We laughed, and I accepted the bowl of drink he passed to me. It smelled pungent and strong, and I sipped it cautiously. He said, “It’s called kuba. It’s what’s in the shared bowl they all pass around.”
“It’s better than your goat’s milk,” I said, giving it back to him. “But not by much.”
Grinning, he drank the kuba himself.
Slaves were lighting the lamps. People went and got their bedding, and spread it out. I noticed that if anyone walked on the blankets, it was no matter. Also, with the Igaal, there were no special sleeping places, and people lay down where they wished. Ishtok came back with his bedding and mine, and spread our blankets out side by side. Ramakoda made his bed on the other side of Kimiwe. Chimaki, too, was nearby. We all got into our beds, and it felt strange to me, having Ishtok there so close. I felt suddenly shy. Every night of my life, until this time with Ramakoda and his people, I had slept with my mother on one side and my grandmother on the other.
The slaves put out all the lamps but one, and people talked quietly before they went to sleep. I was awake a long time, thinking of home.
I thought of how Yeshi’s tent would be silent, the air heavy with worry and grief for me. These three days and three nights they would have worried and searched for me, all along the gorge and riverbank, and out toward the Igaal lands. My heart traveled out to the gathering-bag I had left on the stones by the Ekiya River, and the precious eysela flowers laid out in rows beside it. The bag had been stained darkly with Ramakoda’s blood, after I had used it to drag him to the river. Did they think the blood was mine, and that a wild animal had taken me, maybe dragged me to the river for killing? But then I would not have laid the flowers out tidily, in rows. What a mystery my disappearance must be, to them! And my mother and grandmother—what did they think? Did they believe me dead? Or would their hearts tell them that I was alive? I wished I had the gift my mother said my father had, of sending words from his mind through fields and trees and stone, to people he loved. With all my heart, I wished I could tell her that everything was well with me. I wished I could tell her that, in the days to come, I would strive to do what Zalidas had foretold, and be the Daughter of the Oneness.
7
My birthing time, my dying time, the mother I have and the father I have, each day of my life, my dreams, and my one true destiny—all were chosen and ordained for me by the All-father, before ever I drew breath.
—Shinali proverb
The next morning, when I had finished changing Kimiwe’s bindings, I went down to the river, which seemed to be the gathering place for all the women. They were washing clothes, slapping them against the smooth rocks to clean them, and the men were working under the trees nearby, carving their new canoe. The women were laughing and talking, and children played in the shallows by them. But suddenly the laughter stopped, and we saw old Gunateeta hobbling out of her healing tent. She was wearing all black, and there were ashes in her hair and on her face and clothes. The women in the river stood up to look at her, and the men stopped carving.
Mudiwar went over to the priestess, and she spoke to him for a while. Then he went to the men by the canoe and said something to them I could not hear. Six of the men went into the healing tent and came out carrying three bodies. Filthy those bodies were, covered in blood and pus and other fluids, and two of the bearers retched as they carried them. Even from where I stood, a stone-throw away, I could smell the stench. I sorrowed for the people still in the healing tent. As soon as the bodies were brought out, women began wailing; a high-pitched, trilling sound strange to me, full of a wild and frightening grief.
People came running from all the tents, and a great crowd went down straightaway to the funeral ground. I lingered on the edge and watched for a while. Bizarre funeral rites they were, sickening to me. While Gunateeta chanted and prayed and limped around waving long trailing banners red as blood, men began chopping up the bodies of the dead. The birds were already there, waiting. Arms and limbs of the dead were cut up and the flesh stripped off and laid out on special stones for the birds to devour; but some of the organs and the bones were kept, wrapped in red cloths and buried with the heads on the far side of the ground, under pyramids of stones. Tall sticks stood in the stones, bearing funeral flags marked with prayers and sacred signs.
I did not stay till the end, but went back to Mudiwar’s tent and sat by Kimiwe. That day there was no midday feast, and Kimiwe told me that people fasted on funeral days. She was talkative, cheerful, and healing so rapidly that I expected to go home very soon. In the afternoon Mudiwar and his family came into his dwelling. Many of the women were still weeping. Ishtok came and sat by me, his face solemn.
