by Torey Hayden
Torgon could hear the wise woman in the corridor. She wore all her jingles and rattles tied around her waist so that a cacophony of sound preceded her arrival.
The Seer bent close. “Come away now, holy one. The wise woman is here to draw the evil spirits forth.”
“I wish to remain.”
The wise woman approached the pallet. Her dark hair was oiled and scented and bound up in numerous tiny braids. Her face was painted brightly with many colours to warn the evil spirits of her previous successes. Bending over Loki she spread her hands wide, the fingers splayed, and began the ritual movements necessary to locate where in the child’s body the evil spirits dwelled. As she found each place, she set a small iron amulet over it. When all nine were placed, she untied a huge red rattle and began to shake it rhythmically. She closed her eyes and crooned for the birds of night to come and fetch away the spirits.
Torgon watched her intently. There was no holiness in the wise woman. She drew her powers from the dead and it was well known that wise women had no souls.
“Divine benna, come away now,” the Seer whispered. “It is not seemly that you should sit so close to her when she is at her magic. Besides, I wish to talk to you.”
Rising reluctantly, Torgon withdrew to the altar room with the Seer. “Yes? What would you say?”
“Your time would be better spent in prayer at the altar. I have felt the child’s belly and fear there is naught the wise woman can do for her. It is in my mind that she has swallowed a plum stone.”
“What? Surely not.”
“Aye,” he said. “For it always comes as this – a pain here where the stone catches, a fever, death – I have seen it several times before. Her pain is so sudden and so acute that I fear even now the evil spirits have broken free of the plum stone to rule her body.” His expression grew sad. “It shall be a sorrow to her father, for he has always been greatly fond of her. As of this winter, his wife has given him his sixth son, but she remains his only daughter.”
“Is it certain she will die?” Torgon asked.
“Aye, when the plum stone becomes trapped, it rots and that attracts the evil spirits. The wise woman will try to draw them forth but I’ve never seen her master these. They lie deep within the body and can resist her charms.”
Torgon looked pensive.
“Come. We shall pray together at the altar for the safe passage of her soul.”
“No,” she said.
The Seer looked puzzled.
“No. I don’t think it’s as you say,” Torgon murmured. “For why would she have swallowed a plum stone now, when winter is so deep? We are well past the time of plums.”
“A stone will sometimes be missed when the plums are being dried. Or perhaps she swallowed it in summer and it was slow to rot. The weather, as you know, has been very cold this year.”
“This offends my reason,” Torgon replied. “For as I think more upon it, it’s in my mind that Loki does not like the taste of plums. Why then would she have any cause to swallow up the stone?”
The Seer shook his head. “I do not know the answers, holy benna. I only know what I have learned from long experience and this serves me well. So we must leave the wise woman to her rattles. The time has come for you and me to pray.”
“No. Dwr bids me stay beside the girl.” And she left the altar room.
Moving through the small crowd gathered around the young girl’s pallet, Torgon knelt beside Loki. “The Seer fears you have been eating wild plums.”
Grown tearful with the pain, Loki struggled to keep her composure. “No. No, holy benna, I have touched no wild plums.”
“I know the storeroom is a great temptation. And wild plums, especially when they’re dried, are very sweet. It is in my heart to understand how much a child loves sweetness. I wouldn’t be angry with you, Loki, if you were to tell me now you did not resist.”
“But I ate no wild plums at any time. I don’t like them.”
Torgon nodded. “Very well. Then may I lay my hands upon you?”
The Power swelled abruptly as Torgon’s fingers touched the young girl’s skin. Her eyes went blind to the grey stone walls, flickering in the candlelight. What rose instead was the image of Loki lying on a white surface, her abdomen open like the abdomen of the dog. Each part in its own kingdom, the Power whispered.
The girl shrieked in pain when Torgon pressed into the lower left of her body and the noise wrenched Torgon sharply from the trance. Momentarily disoriented, she shook her head to clear it.
“Stop! It hurts too much!” Loki’s hands were on her wrist. “Please, oh holy benna, stop!”
