“Mama!” Dawn screeched.
“Mama? You’re no Murat.” He rubbed the heel of his hand on my cheek. “What are you?” He turned to his companions and laughed. “Hey, look at this. It isn’t dirt. It’s her skin. She’s the color of shit. That’s what you are, a piece of talking shit.”
“The child is frightened, but I can quiet her if you will let me hold her,” I pleaded.
“Why the hell not, Kar?” said the third man. “We’ve got bounty here. More than we’ve found all trek. Let’s take both and go home.”
“Here.” He thrust Dawn into my chest. “Now shut her up.”
I stroked and kissed Dawn, while checking her over for wounds. “Pshaw, child. I’m here. I know. But you mustn’t cry.” Slowly, her sobs subdued, not because she was comforted, but because I think she understood that our lives depended on her silence.
I felt a jab in my back. “Move!”
I walked in front of the men, carrying Dawn. Whenever we came to a diverging path, a kick or shove would indicate which direction to go. I hummed to the child to calm us, as I would to my dawn creatures, but under my breath, my lips to her ear.
By their choice of campsite for the evening, I knew our captors were dull to all I could see and feel around us. They did not read the signs of snakes nearby, nor that water would be easier to find further on.
When they raped me that night, Dawn held my hand, which I stretched above my head, as far from what was happening as possible. She somehow knew that by being near she could diminish the violence, help me see that those three men weren’t important. Her short life had included men like these, of that I had no doubt. No wonder she chose not to speak. But her hand in mine said more than words ever could.
The days and nights soon bled into one another, differentiated only by what I learned of each man and of their people. Kar was the leader because he was the strongest. He leaned on his physical strength as a cripple does a staff. His senses were uninitiated, his mind followed only straight and obvious thoughts.
Thim was the smallest of the three, but still larger than any man I had ever encountered. That first day, he had mentioned that his child was held hostage by the Murat. So I tried to talk to him, thinking that he might feel some common bond with me. I learned that it was a son of thirteen years and his eldest, before Kar told him to “shut up about that damn kid of yours.”
In coloring, Dac was even fairer than the others, with nearly white hair, though his skin was burnt to a permanent ruddiness. He was the most brutal when he took his turn on me, making me realize that what he felt for me was less than hate, because I wasn’t even human to him.
From their boastful banter, I learned of their people, the Mukane, and of the Murat, whom they said were Dawn’s tribe. For as long as history, the Murat had been the Enemy, and that defined their whole existence. Kar ranted about his murdered brother and uncle, Thim of his raped daughter and captured son, and Dac of a diverted stream. The very word Murat was a vile curse on their lips.
On our fifth afternoon of captivity, I saw signs of danger on the land. Small animals scurried, not from our tramping feet, but toward us, in their haste to flee from whatever was ahead. The smell of something large and bloodied changed the tenor of the breeze.
Dawn had been walking by my side. I gathered her up in my arms and whispered to her to hold tight. Dust bellowed over the rocks in our path, and I knew it was near, so I coughed, pulling my body to the right in the natural way of uncontrollable coughs. Before Kar could grab me, the wild boar charged in their midst, and I flattened our bodies against the other side of a large boulder.
Huge and wounded, the boar ran at them with madness in its eyes and death on its tusks. It gored Kar, ripping apart his groin before Thim and Dac could unsheathe their knives. Crouching low, the two men approached the boar from opposite sides. The boar pawed the ground, lowered its head and charged Dac, who was slightly closer than Thim. Before it reached Dac, Thim slashed its back. The boar turned toward Thim, and was slashed by Dac. When it turned again, though Thim’s knife caught its hind, it would not be deflected before ramming into Dac, who had straightened up just in time, so that the tusks bit into his legs instead of his abdomen.
By now, the other sounds I had heard grew louder ~ calls and hoots and stomping feet ~ as a band of men cleared the knoll of rocks. Large blondes so similar to my captors that they might have been brothers, they carried spears as well as knives. The boar turned from Dac and ran toward the newcomers, only to be stopped by a wall of spears raining down on it.