“My father is worried about the others in the healing tent,” he said quietly. “Gunateeta is in so much pain, she forgot half the prayers on the funeral ground. She is no longer being a good healer. It’s a serious matter for us.”
Even as he spoke, the chieftain came over.
“Shinali woman,” he said. “Show me this healing you’ve done on my granddaughter.”
It was the first time he had shown interest in Kimiwe’s healing, and as I obeyed I was aware of people gathering around us. While the chieftain examined her wounds, Kimiwe smiled shyly up at him. She said, calling him by the Igaal name for grandfather, “It doesn’t hurt anymore, Mor-bani.”
“No hurt at all, little one?” he asked gently.
Kimiwe shook her head. “I want Avala to look after me all the time, Mor-bani, not the grumpy lady. I don’t like her.”
“Then I shall have to go and see the grumpy lady, as you call our esteemed holy one, and hear her words on the matter,” said the chieftain, and then he went out.
By this time there were many people gathered outside as well, talking quietly, their faces astonished and fearful. Straight to the healing tent the old man went, and the people followed, falling over themselves in their eagerness to see what would happen. I stayed behind and was binding Kimiwe’s burns again when Ramakoda came in.
“Avala! My father’s calling for you. Come—now!”
I hurried out, and he took my arm and almost dragged me to the healing tent. “My father’s gone in, even though it’s forbidden ground to him,” he said. “Name of Shimit, things are happening this day!”
As we neared the healing tent the crowd parted to let us through. Then the entrance to the tent was in front of me, and I was choking in the smoke that poured out, pungent and suffocating. The chieftain’s shoes were in the entrance, where he had kicked them off. From inside he called my name again, and he sounded angry. Ramakoda prodded me and I went in.
Darkness and fetid heat engulfed me. I retched at the stink of human sweat, blood, urine, vomit, and suppurating wounds. The buzzing of flies filled the air. In a fire pit in the floor burned something earthy and foul, its fumes too stinking to breathe. I could hardly see but after a while made out the sick lying in their filthy clothes on the dirt floor. Many were moaning quietly, and some entreated the chieftain for mercy; others were silent, near death.
Coughing a little, Mudiwar was standing on the other side of the fire, and Gunateeta was sitting near him, slouched over on a little stool. Noticing me, she jerked upright, her face cold and furious. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mudiwar spoke first.
“A long time you’ve been looking after these sick ones, Gunateeta,” he said.
Her eyes, red-rimmed from the smoke, flicked upward to his face. “Yes, and death has not claimed many of them,” she said. “I’ve held it off, Mudiwar.”
“You’ve also held off life,” he said. “I’ve seen Kimiwe. Her burns are healing well, and she is almost as she was before the fire. To my mind, her healing is better than the healing I see here.”
“Your mind is the mind of a chieftain and a warrior,” Gunateeta said. “Your mind cannot see the spirits of death coming and going. You cannot judge healing.”
“I can tell whether people are alive or not,” he said. “I may not see the spir
its, priestess, but I see plenty else. Come.”
He turned and went out. I rushed after him. All the people were watching us, waiting for the chieftain’s words. He said nothing, waiting for Gunateeta.
At last she emerged, bent and limping, and wreathed in smoke. Blood seeped through the dirty bindings on her feet, and I felt sorry for her.
Mudiwar said to her, with some gentleness, “Times past, Gunateeta, you were a good healer, and I honor you for that. But I think your healing power has become trapped behind your own pain, and now you need healing for yourself.”
She looked at the far hills, and gnawed on her lower lip.
Then Mudiwar said to me, “Shinali woman, can your munakshi heal the sick in this tent?”
“I’m not knowing anything about munakshi,” I replied. “But I can heal. The ways I worked on Kimiwe, they were learned by my mother from a healer from Navora. A very great healer. There is no munakshi, only a high lot of knowing.”
“I thought the Shinali and the Navorans were enemies.”
