Secret Sacrament (23 page)

“I know,” said Gabriel. He tried to say something else but shook his head instead. Suddenly they were embracing again, hard, and crying. Ferron kissed both Gabriel's cheeks, said an Amaranian blessing over him, then picked up his bag and went out again into the rain. Gabriel watched until his dark figure faded and vanished in the gray landscape; then he went into the cave, sat on the stone, and gave in to grief.

Much later he lit one of the candles Ferron had
left, and read the letters from Salverion and Sheel Chandra. Often, while he read, he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and sometimes he smiled.

Sheel Chandra's letter was similar, full of concern, sound advice, and love. Gabriel memorized the name and address in it, then burned the scroll, with Salverion's, in the candle flame. The parchments curled, flamed briefly, and darkened to ash. The sealing wax melted onto the rock, two shining pools in the dark.

Then, by the flickering candlelight, Gabriel took off his crimson Citadel robe. He folded it carefully, and looked at the firewood on the floor of the cave. He stroked the rich crimson and the seven stars, and could not bring himself to destroy it. Hiding the purse of money deep within its
folds, he pushed the robe to the end of the leather bag, and pulled on a pair of his own trousers and a green quilted tunic. He ate a piece of bread and cheese, and drank a few mouthfuls of wine. Then he packed his bag again, blew out the candle and placed it with the others in the bag, pulled on his cloak, and strapped Myron's sword to his leather belt. He left the cave as he had found it, except for the tiny pile of ashes on the rock, and the pool of wax hardening to Citadel blue.

Outside, the storm had passed. The first stars glimmered, and a crescent moon rode between the tattered clouds. Slithering on the wet grasses of the steep hill, Gabriel began walking.

A
SHILA WOKE AND
lay looking at the thatched ceiling. It had stopped raining, and the men on watch had dragged the upturned boat off the smoke hole. The sky was clear, the stars bright. It was quiet after the storm. She could hear the men on watch talking quietly, and smell the smoke from their pipes. They were sitting on the roof, rustling the thatch as they moved.

Ashila turned over to go back to sleep, but a sense of urgency and gladness swept through her. Careful not to disturb her mother next to her, she got out of bed. She pulled on her dress, wrapped a saffron-colored blanket around herself, and went up the dirt steps onto the grasslands.

The eastern skies flushed pink behind the mountains, and the plain shone after the rain. The river was the color of silver, and swollen with the rain and melted snows. Ashila looked toward the sacred mountain and saw someone walking along
the riverbank, coming her way. Though he was far off and coming from the direction opposite Navora, she knew who he was. She guessed he had crossed to this side over the old bridge by the fort and knew he must have traveled all night. She walked quickly to meet him, her bare feet making soft imprints on the grass.

He began to run. As they drew near to each other, they stopped. She could hear his breathing, hard after his run, although his face was shadowed and indistinct. He was troubled, the light about him variable and not as shining as it had been; but he smiled as he came to her. They stood close, looking at one another, not speaking. At the same time they lifted their right hands and joined them in the Navoran handshake. After it he did not let her go, but lifted her hand to his mouth, kissing her fingers and the back of her wrist. Then he held her hand to his breast, tight, drawing her to him. He kissed her forehead and cheek, his lips gentle.

“I think you messed up the Navoran greeting,” she said, smiling.

He laughed a little and released her hand. Suddenly he was serious, and she felt a pain go through him. “I've messed up a lot of things Navoran,” he said.

“I'm knowing you're in trouble,” she told him.
“Last night men came looking for you. They were all dressed the same but were not soldiers. They went first to your mother's house. They were there a little time, then they came here.”

“They were sentries. They uphold the laws. What did they say?”

“That they were wanting you for treason. A strange word. What does it mean?”

He looked away, over toward the Citadel hills. The Citadel was rose colored, its windows and golden domes glinting in the first light. “It means I have no loyalty to the Navoran Empire,” he said, his voice broken and hoarse. “It means I'm a danger to my nation, and for that I have to die.”

“Why are you a danger, Gabriel?”

“At a feast the Empress commanded me to tell her the meaning of a dream. So I did. I warned her about the evil, the rot at the heart of the Empire. I even named the rot—it's her chief adviser, Jaganath. But he pointed the finger at me, twisted everything I said, said I was the evil one. Because he's powerful and cunning, everyone believed him.”

“Oh, Gabriel.” She came close and rested her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. “Your heart, it's like a Shinali's,” she said. “Brave, and full of strongness.”

“That's not bravery you feel beating there,” he
said. “It's pure terror.”

