Gray and wrinkly, the tip of her trunk moved almost like two thumbs pinching together, and long dark hairs sprang from it in places. Her breath—surely it would be called breath—billowed over my palm hot as it blew out and also inhaling.
“This is how they gather scent, just as we do,” Ochieng said softly. The nubs of her trunk closed over one of my fingers. “And also touch,” he added with a soft laugh. He let go of my hand, apparently confident that I could keep it in place on my own now. Which, it turned out, I could. Even when Violet snuffled up my arm, exploring the vambraces over my wrists, then up my bare arm to my leather-clad shoulder and then over my throat to nuzzle my ear, I held still.
I’d stopped shaking, the warmth of delight chasing away the chill of fear. Slowly, as if aware of startling me, Violet brushed my cheek, then knocked my hat off. Her eye sparkled, pleased with the joke. Then she coiled her trunk around my head, squeezing gently. And with affection. I can’t say how I knew it, but the tender feeling and reassurance in that embrace felt more real to me than most I’d experienced in my entire life.
I found myself weeping, those silent tears falling without my knowledge or control, and Violet eased up to me, tucking me against her side and enveloping me with her ear. I wrapped my arms around the great pillar of her leg and wept out all my sorrow against her soft hide.
* * * *
The sun had fully set by the time I came back to myself. Otherwise, I had no sense of how much time had passed. Violet stood, unmoving, patient as stone, yet somehow all around me, offering a comfort that felt ancient and immeasurably peaceful.
When I came out from under her ear, I saw that the other elephants and Ochieng had gone the rest of the way to the river. They stood in the shallows, the elephants incredibly sucking up water through their trunks and putting it in their mouths to drink—or even spraying it over their backs and at each other. Ochieng had taken off his shirt and stood only in his loose white pants, laughing and ducking water the elephants shot at him.
Violet looped her trunk around my arm, companionably, it seemed, and began walking to the water, bringing me with her. Spotting us, Ochieng clambered up the bank and pulled on the shirt he’d discarded. “Apologies, Ivariel,” he said. When I raised an eyebrow, he clarified. “I wouldn’t wish to offend you with bare skin.” The way he said it sounded like a question, and I realized he—and the other men—had always scrupulously observed that modesty around me, though other men at the oases had showed no such hesitation.
I shrugged and lifted the hand that Violet wasn’t possessing, tilting it back and forth as I’d seen Ochieng do when letting someone know he didn’t much care to argue a point.
“I see,” he replied, shaking his head and looking a little rueful. “To one such as you, a man’s nakedness is the same as looking upon the river or the grasses. Or the naked elephants!” He laughed at his joke and I smiled back. “It’s good to see you smile,” he said, almost reflectively. Then he doffed his shirt again. “Since you don’t mind and this is more comfortable for me. Come join us, if you like.”
Violet tugged at my arm, as if reinforcing the invitation, so I sat and pulled off my boots, then rolled up my pants. At least I had no scars on my ankles. Rodolf had never seen fit to hang me upside-down, and he’d liked making me spread my legs for him of my own volition. My obedience had saved me that much. I stood and Violet tucked her trunk under my arm again, leading me to the water, a merry look in her eye—and I realized I’d been able to think of my former husband and what he’d done to me with a kind of detached peace. Or, at least, without getting ill or rousing that coiled serpent of hatred that took my senses away.
The muck gave way under my feet, squeezing warmly between my toes. I stopped in shock. No polished tiles here. The greater world was no such clean and tidy place. Perhaps one had to choose, between the luxuriously kept cage or the wild and filthy world where anything might happen. Violet waded in past me, splashing me with mud and water, as if emphasizing the point. She sucked up water in her trunk, not at all neatly, then fed the tip into her mouth and poured it in. Water dribbled out of her wide lips and it seemed she smiled at me. Before she blew the rest at me, spraying me with elephant slobber that included bits of grass.
I glared at her and she lifted her trunk, bobbing her head as if laughing at me. Bending over, I splashed my face and hair, rinsing off the worst of it. The water felt cool and good, taking away the last of those wrenching tears.
