Time of the Eagle (8 page)

He asked, “Do you have a husband in your tribe, Avala?”

“No. My tribe, it's very small. It's hard for us to find husbands and wives now who are not of our own kin.”

“We would find that hard in this tribe, too,” he said. “We choose husbands and wives at the Gathering, every other spring.
All the Igaal tribes meet together and trade for slaves and horses, and exchange goods, and choose marriage partners. Why don't your people do that?”

“We don't have many tribes,” I said. “We are only one. All the Shinali in my home tribe, they are the nation.”

He stared at me, and I felt the disbelief in him. “Shimit's teeth!” he breathed. “Is that your heart's truth?”

“Heart's truth,” I said. “Too many fights with too many enemies have killed nearly all of us.”

“Who do you trade with for horses, carpets, other things?”

“We don't trade. We don't have carpets or beautiful chests for our belongings. We have few things, because when we move we must carry everything ourselves, without the help of horses. When our things wear out or break, we cannot replace them. Always, my people long for their own land again, and to build another house such as we had, and to have a place to keep sheep and weave clothes and make pottery. We're not truly wanderers like your people, Ishtok. Our land is all we had. All we want.”

We fell silent, finishing our food. He was frowning a little, creasing the small tattoo between his brows. Straight his eyebrows were, dark and fine as falcon's wings, and the tattoo made a graceful link between them.

“At your Gatherings,” I said, “how many tribes are there?”

“About twenty,” he replied. “Many are larger than ours. We cover the plain like stars in the sky.”

“Aren't you afraid Navoran soldiers will see you all, and attack?”

He laughed softly. “There are so many of us,” he replied, “we'd
all only have to spit, and we'd drown the Navorans. They don't dare come near us.”

“If men choose wives at the Gathering, they choose people they're not knowing very well?”

“If a man chooses a wife at the Gathering, she comes to live with his tribe for two turnings of the seasons, until the next Gathering, and if they still want to marry each other, then they marry at the Gathering. But if they don't please each other, she returns to her own family. But our Gatherings last sometimes for two full moons, so we come to know each other well enough to be sure.”

“And you, Ishtok? Have you met a girl you want to marry?”

“In my Hena tribe, I met someone,” he said. “Her name is Navamani.”

“It's a beautiful name.”

“She's a beautiful girl. But I don't know if it's my destiny to marry her.”

“Didn't you ask the Hena priest if it was your destiny?”

“No.” He grinned. “I was afraid to, in case he said it wasn't. Do you know your destiny, Avala? Sorry—foolish question! Of course you know it: you're already living it.”

I could not help smiling, for he spoke more truth than he knew.

I finished eating and put down my bowl. To the west, the coppery sun quivered as it slid behind the far mountain peaks. I thought of the evening I had met Ramakoda, and seen the vision in the skies of the eagle and the burning fields. Ishtok, too, watched the sunset, his eyes half closed.

“It's my favorite thing in all the world, the sun,” he said.

“I think the moon is more beautiful,” I said.

“No—the sun is best! It warms the earth; its light is life to us. It unfurls the leaves on the trees, calls up the grains and the herbs, and opens up the flowers. Your moon can't do that.”

A slave came and cleared away our bowls, and Ishtok stood up to go. Standing with him, I said, “There's something I want to ask you.”

“Ask anything you wish,” he said.

“Before I go,” I said, “I must speak with your father about something that is a high lot important. I want all your people to hear it.”

“The only time we all gather to hear a talk is at a council meeting,” he said. “Women are not permitted to speak at such meetings, though they may attend if Mudiwar says so. Would you like me to speak on your behalf? That would be acceptable.”

“Thank you, but I need to say the words myself. Will you persuade your father to listen to me?”

“I will try, but it will have to be at the right time, when I know for certain that you are in his favor. What you ask is against Igaal custom.” He gave me a strange look, puzzled and wondering, but asked no questions.

