way. The fingerwings and swoots that cruised across the sky were more often than not seen heading in a northern direction as they began their migration, and the hammerhorns were starting to shed their long, shaggy hair to reveal patches of pale, leathery skin.

  At the moment, though, it was the grass that was causing the travellers the most concern as their wagons bumped across the uneven ground. The grass that covered the great equatorial plains was already waist high, but as it sensed the end of the long winter it was beginning to bloom. The great feathery flower heads, taller than a man and swaying in the light breeze, limited their visibility to a few dozen yards in every direction. They wouldn't have been able to find their way to the city if it hadn't been for the mile markers; the great stone pillars that had been placed at intervals along the route.

  Then they broke through the grass, though, into the fields of wheat, pleth reeds and other crops they surrounded Festival City. Tarvos stared in wonder at the two high dykes that surrounded it, each topped with a high fence of woven grass reinforced with bars of low quality plethin behind which warriors armed with slings and spears stood ready to defend it from raiders. Each dyke was twice as high as the single dyke that surrounded Gunnlod's village and had steeper sides. Gunnlod's village was only raided occasionally by bandits wanting to steal plethin and young girls to be their wives, but Festival City contained something of far greater value. Something that even the six civilised tribes craved and would love to steal away for themselves.

  The gates of woven grass opened as the three wagons approached, and their drivers took them through into the grass-covered open area that lay inside. Several wagons from other clans were already there, they saw, parked against the inner slope of the inner dyke. The muskrils that pulled them stared stupidly at the new arrivals from their paddock as they chewed at the straw they'd pulled from the bales that stood in the centre of the fenced-off area.

  The draft animals, each ten times the weight of a man and covered with shaggy fur, lowed at each other in greeting as the wagons came to a halt on the trampled, muddy ground, and then the drivers dismounted to unharness them. The giant bipedal creatures followed the drivers docilely, urged on with gentle slaps on their behinds, as the gates of the paddocks were opened, and then the new arrivals were greeting the others by nuzzling them with their great snuffling snouts.

  Bergelmir, the mayor of Festival City, was striding towards them from the city centre, accompanied by a couple of guard warriors. Gunnlod and his sons went to meet him. "Welcome," said the Mayor. "The days pass so quickly. It seems only yesterday you rode off back to your own territory." He reached out an arm.

  "We are well met," said Gunnlod, taking him by the forearm and being gripped in turn by Bergelmir's calloused hand. They each gripped hard before releasing each other. "How many of the others are here?"

  "All but Greip and his men. The others are waiting in the Great Hall. Will you go to meet them now, or would you like to refresh yourselves in the sweat tent first? Young women of Festival City will attend to you and pop sweetfruits into your mouths."

  "Your invitation is too good to resist," said Gunnlod, grinning broadly. "Lead on."

  Bergelmir nodded his great bearded head and led the way to the centre of the city, past a crowd of curious citizens who watched them pass. Tarvos scanned them with his eyes as he followed the two older men, and his face lit up when he saw a familiar face grinning back at him. Daphnis. They ran to each other and hugged tightly while the rest of the crowd cheered and whistled.

  "A hundred and twenty days is too long to be away from you," she said as she pulled back a little and gazed up into his face.

  "Soon we'll be together every day," said Tarvos, staring down into her clear blue eyes. "When you have seen twenty five warm seasons. Then we can be married. Every member of both our tribes will come to the wedding, and we will have the greatest party since the days of the First Fathers."

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "Great," said Narvi in delight. "I love a party."

  "You won't be invited," said Tarvos firmly. "We don't want to your ugly face putting people off their food."

  Narvi stuck his tongue out at him and ran off after his father.

  Tarvos also followed the two older men, taking Daphnis's hand in his own to bring her with him. "You have a rex tooth," she said, looking at his trophy necklace.

  "The beast stole a girl from our village," Tarvos replied. "I was one of twelve who chased after it. One of us died before we killed it."

  "Rexes are truly dangerous," said the young woman, her eyes wide with admiration. "Fifteen men of our tribe hunted a rex that tried to break into Aegaeon Village. Two of them died killing it."

  "Yours might have been younger and stronger," Tarvos told her. "I don't doubt the strength and skill of you hunters."