“Ha! Got him, finally,” one gloated as he pulled his spear from the boar and pointed it at Dac and Thim. Soon the two were surrounded by a circle of blades.
I tried to flatten myself and Dawn even further behind the boulder. If only we could avoid being seen.
Two men, dressed with more beading than the others, strolled over the crest. From the way the others’ posture changed when they arrived, I realized they must be leaders of the group. That was when Dawn slipped from my grasp and ran forward, shouting with glee “Nonni!” As the smaller of these two leaders turned to her, crying, “Nasserit,” I ran also. “Dawn!”
She was in his arms, hugging and kissing his face, when I reached them. However, four warriors blocked me, their bloody spears aimed at my chest. The man Dawn called Nonni and I stared at each other. Neither of us knew what to think of the other, but realized that we both loved the same child. He barked a command, and the spears were withdrawn. For the moment, I was to be spared.
The other leader had entered the circle that held Dac and Thim and the fallen Kar. He kicked Kar, who didn’t move. Then he bent to look at Dac, who moaned and writhed on the ground. “Bisrit!” he called.
The man who held Dawn looked at him, then at the child. He was needed, but didn’t know what to do with her. I held out my arms, and he placed her there. Then he stepped into the circle and bent to examine Dac’s legs.
“How bad is he, Healer?” the other leader asked Bisrit.
“Do you wish him to live, Darrint?”
“I haven’t yet decided. Would it be difficult?”
“No, not difficult. No main vessels are severed. The muscle and flesh can be sewn. If he were not Mukane… Do you have a purpose for him?”
“Sew him up for now. We can decide to kill him later.”
“As you say.” Bisrit called to another, who brought his satchel of Healer tools and medicines. Two men had to hold Dac down when Bisrit dug through the sinews of his legs to sew together skin and ligaments. As I looked on Dac’s pain, I remembered his brutality, and felt no pity.
The band camped at that spot and had a feast of roasted wild boar. In the afterglow of their meal, the men discussed the fate of Thim and Dac. When Dac admitted that he was the son of the Mukane headman, they decided to spare them both as hostages.
Then the leader turned to me. “What of that?”
“What is it?” asked one man.
“A woman,” said another.
“We’ve enough women who aren’t burnt black.”
That was when the Healer Bisrit stood and came to stand beside me. “My granddaughter has bonded with her. Whatever she may be, it is likely she saved Nasserit’s life. I give her my protection and claim her for my hearth. Any who would refuse me that right risks the wrath of their Healer.” He turned slowly to look into the eyes of every man gathered around the fire. None challenged him.
“Come,” he commanded me, and I followed him to his night space, which was set apart from the others. I slept by his side, with Dawn curled between us, though I did not allow myself to sleep deeply.
Their village was not far from where we camped. In two days, we reached the stream that marked their northern border. The warriors splashed across it, hooting and laughing. Women and children poured out of the village to greet them. Men and elders followed, with wide welcoming smiles. Suddenly, I found myself in the midst of a throng of people whose appearance was so similar to one another that
I doubted any outsiders had ever lived among them. Even the young women were large, strong and very pale, as though they stemmed from the same colorless but fierce forebearers as Kar, Thim and Dac.
The Healer had me walk between him and Dawn, our hands linked, so all would know my place. Still, everyone stared and pointed, as much at the color of my skin as in wonder at the return of the child who had been believed dead.
Soon, the crowds parted, making a path for an old, stooped woman, who leaned heavily on a staff and dragged her left leg behind her. When she saw Dawn, she fell to the ground. “Nasserit!” she called and lifted her arms to the child, who ran to her. Weeping and laughing at the same time, the old woman touched the child on her limbs and face, head and body, trusting only her hands to prove what her eyes beheld.
The Healer took me to them, and said, “Mother, this woman saved Nasserit’s life.”
