A WOMAN YOU DIDN’T KNOW WELL, WHO WAS BORN AMONG THEM, APproached you one day. With sincerity, she said she was glad to see Leit and you had become friends. She asked if you wished for more than friendship.
No, you said.
Some wonder whether he’ll share a room beyond a bed, said she.
Her direct reply was uncommon. You weren’t sure how to respond. You understood the meaning. Leit had had lovers but had never formed a pair with one. You remained quiet.
Have you heard him sing? asked she.
No.
I feel distressed to hear that, said she.
I don’t understand, you said.
He can sing so beautifully. Many have missed his voice in the evenings, and in the nurseries. He’s not quite the same man he was before the war. I believe part of his voice was lost, said she.
You’d heard speculations about Leit before. To be more precise, you heard concern expressed. Has anyone seen him remove his breastplate? Does there appear to be a scar under his throat? Has he done a witnessing?
They didn’t enjoy seeing others in pain. They found no pleasure in pondering another’s misery. What they said of Leit was rooted in genuine distress.
Friends spoke to you in private. They said they had sat with him and encouraged him to share what he appeared to hold deep. They admitted they had shared their worries with the elders and Aza. They had seen your affinity for each other. They hoped you could help him, as they seemed unable.
One friend who visited you was a warrior who had long served with Leit. The man wept with deep pain.
We return home knowing there’s no fight here. We’re supposed to unarm, said he. But Leit wears that breastplate. It’s a thin metal I could pierce with one sharp stab. We all understand the symbol. He covers something he wants no one to see. Even if it were physically removed, his armor would remain on.
I agree, but he has shared no more with me than what he said at his return ritual, you said.
What he hides can’t be spoken at a ceremony, said he.
How do you know? you asked.
Most of us witnessed deeds we could never have conjured even in our nightmares, said he.
You took his hands in yours. The ache in your palms traveled straight to your heart. You willed yourself to let him cry and allowed yourself to join him.
You had attended the ceremony after Leit’s return. What took place wasn’t entertainment or a spectacle. After returns from the trails, and the war, the rituals were held upon the warriors’ request. The people owed them witness for the service they gave. No one was required to attend, but a large group formed each time. The people were part of a symbolic transference. It was understood that they, too, shared in the warrior’s pain. Unless it was released and transformed, the pain would warp the warriors. It would hide inside and could, as it was seen outside of the Guardian settlements, erupt when there was no call for violence.
Each warrior was allowed to be as explicit as he or she wished to be. There was no directive other than to tell the truth as they saw it. Within a huge cauldron, a fire burned. The warriors spoke without interruption. They told of what they had witnessed and done. They told of human beings they had injured or killed. After the warriors were finished, the people asked questions and shared their thoughts. When all was quiet, the warriors gave offerings to the fire.
At the ritual you attended, a man held a tunic covered in dried blood and tossed it into the flames. Another threw in a pouch, another a short sword. Leit burned a length of rope.
The people stood to form a circle around the warriors and the fire. They sang a song of thanks for their sacrifice. We claim their truth as our own, said they. We bear witness to their witness. We take the burden of deeds done in our name. Someday, they sang, peace will reign. Someday, peace will reign.
A subtle brightness returned to the warriors soon after the ceremonies. The rite served its mysterious purpose to a degree. Neighbors commented that the warriors who came back from the war were different from those who had served only on the trails. The warriors’ beloveds agreed that a strange vigilance never left them.
When you heard Leit tell his story, you had not yet met him.
You had no point of reference for the man he was before the war. That would be, despite the pain, to the benefit of you both. He would not have to bear the comparison in your eyes. You would not have to bear the memory of a time before the darkness.
As you came to know him, you knew that he held a burden. He carried himself in a crouch and at a distance. You sensed his guard. He could hide it from others but never his companions and, later, rarely from you. One day, it would drop full away in his daughter’s presence, the child who moved through impossible gaps while she stood still.
YOU WATCHED LEIT WITH LOVE AND CAUTION. YOU PLACED YOURSELF near the nursery where he tended children in the afternoon. He held the ones who wanted to be held. He played with the ones who sought a partner in games.
You recognized a pale little girl with light green eyes. A foundling. A lone warrior had returned with her in his arms two years prior. You remembered your first months in the settlement. How unremarkable it was to see an orphaned child welcomed into a neighboring family. The immediate embrace fascinated you. The children were not of the Guardians’ bodies or blood, but this didn’t matter. They were loved on sight without condition.
It was their way. Few families had more than one child who resembled either parent, or both. If two or three children were with their parents, one or two were often foundlings. This, too, was how the Guardians lived by their myths. Egnis the Red Dragon had saved the newborn orphan Azul. In honor of Azul, the Guardians saved the lost and abandoned.
The pale girl wrapped her arms around Leit’s neck. He smiled as she spoke into his ear. He laughed when she leapt away. A young warrior sat on the bench next to him with an infant against his bare chest.
