Time of the Eagle (32 page)

A long time Ishtok just looked at the Emperor, reading his face, the terror in his eyes. He placed the point of his knife against the soft flesh above the Emperor's right eyelid. In Navoran, Ishtok said, “I am Ishtok, son of the chieftain Mudiwar of the Igaal Tribe of the Elk. My brother Chetobuh, you cut out his eye, his tongue. Whipped him close to death.”

Unable to speak, Jaganath stared at him, his eyes like those of a man about to die, unready and overwhelmed by terror. Ishtok
went on, “Now power is mine, to pay back for my brother. But I will not, for doing such a thing, it would make me less than a man, less than a maggot, equal to you. That is a thing I hope I never am.”

He let go of Jaganath's hair, and the Emperor's head dropped forward. Sheathing his knife, Ishtok stood up and came back to me. Jaganath groaned slightly and sweat rolled down his skin.

Going to stand in front of Jaganath, Embry said, “My lord, Emperor Jaganath—in the name of Sovereign God, and in the name of Navoran justice, you are under arrest. You will be tried this very hour. The citizens of Navora are gathered in the courtyard below, as well as the slaves who still remain, along with the chieftains of the Hena and the Igaal, and the Shinali. They will be your judges.”

Embry nodded to his soldiers, and six of them came forward and picked up Jaganath, ready to carry him out. I caught a glimpse of Jaganath's eyes on me, brimming with helpless rage and hate, and I thought how the indignity of being carried out must have wounded him almost as much as the loss of his Empire.

As the Emperor was carried down the stairs, Embry said to me, “Most of your people survived the battle, Avala. Your mother is fine and is going to the Navora Infirmary to help heal the wounded. Some of my soldiers are clearing the battlefield now. I know you will want to be with your people, but there's work here in Navora, if you will do it for me. There are many wounded in the city. As soon as the soldiers still in the army barracks realized that the Hena and Igaal were coming, they rushed here to defend their families. They found the slaves in revolt, and there
was much hand-to-hand fighting. There have been many deaths, and many hundreds wounded. I've already dispatched my three surgeons to set up a hospital in the city, in one of the large houses with plenty of room and clean water. Many slaves are still here to help you—I mean, ex-slaves. They are not Hena or Igaal, but from other conquered nations. They'll be returned to their homelands eventually, by ship. But first, there's much else to be done. One of my surgeons is waiting for you in Jaganath's throne room, to take you there. Will you do that for me?”

“Of course,” I said.

“You come with me,” said Embry to Ishtok. “Most of the citizens welcomed us, but there's still a lot of fear and confusion in the city. Until order is properly restored, I need every soldier I can trust. I'll also need you to translate, for your people.”

“I'll be glad to help,” said Ishtok.

I noticed how Embry looked suddenly very weary, and not only from the battle. There was a weight on him, the mantle of a supreme, almost overwhelming responsibility.

“You have much to do, Embry,” I said.

“It's one thing to fight a battle and free a city,” he replied. “But the hardest work is yet to come—ending Jaganath's reign, finding a new leader, restoring the greatness we once had, rebuilding the Empire. I'm a soldier, not a politician. I wish, with all my heart, I had the Citadel Masters to help. I badly need their wisdom, their great influence.”

“You will have them,” I said, and the look on his face, the joy and the relief, were wonderful to see. “They will be here, soon,” I added. “Sheel Chandra and Salverion, and seventy others with them. You are not alone, Embry. Not one of us, in this
great morning, has been alone.”

He looked away, out the bright window, and wiped his hand across his eyes. He said something—a prayer, perhaps—then looked back at me. “You don't know what it means to me, to know that they all live,” he said, his eyes wet. “It also explains a lot of things. I'll go in peace now, and leave you to begin your healing.” He nodded to Ishtok, and turned to go.

Before he left, Ishtok turned to me and, with joyful solemnity, made the Shinali greeting. “It's a fine morning, free Shinali woman,” he said. Then he kissed me and went out with Embry.