“One Navoran was our friend.”
“Strange, that a Navoran soldier caused my grandchild’s hurt,” Mudiwar remarked, “and a Navoran skill heals her. Those blue eyes of yours, they come from that Navoran healer?”
“He was my father,” I said.
“So, we shelter two enemies in one skin,” he remarked. I thought he was angry, but to my surprise when he spoke again he sounded kind. “I’ll turn a blind eye to the bloods in you,” he said, “if you will use your munakshi to heal my people.”
I hesitated, my heart in turmoil. How long would it take to clean up the healing tent and those inside, and to do the healings for them? Three days? Four? Too long, already, I had been away from home. While I was silent one of the men called out.
“We’ll not have her heal our sick!” he cried. “Not a Shinali with Navoran blood! You may turn a blind eye to the bloods in her, my chieftain, but I cannot! And neither would my son, who lies in Gunateeta’s healing tent! He’d rather die than have that half-breed touch him!”
Other men called out in agreement, and women nodded in support.
“Go home, Shinali she-dog!” someone yelled.
“If that Shinali witch goes in my tent,” said Gunateeta in a low voice, “Shimit will surely curse us all.”
“How can Shimit curse us?” cried Mudiwar. “We’re already cursed! Two and forty of our kin gone in slavery, almost as many others dead, or dying in this tent. Is not that a curse? Is there anything worse to fear?”
They were silent, angry.
Mudiwar lowered his voice and said, “Consider another thing, my people: consider that Shimit might have sent this Shinali healer to us, for such a time as this. To spurn the Shinali healer now may be to spurn the gift of the gods themselves.”
“She is no gift, my chieftain!” called out an elderly man. “It was her father’s people who caused us this sorrow! As for her Shinali blood—it’s the filthy Shinali that draw the soldiers out here to our lands, like wounded dogs tempting out the wolves. If the high chieftain in the stone city found the Shinali he hunts for, he’d stop attacking us!”
“The Shinali dogs asked for their trouble!” cried someone else. “Like weak pups they suckled the Navoran wolves, and now they pay the price for their stupidity! But we pay it, too! Us, and all the Igaal tribes, and the Hena—we all suffer, because of the Shinali fools! I say we kill the witch. Tie her to a stake out in the desert, and let the Navoran soldiers find her. Then they’d find all her people, and have all the slaves they want, and we’d be left in peace.”
Mudiwar banged his stick on the ground again, but no one took any notice. The whole tribe was in an uproar, and the sound of their hatred toward me was overwhelming. Terrified, I thought I would be torn to pieces, there and then. But Ramakoda raised his arms and stood beside his father, and there was quiet.
“Igaal!” Ramakoda cried. “My people! This talk is not worthy of you! Let me ask you a thing. Which tribe of us, of the whole Igaal nation, is without fault? Which tribe has all people who are wise, who are strong in truth, who walk in honor with the gods? Which tribe has no thief, no liar, no deceiver, no breaker of the laws? Tell me—which tribe?”
He glared on them, was tall and fierce and strong. Quietly, but clearly so all could hear, he went on, “There is no such tribe. Every tribe of us, every clan, every family, has good and bad. And the Navorans are the same. And the Shinali. I say that this Shinali woman with us now—this healer, this friend to me, my nazdar kinswoman—she is a good Shinali. I am proud that she healed me, for she healed me well. I am proud that she heals my daughter, for Kimiwe is a new child now. And I will be proud to see my father open up this healing tent, and let this Shinali healer do her work inside. If any of you do not agree to let her touch your kin, then speak now, and you may go in and get your kin, and bring them out and take them to your own tents. Then tomorrow, or after a few tomorrows, you can set them free to fly with the birds. But let us give some of them a chance at life.”
There was total silence.
Ramakoda bent his head to his father, and stepped back.
Mudiwar coughed a little and said, “Before I saw the work of this Shinali healer, I spoke a word. Now I speak another word: she is to help my people in this tent. She will be given all that she needs, and you will do anything she asks of you. And Gunateeta will pray to the gods for us all.”
