Secret Sacrament (27 page)

Quietly, he spoke an old Navoran prayer for forgiveness, a prayer of trust and relinquishment; then, blinded by the sun, he picked up the bone carving and threw it far out over the edge. It spun, golden and shining, and was lost in light.

Long after, he turned his head and looked at the
chieftain. Tarkwan's
torne
, threaded on a leather thong about his neck, glowed on the dust close by his dark skin. A small pulse beat in Tarkwan's throat, and he was breathing easier now. He lifted his head and looked at Gabriel, and they both smiled. The chieftain's face, dusky and beautiful and almost joyful in the dawning sun, was like his sister's.

Without a word they both stood and, with their arms about each other, began the walk back down the mountain. Above them the skies were turquoise, glowing with the promise of a new season.

“Do you have knowing of our great Shinali prophecies?” Tarkwan asked.

“Yes. Ashila told me about them.”

“This day they begin to come true,” said Tarkwan, his face alight and full of hope. “This day begins the Time of the Eagle. This day we begin our journey to the lands of the Igaal and the Hena. We'll live as wanderers, following deer for food, making strong our peace with those who once were enemies. Then, time to come, as one great people, we'll return and take back what was ours.”

They rounded a bend and saw the people below. Smoke from cooking fires rose in the tranquil morning air, and the young people were fishing off the
bridge, catching breakfast. Then someone screamed, and others called out, their voices shrill with alarm. Gabriel and Tarkwan lifted their eyes from the dusty track and looked across the Shinali grasslands. On this side of the river, pouring down from the new road through the hills from Navora and spreading out across the plain like a dark approaching sea, deadly and organized and inexorable, came the entire Navoran army.

Tarkwan halted on the path, his arm tight about Gabriel's neck. Gabriel glanced at the chieftain's face, could not bear what he saw there, and looked down at the people again. The clan was in confusion, people gathering up the sick in their blankets and running, fleeing hopelessly in all directions, hauling children by the hand, leaving weapons and food and clothing strewn across the rocks.

The chieftain cupped his hands about his mouth and called down to them. People stopped running and looked up. Letting go of Gabriel, Tarkwan made a sign with his arms, and people stayed where they were. Limping, stumbling, sometimes falling, Tarkwan ran with Gabriel down the rest of the rocky path. As they reached the clan, the army crossed the halfway mark of the plain, opposite the ruined Shinali house. The soldiers were all on horses. The morning sun struck swords and
bows like fire, and the horses' hooves made thunder in the earth.

Hushed, the clan waited, their faces ashen and without hope. A few children began to cry, their frightened sobs loud in the stillness. All eyes were on the chieftain. He seemed at a loss, while the horses' hooves drummed closer. He turned to Gabriel. “Your knowing of Navorans is a high lot better than mine,” Tarkwan said. “What are they wanting? Our lives?”

“I don't know,” said Gabriel. “But it's pointless to run. I suggest we put all our weapons, even our hunting knives and slings and fishing spears, in a pile on the ground. Then, as a sign of surrender, we should kneel with our hands folded on our foreheads, and our heads pressed against the earth. They may show mercy. I don't know.”

Tarkwan looked at his people and gave them those instructions in Shinali. Then he took his knife and sling and put them on a flat rock between the mountain and the plain. All his people did the same, until there was a great pile there. Tarkwan cried out something else in Shinali, folded his hands against his forehead, and knelt down to wait. Slowly the people knelt behind him. Beside them were their earthly goods, bundled into blankets or rolled in sleeping mats. Many knelt on the blankets on which the
wounded and sick lay, bewildered and helpless.

Gabriel looked for Ashila. She came to him, dragging their belongings. She gave him Myron's sword, and he took it over to the pile of weapons and placed it on the top. He thought of Myron wanting a Shinali funeral, and had the feeling he would not mind his sword being among the spears with their bone heads and the knives with their rough antler handles. Even so, it was hard leaving it.

