John Bowman's Cave

by Erron Adams

  ***

  “Watch carefully, John Bowman!” It was Oyen's favourite instruction. The man of action forsook detailed explanation in favour of demonstration. “This came out a strong bow. We should have made a lighter one to begin with, but we don't have time to start again now.”

  A strong bow indeed, with many hard and painful lessons learned in its making. A stickbow, Oyen called it, since it had been cut from a whole sapling of Ironwood, trimmed and shaped while still green, and would not be reinforced with snakeskin or deer sinew windings as a more substantial Rory weapon might. The most part of a day smoking over a slow fire had cured the thing to the point where it could barely be bent to take the string they'd made.

  The string-making had been a lesson with its own trials: collecting, threshing and plaiting fibres from the inner bark of a small tree that clung to rocky precipices. Oyen had insisted such places held the best specimens. “More magic up here, where the air thins,” he'd said. Bowman had looked straight down a thousand feet of nothing to the cliff's foot and clung as tenaciously as the trees they'd come to rob.

  But today it was the bow he struggled with. He'd seen the Rory string their weapons many times, but never done it himself. His injury had begged him off, until now. Pulling the handle towards him, the lower limb jammed against the inside of his left foot, he pushed the string's loop towards the notch at the bow's upper end. After several attempts under the patient gaze of Oyen, and to the great and distracting amusement of two Rory girls who stood nearby, he had to admit defeat.

  “Damnit, Oyen, I can’t!”

  “Oh Oyen, we could string that bow,” said one of the girls, as Bowman's imaginary hands tightened on her neck.

  The other girl joined in. “Yes, he should go fishing, if he's not scared of water.”

  Oyen scowled at them a moment and turned to Bowman. “Paah! Of course, your strength is still returning, but you have the power in your body to do this. You just need to find the way around your injury, rather than fight against it. Now watch carefully, again! If you can’t string the bow the quick way - yet - use the power in your hips.” As Oyen went on, the image of Yalnita by the trunk of the Leatherbark tree, with her hip against the sword's hilt, flashed in Bowman's mind.

  Oyen stepped his right leg through the space between stave and string. He rotated his backside to a position where his right hip moved snug against the bow's handle. His right hand slid the string along the weapon's upper limb as he dropped his hip weight against the bow's middle, bending it around his body in a gentle curve. When he was satisfied the string's loops had secured at both ends, he stepped back out of the gap and handed the weapon to Bowman. Then he placed his hands on his hips and rolled his body in a wide circle. He looked like a skipping rope whose ends were his head and feet.

  “The most power is in this part of your body, it’s where the soul enters when man and woman come together. From this region man supplies the seed” - here he thrust his hips in mock coitus - “and here a woman births.” At this he screwed his face into a parody of birth pain, arched his spine back, groaned abominably and squirmed his groin around the hands of an invisible midwife.

  It was a sickening display, and the adolescent girls were scandalized. “That’s disgusting, Oyen!” one blurted. “We’ll tell the elders you did that!” said the other.

  “Good!” he said, grinning widely. Then he thrust his hips a few more times for emphasis. “And be sure to tell them I'll be along shortly to give a personal demonstration!”

  The girls' jaws hit grass a moment, then they turned face in to each other, eyes bulging. The next instant only their backs showed, and their thrashing arms, as they fought for the lead in the race back to Grealding.

  Oyen laughed himself breathless and wrapped his arms around his chest to stop. He turned to his remaining pupil.

  “Good, now we can concentrate!”

  ***

  Some weeks passed. Challa healed, and Yalnita’s Pack led largely separate lives. Caylen remained remote - aloof even - in her dealings with most Grealdians, but her attitude to the Pack slowly thawed. She seemed, to Bowman, to be taking an inordinate interest in his affairs. She followed him around a lot. Often, he would look up to find her looking back, and then she’d quickly look away. He passed it off as juvenile interest in a fellow Outlander, and since she never initiated conversation, they seldom spoke.

  Bowman learnt to shoot the bow. And string it, both ways, as his strength returned. As it did, his aim improved.

  “Hit the smallest spot you can pick, in the centre of the thing you shoot for,” Oyen told him during a practise session.

  Bowman looked at the grass-stuffed sack twenty paces distant that they were using for a target. “What spot? I can’t see any spot in particular when I aim; just a blurry blob of target.”