The Seer pushed through the group. “Holy benna, this is unseemly. Come away. The evil spirits will taint you. Turn your mind from this. It isn’t your domain.”
The Power fingered back into Torgon’s mind, making it difficult to concentrate on what the Seer said. The body of the dog. Each to its own kingdom. Walk among the kingdoms. Heal a moon kiss with no greater weapon than a needle and a thread, the Power whispered.
The iron amulets had fallen from Loki’s body during Torgon’s exploration, so the wise woman leaned down and picked them up again. Replacing them on Loki’s abdomen, she raised a long string of bells and clashed them noisily.
Torgon couldn’t make sense of anything when her attention was pulled in so many directions. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head and turned in irritation. “Silence!” The wise woman didn’t hear her and clanged her bells again. “Silence!” Torgon shouted.
Everything then fell abruptly still, save the Power, thrumming in her head. The acolytes froze, wide-eyed. The Seer’s mouth fell open. The wise woman clapped the noisemakers tight against her generous bosom.
“Get out,” Torgon said to the wise woman. “Such noise may drive off evil spirits but it is offending Dwr as well.”
The wise woman lowered her bells. Her painted face rendered the nuances of her expressions unreadable, but her eyes rolled white like a frightened calf’s. There was a long, uncertain moment, as she looked from the Seer to Torgon and back again, but then she nodded and backed away from the bed.
“This is not of Loki’s making,” Torgon said. “It is not a plum stone. Dwr speaks to me even now as I stand among you and says to me that one kingdom in her body is rising up to wage war against its peaceful neighbours. They have not the means to stop it; their warriors have already been defeated, but this kingdom must be overthrown. The child will die if its warriors are allowed to leave its borders.”
“What difference does it make,” the Seer asked, “to call this a warlike kingdom and not a poisoned plum stone? If the other kingdoms have already lost their warriors, nothing can be done.”
“Dwr bids I take up weapons and fight on their behalf.”
Pouring the heavily scented death oil into a soft cloth, Torgon leaned close to the child. “Don’t be frightened,” she said gently. “Where I am sending you this night I have journeyed many times myself when in search of spirits. It is not a bad place, but only as a dreamless sleep, because Dwr allows you no memory of it when you waken.” She then pressed the cloth over the girl’s face. Moments passed and the movement seeped from Loki’s body. When Torgon lifted the cloth away, the girl lay limp, her breathing shallow.
“Does she walk now among the dead?” one of the children asked.
“Aye,” Torgon said. She raised her head and searched the crowd of acolytes. “Morra? You are eldest. You be my arms bearer. I need fire, that I may pass through the kingdom of blood. I need a good whetstone, that I may keep my weapons very sharp. And I need a fine, metal needle. You’ll find one in my inner cell, lying on the window ledge. And last of all, I need thread. A long piece, and, I think, for a child’s body it must be of gold. Look among Loki’s things. She is of the high-born caste and will have fine clothes. One surely will give up its gold for her.”
From her wrist Torgon removed the small knife and felt its blade for sharpness. She lay the point against the girl
’s abdomen and midst a shocked murmur from the group around her, she cut first through the skin and then the muscle. She pulled back the peritoneum to expose the girl’s organs. As she did so, steam rose from them into the cold winter air. Fearing this might be the evil spirits escaping from the child’s body, the group leaped back. A holy woman gasped and swooned. The wise woman began a soft keening sound. The Seer knelt, as did the acolytes around him.
“Aye, this is a holy sight,” Torgon said. “It is right that you should venerate Dwr at this time. Such sacred things may never be shown you again.”
She prodded slowly through the exposed organs, searching for something akin to what the Power’s visions had shown her. Curious acolytes could not keep themselves at prayer and one by one rose up on their knees to peek at what she was doing.
