4: Witches' Blood

by Ginn Hale

  “Up all day in the infirmary and now working all night with me in the kitchen,” Samsango remarked. “You must be exhausted, Jahn.”

  “I’m fine,” John said. He knew Samsango to be a caring man, who had gone out of his way to help John settle in the monastery when he’d first arrived. Samsango took pains to see to the health of even the most ill-tempered goats and weasels. Yet, he could also easily conclude that a girl accused of witchcraft must be burned. He didn’t seem able to even imagine any other course of action.

  Intellectually, John knew that it was just a matter of culture. Samsango had no way of perceiving any morality apart from Payshmura holy law. Within the Basawar culture, Samsango was perfectly consistent. He was kind and just. It was only from John’s point of view that a contradiction emerged.

  John wondered briefly if this was how vegetarians felt watching their companions eat meat. Or how pacifists felt watching popular war films.

  He didn’t want this sensation of revulsion. He liked Samsango. That was why he had come down to the kitchens in the first place. But he couldn’t think of anything to say, any way to stop feeling alienated by the other man. He suddenly thought of Kyle, recalling the way his old roommate had, at times, just stood there staring at him. He, too, must have been shocked by the society around him. John wondered which of his own actions had sent waves of secret revulsion through Kyle.

  “You look like you’re about to fall asleep where you’re sitting,” Samsango said. The dull red glow of the kitchen fires softened the deep wrinkles of the old man’s face. Samsango’s expression was gentle, fatherly. John couldn’t help but smile at him.

  “I suppose I am. I’m probably slowing you down tonight,” John said.

  “No.” Samsango patted a ball of dough down onto the cooking sheet. “This is the last. After it’s baked, I’ll be done. Though I have a little more room on the sheet…perhaps I should make a treat for our brothers who will be marching down the mountain.”

  He collected scraps of dough and worked them quickly into fat little buns. Once he was done, he laid a thin cloth over them and pushed the cooking sheet aside to allow the rolls to rise. Taye flour still caked his hands. He wiped them on a spare dishcloth, then looked up at John again.

  John wanted to say something more, but he couldn’t stop thinking of the girl who would be burned. Did she have friends or family? Was there anyone who would want to help her? Could they help her? What would he would do if Laurie were ever discovered and condemned? The heat of the bread oven seemed suddenly more intense.

  He didn’t think he could imagine anything more painful, or terrible, than burning.

  “I can see that you’re troubled, Jahn,” Samsango commented. “Would it help to tell me why?”

  John didn’t respond immediately; keeping his inner thoughts secret had become too much of a habit for him. But this was something he did want to share with Samsango, he realized.

  “Did you know that before the first siege at Ganaa there were no witches?”

  Samsango’s bushy gray eyebrows shot up. “You have been listening to Ushman Hann’yu too much. He’s from the south. They don’t know anything there except what they read in books.”

  “But it’s true. I looked it up.”

  Samsango cocked his head, seeming to contemplate something just past John.

  “Long ago they might not have been called witches,” Samsango said at last, “but there have always been people who are tempted to misuse Parfir’s blessings. They are not always bad people, but when they do wrong, they must be punished.”

  “But to burn a girl to death—”

  Samsango held up a silencing hand. “I understand your turmoil, Jahn. If I’m honest, I will tell you that I share your sorrow for the poor child.” He sighed heavily. “But remember, if the prior hears you repeating the things that Ushman Hann’yu tells you, you won’t just be whipped. You might endanger Ushman Hann’yu as well. And you could lose that braid you fought so hard to earn or be barred from the presence of the ushiri’im!”

  Samsango looked truly distressed by the thought of this. He placed a callused, flour-caked hand over John’s fingers. His touch felt surprisingly warm.

  “For the sake of the ushiri’im, if not yourself, you should keep your peace. They need your strength.”

  “The ushiri’im just need a body to bear their wounds. It doesn’t matter if it’s mine or not,” John responded.