She reached up to me, and I bowed to put myself within her grasp. Holding my hand, she said, “Child, whatever I have is yours, for you have returned to me all that is left of me and mine. Please tell me what name I shall call you, other than deliverer.”
“Please, ma’am, do me the honor of naming me for all to hear, for I am reborn today, knowing that Nasserit is finally safe with her family.”
She looked at me fully, seeing all that I asked. For should she name me, I would be one of hers, belonging to her village, and finally safe, as Dawn was. By now, the entire tribe surrounded us, watching in awe the reunion of the child and great-grandmother, and the stranger with brown skin who dared to ask such a boon before anyone knew her.
No sound was heard from the group, until the old woman spoke once more. “You are truly my child because you restored the last of my line to me. So, I name you Meysrit, for the fruit tree that nourishes us even in winter.” She looked up to the Healer, who nodded, then took me by the hand once more. Dawn stayed with the great-grandmother.
That night, I slept in the Healer’s hut, alone with him for the first time. But he did not touch me, nor did he lie near me. He seemed still youthful, though not young. I had no reason to doubt his virility. So I judged that either he found me repugnant or he honored me for Dawn’s sake. Or maybe, his protection, which he had given me, extended even into his own hut.
As a member of the Healer’s hearth, I assisted him in his duties. At first, I was given only menial tasks, such as washing the rag bandages or chopping herbs. But, as time passed, he saw that I, too, had some skill in the healing art. The Healer learned to trust my eyes for harvesting our medicines from the earth, once he had shown me the shape of the plants and leaves. And he would use my hands when more than two were needed to tend to the wounded or sick. Some initially resisted my touch, fearful that my darkness might be contagious. But the Healer either ignored or ridiculed their objections.
Soon, he assigned me the care of the hostages, though the Healer continued to check my work, making sure I followed his instructions in everything. The hostages were kept in a fenced pen like animals, though they were not treated as well as the animal stock that fed the village. But they were not to die, unless the headman decided otherwise. The Mukane held too many Murat prisoners, which made an exchange inevitable.
In the hostage pen, I saw Thim reunited with his son. He seemed torn between his joy of being with the boy once more and the shame of living as a prisoner among his enemies.
Dac’s leg wounds were slowly healing, but the flesh was knitting together too tightly. So I worked the muscles with massage and exercise, which was painful to him. I do not doubt he saw my efforts as torture, my revenge for his brutality.
Why did I do it ~ try to help his legs heal properly ~ though it was not part of Bisrit’s orders? Should the Healer have discovered it, I could have been punished. I’d seen other women, true Murat, punished for much less. To bear such risk for a man who had shown me only violence and cruelty was foolish indeed. Yet, I continued. I have no easy explanation for my actions.
One day, while I was in the pen with the hostages, the guards brought in a new prisoner, a boy of ten or eleven years. His wounds were so severe that blood poured out of him more quickly than I could apply cloths. When Bisrit came, he worked furiously to save the child, even though he was Mukane. That was the Healer’s way, to see only the patient and his needs, while he worked on him.
As he ministered to the child, he barked at me for this tool, that herb or another bandage. We worked as we often did, reading each other so clearly that it was as though we were a single person with four hands. But regardless of how hard we tried, we could not stop the torrent of the boy’s lifeblood. It was like trying to hold a river in your hands.
When we finally gave up, I leaned back on my heels and looked at the boy, so young and fair. Then I saw that all the hostages had gathered around us. One woman was straining against two of her fellows, who held her back. When the Healer and I left the pen to clean the blood from our hands and clothes, the woman broke free, ran to the dead boy and held him to her body, rocking him and crying out with piercing wails that echoed through the village.
That evening, we sat by the fire between the Healer’s hut and that of his mother. Dawn played nearby, and her great-grandmother sat at her door, sewing. I was chopping herbs we had collected by the stream that afternoon, while the Healer sorted them. It was a clear, peaceful evening, with stars filling the sky. But I was not at peace. I turned to the Healer, as we worked together, “Please, sir, may I ask a question?”
