Angelica

by Sharon Shinn

  What Miriam wanted more than anything in the world was a way to communicate with the stranger.

  During the first few days of their excruciatingly slow journey, the injured man had no strength left over at night to do anything but pray, eat, and lie back on his pallet before Miriam had even cleared away the used dishes. So Miriam made no attempt to speak to him, beyond greeting him civilly when she came in and saying a good-bye to which he did not respond as she left the tent.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Tirza told her one evening as Miriam returned with the empty bowl and rather despondently ate her own dinner at the communal fire. “When he is whole again, he will become curious and energetic. He will be interested in what you have to say then.”

  “Or he will become violent and unpredictable,” Anna said with a little sniff. She had agreed with the other Edori to take this man in and shelter him, but she had never entirely lost her mistrust of him, and neither had Eleazar. Eleazar watched the stranger night and day with hooded, unfathomable eyes. Miriam was sure that if the black man made any sudden moves of hostility, Eleazar would be right there ready to club him into insensibility.

  “A sick man is not himself,” Tirza said, spooning more stew onto Miriam’s plate. “And a young girl who worries herself to death over a stranger is not herself, either. You better eat up, allali girl, or you won’t have the strength to walk to Galo.”

  So Miriam ate, and took her place in the crowded tent at night, and willed herself to sleep so that she would be strong enough in the morning to gather more food for the hurt man. And the next day they packed up and moved on, breaking through another five miles of snow, or maybe ten. And Mount Galo loomed higher and higher on the horizon, a big-shouldered, stolid peak set among the low, placid ring of mountains that circled the Plain of Sharon. Miriam set her eyes on it as she walked, willing it to become bigger, closer, so close that they could nestle against its blue side, and finally come to rest for the winter.

  They had been traveling for a week when the stranger finally began to recover some of his strength. On that sunny but frigid day, as they stopped for a noon break, he rolled himself shakily out of his cart and stood there a moment, looking around. The Edori, who prided themselves on showing no curiosity, did not stare at him or behave as if this action was at all unexpected, but busied themselves with the usual pursuits of melting snow and mixing up food for the noon meal.

  The black man put one hand to the side of the cart, as if to keep his balance, and watched them, a dazed but determined expression on his face. He was much taller than Miriam had realized, and extremely slender. Bartholomew’s borrowed clothes were both too big and too short for him, and a thin stick of a bare arm protruded from the cuff of the sleeve as he held on to the cart. He turned his head slowly from side to side, the sun catching in his matted copper hair and kindling it to a pretty glow, filthy as it was. His face looked narrow, the cheekbones high and prominent, the chin a sharp point at the end of a long jawline. His eyes were a bright blue, like bits of winter sky ripped from overhead and tucked in place between his night-dark lids. He glanced around, blinking a dozen times, and then carefully released his hold on the side of the cart.

  Miriam held her breath as he took his first shaky steps away from the safety of the wagon, but he did not topple over or even skid on the snow. He did not seem to have a destination in mind, just an action: He wanted to see if he could walk, and if so, how far. His steps were slow and measured, his face tight with concentration, and his balance imperfect. But he made it about ten steps away and ten steps back without mishap. Then he stood for a while at the side of the cart, panting a little as if from a great exertion.

  Bartholomew brought him a bowl of food and made no comment. The stranger ate it, still standing on his feet, and seemed to relish every bite. When he was done, he glanced around, but no one was close enough to take the bowl that he was ready to hand back. Miriam, watching from a few yards away, moved as if to stand up, but Tirza’s hand on her arm kept her in her kneeling position.

  “Let us just see what he will do next,” Tirza said, though her eyes were trained on the task before her and she did not appear to be watching the stranger at all. No one in the whole camp did. Miriam forced herself to stay where she was.

  The black man hesitated a moment, then pushed himself away from the cart, where he had been leaning his hips while he fed himself. He took a few shaky steps from the path they had traveled, coming to a patch of unsoiled snow. There he knelt and, scooping up the snow with one hand, cleaned the bowl with it as thoroughly as he could. Carefully he eased himself to a standing position and turned back toward the cluster of wagons. Moving cautiously but with great determination, he carried the bowl back to Bartholomew, who stood a few yards distant, his back to the stranger but his alert stance announcing that he was aware of every move the other man made.

  “Toteyosi,” the black man said, or something that sounded like toteyosi, and handed the bowl to Bartholomew.

  “Thank you,” Bartholomew said gravely, and took it. The Edori made no move to aid the other man in his painful trek back to the cart, a journey that seemed slower and more perilous with every step. But the black man made it, reaching out to clutch the side of the cart with an unsteady hand. He stood there shaking for a few minutes before he gathered the strength to haul himself back in over the side.

  None of the Edori said anything to him. They continued busying themselves with making, eating, and cleaning up their noon meal, chattering amongst themselves. But Bartholomew turned his head just enough to catch Miriam’s eye, and he smiled at her.