“I'll tell you when I'm ready to talk to him,” I said, “and would be grateful if you would ask him then.”

Before dark all the women went down to the river to bathe, and I went with them. Only Chimaki talked to me. When we had bathed, we put blankets about our bodies and went back to
the tent to dress while the men went to bathe. I discovered what the bowls of charcoal and sweet-smelling wood were for: after dressing, the women stood over the bowls and wafted the sweet smoke up into their clothes and over their bodies, so they smelled good even in the worst of summer's heat. Chimaki told me that when they were traveling in the desert and had no water for washing, they used only the smoke baths. She also said they had strict rules about men and women not seeing one another naked. I thought of the youths swimming naked in the river by my people's camp, and of how at night we all stripped by our beds and washed before going to sleep. We were not ashamed of our nakedness, and honored one another, and did not stare. Even the youths and us girls, we did not stare at one another—well, not openly, anyway. I preferred our freer Shinali way.

As darkness fell the men and boys came back, and we all sat together on the soft carpets to talk and tell stories. Ishtok came and sat with me. I was quiet, thinking of home, and he must have taken my silence for sorrow, for he said, with a high lot of gentleness, “It's hard, being cut off from your own tribe. There were many times, when I was with the Hena, that I wished I could commune with my father. I got so desperate once, I even tied a message to a hawk's leg and tried to get the bird to fly to my father's camp.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, it was a good message. I'd drawn my smiling face on a scrap of rabbit skin, so my father would know I was well. The hawk ate the message before it left the Hena camp.”

We laughed, and I accepted the bowl of drink he passed to me. It smelled pungent and strong, and I sipped it cautiously. He
said, “It's called
kuba.
It's what's in the shared bowl they all pass around.”

“It's better than your goat's milk,” I said, giving it back to him. “But not by much.”

Grinning, he drank the
kuba
himself.

Slaves were lighting the lamps. People went and got their bedding, and spread it out. I noticed that if anyone walked on the blankets, it was no matter. Also, with the Igaal, there were no special sleeping places, and people lay down where they wished. Ishtok came back with his bedding and mine, and spread our blankets out side by side. Ramakoda made his bed on the other side of Kimiwe. Chimaki, too, was nearby. We all got into our beds, and it felt strange to me, having Ishtok there so close. I felt suddenly shy. Every night of my life, until this time with Ramakoda and his people, I had slept with my mother on one side and my grandmother on the other.

The slaves put out all the lamps but one, and people talked quietly before they went to sleep. I was awake a long time, thinking of home.

I thought of how Yeshi's tent would be silent, the air heavy with worry and grief for me. These three days and three nights they would have worried and searched for me, all along the gorge and riverbank, and out toward the Igaal lands. My heart traveled out to the gathering-bag I had left on the stones by the Ekiya River, and the precious
eysela
flowers laid out in rows beside it. The bag had been stained darkly with Ramakoda's blood, after I had used it to drag him to the river. Did they think the blood was mine, and that a wild animal had taken me, maybe dragged me to the river for killing? But then I would not have laid the
flowers out tidily, in rows. What a mystery my disappearance must be, to them! And my mother and grandmother—what did they think? Did they believe me dead? Or would their hearts tell them that I was alive? I wished I had the gift my mother said my father had, of sending words from his mind through fields and trees and stone, to people he loved. With all my heart, I wished I could tell her that everything was well with me. I wished I could tell her that, in the days to come, I would strive to do what Zalidas had foretold, and be the Daughter of the Oneness.

My birthing time, my dying time, the mother I have and the father I have, each day of my life, my dreams, and my one true destiny—all were chosen and ordained for me by the All-father, before ever I drew breath.

—Shinali proverb

T
he next morning, when I had finished changing Kimiwe's bindings, I went down to the river, which seemed to be the gathering place for all the women. They were washing clothes, slapping them against the smooth rocks to clean them, and the men were working under the trees nearby, carving their new canoe. The women were laughing and talking, and children played in the shallows by them. But suddenly the laughter stopped, and we saw old Gunateeta hobbling out of her healing tent. She was wearing all black, and there were ashes in her hair and on her face and clothes. The women in the river stood up to look at her, and the men stopped carving.

