by Eden Wolfe
“She can’t wait much longer,” a woman across the fire said in whispers to the woman beside her.
“Batrasa always does everything in her own time. There’s no point in fighting it,” the other woman didn’t move her eyes from the flames. “She’ll do it when she does it and not sooner.”
“She must be aware of our restlessness. You’d think she’d be more aware of our needs.”
“Needs?” Another woman joined the conversation. “What do we need? We have everything. It’s better she waits for the right moment, the right inspiration. We have no idea what’s going on in her head.”
The flap of the hut entry flew open and a gust of wind blew Lea’s hair into her face. Priyantha came in, dripping.
“Hello,” she said, nodding her greeting to the group.
“Priyantha,” the first woman started, “Can you please help me talk some sense into these women? Do we or do we not need a faster resolution to the question of Chief?”
“How do you intend to speed the process? You know Batrasa.”
“That’s what I said,” the second woman cast a glance in the first woman’s direction. “You’ll just have to be patient.”
“Patient,” the first woman shook her head. “You think our Queen is patient? You think she happily waits for her people to decide to admire her? To adore her? To humble themselves at her feet? Of course not. She makes demands and the people respond.”
“What do you know about this Queen, really?” Leadon couldn’t help but speak up.
“I know that since she left Gana she hasn’t given us a second thought. Look how we struggle for basic supplies.”
“That’s the situation in the whole of Lower Earth, we’re no exception.” Leadon held back, uncertain of how much to say.
“And not a passing thought for us. She does as she pleases, rules as she pleases. It’s time we ruled as we please. Our people have been here since before these so-called settlers. And don’t you all look at me like that. You know it and you feel it, too. Priyantha?”
“You’re not wrong – "
“And yet we’re still dogs at her feet, begging for the slightest affection.”
Leadon inhaled deeply, watching her words. Thunder clapped not far from their hut. “Aria was once with us, yes. Don’t I know it better than anyone? Weren’t she and I the most ostracized among you? Didn’t you look at her and I, and see nothing more than strangeness in our blood? You said she didn’t belong, she who was to be Queen – what insight did you have then? You thought she was an anomaly and you made her unwelcome, and yet look what she has gone on to do. She even resolved the latest wheat parasite that we saw in our own fields,” Leadon fought with her conscience, knowing the Queen was ultimately not the Aria they knew, but she couldn’t breathe that here. Not now. That would be too much fodder to their embers. The fire would blast Gana into civil war.
Leadon didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.
And if they were to take on such a civil war, it couldn’t be now. They still had so little information on their enemy.
Ariane, the enemy. How the world has changed before my eyes.
“For a replica, you have a lot of fine words,” the woman said, “Who planted them there? Hmmm?” The woman walked around the fire to Leadon. “What treachery lurks behind those borrowed eyes?”
“What do you know? I’ve been here my whole life, as true a Ganese as you, and you know nothing more of me than the surface, you barely look beyond my skin. You’ve seen nothing of my heart.”
“Can a replica have a heart? Or does it beat for the fortress, like your two-faced sister-mother-double self?”
“Ahnira, you’re going too far,” the second woman came around the fire.
Leadon didn't avert her eyes. “My heart is true. I have been breathing this air, the air of our ancestors, speaking the old rites and living in their midst longer than you have.”
“You live with borrowed blood.”
“My blood is Ganese.”
“Your blood is false.”
Priyantha stepped forward, “You may think you speak with common words, Ahnira, but you are crossing a line now.”
“I say what all of you say behind her back.”
“You say what you say without wisdom or restraint.”
“You change your tune now? You’re as false as she is.”
“No,” Priyantha turned to Leadon, “I can admit I was wrong.”
Leadon blinked. She didn't know what to say.
“As was I. I was wrong,” another woman joined.
“And I.”
Priyantha crossed her arms over her chest in the way of the ancestors and bowed her head. “Leadon, I ask forgiveness. It was not until tonight I’ve heard my own words in another’s mouth. I never before understood the venom in them. But we are Ganese, and these times are too trying for us crack down the middle. I will admit my wrong and fight to keep Gana as one.”
