Secret Sacrament (29 page)

All the healthy adults were busy. Some washed clothes, while others made a fire with wood salvaged from the rotting upper floors of the barracks. Using sharp stones, others skinned a rabbit that had come in the last wagon and threaded vegetables on sticks, for roasting. Ashila was with them. They joked with Gabriel as he went by, asking whether, with his strange powers, he could freshen moldy turnips. “Not turnips, sorry,” he said, “only flowers. Find those, and we'll be having a feast a high lot good.” Their laughter followed him as he climbed the stairs of his tower.

A wisp of breeze came into the high room, and Gabriel stopped a few moments to enjoy it, and to look at the distant sea. He could see, on the far side of the farmlands where the wooded hills
bordered the coast, the old road he had run along that day when he first met Ashila. Then the road had been deserted, but now it was dotted with people. Dust rose about them, and they seemed to hurry, as if they fled something terrible.

As Gabriel stared down at them, a terrible foreboding came over him. Sheltering his eyes with his hand, he looked at Navora. The city slumbered under the blazing skies, appearing, as always, majestic and serene; but outside Navora's walls many fires burned, their smoke drifting black across the dazzling towers and domes.

A long time Gabriel looked, uncertain, full of dread. Did the smoke come from funeral pyres for the dead, too many to be buried in the city's mausoleums? But if plague had broken out again, why were people leaving? What had happened to the ban on travel, to prevent the sickness from spreading? Was there no law and order anymore?

A sound in the courtyard below made Gabriel turn around.

Far below, Tarkwan was limping near the barrack steps, his voice raised in anger. Several youths went over to talk to him, and he shouted at them in Shinali. Gabriel did not understand everything that was said, but realized Tarkwan was looking for something and accusing the youths of taking it.

A soldier began to walk across the courtyard, treading carefully between the rows of bedding. Halfway across, he crouched and picked up something from the dust. Gabriel could not see what it was. The soldier glanced up at Tarkwan, then turned and took back to the porch whatever he had found.

Outside the barracks Tarkwan shouted again, and one of the youths answered brashly. It was Yeshi. Other Shinali men joined them, with the youths Tarkwan had accused before. The chieftain's rage was becoming ugly, the argument violent. Soldiers were leaving the shade of the porch, their swords unsheathed. Officer Razzak stepped out into the courtyard and called Tarkwan's name.

Tarkwan turned toward the gathered soldiers. Between them, vivid in the sun, lay the Shinali blankets and frayed sleeping mats. Three of the soldiers started walking over them, toward Tarkwan. Gabriel shouted down a warning, to remind the soldiers that sleeping mats were sacred and not to be walked on; but he was too high up, and they could not hear him. In horror, Gabriel watched as Tarkwan strode down the gaps between the blankets, reached the first soldier, and hit him hard across the face. The soldier collapsed. His two companions flung themselves at Tarkwan, and the three of them fell on the blankets, fighting. The
Shinali men rushed to Tarkwan's aid, and soldiers ran at them with their swords, yelling threats. One of the Shinali was wounded, and he fell to his knees on the blankets, clutching his abdomen and screaming.

Something broke in the Shinali, broke in all of them, and suddenly there were men fighting everywhere, and shouts and tumult, and swords slashing through the rising dust. Everywhere people screamed. Appalled, helpless, Gabriel watched from the tower. As quickly as it began, the clamor subsided. Then there was silence, but for the wailing of children. Through settling dust Gabriel saw the jumbled bedding, and several Shinali men fallen across it. Already Tarkwan was being dragged away, still fighting, restrained by six soldiers. Across the courtyard the women were standing by their pots of washing and the fire, their faces ashen and full of disbelief. The fight had lasted only a few seconds.

