Ochieng came to me as others dragged the body away, holding his pale palms out to me and offering their light. He accompanied me to the edge of the bathing area, gently extracting the blades from my grip and rinsing the blood from them and my hands. Remembering Kaja’s repeated instructions, I drew a cloth from a pocket and carefully dried the blades before sheathing them.
“Ivariel,” Ochieng said, not touching me, but moving insistently into my range of vision. He’d said my name a number of times, I realized. I met his serious gaze. “I will stand guard so you may bathe in peace,” he told me, in the manner of a man who’d said the same thing numerous times. “Wash away the blood.”
I nodded, then moved into the area screened by rushes and stripped. Ochieng stood with his back to me and arms folded, every line of his body a challenge to any that might approach. Sliding into the water, not cool, but cooler than the heated air, I ducked my head under and scrubbed fingers through my hair, sticky with resistance. When I surfaced, darkening crimson spiraled around me, following the lazy currents. I dipped again and again, using a handful of sand from the bank to scrub my hair and skin before rinsing. Until the water ran clear.
Just in case, I checked myself over, though I thought none of the blood was fresh and none of it mine. Finally, I emerged from the water, Danu acceding the bright sun to Glorianna’s softer grasp.
“There’s a bag behind me,” Ochieng called without turning. “A drying cloth and a change of your clothing.”
Grateful for the consideration—for a service I’d once have expected without thought or gratitude—I dried myself and put on the fresh leathers, transferring my belts and blades. The vambraces were my only pair, as were the boots, so I dipped them in the water and dried them as best I could before donning them all again. I also washed the leathers I’d been wearing, somewhat astonished at the amount of blood that coiled away from them. Somewhat distantly I recalled that I’d have to oil them, the boots, and the vambraces, once it all dried more.
Finally, I stepped up beside Ochieng, who regarded me gravely. An unusual expression for him. “Come and eat,” he said, in that same gentle voice he’d been using with me. It made me wonder, now that I felt something of myself again, how I’d seemed to him. To all of them. A madwoman, covered in blood, carving a man to pieces while he cried for mercy.
For he had, once he’d realized his tender prey had lethal claws. He’d begged me to stop, as I’d once begged Rodolf to stop. Rodolf. I hated that his name had returned to my mind. A man had begged me not to kill him, and I’d killed him anyway, without hesitation or remorse.
And without regret. On some level that bothered me. I should feel something for killing that man, for being drenched in his blood while he lay dying at my feet. But I felt nothing.
Or, if an image can be a feeling, I felt as I had in the predawn mist with those great cats. How we’d looked at each other in silence, in that time before the sun rose again.
~ 12 ~
After that, the men all treated me differently. Well, all but Ochieng, who spoke to me as always, cheerfully carrying the weight of our one-sided conversations. The others, especially Hart, deferred to me in a new way. Not exactly respect, for they’d been respectful all along, but more acknowledging my presence among them, asking me questions and paying attention to my unspoken replies.
No one spoke much of the incident. They simply handed me food and water when Ochieng and I returned to the camp, and I took my predawn watch as usual. The things I fretted over—whether someone would call me to task for harming a man, whether I’d be too afraid to stand watch after that—did not materialize. I’d not only struck, but killed a man, a death sentence for a woman in Dasnaria, and they’d cheered for me. To them, I’d done what I’d been brought along to do.
When I took my turn guarding our camp, I did what I now thought of as my watch dance, and no one paid me any mind.
I didn’t much like to think about what had come over me. Still, Kaja’s voice came to me. Clear heart. Clear mind. Deceiving yourself only muddies both. So, in the light of day, surrounded by the song of the caravans, under Danu’s shining eye, I revisited the memory. How that man had become Rodolf in my mind.
How I’d enjoyed slicing him to ribbons.
And I discovered, there in the depths of my heart, a murderous hatred I hadn’t realized I’d nurtured. It lay coiled there, in the unexamined pit where I’d stuffed everything that had happened. Like a salamander finding an ungroomed wallow under the bushes, where the leaves hadn’t been cleared away, so they rotted softly and undisturbed, my hatred had grown fat and sleek beneath the layers of fear, humiliation, pain, and betrayal.