Leadon stood, wordless. Three other women followed Priyantha, crossing their arms and lowering their heads.
“Not me,” Ahnira leaned forward. “I regret nothing. I speak only what I see before me. I see a phantom, a fraud, a mistake.” She walked out of the hut, two women following behind her.
The heads of the remaining women lifted. Leadon, in return, crossed her arms and bowed, accepting their humility and offering it back.
“These are trying times, Leadon,” Priyantha let her hair down to dry, the length of it reaching to her waist, black as the night sky. “We must find ways to mend within Gana if we are to ever defeat that which is without.”
Leadon lifted her arm, outstretched, and laid it on Priyantha’s shoulder. “There is much to defeat out there. Perhaps as far as Upper Earth or as near as the Free Route to Geb.”
Priyantha cocked her head, “I always thought you would be a defender of the Queen, we all did,” the women in the hut nodded, “Your relationship to the Commandante, to Aria – we thought you’d be the first to turn.”
Leadon shook her head. “So many things are not as they seem.”
Thunder clapped and the hut’s curtain again flew open, a gust flashing at the fire and throwing their hair into wild dances as the woman from Batrasa's hut entered.
“Leadon,” the woman from Batrasa’s hut spoke, “I’ve been looking for you all over the protectorate. They said you were at the river.”
“I was, but the storm began.”
The woman wiped the rain off her sleeves. “You are slippery, Leadon. Batrasa seeks you. Has been for hours. Get over there.”
Leadon refused to accept the reprimand. A sensation was growing in her, something new and something she’d sought for such a very long time.
Conviction.
“I’ll go right away.”
Leadon opened the hut’s covering and at once was overcome with a feeling in her stomach. The air was tense. The fire was out. She couldn’t say why but in the flash of a moment, Leadon felt the conviction, of which she'd been so sure, turn fleeting in her stomach. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
A wave of change is heading towards us. Raise your head to meet it, Leadon.
She stepped in deeper, Batrasa standing in full view, but looking to someone who was just out of Leadon's line of sight.
Batrasa turned her head, seeing Leadon, and a gentle smile came over her face.
"So there you are."
"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, but I wasn't far at all."
"No apologies required. You couldn't have known I wished to see you. But your timing is surprisingly good."
Leadon stepped in further, through the second threshold where a second woman stood inside, to the left. Leadon inhaled sharply, she couldn't hide her surprise.
She was looking the older version of herself in the eye.
"Hello, Leadon." Irene's voice betrayed no emotion.
"Irene." Leadon bowed her head.
She didn't know what to say to the woman who had made no attempt to contact her in o
ver a year. The woman, not just any woman. The woman on whom every aspect of Leadon was designed. A sister, a mother, a second self.
I am no replica.
The three women stood in silence. The Keeper of the Chief, the Commandante of Lower Earth, and Leadon.
Keep your conviction, Leadon. You belong here as much as they do. But her courage was waning. She needed someone to speak, but all ceremony required that it not be her.
Leadon looked from Irene to Batrasa and back to Irene, swallowing her questions and convincing herself to wait.
At last, Batrasa spoke, her voice low. "Leadon, Irilena has come at a most unexpected time, and yet I can't help believing there was something divine in it." Batrasa walked to Leadon. "You who wanted to consult the Queen," Leadon felt heat rising up her neck. How foolish she'd been, how little she'd known, "and instead you now have Irene to provide you with the answers I know you so desperately seek."
"From her?" Leadon noted the whine in her voice. Her feelings toward Irene had nothing to do with Aria. She had to keep her hurt at bay. Perhaps Irene had a good reason not to be in contact. Leadon exhaled and allowed her shoulders to relax.
Irene raised an eyebrow but waited for Batrasa to continue.