For a few moments I stood at the high window and looked across the surrendered city, at the sea of shining faces below, at the blue flags and garments waving, and fathers lifting their children high on their shoulders to see the defeated tyrant, and slaves shaking their fists, joy-wild and free. From amid the cheers, I heard snatches of Shinali songs. Beyond the crowds, over the walls of the courtyard, the terraced streets of the city also teemed with people, all cheering. From somewhere across the tiled roofs and white domes and towers came the tremendous ringing of bells.

On an impulse, I looked one last time through the telescope, beyond the bloodied Shinali lands, to Taroth Pass. And I saw a group of people coming in, wearing crimson and gold, and over their heads, streaming high in the bright morning wind, was a long white banner emblazoned with seven silver stars.

T
he Navoran surgeon and I hurried through the crowded streets. He was one of the healers I had worked beside after the attack on Mudiwar's tribe, the one who had shaken my hand after, and his name was Rhain. He was still wearing his armor, though not his helmet or his sword, and there was blood sprayed down the front of him, and on his face. He took my arm to prevent our being parted, and I glimpsed, over the heads of the pressing, cheering throngs, high pillared buildings of white stone, splendid and shining against the smoky skies. We hurried up long flights of white steps, through narrow market alleys with stalls of bread and vegetables, striped awnings fluttering above; then crossed a crowded city square with a towering pillared temple on one side. Soon we were passing high walls with big gates of wrought iron, beyond which I glimpsed stone courtyards with fountains and statues and pots of plants and small trees. We came to wide, walled streets where there were few people about, and the houses I saw through the gateways were like palaces. Then we turned into a street where dozens of injured walked or were
carried, all of us heading in the same direction. We came to a place with double gates thrown open and went through into a wide courtyard. All around us were wounded people—fathers with children in their arms, husbands and wives supporting one another, other injured ones walking, or being carried on makeshift stretchers by friends, many of whom were also bleeding. We were all going up toward a grand house, many-storied, with sloping roofs of red tile, and slender towers and elegant balconies.

“This will be our hospital, for a few weeks,” explained the surgeon, taking me quickly through the gathering crowd, across the courtyard, and up steps to a high porch flanked by pillars. I found myself in a wide entranceway, also crowded with injured people arriving. On the wall above us I glimpsed a huge mural of wharves and ships, and slaves in chains. Rhain hurried me on. About us were people hurrying with bundles of blankets, layers of fine white material, and elegant bowls containing water. Some had minor wounds roughly bandaged. We came to a long narrow hallway, and Rhain opened a door. Waves of pain rushed over me.

The room was huge, with high windows along the far wall, looking out onto a courtyard garden. All the furniture—beautiful tables, chairs, lamps, and rugs—was piled up along another wall. All over the white stone floor were injured Navoran citizens, some moaning, some lying silent, shocked, others sitting, rocking while they wept. Some clutched bloodied cloths to their faces or eyes, others had deep cuts to their hands or arms. There were many with stab wounds, and they lay silent, hands clenched to their chests, blood running out between their fingers. The white
floor was smeared with blood.

“This is just the first lot,” said Rhain. “As you've seen, there are plenty still arriving. You'll find scalpels and needles and everything else on one of the tables over there. There are four of us healers, and we'll have help from Navoran citizens who aren't wounded. We'll be brought more supplies, blankets and bandages and suchlike. Just do what you can, the worst injuries first.”

“Where will you be?” I asked.

“In the next room along, if you need me. There are four rooms like this, and they'll all be packed with wounded by tonight. We'll be getting the injured from the battlefield as well, once the Navora Infirmary is full.”

“These people were all hurt in the slave revolt?” I asked, appalled.

“The worst cases have been taken to the infirmary, where they've got proper operating rooms. We've got the easy cases. Don't look so shocked, Avala,” he added, gently. “We estimate there were about five hundred citizens injured in the revolt. Considering Navora has a population of forty thousand free people, we got off very lightly. Good luck.”