“You can take some of that off,” Ochieng called. “The vambraces, at least. You won’t need to draw a weapon here. Or more if you wish. I won’t look and it’s only us and the elephants.”
I shook my head and he shrugged for my strange ways. Though I could see that he spoke the truth—not a person seemed to be in sight for any distance, despite the houses arrayed along the river beyond the bend. The jut of the bluff above kept anyone from the D’tiembo house seeing this small beach, and the storage area was around the other side.
Still, I doubted Ochieng’s reassurance that he wouldn’t look. He might not be a man like most I’d known, but he was still a man, with all the lusts that entailed. Besides which, though he’d assumed I saw him only as the river or the grass—and perhaps a true acolyte of Danu would—I couldn’t help sneaking glimpses of his lean body.
His naked back and chest gleamed with water, like oiled wood. Despite being so much slighter than Dasnarian men, Ochieng looked quite muscular, with carved definition showing in each flex of his body as he played with the elephants. Thoroughly soaked, his light pants—made of the same material as the ubiquitous curtains—clung to his muscled buttocks and thighs, leaving little to the imagination there.
I’d only ever seen one grown man naked, and Rodolf in his puffy and aged portliness had been nothing like that. I liked looking at Ochieng, which felt odd. Perhaps incorrect, a violation of the vow of chastity. I needed to pray to Danu for guidance. She might be disappointed in me, for my cowardice. How would I know if She’d forsaken me? If indeed She’d ever laid Her hand on me at all. I could have imagined it, in my desperation.
Something thunked my back and I stumbled, falling on my behind in the shallows. Violet stood over me, a forest of gray legs, head canted to watch me flounder while she waved her trunk in elephant amusement.
“Are you all right?” Ochieng called.
I waved a hand at him and got to my feet. It seemed I would be.
~ 16 ~
Entirely soaked and bedraggled, I climbed the steps up the bluff with Ochieng.
So much for taking time to clean up! I thought the words so clearly that, for a moment I feared I’d accidentally broken my vow and spoken aloud. But Ochieng didn’t jump in astonishment at the unexpected sound of my previously unheard voice. He did glance at me with a rueful smile, wiping his long-fingered hands over his head, then wrung his queue to shed the last of the water.
“So much for taking the time to clean up, eh? At least we’re only wet now, not covered in mud,” he said. “I’ve learned this from elephants, though. They upset the best of plans, never caring for timing or what us small humans might wish to have happen. Like the wanderers that circle among the stars.” He waved a hand at the purpling sky and the brightest stars beginning to show. “That one there, the brightest, is a wandering one, following a ponderous path around and around. I think of Violet like her: fixed on her path, just as unstoppable, brilliant with shine, and no more interested in whether I am clean or muddy than the wanderers are.”
The stairs were long in their switching back and forth up the bluff, rising much higher than it had seemed from looking below. Such an odd thing, to see nothing beneath my feet beyond thin slices of wood, then a drop to the empty beach. I swayed slightly, feeling abruptly dizzy, and Ochieng caught my arm.
“Don’t look down,” he advised cheerfully, pointing up. “Eyes on where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.”
&nb
sp; I cocked my head at him, smiling. Very good advice in so many ways. No more thinking about where I didn’t want to be. Rodolf, all of Dasnaria—they were in my past. I should keep my attention on where I wanted to be.
We finished climbing in companionable quiet. Had I not been committed to silence, I might’ve asked Ochieng a thousand questions about his family, how many there were, if I’d meet them all, their names and relationships, his mother and what she’d think about my presence. As it was, not being able to ask these things felt freeing. It would be what it was.
I was wet because Violet wanted it that way, and so that was as it was, too.
Ascending the final stair, we stepped out onto a vast terrace that surrounded the lowest levels of the house. A waist-high wall of what looked like dried mud bordered it, and Ochieng flipped a latch to open a woven gate set within a gap. “To keep the little ones from tumbling over,” he explained with a grin.
