by Jess Allison
CHAPTER 12
Ja'Nil woke with a crushing headache. She was lying on a grassy bank with her feet still in the river. Blood, wet and sticky, was dripping off her forehead. Someone, inept and clumsy, was trying to wipe it off.
Ja'Nil waved her hand in a feeble attempt to be left alone. “Don’t,” she tried to say, but no sound came out.
“Is she alive, then?” asked a very young sounding voice.
“She movered,” answered another voice, even younger sounding.
“But is it intentional movement?” asked another. This voice was older, but still that of a child.
“What’s intentionaled?” asked the very young voice.
Smart little digger, thought Ja'Nil. She tried to move. Uh-huh. Her head felt as if it were split in two, or three. Oh, God, she couldn’t possibly live feeling this awful.
“She’s gonna be alive ‘cause we druggered her out of the water,” pointed out the middle voice.
“Except for her feet,” said the eldest with pompous accuracy.
“Cause she’s too heavery,” said the youngest voice. A small hand patted Ja'Nil gently on her cheek. “Lady, are you alive?”
“She’s not a lady,” protested the eldest child’s voice. “She’s just a kid like us.”
“But she’s an old kid,” said the middle voice.
Ja'Nil was getting tired of being talked about as if she was a stick of wood. Just to refocus the conversation, she tried to sit up. Nope. Sitting up was definitely going to have to wait. She did manage to bend her legs and remove her cold feet from the water.
“She’s alive!” said the piercing voice of the youngest. “She’s alive, she’s alive,” the kid chanted, dancing around with delight.
Ja'Nil opened her right eye. Immediately, bright sunlight flooded in. Oh Lord, her head! She snapped her eye closed. However, there was no escaping. Someone was poking at her with a sticky finger. She might as well give up and get on with life. “Go away,” she groaned.
“Can’t,” said the middle voice.
“Gotta monious Gramps fore we traipse,” said the lispy little voice.
Monious? What kind of word was monious? Very slowly, Ja'Nil raised her head. Jadµ, Jadµ, that was far enough. She looked around. She was half lying, half sitting on a green river bank. A little to her right, three children, ranging in age from around four to ten, watched her anxiously. They were Sky People and wore the green of Mummers. They had the same straight bright red hair and burnished dark skin as O’Keeven. The little boy’s rounded ears even stuck out slightly, as O’Keeven’s had. They might even be kin to him.
Oh, wonderful, just what I need, more Mummers.
Definitely not to be trusted.
Further off, an adult was lying asleep in the shade of a Gumble tree. No one else was visible, no guards with whips and murderous lances, no huge mastiffs trying to chew her arm off. She looked hastily down at her right forearm. It was still attached. There were ragged tears from the mastiff’s teeth, blood was seeping out, and the whole forearm was slightly swollen. No doubt, by tomorrow it would be bruised from wrist to elbow. Apparently, the river had washed her arm clean. Still, what she really needed was a healer to forestall infection.
“We pulled you out of the river,” said the middle child, a girl about six or seven.
“Thank you,” replied Ja'Nil.
“You’re sooo heavery,” said the youngest and immediately stuck his thumb in his mouth.
Ja'Nil managed to turn her aching head to look at the oldest child, a girl who was regarding Ja'Nil with obvious suspicion. “Where am I?” asked Ja'Nil.
The girl shrugged, “I dunno. On the way to the Lady’s Keep.”
Well, that told her a lot. “What Lady?”
Silence. Then the little boy spoke up. “We gotta monious Gramps ‘fore we can traipse.”
That weird word again. Slowly, Ja'Nil got to her feet. The world swirled around her. She staggered and held very still until the dizziness passed. She ached all over. She was barefoot and her clothes were literally indecent rags. Not only was she lost, but apparently she owed her life to Mummers. O’Keeven was a mummer. She hated Mummers. As she stood, the children backed away from her, towards the sleeping adult. Ja'Nil definitely intended to be gone before he woke up.
She looked around. Which way should she go? All she could see were the river and the green countryside.
“You gonna help us monious Gramps?” asked the little boy.