Then he went back to Ashila. As they knelt together, he delved in his bag for the purse of gold pieces. Inconspicuously, he took out the coins and pushed some into his boots. He gave a handful to Ashila, and she concealed them in a pouch sewn along the inside of her wide belt. Gabriel left just two coins in the bag, and replaced it. The pledge-ring he took off and placed in the amulet bag about his neck, hiding it within his clothes. Then he and Ashila crossed their hands on their foreheads and they bent their heads to the ground.

The earth shook with the rumble of the approaching army. Boulders were loosened on the mountain and crashed, booming, down the canyons. The air seemed full of thunder, though the skies were impossibly serene. The Shinali people waited, quiet, only a few children crying. The army came closer. The tumult became unbearable,
the trampling hooves too close. Just as people were about to leap up in terror and run, it stopped. There was quiet, only the shifting of restless hooves on stones, the snorting of horses, and the creaking of leather. The sound of a man dismounting, of stones crunching under boots. And a voice, loud and harsh and echoing. Gabriel recognized it.

“Who's the chieftain here?” Kamos called.

They heard the stones shift as someone stood.

“I'm chieftain,” Tarkwan replied, his voice steady.

“Come here,” said Kamos.

Saddles creaked and stones crunched as more soldiers dismounted. There was the smack of flesh on flesh, and a low cry, and the noise of someone falling on the stones. Grunts and painful breathing as Tarkwan was lifted up, hit again and again. Groans of agony, then a man's scream. Someone in the clan stood up, and a soldier shouted at him to get down again. He refused, stumbling through the rows of bowed Shinali to his chieftain. There was the hiss of an arrow, and the man fell. People cried out as he collapsed over them, and at the back of the clan a woman started to wail. The soldiers shouted. After that no one moved. The shot Shinali lay jerking, his blood running out across the stones. After a while he lay still. And the
beating of Tarkwan went on.

Ashila wept, and Gabriel risked reaching out and touching her. She gripped his hand hard, until her fingers hurt his. They both tried to pray, to cover Tarkwan with light and protection; but the thud of fists and boots, and the groans, were hard to envision against.

Finally it was over, and they heard him dragged away. Some of the soldiers rode over the bridge. Then the commander spoke again, ordering the Shinali to stand. Some in the front did not understand and were kicked until they obeyed.

Gabriel stole a long look at Kamos. The man looked grand in his army uniform, his bronze breastplates burnished and gleaming, his white plumes fluttering in the breeze, his cloak in proud folds about him. He glanced in Gabriel's direction, but did not recognize him. Kamos looked slightly bored as he glanced over the shabby band. They did not look like fighters.

“For rebellion and crimes against the Navoran Empire, your lands have been confiscated!” he shouted. “You're to be imprisoned in the Taroth Fort. There, your commander will be Officer Razzak. Your sentence will last for as long as Her Majesty sees fit. Go quietly. If anyone runs, they'll be shot. That includes children. Move.”

In orderly lines, not risking a whisper, the
people traversed the bridge and the gravelly gorge to the fort. As they approached, the walls towered over them, brown like the mountain rock, solid and overpowering. Only one gate was open. On the outside of the other gate, rusty iron rings were fixed with chains into the wood. They had been used for punishment in years gone by, when prisoners or rebellious soldiers were transfixed spread-eagled on the gates to hang in the relentless sun, sometimes until they died. Now Tarkwan was fastened there.

People sobbed as they went past. His face, once so lordly and beautiful, was a bloodied pulp. The soldiers had stripped him, and every part of him was bruised and torn. The long wound on his leg had ripped open, and the bandages dripped blood.

Several people tried to go to him as they went past, but a soldier stood by with a sword, and every time they came too close he placed the naked blade against their chests. So Tarkwan hung helplessly, still conscious and fully aware of his people as they came into their prison, his breathing harsh and tormented and full of a terrible wrath.