On the downwind side of the terrace, a large chimney rose as if from the wall itself, and fashioned of the same material. Within a big arch dug into it, a fire blazed. Men and women worked at various spurs of the wall that sloped up to make a semicircle around the area.
“Our summer kitchen,” Ochieng said as he led me in that direction. “Not useful during the rains, of course, but we end up eating a lot of the stored food then.”
As they worked, the people tossed songs back and forth. Different than the driving songs but similar in ways. Not the same cadences, but I recognized some of the words celebrating food and earth and the bounty of life.
“Ela!” Ochieng sang out during a downbeat, and they all looked up, calling back shouts of delight and the same greeting in tones from soprano to bass, a chorus of welcome. Several small children peeled out at top speed from where they’d been hidden behind the wall. They flung themselves at Ochieng, the smaller ones climbing him like a tree and their bigger brethren hugging his legs, talking at high speed in their language—and some perhaps in some sort of child-speak, too, given the genial bafflement on Ochieng’s face.
An imposing woman strode out, not to retrieve the children as I first thought, but almost completely ignoring them. She threw her arms around Ochieng and the children now festooning him, and hugged him, kissing both of his cheeks, also speaking in their language far too rapidly for me to pick out any words.
The emotion in her face, voice, and body were clear, however. She radiated a kind of joyful, maternal love that I’d never experienced. Ochieng laughed, saying something to her that did nothing to stem her torrent of affection. The children didn’t even seem to mind being squeezed between the two, instead squirming happily and sending up echoing shouts.
I stood back, watching, as had become my role. The rest of the family had left their tasks, except for an older gentleman who stayed seated near the fire, and a younger person who seemed to be tending something roasting in it. The others ringed around us, though, waiting their turn. Their song had fallen off with the abandonment of work and they talked among themselves, bright smiles on their faces. Once Ochieng extracted himself from the woman—surely his mother, though I’d never seen a mother treat a grown child so—several of the others came forward to peel children off of him, giving him embraces and kisses as they did.
Finally and entirely freed, though the process took some time with all the exchanges of affection and conversation, Ochieng turned to me and held up his palms in that gesture of philosophical surrender to the vagaries of the universe.
“I apologize,” he told me in Common Tongue. “I would have tried to hold them off, but that is also like trying to change Violet’s mind. Better to let them vent their welcome and then present you.” He turned his hand to hold it out to me, then drew me forward when I took it.
The D’tiembo clan now watched me with warm and expectant gazes, as if they hadn’t ignored me until this point. Even the children, now either propped on an adult’s hip and clinging round their necks or positioned in front of another who kept a firm grip on the child’s shoulders, studied me with intense curiosity where they hadn’t paid me much attention before.
Ochieng spoke in their language, slowly and formally enough for me to piece the essence of it together. “I bring you all a gift from exotic lands. May I present Ivariel, Priestess of Danu. She serves a warrior goddess and as such has taken a vow of silence. On my journey from Bandari, she graciously protected our caravan so we lost absolutely nothing to ruffians!” They tossed smiles and astonished whispers around at this, though it had never seemed to me that we’d been in so much peril. Not beyond the one ruffian I’d blundered into. “Even better,” Ochieng said ringingly, to quiet them, “Ivariel has agreed to pause in her quest to spend time in our home, to bestow her goddess’s blessing upon us, and to learn what we may teach her of the ways of elephants. Our fortune is great!”
They sent up a cheer at that and my face grew warm with the consciousness of the attention and the awareness of the fraud I perpetuated upon them. I had no idea how to transmit Danu’s blessings, if the goddess even listened to me—or knew of my existence!—rather than being a product of my own wishful thinking.
Ochieng had quieted the gathering again. “I have offered Priestess Ivariel the protection and succor of the D’tiembo family, but it is on all of us to validate and extend the honor, and all that it implies. I vouch for her, yet I understand if you wish to come to know her yourselves before offering the hand of family.”
