Once a Ing

Once a King

Part 13: Filip and Jacus return to the Stypia

(Many thanks to my patient editor Kenji Sato)

Skryba, you will recall what I told you about the lack of hierarchy among the People. Yes, there is the council. The council is not leadership, it is the history and the foretelling of the future of the People.

Day to day, the People see what needs doing and organize to do it. Thus, it was with Filip, the master of horses and Jacus, our cook and jester.

Filip knew that the meat we had hunted was dried, preserved for the trip back to the coicie, fit to feed them and the children in their care. He prepared Adira and the sanki to return to the rest of the People, the People we had left in our traditional camping grounds on the stypia.

Jacus would accompany Filip because he knew it was not good practice to ever travel alone and he was bored at the well-watered place. Lada, the daughter of Dmytro and Api, who was the food preparer of that place, had made it clear she needed no help in her kitchen even though their hospitality required that they feed all of their surprise guests.

Actually, their idea of hospitality precluded the guests helping in any way which left Jacus superfluous. The rest of us were tired and hungry enough, to relish a few days of relative indolence. One does not appreciate, how routinely hungry, life is until one is finally able to eat more than one's fill, sometimes for the first time in years.

So tall, pale and red-headed Jacus, the cook and jester, set off with Filip, the solemn and taciturn horse master, and the strong and faithful, Adira, retracing the People's Raiding Group route from the well-watered place to OUR place on the stypia. It was simply our place, as we were simply the People.

To Jacus, everything was fun, except for the preparation of food that was serious, a serious responsibility to the People and the food. To Filip, all was serious, the care of the horses was a great responsibility but beyond that, he viewed all of existence from a practical but not gloomy vantage.

Filip treated all of the people with respect, some with great deference, rather than to be at odds with the People's lack of hierarchy. Jacus stretched the lack of hierarchy to a license to mock almost everyone. He usually meant it in a light-hearted way, but for Filip, the distinction between light-hearted jokes at others' expense and outright disrespect, was a difficult line to distinguish.

Suffice it to say, casual conversation between the two would often lapse into long periods of silence. Broken by Filip cooing softly to Adira, as he patted her neck, and Jacus, smiling to himself as he remembered a funny story...sometimes the stories had to be repeated aloud for Jacus needed an audience.

"Filip, I know the respect you bear the council, especially Jadzia, but it was still funny to see all three naked together for the first time. Of all the people, what a contrast! The castrated old man, the crone with long floppy titties, and the 'young' sage.

That 'young' sage referring to me, Pawel, said with heavy irony.

Filip gave Jacus a searing look, that, "You had better NOT go further with this 'joke.'"

Jacus was about to speak but saw the look...and refrained.

After the climb from the well-watered place, Filip insisted on a rest stop, mainly for the benefit of Adira, who was hauling some weight of dried meat on the sanki. In truth, it was near noon and a fine time for a nap in the upland shade.

But Jacus was restless. "Filip...I will scout ahead, I am no Hirek, but still it is best to be sure the way ahead is safe." Filip laughed...actually laughed. Jacus looked, it was a rare sight, Filip laughing. "If we have enemies, they are all beyond the well-watered place, perhaps far beyond, the way to the stypia is safe, but amuse yourself, Jacus."

He is being mocked, and done so by Filip, was a strange thing for Jacus...but he shot back, "I will see you at the place we bathed on the way to the well-watered place."

Filip waved him off. By unhitching Adira from the sanki and covering the dried meat with grasses, he had just harvested.

Jacus thought, "All he wants is his nap now."

But I can cool my feet in the bathing pool.

It was cooler on the downslope, away from the resting spot of Adira and Filip. Jacus amused himself with the thought that Adira was the one that transformed Filip's buc...but that idea was too outrageous even for Jacus' mischievous mind. He then imagined another pairing among the people. And his most recent, Alla

It was just ahead, at the bathing spot, where Alla had approached him, from behind in the deeper water near the spill-off point, where the pond became marsh. They knew they were being watched; Pawel was there...pretending not to look. But his unlawful jealousy showed. Or was it hurt, disappointment? The men of the People knew from the onset, that the women, the coicie, had the power of the transformation of the buc and the initiative, at all times, in things relating to mating.

