Secret Sacrament

by Sherryl Jordan

  To Gabriel, the funeral had a sense of unreality. He did not weep; even when the flames engulfed Myron, he thought of the shadowed valley and the journey and the breathtaking peace, and his face was steadfast and calm. He watched the ash falling on the frozen earth, then turned his eyes to the pillar of smoke curling high in the cold morning air. Afterward, while the body smoldered and the last shreds of smoke drifted over the fields, everyone went to the house for goblets of mulled wine.

  “How’s the healing business going, Gabriel?” one of the uncles asked.

  “The healing business is continuing, as it always will,” Gabriel replied.

  “Unlike some of its customers, eh?” said the uncle, with a laugh. Then he realized what he had said. He choked, and added earnestly, “I hope you’re enjoying it, though, Gabriel.”

  “He ought to be,” said Egan, “since he sacrificed his father’s business for it.”

  Another uncle cleared his throat, and said, “Give him a chance, Egan. He’s done well; you have to admit it.” He turned to Gabriel and said, “You look very fine in those clothes, Gabriel. Very fine. We all got a surprise when we heard you’d been elected for the Citadel. Your father would be proud of you.”

  “He wouldn’t be proud of today’s little performance, though,” remarked Egan, grimly.

  “What do you mean?” asked Gabriel.

  “The burning,” said Egan. “It’s not a proper funeral. I’m very disappointed with Lena. She’s made a lot of important decisions, all wrong.”

  “The burning wasn’t her idea, it was Myron’s,” said Gabriel angrily. “It’s what he wanted. And none of Mother’s decisions have been wrong. You only think they are because they haven’t coincided with what you want.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Then one of the other uncles said, “It’ll be time to plant the corn soon. With so many farms growing it, won’t there be a drop in prices?”

  The talk turned to farming. Gabriel looked out the window at the funeral pyre, still smoldering, and excused himself.

  He leaned in the kitchen doorway and watched Topaz give instructions to the slaves, for the funeral feast to be held that evening. The surveyor had one arm about Lena, and she had both arms about his waist. Gabriel could not remember ever seeing his father embrace his mother, or helping with domestic things.

  Lena glanced up at her eldest son. Her eyes were red rimmed, and she was very pale, but she looked serene. She came over to him, and he gave her a hug. “Do you want me to do anything?” he asked.

  “No. It’s all under control. Why? You want to go for a run?”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Of course not. I’d come too, if I could keep up with you.”

  “I’ll run slowly.”

  “I was joking, love. You go, and send me back some of the silence.”

  “I’ll do that,” he promised, kissing her cheek. She went back to Topaz, and Gabriel went upstairs to the room he and Ferron had shared last night with his brothers and several male cousins. He found a chest of his old clothes, and pulled on a pair of warm leather trousers, a thick woollen shirt, and a sleeveless quilted tunic edged with fur. Then he pulled on some comfortable boots and went outside.

  Running slowly at first, he followed the path Subin had taken yesterday that divided the farms lying between theirs and the plain. On the edge of the Shinali land he stopped. Between the stretches of unmelted snow the grasslands were brown, the grasses coarse and tough. The plain was deserted, and he guessed the Shinali were all in their house, warm by the fire. He touched the bone under his shirt, feeling its smoothness and power. It was the first time he had stood on Shinali land, and he knelt and spread his right hand flat on the earth, not noticing the ice, but feeling a deep awe and a hunger he could not name.

  Standing, he turned right, southward, and jogged beside the farm fences until he came to the forested hills that lay between the Shinali land and the coast. Here an old road skirted the Shinali land, then turned sharply inland, running beneath the foothills of the mountains toward the ancient Taroth Fort. There it crossed an old bridge, then wound eastward through the Taroth Pass to the ports and towns beyond the mountains. Once busy with traders, it was seldom used now, as most people came to Navora by ship. Avoiding the cracked stones and deep ruts, Gabriel ran eastward beside the road on the smooth Shinali land. Between the hills a sea breeze blew in, tangy with the scent of salt. He pictured Lena and covered her with peace.

