Who are the characters?

Will Raven

The main character in this book is a man named Will Raven. He is the narrator, and the story is told as he experiences it. He is twenty-three years old. In every fort of The Tribe, at least one person of each generation is given the role of scholar. Often this follows in a family line, but the person chosen must have the propensity for it. A scholar learns to read and write proficiently as a child and then reads the old books from the Great Civilization (our time) and studies the ways, sciences and technologies of the past. An older scholar has a duty to help younger scholars to understand the world they are studying. Scholars are granted a great deal of leeway in the course of their lives because of their special task. Will Raven is a kind of walking encyclopedia of the Old Civilization. His knowledge puts him in the position of becoming The Tribe's problem solver. He is jokingly nicknamed the Grand Wizard. In the course of the book, he invents an explosive arrowhead and an armor piercing bullet and other things that help The Tribe to defeat the technologically superior Federal Army.

Red Suzy

Red Suzy is Will Raven's mate (wife). She is the first woman he chose to share his dwelling from love, and she is the mother of his first child, a toddler named Donna. She is sixteen years old, has red hair (hence her name) and is a very beautiful young woman. She has a tendency to be possessive of Will Raven, (hey, people do that in any society or time), but she is a devoted mate and takes care of him with love.

Lisa the Gray

Lisa the Gray is Will Raven's other mate. She was Red Suzy's best friend when Red Suzy went to live with Will, and being a year younger, she could not yet take a mate at that time. As Will explains to Kelsey the Hawk,

"Leesie was Suzy's best friend," I replied. "She was a year younger, and so when Suzy became my mate, Leesie virtually moved in with us. And so, when Leesie turned fourteen, she was mine." I grinned at Kelsey. "When Leesie wants you, Leesie gets you," I said.

Lisa the Gray has gray eyes, and hence her name. She is pregnant with Will's second child.

Kelsey the Hawk

Early in the story, Kelsey the Hawk, Will Raven's co-adventurer appears. She is a woman, also twenty-three years old, who has been granted the right to renounce the women's path and become a full fledged warrior. At the beginning of the book, she lives with a War Chief named Karl as his "mate in name". But, Karl, who is much older than Kelsey and was her mentor when she was first permitted to follow the warrior's path, is in love with her. As Kelsey does not love Karl as a man, but rather as a father figure, the arrangement has become intolerable. She asks Will Raven if she can become his mate in name to let her escape Karl's dwelling. Will agrees, but Karl cannot stand to see Kelsey leave. He challenges Will to a duel, and dies on the point of Will's blade. Over time, Will and Kelsey fall in love and become true mates, or "mates in love" as The Tribe calls it. They become a team, and between Will's knowledge and Kelsey's courage and skill as a warrior they become the obvious choice to lead the Expedition out of North America. Kelsey is a woman between two worlds. In her profession, she is a warrior. In her heart she is also a woman. She finds in Will Raven a man who can see her and love her as both.

Janice Silver

Janice Silver is a scholar like Will Raven. She is the scholar of a different fort, and Will and Kelsey meet her when they visit her fort to make preparations for the Expedition. The three find an immediate attraction for each other, but Will worries about yet another mate.

____We stood locked in that gaze for a short time and then I said, "I have three mates already, Janice Silver."
____"Three?" she said, making a face as if her jaw had dropped open. "Really, Will Raven, when do you have time to get anything done?" She twisted on the ball of her foot slightly and looked at me with a mischievous smile.

But love will not be denied, and she joins Will's family. Janice is every bit Will's intellectual equal, and she too does things that people regard as impossible. She makes paper and ink, and is writing a history of The Tribe. She is perhaps the only person in The Tribe with the means to write, except for writing in wet sand or by carving bark or measures like that. One of her peculiarities is that she has made a bagpipe, which she plays.

____"Oh, those are my bagpipes," she said and she got up and pulled them down.
____"What are bagpipes?" Kelsey asked.
____"They're an ancient musical instrument used by a warrior people called the Scots," I replied. "The bagpipe was actually developed to make it sound as though a much larger force was approaching when they went into battle. Do you play it?" I asked Janice.
____"I'd really like to hear it," I said.
____"Let's go," she said. We stood up and walked down the dark Public Way and out the gate. The horizon had just a hint of greenish light left from the setting sun, and Janice began to blow into the windpipe. The bag filled and the drones began to wail. Kelsey raised her eyebrows and gave me a look that said, 'Should I run?' Then Janice took up the chanter and began to play what she later told us was a traditional Scottish military march. It was ethereal. I had visions of all the brave men who had gone marching into battle with swords and spears and axes to defend their homes and their families and never returned. It seemed that their spirits gathered round to hear the brave pipes one more time, and I understood why the instrument had meant so much to them. Janice finished playing and let the windpipe fall from her mouth. The bag deflated and the drones wailed and faltered and fell silent.
____"God," was all Kelsey said.
____"I just couldn't let the bagpipes die," Janice said quietly.

And a host of other colorful minor characters.

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