Still, things were changing women, transforming the buc outside of the summoning; mating being observed was next?

But that was not what happened. Alla, indeed, did transform his buc in the cold water, where it had shrunk so much that she had whispered a lewd joke, as she fumbled with this kulki under the surface...But despite the cold, her hands had warmed him, warmed the buc, transformed it...and sent his seed into the cold waters. He watched as it shot from him, fascinated because the mating was rare for all the men, and they never observed their seed because it was to find a home within the coicie. At least, that is what had happened to Jacus in the half dozen times he had experienced this.

The retelling of this event in his head, as he walked, had brought him near to the bathing pool.

He stopped and listened...he had heard something, a bird song? People? It was a woman singing! Who would be up here...it was a day's travel from the camp of the coicie; Jacus did not know of the coicie ever coming this way? But who else would it be?

The fact was that Jacus was not Hirek, none of us men were even close to the magic-like stealth of Hirek, but Jacus was a hunter, a better killer than Hirek. Indeed, Hirek's aim was so bad that what game he spotted was almost inevitably killed by another hunter. Still, Jacus could hunt on his own if need be. The hunters discouraged it because it was less safe, but with the numbers of the People in decline, it was sometimes necessary.

Crouching low, Jacus circled where he knew the bathing pool was, but stayed just out of sight of it. The singing continued, but softer, even though he was closer to the source. Yes, definitely the bathing pool. And then, the sound of splashing.

Jacus knelt to listen...then lay in the reeds that grew down from the pool...listening...the singing stopped...the splashing subsided...someone, one animal(?) was walking...in the water...leaving the pool...Jacus crawled closer of that he was still screened by the reeds and could see a pale form, skin very much like his. With his flaming hair, Jacus had very pale, freckled skin and wore the special grease that Nik got from the coicie, to protect his skin from the sun.

He knew only one of the coicie that was that pale--Genowefa. What? The question never formed. Jacus shifted uncomfortably from his prone position...as he watched...he focused on the tylek...Genowefa round...ah...and hair! Long! Down to her tylek and below...wet at the edges...she tossed it like a flirtatious mare...with a long golden mane...

She turned just slightly, and the sunlight lit on her bush...a golden glow! Jacus was transformed...his buc raised his tunic...he pushed it up further for comfort...for pleasure...his own bush, bright red in a beam of sun that penetrated the reeds that hid him.

This was not right...there was no summoning, not in any form, Genowefa was unaware of him and not welcoming him as she must.

She disappeared from his sight...presumably, laying down to dry herself in the sunlight that filled the clearing near the pool.

She resumed her singing low and soft... "Captivated by sadness...Maybe somewhere in the woods...You were looking for a charm potion..."

Covered by her singing, Jacus was able to back away from the nude woman who had...unwittingly? Transformed...ah, hell...let me go.

Jacus waited minutes from the pool...Genowefa ceased her singing but was still humming the tune...He could sense she was moving towards him...and moved further from her so he could stand without being seen.

In a minute, she appeared and smiled at him. "You watched me," she said...not accusingly but matter of factly.

"Yes...but I left because it was wrong."

"Oh, it was not wrong...I knew you were there and cast my spell on you..." Her deep-blue eyes were not laughing, but quite serious. Her magic...she took it seriously.

Jacus bowed to indicate his respect for her magic.

"We should mate...we are perfect for each other, the palest, tallest of the People...but not now."

Jacus knew that was true. He felt no desire, unlike merely minutes ago in the reeds, near the pond.

"I needed to rest and bathe...the journey has been hard though only a day, the coicie do not trek far from their camp, and the journey tired me."

"And why...? Jacus started...although he knew that like all the People, Genowefa undertook a thing because it must be done...and it must be done by her.

"The hunters saw a man...a strange man on the stypia...far from here, but within the area they hunted. There are farmers beyond where they hunt but he was no farmer. He rode a black horse larger and more muscular than our horses and he wore metal."

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