  Lifting his eyes to the mountains, he increased his pace, thinking of Myron running ahead of him down the long gray valley. His eyes streamed in the morning sun. For a long way he ran, the cold air hurting his throat and biting through his clothes. He ran as if the pain were pleasure, his teeth gritted, his deep breaths like mists before his face. At last he stopped, leaning over with his hands on his knees, breathing hard, and sobbing. When he straightened he noticed a figure standing between himself and the sun. The person’s face was shadowed and obscure, but the light behind made a halo of the long dark hair and shone in the rough edges of the brown woollen cloak.

  Gabriel wiped his hand across his eyes and looked again, half expecting the presence to be gone. But the person was still there, standing motionless, watching him. He realized, with alarm, that he had wandered from the road, deep into Shinali land.

  “I’m sorry I’m trespassing; I didn’t realize I’d left the road,” Gabriel said, walking farther ahead and drawing alongside the figure so he could see without the sun in his eyes. Then he felt foolish, realizing the Shinali would not understand the Navoran tongue.

  “You’re welcome here,” said a woman’s voice. He moved past her, and she turned so the light was full on her face. He stared at her, his heart thumping in his ribs.

  She was almost as tall as he was, with a self-reliant, fearless look. Her skin was brown and perfect, her face beautifully shaped, with high cheekbones and a firm chin slightly cleft. Her eyes were like amber, lustrous and warm, framed in lashes of deepest black. She smiled, and his heart missed a beat.

  “I didn’t think you’d understand Navoran,” he said huskily.

  “I’m knowing enough to talk,” she replied, openly studying his face, his hair and clothes, even his boots. There was something forthright and honest about her curiosity, and it did not embarrass him, though his face was streaked with sweat and tears. He had a feeling she was well acquainted with both. Besides, he was studying her, too—and enjoying what he saw. After a while their eyes met again, and they smiled.

  He glanced across the plain at the Shinali house, at the smoke twisting into the blue. “I like your home,” he said. “It must be warm underground.”

  “It is.” With an unconscious grace, she put down the bundle of sticks she had collected and sat on the grass between the scattered snow, her arms about her knees. Her cloak fell open, and he saw that she wore a white woollen dress, handwoven, with long, wide sleeves painted in ocher with moons and stars. She looked up at him, her lips still curved, and he sat beside her.

  He stole a glance at her face and decided that perhaps she was his age, maybe a year or two older. It was hard to tell.

  “I saw you leaving your house,” she said, looking at the farms. “It was the one with the funeral pyre. Time gone there was a funeral, but the farmers didn’t burn the dead.”

  “It’s not a Navoran custom, but my brother wanted it,” said Gabriel.

  She made no sympathetic comments, and he was grateful. He felt suddenly shattered inside, exhausted, and close to tears again.

  “Are you knowing many Shinali customs?” she asked.

  “No. I don’t know much at all about your people. I’m sorry.”

  “We have a greeting.” She pressed her palm flat against her breast, then to his. Her hand remained on him a moment or two, and she felt his heart hammering. “It means,” she said, “my heart and yours are in harmony.”

  “I like that. We Navorans have a handshake. Hold up your right arm, like this.”

&nb
sp; She did, turning to face him. But instead of waiting for him to explain, she moved at the same time he did, her wrist smooth and strong against his, her fingers entwining easily with his own. “I’m already knowing the Navoran way,” she said, her smile candid and lovely. Long after the handshake was over, he remembered the feel of her skin. And when she had leaned close, a scent had come to him: earth, wool, and fire.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Ashila.”

  “Mine’s Gabriel.”

  She repeated his name several times, emphasizing the middle syllable. He decided he liked the change. He liked her voice, too, with its unfamiliar accent and grammar, and lyrical tones.

  They sat looking at the plain and the farms to their left. There was still a smudge in the sky from the smoke of the distant pyre. A few people were gathered about it, too far away for Gabriel to tell who they were.

  “I have a question,” Ashila said. “I’m being afraid to ask.”