  That night the injured man was almost too exhausted to eat when Miriam arrived with his food. He did murmur a word when he took the bowl from her hand—she thought it was toteyosi again, the word that must mean “thank you” in his language—but his fingers were trembling as he lifted the spoon from the bowl to his mouth. She was so frustrated and impatient. She had thought that his successful attempt to move under his own power must mean that he was better, that he was well, and yet it appeared he had spent all his fragile strength on those two circuits through the camp. He set the bowl down before he had even eaten all its contents and lay back on his pallet, his eyes closed before his head touched the ground. Miriam gathered up the bowl and spoon, and left in silence.

  The next day was much the same, except that the weather was worse and the noon stop even briefer. The stranger did climb out of the cart again, though he did not walk as far and did not seem as tired when he pulled himself back in. And he seemed a little more alert that evening when Miriam came to bring him his evening meal.

  “Toteyosi,” he said as she placed the bowl on the ground between them.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, as she always said. Even when he had been too weak to speak, or even to notice if she spoke to him, she had talked to him. He had never responded, making her wonder from time to time if he might be deaf—or if he perhaps could not comprehend that the noises she was making represented language.

  But today he looked over at her in curiosity when the sounds tumbled out of her mouth. “Ska?” he said.

  It sounded like a question. “You’re welcome,” she said again.

  He watched her a moment more with interest. His eyes were blue enough to seem vivid even here in the semidark-ness of the tent. He had a fine coppery stubble all along his jawline, but it was not the full beard that a mortal man would acquire if he had gone this long without shaving. Maybe men of his tribe did not grow beards; or maybe he was so young that he could not produce a beard if he tried.

  He spoke again, a long string of incomprehensible syllables that sounded like a mix of questions and statements. Miriam laughed and spread her hands, wondering what that gesture might mean to him.

  “Ska?” he said again, more insistently, and now he pointed at her. “Ska?”

  She had thought it meant merely what?, but perhaps it meant who? or who are you? or what’s your name? Her name was what she would g
ive him, in any case. She put her hand to her chest. “Miriam,” she said.

  “Ska?”

  “Miriam. Meer-ee-um.”

  “Meerimuh,” he said very carefully.

  She could feel a smile of great delight throw dazzling lights across her face. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “Miriam.”

  “Meerimuh,” he said again.

  Good enough. She put her hand out now and pointed it at his chest, not quite having the nerve to touch him. She had bathed and tended him while he was unconscious, and she had seen every inch of his naked skin, but she did not know how the healthy man would feel about casual contact. “Ska?” she asked.

  He seemed startled that she had used the word, so perhaps she had used it incorrectly; but then his face sharpened to even more interest. He touched his collarbone and said, “Jossis.”

  For a moment she thought he said Joseph, and a little shiver went through her, that the name of this utter stranger could sound so much like a name from the Librera. “Ska?” she asked, merely to hear him repeat it.

  “Jossis.”

  “Jossis,” she said, and he smiled.

  He had not smiled before. She had not thought about it, what a smile might mean. Not only did it transform his severe, sharp face, it conveyed emotion—emotion that she understood, happiness or approval or pleasure—and it made him look, for a moment, familiar. It made him look, even more than the shape of his body, like he was one of them, a clansman from a far distant tribe.

  Who are you? she wanted to demand. Where did you come from, you and your brothers? Are you like we are, children of Yovah, brought here from a distant world? What do you want from us? Why do you hurt our people? If we can make you understand us, will you stop hurting us? Or will you peacefully go away?

  But she did not know how to say any of it, and so she merely smiled back at him. Then she picked up the bowl of food that sat on the floor between them, and handed it to him.

  “Eat your food, Jossis,” she said, in a language he clearly would not be able to understand. “Regain your strength. We will have much to talk about in the coming days.”

  Three days later, the Lohoras were ensconced in their winter home. It was a good campground, right up against the mountain in a shallow bowl of valley through which a thin stream of heated water made a wandering pass. Eleazar and Adam grumbled a little about feeling closed in, surrounded by stone, but Miriam liked the feeling. She had grown up sheltered by mountain, after all. She liked the sense of walls and ceiling holding her close at night.

  The problem with settling in one place for any length of time, of course, was food. When the tribe was on the move, it could catch a little wildlife here, harvest a few fruits and grains there, and move on before everything was picked clean. But if they were to stay here for two or three months, they would, within a short period of time, dig up every root and tuber and scare away all the game. Not only that, it would not take them long to gather all the firewood within easy reach. Thus virtually all their waking hours were dedicated to laying in food and fuel for the winter.

  Hunting parties went off for days at a time so the men could bring back sizable hauls of game, and the women would spend the next week drying and salting the meat. The older children were sent out to scour the countryside for timber, and Amram made quite a stir the day he tied himself and two other boys to a huge fallen tree that they dragged all the way back to the camp. When the women weren’t dressing meat, they were out on gathering expeditions, digging through the snow and hard earth for edible products below the surface of the soil.

