A Labyrinthine Affair: The World of Taboo

The Hunter - Part 3

Morning meals. Metallurgy. Midday hunts. Post-dinner tobacco.

This was the architecture of his days.

Until he entered the grove.

The fetish grove was a sacred place, in a patch of jungle just beyond Yasi. There, a moderate thatched hut stood and inside was a carved wooden altar with food, flowers, water and herb offerings to the gods. A mildly amused observer might pass this off as the quaint manifestations of a scattered religion.

Behind the hut were carefully crafted fires burning in shallow pits of dirt. The bodies of the most sacred dead were woven into the tapestry of the branches and limbs of the trees nearby. Ancestral relics on display.

And a few yards beyond that, was a man hoisted up among the tree limbs. Alone. He was very white and very dirty. A patch of formerly rich red hair, clung to his head in an unctuous mix of sweat and grime. His skin was scarred and marked with several days-worth of mange. And his once crisp, pristine clothes were shred in so many places one could imagine he'd wandered the jungle for weeks before finding another soul.

"Who is it? Who goes there?" The man's nervous voice called out into the undergrowth.

James stood surreptitiously against a mahogany tree. He was just enough inside the periphery of a shadow, head bowed, blending into the background. Yet the man still knew someone was there.

"I'm the one who's bound and captured. You might as well show yourself."

James listened intently. The man's dialect was beyond his knowledge and this surprised him.

He stood still for a moment longer, before lifting his head and stepping into a swath of sunlight sifting between the foliage.

The man grunted, eyes wide with shock. Then he started laughing.

"What are you supposed to be? A threat? Spy? Double-agent, maybe?"

James was walking slowly towards him now, the steel of his dagger sitting against the right side of his chest. He looked at this white man the way he imagined some of the villagers had looked at him months ago: with restrained curiosity.

"Are you a bloody Englishman? Perhaps a curious Frenchman or a Dutchman or even ein händler aus Deutschland (a German trader)? Lone white man gone native?"

James stopped and glared at him before he spoke.

"For someone bound in a tree, you certainly have a lot to say." James' deep bass was a shock to the man's system. Suddenly he was still and alert.

"Ahhhhhh. An Englishman. My instincts were right all along."

"Not enough to keep you from landing here."

James looked up at him, allowing half of his mouth to turn upwards in a smirk.

"...how came you to this place Mister..."

"You can call me Valentine"

"Mister Valentine. How is it you find yourself tied to a tree, deep in Ashanti territory?"

"Maybe I was deserted by my party...and got lost."

"I'm not so sure of your accent but you're most certainly a Westerner. Which means you're three hundred years too late to use lost as an excuse."

Looking at Valentine, James could tell he was hungry and parched and ready to be anywhere else. But something else was driving him. James offered him water from the pouch that hung from his belt. He gulped greedily letting a small stream fall from his lips to his chest.