  “You do them a great service,” Samsango pronounced. He glanced at the raw scar that wound around John’s wrist as he did so. The injury was recent and had been Fikiri’s.

  When the boy had been brought into the infirmary, his fingers had been gashed down to the bone. He had fixed John with a look that was half-shock and half-accusation, but he had said nothing. John had taken as much of Fikiri’s wound as he could without losing his own fingers. Now both their palms and wrists were crossed with the same tender, red scars like some blood-brother pact gone terribly wrong.

  “Modesty is good.” Samsango’s voice cut through John’s wandering thoughts. “But you should take pride in your station, you know. Not many of the ushvun’im can serve the ushiri’im so well as you do. It’s a great contribution.”

  John gave a lackluster nod. If it wasn’t him, then it would have been someone else. But Samsango wouldn’t see it that way.

  “And to live up in the holy chambers.” Samsango closed his eyes as if he were savoring a delicious sweet. “To be so near the holiest of the holy. I envy you a little.”

  “Only a little?” John teased.

  Samsango opened his eyes. “Not so much that I’d want to be wrapped in bandages every day of my life.”

  “It’s not the bandages that are so bad,” John replied. “It’s what’s under them.”

  “Indeed.”

  The warm air hung thick with the smell of taye flour and faint dry spices. The moist scent of the loaves baking in the ovens began to spread through the kitchen. John took in a deep breath, knowing that the scent should have conjured images of his mother or grandmother, but neither of them had ever baked bread. His only association with the aroma was here in Rathal’pesha. When he returned to Nayeshi, he thought, the smell would remind him of sitting here in the flickering light of the cooking fires, watching Samsango.

  “I imagine you’re excited about the Harvest Fair,” Samsango said.

  Most of the men in the monastery were anticipating the annual fair with obvious excitement. Even Dayyid had mentioned it with a tone that struck John as almost enthusiastic.

  “Now that you’ve earned your braid, you’ll be allowed to attend. You won’t believe everything you’ll see there. I still remember the first time my father took me. The air was like perfume, with so many scents. Southern apples and honey sweets. Wine. And there were dancers and singers all the way from Vundomu. And the things there, glass lamps in every color you could imagine, embroidered bolts of silks, fat roasting dogs.” He grinned wide, exposing the few teeth he had left. “I feel like a boy again just thinking about it.”

  John found himself smiling at innocence of Samsango’s nostalgia.

  “You’d better watch for the game tables, though, and the wine sellers.” Samsango’s expression grew stern and John couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. “They’ll take advantage of even a poor old ushvun and then coldly turn him away when his few stones are gone.”

  “I’ll be careful,” John assured him.

  “It’s easily said, but harder to do. You get swept up in the music and colors and all the strange new people. And the dancing women. A young man like you has to watch out for them particularly. They’re so lovely that it’s easy to forget yourself. Then the prior will be shouting at you for months.”

  “Do you want me to keep an eye out for you?” John asked.

  “At my age?” Samsango laughed. “The prior would proclaim it one of Parfir’s miracles if I were to get up to trouble with a dancing girl. No, I’m just warning you. Some of these girls come a
ll the way from Nurjima. They’re clever and beautiful and some are a little wicked. A young man like you has to be careful.”

  “I will be.”

  “Should you keep an eye out for me?” Samsango shook his head as he repeated John’s offer. “You can be so naive, Jahn. As if a lovely city girl is going to chase down an old prune like me.”

  “Some people like prunes,” John replied.

  “Not poor prunes,” Samsango said. “Nobody likes a poor prune.”

  “I like you.”

  “I like you as well, Jahn. But you’re not much of a substitute for a dancing girl.” Samsango patted John’s hand, as if he was indulging a child. “Now that bread needs to be turned, doesn’t it?”