Shaking, Gabriel rushed down the stairs. Numb with horror and grief, he walked among the wounded, bending over them tenderly, finding their wounds. Across the trampled bedding five men lay dead, cut down helplessly as they had rushed to help their chieftain. Two of them were the youths who had argued with Tarkwan only moments before. Three others lay injured, Yeshi
among them. Gabriel went and knelt by them, tearing strips from their clothes and making tourniquets to stop the worst of their bleeding. Ashila came and knelt beside him to help, her face streaked with dust and tears.

Behind them the massive gates were opened, grating on the parched dust. Gabriel and Ashila looked around and saw Tarkwan being dragged out by six soldiers. Other soldiers went with them, and the gates were shut. Soon afterward they heard a cry, defiant and full of rage; and then only the sounds of an awful beating, and helpless struggle, and chains rattling on the sun-scorched wood.

“Do you know anything about this, Darshan?” Razzak asked, as he placed a bone knife into Gabriel's hands.

Gabriel turned the knife over, inspecting it. It was cleverly made from animal bones. The handle was roughly shaped to fit securely into a man's fist, but the blade was sleek and smooth, the edges honed from hours of polishing with dust and ash. It was unsophisticated and deadly, and strangely beautiful.

“I don't know anything about it,” Gabriel said, handing the knife back to the officer.

Razzak placed it on the table between them.
His eyes, uncomfortably shrewd, searched Gabriel's face. “If you're lying to me,” he said, “and I find out, I'll have you and every Shinali male flogged.”

“I'm not lying,” said Gabriel evenly, meeting the soldier's eyes. “I don't know anything about this knife. I don't know who made it, or how, or when.”

“They were plotting a revolt,” said Razzak.

“I knew nothing about that, sir. I swear it. If I'd known, I'd have talked them out of it.”

Razzak sat down and reached for some parchment. On the shelf behind him were stacks of his daily reports, scrupulously kept.

Gabriel looked out the window and saw the women taking the bedding back into the barracks. Two youths staggered about, clutching injuries that dripped scarlet on the dust. Inside the barracks, Thandeka and Ashila were laying the wounded out ready for healing.

“You'd better go and stitch the fools up,” said Razzak.

“May I see Tarkwan too, please sir?”

“No.”

“Will he be given water?”

“No.” Razzak dipped his pen in a bottle of ink, preparing to write his report on the day's rebellion.

Gabriel steeled himself for an argument. “He'll die in this heat, sir. I beg you, in the name of everything fine that Navora stands for, to bring him back in.”

Razzak almost laughed. “Why? So he can stir up his rabble again?”

“They're not rabble. They're a nation.”

“They're rebels against Her Majesty's army, and he's the main agitator. If you bother me again about him, or I have any trouble from his people, he'll die of something worse than heat. Now go.”

Not for the first time, Gabriel thought of his hidden gold, and of bribery. With any other commander it might have worked, but Razzak, with his almost obsessive allegiance to order and army regulations, was beyond corruption. Furious, frustrated, Gabriel left the office.

For the rest of the morning he and Ashila sewed up wounds. Thandeka helped, while Zalidas chanted his desperate prayers. People sat in the sun on the steps and looked toward the gates, their eyes dry and blazing with helpless outrage. Six soldiers guarded the gates, their crossbows ready with arrows laid in place. Guards, fully armed and alert, were everywhere.

When Gabriel's work was done, he lay on an empty bed by the wounded and dozed, trying to ignore the flies and the stench from the latrines.
Ashila came and sat down by him.

“Tarkwan was plotting to use that knife he made, wasn't he?” Gabriel asked, in Navoran.

“Yes. We had a plan. But everything happened before time, and we weren't ready. The knife, it was hidden in Tarkwan's blankets, and he was angry that his bed was being moved without—”

“Why didn't you tell me about this?” he demanded, sitting up to confront her.

“Because you would have forbidden it.”

“You see why?”

“No,” she replied angrily. “I'm not seeing why, Gabriel. Why would you forbid us to fight for our freedom?”

“Because you'd all die.”