I
NSIDE THE FORT WAS
a vast courtyard, used in former days for practicing battle maneuvers. Derelict now, the courtyard was littered with broken timber and spiraling grass-heads blown in on gales from the eastern desert. Some had taken root, and there were clumps of grass where once skilled men had marched. On the far side of the courtyard were the barracks, three stories high, with the courtyard walls left open to the air. In past winters wooden shutters had closed off the arched openings, but the timber had rotted and now the wind whistled among the pillars and abandoned straw mattresses. Along the west wall were the kitchens and bathrooms, and on the upper floors more barracks. A porch with stone pillars fronted the kitchens, and outside it was a well, broken now. The east wall, facing the mountain pass, had slits where archers had waited with their bows. The place was colossal, desolate, with an awful air of forsakenness.

Soldiers stood just inside the gate, searching the Shinali for concealed weapons. All knives and slings were confiscated, as well as bone sewing needles, and the pointed pieces of deer antler used to paint lines on faces and clothes. Zalidas's tattooing equipment was taken.

As he neared the soldiers, Gabriel frantically thought up a story, a new name, a reason for being here. He repeated the lie in his mind, trying to be composed, while warnings buzzed in his head. The woman in front of him had her comb taken, as well as the bone pin she used to fasten her cloak. Then it was Gabriel's turn. His heart thumped as he held out his bag. The soldier, hardly older than himself, glanced up. He stopped, astounded. “You're Navoran!” he said.

Gabriel nodded, and the soldier called over one of the others. He gave him Gabriel's bag, and they whispered together. The second soldier was an older man with a burn mark down his face, and eyes amber and piercing, like a hawk's. His expression was hard, uncompromising. He wore the red shoulder plumes of an officer, and Gabriel guessed he was Razzak, the commander in charge of the fort.

Without speaking, Razzak indicated for Gabriel to follow him. Gabriel glanced back at Ashila. “If they ask you, my name's Darshan,” he
whispered, then followed the officer to a place just beyond the Shinalis' scattered belongings. Razzak opened Gabriel's bag and emptied it onto the ground. All his belongings rolled out onto the dust. The officer picked up the purse and emptied it onto his palm. The two gold pieces, each worth two months' wages for a soldier, glinted in the sun.

“Don't you worry about thieves, boy?” asked Razzak, his astute eyes searching Gabriel's face.

“Not with the Shinali, sir.”

The officer grunted. “What's your name?”

“Darshan.”

“Who are your parents?”

“My mother was Navoran; she's dead now. My father is an Amaranian physician. He has rather unconventional methods of healing. He's training me but wanted me to study with the Shinali while he's visiting relatives in Amaran. In return, I'm teaching the Shinali some of our ways.”

“You were with the Shinali yesterday, during the fight?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you get out of it, after the trouble? You must have known the army would be back.”

“I stayed to help clean up the wounds, after the fighting.”

The soldier put the coins back in the money
purse and handed it to him. “You're free to go,” he said.

“I'd rather stay, sir.”

“You can't.”

“The Shinali are my friends, sir; I've been with them most of the winter. I'd like to be here as their physician.”

The officer sighed. “Very well, since they need one. But don't expect any privileges. You'll be treated the same as the prisoners.”

“Thank you. May I ask you a favor, sir? The Shinali chieftain . . . could he be given back to them? He was only defending his people and property yesterday. You and I would have done the same, in his circumstances.”

The officer did not reply, and Gabriel gathered up his belongings and turned to go. The officer suddenly called him back. “I'll have your shaving blades,” he said.

As Gabriel handed them over, he asked if he could borrow them each morning.

“You can shave in the soldiers' barracks,” the officer replied.

Gabriel went over to the group of Shinali and put his things on the ground by Ashila. He was trembling, and she looked at him anxiously. “He believed you, Darshan?” she whispered.

“I think so.”

They watched as the last Shinali were brought into the fort and searched. Outside the gates, the greater part of the army prepared to return to Navora, the day's work concluded. They were taking the horses of the small company that would remain to guard the rebel clan. While Gabriel watched, the massive wooden gate was banged shut, locked, and bolted.