  Taking the old man’s implicit suggestion, John opened the oven door. Heat washed over him like a sudden afternoon sun. He wasn’t very experienced at turning trays of bread, having spent far more time on the practice grounds than in the kitchens. He slid the large, oven peel under the tray of bread and rotated it, careful not to upset the tray and send the rolls bouncing into the fire. The heat swallowed his arms and rushed over his face. Beads of sweat immediately rose across his brow and just as quickly evaporated.

  Heat rolled over him in waves, growing steadily more encompassing. Flickers of discomfort built into an intensity. John could smell the fine hairs on his arms scorching. His fingers trembled as the sensation grew to searing pain.

  When he finally finished and jerked the peel out of the oven, the warm air of the kitchen felt frigid against his hands.

  “Oven too hot for you?” Samsango asked.

  John only nodded.

  “I used to be the same way,” Samsango assured him. “But, you know, it’s like anything. You get used to it.”

  “I don’t know if I want to get used to it.” John scowled at his red fingers.

  “It can’t be helped.” Samsango shrugged. “You do something enough and it becomes part of your nature.”

  John frowned at the inherent truth of Samsango’s words. It was intrinsically human to adapt to his current surroundings. He had been living in Basawar for two years. Soon, it would be three. His body had grown used to hard labor. His skin was tanned and callused, his hair drawn back into an ushvun’s braid. On the rare occasions that he caught his own reflection in a polished mirror, it looked strange to him. He could stare at himself and find nothing that marked him as foreign from the other men of Rathal’pesha.

  Basawar vocabulary came to him easily. Even in his dreams, the words and images all arose from this world. When he thought of his home, he thought of Nayeshi, not Earth.

  John suddenly realized why he had been so focused on his alienation from Samsango this evening. He hated it, but he also needed it. He needed that feeling to remind him of who he was. He needed its discomfort to keep him from becoming the man he played at being, because it would be easy and natural to adjust and settle into this life.

  But he couldn’t allow himself to overlook witch burnings just because they took place out of his sight. And he couldn’t be proud of helping children like Fikiri learn to endure the pain of wounds that could kill or cripple them. No matter how much he wanted to feel at ease with Samsango or Hann’yu, no matter how desperately he wanted to lose himself in adoration of Ravishan, it couldn’t come at the cost of his identity.

  Once Samsango had settled back down at the kitchen table, he said, “You still look troubled.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “Then you should sleep.” Samsango smiled. “If man’s hungry, then he should eat. If a man’s tired, he should sleep. There are very simple solutions to most problems. It’s only that men resist their natures.”

  John took in the pragmatic wisdom of this and nodded. “You’re right. I’ll go.”

  He started for the door and Samsango called out to him, “Thank you for coming down to see me. It’s nice not to be lonely, even if you’re not a dancing girl.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  A day later, John was immersed in the exuberant atmosphere of the Harvest Fair. Grim, muddy Amura’taye had been transformed into something beautiful. Just as Samsango had predicted, the displays of color and noise did amaze him.

  After living so long within the monastery, where the sacred quiet was broken only by solemn chanting, John had almost forgotten about the existence of music and dance. Now, the air seemed alive with it. As he walked through the rows of tents, makeshift wooden stalls, and painted carts, the sweet tones of flutes and stringed instruments whirled around him. Different melodies rose from different directions. They tangled with the scents of strange foods, strong perfumes, and living bodies pressed close in the afternoon heat.

  In front of John, under the shade of a dull yellow tent, three women sang as they patted flatbread between their hands. Two of the women were older, their white hair partially hidden under red widows’ veils. Doubtless, they had both lost the same husband. The third woman was younger, the daughter-in-law of the older two, John guessed. She, like most of the married women at the Harvest Festival, was obviously too poor to afford silver wedding rings. Instead, her fingers were banded with black tattoos.

  Her voice rose in a pure clarity, striking notes as if she were ringing bells. Beneath her song came the constant, rhythmic slap of the flatbread cakes striking against palms. The three women worked in harmony, singing and pounding out the cakes, tossing them easily onto a thin sheet of heated metal and then flipping them up to the narrow counter where the vendor stood.