“And we're not dying now?” She looked around at the sick, and cried, “You think this is life, Gabriel? You think this slow dying from sickness and heartbreak is better than a quick death in a fight for freedom?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“I'll speak as I wish! We'll
all
do as we wish. You're not our chieftain. If my people choose to fight for freedom, we will. If we die in that fight, that's dying with more honor and purpose than the way we die now, locked up in this stink.”

“Be quiet! You'll end up out there with Tarkwan!”

“I'd be more glad out there with him, than being in here like this. From ancient times, my people have never been inside walls. Always, we've had some land, some part of earth and sky and water to call our own. Now we're having nothing.”

“I know how you feel, but if you fight—”

“You're not knowing! You're not Shinali!”

Gabriel got up and went and sat on the steps, his back to her. He was shaking, deeply hurt. It was the first time they had argued.

Ashila came and stood beside him, staring down into his stony face. “You never want to fight,” she said. “When the soldiers were coming to our house and we made war with them, you ran. After—”

“That's not fair! I ran because I had to! You told me to! Because if I'd stayed—”

“You ran! And then you talked Tarkwan into making us all run! And see where we ran to? A trap in a stone cage. Your words are not all the time good, Gabriel. If we told you our plans, you'd have told us not to fight. So we kept it secret.”

“You should have told me. Don't cut me off, Ashila. I'm one of you.”

“No you're not. You're Navoran. You're afraid. You wouldn't go and see Salverion because you were afraid, and now it's too late. You're afraid of
your own name, afraid of pain, afraid of death, afraid of—”

“I am
not
afraid!”

“You are! You won't fight, won't suffer for freedom, or land, or—”

“I have suffered!” he cried, standing up. “I could have gone to the ship, I could have left for another kind of life! But I chose to be here with you! I
chose
this, Ashila—it wasn't forced on me. I chose to be locked up with your people, rather than be free. I chose it out of oneness with you, out of love.”

“I was thinking you'd be sorry for it, one day.”

“I'm not sorry!”

“Then why are you against us?”

“I'm not against you!”

“You are! We want one thing, you want another! You don't listen to us, Gabriel! You never listen! All times you know best; your Navoran way must be our way. But you're wrong. This time you're wrong.” She lowered her voice, and said, “We want to fight. We want to fight for our freedom, for a part of earth to call our own, for some river and some sky. And if we all die in that fight, that's our destiny.”

“The river and sky aren't worth dying for. Nothing's worth dying for.”

“Nothing's what my people die for now. Nothing! Better to die for freedom, for hope.”

“That's madness.”

“It's Shinali braveness. Something you don't have.”

She turned and went over to the tower. Gabriel sank down on the step, his head in his hands. Minutes later Ashila was back, her bedding and spare clothes in her arms.

“What are you doing?” he asked, as she brushed past.

“I'm being with my people again,” she said, “and no more above them.”

T
HE DAY WORE ON
, and the heat in the barracks became intense. People lay on their beds, inert. Even the sick stopped groaning, and an awful hush fell across the fort. In the room in the tower, Gabriel sat and tried to gather his scattered energies. But he was tired, tired in his mind and body and soul, and it was a long time before he reached the point of stillness and replenishment.

Outside, on the gate, Tarkwan moved his lips in the form of the All-father's name, and fought to gather his strength. His wrists and ankles were raw and bleeding from the iron rings, and the weight of his body on his outspread arms cramped his chest muscles, making breathing difficult. Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, he looked across the river at the sacred mountain. Its brown slopes blurred in the scorched air, and the fierce light crashed and thundered in the sky. Images wavered in the heat: the face of a young
man, fierce and resolute, with long hair that flowed and became the feathers and wings of an eagle; the engraving on the ancient
torne
; the forerunner, the one who would begin the Time of the Eagle, the fulfillment of the great Shinali dream to win back all they had lost. Marveling, Tarkwan realized who it was. The images burned in the sun, melted. Tarkwan's body throbbed, became a part of the heat and brightness and pain that filled the universe. Lowering his gaze, he saw the road with people walking along it. A wagon came, drawn by horses. Dust rose, and the river glittered. Tarkwan half fainted, his mouth parched.

