Before they realized it, the sun was low in the sky, and they were almost done, with only one shingle left to replace, on the top edge of the sharply angled roof.
That’s when it happened. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or the tension between them, or her lack of focus on the task at hand. She slipped. Her fingers clawed and scraped at shingles as she plummeted.
“Tayar!” he cried out, diving downward, desperately catching her by her right arm when the rest of her body flew into the air below the eave. One hand over the other, he strained to pull her up to safety. Checking for injuries, he kept repeating her name, in varying intonations of anguish, relief and guilt. “Tayar. Tayar.”
Ignoring her protests, he led her down the ladder, preceding her by one rung and bracing her body with his. Once on the ground, he picked her up, carried her into the house and gently placed her on the greeting room sofa. He ran into the kitchen for a damp cloth and bathed various scrapes and cuts on her hands, arms and face.
Satisfied that Tayar was truly safe, he tucked a quilt around her and lit the fire in the hearth. “Stay here; I’ll clean up outside and take care of the animals,” he said.
She was touched by his tender care, but needed to put the embarrassing incident behind her. As soon as the boy left, she went into her room, locked the door, removed her clothes and studied her body in the mirror. No real damage. A hot bath relieved most of the aches, various ointments salved the rest.
The boy was already preparing their supper when she entered the kitchen. At the sight of her, he rushed over to pull a chair out from the table. “Please sit. You should rest.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
“I know, but please…” The sight of her plummeting down the roof, almost out of his reach, was seared into his mind. He bustled about the kitchen, knowing he was being irrational, that it had been no fault of his that Tayar had fallen. Sure, he had wanted to punish her, but with silence, not with… he couldn’t even allow the word into his thoughts, so horrified by what could have happened.
“What are you preparing?” she asked from her seat.
“I’m chopping up some apples I found in your coldhouse. They’ll go into the frying pan with onions and bacon. It’s a hunter’s sauce for the roast you made.”
“Sounds delicious. I have salad vegetables in the icebox that would make a good complement.” She started to get up, but he shooed her down.
“I’ll get it.” He looked at her sheepishly. “But you’ll have to tell me what to do. Salads aren’t common around a campfire, and that’s the only place I’ve cooked.”
“Let’s do it together. It’s more fun that way.”
He started to protest.
“If you wish, I won’t get up from this chair. Come, bring the vegetables, the cutting board, that large wooden bowl, a small mixing bowl from that cabinet, and two knives.”
He did as she said.
“Sit here, next to me.” She patted the closest chair. “We’ll cut the vegetables into pieces. Not too small. About bite sized. No, the spinach is best torn, like this.” She showed him. “I don’t know why; it just is. Everything that’s leafy is torn. The rest are cut…. That’s very good. Now bring me my oil, lemon juice, vinegar and… oh, please, may I get up for the spices? You’ll never find them.”
He nodded, trying to hide his surrender with a smile and a feigned interest in the secrets of salad making.
Tayar took a pinch of this and that, sniffing at each spice before sprinkling it into the mixing bowl. She was concentrating so hard on the salad, and then on concocting the dressing, he didn’t think she noticed he wasn’t really listening. Not that he didn’t hear the words, but they didn’t penetrate, until she started talking about the Before Times.
“It’s hard to imagine,” she continued, “but the variety and volume of these spices once represented great wealth.”
“Yeah?” He looked more closely at the jars of spices, curious how they could be so important. It was the kind of detail that made stories about the Great Chaos of the Before Times so intriguing, compared to his own boring life.
“As the Alleshine Peace grew,” she explained, “we gathered the seeds of spices from all our villages and dispersed them to the others. Nowadays, the only people who still covet and conquer for the sake of spice are those beyond our borders. How much easier it would be for them to just join us, but they haven’t figured that out, yet.” She looked at the boy, with hope and curiosity. “Maybe, you’ll be among the Allemen who will help some of them — the outsiders — understand.”
She stirred the dressing with a last flourish and tasted it again. “Yes. Done.” She dipped a piece of spinach into the mixture and offered it to the boy. “What do you think?”
The boy continued to be solicitous over dinner, tender without being coddling, generous without being selfless.
If I had realized what the effect would be, the Allesha thought, maybe I would have fallen sooner. Should I suggest life- or limb-threatening accidents as a tactic for working with problem boys? Or would it cut too severely into the population of our Valley? She reined in her black humor when she started imagining bodies of Alleshi piling up under roof eaves, because their boys weren’t quick enough to save them.
After eating and cleaning up from the meal, they adjourned to the greeting room.
“I’m glad you enjoyed reading last night,” she said. “I think it would be nice if we alternate who reads each night, a gift we can give each other at the end of a day.”
“Okay.”
“What shall I read? Should I continue with The Traveler’s Tales?”
“Sure.”
