by Mary Mackey
"These speak," the old woman said, pointing to the marks.
Marrah peered at them, trying to figure out what "speak" could possibly mean when it was obvious the marks were silent. Some, like the triangle, were familiar signs for the Goddess, but the rest could have been the scribblings of an idle child.
"Thank you for showing me this, Grandmother," she said politely and started to make her way back to the boat.
The old priestess caught her by the elbow, smiled a toothless smile, smoothed out the piece of leather with the tip of one finger, and began to sing a healing song that Marrah had never heard before. The song was in Old Language, and it described how, by combining certain roots and leaves, wine-red birthmarks could be removed from the faces of newborn children. Marrah listened politely, mystified since there were clearly no newborn children in sight, and when the old priestess had finished, she thanked her again, climbed back into the dugout, continued down the river, and thought no more about it.
Only many months later when she was admitted to the inner sanctuary of the Owl Temple in Shara and saw thirty rolled strips of leather, each in its own wooden nest, did she come to understand that the old priestess had shown her a thing called "writing." The priestess had not been singing a memory song as Marrah had supposed; she had been reading from a frayed leather scroll. It had been a great honor, one she had been too ignorant to appreciate at the time, but later, as she sat in the temple, slowly puzzling out the sacred script and hearing the voices of generations long dead, she realized that only her pilgrim's necklace could have given her a glimpse of such a powerful piece of magic before she had taken her final vows of initiation.
But the greatest sight of all wasn't a scroll or a temple or a copper mine; it was the world itself. Sabalah had sung that the heart of Earth lay in the East, and now Marrah saw that heart alive and beating with commerce and civilization. Along the River of Smoke alone, there were hundreds of villages and dozens of cities. There were more people than she had ever imagined, and all of them had their own customs, their own way of dressing, their own languages, and their own way of praying. Only the Goddess Earth united them, and even She came in different forms. But whether She was worshiped as a bear or a butterfly, a fish or a bee, wherever the people prayed to Her, children were cherished, women were honored, old people were respected, and quarrels between villages were settled peacefully.
Stavan, who had seen more of the world than she had, was just as impressed as Marrah. Often, as they drifted down the river, passing village after village surrounded by green fields of wheat and barley, he would shake his head in amazement. "If my people lived here," he would tell Marrah, "they wouldn't pitch their camps on the banks of the river. They'd be up in the hills where they could defend themselves. But then these people don't have any enemies, do they? They just build wherever the ground's the best for growing wheat and vegetables, and they never give a thought to the fact that they're vulnerable on all four sides."
Sometimes when a village lay on a bit of flatland that jutted out into the river, he would laugh. "Why, a Hansi war party could take that village so fast they'd never know what hit them! But that won't ever happen, because my people don't have any idea such villages exist. Bless your sweet Goddess for that, Marrah, and pray they never do."
Marrah would look at the village and hold her tongue. She was often tempted to tell him about the prophecy, especially when he went on about how defenseless the river villages were, but the vision she had been granted when she ate the Bread of Darkness was sacred knowledge that could only be told to another priestess. Still, she sometimes felt bad about not speaking. She loved Stavan and trusted him, and when you loved someone it was hard to take him to your mother's city and present him as an example of the evil men who were coming to kill its people and burn down its temples: at least not unless you told him straight out what was in store for him. But no matter how much she loved him, her duty to her own people came first. One thing a priestess never did was break a promise, especially a promise made to her own mother.
Even though she couldn't tell him everything, they were very close. Thrown together day after day, they talked endlessly until she was convinced she knew almost as much about the Sea of Grass as he did. Later she was to discover he had kept a number of things from her out of kindness, but at the time she never suspected that he too had secrets. As the days went by, he began to act more and more like a man of her own people and even began to look like one. Not long after they reached the River of Smoke and joined some traders going downstream he cut off his beard and discarded his matted fur tunic and boots for sandals and a linen kilt like the ones the local men wore. The sun had darkened his skin, and if it hadn't been for his light hair and blue eyes, he might have been mistaken for a trader traveling east with some odd knives, a finely made quiver, and a strange bow he intended to exchange for rare herbs or a few jars of good wine.
And so the days passed, and they grew to be good friends as well as lovers. When the river was wide and slow, they would dive off the side of the dugout and call to Arang to join them. Laughing and splashing, they would invent games to pass the time. Arang liked to play tag, swimming away so fast that no one could catch him, but when they competed to see who could stay under water the longest, Marrah almost always won. Stavan, on the other hand, was clearly the strongest swimmer.
Afterward, when they'd tired of games, he would sit beside her with his arm around her waist, and they would watch the heart of the world flow by, village after village. When her hair was partly dry, he would comb it until it shone or take out his knife and carve Arang a whistle, but mostly they simply sat quietly, enjoying each other's company.
At midday, when the heat was fierce and even the shadows seemed to glow, the traders would guide the dugouts over to some shady place for the midday meal. They would all strip off their clothes and take another bath in the cool river, eat, and then lie down to rest until the sun began to dip toward the western horizon.