There was a fluttering of hands as people covered their mouths in shock. Some cried out in astonishment and fear. Then Gunateeta spoke.
“My chieftain,” she said, “you cast me off as healer, so I will take you at your word. Never again ask for my help. Never ask for my advice. Never ask for my prayers. And when the Shinali witch has gone, never ask for my forgiveness.”
Then she hobbled away, her stained robes billowing about her, to her own small tent on the edge of the funeral ground.
Disappointment swept over me, that I would not soon be going home, after all. Despite Ramakoda’s fine talk, I was about to argue, to say I needed to return to my own tribe, when someone moaned from inside the tent. An awful moan it was, full of desperation and pleading and pain; and my heart melted, and I knew I could not go.
“I will help,” I said to Mudiwar, “but I need someone to work with me. May Chimaki help?”
“She may,” said Mudiwar. “And Ramakoda, since he is your nazdar brother and is responsible for you. May Shimit also be with you, Shinali woman.”
I looked at Ramakoda and was surprised to see him smiling. “So, the sick are in our hands,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting to turn healer this day. I hope you realize I’m about as clumsy as a cow with a bow and arrow, when it comes to needlework.”
But there was nothing clumsy about Ramakoda, I found. He and Chimaki worked with carefulness and were gentle. We had two-and-twenty people in the healing tent. Seven were beyond my help, and I simply washed them and eased their pain, then asked their loved ones to bear them away to their own tents, so they could pass peacefully through the shadow lands. Then we washed the fifteen sick who remained, changed the fouled bedding they lay on, and cleaned their wounds. When everyone was clean and had been given a little water and medicine against festering, then I began the healings.
Never had I been faced with so much human agony. Though Ramakoda and Chimaki were excellent helpers, I longed for the company of my mother and grandmother, whose wisdom and skills had always been my guide. Now, without their help, I felt very alone, unsure, and afraid because all decisions lay with me. My hands shook and I felt sick with nervousness and fear. Once, seeing how I trembled, Ramakoda asked if I was ill.
“No,” I replied, “but I’m afraid. I’ve not had to mend wounds like these before. I’m afraid I’ll make people worse, not better.”
“Even a clean and comfortable death is better than what they had before,” he said softly. “You cannot make them worse, Avala.”
His words encouraged me, and I worked better without my fears t
o hinder me. By the time we finished our healings, the place was transformed. The sick were lying in tidy rows in fresh bedding on new flax mats on the floor, clean water bowls beside them. There was no fire, only a large pitcher filled with fresh water from the river, for the thirsty. A new door was made in the other side of the tent, and the summer breeze swept out the flies and disease and brought in clean air and healing. And it was quiet. The silence spoke loudest of all of the hard work we had done, for the sick lay free of pain at last. So we let in the ones who loved them—their husbands and wives and children and mothers and fathers—and then the quiet was broken only by tender words of comfort and love and joy.
Pleased, unutterably weary, I went to the chieftain’s tent and washed, and changed into a clean dress. Then I went down to the river and sat alone to renew my strength.
About me blew the smells of the Igaal evening meal that was being prepared, the scent of bread and the pit-cooked meat, and I ached with longing for more familiar smells and the cooking fires of home. Chimaki came down and sat by me, and I was glad for her company. She gave me a small bowl of tea, and I drank gratefully. Before us the half-moon rose, yellow as a gourd in the violet skies.
“The people, they’re saying you are a better healer than Gunateeta,” she said. “Mudiwar is well pleased with you. He has spoken with those you healed, and they say they felt no pain while you did your work on them. It is strong magic.”
“Thank you, Chimaki. But today’s healing, it was not magic, but the skill of two women and a man. You and Ramakoda, you both worked with a high lot of gentleness. I was glad that you were with me.”
“I think my father is going to ask if you will stay a few days more, until those you healed today are further along in their journey to wellness,” she said. “If you’re willing to do that, I’ll help if you like.”
“I’ll stay another day or two, and teach you all I can,” I promised, and she smiled at me, her face bright with gratitude.