Mudiwar went over to the priestess, and she spoke to him for a while. Then he went to the men by the canoe and said something to them I could not hear. Six of the men went into the healing tent and came out carrying three bodies. Filthy those bodies were, covered in blood and pus and other fluids, and two of the bearers retched as they carried them. Even from where I stood, a stone-throw away, I could smell the stench. I sorrowed for the
people still in the healing tent. As soon as the bodies were brought out, women began wailing; a high-pitched, trilling sound strange to me, full of a wild and frightening grief.

People came running from all the tents, and a great crowd went down straightaway to the funeral ground. I lingered on the edge and watched for a while. Bizarre funeral rites they were, sickening to me. While Gunateeta chanted and prayed and limped around waving long trailing banners red as blood, men began chopping up the bodies of the dead. The birds were already there, waiting. Arms and limbs of the dead were cut up and the flesh stripped off and laid out on special stones for the birds to devour; but some of the organs and the bones were kept, wrapped in red cloths and buried with the heads on the far side of the ground, under pyramids of stones. Tall sticks stood in the stones, bearing funeral flags marked with prayers and sacred signs.

I did not stay till the end, but went back to Mudiwar's tent and sat by Kimiwe. That day there was no midday feast, and Kimiwe told me that people fasted on funeral days. She was talkative, cheerful, and healing so rapidly that I expected to go home very soon. In the afternoon Mudiwar and his family came into his dwelling. Many of the women were still weeping. Ishtok came and sat by me, his face solemn.

“My father is worried about the others in the healing tent,” he said quietly. “Gunateeta is in so much pain, she forgot half the prayers on the funeral ground. She is no longer being a good healer. It's a serious matter for us.”

Even as he spoke, the chieftain came over.

“Shinali woman,” he said. “Show me this healing you've done on my granddaughter.”

It was the first time he had shown interest in Kimiwe's healing, and as I obeyed I was aware of people gathering around us. While the chieftain examined her wounds, Kimiwe smiled shyly up at him. She said, calling him by the Igaal name for grandfather, “It doesn't hurt anymore,
Mor-bani
.”

“No hurt at all, little one?” he asked gently.

Kimiwe shook her head. “I want Avala to look after me all the time,
Mor-bani
, not the grumpy lady. I don't like her.”

“Then I shall have to go and see the grumpy lady, as you call our esteemed holy one, and hear her words on the matter,” said the chieftain, and then he went out.

By this time there were many people gathered outside as well, talking quietly, their faces astonished and fearful. Straight to the healing tent the old man went, and the people followed, falling over themselves in their eagerness to see what would happen. I stayed behind and was binding Kimiwe's burns again when Ramakoda came in.

“Avala! My father's calling for you. Come—now!”

I hurried out, and he took my arm and almost dragged me to the healing tent. “My father's gone in, even though it's forbidden ground to him,” he said. “Name of Shimit, things are happening this day!”

As we neared the healing tent the crowd parted to let us through. Then the entrance to the tent was in front of me, and I was choking in the smoke that poured out, pungent and suffocating. The chieftain's shoes were in the entrance, where he had
kicked them off. From inside he called my name again, and he sounded angry. Ramakoda prodded me and I went in.

Darkness and fetid heat engulfed me. I retched at the stink of human sweat, blood, urine, vomit, and suppurating wounds. The buzzing of flies filled the air. In a fire pit in the floor burned something earthy and foul, its fumes too stinking to breathe. I could hardly see but after a while made out the sick lying in their filthy clothes on the dirt floor. Many were moaning quietly, and some entreated the chieftain for mercy; others were silent, near death.

Coughing a little, Mudiwar was standing on the other side of the fire, and Gunateeta was sitting near him, slouched over on a little stool. Noticing me, she jerked upright, her face cold and furious. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mudiwar spoke first.

