Secret Sacrament

by Sherryl Jordan

  On the lower mountain slope behind him, a man began to lament, his voice wild and tormented.

  “It’s Tarkwan,” whispered Ashila. “His pain and his guilt, they are too big for his heart to hold.”

  “Why should he have guilt?” asked Gabriel. “He fought well to keep his land. You all fought well.”

  “But we lost,” she said. “As chieftain, Tarkwan bears the guilt of that, and guilt for his people who died.”

  “But there’s no need for guilt. He can’t blame himself for things beyond his control.”

  “Can’t he?” she replied. “Have you never laid guilt on yourself, Gabriel, for what you could not help?”

  He lay silent, very still, while the weight of the ancient bone torne grew heavy on his breast. At last he said, very quietly, “I do have guilt, Ashila. And no matter what I’ve done—no matter how hard I’ve tried to forget it or wipe it out—it’s always there.”

  “Some things we can’t wipe out ourselves,” she said. “That’s why we have this time of the sacrament. Up on the mountain, we give to the All-father our secret hurts and griefs and guilts, for him to finish or mend. It is better than holding on to them, trying to forget them. The holy rite, it’s an outward sign of what is happening in our hearts, and it is strong and true.”

  Gabriel was about to ask something else, when they heard a small landslide of stones from higher on the mountain. Glancing up, they saw that Tarkwan had begun clambering up the slope, following a twisting path. He limped badly.

  “I’ll go with him,” said Gabriel, removing his arm from about Ashila’s neck.

  Ashila kissed him, saying, “He goes for the secret rite, Gabriel. The prayers, they’re said in solitude.”

  “I’ll remember.” Getting up, he ran quickly between the people sprawled over the shingle and stones and began climbing the track Tarkwan had taken. The rocks were steep, and he was panting by the time he reached the chieftain. Tarkwan, too, was breathing hard, his inhalations long and torn by pain, or grief. The bandage on his leg was soaked in blood. Without a word Tarkwan put his arm across Gabriel’s shoulder and leaned on him as they ascended the mountain together.

  The sun was coming up by the time they reached the holy place. It was a flat rock overhanging a sheer precipice. Far below, the eastern desert glimmered, and the sun’s rim trembled on the verge of the world. To the west the Shinali grasslands lay shadowed. In the south stretched the jagged coast and the sea. Looking straight out, Gabriel saw only sky, waiting for the dawn.

  Tarkwan went and knelt on the rock, close to the edge. Gabriel waited against the cliff, torn between respect for Tarkwan’s privacy, and the fear that he might throw himself over.

  The chieftain had forgotten Gabriel. He knelt and touched his forehead to the rock three times, chanting in Shinali. While he chanted, he opened a hide pouch he carried, taking out a wisp of thatch from the house and a handful of earth from Shinali land. Crouching over the emblems, touching them lovingly with his fingertips, he cried out his shame and defeat, his intolerable guilt for failing to save his people’s home and land. As his chant rose, he took his knife from his belt.

  Gabriel stepped forward, stopped, hesitant and afraid. Tarkwan placed the blade edge on the back of his wrist, along his wedding tattoo. Between the two deer he made a cut, then laid the blade flat and sliced away the skin beneath the doe. The place where she had been became a hollow pool of blood. He placed the film of skin on the dust beside the Shinali soil, his chanting anguished and terrible. Several times he spoke the same word, and Gabriel guessed it was the name of the All-father. Often he heard the word sharleema, and then Moondarri’s name, over and over, in tones hoarse with despair and love and grief.

  Slowly, while he chanted and cried, Tarkwan picked up the emblems of all that he had loved and lost and flung them over the edge of the precipice, surrendering them to the All-father. They fell just as the sun leaped up, orange and blinding. Then the chieftain lay down full length on the rock, his face to the dust, and lamented.

