Secret Sacrament

  “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.

  “Are you Gabriel Eshban Vala?” he asked.

  Gabriel nodded, and his hand tightened about Ashila’s.

  “I have something for you.”

  The envoy pressed a scrolled letter into Gabriel’s hand. Its wax seal was purple, stamped with the Empress’s royal sign, and a purple ribbon bound it. Gabriel shook, and he could hardly break the wax. Turning away to face the window, he unrolled the letter. The words were indistinct, and he could not hold the parchment still. It was clean, so clean. A faint smell came to him, of incense and flowers. God, were there still flowers in the world?

  Ashila took a corner of the page, holding it steady for him, and he read it aloud to her.

  “To Gabriel Eshban Vala: Greetings.

  “I have received your letter, and the pledge-ring. I had hoped that you were in a remote part of the Empire, safely away from the turmoil here. Yet when I think about it, I am not surprised that you are still here, and with the Shinali. The timing of your request is extraordinary; another day would have been too late.

  “The weed has overrun the field, choked all the wheat, even noble sheaves I thought would stand strong. It threatens most of all to destroy the Shinali. I have wanted to give the command to let the Shinali go, but Jaganath’s spies are everywhere, and I have not been able to send a command to Kamos and the army, without Jaganath obstructing it. Neither could I leave the palace, for demons sat in doorways, barring my way. I have felt totally defeated, a prisoner in my own palace, and could give no orders for anything except through Jaganath. But then your pledge-ring and letter came, delivered directly into my hands by a courageous young soldier who defied half the guards and Jaganath, in his determination to hand them over himself.

  “Your words reminded me of something wonderfully empowering, that I had forgotten: you reminded me that in my dream I freed myself from the weed; I was not overcome. With all my heart, I thank you for that. I thank you, too, for the pledge-ring request to let the Shinali go, though I know the cost to you is great. The promise of the pledge-ring transcends all laws and edicts, and even Jaganath cannot stand against my word in response to your request. The pledge-promise, at this strange time in our history, is the one thing that can save the Shinali nation.

  “And so your Shinali shall go free. This order I give, for their unconditional and enduring freedom, is the last command I give as Empress. I have abdicated my throne to Jaganath. By the time you read this, I will be in a ship leaving Navora. My one true adviser, Cosimo, will be with me, along with his family, and the few servants who remain true to me.

  “I have no wish to see what Jaganath will do to this Empire I have loved; neither can I bear to think of its future collapse. However, I believe that when the eagle returns in full strength, it will bring not destruction, but a cleansing, and the restoration of what was best. I also believe you are the voice, the cry, that calls the eagle and begins the reformation. Your last words to me were that the weed had entangled us both; I prefer to think that you and I are in the wind that blows across the field of wheat; that we fly freely above the storm and, in spite of the chaos, play out our destined parts in the fulfillment of a great and splendid prophecy.

  “I have always held you in my heart as a true friend. I wish now that I could ensure your safety, but the pledge-ring, as you know, was for one promise only. Know that in asking what you have, you have saved not only the Shinali, but also, ultimately, Navora.

  “I wish so much to write more, to give you words of comfort and encouragement; but already my faithful steward stands waiting to help me prepare for my journey. It is a deep grief to me that I will not see your face again.

  “With love and gratitude,

  “Petra.”

  Gabriel rolled th
e letter and tried to tie the ribbon around it. Ashila helped him. He placed the letter into her hands. “Guard it well,” he said. “It’s your people’s guarantee of freedom. Go and show it to Tarkwan.”

  He walked with her to the office door. Before she went he whispered to her, “Do you remember everything I told you about looking after someone with bulai fever?”

  Dismayed, she nodded.

  “Only Tarkwan has it,” he whispered. “Take care, love.”

  “I’ll see you before you go?” she asked.

  “Of course. And, Ashila—please don’t tell the others about the pledge-ring. Not yet.”

  She walked away across the shimmering dust and sat in the shade by Tarkwan. The chieftain opened his eyes, and she unrolled the parchment and held its strange scented whiteness in front of his face. “It’s from the Empress,” Ashila said. “Gabriel sent her the pledge-ring, in trade for our freedom.”

  Tarkwan nodded. “He did more than that, to save us,” he said hoarsely, and told her. She listened, motionless, tears rolling down her face. When he had finished speaking, Tarkwan slept, fatigued and at peace.

  Ashila looked past him, past the searing dust and the people waiting within the fortress walls. High above, an eagle soared on the summer wind, its wings dark against the sun. Her vision intensified; for a few breathless moments she could see the form of a man with a steadfast face and eyes that looked beyond, and red-gold hair that flowed and became a part of the wind and the sky, part of the joy-wild beating of the eagle’s wings. She saw people on a journey, and a meeting of tribes; then a great nation, unified and strong, on its way to victory. She saw a battle, dark and terrible. When it cleared there was the Citadel shining, gathering to itself the golden remnants of an empire, of many empires; and below it stretched vast grasslands where animals grazed and crops flourished, and people harvested together. She felt a huge sense of peace, of restoration, and rightness. Touching the sacred torne on Tarkwan’s chest, she tried to tell him, but he was past hearing. She had the feeling he already knew.