Firebrand's Woman

by Vanessa Royall

  Now Gyva held the gown in front of her, hesitating. The girls of the tribe revered this dress and regarded it with awe, for it was believed to make its wearer lucky in love. Likewise, it was to be worn only on special occasions, and then only by maidens or women who had been chosen or designated for some special privilege or honor. To select it for herself this night would perhaps be sacrilege, a violation of some holy rule, for which there would be retribution. But oh, the dress was lovely, long and pale, beautiful as the moonlight that it reflected, and luscious to the touch. She touched it with her fingertips, then pressed it to her bare skin. Unlike Indian garments, which hung straight, this wondrous creation had been designed to display a woman’s body from her throat to her breasts, where a delicate, bejeweled bodice sparkled in the dim light.

  It is all right, Gyva decided. I, too, have the blood of chieftains in my veins. And thinking tenderly of the Indian princess for whom the gown had been fashioned, she slipped it on and arranged its silken folds about her nakedness. Then she was out into the night again, and running down into the high grass along the whispering river. She ran like a brave, soundlessly, surely; and he who waited saw flashing against the darkness a vision born of dreams, a piece of legend shaped within the trembling heart of time, magnificent and holy. For among the tender tales of his people there were hints and fragments of stories about a sacred eagle that lived in the lost caverns of these smoky mountains, an eagle that was as white as the snow and flew only under the crescent moon. And those who saw it once would never die.

  Gyva could not see him in the darkness beneath the weeping willow, but her heart knew that he was there. As the wild pigeon seeks its nest, the fox its lair, the doe its sheltering thicket, so she went to him. There was not a word, not one. Torch-of-the-Sun held out his arms and accepted a portion of his own heart from moon and mother night. Gyva felt his arms about her and the hardness of his body against her and his lips sweet and hungry upon her own. If he took and she offered, that was as it was, and if he offered and she demanded, it did not matter; it was all the same, one, as the two of them sought to be one. But there was no hurry, for the moon was high. The village slept in the distance; the river murmured. Birds were silent, sleeping, and so, too, the tiny animals of the night. The lovers kissed and embraced, violently at first, then more gently, lingeringly, when they realized, almost against the evidence of their senses, that they were indeed together. He wrapped his hand in the glossy hair at the back of her neck, bent her to a kiss as long as the night that lay ahead. Her arms went around him; her hands caressed his wide, strong back. Her fingers found the ridge of his spine and traced it, followed it down. Her hands were hungry. Lost in the sweetness of her kiss, enchanted as if by magic under her touch, he reverently drew down, slipped off the ancient vestment. Fighting an urgency that might have overcome them both, he drew her onto the soft mat of grass beneath the willow and reverently placed the holy garment aside. She found the knot in his drawstring, a knot loose to supple, easy fingers. Delicately, slowly, did they give and take of one another. Soft and knowing did he bend over her, to work kisses of mercy upon her tingling breasts, soft hands up and down her inner thighs, yet never touching—not yet—the fragile pearl that was herself, that was more and more herself as he caressed. He kissed her body, in the place where her heart was beating, and down along the lean beautiful length of her. He kissed and slowed to kiss and lingered to kiss the tiny pearl that now held all the world, but he did not release the world for her. Knowing that she was unversed in the ways of this magic, yet knowing, too, that all who love carry secrets of magic in their very souls, he then lay down beside her. He did not ask, because he did not need to ask. He knew. And as he knew, so did she, kneeling at first beside him, and then over him, kissing from his lips to the place at his throat where the blood beat like a signal drum. Now he was the one who waited, hungry, and she the sorceress, possessor of rare knowledge, purveyor of delight. She knew by instinct all there was to do, knew that giving all too soon would be to damp the flame before it was yet sweet as it could be. She kissed his great wound, and the kill-cuts that marked first blooding, and all down along his body she kissed him as he had kissed her. She sensed on her lips his triumphant delight, and in the center of herself she knew a soft and yielding rush that was a hundred times more powerful than that which she felt sometimes lying upon her panther skins alone, thinking in the night.

  Enflamed and opened by his kisses, she accepted him without cry; he took her with slight cry, and of a moment the glow of the fire began to build again. She remembered the morning in the village when he had ridden his stallion off to battle, remembered how his body had moved upon the horse, at one with it. Now did he move upon her, the stallion upon the mare, but gently, gently, a careful tread upon holy ground. In this manner did he love her, speaking to her emptiness which would never be empty again, creating in her the overwhelming desire for a pleasure that must ever be satiated, but could be satiated by none but himself. The lance of him, which she had loved and kissed, by which she was so sweetly impaled, stung her to cries of delicious agony, and with all of herself did she embrace him and take him and take him again. His kiss and his body were everywhere upon her.