  Without a sound Gabriel went and knelt beside him, a few paces away. As Tarkwan had done, he bent his head to the ground three times, then smoothed away the stones and grit on the edge of the rock. Tarkwan remained motionless, his eyes closed and his forehead bowed against the dirt. Gabriel lifted his arms and removed the bag from about his neck. From it he took the Shinali bone and laid it on the edge of the precipice. The ancient torne shone, its etched symbol stained still with the blood of the woman he had abandoned, stained still with his guilt. A guilt too heavy for his heart, though a hundred times he had atoned for it—and more than atoned. It was not even guilt, now, that bound his soul to the Shinali people; it was love. But behind that love, behind all the understanding and joy and healing, was the Shinali woman still wounded on the stones, and his silence when he might have gone for help. It was time, this holy morning, to let it all go.

  Quietly, he spoke an old Navoran prayer for forgiveness, a prayer of trust and relinquishment; then, blinded by the sun, he picked up the bone carving and threw it far out over the edge. It spun, golden and shining, and was lost in light.

  Long after, he turned his head and looked at the chieftain. Tarkwan’s torne, threaded on a leather thong about his neck, glowed on the dust close by his dark skin. A small pulse beat in Tarkwan’s throat, and he was breathing easier now. He lifted his head and looked at Gabriel, and they both smiled. The chieftain’s face, dusky and beautiful and almost joyful in the dawning sun, was like his sister’s.

  Without a word they both stood and, with their arms about each other, began the walk back down the mountain. Above them the skies were turquoise, glowing with the promise of a new season.

  “Do you have knowing of our great Shinali prophecies?” Tarkwan asked.

  “Yes. Ashila told me about them.”

  “This day they begin to come true,” said Tarkwan, his face alight and full of hope. “This day begins the Time of the Eagle. This day we begin our journey to the lands of the Igaal and the Hena. We’ll live as wanderers, following deer for food, making strong our peace with those who once were enemies. Then, time to come, as one great people, we’ll return and take back what was ours.”

  They rounded a bend and saw the people below. Smoke from cooking fires rose in the tranquil morning air, and the young people were fishing off the bridge, catching breakfast. Then someone screamed, and others called out, their voices shrill with alarm. Gabriel and Tarkwan lifted their eyes from the dusty track and looked across the Shinali grasslands. On this side of the river, pouring down from the new road through the hills from Navora and spreading out across the plain like a dark approaching sea, deadly and organized and inexorable, came the entire Navoran army.

  Tarkwan halted on the path, his arm tight about Gabriel’s neck. Gabriel glanced at the chieftain’s face, could not bear what he saw there, and looked down at the people again. The clan was in confusion, people gathering up the sick in their blankets and running, fleeing hopelessly in all directions, hauling children by the hand, leaving weapons and food and clothing strewn across the rocks.

  The chieftain cupped his hands about his mouth and called down to them. People stopped running and looked up. Letting go of Gabriel, Tarkwan made a sign with his arms, and people stayed where they were. Limping, stumbling, sometimes falling, Tarkwan ran with Gabriel down the rest of the rocky path. As they reached the clan, the army crossed the halfway mark of the plain, opposite the ruined Shinali house. The soldiers were all on horses. The morning sun struck swords and bows like fire, and the horses’ hooves made thunder in the earth.

  Hushed, the clan waited, their faces ashen and without hope. A few children began to cry, their frightened sobs loud in the stillness. All eyes were on the chieftain. He seemed at a loss, while the horses’ hooves drummed closer. He turned to Gabriel. “Your knowing of Navorans is a high lot better than mine,” Tarkwan said. “What are they wanting? Our lives?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gabriel. “But it
’s pointless to run. I suggest we put all our weapons, even our hunting knives and slings and fishing spears, in a pile on the ground. Then, as a sign of surrender, we should kneel with our hands folded on our foreheads, and our heads pressed against the earth. They may show mercy. I don’t know.”

  Tarkwan looked at his people and gave them those instructions in Shinali. Then he took his knife and sling and put them on a flat rock between the mountain and the plain. All his people did the same, until there was a great pile there. Tarkwan cried out something else in Shinali, folded his hands against his forehead, and knelt down to wait. Slowly the people knelt behind him. Beside them were their earthly goods, bundled into blankets or rolled in sleeping mats. Many knelt on the blankets on which the wounded and sick lay, bewildered and helpless.