"Who else is better positioned?" Batrasa walked across the hut and put her hand on Irene's shoulder. "Irilena was there for Aria's birth."
Leadon looked over to Irene whose stance and expression had not changed.
"Few know," Batrasa continued, "of the workings within the fortress. But, Leadon, your curiosity, your insight, and most of all, your courage, has set you apart."
Leadon felt something flutter in her stomach. "Courage? Batrasa, I have only the greatest respect and admiration, and I have many qualities that I hope are becoming of our ancestors, our ways, and our future. But I'm afraid you might be misinformed."
"Misinformed?"
"I make no accusations, forgive me if I have offended."
"You have not offended, but you do assume much. In that way perhaps there is some power of genetics," Batrasa looked to Irene, who cocked her head and tensed her lips. Leadon sensed she was in the middle of a relationship that had more history than she knew.
Batrasa looked back to Leadon. "For example, you assume that I have not been following you, watching you, assessing you. You make a great assumption of your invisibility."
She's noticed me? More than that, she's been watching me? For how long?
Batrasa then came back over and placed her hands on Leadon's shoulders. "You are not and never have been invisible. You were secluded, at times isolated, but always you were tracked. At first, it was out of fear. We could not be certain of what you would become."
Irene looked at the floor.
"And then," Batrasa tightened her grip on Leadon's shoulders, "and then your uniqueness became apparent. You have all that the ancestors bestowed upon us. You have an awareness of the women in Gana in a way few others have." Batrasa looked to Irene, "A very positive quality you share." She looked back to Leadon, "We are coming to a time when empathy must reign as strongly as the voice for Gana - a voice which honors the people from which we came, and which honors the women we are today. I said it at the full quorum and I'll say it again to you now. We need a Chief who isn't afraid of being herself when every mouth spews anger, resentment, and selfish greed in her direction."
Leadon felt her heart accelerate, the thumping near-deafening, but she remained transfixed, watching and listening to every sound that fell from Batrasa's lips.
"Leadon. You shall be Chief of Gana."
A woman blew the shell horn, the call of urgent full quorum - one low, one high. Leadon was in a daze. She hardly heard Irene and Batrasa arguing in low tones, hardly felt the warrior priestesses in full ceremonial garb dressing her, hardly felt the cool of the evening air as the dusk turned to night.
Warrior Priestesses, anyone within a half-day walking range, was there. They lined the pathways, the external perimeter, the space between huts.
Lea had tried to object to Batrasa, but only small sounds had emerged from her mouth, "Me? You can't mean me."
"I do."
"Not me."
"You, Leadon. Because you don't seek it. Because Gana needs a new position in Lower Earth. And most of all, because you are you, Leadon. I know you love this place and our people, our ways, and our history. Leadon, you are brave enough. You just have to believe that."
"What are you doing?" Irene had hissed from the corner.
Batrasa had turned to Irene, her wrinkled hands extending in the Ganese way of imparting wisdom. "Had you stayed, Irilena, it might have been you. But you didn't, and Leadon has qualities even you should learn. I'm not sure you've cared to see them in her before. But you will."
Now, after the hours had passed and the moment had settled in her memory, Leadon's mind was clear. She walked through the crowd of warrior priestesses whose faces mixed between shock, elation, and disgust. But to Leadon's surprise, many, even most, of the women smiled as she passed. Gentle smiles, welcoming smiles, warmth, and deference across their faces. Leadon felt an urge to reach out her hands, to touch them, as much to give as to receive, wishing their confidence would infuse into her own skin.
They reached the fire in the center of the village. It burned high. Women lit their torches, the cool night having fallen quickly on them.
Batrasa stood on the small podium that had been placed for her near the fire. A warrior, wearing a mask in the symbol of the ancestors, brought a tray of ash. Leadon stood near Batrasa's waist, the weight of the leathers and fur pulling her toward the earth, the weight of the world on her shoulders. She began to feel it. The weight of all that was happening to her now.