  “Stop looking at the whole target. Just pick a spot. And don’t aim along the arrow, ignore it; see only the spot. When you see the spot, and nothing else, release.”

  Bowman smiled; Oyen always had a way of painting the world in a fresh light. He levelled the bow for the shot. The shaft flashed, embedding itself in the target with a ‘chunk’. It was high and to the left; a poor result at this distance.

  Oyen shrugged. “Again.”

  Bowman grimaced and lay the bow aside. He threw his arms around and stretched, going through the small routine he'd learnt to do when stiff. Another shot; this time the arrow found home. Harmony. Teacher and pupil smiled.

  Eventually, Bowman learnt the knack of ‘aiming without trying to aim’, adopting the same instinctive action he’d used to throw stones as a child. He became what passed for an acceptable archer amongst the Rory.

  As the daily instruction proceeded, the spring landscape slowly gave way to summer. The continuum of days flowing into one another became hypnotic to Bowman. His nerves uncurled. His dilated sensorium admitted the world of Grealding, of this whole new world itself. In step with the seasonal shift, his inner landscape accommodated to the weave of scenes presented by his senses.

  In this opened state, archery took on new meaning. It became something he could lose himself in. When the bow arced, thought stopped; the world narrowed to instinct and object. Placing an arrow nock on string had a settling effect on him, as if intent and joy were rolled together in the smooth shaft, and he launched out with it, joining in its graceful arc to the target.

  It helped to take away the pain of losing his wife. Pain that was always there but rose and fell. When it rose, his skin prickled and stung; he ached for human touch to anchor him. That aching drove him into dis-connectedness; he’d take refuge in his head, hunted by the hurt and run round crazy with his thinking.

  So shooting the bow became a temporary refuge. It surmounted pain with concentration. In that moment when he drew and anchored, the whole world stilled, and he felt joined to it. In the absence of a lover to hold him, he held the bow; as the string drew to his mouth, he drew nearer. In the arc of the arrow’s flight, in the moment between two moments, was the centre. Release and Unity.

  And it gradually occurred to him that shooting the bow had become something even more. The trick to finding what he loved doing was no trick after all, once the key found him: the bow became his path to prayer.

  One evening Roop came to get him.

  “There’s trouble, John Bowman. We have to go to the Hall of Greald. Now.” For the second time since Bowman had known him, the normally fluent Rory struggled for words. “There’s to be a vote.”

  “What's happening at the Hall?”

  Roop seemed more at ease with the specific question. “The Council of Elders meets tonight. They meet every month, at the downturn of the moon, to dispatch troublesome affairs. They meet at its fullness, also, to decide on matters that will grow, marriages and harvests and so on. Everyone who's able is expected there, to bear witness to the judgements Elders make.”

  Bowman looked into the sky, which was clear but for a few patches where cloud smudged out the stars.
Just above the Eastern rooves of Grealding the moon had risen, full-disk silver less one day.

  Having lost track of time in this world, or at least his old sense of time, and not yet having picked up on the new, he had to guess. He guessed the cycle to be waning, and got it right. His mood was light.

  “So, a waning moon - what dark issues must the Elders decide?”

  “The Kasina have launched a new offensive against our Solitaires. Soon we expect them to be trying our own defences. Again.”

  “So? I thought this place was invincible?”

  “Of course, that’s not the problem.”

  Bowman lifted an eyebrow.

  “There’s a move to have all Outlanders expelled from Grealding. You and Caylen, specifically. Expelled, or worse.”

  Bowman’s spirits plummeted. “Why? We’ve done nothing. God, you’ve only just got Caylen back!”

  “Yes, I know that. But others aren’t quite so attached to Caylen. And I’m sorry, but outside the Pack, no one much cares about you. Besides, the ones who want you dealt with feel Outlanders are the cause of our current strife with the Kasina. We did take Caylen off them, after all.”

  “But the Rory adopted her! She belongs here, even if I don’t!”

  “That, I’m afraid, will be decided by the Council, who will take the mood of the people into consideration. I have to tell you, it doesn’t look good. Caylen’s adoptive mother, Elsis, is behind this. She is a determined, and dangerous, woman, as I have said to you before!”