I wanted desperately to talk to Kaja about it, for I thought she might have understood, even though I’d told her little of what had happened to me. She’d read a great deal into my scars, however, and likely guessed most of it. Plenty of rekjabrel and concubines had borne similar marks of rough handling, so I imagined the same must be true of the larger world.
Since I could not talk with Kaja—or with anyone at all, even had I been so inclined—I simply reviewed the memories. In the seraglio, the servants had crawled under the flowering shrubs to clear away the fallen leaves, so I did the same in my mind. I walked the broad, flat roads, the only shade the wide brim of my hat, and sorted through the layers I’d let settle at the bottom of my heart and mind. I cleared them away, watching as the memories and emotions clouded my being, imagining them floating away, carried by an unseen current.
I had no idea what I’d do with that hatred when it finally had nowhere left to hide itself.
The deeper we went into Chiyajua, the closer to Ochieng’s home, the less traffic we saw. Roads branched away, funneling off caravans we’d seen several nights running at the oases. Fewer wagons passed us, our two drivers and Hart passing back and forth the same song for hours before raising their voices in delight at encountering another.
Everything the wagons carried now was destined for the people of Nyambura. We could likely have put it all in one wagon, but Ochieng said it’s hard on a driver to carry the song alone. He, Hart, and the other men chimed in from time to time to help keep it going. Ochieng’s singing voice surprised me, not deeply booming like his laugh, but a rich and golden tenor that made me want to sing along.
Since I couldn’t—in fact, even had I a voice, I feared I didn’t sing well, having never learned—one day I improvised a dance to go with the song. The refrain had gone to an enumeration of the blessings of the earth, with many words I didn’t recognize, but I knew the ones for the pebbles of the road. Picking up two, I balanced them on my index fingers, holding them aloft as I dipped and twirled along with the song. A slower beat than I usually danced to, but one suited to the syrupy feel of Danu’s sun pouring down on our ponderous procession.
The song took on a different theme, and I heard my name as part of it. Ivariel of the blades, of the silent dances, of eyes like the ocean she came across, mysterious and merciless. I wasn’t surprised enough to falter, or bobble my stones—nothing could interrupt my dances—but I did fold the pebbles into my palms, holding them there, and resumed walking normally.
Ochieng only smiled.
* * * *
We arrived at Nyambura at midday, which I took as a good omen, as high noon belongs to Danu. It made me happy to think She’d guided my footsteps to that place, rather than that I’d seized upon the offer to accompany Ochieng because I lacked the courage or wherewithal to think of something else.
In truth, I had no idea what I’d do in Nyambura, but I wouldn’t fret over it just yet. We topped a rise in the endless plain of burnished grasses, and there below lay a fertile valley. A broad river wound through it, silver as a brightly polished sword. Large houses—built like all I’d seen in Chiyajua, with platforms of a densely woven material, grass roofs, and fluttering curtains for walls—ranged along the river. Many had decks or piers o
n poles sunk into the water. Boats with colorful sails moved up and down the river, some tied up at the house piers, others coming and going.
“In Nyambura, the river is our main street,” Ochieng said, coming up next to me and gazing down at his home with evident pleasure. “People live there, while the businesses are set back, reached by canals.”
Now that he pointed them out, I followed the lines of smaller channels that led away from the river, going up and down the smaller buildings, connecting them. They split into smaller channels yet, that diverged in spider’s web networks through green fields that radiated out in all directions.
“Irrigation,” Ochieng informed me with pride, though I didn’t recognize the word he used at the time. “Do you know this? To feed water to the crops when the rain doesn’t fall. Which is most of the time here. Except in the rainy season, when it falls all day, every day. The river floods and we must close the channels to town. Everyone stays at home and works on quiet tasks.”
