Crossed Swords: A Tale of Maid Cordelia

Ch 10: The Wretched Tribes

"Wretched" means miserable, tinged with a touch of the low-born and cast-off. Perhaps that is the reason behind the choice of this name for these three tribes, the Falsci, the Vosges, and the Swift Scarves, all of whom lived, worked and farmed well beyond the fall line of Snow's White Breath, well on the other side of – but I get ahead of myself. There is no need to go on about the Wretched Tribes unless we know all the tribes.

There were, once, eight tribes in all, in the days when the Estates were not so richly-endowed as they were in Cordelia's time, and had not won the position of leadership they had in her day. The Tribes originally formed under the central leadership of the Estates – a group of about twenty clans, extended families who joined together out of mutual interest, to tame the lands at the foot of the mountain called Snow's White Breath. It was a forbidding land, and it took generations of toil and hard work to build dams, bridges, and viaducts that fresh water could flow through, so that all people dwelling at the foot of the mountain could benefit from the several rivers and streams that flowed down from it, watering the plain.

Of these, the largest river was the one that fed Lake Mere, that calm, extended body of water the Estates chose to settle near. The Estates farmed all the land watered by the lake, and it became for them a symbol of favor bestowed by heaven, a kind of grace given them, that they might succeed where others failed – or at least where others did not succeed so well. That is exactly what happened; the other tribes, eight in all, succeeded, but not so well, and the Estates came to dominate the region, called the Realm, which they did peaceably, faithfully, and well.

Some of the tribes resented the authority of the Estates, however, and they rebelled. The Fland, the Stormu, and the Prizen, eventually cast off the Estates and went their own way; they have remained outside the Law ever since. They no longer use the Sacred Words, they no longer refer to the Upper Realms for guidance and assistance when they need it, they suffer silently when times are hard, and use a new kind of knowledge, which brought with it new techniques in farming and herding their stock, which some of the leading clans of the Estates know about, but generally do not use, preferring to keep to the old ways.

Other tribes, smaller but of very strong and hearty stock, could return to the Estates if they wished, but use of the Sacred Words has been temporarily denied them, for one reason or another. The Proba, for instance, refused to believe the Sacred Words could heal sickness; certain high-born women, from their most ancient families, were sent to study medicine and science in places outside the Lower Realms. When they returned to the tribe, they were awarded the status of doctors. By contrast, the Cordo took the opposite approach, twisting the Sacred Words until they relied on a false version of them to heal their sick and wounded; the result was, that their population diminished slowly and they have now a fraction of the people, and the importance, they once had. Both these tribes have been denied use of the Sacred Words altogether, but if they repented and came back voluntarily, the Priestesses have all agreed they could once again be members of the Estates.

Not so for the Wretched Tribes; the Falsci, Vosges and Swift Scarves, are renegade tribes who live outside the agreement the Estates have imposed on all who choose to join them. They have rejected the Sacred Words, discarded wisdom and honor as their most prized virtues, and cast off all loyalty to the Estates, whom they have come to fear as much as despise. But then, hatred and fear go hand in hand; once we are afraid, it is very difficult to like what we are afraid of. Only when the fear is overcome can we relax our guard and begin to feel free again. The Wretched Tribes are now desperate; they have no access to the fresh water in Lake Mere, because their homelands are on the other side of Snow's White Breath. And on that other side, the air is dry and the soil weak and sandy. Their crops are poor, their animals become easily sick. They are desperate for what the Estates seem to have naturally, and they are willing to risk not just their reputations, but their very lives, to obtain it.