  “You can ask anything.”

  “Why aren’t you with your clan? Why are you out here mourning, only you?”

  “I don’t know all my clan very well,” he replied, “and the conversation’s a bit of a trial. I’ve lived away from home for a—”

  “Stop, please,” she said, touching his arm. “Your words, I’m not knowing them.”

  “Sorry.” He spoke slowly, choosing words he hoped she would understand. “My clan is big, and we don’t all live in one house, like Shinali. Many people in my clan I don’t know well. They talk a lot, ask questions about my life away. I can’t think to talk; my heart’s too full of my dead brother, Myron. Something huge has happened, and I can’t just sit around drinking bowls of tea and talking about cures for illnesses and the price of corn.”

  “It’s strange, your clan’s way of mourning,” she remarked.

  “What do your people do?”

  “We fast three days. We dance and cry and lament, and cut our skin and cover ourselves with ashes of the burned.”

  He looked faintly amused. “I can’t see my aunts and uncles doing that.”

  “Would you be doing it, if you could?”

  “For Myron, yes.”

  They were silent, and she pulled up some grasses and plaited them into a band. Her fingers were deft, and, when she twisted the band into a circle, Gabriel could not tell where it began and where it ended. She gave it to him, and he slid it over his wrist. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

  “We wear those when we’re mourning,” she explained. “They help us remember the body of our beloved is part of the earth now, part of the grass. And their spirit’s . . . ah . . .” She could not think of the word, so she made an arc with her hands toward the sky, and finished, “there, but not far and far away.”

  “I’ll wear it always,” he said.

  She smiled, her eyes shining. A cool wind blew across from the plain, whipping her hair across her face. He was acutely conscious of everything about her—of the richness and rhythm of her voice, her gracefulness when she moved, the glimmer of sun on her skin, the blue-black sheen of her smooth hair, the slightly upward slant of the outer corners of her eyes, the contours of her throat, the curve of her lips. Never had another human being awoken such intense awareness in him, or evoked such a sense of astonishment and delight. Even her handmade shoes and garments, with their leather ties and painted designs, entranced him.

  This is madness, he thought. I should go home, get back to the real world, fast.

  “If you like,” she said, “you’re welcome in our house for a time. It’s not . . . ah . . . not hushed, with us all inside, but you won’t be drinking tea or talking on corn.”

  No way. You could change my life forever, Shinali woman.

  “I’d like that very much, thank you,” he said.

  “I know you’re mourning, and I’ll tell the others, if you like.” She added, with humor in her eyes, “We won’t ask you to be singing and dancing for us.”

  I’d do the Navoran fire-dance with you right now, if you were willing.

  She stood up and swung her bundle of sticks over her shoulder.

  “I’ll carry that for you,” he offered, standing with her, and reaching for the firewood.

  “No. Men don’t carry wood. Men carry the food.”

  “I don’t have any food to bring.”

  “That’s good. Guests don’t bring anything, only themselves.” She began to walk across the grass toward the house. It was a long way off, and on the other side of the river. She strode quickly, and he hurried to keep up with her. She was beautiful to watch.

  “Is the wintertime hard for your people?” he asked.

  “For the old ones, it’s hard. If their boots break, and the cold kills bits of their toes and feet. A high lot of pain they have.”

  “That’s what we call gangrene,” he said. “The diseased skin should be cut off.”

  “Are you a healer?”

  “Yes.”

  She suddenly stopped, staring at him with amazement and joy. “So I am! That’s how I’m knowing your speech. A Navoran soldier came on our land three winters past. He was prisoner with the eastern tribes. He was coming back over the mountains, and we found him. Like this with death, he was.” She held up two fingers, close. “He stayed with my clan two winters, and I and my mother healed him. He showed us his speech, and how to make a stone smokehouse for our fish. Now we smoke many and many at one time, instead of only little lots over the fire in our house. That’s what we eat in the winter. Smoked fish. And we eat new-dead deer and rabbits, if we can get them.”

  “Did your whole clan learn to speak Navoran?”