On those days, when Arang was asleep and the traders were snoring peacefully, Marrah and Stavan would sometimes go off by themselves a little distance from the rest and make love quietly so as not to disturb the others. When she came, he would draw her hair over her mouth to muffle her cries; and when he came, she would place the palm of her hand lightly against his lips. There was something sweet about making love in silence; it gave the afternoons a dreamlike quality. Sometimes, as they sat whispering and laughing afterward, sharing sips of fruit juice from a clay jar that had been cooled in the river, she would tease him about being a dream and he would tease back, saying no, he was her demon lover. In the Sea of Grass, he'd tell her, the gods from the underworld often came up to mate with mortal women, and everyone knew the gods could never be satisfied.
"No man of flesh and blood could kiss you like this," he'd say, kissing her until she could hardly breathe, and she'd escape for a moment and roll out of reach, laughing so hard she had to put her hands over her mouth to keep from waking everyone up.
When they were delayed in some remote village for more than a few days, they would explore the forests, sometimes climbing a hill to get a better look at what lay downriver. In the mornings the River of Smoke was true to its name. Streamers of white mist rose slowly off its surface, and it seemed as broad and calm as a lake. But as the day progressed, the water turned blue-green; great trees floated by, their roots sticking up like fingers, and you could see powerful currents twisting at the banks in an endless, sinuous curve that reminded Marrah of the Snake Dance.
After they had looked their fill at the river, she would walk around keeping an eye out for unfamiliar plants, Arang would practice with his bow and arrow, and Stavan would hunt birds or other small animals. Sometimes, when he grew bored with hunting or was having no luck, he'd take them farther into the forest and teach them interesting things: how to track an animal by looking for overturned rocks or broken twigs; how to imitate birdsongs so perfectly the birds themselves couldn't tell the dif
ference; how to find dry wood in wet weather or shoot his brother's singing bow. She and Arang had known many of these things long before they met him, of course. Every child of the Shore People did. But he knew the forest better than they did. There was nothing he couldn't track when he set his mind to it; when he whistled the birds flew down and landed at his feet; when he stood still and willed himself to blend into the shadows, he was invisible.
And so they traveled east, teaching each other and changing each other, until a day came when Marrah could send an arrow into a target and Stavan could look at her and say with all sincerity that he never wanted to go back to the Sea of Grass.
The day he told her he no longer felt like going home was an ordinary day that began like any other. In the morning he and Arang caught some fish, and later one of the traders snared a turtle. At midday they arrived at a small dusty village where a festival was in progress, lured to it by the smell of roasting goat and the sound of drums. Pulling the boats out of the water, they hurried toward the sound and found all the village aitas gathered around the central fire pit being honored by their children and their children's mothers. Decked out in flowers, the men were sprawled on grass mats eating roast goat, ripe purple grapes, and cakes that dripped with honey from their own hives.
The villagers greeted Marrah and Arang warmly, as usual, bowing at the sight of their pilgrim's necklaces, but that afternoon Stavan was the center of attention — and not because his hair was yellow and his eyes were blue. The villagers hardly seemed to notice that he was different, but when Arang told them proudly that Stavan was also an aita, the men grabbed him by the hands and led him laughing and protesting to the fire pit, where they installed him on a pile of down-filled pillows and handed him a cup of fermented honey water.
"Our Lady must have sent you to us to be honored," the village mothers told him, draping a garland of red and yellow flowers around his neck. Putting the tips of their fingers together, they bowed to him as if he were a sacred messenger in disguise, and then the oldest woman kissed him full on the lips to welcome him.
That having been settled, the festival went on in the usual noisy, disorganized way: drums played, dogs barked, people clapped; the Society of Children sang a song about the goodness of aitas; and everyone joined in the chorus whether they could sing or not.
One by one, children came forward to thank the men who had raised them, kissing their aitas on each cheek and laying flowers at their feet. Arang was given a great bunch of sweet-smelling honeysuckle to offer to Stavan, which he did, stumbling a little from shyness but winning a round of applause from the villagers when he threw his arms around Stavan's neck and hugged him.
When all the aitas had been thanked and honored by their children, the mothers of the children danced for them and sang more songs wishing them happiness and long lives. Finally, the aitas themselves danced.
The last to dance was Stavan. Pleading to be excused, he tried to get away without performing, but the villagers wouldn't hear of such a thing.
"You have to dance," they insisted. "Everything dances in our village. The flowers dance in the wind, the waves dance on the river, the birds dance above us, and the Goddess dances around us. How can you not dance too?"
Laughing and shaking his head, Stavan gave in, saying that he was no match for their poetry. "But I warn you: my people don't dance as well as yours do."
"Dance!" they cried. "Don't talk, just dance!"
So Stavan danced. Leaping and waving his arms, he moved to the beat of the drums, not with the fluid grace of the villagers but with the wild energy of a Hansi warrior. And yet the dance he did wasn't Hansi. Marrah knew this because he had once shown her a Hansi dance back in Lezentka when they were first getting to know each other. He hadn't wanted to do it, but she had begged, kissing his cheeks and ruffling his hair until he gave in. Afterward, she had been sorry. The Hansi danced without joy, with a spear in one hand and a dagger in the other. Feinting, thrusting, and ducking in time to the drums, they pretended to fight their enemies and kill them. It was a terrifying spectacle, one she never asked him to repeat.