Then he was gone, and I faced the rows of the wounded looking up at me, their faces suddenly suspicious and afraid. I went and knelt by an elderly man at the end of the row nearest me, saw that he had only a minor cut to his hand, and told him he would have to wait. The next person was a woman with a stab wound in her shoulder, not fatal, and I stopped her pain and moved to the next. It was a man with a slice through his abdomen, and he clutched the wound with both hands, unable to speak for
his agony. His eyes implored me. I knelt and stopped his pain. Then I said, “I'll get water and a needle and thread, and do my best for you.”

And so I began the most difficult healings first. A woman came who had been a slave, and she cleaned the knives for me, and threaded the steel Navoran needles, and brought me water to wash my hands between patients. Others came to help, binding those I had sewn up, and making beds for them on mattresses that had arrived. A team of helpers washed the floors of blood, and gave water to the sick and to me. It was almost like the healing after the battle at Mudiwar's camp, but here there were no flies, the wounds were free of dust, and most were relatively simple cuts, easier to mend than the ravaged battle wounds of barbed arrows and swords.

Once, during the morning, I went and stood outside for a few moments of rest, while I ate some bread and cheese. I was in the courtyard garden, and a fountain played there, the sound of its waters reminding me of the fountain at Ravinath. I remember that I looked up and saw flocks of seagulls wheeling and screaming in the deep blue skies; and suddenly there seemed to be a change in the atmosphere, an intense stillness, a peace, as if a huge tension in the world had suddenly been let go. The moment passed, and the gulls whirled and shrieked again, and the world spun on. I knew, then, that Jaganath was dead.

As I went back into the house, bells peeled out across the city, and I heard a distant roar like many thousands of people cheering. Knowing what it meant, some of the wounded cheered, some had the strength only for a whispered prayer or a smile of sheer relief. I did a strange thing, for me, an impulsive thing born
out of the huge feelings in my heart: I stood in the middle of that great sunlit room, with the wounded about my feet, and sang a song I had learned at Ravinath. A Navoran song it was, a song of freedom and justice, words of the poet Delano put to music by the finest musician in the Empire. I don't have a very good voice, but maybe it was the high ceiling, the smooth stone walls, that made my song ring clear and true, for people were utterly silent while I sang, and some were in tears. The Navoran surgeons came to stand in the doorway to listen. When the song was finished, one of them came over and embraced me. “I know those words you sang,” he said hoarsely. “The poet Delano. Always I have loved his work. Thank you.”

I picked up another bundle of clean needles and knives and carried on with my healing. And it seemed, after that, that the air was cleaner, rarefied, the sunlight somehow brighter as it streamed in the high glassed windows and shone back from polished white walls and burnished tables with their gleaming instruments, and danced on the clean white bindings on those who were healed. I thought often of the amazing light at Ravinath, and of the Masters, knowing they would be in the vast Navora Infirmary, bringing wholeness to the battle-hurt. I thought of my mother, with her beautiful face full of tenderness as she mended the Navoran soldiers and wounded warriors, working alongside those greatest of healers that I loved. Though our work was terrible in many ways, and the agony of the wounded was my pain, too, I felt that a great web of healing was laid like a light across the once-tormented city, bringing a restoration, a peace. And there was another thing I felt, in that grand Navoran house: I felt the presence of my father often, as if in these rare and
extraordinary days, the veils were thin between the worlds, and he stood near, a supporting and sublime witness to the days for which he had laid down his earthly life.

By mid-afternoon I had treated all the seriously injured and had begun to help the many who were left, the ones with simple cuts and minor injuries. My most constant help was a girl slightly younger than myself, with red curling hair and green eyes. Her name was Elanora, and she had a lovely nature, caring and gentle, yet tough, too, for she did not shrink from anything we had to do. She mopped away blood as I worked, and helped me wash out wounds, and cut threads as I sewed up. She never once asked to rest, and stopped to drink and eat only when I did. I asked her if she had been a slave.

“No. I live in the house next to this,” she replied. “My father owns the university.”