  Gabriel looked for Ashila. She came to him, dragging their belongings. She gave him Myron’s sword, and he took it over to the pile of weapons and placed it on the top. He thought of Myron wanting a Shinali funeral, and had the feeling he would not mind his sword being among the spears with their bone heads and the knives with their rough antler handles. Even so, it was hard leaving it.

  Then he went back to Ashila. As they knelt together, he delved in his bag for the purse of gold pieces. Inconspicuously, he took out the coins and pushed some into his boots. He gave a handful to Ashila, and she concealed them in a pouch sewn along the inside of her wide belt. Gabriel left just two coins in the bag, and replaced it. The pledge-ring he took off and placed in the amulet bag about his neck, hiding it within his clothes. Then he and Ashila crossed their hands on their foreheads and they bent their heads to the ground.

  The earth shook with the rumble of the approaching army. Boulders were loosened on the mountain and crashed, booming, down the canyons. The air seemed full of thunder, though the skies were impossibly serene. The Shinali people waited, quiet, only a few children crying. The army came closer. The tumult became unbearable, the trampling hooves too close. Just as people were about to leap up in terror and run, it stopped. There was quiet, only the shifting of restless hooves on stones, the snorting of horses, and the creaking of leather. The sound of a man dismounting, of stones crunching under boots. And a voice, loud and harsh and echoing. Gabriel recognized it.

  “Who’s the chieftain here?” Kamos called.

  They heard the stones shift as someone stood.

  “I’m chieftain,” Tarkwan replied, his voice steady.

  “Come here,” said Kamos.

  Saddles creaked and stones crunched as more soldiers dismounted. There was the smack of flesh on flesh, and a low cry, and the noise of someone falling on the stones. Grunts and painful breathing as Tarkwan was lifted up, hit again and again. Groans of agony, then a man’s scream. Someone in the clan stood up, and a soldier shouted at him to get down again. He refused, stumbling through the rows of bowed Shinali to his chieftain. There was the hiss of an arrow, and the man fell. People cried out as he collapsed over them, and at the back of the clan a woman started to wail. The soldiers shouted. After that no one moved. The shot Shinali lay jerking, his blood running out across the stones. After a while he lay still. And the beating of Tarkwan went on.

  Ashila wept, and Gabriel risked reaching out and touching her. She gripped his hand hard, until her fingers hurt his. They both tried to pray, to cover Tarkwan with light and protection; but the thud of fists and boots, and the groans, were hard to envision against.

  Finally it was over, and they heard him dragged away. Some of the soldiers rode over the bridge. Then the commander spoke again, ordering the Shinali to stand. Some in the front did not understand and were kicked until they obeyed.

  Gabriel stole a long look at Kamos. The man looked grand in his army uniform, his bronze breastplates burnished and gleaming, his white plumes fluttering in the breeze, his cloak in proud folds about him. He glanced in Gabriel’s direction, but did not recognize him. Kamos looked slightly bored as he glanced over the shabby band. They did not look like fighters.

  “For rebellion and crimes against the Navoran Empire, your lands have been confiscated!” he shouted. “You’re to be imprisoned in the Taroth Fort. There, your commander will be Officer Razzak. Your sentence will last for as long as Her Majesty sees fit. Go quietly. If anyone runs, they’ll be shot. That includes children. Move.”

  In orderly lines, not risking a whisper, the people traversed the bridge and the gravelly gorge to the fort. As they approached, the walls towered over them, brown like the mountain rock, solid and overpowering. Only one gate was open. On the outside of the other gate, rusty iron rings were fixed with chains into the wood. They had been used for punishment in years gone by, when prisoners or rebellious soldiers were transfixed spread-eagled on the gates to hang in the relentless sun, sometimes until they died. Now Tarkwan was fastened there.

  People sobbed as they went past. His face, once so lordly and beautiful, was a bloodied pulp. The soldiers had stripped him, and every part of him was bruised and torn. The long wound on his leg had ripped open, and the bandages dripped blood.

  Several people tried to go to him as they went past, but a soldier stood by with a sword, and every time they came too close he placed the naked blade against their chests. So Tarkwan hung helplessly, still conscious and fully aware of his people as they came into their prison, his breathing harsh and tormented and full of a terrible wrath.

