8. SLAVES

I guess there might still be politicians who promise everything and offer nothing when we choose them...

OWONGO AND A PRINCE

. SLAVES

The meeting by the river or stream, whatever the ancients chose to call it, though they probably only had the one guttural word for both, was heavily attended, the tribes-people almost squashed together despite the fact that they had a fairly large piece of land to huddle on. That pasture was usually flooded during the winter months, and was fairly smooth and untroubled by too much soggy undergrowth in the summer.

Moona was leading her grandfather along the river bank path towards it. He, her grandfather that is, was called Woskow (pronounced as it was spelled, or rather, would have been spelled had they an alphabet to create words out of) found the walk more than just tiring. His legs ached, his stomach rumbled and his penis dribbled. He needed to rest every so often, and Moona was the kind of granddaughter to understand and be more helpful than he had a right to expect seeing that he never stopped moaning.

It’s quite understandable. After all, he was well over forty years of age and therefore more senior than just about everyone else, he knew he was dying or rather couldn’t expect to last much longer, dying being what was something just about all his peers had done bit by bit over the past decade, and he didn’t fancy the idea. Not one bit. He had stuff to live for, though, if asked, he would have been hard-pressed to name much of it. But that didn’t stop his moaning.

“Not much further, grandfather,” smiled the pretty Moona, and he smiled back at her because she had the sort of face that deserved being smiled at. With skin as dusky as burnt wood and eyes like bright stars, she was beyond lovely.

“It’s all right for you pretty young ones,” replied Woskow, trying not to frown too severely, “but my old legs are ready to give up and join the stars in the skies at night.”

“Now then, grandfather,” she admonished him, “that’s no way be be talking! Your legs and all the rest of you have got many seasons to struggle along before the end comes for you.”

“Bah!” he replied, “and what are we going there for anyway? It’s bound to be an instance for rich berks like that Prince fellow to make promises he has no intention of keeping! Why, it’s not so long since he declared that the oldest man in the village would be given enough good meat to last him through the cold seasons, and he never did it! And by the time the cold season was over everyone who should have been given that meat was dead and gone, except for me, and I only survived because I’ve got a granddaughter who’s a feast for old and sore eyes!”

“And handy with a club when it comes to meat. But you must have heard of the mighty Owongo…” began Moona, thoughtfully, “he’s a good man and he is so mighty that he fathered twins!”

“What’s that about fathering? Men don’t have anything to do with babes, it’s all women’s doing and they only do it so they’ve got an excuse not to treat their men like they ought to be treated, with passion and lust on dark nights. You’ll find out when you’re a bit older…”

“But I am eleven,” Moona told him, “and my boyfriend Arlas already likes some things that I’d better not mention because if I do it might set you remembering stuff that you reckon to have forgotten long since!”

“Arlas, you say? Well, best of luck with him. He’s got a bright future, has Arlas. You’ve only got to look at him to know that.”

”Come on grandfather, let’s get a move on. I can hear Prince Dickory’s voice, and you like him, and didn’t you get me to help you vote for him when we had that other big meeting the other day?”

Moona led her grandfather to where the crowd was squashed together and found a space on the outside of a seething group of naked and perspiring men and women. Her grandfather sniffed, and nodded approvingly.

Prince Dickory stood at the front and he was head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd.

“Now for one more thing,” announced Prince Dickory, “old people. Let me explain what I mean by old people. I mean those in our village who can’t do anything for anyone else, and not even for themselves. They are pretty useless and if they want food why can’t they go out hunting for their meat, why should they have any one else’s? I see a future in which once people get to be like that then they die. Maybe there should be a reckoning of, say, forty years, and then the peace and perfection of an easy and painless death because useful lives will have been lived and come to a grotty end. I bet there’s not one amongst you who can find an argument against that!”

“What about you?” called out one hoarse voice, “aren’t you almost forty years of age?”

“Who’s that?” barked Prince Dickory, who had contrived to have a platform to stand on, which gave him considerable advantage over those who only had their fee, “is that a gainsayer? Someone he sees fault in my argument?

“It is, and that’s all you need to know because I’ve heard of how you treat men who speak up against you,” replied the speaker, ducking down in the hope of keeping his anonymity complete.

Before Prince Dickory could make the sarcastic and possibly cruel statement that was on the tip of his tongue, the familiar and popular figure of Owongo stepped up and stood on the small platform, sharing it with him, and prince Dickory looked at him, and spat onto his face.

“See, friends, what a nice man he is?” Owongo said after wiping his face, “he spits on those he sees as inferior to him, yet who is he? A robber, I tell you, a cheat and a charlatan…”

Now, I am fully aware that words like charlatan were beyond the linguistic skills of anyone who lived in such darkly prehistoric times, but he meant just the sort of thing you might mean if you call someone a charlatan. So I’ll keep it in.

“’Wongo is bad,” grated Prince Dickory, and he jumped down from his platform, mistakenly leaving Owongo to raise his hands in a kind of salute and smile warmly at everyone.

“What cruel nonsense he has spoken,” pronounced Owongo when the crowd had become silent enough for his voice to carry and be heard. “My friends, we are born, grow through the kiddie years then become affectionate to a chosen loved one and cuddle during the darkest hours because that’s why night-time was made by the stars. Then we have ankle-biters who emerge from those loved ones to torment us, and we hunt for meat so that they grow up strong and handsome. Or beautiful. Lasses are always beautiful, even if they’re not! Then, when all that’s done, when they see the years passing swiftly, they reach, if their lucky, a total of forty years...And that is time for peace and passing on what life has taught them to youngsters, teaching the things that they’ve learned to the future, and it is a good thing to care for them, to offer them meat and weak ale, for, don’t you know, each and every one of you will, if the stars be willing, join them in the paradise of living to be an oldster…”

“See, grandfather, he’s a good man,” smiled Moona at the old man.

“But… but… I cast my stone for the other speaker!” almost exploded Woscow, “and when I did so I had reached the age he spoke of… and I believed in him…

“So you, and many others, voted for the wrong man,” sighed Moona, “and I wonder why?”

”I voted for the man who had accumulated his own wealth, who can walk along proud that the skins that keep him warm when the winter comes are clean and sweet smelling, unlike some.” mumbled her grandfather

“But who, grandfather, makes things neat and clean smelling for him? Have you ever seen him by the river, beating his things with stones in the water, cleaning them? No, you haven’t. But you know, don’t you, that he has slaves?”

“Slaves, Moona?”

Moona looked at him as if appalled by his ignorance. “Those who work for no reward,” she said quietly, “Servants who dwell in one of his lesser caves and who die before they get to be old, like you… servants that he owns body and soul…”

© Peter and Dorothy Rogerson, 09.11.23

Author's Note

I have included my wife in the credits to this chapter beccause of her contribution of Moona...