“Was anyone in your family hurt, during the revolt?”

“No one. Our slaves—we had ten—would never hurt us. We treated them well. When the rebellion started, they locked us all in the cupboard upstairs, with the brooms and cleaning things. They said it was to protect us. My father was furious and tried to fight them, but the gardener was a big man, and he picked my father up and threw him into the cupboard with us, and he fell into the mops and buckets. I think Papa would rather have had a knife stuck in him.”

We laughed and began binding up a woman's arm.

Elanora chatted on. “All our slaves are free, now. Two have gone back to the Hena, but the rest are from Amaran and will have to wait to go back on a ship. My mother's been crying all
morning. She hates cleaning and cooking, and says we'll have to do everything ourselves now. But one of the slaves, my favorite, an old woman called Sarwan, she says she'll stay. My mother's still not happy; she says we'll have to pay Sarwan for her work and will have to ask her nicely to do things, or she won't do them. We won't be able to yell at her anymore, or order her around.”

“That won't be so hard,” I said.

Elanora grinned. “You don't know my mother,” she said. “It'll be a huge challenge for her.”

We finished the binding, and went and washed our hands. Already a new pack of instruments had been washed and set out on a tray for us, and Elanora brought them to the next person we would heal. For a moment I looked about the room, saw it orderly now, and clean. Many who had been treated had returned to their homes, but those who needed to stay for ongoing care were lying on mattresses in straight rows. Tables had been set up along the center of the room, with drinking water and bowls of washing water and plates of soap, and many piles of clean towels. No doubt many of the houses around had contributed what they could for our new hospital.

In the evening I told Elanora to go home and rest, for I would need her again in the morning. She went, but I worked on, helped by someone else. At some time in the night a Navoran soldier came to see me. I was sitting binding up a child's foot while a freed woman held a lamp for me.

“Take a rest,” said the soldier. “It's after midnight.”

“I'll finish here, first,” I said.

“Don't argue. They're bringing cartloads of soldiers and warriors from the battlefield. The infirmary's overflowing and can't
deal with them. There were thousands injured, many of them soldiers surrendering, trampled by the horses. People from the farms have roughly bound them up and stopped the worst bleeding, but these ones coming to us have had no proper medical care. Rest now, for a few hours at least. There are bedrooms upstairs. The people who owned this house have fled the city. Jaganath's supporters, probably.” He grinned as he added, “Sleep in whichever bed you like, and enjoy the silk sheets.”

I washed my hands and face and did as he said, for I was deadly tired. On the way to the stairs I passed the other rooms outside the one in which I had healed, and pushed open the doors. Inside, flooded over by moonbeams, were rows upon rows of people, most of them cleanly bandaged by now, lying on mattresses. Alone, Rhain still worked among them, his weary face golden in his lamplight. Slowly, I went up a long flight of stairs.

It was dark upstairs, and I had forgotten to bring a lamp. The first room I came to was small, with a bed near a wide window seat. I could see stars outside. For a while I sat by the window, looking out at the warm summer night and the three-quarter moon shining on the distant sea. The windows were of glass, and I pushed one open, and smelled the fresh, salt-laden air. From the city below I heard music, sometimes cheers, sometimes angry shouting. I thought of Embry and sent him peace. Ishtok, too, was in my mind—had been there all day, safe-wrapped in thought, protected by my powerful amulet, beloved. Smiling at the memory of his face, too tired to move, even to take off my bloodied clothes, I lay down where I was, peaceful, warm. I slept, and dreamed of a young boy with red-gold curls and eyes the color
of a summer sky. He wore a carved Shinali bone, and his face was strong and beautiful.

The next morning I explored upstairs, looking for cupboards of clothes, so I could change into something clean. I found several other bedrooms, much grander than the one I had slept in, and a small room with enough clothes to dress a tribe. I found a simple long blue dress, and changed. I also found a splendid bathroom with marble walls and a large bath sunk into the floor. I did not know how to fill the bath, but I found a deep bowl full of cool water, and soaps, and had a wash.