  Delight radiated from them like the warmth of a ceremonial fire burning before the eternal wigwam of Ababinili, before which all worthy lovers would one day gather. Torch loved her, each thrust an attempt to have her utterly, and she moved about him, to hold him until the end of all time. She felt her mind dim, fade away for moments on end, only to be dazzled then by bright new starbursts of pleasure, and then a breathless hollowness seemed to spread beneath her breasts, to spread downward, until she was all gone, and her mind, too, until nothing was left of her but the vivid, living pearl of sensation, which Torch possessed at the price of his living body. They left the weary earth behind, and heaven itself lay just beyond the pillowed clouds of time; and they slowed to survey the kingdom that lay within easy reach. Gyva could not wait and did not want to wait, and she spoke the first word that had been spoken between them. “Home,” she said, barely conscious now, and scarcely conscious of her meaning, except that it had something to do with fullness, dwelling, safety, rest, and peace. All vistas were open to them there, and as far as ever could she see the colored winds of time, the grace of spinning earth. A gorgeous rush came to her, a gem of wonder, and from him unto her burst tide and tide and tide.

  Then a long time passed when neither earth nor heaven existed, when there was nothing at all but his kiss, stirring her back to life.

  “Ixchay, Gyva,” he said, lying down beside her.

  “Ixchay,” she sighed.

  “You knew my messages.”

  She came close next to him and pressed herself to his long body, one animal against another, curled against the night.

  “The little boy brought pebbles and flowers, so I knew the place. But how did you come to make the figure of moon and mountain? How did you carry your bracelet to my sleeping place?”

  “A true brave is silent upon the matter of his skills,” he said, teasing her.

  Immediately she thought of Hawk, whose heart held no such wisdom. “I was seen by one in the village,” she said, “before I came to you.”

  He said nothing, but waited for her to go on.

  “Hawk,” she said.

  He did not speak for a time, and seemed to be debating whether to speak at all. Then: “Hawk is a great fighter.”

  “I am sure that he is. I—”

  “No, do not apologize for feeling about him as you do. I said that he is a great fighter, for such is the truth. But in these times, and in the times that are approaching, he will not be good for the tribe.”

  “Oh, yes—you will be a far better chief.”

  “Let us not speak of who shall become the new chief. That is not in our hands, and Four Bears yet lives. At one time Hawk would have made a great chief, just as he is already a great warrior. But we are upon new times, and new conditions. His strength is no
t the kind to see us safely along the trail that leads into the future.”

  “I know. I sense the same. But you—”

  “Let us not speak of that. The Great Spirit will decide. We play in life the role for which he has chosen us.”

  Gyva felt vaguely confused. Did Torch resist the idea of becoming chief? Or was it something else?

  “The good of the nation is most important,” she said.

  “The good of the nation is everything,” he amended.

  “And I have pledged myself to do whatever should be necessary to ensure our safety.”

  Gyva was proud of him for these words. How unlike Hawk he was. But she did not wish to pursue such grave matters. Touching him, she asked, “Did I not please you?”

  “As greatly as ever I experienced. What you feel is not want of satisfaction, but the desire for more of such delight.”

  And so they shared it again, and yet again, until the time of dawn was coming. The moon, which had observed them through the night, and the falling willows which had sheltered them, were now greatly changed in the aspect of predawn light.

  “You must return to your sleeping place,” he said, kissing her for the thousandth time. “Now you know the person who sends for you, and the place that beckons. In future, when I call you, only the time need be signaled.”

  “And how shall that be done?”

  “You will know,” was all he said.

  Gyva encountered no one, and returned safely to her wigwam. She removed the gown and, folding it carefully, slipped it beneath the pelts on which she slept. Then she lay down and contrived to appear asleep as the other women in the wigwam, one after another, came slowly awake. She heard them muttering about the “sluggard,” and one of them said, “Look at that glow upon her skin! Surely she is dreaming of a lover. Perhaps a chieftain lover. We shall let her sleep until she awakens. It is not an easy life ahead of her.”

  “A sweet girl and a good worker,” whispered another. “It is tragic that she is of mixed blood.”

  “Yes. What can we do of it, though?”

  But Gyva did not care. She was new now, whole with love. Blood could not matter at all. The women left the wigwam to go about preparing the morning meal. Gyva tarried in her sleeping place. She did not feel at all fatigued. She felt alive in every nerve of her body; and she remembered, with a mixture of joy and sadness, how much delight her body had known. She was sad because the pleasure of the night was over; certain places of her body thrilled, but that was not the same thing as the actual moment of having delight. Still, she was joyous because he said that he would send for her again.

