by David Bell
Amaia was the midwife most women trusted. She spoke quietly and had gentle hands. She was said to have learned her art in the Black Land, where she had served a noble family, which might have been true because the birthing chair she brought to women in labour had carved on it pictures of the kind that people from the Black Land used for writing. She said the picture writing was a prayer to the goddess Heket that she murmured to soothe women who were afraid at the time of birth. No one could tell if this were true because the words she spoke sounded too ancient and foreign for anyone to understand, but when she said this prayer with the one they did know to the Lady Eleitheia as she placed the snake skin on their brow, they felt the sacred presence of the Mother who watched over every birth in every land. She knew also how to help girls and women who had no wish to experience the joys and perils of childbirth. In the room she called her kitchen she had pots containing the dried dates, bark from the tree with yellow flowers and heart-shaped seeds of a plant she said grew in the Black Land, which she ground into a paste with honey. Tiny jars filled with this paste were hidden in secret places in the bedrooms of many of the houses in the town. Her kitchen had other plants, seeds, grasses, herbs, spices, animal skin and bone, powdered earths and many other things gathered across the islands, or brought from other lands by sailors who owed her for her services, all of which went into salves, poultices and medicines for injuries and diseases. It was a basket of these that Akusha had told Sharesh to make sure Amaia brought with her to help in treating Kanesh.
Sharesh stood outside Amaia’s house in the narrow street that curved round the little harbour used by fishing boats and other small craft. The big harbour with its wharves and jetty where larger cargo ships and sometimes warships anchored or tied up, lay on the other side of a rocky spit of land which formed the foundation of one part of the harbour wall. He looked up to the roof of Amaia’s house and called out her name. After a few moments her head appeared above the parapet as she pushed aside the drapery of reeds and climbing vine that shaded her roof from the sun. He shouted his message and when she nodded, turned away to run back along the street. He heard her call after him,
“Say to the Lady Akusha that another little servant for the Mother came last night.”
He wondered for a moment what she meant but the empty feeling in his stomach was a more important thing to think about.
When Sharesh got back home all was quiet. The men who had carried the litter had been given beer for their pains and sent back to the warehouse at the harbour. A smell of roast goat and thyme came from the kitchen at the back of the house and a maid was hanging a cloak and tunic out to dry on a line in the courtyard. She told him that master Dareka was in his workroom upstairs and wanted to see him. The room was on the top floor of the house, up two flights of stairs. It had one window looking down to the harbour and out to sea so that Dareka could watch the approach and departure of ships, and also what activity was going on near the warehouses. The other window had a view across rooftops towards the gardens and vineyards that spread across the flat ground below the ridge that led up towards the Temple on the Hill.
Dareka was employed by Merida as overseer of all his trading operations on Kallista. Merida himself had been born on Kallista the son of a fisherman and, by a mixture of guile, hard work and an unfailing eye for a bargain, had made himself one of the most successful merchants in the Islands, with warehouses on Keftiu, a large house here in the town and a mansion under construction on his estate overlooking the Lagoon. Shipping was what he knew, from oarsman, which he had been, to owner which he was now. He boasted that he traded in all the ports between the rising and the setting sun, and made no secret of his ambition to become a power on Keftiu itself. “Whatever the stiff-necked landowners and military men may say,” he said. “They know in their hearts that without its ships and the men who sail them, Keftiu is nothing.” He expected all his people to work as hard as he did himself and Dareka spent most daylight hours either in the warehouse or in his workroom where he kept tally of all the goods coming and going under the Merida sign, a bee in flight, and of as many of the shipments of other merchants as he could find out. ‘If you know what the others are up to, it tells you a lot as to what you should be doing yourself’ was another of Merida’s favourite sayings.
“The stranger lies in the room below,” said Dareka. “His name is Kanesh, sir.”
“So your mother said. It has a distant sound to it.”
“Where is he from? Is he a nobleman? Mother said there was power about him. What did she mean?”
“I know nothing about him, yet. Perhaps your mother meant he was very strong because he lived through the storm and the shipwreck. She will find out in time, and then she may tell us.”
“I think she meant he has power over things. He made Tika quiet, and be his own guard dog.”
“Sharesh, there are many things we do not know. What I do know is that you have work to do, here, in this room. You still have to practise writing the lists I gave you. If you do not learn the art of the scribe, how can you expect to work for Merida? You know he has asked about you. He never does that unless he has plans in mind. Now, get out your tablets and your stylus.”
“What about going for new reeds and laths for the roof cover, and the driftwood I was collecting?”
“Later. After you have eaten is a good quiet time for writing. There will still be light enough to go foraging after that. Go ask Sita to give you a slice of the goat she is roasting and a barley cake if you like, and when you have eaten that get on with your practising.”