I frowned at him a little, not at all sure what he meant by this bit. For once, Ochieng didn’t observe my expression, instead intently focused on the gathering. A few exchanged low words, but most looked serene. The mother stepped forward, kissed her son on the forehead, then stepped up to me, offering her hands palms up. She nodded at me, lifting her hands in suggestion, so I laid mine in hers. She clasped them, hers rough and strong.
“Welcome, Priestess Ivariel,” she declared loudly. “I, Zalaika of the D’tiembo clan, accept you as family. You honor us with the gift of your loyalty. Our house is yours.”
At least, I was pretty sure that was what she said. The rush of relief and gratitude at having a place to stay made it difficult for me to focus in the moment, but then I heard it many more times.
After that, one by one, they all came and took my hands, giving me their names and saying the same pledge, except for very littlest. The youngest—if she were a Dasnarian child, I’d guess her to be about five—to come up had to be coached through it by her father. Though she repeated sections several times and bungled others, her eyes shone with excitement as she studied me. When she finished and her father gave his final approval, she stayed before me, dancing from one foot to the other, asking me a long question, very quickly.
I glanced at Ochieng, who stood nearby, beaming with pride—for his family’s ready acceptance of his recommendation, it seemed—and he gave the little girl a long, considering look. Not exactly repressive, but not encouraging either. “Ayela asks if she can learn to be a warrior woman, too. I am telling her that it’s rude to request such things, especially on such short acquaintance.”
Ayela’s face fell into sorrowful lines as he switched to their tongue, his tone gentle and his explanation more elaborate than his summary for me. She was much younger than I had clear memories of being. How I’d have perceived a woman like me back then, I had no idea. The seraglio had been a naturally cloistered place, and visitors a great treat, the subject of much excitement. Little Ayela nodded obediently, and glumly, her shining gaze still roved over me with avid interest.
I wanted to discuss it with Ochieng, which I of course lacked the ability to do. Instead, I set a hand on his arm, on the bare skin below his rolled-up shirtsleeve. He stopped speaking and glanced at me, surprise ghosting over his face before he raised his brows. With his skin hot beneath my touch, the contact surprised me, too, in how it sang through me. I nearly snatched my hand away, as if burnt, but I didn’t want to seem re
volted. Far from it. So strangely far from revulsion. Almost I wanted to stroke his surprisingly soft skin, even squeeze to feel the muscle beneath. The wanting swirled in me, formless and tentative, not ready for such a bold move. But neither was I ready to break the contact, despite the question in Ochieng’s eyes. So, I left it there, gazing at him and willing him to understand me, as he seemed to have the gift to do.
“You wish to teach this one?” he asked in Common Tongue, Ayela watching him with her canny gaze, trying to discern what he said to me.
I lifted my brows and flicked a finger at the gathering.
“Any of the young ones interested?” he clarified, seeming quite bemused. He glanced at my hand on his forearm. At my face again. When I moved to pull away, he covered my hand with his, keeping it there. “Perhaps we could ask any interested to meet in the morning and you can decide.”
I shrugged in a “why not,” then gestured to Zalaika, back at the work counters and calling out singing questions to the people who seemed to be working on various parts of the meal, adding in refrains that might indicate their progress. I tried to make it a question, not sure if the family would approve.
“It is your choice,” Ochieng replied. “You need no one’s permission. But your presence here is honor enough. You need not feel an obligation to teach. It is unlikely any of our daughters will choose to serve Danu. Although…” He considered, squeezing my hand slightly. “The world grows smaller and they could do worse.”
I smiled back at him, gently withdrawing my hand, my fingertips tingling. Ayela jumped up and down, clapping in delight as Ochieng informed her that I’d agreed. In the rush of pleasure at making her so happy, I set aside the obvious problem that I had no idea how to teach her anything. Especially me, who should be taking lessons, rather than giving them. But something in my heart had urged me to make the offer, and whether that was Danu or some internal compass I’d begun to hear, I had nothing else to guide me otherwise.
Exile of the Seas Page 12