Tayar picked up the book and began leafing through it to where he had finished the night before when he interrupted her. “Hey, wait. No. I mean, we’ve a few months to finish that book. I think I’d prefer to hear something else that you like.”
She smiled. “That’s a nice thought. I’ll get a book from my room.”
He stoked the fire, added a log and then settled comfortably into an armchair, with one of his legs thrown over the side. When Tayar returned, she sat in a corner of the sofa and built the cushions around her.
“You seem to be interested in the Before Times. This is a tale of a boy who was probably two or three years younger than you. It’s called Death to the Enemy.”
She cleared her throat, squirmed around in the cushions to make a burrow for herself, then began.
The old men usually met in council beyond the ears of any of us. But that one time they called in all young men who had reached the age of recognition. None of us had ever entered the council hall ~ not within our memory, though the naming ceremony of all male newborns was held there.
Our mothers cried and pulled at our shirts when the announcement was made. Such is the way of women, we knew, to cry at whatever goes past them ~ especially their sons, when they have long ago left the breast to enter the realm of men. But it was our fathers’ instructions that caught our attention, made us think and gave us reason for excitement.
Our fathers lined us up two abreast by size, with the tallest leading the way. We heard the beginning of the chant as a low rumble, coming from behind the stone walls of the council hall ~ a deep, rhythmic throb that buzzed in the pit of our stomachs and climbed up our spines.
I was neither tall nor small, so I watched the first half of our double line of boys bend over two at a time, to enter the low crawlway into the council hall. As I got closer to the entrance, the chant became louder and more insistent. Two boys in front of me had just entered, when one word became barely distinguishable.
“Death… Death… Death…”
The buzz reached up from my spine, pulling my head down toward the ground, toward the crawlway. Such is how all men enter the council hall ~ on their hands and knees ~ in respect, in danger, not knowing if a club hovered, waiting to strike, or if a friend would greet with a hand and honored seat.
The crawlway was narrow and dark. I was guid
ed by my companion’s body on the one side, the wall on the other, and the chant pulling us forward, slowly, inexorably, becoming clear, one word at a time.
“Death… Death… Death to… Death to… Death to the…Death to the…”
The slight glow of a campfire and the smell of so many men and boys gathered in the one round room told us we had arrived, as the reverberating full chant washed over us.
“Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
The pounding rhythm entered my body like a lover, taking claim, possessing it, reshaping and remaking me. I became the thunder. I became a man. I shouted the chant, throwing it to the boys who continued to pour into the hall as bent-over supplicants, straightening their backs against the words I flung at them.
“Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
When all the boys had entered the hall, we stood in a proud, unified semi-circle before the old men of the council and continued the chant.
“Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
Jabbing our right fists at the air above our heads with each “Death.”
“Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
Stomping our feet on the ground, with each jab of our fists, imagining trampling our enemy underfoot.
“Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
So it would be. So it must be, before such a mighty force as we who had become the thunder, we who would wield the lightning.
“Death to the enemy!”
The old men watched us with such looks on their pale, furrowed faces, that you could imagine their withered members once more swelled for the sight of us and their remembered manhood. The oldest stood, the one we all called Grandfather, though none of us had any of his blood or sinew. (I think it was a title of respect, for he had outlived everyone who had truly known him.) He raised his small, claw-like hands over his head to call us to silence. Such was his position and our regard for him that, even in our fervor, we quit our chant long enough to hear his speech (though the words, “Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!” continued to throb and echo in our heads and our bones).
“Men of our village.” It was the first time anyone other than our friends had called us men. “Men of our village, our people call on you today, in need, in danger. How do you answer?”
As one voice we shouted, “Death to the enemy!”
“The women and children of your village will be slaughtered. Your mothers and sweethearts raped and butchered. Your fathers and grandfathers burned alive. How do you answer?”
“Death to the enemy!”
“Will you protect them?”
“Yes!”
“Will you place your bodies between them and the enemy?”
“Yes!”
“Will you drive the enemy out of our land and into hell?”
“Yes!”
“And should death find you, will you be there to block its path?”
“Yes!”
“Yes?” he asked.
“Death!” we answered. “Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
He plunged his right hand into a pot of blood, slapped it onto each of our faces and smeared it onto our chests, while we continued to chant, “Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
That night, my friends and I slept beyond the village gate. Already bloodied (though only in ceremony), we lay as warriors, outside the community, protecting it, separate from it, as was fitting. The next morning, we began our march in the direction the old men had pointed.
As we traveled, we played at war, practicing our spear throws and sword thrusts, rallying our pride and courage, teasing each other and bragging of our victories to come. For six days, we ventured forward, calling out our chant to speed our pace and steel our hearts, onward through familiar land into a strange, unknown valley.
That’s where we met them ~ the enemy ~ a band of bloodied boys, standing, as though waiting for us, on the plains outside their village gate. The two groups stared at each other, in wonder. Then someone started the chant. I still don’t know where the first call came from ~ their group or ours.