“A long time you've been looking after these sick ones, Gunateeta,” he said.

Her eyes, red-rimmed from the smoke, flicked upward to his face. “Yes, and death has not claimed many of them,” she said. “I've held it off, Mudiwar.”

“You've also held off life,” he said. “I've seen Kimiwe. Her burns are healing well, and she is almost as she was before the fire. To my mind, her healing is better than the healing I see here.”

“Your mind is the mind of a chieftain and a warrior,” Gunateeta said. “Your mind cannot see the spirits of death coming and going. You cannot judge healing.”

“I can tell whether people are alive or not,” he said. “I may not see the spirits, priestess, but I see plenty else. Come.”

He turned and went out. I rushed after him. All the people
were watching us, waiting for the chieftain's words. He said nothing, waiting for Gunateeta.

At last she emerged, bent and limping, and wreathed in smoke. Blood seeped through the dirty bindings on her feet, and I felt sorry for her.

Mudiwar said to her, with some gentleness, “Times past, Gunateeta, you were a good healer, and I honor you for that. But I think your healing power has become trapped behind your own pain, and now you need healing for yourself.”

She looked at the far hills, and gnawed on her lower lip.

Then Mudiwar said to me, “Shinali woman, can your
munakshi
heal the sick in this tent?”

“I'm not knowing anything about
munakshi
,” I replied. “But I can heal. The ways I worked on Kimiwe, they were learned by my mother from a healer from Navora. A very great healer. There is no
munakshi
, only a high lot of knowing.”

“I thought the Shinali and the Navorans were enemies.”

“One Navoran was our friend.”

“Strange, that a Navoran soldier caused my grandchild's hurt,” Mudiwar remarked, “and a Navoran skill heals her. Those blue eyes of yours, they come from that Navoran healer?”

“He was my father,” I said.

“So, we shelter two enemies in one skin,” he remarked. I thought he was angry, but to my surprise when he spoke again he sounded kind. “I'll turn a blind eye to the bloods in you,” he said, “if you will use your
munakshi
to heal my people.”

I hesitated, my heart in turmoil. How long would it take to clean up the healing tent and those inside, and to do the healings for them? Three days? Four? Too long, already, I had been
away from home. While I was silent one of the men called out.

“We'll not have
her
heal our sick!” he cried. “Not a Shinali with Navoran blood! You may turn a blind eye to the bloods in her, my chieftain, but I cannot! And neither would my son, who lies in Gunateeta's healing tent! He'd rather die than have that half-breed touch him!”

Other men called out in agreement, and women nodded in support.

“Go home, Shinali she-dog!” someone yelled.

“If that Shinali witch goes in my tent,” said Gunateeta in a low voice, “Shimit will surely curse us all.”

“How can Shimit curse us?” cried Mudiwar. “We're already cursed! Two and forty of our kin gone in slavery, almost as many others dead, or dying in this tent. Is not that a curse? Is there anything worse to fear?”

They were silent, angry.

Mudiwar lowered his voice and said, “Consider another thing, my people: consider that Shimit might have sent this Shinali healer to us, for such a time as this. To spurn the Shinali healer now may be to spurn the gift of the gods themselves.”

“She is no gift, my chieftain!” called out an elderly man. “It was her father's people who caused us this sorrow! As for her Shinali blood—it's the filthy Shinali that draw the soldiers out here to our lands, like wounded dogs tempting out the wolves. If the high chieftain in the stone city found the Shinali he hunts for, he'd stop attacking us!”

“The Shinali dogs asked for their trouble!” cried someone else. “Like weak pups they suckled the Navoran wolves, and now they pay the price for their stupidity! But we pay it, too! Us, and all
the Igaal tribes, and the Hena—we all suffer, because of the Shinali fools! I say we kill the witch. Tie her to a stake out in the desert, and let the Navoran soldiers find her. Then they'd find all her people, and have all the slaves they want, and we'd be left in peace.”