Still, her mind was clear, no thought dared enter. She absorbed each moment. Batrasa dipping her fingers in the ash, the ash shifting, small channels in the wake of her fingers' movements. Some ash lifted into the air, floating in front of the fire, flying into the sky, freely floating in the sky and the fire crackled. Thousands upon thousands surrounded them, the sound of breathing stifled in the crackle of the fire. Lea didn't hear her own breathing but felt the weight of her chest as it lifted against the pelts, and then lowered again. Waves of air in and out as Batrasa lifted her fingers to the moon.
She broke into the chant, the old chant of ages, the sound stinging Leadon's ears, jolting her out of thought. The sound, so honest, so close.
And for her.
The warrior priestesses replied, the echo of the chant, the sign of dedication, commitment, and love for all they stood for.
Batrasa joined the women’s voices and together they chanted, voices cutting across and lifting up, Leadon closed her eyes as Batrasa ran the ashes down her forehead, over her eyelids onto her cheeks and sweeping down her jaw.
Batrasa began stamping her feet in the rhythm of the song. Voices slowly died out as feet commenced. Stamping dust and dirt, stamping in the village, through the village, out the village into the perimeter, the lookouts and beyond. In rhythm, thousands of warrior priestesses stamping, demanding, calling the ancestors for their new Chief.
Batrasa stepped down from the podium alone, the large step perilous for her, but the symbol clear. Her time as Keeper passed, the Chief must take the step. The sounds of stamping feet filled Leadon's brain, her heart, her whole being, and in that moment she didn't question.
She knew.
She was the Chief. The sensation lived in the very center of her being. She took in the sounds, the faces, anticipating, the rhythm accelerating, and she kept her mind clear, commanding that her memory capture each split second.
She lifted her foot to the podium, pressed into it and pulled herself high, lifting her hands into the air, toward the sky, to the ancestors past and future to whom she owed her life, and the crowds erupted, stamping calling, whistling, crying out, arms lifted, and mouths opened in joyous sobs.
Gana's new Chief was declared.
As quickly as it had begun, the sounds suctioned
into silence.
Two days of mourning for the death of an era passed. The ceremony called for it. Two days in silence, somber and isolated for every warrior priestess.
And then the celebrations would begin.
The women dispersed, those who'd traveled to stay in the temporary tents set up on the outskirts of the village before making their return home at sunrise. The fire was put out with several large buckets of water, the smoke sizzling into the sky. Leadon was now in her period of transition. She too would have two days of mourning for the life she had before. Everything was to be reborn.
Irene stayed close to Leadon. Not a word between them. But even Irene lowered her eyes in deference. Irene had always been as much a believer as any other of the ways of the ancestors; Leadon saw this had not changed during her absence. Irene escorted Leadon to Batrasa's hut, where Leadon would sleep the next two nights before her rule began. She slept on the hay mat in the front part of the hut, leaving Batrasa her privacy of the room behind. Batrasa entered the hut after Leadon, passing her, giving a deep nod of her head, and walked to the back room.
Leadon had just lowered her head to the mat, consumed by the fatigue of what had become the most important day of her life, when Batrasa came back out. She kneeled in front of Leadon, tears streaming down her face. She took Leadon's cheeks in her hands.
Leadon tried to read her eyes, but there was so much anguish in them, pain, something resembling regret. Leadon leaned her head forward and the old woman did the same, their foreheads touching, the air from their mouths mingling between them. Leadon felt Batrasa's hands fall from her cheeks. She held back a sob without knowing why she felt so sad. Batrasa rose, not looking Leadon in the eyes, and returned to her room. Leadon let her head touch the mat, her eyes fluttered closed, and she was asleep in the same moment.
Shuffling feet, Leadon opened her eyes. The middle of the night. Movement in the hut. Leadon listened. She turned her eyes and saw Batrasa walk out through the curtain into the village.
She knew she shouldn't follow; she should have left the old woman to her ways. Batrasa probably had amends to make in the early morning moonlight. Leadon should have left her that privacy.
