Secret Sacrament (30 page)

Three times Gabriel read the letter. Then he took a flint and struck a tiny spark onto the parchment. As it burned he dropped it over the edge of the tower window, and it floated down, ash white, and fell to dust across the Shinali land.

He went over to Ashila. Her dress, damp with sweat, clung to her thin form, and her face looked pale and strained. Anxiously he knelt and put his hand on her forehead. She was feverish. She moaned in her sleep, and turned to him. Without waking her he lay down, holding her in his arms. After a long time he got up, went over to the window again, and looked out. Along the road from the city people still fled, smaller groups now, many of them alone, the last survivors, perhaps, of families.

From the barracks behind him rose a loud wail, and people mourned and lamented, and he knew someone else had died. He looked at Ashila lying curled up on their bed, her hands clenched, her face beaded with sweat.

He sat on the wide window ledge, leaned
against one of the pillars supporting the tower roof, and looked across the hills, across the Citadel and the sprawling city, to the skies. “Sovereign Lord,” he prayed, “give me wisdom to know your dream for me. Give me courage to live that dream. Give me strength to fulfill the task before me, knowing it was designed for me alone. Give me peace in the knowledge that I have been given everything I need. So that what I do has value in your sight, give me love. Make me a worthy son of yours.”

Then he closed his eyes and rested. Afterward he was never sure whether he dozed and dreamed, or whether he had a vision; but he saw fire in the sky, and vast clouds of smoke torn by gigantic winds. Out of the confusion came a fiery red horse, wounded and furious, slashing with its hooves at something in the cloud. After a while the horse disintegrated, and Gabriel saw an eagle drifting in its smoke. The bird was so huge he could see its eyes burning like amber, and the sheen of individual feathers. It was magnificent, breathtaking. Far below it, the fort gates were open wide; and outside there was no road, no farmland, or city, or sea; only a pure light and a glorious white wind. And Gabriel knew, although he saw nothing in that whiteness, that beyond the gate were two destinies, two nations;
and that the deliverance of one, the cleansing and restoration of the other, and the prophetic rebirth of them both, depended completely on what he did now.

At long last he faced the truth of who and what he was. He groaned, overwhelmed, fighting the truth, not wanting it, yet knowing it was inescapable, long destined; and he wept, plucking at the small leather bag that hung against his heart.

When he opened his eyes again it was late afternoon. Behind him Ashila still slept, her lashes dark and wet on her cheeks. A great peace fell across him. He knelt and kissed her lips, and she smiled in her sleep and murmured something loving in her native tongue.

“I love you, Shinali woman,” he whispered.

She did not wake, and he went down the stairs and along the porch toward Razzak's office. As he went, he pulled open the leather bag and removed the pledge-ring.

Parchments were spread across the makeshift desk in the office, and a bottle of ink was opened. Officer Razzak was writing his daily report. He looked up as Gabriel came in. “What is it now, boy?”

Gabriel placed something on the desk. Razzak leaned across and picked it up. “Where did you
get this?” he asked, astounded.

“From the Empress,” said Gabriel. “It's a pledge-ring.”

“I know very well what it is. I also know there are only ten of these in the whole Empire. Did you steal it from a corpse, or did she really give it to you?”

“She gave it.”

Razzak was silent, his sharp eyes narrow as he scrutinized Gabriel's face. Then he asked, “What's your request to her?”

“That's my business, sir. May I have parchment and ink, so I can write to Her Majesty?”

Razzak pushed a few sheets across the desk. Gabriel selected a page that was cleaner than the others and picked up the pen. Dipping it in the ink, he began to write. His hands were trembling, and he dropped blobs of ink on the parchment. He took another page, shook the excess ink from the pen, and began again.

He put down the pen and stood up. “I'd like Embry to take this, please,” he said. Carefully he rolled the letter, and began to leave.

Razzak moved in front of the doorway. His hand was held out, palm up, and his face was inexorable. “I'll give it to Embry,” he said.

“It's private, sir.”

“Nothing leaves this fort without my approval and permission.”

“You've no right to read this. You have no authority over me.”

“My authority over you began the moment you asked to stay in here. Either hand that letter over, or tear it up. It won't leave this fort without my
consent. Neither will your pledge-ring.”

Gabriel gave Razzak the scroll and the pledge-ring, and left the office. He went back to the tower. Ashila was still asleep, and for that he was grateful. Silently he removed all his gold from its hiding place between broken floorboards and placed it within her roll of precious herbs. Long ago he had told her the value of the gold and what it could buy from Navorans greedy enough for it. He hoped she would remember and use it wisely. Then he sat to wait, fighting to still the storm in his heart.

From the courtyard below, a soldier called Gabriel's name. He kissed Ashila while she slept, and stroked her hair and the cherished contours of her face. Then he got up and went downstairs.