“Braveness isn't being not afraid,” she said. “It's being afraid, and still doing what we must.”

“I have to leave, Ashila. There's a ship sailing in six days, from a port farther east. I have to start walking there tomorrow.”

“Will you be staying with us until then?”

“I can't. I'm a fugitive now. If I'm found here, it'll be an excuse for them to confiscate your land. Or worse.”

“I'm not knowing all your words.”

“If you shelter me, that'll anger powerful people in the city, and they'll send soldiers to take your land by force, as punishment.”

“I'm thinking they won't be coming again looking for you,” she said. “If they do, our watchmen will see. We watch all the days and nights now, since what you told Oboth. He died in the winter. We'll ask Tarkwan if you can stay. He's chieftain now.”

She started to walk back, but Gabriel remained where he was. His eyes, full of despair, were fixed on the distant Citadel. Ashila came and took the bag from his hand, slipped her arm about his waist, and led him away to the Shinali house.

Tarkwan dipped a piece of bread in the fish stew, sucked the dripping morsel into his mouth,
and chewed thoughtfully. Over their breakfast meal Gabriel had told him and all the clan what had happened. His words had been simple and straightforward, and they had listened in silence, not looking at him when he wept, and honoring his truthfulness.

When he had finished Tarkwan said, “You stay with us today and tonight, if none speak against it.” Then he waited, looking at the faces of the people around him. No one spoke, though one old man threw his uneaten bread into the fire and walked out.

“I can't stay,” said Gabriel, his own bread like a lump in his throat. He felt sick again, his nerves on edge. “If I'm found here, you'll all be in trouble.”

“We're in that now,” said another man from across the fire. He was elderly. “Oboth told us soldiers would come, go through our house. All the time we have men on the roof, watching.”

“We've had fever in Navora, and no travel was allowed,” Gabriel explained. “But they could come anytime now, if they still plan to.”

“We're ready for them,” said Yeshi, “thanks to you. The right's yours, to sleep in our house. So I say.”

Tarkwan looked at one of the elders across the fire. The man was lean and stately, with heavy-lidded eyes that saw deep. He wore necklaces of
ancient human bones and animal teeth, and his long woollen tunic was painted with many signs and symbols. He was the clan holy man.

“What are your words on it, Zalidas?” Tarkwan asked.

Zalidas answered, in Shinali, “He protected us. We're owing him the same. And I'm thinking he should read us the treaty, so we're clearly knowing it. A long time ago we heard its words, and it may be that we have forgotten some of it.”

One of the old women pulled up a hearthstone, and from the hollow underneath drew something wrapped in leather. She passed it to Tarkwan. “It's the treaty,” Tarkwan said, handing it to Gabriel. “Will you remind us what's in it, every word?”

The leather was warm, the parchment within dry and well preserved. Gabriel read it through to himself first. There was silence while he did so. Even the children were quiet, solemnly chewing their bread and stew, the juices running down, making their chins shiny in the firelight. The house was dim in the early morning.

“It's hard to understand,” Gabriel said. “It's written in legal terms. But it says that the side of the river where your house stands is protected. They can use the other side of the river for a route to the mountain pass. It says they can even build a
road through, if they wish. But the treaty clearly states that they won't come on the land where your house is. And it says the plain is yours forever—unless you give them reason to confiscate it. That means that if you do something they don't agree with, they have the right to take your land by force.”

“What if they do a thing we're not agreeing with?” asked Tarkwan.

“I don't know,” said Gabriel. “The treaty doesn't mention that.”

“They were being wrong yesterday, coming in our house,” a young man said with rancor.

“That was a bit different,” said Gabriel. “They would have been sentries, looking for me.”

“They broke the treaty,” said Tarkwan. “But not again. I swear it, with
sharleema
.”

“What will you do when the soldiers come?” asked Gabriel.

“Fight them.”

“They're trained fighters,” Gabriel said. “Their crossbows shoot farther than you can throw your spears. You can't possibly win; their weapons are better. I'm sorry, but that's the truth.”

“We have another weapon,” said Tarkwan. “One we all use, even the children. We're ready.” He offered no further information, and Gabriel did not ask. But he was afraid, as he rolled the
treaty within the leather and passed it back to the old woman.

Later, when the breakfast was over, he went down to the river with the large bowls that had held the stew and helped Ashila wash them in the shallows. The day was cloudy but fine, and on the branches overhead a few leaves had burst. In the flaxes on the riverbank tiny yellow flowers bloomed. In the garden behind them the old woman Domi crouched alone between the plants, rocking back and forth in delight, chuckling.