What had seemed unnatural had become normal. You once recoiled at the sight. You had never seen such behavior before. | the twins, a kind young man in blue | It unnerved you less, but still to some degree, to see fathers, grandfathers, and uncles touch the little ones with affection. But the warriors often had no familial ties. No matter. The infants slept against their ursine breasts. The children flittered around their knees. The warriors cared for them as gently as loving mothers.
Edik explained the meaning of their ways.
The warriors’ time among the children is to remind them, said he. You, too, were once this small, this helpless. This being remains in you, and all beings were this, are this. When you kill, you kill the part of the person that was and always will be innocent. You deny that person the means to connect again. Helpless and innocent, they require your protection, no matter how cruel or evil their actions appear. This is what is asked of you.
Yes, everyone in every settlement was taught the same. You learned in time. | only now do you understand and believe |
Leit would tell you that the warriors were trained to injure and kill. Yet their greatest duty was to protect all life. All life, even the lives of those presumed to be enemies. There were times, however, that the lesser choice was chosen. The Guardian warriors believed that to take another’s life was grievous, and they lamented to do so. But under no circumstances, said he, should any commit the wicked act of killing a child.
AZA SPOKE TO YOU AT LAST. SHE SAID SHE COULD SENSE A DEEP WOUND in Leit. She believed his return ritual had not given him release. Friends had shared their worry. The elders who had the courage and wisdom to ask about his scar were met with silence. Aza offered her aid, but he had not confided in her. She would not violate the Voices’ ethics and search his thoughts. As it was, she sensed he blocked her anyway, trained as he was to mask what was in his mind.
Aza explained that Leit was born among, and he understood that pain ignored or denied is a poison within one’s being. He wouldn’t be right within himself unless it was acknowledged. His pain reached beyond himself, too. Subtle as it may b
e, like a vibration along a spider’s web, others would feel it.
You told Aza you wouldn’t pry. She said you should not. However, if he chose to tell you, he would likely do so through a witnessing. She asked if you had experienced one.
You had. The practice took place in a quiet room or secluded outdoor space. The person who spoke was to receive no judgment from the person or group listening. The person’s story was confidential, and no listener was allowed to repeat it. Those born among didn’t struggle with these rules as did those born away. They were not prone to gossip.
In the moment, you remembered the housemate who chose you among her witnesses. She resembled many of the Guardians, but she came from a village some miles away. She left behind her life and wandered into the wilderness. She wanted to die. Instead, she stumbled upon an old woman’s hut. The woman told her which direction to follow, which led her to the settlement. The people received her without judgment. She was shocked by the kindness and care. Neither could she give to the children or husband she’d left behind. Their need of her had become parasitic and intolerable. They were better off without her. She believed herself sick. No one she knew seemed to feel as she did. | yes, yes | If they had, she would have thought them sick, too. You listened as rage, confusion, disappointment, and despair streamed from her. Then, after she fell silent, her face softened. She said that day was the start of her unburdening. Telling the truth meant losing the protection of lies.
Aza said that if Leit chose to speak, you must listen with every fiber of your being. Listen as you would want to be heard.
What if I cannot bear what I’m told? What if what he says must be known by others? you asked.
You can refuse, if you believe yourself incapable of being a witness for him, said she.
She cautioned that choice had a consequence for him and you. As well, you had to understand that if you witnessed, you entered a sacred trust. You cannot tell another. You could speak only with him about what was said. You may choose to encourage him to tell the elders, if you felt that was important. But your judgment of who must know was but your own.
You told Leit that his friends and Aza had spoken to you. He wasn’t surprised. He expected it. They had come to him as well. Their concern was valid.
He said part of his experience was one he didn’t wish to reveal. No one born among could comprehend what had happened. He could make no sense of it. What he had seen had begun to alter his thoughts about the Guardians’ place in the world.
Our people acknowledge the burden we warriors carry on their behalf, said Leit. We’re the vessels of their aggression as much as the executors of their sense of justice and order. This understanding among us has served for many generations. Our storytelling does give relief. We do feel respected, but now, among those who survived the war, we don’t feel understood. You were born away, and you can contrast our ways with the ones you knew before. Your experience leaves you less surprised at the violence and cruelty, but no less injured by it.
Even you wouldn’t believe what was witnessed during the war, said he. We cannot tell the truth of it all. Our people want to believe our warriors’ role is right and good. Our people don’t want to know the pain we bear and see. If they understood, truly understood, they could never again call us to sacrifice our lives, the body and the soul, or do what we do to other human beings.
You moved to comfort him. You anticipated the breastplate’s flat heat, but you didn’t feel it. He swayed away from you.
Don’t touch me, said he.
The cold rejection seared against the controlled burn between you. So close, not close enough.
TELL THE TRUTH, OLD WOMAN.
Did you tell him when you did because of what you wanted?
You hardly acknowledged that your love for him had changed. There had been no chase, therefore nothing to fight or flee. There had been no intention from either of you to extend beyond friendship. You had no conscious wish to pair yourself again. Yet you were not yet too old, were still ripe. Had the animal pursuit been all there was, you had no outer resistance against following it. You could have shared a bed with anyone. The Guardians didn’t worry over such matters.