  Daphnis nodded silently and looked out across the city. Tarvos saw her eyes glancing towards the pillars of black smoke rising from behind the brickwork. A tryworks, he guessed, where the blubber of a shoveltusk was being rendered for its oil.

  Then Daphnis looked back at him, smiling again. "I shall attend to you in the sweat tent," she said. "I'll scrape your back and you can scrape mine."

  "I was going to ask you to do it," said Tarvos happily.

  "Another year," said Daphnis. "Two more visits to Festival City and we can be married." She pulled him close and walked with her head resting on his arm.

  "It'll be the summer Festival City, of course," said Tarvos. "This place will be half buried by sand dunes by then."

  "That's a strange thought, no matter how many times someone tells me," the young woman replied. "The chiefs have been meeting here thirty years before I was born."

  "And they will again," Tarvos assured her. "When the long summer is over and grass covers this land again."

  "But will we still be alive then?" she asked.

  "Of course we will," Tarvos replied. "We'll be old by then, of course, with children and grandchildren, but we'll still be alive, and for many years after."

  "Good," said Daphnis contentedly. Then they reached the sweat tent where they began taking off their clothes before entering.

  ☆☆☆

  Daphnis was skilled with the scraper and Tarvos lay sleepily on his stomach, his head of his folded arms, while she worked. Then Helene, the wife of Bergelmir, took Daphnis and a couple of other young women outside to fetch some more hot stones to replace the ones that were growing cold.

  While they were gone Gunnlod rolled onto his side to face his son. "Shs is a fine woman," he said. "She will make a fine wife."

  "Yes," his son agreed drowsily. "She will."

  "One more year," his father added, watching him closely. "You only have to wait one more year before you can lie with her."

  "According to the new law that you and the other chiefs made two years ago," said Tarvos, a little resentfully. "If not for that we could be husband and wife already."

  "It is not a law," his father reminded him, though. "It is advice only. Men were marrying women at a younger and younger age, while their bodies were still unready for the making of children. Something had to be done. We didn't make it a law because too many people would break it, and that would make them lose respect for all the laws."

  "But you asked me to follow the 'advice' to set an example to all the other young men," said Tarvos. He was suddenly not the least bit sleepy and was watching his father warily.

  "And you have done, and I am grateful to you," his father told him. "However you are still young, as is she, and young people often forget their promises when the blood runs hot."

  "I will keep my promise," Tarvos assured him. "I will not lie with her. Not until she is twenty five."

  "When the blood rises, as it will, it is, of course, acceptable for her to use her hands and her mouth," said Gunnlod. "And for you to use yours. The way I and your mother showed you."

  "You didn't show me," protested Narvi. He was having his back scraped by a young girl barely older than he was.

  "You must wait a year or two more before you are ready for that knowledge," his father told him, rolling over to face him.

  "Maybe I already know," said the boy slyly. "Maybe one of the older women of the tribe showed me weeks ago."

  "Then she will spend time in the stocks for taking advantage of a child," said Gunnlod, growing stern. "What was her name?"

  Narvi's eyes widened with alarm. "I just made it up," he said. "No woman did anything to me, I swear."

  "Is that why Kari dislikes you so much?" asked Tarvos. "Because you made up a story about her? Or maybe you told the truth about her."

  "I don't think she dislikes him," said Gunnlod, though, a twinkle appearing in his eye. "I think it's the opposite." He turned back to his younger son. "Only two marriages in three may be between members of the same tribe, so let us hope that some others of our young men, beside Tarvos, marry outside the tribe over the next ten years."

  "Me and Kari?" said Narvi in outrage. "I'd rather marry a shoveltusk."

  Gunnlod and Tarvos both laughed, and the women re-entered the tent carrying some more hot stones in long-handled metal trays. "Greip has arrived," said Helene as they dropped them on the pile of colder stones. Daphnis poured some water on them and new clouds of steam billowed up to fill the tent.

  "Let's tarry here a while then," said Gunnlod. "When Greip and his men come to have their back scraped we can talk to them. Learn all the news of the west. And Tarvos, do not let your rivalry with Skoll cause trouble. This is to be a peaceful meeting."

  "I understand, father," said Tarvos. He settled back down on his folded arms and Daphnis sst next to him to carry on scraping his body.