Skillful Death

by Ike Hamill

  WITHOUT HIS STICK TO defend himself and his snake, Constantine ran. His injured leg didn’t support his weight for long. After a couple of steps it gave out, and he found himself holding it off the ground while his other leg did all the work. Blood pumped down his calf and streamed from his foot. One of the horsemen caught him easily and scooped him up with an arm around his midsection. Constantine’s blows bounced uselessly off the man’s shoulders.

  Constantine found his consciousness fading away as the man strapped him to the back of a horse and tied a piece of cloth around the puncture wounds on his leg. Another man tried to calm the horses as the blond man tied a rope around the snake’s neck. Constantine moaned as he thought of the clean snake hide being dragged behind a stupid horse.

  16 THE BEAR

  DOM SLEPT FITFULLY AND awoke early. Before walking downtown, he stopped at the bakery where Pemba had once worked for almost two weeks before being fired. There, for the price of a half-day’s work, he bought several breakfast breads and some yogurt. He sat in front of the dwelling and waited for Tara.

  He’d considered only her arrival, and hadn’t anticipated how awkward it would be to sit there while all the other workers arrived at the dwelling. The men and older women didn’t make eye contact with Dom. They frowned and looked away as they passed him. He sat on the wall and let their silent disapproval wash over him. The younger women either laughed or sneered as they passed.

  Finally, when Tara came down the path, Dom stood and greeted her.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “My name is Dom. I was wondering if you’d like to have some breakfast with me?” he gestured at the bag of breads.

  “I’ve eaten breakfast already, with my aunt,” she said.

  “Of course,” he said, biting his lip.

  “You’re quite bold, approaching me this way.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why is your name Dom? It means ‘bear’ where I come from. You don’t look much like a bear.”

  “It’s just what they called me when I first arrived. I don’t know why.”

  “I will eat a bite of your breakfast in exchange for a favor. Do you agree?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course,” he said, reaching down and presenting her with the bread. She tore a corner of bread from the piece he held and pushed it between her lips. He watched with his own lips slightly parted as she chewed and swallowed.

  “Can you meet me here after I’m finished working?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said.

  “Good. Then I’ll tell you the favor you can do for me,” she said.

  As she turned, she pulled her scarf up around the back of her neck, as if she didn’t want him to look at it while she walked away.

  Dom sat back down on the wall and stayed there for several minutes before he composed himself enough to go to his own job.

  His hands moved fast all day, as if they wanted to wrap up the job so they could move onto other tasks. As the sun descended past the windows, he scrambled to install the final pipes and test all the fittings. He took no break for lunch, and simply crammed hunks of breakfast bread into his mouth whenever he had a chance. All his labor left him sweaty and dirty by the end of the day, and he realized as he walked back down the path that he was far from presentable. Before he could turn and flee, she appeared, carrying a box.

  Tara walked up to Dom and waited for the other women to walk by. They shot looks at the pair and whispered to each other as they continued down the path. Tara glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were alone before she spoke.

  “This is the favor,” she said, holding the box in front of her. It was a small wooden box, just bigger than the delicate fingers which held it.

  He reached for the box and she pulled it back, clutching it against her chest.

  “I won’t give it to you until I have your word that you’ll carry out my task.”

  “Of course, you have it,” Dom said.

  “You don’t know what it is yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll do it.”

  “It matters to me that you know the task before you accept it.”

  Dom nodded. She walked up the path that led up the hill and he caught up and walked alongside her. She didn’t speak again until they stood at the top of the hill with the pond at their back, looking down at the rooftops of the village. Dom stood next to the trough which he’d dug to supply water to the tank that gravity-fed the pipes he’d installed. He was proud of the ingenuity he’d employed to create the water supply, and was about to boast about it when Tara finally spoke.

  “Inside this box is a small knife. It’s a ceremonial knife, and it can only be viewed when it’s about to be used, so you must not open the box before the correct time.”

  “Okay,” Dom said.

  He waited for her to speak again, and when she didn’t, he began rehearsing a question in his head: “What’s the knife used for?” Before he could ask it, she answered the question.

  “You really don’t know? You’ll use the knife to cleave my soul from my physical body,” she said.

  “Pardon?” Dom asked.

  “This knife, inside the box,” she said. She held it out in front of her chest.

  Dom reached for it and she pulled it back.

  “No, you can’t have it now,” she said. She wrinkled her brow and squeezed her eyes shut. “You do understand the importance of what I’m asking you?”

  “No?”

  “You don’t understand?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve made a mistake,” she said. “I thought you were the one I was supposed to meet. Tell me,” she said, stretching her words and leaving gaps between them, “do you have job?”

  “Yes,” he said, cocking his head and wondering if he should be offended.

  “What...is...it?” she asked. “Your job?”

  “I’m a plumber,” he said.

  “What’s a plumber?”

  “I install pipes in houses to bring them water. This trench is one of mine. It feeds a dozen houses on this street,” he said, gesturing to the stone-lined trough next to where they stood.