He nodded.
“Please, tell me, why do you war with the Mukane?”
“They are our enemies.”
“But why?”
He looked at Dawn, then at his mother, who pretended not to watch us as she sewed. “They massacred my sons and daughters, my brothers and father.”
“But, sir, those horrors are the fruit of war, not the cause.”
The great-grandmother put aside her sewing and stared at me.
The Healer did not mask his distaste for my words. “They’re animals who understand only death and destruction.’
“Would you be surprised to hear that is exactly what they say of you?”
Scowling, he raised his voice, as though he were about to lift his hand to me. “Do you take their side, after all that we have done for you?”
I bowed my head in fearful respect. “No, never. But when I look at Nasserit, I see the woman she will be, the man who will take her to his hearth, the children they will create together, the grandchildren who will follow. And that is a joy in my heart. Then I realize it is only a dream that could easily be snuffed out. She nearly died once, though she’s barely five years. Will she live to be six, seven, ten? What’s to keep her alive when so many are killed? What then of her children and grandchildren who would never be born? What then of your village that will lose yet another generation? Must there always be war?”
“These are women’s words.”
From the other side of the hearth, the Healer’s mother spoke so softly that we had to strain to hear what she said. “Women’s words raised you, formed you, created this village from our willing wombs. Shall we remain quiet as the fruit of our lives are killed? Listen to Meysrit, my son. Even a woman’s words can be born of wisdom.”
“Mother, I am not a child to be advised by women!”
“That is true, my son. You are the Healer, the one responsible for the health of all. You battle Death himself for our sakes. Does not Death come most often because of this war? Yet the Healer does not know or seek its causes, does not fight to end its ravages.” She sighed so deeply that even Dawn ceased playing to look at her great-grandmother. “Son, you and Nasserit are the last of our family. That isn’t how it’s meant to be. This hearth should be busy with lovers’ games and infants underfoot. So much dying, and what does the Healer do? He stanches the blood, but does not stop the knife from striking. Would you ignore the call to end all this death, because these words are women’s words? Be not so proud, my son. Be great instead.” She pic
ked up her sewing again, looking only briefly at me before concentrating fully on her work. But in that nodding glance, I saw that her eyes shone.
The Healer was not pleased to be lectured by a woman, even his mother, especially in the sight of another woman and his granddaughter. He stomped away from the hearth.
I finished chopping the herbs and stored them in the correct containers. Soon everything was put away. Dawn was back in her great-grandmother’s hut, where they slept. I, too, retired. I didn’t hear the Healer return until close to sunrise.
At the morning meal, he told me we needed a certain root, which could be found only in a remote mountaintop glade, a day’s trek from the village. He instructed me to pack food and water for three days. After informing the headman where we were going, he waved to me to shoulder the pack and follow him. We walked in silence until the late afternoon.
His words, when they erupted, came with no warning. “This war has always been, as far back as we can remember. There was no beginning; there will be no end.”
“Then there will be no life for Nasserit.”
“That is the way of things. I cannot change it. I am but one man. I cannot stand alone between the two tribes.”
“If you believed it could end the warring, would you do so? Would you stand between them?”
He did not speak again for quite a while. Then, as though no time had passed since I had asked the question, he answered it. “Yes. I think I would. How could a Healer not? But I don’t believe it would work. So I won’t.” Under his breath, he added, “Still, I must do something to end this death.”
Again, we walked in silence. Later, we spoke only about the camp we set on the bank of a gentle stream. The Healer chewed the evening meal so lost in thought that I could have fed him sand, and he would have given it the same attention as he did the tender chicken.
“They really are animals, you know,” he said. “You’ve seen how they butcher our people, steal our food, take our women. They tortured and raped you, would have killed Nasserit. Yet you want me to make peace with these vipers.”
The Winter Boy Page 28