“Monious?” The little boy nodded. “What’s he talking about,” Ja'Nil asked the oldest child.
“It don’t matter,” said the girl. “None of your business anyway.”
Thank goodness for that.
“I appreciate you pulling me out of the river,” she said politely and turned on unsteady legs to head down-river. That’s when the little boy started crying. Ja'Nil couldn’t stand to hear little ones crying. It reminded her too vividly of--. “Will you stop that noise?” This naturally made him cry harder. It was amazing how much noise one little boy could make while sucking on his thumb.
“Don’t go,” said a little voice. It was so low that Ja'Nil almost didn’t hear it over the wailing of the boy. It was the little girl who had spoken.
At least she wasn’t sucking her thumb. “How old are you?” asked Ja'Nil.
“Six,” said the middle girl. “Little Piet is four,” she added, pointing at the boy. “And Sa’Ari is nine.”
“You don’t have to tell everything,” said the nine year old angrily. “She don’t have to know. I told ya, we don’t tell nobody nothing.”
Ja'Nil studied the three children. Little Piet, still sucking his thumb, had stopped wailing and was now hiccupping quietly while tears dripped from his blue eyes. Sa’Ari the oldest was glaring at her, while the middle girl stared up at Ja'Nil as if she was their last hope of salvation.
“What’s your name?” Ja'Nil asked the six-year-old girl.
“Jari.”
“Just, Jari?”
“Ah-huh.”
Sa’Ari and Jari and Little Piet, nine, six and four. Ja'Nil looked over at the sleeping adult. He hadn’t moved at all. “Is that your Gramps?”
The two girls said nothing, but Little Piet, thumb still in mouth, nodded, yes.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ja'Nil asked.
“Nothin’,” said Sa’Ari, the eldest. The other two children stared at her in simultaneous amazement.
With an inward sigh, Ja'Nil forced herself to walk over to the unmoving adult. An old man, hair mostly white, skin, instead of being a burnished black, was dusty looking and slack. His eyes were closed, but his mouth hung open. He had good teeth, she noticed. Good teeth or not, he was definitely dead. She could see no marks of violence on him. No sign of discomfort of any kind, but then, there wouldn’t be at this point in his existence. He was fully dressed. His aged tunic had been washed so many times it was a pale, soft, indefinite color.
“How did he die?” she asked.
“He wents to sleep,” said Little Piet.
“And he didn’t wake up,” added Jari.
“How long has he been dead?” Ja'Nil asked, looking directly at Sa'Ari.
Finally, reluctantly, she answered. “Yesterday afternoon.”
Ja'Nil looked around, river, grass, a few trees, but no signs of human habitation.
“Where’s the rest of your people? Don’t Mummers always travel as a troupe?”
“They’re with our Da,” said Jari.
“Where’s your Da?”
“Cordia,” answered Sa’Ari in a flat voice.
So the three children had been alone with the dead man all night long. She remembered the interminable night that she had spent with her dead aunt, and shuddered. Poor little diggers. They must have been so frightened.
“What are your plans?” Ja'Nil asked of the nine year old, feeling ridiculous as she did so. She expected a nine year old to have a plan, while she herself was adrift and planless?
But Sa'
Ari surprised her. “We’re going to the Lady’s Keep,” she said. “We always do, this time of year.” She sounded as if she expected Ja'Nil to argue with her.
Good, thought Ja'Nil. It removed any feelings of responsibility she might feel for the three lone children.
“You know how to get there?” she asked.
“‘Cause I know how to get there,” said Sa'Ari. While at the same time, Jari was shaking her head, no.
“Good.” said Ja'Nil, ignoring Jari‘s head shake. Little Piet took his thumb out of his mouth and examined its wet wrinkled surface. “Umh, about your Gramps.”
Little Piet beamed at her. “Gotta do monious,” he informed her.
Ja'Nil gave up. “What’s he talking about?” she asked Sa'Ari.
“Ceremony for the dead,” she mumbled.
“Make it ceremonious,” elaborated Jari.
“Monious,” agreed Little Piet with a nod of his little head, thumb firmly back in his mouth.