The sun was halfway down the sky and he stood at the window watching the haze of approaching evening begin to blur the horizon. Dareka came into the room and looked at the tablets lying finished on the table. Then he said:
“Your mother has something to say to you.”
He found her outside the room where they had brought the stranger. He was surprised to see that she was wearing the long cloak she wore outdoors to cover her yellow robe, and her hair was drawn back and fastened with a red braid. She was looking out of the window and did not notice him at first. He heard her say something in a soft voice.
“Mother?”
She turned and spoke to him but he could not understand her words.
“Mother?”
She started and looked at him in a way that for a moment made him think she was seeing someone else. Then she shook her head slightly and smiled at him.
“Sharesh. Our guest is restless. I fear he will get the fever. Amaia has given him drink to cool him. She will come again in the night to do other things.”
“Mother, she said I was to tell you that another little servant for the Lady came last night, but you were not here when I came back.”
“No matter. She told me herself.”
“Mother, what did you say when you were looking out of the window? I couldn’t understand the words.”
“It was a prayer, an old prayer that has to be said in an old language. A prayer that women say for those in danger of death.”
She saw that the boy was frightened and put her arms round him.
“Now forget this. It is not for you. Not yet. Listen, he has asked to see you. Go in quietly and wait.”
The room had the still air of sickness. The window was open to let in the cool breeze off the sea when it came with the evening. On a table two small lamps burned under shallow dishes that gave off the scent of lavender. Kanesh was lying on a low cot by the window with a light linen sheet covering him up to his waist. Three blue iris flowers had been placed on his chest. For a long time the only sound in the room was his harsh breathing. Then he spoke in a voice so faint it sounded as if it came from another world.
“Sharesh. Your dog is yours again. She will lick your face tonight as she always has. You have saved my life, for a little longer.”
There was another long pause as he fought to drag the air into his lungs, then, “If I live, I will show you many people, many places, many dangers
. You must know these things.”
He fell silent again, for so long that Sharesh thought he was sleeping. Or had he…?
“Take this and keep it safe for me. If I die, one day, when you are ready, you will take it to the place where it must rest. I have told this to your mother in the language we know. She will write it in the words you must learn because your father tells you that you must learn the script. Then you will know.”
He tried to lift the sword lying in its scabbard on the cot beside him, but he did not have the strength. The boy hesitated, then stepped slowly over to the cot and took the sword. It was very heavy.
“Go now. This is no place for a boy. No, first let me feel your hand.”
When he came out of the room Akusha was again looking through the window towards the Temple on the Hill. He went across to her. She smiled down at him and put a clay tablet into his hand.
“Keep this in the same safe place as the brand he has given you. You know what it is for. Now I must go. Dareka knows I will return at nightfall. The maid will sit outside this door. We can do no more than wait.”
Sharesh was now determined to learn the writing so that he could read the secret message and he knew exactly where he would hide the sword. But it was a long time before he understood why his mother had called it a brand.
A full moon silvered the roofs and walls of the sleeping town as Amaia hurried through the shadows of its narrow alleyways until she came to where Telchina Street widened in front of Crocus House. Hearing footsteps scraping on the paving stones and the sound of low voices approaching, she drew back into the darkness of a doorway as the Men of the Watch passed her and marched up the street towards Telchina Square on their night patrol. If they had seen her she had her answer ready, that the midwife had been called and a child never waited to be born; but a sharp-eyed watchman might have noticed that she carried no birthing chair tonight. She waited until the light from their lamps faded away and then slipped across the street and into the dark passageways beyond, and a few moments later tapped softly on the door at the back of Dareka’s house. Akusha opened the door and Amaia saw that she was wearing the long yellow gown of a matron priestess of the Lady Mother.
The two women entered the room where Kanesh lay on his back in the narrow cot. In the dim light of the oil lamps they could see him turning his head from side to side and clenching and unclenching his fists. He had pushed the sheet from his chest and his body shone with sweat.
“I made my husband bind him to the bed because I feared for the leg. If he twists that he will break the veins.”
Amaia pulled down the sheet and looked closely at the swollen purple flesh. She held one of his wrists and put a hand on his forehead. Without looking at Akusha she said:
“The fever is burning him. We must cool him. There is wounding inside his leg that we must heal because that is where the fever gets its heat. If we cannot put out its fire he will die.” She looked up. “Lady Akusha, we need your husband’s strength. Wake him and ask him to come.”