He was reticent to trust you fully, you decided. You had no such reservations about him. You told him more about your life before than you had to any other friend. Make no more of this than it was, though. You spoke little of those you had known. Your family, Wyl, Raef, Heydar, Burl, your crew. Not at all, not yet, of the twins. Instead, you told of the kingdom, its land and people, its customs and standards. You shared a removed, anthropological point of view.
You didn’t plan to tell him, the night you did. It hadn’t entered your mind as a complete thought. But you sat on the plateau with the wolf between you and the breastplate not. The scar at his throat was a shadow. Then you were telling him of your exile. You spoke of the one and the other one. You told of the night you were awakened by the one and what he had done to you. By chance, the other one stopped him before you received more than a scar on your arm and the taint where he’d entered your body.
He molested me. He meant to rape me, you said.
The Guardians had no singular words to describe what had happened and almost happened to you. You had to say some of it in your native language at first, then you tied words together in your adopted tongue to explain. Silent at last, you shook and cried because of what you’d exhumed. You remembered the animal fear and human horror. You had fought and wanted to fight harder but you had not the strength. You hadn’t expected to feel such shame and rage. Because I can, said he. He would have, if he hadn’t been stopped. What would have happened to you if he had?
Leit crawled around Makha. He put his back to the nearest tree and held his arms open. You curled against him. You welcomed the comfort.
Tell the truth.
His response gratified you. You were not proud you felt that way.
I feel sad and angry for you, Aoife, said he. You’re not the only woman born away who has come to us with this story. You’re safe now. You’re with me, with us, and you are safe. Go to Aza, and she’ll help you come to peace.
Neither of you spoke for a long while.
Then said he, That doesn’t happen here. That doesn’t happen here yet.
Days later, he said he wanted you to be his witness.
You agreed.
He told you the story of his scar. When he was done, your heart and mind could not contain what he’d said. You had to let it out. You secreted yourself away and wrote down his words. | you were told never to tell | They are here. His pain lives, although your beloved is dead.
This is what he spoke of the child, the tree, the wound, and the wolf.
| of evil incarnate |
We kept them at bay.
Our people didn’t know how close they were. An easy three-day walk from our settlement.
The closest village—a people who had always been an ally— gave us away to the men who came to invade and plunder. Our Voice was brave and moved through the village as a peddler, all the while listening to the adults speak. They were promised a portion of the bounty seized. What they did not fear, as it turns out, they envied. They knew of our mine, land, and livestock. The foreign men would sate their desires through our near neighbors’ complicity. Our warriors entered the forest armed and ready. We didn’t want to kill but we were determined to stop the spreading violence. We knew what losses our people had suffered.
Our restraint—and it was restraint—wore thin. My warriors had spoken of their urge to kill. I reminded them of their oaths, as they reminded me. The men who assaulted us were crazed with exhaustion and hatred. Our restraint infuriated them all the more. We battled through the morning, spattered with blood, vomit, piss, and shit. Our own, that of the other men.
This you know. You’ve heard this before. These tales we tell about our deeds.
We gathered our injured and dead. Both sides. They lost heart,
lost too many men. I don’t know.<
br />
Then I saw the child.
She peeked around a tree, then was gone. Our Voice—oh, our Voice, who sang to our bleeding and dying, trying to heal them— she said to leave the child alone. I pleaded with her to help me find her to see if she needed to be led home or taken as a foundling. Our Voice relented and searched, but the child eluded us. She thought the girl had gone back to her family. I argued we were too far from the village. She reminded me there were many people hiding in the forest who had fled the village soon after the foreign men arrived and the fighting began. I believed there was just cause for my concern.
Our Voice wasn’t uncaring. She was grief-stricken and overwhelmed and wanted to save the warriors who had a chance. I did, too, but after all the bloodshed, sick with the knowledge that I had killed on purpose, I wanted to save someone.
You knew, didn’t you, I was known as the warrior without a de
liberate kill.
Her rescue, I thought, could atone.
I said I would stay behind until the last of my warriors were on the way home. I kept watch for the girl.
I saw her again. She sat against a tree. She was four, five years old. She wore no blouse and she carried an infant. I watched her attempt to nurse the limp baby boy. He was naked and dirty. He cried weakly. I knew he was dying. I called to her and waved. I approached her with calm and a sweet tone in my voice, although she understood not a word I said. She stood on thin legs—she was so thin—and ran with the baby in her arms.
I pursued her. I know now I was delirious, lost in my own way, because I abandoned my warriors when they still needed my attention. I tracked her and didn’t sleep, to keep an eye on her. In the night, the baby boy died. She carried his stiff body and shook him. I’m not sure she understood.
I tried to gain her trust. I reached my hand to her from a distance, and I left her food in the open and where she could see me. I could have captured her. She was weak and small. She could not outrun me. But I didn’t want to take her by force. She was enough afraid.
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