Ja'Nil wanted no part in any more funerals. Still… “Do you need any help?” She asked.
“Yes,” said Jari.
“Yes,” said Little Piet
“I guess you could help if you wanted to,” said Sa'Ari, “We can pay,” she added.
“Really? How?”
“You need a tunic, don’t you?” she said, looking pointedly at Ja'Nil’s exposed breast and all the rest of her that was exposed.
Ja'Nil looked down at herself and blushed. Her…ah, breasts seemed to have gotten a lot bigger in the last few days. Was that even possible? Certainly, she was more aware of them.
“Nothing you own would fit me,” she pointed out. “You’re too little.”
“Gramps not too little,” said Sa'Ari.
“Your Gramps is dead!”
“So, he don’t need his clothes no more.”
Ja'Nil’s first reaction was Ugh! Icky! Nevertheless, it was true that the dead man would not need his extra clothes. She looked around, but aside from the three children and Gramps, all she saw was a little red and yellow pull-wagon with some things tossed carelessly inside, presumably clean clothes. She did need clothes.
“All right, I’ll help you. The first thing we do is dig a pit for the pyre. It should be about at least a foot deep,” said Ja'Nil. “Do you have some sort of digging tool?”
“What’s a pyre?” asked Jari.
“It’s like a bonfire.” She looked about. “You don’t happen to know if we’re on Red Horse Land, do you?”
“Why do we need a bonfire?” asked Jari
“We never go on Red Horse Land,” answered Sa’Ari at the same time. “They don’t like Mummers.”
“Why do we need a bonfire?” Jari asked again.
“For your gramp’s funeral pyre.” There was a sudden stillness following her explanation. All three children were staring at her in horror.
“You burn up people?” asked Jari, wide-eyed.
“Not while they’re alive.”
“Cause that would hurt,” said a horrified Jari.
Ja'Nil rolled her eyes. “We don’t do it when they’re alive.”
“That’s good,” said Jari, greatly relieved.
“Yeah that’s good,” echoed Little Piet.
“You burn your people?” asked Sa'Ari.
“Yes. Then we bury their ashes deep in the earth mother in order to continue The Circle. Don‘t you?”
Sa’Ari, shook her head, no.
“Let me tell. Let me tell.” Little Piet was jumping up and down in excitement.
“You’re too little,” said Jari. “You don’t know nothing.”
“Do too!” the little boy screeched and threw himself on his sister, seemingly intent on adding one more corpse to the ceremonies.
“Stop it, you two,” said Sa'Ari, wading in with slaps to both her siblings’ heads.
“Are you supposed to, ah…, hit them?” asked Ja'Nil.
“They shut up, didn’t they?”
“Not exactly.” Both of the younger children were sitting with their arms around each other, bawling their heads off.
“If you don’t have funeral pyres, what sort of…ah…what do you do?”
“We expose them,” said Sa’Ari.
“To what?”
“Don’t you know anything?” asked Sa’Ari.
“Explain it to me.”
“We build a platform, render them naked to the heavens, and expose them to the Winged Messengers of The Circle.”
“Winged Mess--Birds?”
Sa’Ari nodded, yes.
“You let the birds eat them?”
“There’s music,” piped up a still sniveling Little Piet.
“An’ meat pies and candies,” added Jari.
“I likes candies,” said Little Piet.
“And there’s dancing,” added Jari.
“I told you we can’t do the music and dancing and we don’t have no meat pies,” said Sa’Ari angrily.
“Candy?” asked Little Piet.
“When we get to the Lady’s Keep,” promised Sa’Ari. That seemed to cheer both little children. At least they stopped crying and turned to watch their sister and Ja'Nil.
“About building a platform,” said Ja'Nil to Sa’Ari. “I’ll be glad to help, but I’ve never built one before. Do you know how it’s done?”
“The men build them.”
“And the men are…”
“In Cordia.”
Ja'Nil turned to study the old man’s body lying in the shade of the Gumble tree.
“Does it have to be a platform?” asked Ja'Nil. “What about a tree?”
“A tree?”
“We could probably hoist him -- ah, get him up into the tree. At least to the lower branches. Would that do?”