Akusha hesitated, frowned, then quickly left the room, her robe swirling about her. Dareka was not asleep. Thoughts of a cargo ship long overdue and a message he had received forewarning of Merida’s arrival were keeping him awake. He had helped his wife earlier with the mysterious stranger and he still had questions about the man who was taking up so much of her attention. It was a relief to have something to do which would take his mind off his worries. Inside the sickroom Amaia said to him, “Master Dareka, we must move the cot so that the light of the moon falls on him to help cool his body, then we must make straight his leg.”
Although they were careful, the movement made Kanesh moan and toss his head more violently. Amaia took two small jars and a lipped bowl from her basket. She poured dark syrupy liquids from the jars into the bowl and mixed them with her finger. Dareka watched her lips moving soundlessly as she stirred.
“This will bring rest and ease the pain when his leg is made straight. Please hold his head, Lady Akusha while Master Dareka keeps him still so that I can feed him the draught.”
She spoke as if asking favours of them and they both nodded silently in assent.
Kanesh tried to move his head and choked as the syrup was fed to him, but in time he swallowed almost all the contents of the bowl.
“How long must we wait?” said Akusha.
“The syrup of the poppy must find its place in his body and the oil of the root of the red flower its place, and in such a man,” Amaia said, looking at the deep chest and muscular arms of Kanesh. “It will take time. May the Lady give us patience.”
“The High Priestess knows he is here. She seemed troubled, I think. Troubled because he may be near to death or troubled because he came, I am not clear. She will offer prayers. And she has given me the crocus flowers.”
Dareka was silent as the women spoke. Their mysteries, he felt, were for them and not for men to understand. He knew the cargo lists of ships and the price of wine and where it could be bought and sold and how to count and mark and tally all the oil jars in a hold or the flasks of precious perfume in a strongroom, and he thought secretly that the Priestess did not know these things. But as to whether her prayers could change anything, that he did not know.
“He is quiet enough now,” said Amaia. “Master Dareka, will you bind him more tightly round his arms and body, put this cloth between his teeth and hold him down if he moves. Lady Akusha, will you hold his foot as I take off the brace? Then pull slowly as I tell you while I straighten the leg.”
Though deeply asleep from Amaia’s potions, Kanesh felt such pain as his leg was moved that it made him arch his back against the cords and struggle to be free. Dareka, a powerful man, had to use all his strength to hold him down. Suddenly he fell limp and silent.
“The pain has overcome him,” said Amaia breathlessly. “Now we must tie on the poultice and keep the leg still.”
A strong smell of garlic came from the thick pad of damp cloth that she wrapped round the bruised swelling of Kanesh’s leg. Then with Dareka’s help she placed a strong lath of wood along the outer side of the injured leg and bound the two to the sound leg with long strips of cloth.
“We must change the poultices at sunrise and sunset, first the crushed garlic and then the crocus flowers pressed into this brown paste from the beehives. He must be still and he must take the draught made from the iris roots and honey that I have brought. I am preparing a sweet balm from the resin of the thorny shrub that I will bring tomorrow. It may ease the heat in his flesh. Master Dareka, you will want to return to your bed. We will wash him now and cover him when he is cooler.”
Dareka left the women to their work after he had pushed the cot back beneath the window. He had seen such scars as Kanesh bore only on the bodies of soldiers who had fought in many battles and others who had suffered flogging.
Inside the room Amaia sponged Kanesh’s body with water in which lavender had been steeped while Akusha wiped his face and brow. The moon had now sunk below the ridge behind the house and the room was once more dim with the soft light of the lamps. After Amaia had smoothed her sweet-scented balm gently into his skin, they covered Kanesh with a clean linen sheet and Akusha placed fresh iris flowers on his chest.
“If you have silver, Lady Akusha, you may place it on the swelling for a little while each time before a new poultice is made.”
Later, in her bedroom, with a lamp glowing behind her, Akusha looked at herself in the silver mirror that had been her marriage gift from Dareka. Yes, yellow suited her. Then the dawn came, and the time for prayers, special prayers this time, to the Lady Mother.
The fever wracked Kanesh for three more days and nights, burning and freezing him in turn and sending him into fits of raving and shivering which would have thrown him from the bed had not Dareka been there to hold him down. The poultices and herbal draughts and silver metal seemed to have no effect. Nor did the prayers, spoken at the right times and with all the due reverence: why did the Lady Mother not s
eem to listen to them, wondered Akusha as she watched Amaia strip yet another sodden sheet from beneath the shuddering body? Amaia must have sensed her thoughts because she looked up at Akusha and said:
“We can do no more than we are doing. I fear that between this man and the Lady Mother there may be… difficulties.”
“They are our prayers and they will be our offerings of gratitude and obedience.”
“But if he has offended… does not accept the Lady Mother’s power? I have heard of such men. And he is from another land.”
“The Lady Mother has all power, whatever some men may dare to say, or think, and she will decide.”