“Death to the enemy! Death to the enemy!”
Roaring our battlecry, we rushed forward, spear and sword poised, so that it wasn’t necessary to strike. Just keep running, until metal bit through flesh.
I heard the cries and screams. I know I did, because they come to me still in waking nightmares and winter sweats. But they were muffled, unreal sounds, of birds screeching or devils wailing, not my friends, not my enemies, not boys like me, falling on my blade, slashing at my muscles till flaps of my flesh swung about like leaves on an autumn tree. I don’t know when I fell, but it probably saved my life.
In the night, I awoke to the sounds of animals scurrying and picking over the piles of bodies. I feared opening my eyes and discovering either that I could not see (death, am I the enemy?) or what I would see. Eventually, I managed enough courage to look out through half lids.
What I had taken for the sounds of animals were two women who had stolen out of their village, in the hope of finding their sons alive. I lay quietly, until they left, sobbing. After some time, I heard one of them release a widow’s wail, like a wolf’s howl, baying at the moon, at the untimely night, at man’s life that marches so willingly toward death.
I could have told her that, young or old, all come to death at some time, but that was before I had searched the dead myself, had seen the ugly truth of what we had wrought.
I found none alive in that field of blood and mud. All had killed even as their own lives were taken, falling one on top of the other, hacking and slashing pieces off their fellows as they fell, so that body parts were flung here and there. I could not know which arms or heads belonged to my friends, and which were my enemies, so alike they were in death. I found one complete body that seemed familiar, until I realized it was merely someone who looked like my own reflection. No friend of mine resembled me more in life or death. I still wonder what his name was. But that night and his face and the strewn body parts of two bands of warriors belong to a horrific memory I have worked hard to block from my mind’s eye. Someday, I might succeed.
Now I am an old man. I sit on the council, and everyone calls me Grandfather, because I have outlived all who ever truly knew me. Tomorrow, I will send the young men who have reached the age of recognition to war.
“Death to the enemy!”
After a few heartbeats of silence, the Allesha closed the book.
“Do you think it’s a true story?” the boy asked.
“Truth is in it, if you look closely and don’t turn from what you see.”
“But did that boy really exist?”
“I think so, in many places, at many times,” she said. “I only wish our Peace could have come sooner for him and his friends.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“Do you? I hope so. It’s important you do.”
He was still thinking about the story, lost in deep contemplation, when she kissed his head and went to bed.
“Don’t stay up too late. We’ve a lot to do tomorrow,” she called to him from her bedroom door.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Goodnight.”
Chapter 23
For another week, their days followed the same pattern. Before breakfast, they took turns traipsing out to the barn to care for the animals. After breakfast, they retired to their private chambers, to give each some time apart. Then he would go to Le’a, or she would come to them. They finished preparing the property for winter and did other small chores in the afternoons. In the evenings, they read to each other.
Through it all, the boy was learning and growing. Not that he had developed patience. He often floundered between frustrated irritability and great tenderness. Obviously, he wasn’t sleeping well, probably obsessing about the inner room and the promises it held, so close, behind the locked door, between their two bedrooms.
&nb
sp; Unlike the boy, the Allesha was enjoying the sensuality of their encounters. As was appropriate for this stage, she worked at heightening it, with casual brushes of body against body, and seemingly involuntary sighs. But she wouldn’t let it go further. She couldn’t. As much as she, too, was looking forward to taking him into the inner room, he wasn’t ready, and neither was she. But soon — she could feel it — the time was approaching when they would begin his full training, using the physical to reach the essential.
Near the end of that week, Tayar decided to accompany the boy to Le’a’s, and then proceed to the storehouse. She had extra bealberry preserves, goat’s milk and eggs to leave, and she wanted to get some honey.
The air was sharp and crisp. Though the sky was a clear blue, thick piles of grey clouds were looming over the western mountains, dusting the peaks with the first white of the year.
They kissed goodbye in the vestibule between Le’a’s inner and outer doors. What started as a ritual embrace evolved into something much more. He wrapped his arms about her, pulling her body deep into his. She could feel his erection pressing against her, despite their layers of clothes. All the while, their mouths and tongues searched hungrily. It was a brief moment, but it left them both dizzy and breathless.
Only when the boy closed the greeting room door behind him did the young Allesha allow herself to collapse against the wall, while waves of pleasure and pain shot through her body. How right you were Dara, she mused. This boy has more than a few surprises for me.
So absorbed was she by the rippling tide of sensations that swept over her body that she barely saw the first few snowflakes falling in her path and on her clothes as she walked to the enormous storehouse. Nor did she notice Kiv rushing to catch up with her, until the older Allesha greeted her from behind.
“Hello, Rishana.”
“Hello, Kiv.”
Kiv fell into pace with Rishana. “I was wondering if you had thought about what we discussed the other day… about the Mwertik.”
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