Mudiwar banged his stick on the ground again, but no one took any notice. The whole tribe was in an uproar, and the sound of their hatred toward me was overwhelming. Terrified, I thought I would be torn to pieces, there and then. But Ramakoda raised his arms and stood beside his father, and there was quiet.

“Igaal!” Ramakoda cried. “My people! This talk is not worthy of you! Let me ask you a thing. Which tribe of us, of the whole Igaal nation, is without fault? Which tribe has all people who are wise, who are strong in truth, who walk in honor with the gods? Which tribe has no thief, no liar, no deceiver, no breaker of the laws? Tell me—which tribe?”

He glared on them, was tall and fierce and strong. Quietly, but clearly so all could hear, he went on, “There is no such tribe. Every tribe of us, every clan, every family, has good and bad. And the Navorans are the same. And the Shinali. I say that this Shinali woman with us now—this healer, this friend to me, my
nazdar
kinswoman—she is a good Shinali. I am proud that she healed me, for she healed me well. I am proud that she heals my daughter, for Kimiwe is a new child now. And I will be proud to see my father open up this healing tent, and let this Shinali healer do her work inside. If any of you do not agree to let her touch your kin, then speak now, and you may go in and get your kin, and bring them out and take them to your own tents. Then tomorrow, or after a few tomorrows, you can set them free to fly
with the birds. But let us give some of them a chance at life.”

There was total silence.

Ramakoda bent his head to his father, and stepped back.

Mudiwar coughed a little and said, “Before I saw the work of this Shinali healer, I spoke a word. Now I speak another word: she is to help my people in this tent. She will be given all that she needs, and you will do anything she asks of you. And Gunateeta will pray to the gods for us all.”

There was a fluttering of hands as people covered their mouths in shock. Some cried out in astonishment and fear. Then Gunateeta spoke.

“My chieftain,” she said, “you cast me off as healer, so I will take you at your word. Never again ask for my help. Never ask for my advice. Never ask for my prayers. And when the Shinali witch has gone, never ask for my forgiveness.”

Then she hobbled away, her stained robes billowing about her, to her own small tent on the edge of the funeral ground.

Disappointment swept over me, that I would not soon be going home, after all. Despite Ramakoda's fine talk, I was about to argue, to say I needed to return to my own tribe, when someone moaned from inside the tent. An awful moan it was, full of desperation and pleading and pain; and my heart melted, and I knew I could not go.

“I will help,” I said to Mudiwar, “but I need someone to work with me. May Chimaki help?”

“She may,” said Mudiwar. “And Ramakoda, since he is your
nazdar
brother and is responsible for you. May Shimit also be with you, Shinali woman.”

I looked at Ramakoda and was surprised to see him smiling.
“So, the sick are in our hands,” he said. “I wasn't expecting to turn healer this day. I hope you realize I'm about as clumsy as a cow with a bow and arrow, when it comes to needlework.”

But there was nothing clumsy about Ramakoda, I found. He and Chimaki worked with carefulness and were gentle. We had two-and-twenty people in the healing tent. Seven were beyond my help, and I simply washed them and eased their pain, then asked their loved ones to bear them away to their own tents, so they could pass peacefully through the shadow lands. Then we washed the fifteen sick who remained, changed the fouled bedding they lay on, and cleaned their wounds. When everyone was clean and had been given a little water and medicine against festering, then I began the healings.

Never had I been faced with so much human agony. Though Ramakoda and Chimaki were excellent helpers, I longed for the company of my mother and grandmother, whose wisdom and skills had always been my guide. Now, without their help, I felt very alone, unsure, and afraid because all decisions lay with me. My hands shook and I felt sick with nervousness and fear. Once, seeing how I trembled, Ramakoda asked if I was ill.

“No,” I replied, “but I'm afraid. I've not had to mend wounds like these before. I'm afraid I'll make people worse, not better.”