  “I’ve heard about you,” Tara said. “The man too lazy to carry a bucket of water.”

  “Yes,” Dom said. He’d grown accustomed to the jibes from those who couldn’t afford pipes installed in their houses. Wealthy people understood the convenience he was offering. Nobody else did.

  “So you work with your hands. You build things. You should have at least passing intelligence, yes?”

  “I suppose,” he said. Dom knew himself to be good at figuring things out, but he’d never considered himself very intelligent.

  “But you seem to be ignorant of knives, and the cleaving of souls,” she said.

  “I am,” he said.

  “Is this because you’re a foreigner? Did they not teach you these things where you’re from? What else don’t you know?”

  “That’s not a question I can answer,” he said. This woman was so beautiful that it made his teeth ache to stand so close to her, unable to touch her. He wanted to hold her close enough to feel her pressed against his entire body. He wanted his fingers to know the texture of her hair, her skin, and her lips. He wanted his face to know the warmth of the side of her neck. But with all that desire, her questions were very off-putting.

  “You can’t even answer that?” she asked.

  “How could I? How could anyone know what they don’t know?”

  “If you can’t even understand the depth of your ignorance, how can you ever hope to overcome it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s start with what you do know.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re a foreigner,” she stated.

  “I suppose,” he replied.

  “You must know at least that. You don’t look at all like a normal person. Your skin is too light, your body is too wide, and your eyes are such a funny color.”
r />   “I suppose. I don’t actually look at myself very often, so I guess I don’t notice these things.”

  “But your skin. How can you help but notice?”

  She held her arm up next to his so he could compare the tone. All he noticed was that her skin was close enough to tickle the wispy black hair on his arm. Dom was familiar with this line of questioning. He’d experienced it for as long as he could remember. His responses were nearly instinctual. He used the same evasive maneuvers one might give if they were caught napping. He led with denial and then softened to ignorance.

  “Lots of people have different color skin. The skin of your own body is not even consistent from your feet to your head.” He used his own statement as an opportunity to review her body from the ground up. It was true—her skin tone did vary from part to part. But it was also true that her skin, in his humble opinion, was perfect.

  “None so light as you,” she said. “And your body?”

  “What of my body? Have you met the baker’s son? He’s far thicker than me. And the Buddha himself would make me look thin.”

  “Your eyes don’t match any I’ve ever seen. They’re too tall and the color is too fanciful. It’s a wonder that they see at all.”

  “What does any of this have to do with your knife?”

  “I’m trying to establish that we both understand you’re a foreigner. Then we can determine why you know nothing of how to use this cleaving knife.”

  “If you need me to do you a favor, then you could just describe that favor and whatever it is, I will do it.”

  “Ah, but first I have to determine if you’ll be able to do my favor, or else what’s the use in asking?”

  “I see,” Dom said.

  “Where were you raised, that you don’t have this knowledge?”

  Dom’s mind leapt to his normal approach. Denial was nearly exhausted, so he should transition to ignorance. But suddenly he didn’t want to work at deceiving this young lady. She was so lovely, but he felt a headache forming which thudded in time with his pulse.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You don’t know where you were raised?”

  “That’s correct,” Dom said. “My first memory is of my master, Denpa. He took me in when I wandered the streets. Before that, all is blank.”

  “Your memory begins afresh, with Denpa?” she asked.

  “I suppose when I think very hard, I can put together small pieces, but they’re really just fragments. It’s as if my memory would start again every few seconds and I would put together where I was and what I was doing just by context. Sometime after Denpa took me in, I began to string together consciousness for longer periods of time, until now, when I suppose I’m just like everyone else.”

  “But we’ve established, you’re not just like everyone else. You look different and you have a strange job.”

  “I suppose,” Dom said.

  “And what of this Denpa? Who takes in a wandering boy who can’t say where he is from?”

  “It wasn’t simply where I was from. I couldn’t say anything. I had no words before Denpa. That’s why he called me Dom—the bear—because all I would do was growl when I was unhappy, or growl in a different way when I was content.”

  “When we met, you said you didn’t know why they called you bear.”

  “I don’t tell people the details of my life. Denpa says it makes them mistrust me.”

  “So why have you told me?”

  “You already mistrust me.”

  17 PARTNERSHIP

  HE WOKE UP IN the same bed, in the same tent, with the morning sun and tree shadows dancing patterns on the wall. This time he was strapped to the bed. He raised his head to see a sparkly woman dabbing a wet cloth at his leg.

  “Your back has healed quite well, but your leg is a mess,” she said.

  “Snake,” Constantine said. His eyes felt glued shut. He struggled to open them fully and wished for the use of his hands to rub them.

  “It’s all anyone can talk about, that damned snake!” She shook her head. “You’d think they would care some about the boy who was bitten by the snake. You’re very lucky, you know. Lucky that thing didn’t envenomate you when it bit your leg. You’d certainly be dead by now. It’s a good thing Sasha was there. Were you two together, or did he happen upon you on the road?”