  “No. But the soldier got knowing of a lot of our words.”

  They began walking again, the wind raw in their faces. Gabriel noticed the shapely form of Ashila’s thighs against the fabric of her long dress, as the wind blew against her. She was slender, womanly. He tore his eyes away.

  “I and my mother,” she said, “we learn to speak Navoran. And our chieftain and his family. A little of the others. But some were being angry with Navorans and wouldn’t be knowing the man’s talk or his ways, though they gave him welcome and helped him.”

  “Why were they angry?”

  “Because of the chieftain’s daughter. She went to live in the stone city, to be knowing Navoran ways, and to be peacemaker. They killed her and didn’t give us back her body. We couldn’t mourn her. It was long time past, but some of the warriors in our tribe still don’t . . . ah . . . believe on Navorans.”

  The Shinali bone burned against his breast. “Perhaps I’d better not visit your house, then,” he said.

  “If you’re my friend and I ask you, you’ll be welcomed.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She looked bewildered, so he added, “Sure. Certain. Know in a strong way.”

  “I’m being this sure,” she said, making a fist of her right hand and driving it hard into her left palm.

  They walked for a long time without speaking. Several times he saw sticks on the ground and picked them up for firewood. Each time she took the stick from him and poked it into her bundle. As they drew near to the center of the plain and the Shinali house, he realized how big the river was.

  Immediately opposite the Shinali house the waters were placid, but farther west, where the river rushed toward the sea, they were white as they tumbled over rocks and down small waterfalls. Just past the farms the river divided into three, its tributaries cutting deep ravines through the coastal hills. Its most southern branch ran close to Navora and was the city’s water supply. But the city could not be seen from here, only the Citadel in the hills, its windows winking in the sun.

  There were flat-topped rocks forming a natural bridge across to the Shinali house. Ashila crossed them first, the firewood balanced across her left shoulder, her feet sure and quick. Gabriel removed his boots so his bare feet would have a better hold on the icy surfaces, and followed her. On the other side he sat on the gra
ss and chafed his feet to get the feeling back in them, then pulled on his boots again.

  Through the black web of her windblown hair, Ashila watched him. Never had she seen anyone so fair. His hair was like the wheat at harvest time, his eyes like the sky in high summer. And his rays were green and blue and mauve, the colors of healing and spirit-unity. She had seen Navorans before, the soldiers with their red shadows and their soulless eyes. Even the soldier who had stayed had his shadowed side. But not this man. This man was all light, and beautiful. As he stood he caught her watching him, and his feelings ran like fire across his skin. Ashila smiled, half afraid and wondering, then walked on again.

  As they traversed the flat area of grass between the river and the dwelling, and the roar of the waters diminished, another sound came to Gabriel. It was the carefree music of flutes, and the wilder, rasping notes of instruments he did not know. The tune was spirited, and accompanied by laughter and shouts. The flutes were familiar to him, and he touched the bone under his shirt and remembered ancient dreams. But there came to mind, as well, a face. A woman, wounded and imploring. Guilt tore through him, and his heart thundered as he neared the house in the earth.

  11

  DAY OF THE SOUL’S RETURN

  ONLY THE THATCHED ROOF and a small portion of the house wall were above ground level. At intervals along the wall were windows, protected from the weather by wide overhanging eaves. Next to the large smoke hole in the roof was an upturned boat, used to cover the hole in times of snow or rain. The smoke from the outlet blew toward him, winding about him aromas rich with roasting meat and burning wood. He closed his eyes and breathed it in deeply. The smoke was like incense, a holiness, easing his terrors.

  Ashila touched his arm, and he opened his eyes. “You don’t have to come in, if the noise worries you,” she said, thinking he grieved. “They were sleeping when I left. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” he replied. “I’m not.”

  She led him down through the opening in the ground. They descended a flight of dirt steps, and Gabriel bent his head as he passed under the entrance roof. An air of excitement enveloped him, with smells of fire, smoked fish, dried grass, earth, fish oil, human sweat, and warm wool.