“This is good, is it not?” Torgon asked a young boy leaning close. “See what a perfect little world it is, kept in its own universe, secret from us? Here is the kingdom of the liver, which is powerful and has many smaller kingdoms which do homage to it.” She gently pushed aside a section of the liver to expose the bile gland. “See? And here, this is the stomach and here too, all these coils, they are allied to the kingdom of the stomach. It is a large kingdom, but it and its allies are peaceable and do not interest other kingdoms much, except for that of blood. The kingdom of blood is interested in everybody’s business! Always wanting to know what happens, it goes to all the other kingdoms and, foolishly, will even try to come to us.” She smiled at the boy and at the others pressing closer. “See how it is all just like our own world? And somewhere in here there is a kingdom like that of the Deer People. And as with the Deer People, this kingdom too will lay waste to all around it, if it is not first destroyed.”
Midst the tangle of intestines, Torgon came across a reddened protrusion. The Power stirred with such intensity that she had little doubt she’d found what she was looking for, but even without the aid of the Power, Torgon would have recognized it as angrily infected. Taking a bit of thread meant for closing the wound, Torgon tied the protrusion off from the rest of the gut. Then with a deep breath to steady her hand, she cut it free.
Torgon examined the remainder of the exposed organs but found nothing else, so she brought the sides of the incision back together and sutured it closed.
“It’s over,” she murmured and took a cloth to wipe her dagger clean. Even in the chill of the winter’s night, perspiration had formed across her brow and she lifted her arm to wipe away. With the motion, a terrible dizziness overtook her. She swayed on the stool.
Alarmed, one of the holy women hurried forward to steady her. “Are you all right, holy benna?”
“Aye, but I am greatly weary. I must rest. But you, all of you, go forth and spend the remainder of the night in prayer. Loki has had to go among the dead and you must pray that Dwr sees fit to guide her back again. You must also pray that the wise woman’s powers have kept other evil spirits far away, such that none could enter the kingdoms of Loki’s body in my shadow. And you must pray for me, that Dwr takes pleasure in what I’ve done.”
Loki awoke from the death oils, but a fever overtook her and it was many days before they knew if she would live or die. Torgon spent most of the time fasting, praying, and kneeling beside the girl’s pallet, passing her hands above the incision again and again, willing it to heal.
On the eighth day, the fever broke and Loki looked up, weak and pale, but clearheaded. Over the next few weeks the incision continued to redden occasionally and spew up bits of thread used in the stitches, but the wise woman came each day to apply a fresh poultice, and at last the redness passed altogether and all that was left was a wrinkled scar, like a sword wound.
Before the moon came again, Loki was able to stand and walk short distances, and it was clear that she would heal. Her father, in appreciation of the miracle, had a sword made from pure gold to lay upon the altar in the compound.
A tremendous celebration was held then, a feast for all the village, even though it was the fourth month of winter and the growing season was still a long way off. Dwr had worked a great healing miracle through his divine embodiment. It was only befitting they should respond with great rejoicing.
Torgon was brought forth in holy robes, the sacred circlet on her head, the golden sword in her hand. She was given the title “anaka,” which meant “fierce healer,” for she had gone as the anaka warriors had gone against the Deer People, and like them, had slain the war-makers. A holy fire was lit and a stag and a hind were sacrificed to Dwr. The village feasted three days and three nights and the holy fire burned throughout.
When the celebrations were over, Torgon withdrew to the high holy place above the forest. It was here that the Power had first come to her, so it was here she returned for contemplation. She’d brought with her the eighth hare, the first one to survive her efforts at entering the kingdoms of the body. She’d kept it alive in the compound with the idea of sacrificing it to Dwr on the high holy place when the appropriate moment came. Now, however, Torgon realized this would not be the right thing to do. Killing it in return for its sacred knowledge seemed unfitting. Torgon considered letting the creature go free to return to its own kind, for she sensed that would honour Dwr. But this idea too she dismissed. Dwr might be honoured by the act, but not the hare. After the sheltered life of warmth and easy food provided in the compound, if she turned it loose now in the freezing snow, it would most likely die before it found its own kingdom. Putting a hand over the creature, she felt for its living warmth through her clothing. What she would do is cease eating the flesh of hares, even in the lean month when hunted meat was often all there was. That would be her oblation. From this moment forth, hares would become a sacred animal to her, in the way of the eagle and the great cat.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“My adviser was this very crusty old doctor named Betjeman,” Laura said. “An excellent teacher but we were all scared to death of him, because he was very demanding. He never accepted less than your best. Never gave you an inch. But he was also very good at nurturing talent.