  Then she fell to thinking.

  They had spoken very little. He had said nothing at all about love. And neither had she! How could she not have? How stupid she had been! Certainly he had said nothing about a wedding, a melding of themselves in the eyes of heaven. The only thing about which he had spoken with feeling was Hawk, and the fate of the Chickasaw people!

  Gyva lay there and began to wonder. A shadow fell upon her, and she turned to see old Teva at the wigwam’s entrance. From the folds of her buckskin cloak she took out the quilted blanket, neatly folded, with which Gyva had covered herself on the previous night.

  “You must have forgotten your dream,” said the old lady.

  Gyva was startled. “Hawk spoke to you?”

  A nod.

  “What…what did you tell him?”

  “I said that all dreams are private.”

  Relieved, Gyva sighed.

  “And how was it, child?”

  “What? Ah…” The memory of pleasure surged. “It was better than any delight I could have dreamed.”

  Instead of smiling, or showing any approval whatever, the ancient soothsayer frowned. “You are a prisoner of it now,” she said, “of the sensation.”

  “But…but you said to go to him when the message came.”

  “That I did say. But I also counseled wisdom. Carefully did I explain the distinction between love and attraction. Did you not hold it in your mind?”

  “Hold it in my mind? How could I? I did not have a mind, I…”

  “So. It is that way. Well, there is nothing to be done about it. Here is your blanket. Now give me back the fateful gown, and I shall—”

  “Fateful? The legends say that it is full of love and fortune.”

  Teva cackled. “That is what the legends say.”

  “What is wrong? Luck in love comes to her who wears this gown.”

  “Certainly. Certainly. But she who wore it first died in a land far from her people and her nation.”

  “Yet she had love. The love she wished.”

  Teva cackled again, a grating croak full of wisdom. “You are far too young to know that there exist many things as great as love, and the nation is one such thing.”

  But that made no sense, no sense whatever, to Gyva. Not on the day of this bursting dawn. Not after the night she had spent enjoying the magic of Torch. She spoke no more. The old seeress took the gown of Pocahontas, placed it out of sight beneath her cloak, and departed. Time would tell which maiden might come to wear it on the day of tribal wedding.

  Gyva lay upon her panther skins, thinking for a long, long time, waiting with all of herself to receive Torch’s summons again. Time has a way with itself, and a maid has her own.

  Chapter II

  Gyva walked slowly from the village that day, watching the women who were at work down by the well. None of them seemed to notice her, and she was soon out of sight, hurrying toward the river bank. It was all she could do to keep from running; something different was in the air today. Never had Torch summoned her before nightfall. And never had his message come to her as it had this time. It is because of the great approaching war raid, she told herself uncertainly. After two years of recommendations, debates, protests, and blatant cajoleries, young Hawk had finally convinced the old chieftain to mount larger forces against the white men, and later today the Chickasaw braves would ride to join a body of Fox warriors and another party of Choctaw for a joint raid against Harrisville. The fort at Chickamauga was all but impregnable now; but Harrisville, a newly settled farming village just to the north of Gyva’s home mountains, was considered vulnerable. Hawk and his hot-blooded compatriots believed that if this new town could be obliterated from the face of the earth, more great battles might be mounted, battles that would drive the white man out of Tennessee, back into Georgia. Indeed, should the red men gain sufficient momentum, perhaps the jackals might be forced all the way back to the coast of great water.

  Torch did not believe this, and he had said so many times. Different opinions rose and clashed over the fire in the council wigwam, and divergent courses of action were proposed, to be decided upon by Four Bears, or to have their portent gauged by old Teva. The fact that Torch counseled care and caution was not held against him, save by hotheads like Hawk. Kill-cuts swarmed up Torch’s mighty arms like angry bees; Gyva could feel the scars in the night when she lay in his embrace. Torch, too, had become legend. After one particular foray, a warrior brought back from Burnsville something he had ripped from a tree. It was a poster placed by the white men, and on it was a description of a certain vicious Indian. His feats in battle were noted, and his appearance. The concluding words sought to encourage mercenary instincts among the white settlers:

  The tribal name of this Indian is Torch-of-the-Sun, and we call him “Firebrand” for his habit of setting fire to our villages and farms. For his death, proof of which must be evidenced by display of body, or the severed head thereof, the citizens of Harrisville do hereby offer a bounty of one thousand dollars.

  Rupert Harris

  Magistrate

  Gyva had shuddered while reading the poster, and she wished old Teva had not taught her the white man’s tongue. What if, on this great raid to Harrisville, Torch were killed? What would she do then?

  Firebrand, she thought angrily. It is not true.