Razzak was alone in the dim office, standing in front of his desk. Gabriel waited, his throat dry and his heart thundering in his ears. Very slowly Razzak came over to him. Without warning he lifted his left hand and hit Gabriel hard across the face. Before Gabriel could regain his balance, he hit him again. Gabriel collapsed on the floor, and Razzak kicked him in the abdomen. He was about to kick him again but thought better of it.

“I'd break your neck, if there wasn't a price on it,” Razzak spat. “Traitor.”

Groaning, retching, Gabriel rolled onto his
knees. The room seemed to whirl about him, and there was a ringing in his ears.

“I asked my men if any of them had heard of Gabriel Eshban Vala,” said Razzak. “One of them had. He remembered hearing about a healer-priest who spoke treason against the Empire.”

“It wasn't treason,” said Gabriel hoarsely, gripping the edge of the desk and hauling himself to his feet. He tried to add, “It was truth,” but his voice failed him.

“You disgust me,” said Razzak, with loathing. “I thought you cared for the Shinali, and all the time you've been using them, hiding here with them, so you could escape the death penalty. What I can't understand is why you're not asking for your pardon. Do you realize you have only one request?”

“I know. It's for Shinali freedom.”

“In that case, you'll become my prisoner and I'll take you back to Navora for execution. Now tell me, do you still want your filthy savages to go free?”

Gabriel nodded, and Razzak shook his head in disbelief. “If that's the way you want it,” he said, “I'll send Embry to the Empress with your pledge-ring and appeal, and I'll keep you here under arrest. Since we'll be leaving soon, I'll have the chieftain brought in off the gates. I'll have the
pleasure of returning to Navora with two political prisoners—a traitor and a rebel leader. You can die together. Meanwhile you and he will stay under that old wood shelter, opposite the Shinali barracks, away from the clan. Your girlfriend sleeps with the rest of the natives, in their barracks. As soon as we're out of here, I personally will deliver you, and the chieftain, to the Navoran authorities.”

G
ABRIEL GAVE
T
ARKWAN
a drink of water, then sat back on his heels and watched as the chieftain slept again. Over them was a small tile roof, supported on wooden poles. Tarkwan lay there in the purple shade, his washed skin oiled and shining. Beads of sweat gathered on the oil and trickled down onto his clean sleeping mat. His wrists and ankles, cut and bruised by the iron rings, were bandaged. On his chest glowed the carved bone, with the sign of the eagle and the man.

Briefly, Gabriel touched Tarkwan's brow, felt the skin burning. His fever was unlike that of other people, and it worried Gabriel. He glanced across the bright courtyard to the Shinali barracks and saw Tarkwan's brother, Yeshi, talking to the clan's priest. Were they plotting another revolt? Gabriel sighed and rubbed his temples where his head ached. Whatever was happening, he could do nothing. He and Tarkwan were isolated, and visitors were forbidden. Guards brought food and
water. Gabriel left the shelter only to visit the latrines, and to go once a day to check the Shinali sick. He hated the separation from Ashila, the long desperate hours, the uncertainty.

Embry had left the fort two days ago, and Gabriel's nerves were stretched. Someone shouted across the courtyard, and he jumped, upsetting a bowl of precious drinking water. Frantically he tried to scoop it up with his hands, but it soaked in a moment into the parched earth. He swore foully, and Tarkwan's lips pulled back in a grin. “You're talking like the soldiers, Gabriel,” he said. He kept his eyes closed now, for the light was intolerable. His voice was very rough, and Gabriel frowned. An appalling thought crossed his mind, and he shook as he crouched beside the sick man.

“Will you let me look in your mouth, Tarkwan?” he asked.

Tarkwan's cracked lips bled as he opened them. Covering his own nose and mouth with a cloth, Gabriel carefully tilted the chieftain's head toward the sunlight. There, as clear and vivid as those he had seen in the Infirmary in Navora, were the gray patches of bulai fever.

Long moments passed, and Gabriel sat there stunned, wondering why he had not thought of it before.

“Can I be shutting my mouth now?” asked Tarkwan, with difficulty.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Tarkwan, when you were hanging on the gate, did anyone from Navora come near you?”

Tarkwan was thoughtful. “Yes, I'm thinking they did. Water. They gave me water. They were saving my life.”

Gabriel said nothing, but he smoothed Tarkwan's hair back from his hot cheeks and placed a damp cloth on his forehead to cool him. He checked the bandages on Tarkwan's wrists and ankles, to make sure there was no blood leaking out. His mind in turmoil, he looked at his own hands to see whether he had any cuts or broken skin, trying to remember bathing the blood from Tarkwan, panicking about what he had done with the bloodied cloths.

He washed his hands in the wooden bowl of brown well water kept nearby for that purpose, and stood up.

“Wait!” said Tarkwan, opening his eyes. “Speak the truth, Gabriel: it wasn't life they gave me, was it? It was the killing fever. The one you call bulai.”