“How you gonna do that?”
Good question.
“Is there any rope?”
Sa’Ari nodded. “In the wagon.”
“So will a tree do?”
Sa’Ari nodded. “Gramps would like that. He likes -- liked trees.”
“Specially Gumble trees,” said Jari.
“He likes them green and pink leaves,” added Little Piet.
Ja'Nil was examining the contents of the red wagon. It held a thick rope about 40 lengths long. There was also a half loaf of brown bread wrapped in a linen cloth, a stone bottle of ginger beer and three apples. What wasn’t there were clothes, no clean clothes, no dirty clothes, no small clothes, no large clothes. In short, how did Sa’Ari plan to pay her for helping to elevate Gramps?
“About the clothes,” began Ja'Nil.
Sa’Ari nodded. “Jari and me gonna render him naked to the skies.”
“You’re going to take clothes off a dead body and give them to me?”
“Just his tunic,” said Jari.
“You want his leggings? I guess that’s a do,” said Sa’Ari magnanimously.
“Ja'Nil swallowed. “I can‘t wear a dead man‘s clothing.”
“Gramps won’t mind,” Little Piet assured her.
“I can wash them in the river,” offered Jari.
“But he’ll be naked.”
“He’s dead,” pointed out Sa’Ari.
“He gots to be stripped anyways,” said Little Piet before sticking his thumb back in his mouth.
“Mummers always go naked to the Messengers,” Sa’Ari explained. “Our Da says things go faster that way.”
It made sense in an icky kind of way. And really, what choice did she have? Between Gramps going naked to the messengers or her being naked in the world, she figured Gramps would be the least discomforted.
Ja'Nil knelt down near the old man’s body. “Have you made The Sign Of The Circle?” She asked Sa’Ari.
Looking ashamed, Sa’Ari shook her head, no.
So Ja'Nil leaned forward. “May you enter the Paradise of Forever,” she said as she gently inscribed a circle on the old man‘s forehead.. His skin was so cool, Ja'Nil was shocked. She felt no connection with this empty body.
* * *
After Gramps was undressed, Jari, with Little Piet supervising, went down to the river to wash the clothes, leaving Ja'Nil and Sa’Ari to get Gramps into the Gumble tree.
Ja'Nil knotted the rope under Gramps’ arms and around his chest. Then they dragged him closer to the tree and leaned his upper body against its trunk. A number of pink and green leaves fluttered down and landed on Gramps’ head and shoulders.
“I guess the tree approves,” said Ja'Nil. Sa’Ari’s face actually brightened.
“Do you think so?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Ja'Nil assured her.
The tree was just right for their purpose. Above their heads, two study branches projected out almost parallel with each other for about a foot and then they separated into a V shape. A perfect resting place for Gramps. Ja'Nil resolutely refused to contemplate the arrival of the Messengers.
Holding the end of the rope, her dizziness a thing of the past, Ja'Nil scrambled up the tree and carefully stood on one of the projecting branches. About four feet above the V was another sturdy branch. Ja'Nil threw the rope over that branch and let the end drop to the ground.
“Jadµ,” she called down to Sa’Ari, “I’m going to pull him up now. I think you’re going to have to sort of lift him as I pull. Ready?”
Sa’Ari nodded, yes.
Ja'Nil began to pull. She pulled and pulled and pulled and Gramps stayed just where he was. “Not enough leverage,” Ja'Nil muttered to herself as she dropped down from the tree.
To her surprise, tough little Sa’Ari was quietly weeping. Ja'Nil wanted to put her arms around the little girl and give her a hug, but she knew that would just infuriate the girl.
Jari and Little Piet, who had finished washing the clothes and hanging them over the bushes to dry, were standing next to Sa’Ari watching the goings on in open-mouthed wonder.
Gramps had shifted a little, but basically he was still sitting stiffly against the tree trunk. In fact, it was the tree trunk that was impeding his levitation.
“Jadµ,” said Ja'Nil with a bright lilt to her voice, intended to disguise her own dismay. “Sa’Ari I want you to... ah... tilt Gramps away from the tree trunk, but don’t let him lie down again.”