I raised my brows at that and he chuckled. “No, the houses don’t flood. See how they are all built up on stilts? We stay safe and dry above the water, and the levees along the banks protect the fields and businesses. It’s a good system—though some get stir-crazy if the rains go on too long. Those sorts usually take to the caravans and go elsewhere before the season makes the roads impassable.”
That made sense then, as did the caravan refrains praising the pebbles of the road, along with its firmness and dryness.
“See there?” Ochieng pointed a long finger to a very large house on the far end, on this side of the river. It sported many decks, stairways and piers into the river, along with rows of long, low buildings behind it. Huge gray shapes moved around and in between them, also clustering in the nearby meadow. “This is my home, where the D’tiembo family has lived for many generations,” he told me, pride and a hint of eagerness in his voice, as if he hoped I’d approve.
I didn’t care about the house so much, but squinted at the big moving shapes. Animals, for sure. Could they be… Then one, with enormous tusks visible from even this distance, raised its trunk. What Kral and I had long ago called a face-tail. With the trunk serpentlike in the air, it trumpeted a challenge that rang across the peaceful valley.
Rounding on Ochieng, I grasped his hands. He read the question in my face—fortunately, as I might’ve burst with being unable to ask.
“Endiviunts,” he said. “Elephants. Have you never seen them? This tribe has lived with my family for generations. We train them and work with them to build the levees, to harvest wood for building.”
I laughed, which maybe had a hysterical edge to it. And tasted tears, so realized I also wept. After all this time, I’d found the elephants. This had been Kaja’s surprise. If only Harlan could be with me, to see how far I’d come.
Elephants.
“They are most gentle creatures,” Ochieng reassured me, sounding puzzled and hopeful at once. He squeezed my hands and I let go, suddenly aware how precipitously I’d grabbed ahold of him. What must he think of me, the woman who killed a man without flinching, going to pieces at the sight of an elephant?
“If you like,” he continued, glancing at his empty hands, then at me, “I can teach you. You can work with us, learn to ride them.”
I stepped back and bowed deeply, thanking him for the gift he offered.
~ 13 ~
“It will take some time to travel the remainder of the distance,” Ochieng said, raising his voice for all to hear, “since the negombe are already at rest, we may as well take a meal and freshen ourselves. No sense arriving looking like ruffians ourselves,” he confided to me with a waggle of his eyebrows.
I’d been so rapt by the sight of the city in the valley—and then staggered from the sight of the elephants—that I hadn’t realized the drivers had stopped their song and halted the caravan while I stood there. A bit chagrined, I nodded. There was no oasis nearby, but Ochieng kept stores of water in the wagons. As we’d arrived at our final destination, one with an enormous river, we could likely squander that water on cleaning up.
Ochieng beckoned me aside, speaking quietly. “If you’ll forgive me, Priestess Ivariel—you might wish to tend to your hair, before you’re seen in Nyambura.”
I blinked at him, flooded with voices from the past. Did he criticize my appearance? I couldn’t possibly grow it long enough to be appropriately feminine, nor could I—
“It grows out,” he explained in a low voice, “the white at the root is quite noticeable when you’re not wearing the hat. And your brows and eyelashes. Perhaps this is natural for your people, but if not, it could be that you use a black dye to cover the true color…” He trailed off circumspectly, as if merely voicing it further would be an unforgivable breach of privacy. “Regardless, there’s a space over there, to tend to such things, should you wish to.”
The skin of my face heated, making it feel stony. With no mirrors, I’d forgotten about my hair entirely. Kaja would be disgusted with my carelessness. I nodded curtly, unable to be gracious in my exposure and embarrassment.
Ochieng simply let me be, apparently unbothered by my rudeness. I retrieved my packs from the wagon, along with a cask of water. Small enough to carry under one arm, the casks when full nevertheless possessed a weight of density—and it had surprised me to find I could carry one easily now. Even two, one under each arm, when I’d helped fill them in the morning at the oasis, in preparation for the day’s journey.