There was a rumbling in the earth, and voices echoed. A darkness passed in front of him, and something cool touched his lips. Water. Water, cold and blessed, running down his face and body, and into his mouth, on his tongue. He drank, sobbing with joy and release, thinking he was in the realms of the All-father. He gave a great soundless cry: “Moondarri!”

A hand touched his face, and a bowl was pressed against his cracked lips. He opened his eyes. A Navoran man stood there, holding the bowl up to him. The man's eyes were gray, his face red with the heat or a fever, and sweat ran down his cheeks and into his beard.

“Take a bit more,” he said kindly. Tarkwan drank, crying, his lips bleeding against the stained bowl.

Behind the man stood a woman with two children. She tried to hide their faces in her dress, but they peeked at the naked Shinali transfixed on the gate, and wondered at him. Behind them was a wagon, and in it another woman, lying sick. When the man had finished giving water to Tarkwan, he went to the wagon and dropped the bowl into a bucket of water near the sick woman. Then they all got on the wagon again, and went on.

Tarkwan closed his eyes against the light, and wept for the vision of Moondarri and Paradise that had come, and briefly shone, and vanished again.

Evening fell, and Gabriel went back to the Shinali barracks to check the wounds of those who had been hurt that morning. Each one in distress he sat with for a while, his hands on the great nerve pathways of their pains, easing them, freeing them. Afterward he found Ashila sitting on the barrack steps. They had not spoken since their argument that afternoon, and he was afraid she would get up and leave. But she stayed where she was, so he sat with her, and together they
watched the yellow moon rise above the old fort walls.

“I'm sorry for not understanding you better,” Gabriel said. “I've lived inside stone walls all my life; I've got no idea what this must be like for you and your people. I'm sorry.”

“I'm being sorry, too,” she said. “I was wrong. Your heart, it's half Shinali.”

“More than half,” he said.

“I know. I'm being sorry I hurt you.”

“What hurt most was your saying that I had no bravery. All my life I've been called a coward. First by my father, then Salverion, and Jaganath. And now you.”

“I was wrong. What you told the Empress, that took bravery.”

“Did it? I had no choice then, Ashila. The times I have had a choice, I've always run. What you said was true; if it comes to fighting, to risking pain or death, I'm a coward.”

“You didn't always run. You spoke truth before: you stayed here with us, out of love. I'm thinking love and braveness, they weigh the same.”

The moon rose higher, and Ashila yawned and leaned her head on Gabriel's shoulder. “I put my things back in the tower,” she said.

“Why?”

“I chose you.”

“I don't want you to have to choose between your people and me. I wanted the room in the tower because I need privacy. If you like, we'll sleep back in the barracks again. I don't care, so long as we're together. I can't bear being out of tune with you. I love you, Ashila. You're my life. Without you, I have nothing.”

“You're my life, too,” she said. “I was angry today, I was shaking your canoe the hardest way I could. Then I realized it was my canoe, too.”

“We'll keep our
Ta-sarn-ee
, then?”

“We'll keep it,” she said. “But tonight I'm so tired you'll have to push me up the stairs.”

“You're the strong one,” he replied. “You should push me.”

He slipped his arm about her shoulders. His fingers stroked her neck, then wandered down, gentle and pleasuring, inside her clothes. The feel of her skin, her womanness, still amazed him. Suddenly his hand stopped, cupped over her breast.

“This used to be a smaller handful,” he said.

She smiled and kissed him. “You miss a lot, for a healer.”

“Ashila? Are you . . .”

She nodded, her smile brilliant.

“But how? You told me you were taking your herbs, to prevent this!”

“I said we had herbs. I didn't say I was taking them.”

He started to laugh, astounded, his face flushed in the moonlight. Hugging her, laughing, he picked her up in his arms and carried her across the dust toward their tower. He was almost dancing, joy-wild.