With drawn swords the guards herded the people over to the barracks. Inside, the dingy stone chambers were covered in dust. The stairs to the upper chambers were narrow and steep, the wooden floors damaged and rotting. There were no windows, only the gaping archways yawning over the courtyard below. Ordered to stay on the ground floor, the Shinali climbed two steps to the lowest barracks. The floor was thick with dirt blown in from the courtyard, and there were the remains of small animals eaten by hawks and other birds of prey. Forgotten nests, blown to pieces by the winds, were strewn across the dust, and there were piles of bird droppings. At the far end were ancient latrines, holes in the ground that once had wooden seats over them. Now they were half full of debris.

Gathering in groups with their friends and families, the people spread out their sleeping mats and blankets. Voices echoed, unnaturally loud,
along the stone walls, and every rustle and footstep was magnified. Children clambered up the perilous stone stairs, and were hauled quickly back. There was little space for them to play; quarters were cramped, the sleeping mats overlapping. Being sacred, Shinali beds were never walked on; here, in the desperate overcrowding, it was impossible not to step on them. But the people trod carefully around the edges, grieving anew at being forced to break time-honored traditions.

Gabriel worried about other traditions, too, as he spread out his bedding, wondering where Ashila would place hers. To his joy, she spread her blankets with his furs, making one bed. Then Gabriel sat down and removed the gold coins from his boots. He asked Ashila for the coins she had carried, and put them all in the money bag again. Then he went to the back of the barrack chamber, felt along the wall until he found a loose stone, and hid the money bag behind it. Several Shinali watched, wondering what he was doing. He said to them, “If the soldiers come looking, never tell them.” They only half understood but shook their heads solemnly.

Many of the clan, having organized their meager belongings, were standing on the steps of the barracks looking toward the enormous closed gates,
where, unseen, their chieftain hung in his awful and lonely pain. Zalidas began singing a great Shinali prayer of encouragement and hope, and others took it up until the deep chant rang across the dusty yard and echoed around the high stone walls.

There was a shout in the courtyard, and one of the soldiers ordered everyone to line up. They obeyed, leaving the sick in their blankets in the cold barracks. They were commanded to stand in lines, men first, then women, then children. Many of the Shinali did not understand, so others interpreted. About fifty soldiers stood in ranks facing the Shinali. They were all heavily armed, many with the lethal crossbows for which Navoran soldiers were famous. When the Shinali were in lines, the soldier spoke again.

“I'm Officer Razzak,” he told them. “I'm in command. You'll remain here a few days, while Her Majesty decides what to do with you. Make your food last. There's water in the well. Our quarters are forbidden to you. Anyone who attempts to escape will be punished. Give me no trouble, and this time tomorrow you can have your chieftain back. Any questions?”

There were none, and the officer walked toward them, looking them over carefully, and calling out several of the younger women. They
went forward, Ashila among them. The Shinali men tensed.

“You're cleaning the kitchens and washrooms,” Razzak said. Then he called out ten of the youths. “You're digging out the latrines, and cleaning up the well.”

In a masterful display of Navoran military precision, the soldiers marched around the Shinali once, then over to their own quarters, where they dispersed. Several of them took up guard positions around the walls and by the gates; others led the selected Shinali men and women to the squalid kitchens and washrooms. The women were given buckets and scrubbing brushes, the men spades. The soldiers were admirably organized. They were at ease, too, now that the day's work had been so smoothly accomplished. They leaned against the stone pillars outside the kitchen, laughing and joking as they supervised the women's work. A group of them, armed with naked swords, went to oversee the men.

The remaining Shinali watched them for a while, making certain their women were safe, then went back to the barracks. Many were dazed, still lost in horror and grief, unable to comprehend what had happened. A few sat alone in the dirt, rocking and weeping quietly.