“He stopped me after seminar one night and asked me what my plans for the future were and whether I intended to specialize. I said I was interested in general surgery, which wasn’t an area at that time that a lot of women were in. He nodded approvingly and said, ‘That’s a good career choice. I’ve been watching how you approach your work and it’s with a whole different insight to most of your fellow students. You’re impressive, Deighton. I have no doubt that if surgery is your interest, you’d be capable of rising right to the top of the field.’
“It made me so proud to have him say that that I dared to tell him I had a dream. I remember saying that I knew it sounded corny, but I didn’t really want a ‘career’. I wanted to go abroad, in the Peace Corps or one of the medical charities, go somewhere where there wasn’t enough medical knowledge, where there wasn’t the trained staff to carry out basic care. I explained that I wasn’t learning this knowledge for myself. I wanted to carry it to others. I wanted to pass it on.
“I loved my studies, but there was a downside. Spending all day in classes and at the hospital and all night writing didn’t leave me time for anything else. Certainly not a social life. Although moving to the apartment had given me the kind of freedom and solitude I craved, I hadn’t appreciated that it would also completely cut me off from people. I didn’t mind too much because I never felt lonely, but I think I knew I was missing out. That’s probably what made me so susceptible to Alec.”
There was a pause. Laura looked down at her hands and examined her fingernails a moment.
“Alec was a radiologist at the hospital where I was doing practical work. Tall, very skinny and with a badly receding chin. Not handsome at all,” she said. “Not the kind of guy I was naturally attracted to. I expect he would have remained invisible to me except for a slapstick episode in the hospital cafeteria one day. I had just gotten my lunch and was carrying it to a table when I managed to
trip over my untied shoelace and threw my spaghetti all over him. There was loud clapping and people shouting, ‘Well done, Deighton!’ I was mortified, but Alec couldn’t have been sweeter about it.
“Anyway, it started from there. He offered to buy me a doughnut to show me there were no hard feelings, and then, as happens with these things, one thing led to another.
“Alec and I started dating and a relationship began to grow. My first real relationship. Not the parallel play Matt and I had engaged in during college. Alec and I started to share ourselves openly because we genuinely wanted to know more about each other.
“It was with Alec that I finally dared to have sex again,” Laura said. “I thought maybe the time had come to try and change my attitude towards sex, because I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever. I didn’t tell him the full details of Steven, but he guessed because he’d had a bit of sexual abuse in his own past. So I trusted he would understand and be sensitive. And he was.
“I still had no pleasure associated with sex. Only pain and loathing. I wish I could say Alec’s sensitivity fixed it all. Poor Alec. He did try. He was so gentle with me, but he just wasn’t very good at it. I don’t think he’d had much more experience of sex than I had. The most important thing in his mind was to make me come. So he wouldn’t quit until I had had a ‘good time’ too, as he put it. He would rub and twiddle and tweak endlessly, even after he’d come himself. I didn’t even realize what he was trying to do the first time and so the sex lasted about three hours. I just wanted to scream at him.” She laughed ruefully. “After that, I just faked it straightaway to get it over with.
“Every time we tried, my mind sat like a vulture on the bedstead, watching me, as if it were outside my body. All I could think about was what a power play sex is, how, when I made him orgasm, he would surrender himself up to it and to me in the process. I’d watch Alec roll over afterwards and go blithely off to sleep and I would lie there awake for hours, thinking about the issue of power and who had it, realizing I would probably never orgasm during sex because I didn’t intend on ever letting someone else have control of me like that. I realized this was Steven’s legacy, but it was one thing to understand why it was there, and a completely different thing to be able to get rid of it.