After a few seconds, Gabriel nodded.

“Has anyone else got it?” asked Tarkwan.

“I don't think so. I'm going to check them now.
I don't think it'll spread; not so long as I'm the only one looking after you, and we're kept separate from the others.”

In the barracks Gabriel went among all the sick, examining their mouths. Leaning against the barrack wall just out of the sun, Ashila watched him. “What are you looking for?” she asked.

“I'm just checking them,” he replied, adjusting the cloth across his lower face, and kneeling to inspect someone else.

Ashila frowned, troubled, but she asked nothing more.

“I'm missing you at night,” she murmured, when he had finished examining the sick, and came to stand by her. He looked relieved. “Why can't we sleep in the tower now? Why won't Razzak let my mother look after Tarkwan? Why always you?”

“He doesn't want Tarkwan talking to any of his people and stirring up trouble again,” explained Gabriel. “He's commanded me to look after Tarkwan, and no one else.”

He caressed Ashila's face, and she turned her lips to kiss his palm, but he moved away before she could.

“Something is great in your heart,” she said. “I'm not knowing whether it's heavy or light.”

“It's both,” he said.

“Won't you tell me what it is?”

“I can't. Not yet.”

“Is it to do with Embry leaving the fort?”

He looked out across the courtyard, his eyes suddenly moist. They shimmered in the shade, blue and burning as the sky. “Please don't ask me,” he said.

She placed her hand on his breast, directly over the bag he wore. Inside were the two things she had given him, woven of Shinali grass; the worn-out remains of the bracelet, and the symbol woven like a figure eight.

“Only a mourning bracelet left,” she said softly, “and a Shinali dream.”

A tension lay across all of Taroth Fort. Soldiers argued often, and fights broke out. Gabriel noticed that the soldiers who had entertained children before now yelled at them to go away, and they did not bring in fresh water from the river for people to drink. The Shinali were ostracized.

Four days had passed since Embry left with the pledge-ring, and Tarkwan was dying. Gabriel washed his face for him and massaged his limbs and took away what pain he could. Then he crouched on the edge of Tarkwan's sleeping mat, looking across the courtyard, his head aching with suspense and fear. It was sunset, and the last strip of tawny light flamed on the dust. In the
courtyard people sat about their fire, and the children gnawed on rabbit bones left over from the last meal.

Soldiers sat under the porch outside their barracks, quarreling as they cleaned their bows and checked the bowstrings, and sharpened and polished swords. Many of them were packing their few belongings into knapsacks, ready to leave. Gabriel's heart pounded, and he felt a darkness worse than night descend across the fort.

“Death, I think it comes,” Tarkwan whispered, opening his eyes.

“It's only a shadow,” said Gabriel, touching Tarkwan's cheek. “I'm here. I'll be with you. And Moondarri, she's waiting.”

Tarkwan closed his eyes, and his breathing became even and deep as he slept. Gabriel stroked his arm, touching the smooth scar where the doe had once leaped over the sun, and the image of the lone stag. A shadow fell across them, and Gabriel looked up and saw Razzak standing there.

“You've finished with the chieftain now,” said the officer. “Come over to my soldiers' barracks. You're sleeping there tonight, under guard.” He was dark against the flaming sky, and Gabriel could not see his face.

“Why?” Gabriel asked, apprehensive.

“Because it's an order.”

“Who'll look after Tarkwan?”

“I don't particularly care, now.”

“What's happening, sir? Your men are preparing to leave. Are the Shinali leaving too, or is another company coming to relieve you?”

“I think you know very well what's happening,” said the officer. “We've got plague here in the fort.”

“Who's got plague?” asked Gabriel, his voice steady, though he shook with fear. “I haven't seen any.”

“Everyone's got it,” said Razzak, jerking his head toward the Shinali barracks. “The place is full of it. People are too sick to move. They die nearly every day.”

“There's no plague in the barracks, I swear it,” said Gabriel. “The people have liver sickness from the water, measles, and dysentery. They die because they're not used to such illnesses.”

“Is that what your chieftain's got? I think you lie, Gabriel. He's dying of bulai fever. Him, and the others in this stinking place. My men and I were told what to do if plague broke out here. I'll carry out those orders before daybreak, and then we'll leave. The chieftain will stay here, but you I'm taking with us. There's a massive reward offered for you, and I may as well have it. Now are you coming quietly, or do I drag you?”

“What orders?” asked Gabriel, hardly able to breathe.

“To eliminate the Shinali. They can't be freed to carry the pestilence to other places. And soldiers of the Navoran Army are not expected to stay and catch it from them. Our time here is over.”

“You can't kill all these people.”

“I can, very easily.”

“What about the pledge-ring, and word from the Empress?”