They washed the bowls quickly in the freezing water, rubbing sand on the smooth wood to scour off the fat. Several children crouched on the rocks watching them, and Gabriel noticed that one little boy lovingly cradled a small pig. As the children watched him, they giggled and made comments in Shinali.

“They're laughing on you helping me,” Ashila explained, smiling. “This work, it's woman's.”

“What other work are you going to do today?”

“I'm all times looking for firewood. And some of the old ones, their toes hurt a high lot from the snow. I'll help my mother make more medicines for them from the roots and leaves we've dried.”

“If you've time, would you help me do something?”

“Yes.”

“I have some seeds and pods I have to crush, to make a dye for my hair. I have to change my appearance.”

She swilled the water around a clean bowl, her head bent. “I'll help you,” she said.

“Thanks. Would you let me help you mix your medicines?”

“If you like. But the men are going hunting today. That would be a high lot more exciting for a hero, than helping me.”

“I don't think so.”

She looked at him sideways through her tangled hair, her lips curved. “One more day,
haii
?” she said.

They finished cleaning the bowls, and Ashila gave them to the children to carry to the house. Then she went slowly back with Gabriel. As they walked he stole a long look at her profile, calm and strong and beautiful. Countless times he had imagined this, longed for it—walking with her again on the Shinali land, seeing the golden brown of her skin, the sheen of her hair, that graceful way she moved. He yearned to touch her skin again. As if she knew, she moved near to him and slid her palm softly down his inner wrist and into his hand. Her skin was cool from the river, her bone bangles smooth and cold. They walked close, shoulders touching,
their fingers entwined. Joy, bittersweet, soared through him.

Back at the house, Ashila's mother, Thandeka, spread blankets and furs near Tarkwan's sleeping place and insisted that Gabriel rest. Exhausted as much from emotional trauma as from the long night's walk, he slept so heavily he did not notice the laughter of the children, or the chatter of the people as they went about their morning tasks. When he woke, he found Ashila and her mother mixing dried herbs into medicines. He was surprised at how many parts of the trees and natural plants they used, and the variety of the medicines they made. While Ashila gave medicines to the people who needed them, Gabriel asked Thandeka where she had heard of the healers at the Citadel.

“The healer Amael, he came here once to ask on our ways,” Thandeka replied. “We gave him some of our barks and leaves. He gave us his plants, and the knowing of how they worked. Most are finished now. He was telling about the Citadel, and the healers there, and Salverion. He said the house is high beautiful. I'm being sad for you, Gabriel, having to leave it.”

Ashila came over to them, with a request for Gabriel.

“The people, they're wanting something,” she
said, “and they're being afraid to ask.”

“They can ask me anything,” he said.

“The old ones with the dying feet, they ask if you'll heal them with the knife.”

Gabriel looked at Thandeka. They were crouching by the hearth mixing poultices for boils and minor wounds. “Do you mind if I help your people?” he asked. “You're their healer, not I. If you don't agree, I'll understand.”

“How could I be not agreeing?” she said softly. “Our healings, they'll work together.”

To Ashila, Gabriel said: “I'll stop the pain for them while I cut off the gangrene. Do they understand what I have to do?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “And one of the boys has a high lot of pain in his tooth, and a woman's hand is cut deep. Another woman is having a . . .” She struggled for words, holding her hands in front of her as if around a hard ball.

“A baby?” he prompted.

“No. It's looking like that, but it's not.”

“A tumor?”

“I'm not knowing the word. And there are a little lot of others wanting your healing.”

“I'll help the ones I can, Ashila. I'm not fully trained; I can do only simple surgery. Do you have plenty of clean cloth, sharp knives, needles, and some tendons I can use for thread?”

She nodded. “Will you be letting me help?” she asked shyly.

“I can't do it without you,” he said, and was touched by the gladness in her face. She hurried away to put into an ordered line the growing number of his patients, the ones with the most urgent needs being first.

Ashila put the bowl of cleaned knives into a bronze bowl of water ready to be boiled before they were used for food again. She threaded the precious bone needles safely into a piece of cloth and put it away, then stood watching Gabriel. He was with the people he had healed with the knife, checking them as they lay wrapped in blankets on their mats by the fire. All the time he talked to them, while Thandeka interpreted. Last, he checked an old woman whose foot had been amputated. As he examined her bandages he explained that the release from pain that he had given would soon be over, and she would have to take Thandeka's medicines. His voice was gentle, loving, as if she were his grandmother. Thandeka translated for him. The old woman nodded gravely and touched his hands, thanking him in Shinali and adding,
“Sharleema.”