  19

  THE SPIRIT THAT LASTS

  INSIDE THE FORT WAS a vast courtyard, used in former days for practicing battle maneuvers. Derelict now, the courtyard was littered with broken timber and spiraling grass-heads blown in on gales from the eastern desert. Some had taken root, and there were clumps of grass where once skilled men had marched. On the far side of the courtyard were the barracks, three stories high, with the courtyard walls left open to the air. In past winters wooden shutters had closed off the arched openings, but the timber had rotted and now the wind whistled among the pillars and abandoned straw mattresses. Along the west wall were the kitchens and bathrooms, and on the upper floors more barracks. A porch with stone pillars fronted the kitchens, and outside it was a well, broken now. The east wall, facing the mountain pass, had slits where archers had waited with their bows. The place was colossal, desolate, with an awful air of forsakenness.

  Soldiers stood just inside the gate, searching the Shinali for concealed weapons. All knives and slings were confiscated, as well as bone sewing needles, and the pointed pieces of deer antler used to paint lines on faces and clothes. Zalidas’s tattooing equipment was taken.

  As he neared the soldiers, Gabriel frantically thought up a story, a new name, a reason for being here. He repeated the lie in his mind, trying to be composed, while warnings buzzed in his head. The woman in front of him had her comb taken, as well as the bone pin she used to fasten her cloak. Then it was Gabriel’s turn. His heart thumped as he held out his bag. The soldier, hardly older than himself, glanced up. He stopped, astounded. “You’re Navoran!” he said.

  Gabriel nodded, and the soldier called over one of the others. He gave him Gabriel’s bag, and they whispered together. The second soldier was an older man with a burn mark down his face, and eyes amber and piercing, like a hawk’s. His expression was hard, uncompromising. He wore the red shoulder plumes of an officer, and Gabriel guessed he was Razzak, the commander in charge of the fort.

  Without speaking, Razzak indicated for Gabriel to follow him. Gabriel glanced back at Ashila. “If they ask you, my name’s Darshan,” he whispered, then followed the officer to a place just beyond the Shinalis’ scattered belongings. Razzak opened Gabriel’s bag and emptied it onto the ground. All his belongings rolled out onto the dust. The officer picked up the purse and emptied it onto his palm. The two gold pieces, each worth two months’ wages for a soldier, glinted in the sun.

  “Don’t you worry about thieves, boy?” asked Razzak, his astute eyes searching Gabriel’s face.

  “Not with the Shinali, sir.”

  The officer grunted. �
��What’s your name?”

  “Darshan.”

  “Who are your parents?”

  “My mother was Navoran; she’s dead now. My father is an Amaranian physician. He has rather unconventional methods of healing. He’s training me but wanted me to study with the Shinali while he’s visiting relatives in Amaran. In return, I’m teaching the Shinali some of our ways.”

  “You were with the Shinali yesterday, during the fight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you get out of it, after the trouble? You must have known the army would be back.”

  “I stayed to help clean up the wounds, after the fighting.”

  The soldier put the coins back in the money purse and handed it to him. “You’re free to go,” he said.

  “I’d rather stay, sir.”

  “You can’t.”

  “The Shinali are my friends, sir; I’ve been with them most of the winter. I’d like to be here as their physician.”

  The officer sighed. “Very well, since they need one. But don’t expect any privileges. You’ll be treated the same as the prisoners.”

  “Thank you. May I ask you a favor, sir? The Shinali chieftain . . . could he be given back to them? He was only defending his people and property yesterday. You and I would have done the same, in his circumstances.”

  The officer did not reply, and Gabriel gathered up his belongings and turned to go. The officer suddenly called him back. “I’ll have your shaving blades,” he said.

  As Gabriel handed them over, he asked if he could borrow them each morning.

  “You can shave in the soldiers’ barracks,” the officer replied.

  Gabriel went over to the group of Shinali and put his things on the ground by Ashila. He was trembling, and she looked at him anxiously. “He believed you, Darshan?” she whispered.