  They sang of the Samsira River and the spring floods that fertilized the fields of Amura’milaun. John found the song beautiful despite its simplicity.

  “Yellow honey cakes!” the man called out. “Fresh and sweet!”

  His voice hardly carried over all the other vendors’ cries. Countless tents, wagons, and stalls wound around each other, creating their own billowing bright streets. The Harvest Fair grew up like a second brighter, louder city outside the gates of Amura’taye. Crowds of people had come from all across the north to sell, buy, and gawk at the exotic goods of the farthest lands.

  Hundreds of strangers moved around John like a living liquid, surging forward, rocking back, spilling into narrow spaces between wagons, then flowing back into the constant push and brush of bodies. Every human and animal odor washed over him and seeped through the scents of flowers, perfumes, fruits, and foods. The voices of hawkers cut through one another, only to be lost under the constant roar of the crowd. Children’s squeals and screams split the air, as did the shrieks of caged birds and the bleats of agitated goats.

  And yet, the music somehow carried through it all. It became a delicate stream of order flowing through the rolling chaos. As John walked further into the din of shouts and murmurs, he could still pick out the voices of the three women.

  Only when John left the avenue of food and flower vendors did he lose the thread of their song.

  He stood in a new maze of merchants that appeared to be dedicated to textiles and jewelry. Bolts of embroidered cloth and long swathes of delicate lace hung from racks. Strings of glass beads and beaten metal charms lay in heaps on tables. He wondered if he was getting any closer to where he should have been: Binders’ Row.

  None of the ushvun’im were supposed to travel outside the monastery alone, particularly not when they would be exposed to the delights and temptations of gambling tables and dancing girls. Before any of them had been excused to attend the Harvest Fair, they had been assigned partners. John had known better than to hope that Ravishan would be his. Ravishan’s earlier transgression and his recent disappearance had inspired Dayyid to designate himself as Ravishan’s partner for all three days that the priests were allowed to attend the Harvest Fair.

  Hann’yu had requested John’s company and Dayyid had agreed offhandedly. However, the moment they had reached Amura’taye, Hann’yu had simply wandered off, saying he would meet John in the Binders’ Row after fifth bell. John hadn’t minded at first. He could keep himself ente
rtained easily enough. But soon he realized that without Hann’yu, he couldn’t let Dayyid see him, and that meant that he couldn’t see Ravishan either.

  Twice already he’d been forced to duck into a tent to avoid Dayyid. And there were other ushiri’im, ushman’im, and ushvun’im at the fair as well. John didn’t know any of them well enough to assume that they wouldn’t report him to Dayyid. So John had spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon cagily scanning the gaudy crowds for dull gray Payshmura cassocks. Every time he glimpsed an approaching pair of his fellow priests, he was forced to plunge deeper into the crowds or hide in random tents. The situation had infused John’s entire morning with a paranoid and furtive feeling of criminality.

  Now, with fifth bell finally approaching, he could not find the rendezvous point. Sighing, he pushed his way forward through the throng of packed bodies. He watched enviously as two barefooted children darted between a bearded man and his wives. They dashed ahead and ducked through the flaps of a tent. His own progress had to be slower and more gentle. He was too big to easily slip between people unobtrusively. Though, he had noted that people tended to move aside the moment they noticed his gray cassock and holy braid. Among the poorer population, the deference was most notable. The women bowed their heads and drew back beside their husbands or brothers. The men often averted their eyes or held up their hands in the Payshmura symbol of peace. John returned the gesture and passed on.

  As a family of raggedly dressed herders pulled quickly aside for him, John caught a glimpse of a party of silk-clad women moving through the crowd. Their skirts were all made from the same shimmering swathes of green silk—the vivid color worn only by the Bousim family. John quickened his pace. He guessed that he looked particularly intimidating moving fast and with obvious intent. Young mothers jerked their children out of his way and men stepped aside. Only a few seconds later, he had caught up to Lady Bousim’s entourage.