“We won't hear from her now. She's got more to worry about than a traitor and a few barbarians. I've waited in this hell long enough. I'm not staying, especially with the fever here. We leave at dawn.”

“You're making a terrible mistake.”

“Am I?” said Razzak, with a bitter laugh. “If you're so sure these people only have measles and diarrhea, prove it to me. Otherwise tonight I carry out the final order.”

For a few moments Gabriel was silent, watching the children playing in the shimmering dirt, and the men and women talking on the steps. He looked at Yeshi, with his cares and dreams and fierce hopes; at Thandeka, with her serene optimism; at Zalidas, who held the clan's spirit in his hands, and kept it aflame. And there was Ashila, beautiful and strong and steadfast, who shared his
dreams, his heart, and was more beloved to him than all else on earth.

“You can't prove it, can you?” said Razzak, impatiently. “They're all dead, Gabriel.”

“No, they're not,” said Gabriel. “I can prove there's no plague among them. You know how the pestilence is spread, where it comes from?”

“I know it's in the spit,” said Razzak, “and in the blood.”

“Give me your knife,” said Gabriel. “That little one, on your belt.”

Puzzled and hesitant, the soldier handed it to him.

Gabriel looked at Tarkwan's face. He was sleeping, perhaps unconscious. Gabriel lifted the chieftain's arm and made a long scratch underneath, on the side opposite the scar of Tarkwan's sacrament. Without faltering he scratched his own arm, from his inner wrist almost to his elbow. The blood sprang up, and he took Tarkwan's arm in a Navoran handshake. Tarkwan's eyes flickered open and he tried to speak, to pull free; but Gabriel held their wrists hard together, mingling their bloods. When he let Tarkwan go, he carefully wiped the knife blade clean and handed it back to the officer.

“By God, you're mad!” Razzak muttered, sheathing his knife. “Mad, but convincing. I can't argue
with the sharing of blood. Your measly Shinali can have the pleasure of Taroth Fort a little longer. But if we haven't heard from the Empress in two days, I'm carrying out the final command—and next time nothing will make me change my mind.” He turned and strode back to his office.

There were two bandages near the foot of Tarkwan's bed, and Gabriel took them and wound one about his right arm. His fingers were clumsy, and he could hardly see for the sweat that ran down his face and into his eyes. He bandaged Tarkwan's arm as well, and when he had finished Tarkwan whispered something in Shinali, and gripped his hand hard. While the chieftain slept again, Gabriel sat looking up at the fiery skies.

Never had they been so beautiful. Even the walls of the fort shone, and the dust in the courtyard was like gold. He looked across it at Ashila, and she glanced up and saw him watching her, and smiled. Love and peace and terror swept over him, and he covered his face with his hands, and wept.

A crescent moon came up and sailed slowly across the walls to the west. Then the new day dawned, and still Tarkwan breathed, and still Gabriel sat by him.

Later in the morning Ashila asked permission to
take water to Gabriel and Tarkwan. To her surprise, the guards allowed it. Gabriel stood in the sun with her while he drank, though the light hurt his eyes, and his head throbbed. He finished drinking and stood for a long time gazing at her face, thinking she had never looked so lovely. Lifting his right hand, he ran his fingertips down her cheek.

“What did you do to your arm?” she asked.

“I scratched it.”

She noticed the bandage on Tarkwan's arm, too, and remembered seeing Razzak with them last night, talking.

“An old woman died in the night,” she said. “I watched while Yeshi and Zalidas buried her. There are fifteen graves outside the gates now.” Gabriel hardly heard her words; he was listening more to the rhythms of her voice, to its richness and the accent he loved. “I talked to the guard who was with me,” Ashila continued. “I told him it's bad that so many of us die in here. He said a strange thing. He said we Shinali don't know how lucky we are that we're not all dead by now. I asked him what he was meaning, but he wouldn't say. I'm thinking you've done something, Gabriel, and you're keeping it secret.”

He put the bowl on the ground and looked at her, aching to take her in his arms. She smiled a
little, wondering why he did not. He started to say something, but at that moment there was a hammering on the gates, and the guards opened them.

A rider came in, wearing the uniform of a palace envoy. Ashila turned around to watch his arrival, and Gabriel slipped his arms about her from behind, his cheek against her hair as he looked over her shoulder. She folded her arms over his, the way she had in a time that seemed long past, when they had looked across Shinali land at the sacred mountain, and he had wept for his dead brother. Now they could see the same mountain through the open gates, and he wept again, and she was deadly afraid.

The envoy was taken into Razzak's office. Moments later Razzak came out, shouting for Gabriel. Unwillingly, he let Ashila go and began walking across the bright ground to the office. The earth seemed to rise and fall, and he had difficulty walking. Ashila ran after him and took his hand. Together they went into the office. Only Razzak and the envoy were there, the envoy looking impossibly clean and dignified. His eyes were on Gabriel.