“You said you were tired,” she reminded him, her lips against his.

“That was a hundred years ago,” he said, kissing her ardently, “before I knew we're pregnant.”

“And you're being strong, now?” she asked.

“You've no idea how strong. I'll show you.”

“You'll push me up the stairs?”

“I'll fly you up on eagle's wings, and then I'll love you like I've never loved you before.”

He tripped and almost fell with her in the dust. “Careful, eagle-man,” she said, clinging with her arms around his neck. “You'll be messing up your feathers.”

He pushed open the tower door and staggered with her up the first few stairs. Gradually he stopped, gasping, and put her down. His limbs were trembling from weakness and hunger. “Sorry,” he said. “I think I've crashed before I've even taken flight. I seem to mess up all the great events.”

“I'm hoping you don't mess up this next one,”
she said, getting behind him and pushing him up the stairs.

Early next morning one of the soldiers banged on the door of the tower where Gabriel and Ashila slept, and began climbing the stairs. He was about Gabriel's age, and the two were friends, for Gabriel shaved in the soldiers' barrack room every morning. Bleary-eyed, his hair still tousled from sleep, Gabriel met him halfway down.

“A woman from the farms just brought this,” the soldier said, handing a basket to Gabriel. It was covered with a white cloth. “Razzak checked it. It's medicines.”

Gabriel took the basket, smiling. The cloth was embroidered with blue irises, Lena's favorite flowers. He remembered watching her make the cloth, when he was very small. “God knows, we need them,” he said. “Thanks, Embry.”

“The woman came just as I was out getting river water for the children,” Embry told him. “I talked to her for a while. She was upset at seeing Tarkwan on the gates like that. She wanted to give him water, but he was unconscious, so we didn't go near him. She also wanted to come in and see you, but there's bulai fever in the city again, and Razzak won't let anyone in except the soldiers with the supply wagons. I said I'd make
sure you got the medicines and the instructions she wanted to give you.”

“Are the farmers all right?” asked Gabriel, alarmed.

“Yes, they're all fine. Like us, they're safely isolated. She asked me to tell you that the physician who gave her the medicines mixed them especially, so you could treat the dysentery and liver sickness. She said the drugs are strong, and you need only a few drops in water. Also, the physician has given you a book on the treatment of infectious diseases. He's written a few notes himself in the back, which he thought might be helpful. I'm sorry you couldn't see her; I had the feeling she had other things she wanted you to know. I asked Razzak twice if she could see you, but he was unbending, as usual.”

“Thank you. You're a good friend,” said Gabriel. “Not just to me, but to the Shinali.”

“I wish I could do more.” Embry sighed. “I never thought, when I joined the army, that I'd be stuck in a fort guarding prisoners, half of them children.”

“Did the woman tell you any news from outside?”

“Only that there's plague, and political unrest. Maybe the Empress has forgotten we're here.” He grinned ruefully, and went back down the stairs.

In the tower room, Ashila was still in bed,
sleeping fitfully. Gabriel sat in a patch of early morning sun and unwrapped the cloth in the basket. His hands shook a little, and he touched the contents lovingly, knowing his mother had packed them. He noticed the book Embry had mentioned and picked it up. It was a tattered medical textbook, similar to one he had used often in his first medical training with Hevron, in the Navoran Infirmary. It seemed a lifetime ago. Recalling Embry's words about a message, he turned the pages. Written inside the back cover were brief notes on isolating the sick. The handwriting was Salverion's.

Hardly able to breathe for apprehension and joy, he examined the book more closely. The back cover was unusually thick, the leather on the inside torn partway down the spine. Carefully he worked his fingers into the tiny gap, felt parchment, fine and smooth. Gently he drew it out, unfolded it. He sniffed it, smelled the scents of the Citadel, the mingled fragrances of incense and gardens. The handwriting, small and dense to cover the single page, was also Salverion's.