  “Sasha?” Constantine asked.

  “You must be too tired to even think, you devil,” she said. “You needn’t worry. That damned snake won’t hurt anyone ever again. They’ve skinned it and burned the meat in a bamboo pit. Sasha has declared that he’ll make a beautiful suit from the skin. What a talented boy he is. I always thought he was a bit rough when he was a toddler. He always punched the other little boys when he thought nobody was looking, but look at what a fine manling he has become. You must feel proud to be his best friend.”

  Constantine tracked the words okay, but he couldn’t figure out what the woman was talking about. He knew only two things about the woman: her touch was like silk against the fire in his leg, and she was the most beautiful person he’d ever regarded. His lips parted and his breath heated in his chest as she washed the oozing pus from the punctures in his leg. Constantine rested his head back and focused his attention on the hand which cupped the heel of his foot.

  She continued to talk her nonsense.

  “As you can imagine, they’re all on high alert waiting for the elephant. Some say it won’t come for another year, but others seem to think it will show up by the end of the day. I’m not holding my breath. But I guess nobody expected the snake so soon after the lion, after all.”

  “Lion?” Constantine asked. He raised his head for a second and then let it settle back down on the soft pillow.

  A breeze sent a chill across his naked skin when another woman opened the flap of the tent. Constantine raised an eyelid to see this new woman—a wrinkled hag compared to his caregiver—staring at Constantine with her hands on her hips.

  “They did a terrible job of cleaning him up, but I figured the other dirt can wait until his leg is looking a little better,” the pretty nurse said.

  “We won’t know what other rips and tears he might have until we clean off some of that dirt,” the hag said. “What if he has some infection brewing under this mud? We should take him to the river and dunk him upside down. You can hold him by his snakebit calf, why don’t you?”

  “You’re terrible,” the young nurse said, but she was laughing as she spoke.

  “I’ll get Grandma in here to geld him while he’s strapped down. Save us a lot of trouble later. He’ll be another randy colt nosing around the mare’s paddock before too long. Nothing but trouble, these fatherless wild beasts. They have nobody to show them how to hold their custard. Might as well cut it off and force some manners on him before it gets too thick for the blade.”

  “Mother! He might understand you. Please,” the young nurse said, but she could barely contain her giggles.

  Constantine did understand the words, but they didn’t mean much to him. The soft bed and gentle touch felt like heaven. He could almost forget that he was tied down and had lost his beautiful black snakeskin. He hoped the men hadn’t damaged it too much when they’d dragged it. He hoped they’d known to scrape all the fat and muscle from the inside of the skin with a sharp blade. He hoped they’d rubbed it with fat or lard before they’d stretched it. Some men seemed to know about hides and did a passable job of curing them. Maybe the four men who captured him were amongst the knowledgeable.

  “If he wasn’t friends with Sasha, I’m sure they would have just tossed him in the bamboo pit with the snake meat. What a foul stench that thing has made. They can smell it all the way down to the carbon spring,” the old woman said.

  “Do you think there are more snakes like that out in the woods?” the young nurse asked.

  “No, not if you believe the hermit. He said that it would be once in twenty years, and it’s just in time.”

  “I don’t believe hal
f of what that foolish old man says.”

  “Well it seems that at least two-thirds of what he says is right, so who’s the fool?” the old woman asked.

  “An elephant is going to crash through town and Sasha will have to fight it to save his sister. You really believe that’s going to happen?”

  “And didn’t you just see a lion attack the Harvest? And didn’t a boy kill a snake? And didn’t the men find a witch’s baby in the belly of that snake?”

  “I saw that baby. It was a baby monkey,” the young woman said.

  “You say that even though the Prystyl Road Witch just lost an infant?” the old woman asked.

  “Please don’t call her that. Her name is Camryn, and you know she’s a friend of my sister. She’s a perfectly nice girl, but honestly, nobody witnessed that infant she claims she lost. I just saw her a few months ago and she certainly didn’t look pregnant then.”

  “She’s such a close friend of your sister and yet you doubt her word. She’s lucky to have such a defender on her side.”

  “This boy needs his sleep,” the young nurse said. “We should leave him.”

  “Don’t let him drift off yet,” the old woman said. “His champion wants to greet him.”

  Constantine stirred when the old woman tugged on his toe. “Stay awake, Forestling, we’re going to send in your friend.

  The young woman propped up Constantine’s head and covered him with a thin sheet before the two women left. A few minutes later, the tent flap parted again, and the blond boy, the one who had bashed him unconscious with a rock, entered. He wore the fur suit he’d stolen from Constantine, and his scalp had the bright pink scar Constantine had given him on that day.

  “They call you lion face because of the paw print when you fell in the mud,” the blond boy said.

  Constantine tried to rise so he could fight this thief and finally deliver revenge. His straps held him down and Constantine flopped back to the bed in agony from where the strap opened a cut on his ankle. The boy took a seat on the bed nearest to Constantine.

  “My name is Sasha,” he said.