I also took a curtain made of a soft woven material, the kind we used to make privacy in places without walls, draping it over the branch of a nearby tree. These trees grew unlike any I’d seen in Dasnaria or Elcinea. They reminded me of very tall mushrooms, if the cap were made of branches feathered with tiny, deep green leaves. With a smooth, almost golden bark, the trunks rose up without feature, abruptly blooming into the canopy. And they always stood solitary, the lone tree sometimes within eyesight in any direction.
I’d become glad of my height, as I could reach the lowest branches where others—like Hart—could not. Other travelers had used this place for a similar purpose, since a table made of heavy wood sat in the nook of the tree’s trunk. Probably Ochieng knew that. Setting my things on it, I stripped to the waist, leaving on only the silk camisole I wore beneath the leathers. The relief from the stifling heat of the leather made me sigh with pleasure. I’d grown accustomed to being hot, however, and I’d discovered I’d far rather be too hot than too cold.
Though I was never too cold in Chiyajua. There, for the first time since I’d left the cocoon of my birth, I’d actually sweltered. But that discomfort diminished to minor status compared to fear of discovery or being vulnerable to attack. Between those two possibilities, I’d rather be attacked.
That moment in the baths at the Temple of Danu had stayed with me. The look on Kaja’s face when she touched my scars, the horror and pity in her eyes… I didn’t care to go through that ever again. Danu had given me the shield of chastity to hide my ugliness from others, and I would embrace it.
Fortunately Ochieng’s people treated the privacy of the flimsy curtains as if they were walls of iron or stone. I supposed in a world where barriers seldom consisted of more than that, custom became all that gave their walls substance. Also fortunate, the vial of black dye remained unbroken, wrapped in one of my old gloves, now stripped of the jewels. I should make use of my new counting skills and make a sort of calendar to keep track of the days, and simply apply the dye according to the numbers, lest I forget again.
Aha! Or time it to match my menses, as that bleeding had just completed its most recent cycle. My menses had returned to me along with the rest of my healing, occurring twice now since I’d fled Dasnaria, approximately the same time apart, too. The first time had been aboard the Valeria, and I’d wept when I realized the meaning of the bright blood. At first I’d worried, thinking my internal wounds had reopened.
Then, as the import set in—natural blood, not from injury, but from the cycle of life—I’d sobbed, great spasms of emotion. I’d been beyond relieved not to be carrying Rodolf’s child. In part because I wanted nothing from him. Also because he might give up chasing after me eventually—unlikely, but possible—but he would never give up retrieving his heir, especially if I had a boy. As the panic receded, the waves of relief washing away with it, I found a deep grief remained behind. I would have liked to have a child, and now I never would.
A small price to pay for freedom, perhaps, but a sacrifice nonetheless. So, I would observe it as such. With each cycle of my menses, I’d offer the blood to Danu in thanks for Her protection and setting me free, and I would color my hair again as part of that penance, hiding away the broken Jenna so Ivariel could live.
I used the tiny brushes to stroke dye onto my brows and lashes, for once appreciative of all the time young Jenna had spent on cosmetics, so I could do it by feel alone. When I had access to a mirror—or some sort of reflection, hopefully—I’d touch up the job.
Letting the dye set, I rested in the shade, eating the meal Hart had handed me. A good space of time to consider my options. Ochieng had provided my meals on the trek, calling it reasonable return for my protection of his caravan, though I feared I hadn’t done anything more than act in self-defense, to protect my own hide from further depredation. Now he’d offered to let me work with the elephants, to teach me.
I wanted this. It took me aback, the fervency and certainty of my want. If I’d ever wanted anything more—beyond an abstract craving for Rodolf’s death, something I wouldn’t think about so as not to awaken that hatred, to let it sleep coiled in that dark cave in the hollow of my heart—I couldn’t recall. There had been escape, of course, but that seemed more like reverse wanting. I’d fled what I didn’t want. The more I thought about it, the odder the word sounded to me. Want. Like the bleating of a goat or the whine of a child.
Exile of the Seas Page 10