Stavan must have realized he would only upset the villagers if he danced the way his people danced, so instead he — usually so graceful — elected to be awkward. Instead of landing on the balls of his feet and turning fiercely to attack an imaginary opponent, he danced in no particular pattern, stumbling sometimes when he lost the beat and waving his arms in a way that looked a little silly, but not at all threatening. He didn't dance very long, and when he was finished, he smiled and bowed to the crowd, who cheered and threw flowers at him, obviously delighted. Marrah could see that not one of them suspected he could do better. He's given them his pride, she thought, and they don't even know it.
That night, as they lay together on the riverbank sharing the same pile of soft moss, she whispered to him that what he had done made her respect him more than ever. He was silent for a long time. Finally he rose to his feet, took her hand, and led her to a place where they could talk without waking Arang.
"I'm changing," he said.
She nodded and pressed his hand. "Yes," she agreed. She thought how different he was from the stranger she had found on the beach a year ago. He'd been so fierce, so suspicious, so hard to get along with that even Mother Asha had given up on him. What would she think now if she could see him talking to Arang or gathering firewood or taking his turn at the paddles?
They stood quietly for a. moment, not speaking. In the distance an owl called, and the ancient river flowed on toward Shara. Finally he spoke again. "I'm not sure how to say this, Marrah, but I think your people love one another in ways mine don't, and I want to be part of that love. Did you see how those men welcomed me this afternoon, how they all stretched out their hands to me without fear?"
"Of course they welcomed you. Why should they have been afraid? You were one of them, Stavan."
"No, I wasn't. I was a stranger — a big, odd-looking stranger who walked into their village without asking permission. How did they know I came in peace? Where I come from, no one ever trusts a stranger. When you meet a man you don't know, you put a knife to his throat until he tells you his father's name, and even after he's managed to convince you he isn't a spy, you can never be sure he won't creep up on you and knife you in the back. The Hansi have a saying: 'All men are born enemies except brothers, but don't turn your back on your brother.
He put his arms around Marrah and drew her close. She waited, knowing there was more to come. "Some of the men who danced this afternoon were so old they could hardly move, but whenever one stumbled, there was a younger arm to support him, and if he missed a step or stopped to get his breath, the others waited until he was ready to begin again." He pressed his lips together and looked off into the darkness again.
"Do you have any idea how strange it was for me to see those old men and young men dancing together? Where I come from only chiefs are treated with so much respect. When an ordinary man gets too old to fight or hunt, he ends up sitting at the back of his oldest son's tent, eating whatever scraps the women are willing to throw his way — that is, if his sons don't kill him for his horses. But here every man's treated like a chief — and every woman too, for that matter. Even the children are honored. I've never seen anything like it. And I want it. I think I've always wanted it, but before I came west I never knew it was possible."
He kissed her on the forehead. "So tonight I want to ask you a great favor: teach me more of your ways. Let me learn how to become part of your world, because I don't fit into mine anymore. Tonight I don't feel like a Hansi. I don't know what I am exactly or what tribe I belong to, but I know it's not the one I was born in."
He touched the copper sun signs that hung around his neck. "I'm not saying I'm ready to take these off and put one of your Goddesses in their place. I still believe Lord Han is so powerful that if I turn away from Him He'll curse me in some terrible way. And I still feel love for my father and my people. If they needed defending, I'
d defend them, and no matter how peacefully we live, some part of me will always be a warrior — a reluctant warrior, but a warrior all the same. Still, the next time you go into a temple to offer the Goddess Earth flowers, I'm ready to go with you." He reached out and touched the yellow stone the priestesses of Nar had given her. "In time, who knows what may happen? Someday I may take off these suns and scatter them at your feet like so many fallen stars."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I saw Shara gleaming,
its white houses
sparkling in the sun.
Most beautiful of cities,
built on the rim
of the wine-dark sea,
Sabalah has sent you
her dearest treasures.
Sabalah has sent you
the children of her heart.
SABALAH'S SONG
THE FINAL THREE VERSES
(SUNG WEST TO EAST)
Shemsheme to the Sweetwater Sea
For all practical purposes the River of Smoke was two rivers separated by a narrow gorge of boiling rapids that cut the trade routes in half. Known as Shemsheme or the Goddess's Knees, the gorge was famous in memory songs for the number of boats that had been dashed to pieces on its rocks while trying to pass from one end to the other, and as Marrah, Stavan, and Arang traveled closer, they were treated to an endless string of terrifying stories. Above Shemsheme the river was a misty, silent expanse of gray-green water that flowed between low hills. There were no currents to speak of, and on ordinary days it was so calm the villagers could soak their flax in the main channel. Cattle stood knee-deep in the sluggish flow, patiently chewing their cuds while small children washed them, splashing each other and laughing. At sunset the river became a mirror filled with red, blue, and purple light, and unless a gust of wind curled the water into ripples or a flight of birds called out noisily as they flew overhead, nothing disturbed the brooding calm.