  Miriam was a little amazed at how much could be accomplished during the day when the sole goal was survival. Until now, the Edori had expended much of their energy on moving from place to place, and although she had thought they were efficient and productive then, she saw that the travel itself had been a task, and one that ate most of their time. Now, as the Lohoras readied themselves for winter, they became a different people altogether: focused, practical, and disinclined to waste time or energy.

  Miriam threw herself into all the camp tasks with great willingness. She still was not good enough with a rock to bring down more than the unluckiest game hen, so she concentrated on gathering the roots and tubers that she had become good at identifying. She preferred this work to cutting and drying animal meat—she even preferred the task of gathering up the week’s laundry and carrying it down to the hot spring for washing, so she often took care of this task for her tent. The water was so steamy, even when the air was raw, that she would climb right in with the laundry and immerse herself to the chin. Sometimes these dips in the stream were the only moments all day that she was truly warm.

  She did so much washing that her hands became red and chapped, but Bartholomew made her a salve of animal fat and herbs, and it helped put some of the suppleness back into her skin. It smelled dreadful, of course, but after a while she didn’t even mind that. Between digging in the dirt and slapping around dead animal carcasses, none of them smelled too good by day’s end, and not everyone was as fastidious as Miriam was about cleaning up every day.

  Jossis, too, could often be found down at the river, bathing.

  By the time they had settled in to the mountain camp, Jossis had recovered well enough to move on his own and care for himself completely. Miriam suspected he was not up to full strength, but he was able to walk for most of a day, his hand often resting on the cart for support, and he was no longer a burden to his caregivers. He surprised everyone by putting up his own tent the day they arrived at the mountain encampment. He must have been watching Dathan and Bartholomew more closely than they knew to be able to reproduce the complex actions of intertwining pole and guy.

  That same day, he joined the others at the central campfire, instead of waiting in his tent for Miriam to bring him food. There were five cauldrons set up, two holding meat stew, one a vegetable medley, and two some combination of ingredients that the cooks had decided to try for the night. Miriam walked with him from pot to pot, helping him avoid the foods that might make him sick.

  “Yes,” she said, pointing at the vegetable cook pot. She had been at some pains over the past few days to teach him “yes” and “no,” and while she wasn’t positive how he had translated the words, he did seem to associate the meanings good and bad with the appropriate syllables. “Yes. No. No. No.”

  “Toteyosi,” he said, and spooned up food from the cauldrons that she had indicated were safe.

  As he always had while in the seclusion of his tent, Jossis observed a ritual before eating his food. But he was not oblivious to the Edori rituals, either. That first night he ate with them, he appeared to listen closely as Bartholomew sang the prayer of thanksgiving. The next two evenings, he did not begin to eat his own meal until this song had been performed by some member of the tribe. Miriam was not sure that anyone noticed this but her.

  When they had been camped under the mountain for three days, Miriam went down to the little stream to wash a mound of clothes—and herself—with the strong soap that Tirza had been hoarding all season. It was a chilly day, but not as bitter as it had been, so Miriam only minded a little that the dripping clothes held tight against her chest were soaking her right through, and making her even colder. She had just made it to her own tent and dropped the clothes to the ground, when Jossis materialized beside her.

  “Tatsiya?” he asked, emphasizing the last syllable, as he so often did.

  “Ska?” she replied, pushing back her damp hair and looking up at him. He was so tall, and still so bony, that it was almost painful to look at him. His eyes never ceased to startle her, often though she looked into them.

  “Tatsiya,” he said insistently. He pointed down at the wet clothes, then reached out a hesitant finger to touch her wet hair. “Notebie? Tatsiya?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Miriam told him, spreading her hands. Between them, this gesture had come to mean I don’t know.

  He looked around
as if to find a prop, but whatever he wanted was not immediately visible. Instead, he cupped one hand before him, and with the other, mimed the action of pouring something into it. “Tatsiya,” he said firmly. Then he pointed, first to the clothes, then at Miriam’s hair. “Tatsiya.” Now he pretended to be splashing air into his face, and scrubbed his hands down his cheeks. “Notebie?” he added, and looked at her hopefully.

  “Do you mean water?” she demanded. “Yes, water nearby. Come and I’ll show you.”

  The stream wasn’t far, but hard to see if you weren’t looking for it, so she was not surprised that Jossis had not stumbled across it. It hissed and bubbled up from a cracked hole at the base of the mountain, paused to make a little stone pool about a quarter mile from the camp, and then wound away past the outflung fingers of Mount Galo. The Lohoras got all their drinking water from the stone pool, so they washed themselves and their clothes some distance downstream.

  They had to clamber over a few pointed boulders to make it to the edge of the stream, but then they were practically standing in the warm water. “Tatsiya?” she asked, pointing down.

  But Jossis was already on his knees, no doubt cutting his thin flesh on those quartz-studded rocks, and happily dipping his hands into the steaming water. He leaned over and practically thrust his face into the stream, using his hands to gouge up great sprays of water to cover his head and his hair. Miriam could sympathize. She wished she had thought to bring soap with them, and a change of clothes so he could fully savor the experience of getting thoroughly clean.