Gabriel went into the barracks and saw to the
wounded. They were urgently in need of washing and clean dressings. With Thandeka interpreting, he asked their families to get water, and they returned with wooden bowls and cooking pots full of the brackish stuff from the well. Thandeka used a little of the water to make medicine from the dried roots and herbs she had brought, and gave it to those with infections. She went among the rest of the clan asking them to give clothes they could spare to be cut for bandages, and she and Gabriel spent the rest of the day cleansing wounds and rebinding them in clean cloth. As they worked, Gabriel made sure everyone was told to call him by his new name in front of the soldiers.

It was still afternoon when the sun slid down behind the high walls, and a deadly cold settled over the fort. The women finished scrubbing the kitchens and washrooms and stopped at the cleared well to wash their hands and faces. Ashila went to the place she and Gabriel had chosen in the barracks and dropped wearily onto her sleeping mat. Soon after, he found her fast asleep. Her knuckles were raw from scrubbing, and he gently bound them in clean bandages. Then he lay beside her, his arm across her waist, and dozed. All around him Shinali rested, some sleeping from sheer exhaustion, others lying wide awake and
staring at the broken timbers above.

It was evening when Gabriel woke. People had gathered up some of the rotten timbers and lit a fire in the yard, and were stewing smoked fish and vegetables. Before the meal Zalidas sang a prayer, then, as always, the Shinali went in their ranks to choose their food. The meal restored some kind of normality to their devastated lives. Afterward, the children collected small stones, or removed beads from their hair, to play complex games with them on markings scratched in the fire-lit dust. One of the musicians produced his pipe, and the tune was haunting and plaintive. Always the people were aware of their chieftain, and often they looked toward the gates, their lips moving in prayer.

When the fire was low everyone went to their places in the barracks, carrying their bowls of water for washing. The stone chambers were freezing now. In the blue moonlight, shivering, Gabriel and Ashila stripped and washed themselves. It was extremely difficult with so little room, and with everyone trying to confine their feet to the very edges of the bedding. People bumped into each other, and water spilled on blankets. Soon everyone was in bed, and the hollow dark echoed with whispers and sighs and the sound of weeping. Wind moaned through the
stone archways, blowing in dust and the last smoke from the dying fire. Gabriel drew the furs and blankets up around their necks, and held Ashila close.

“Tell me on Darshan,” she whispered. “Is he the Navali?”

“No. He's the handsome son of a Navoran woman and an Amaranian healer. That makes him Navoranian.”

“I'm having a hard time knowing who I'm sleeping with,” she muttered.

He laughed softly and kissed her, his hand roving. “Who's sleeping?” he asked.

“Some of us are trying to,” said Zalidas from nearby, and Ashila giggled and stopped Gabriel's hand. They embraced quietly, constrained and aching.

“I've just thought of something,” Gabriel whispered, suddenly tense. “You have herbs, don't you, to stop pregnancy?”

“Yes. My mother gives them to all the girls, until they're being married. And after, if they want. Why? Are you worried on it?”

“Yes.”

“Don't be.”

They lay in silence, trying to sleep. Without thinking, he moved his hand over her shoulders and back, massaging them. She sighed blissfully.
“Your hands, they're being a high lot good,” she whispered. “They wipe away my fearings.”

“There's no need to be afraid. We have friends who can help us. One of the Masters, Sheel Chandra, taught me how to communicate with him through mind alone. I think you know that power. And if I can't reach Sheel Chandra, I'll leave here and go and see Salverion. He'd do something to help us. The Empress listens to him.”

“You can leave this place?”

“Yes. I'm not a prisoner. But I'll only go if I have to; I can't risk being recognized. There's bound to be a reward for anyone who gives the city sentries information about me.”

“You would be safer on your ship, far and far from here. I'm fearing that one day, time to come, you'll be sorry you stayed with us.”

“I made the choice to stay, Ashila, and I'm not sorry for it. I swear that, with
sharleema
.”

“I bless your swearing, healer,” said Zalidas in his deep voice, making them both jump. “And I'll be blessing you again, if you stop talking and let us sleep.”