  After a moment in which both men realized they were staring at the floor between them, Bowman took a breath and said, “Well, let’s go, then.”

  ***

  The doors of the Hall of Greald choked with people streaming in. Their talk died to respectful silence as they entered the imposing space.

  The Pack formed a knot with Bowman and Caylen at its centre. Those near them stole surreptitious looks, but none spoke. Yalnita knifed the crowd aside and led the Pack through.

  Inside, concentric arcs of pillars converged on a stage where the Council sat on plain benches. The ceiling pressed low, for such a span. One man standing on another’s shoulders could easily touch it. It was highly ornate for a Rory structure, bearing gilded depictions of battle scenes and deities.

  As the Pack moved forward a voice said, “Filthy Outlanders! Damn them all!”

  A peacemaker intervened. “Leave them be, Elsis, let them speak. The man we don’t know, and the girl is your daughter!”

  “Daughter of mine? Never! You forget her coming amongst us, Regrais. And she is no child, she is a demon, sent by Kasina sorcery!” Regrais tried to reply but Elsis silenced him with her raised hand and advanced on Bowman.

  She came up under his face and he could see the pain she felt in each twisted step, as though rank thoughts had eaten at her joints and shrunk flesh around the hatred stored everywhere inside her. It cramped every move with an agony of effort. He couldn’t tell if it was pain or loathing that burned the brighter in her eyes; either way it drove her to the brink of sanity, perhaps beyond.

  “Now listen to me, Outlander. You have no call or say here. You may befriend those in whose way you've wisely fallen, but I, for one, reject you. You are like her,” she nodded sideways at Caylen, “at best a foundling, but never one of us! You're a vile insinuation from the outer world, come to weaken the Rory and prepare the way for our enemies. Know that I am wise to your intent, even where you are not!”

  Elsis glanced at Oyen. Her face softened a little. She turned away from her son and addressed the Council of Elders, raising her voice to carry throughout the assembly. “Ever since my dim-witted child brought this girl in from the road, barefoot and doe-eyed in her deceit, I have seen this day like a sour vision the gods of our Kasina foe dangled in my face. It is brute, what a mother has to bear in life, without she be asked to nurture such spawn … “

  One of the Council Elders rose. “Silence, Elsis!” He held an unsheathed ceremonial sword above his head, his bare hand gripping the blade in its centre. It was at once a gesture of vulnerability and fearlessness, and signified the man’s familiarity with power in his intimate connection with its symbol. “As the one ordained to hold the Sword of Greald, I, Yarragin, will speak; you will listen. You may be heard at the appropriate time.” Then Yarragin turned from Elsis to address the assembly as a whole.

  “In truth, Elsis has spoken out of turn, but she is partly correct: this man, John Bowman, has few rights in Grealding. He may only expect such considerations as might be extended to any foreigner in time of war. Worse, he is, as Elsis points out, an Outlander. One who came among us as a grown man, I might add. Since he has only been known to us such a short time, we have yet to see the depth of his allegiance. As much as Yalnita and her Pack would have us trust a man they have evidently embraced, that cannot be for her, or them, to decide.”

  Yarragin paused for a moment to allow the murmur of agreement to subside. He took a deep breath and turned to Caylen. Fire-anger and brimming sadness mixed in his eyes. “As to you, Caylen. You flee the Rory for no apparent reason, to live the life of a rogue animal in the wild lands around Twins Fall. You trade the company of those who nurtured and protected you, for strangers. You move from the house of one Rory Solitaire to another, presumably as your welcome wears thin. In all this time away you do not communicate your whereabouts or health to kith and kin here in Grealding. Not that they'd had need to hear from your own lips, given the feverish reports we had from time to time, of the mad Rory woman waging single-handed war on the Tohubuho.

  “Your ill-advised mission failed to quell Kasina Nabir’s enmity. In fact, the storm we now feel grew directly from your actions. Not to mention the atrocities of the Tohubuho, which by all accounts increased as they scoured the land for you. When you were eventually taken prisoner, your brother's Pack freed you, at great trial and no small cost. You were brought home to a rejoicing Grealding, and a forgiving family, but have spurned both. It is as if the only change in you has been a hardening of the heart, angered by the loss of your unfettered state. You have endangered us by fighting the Kasina single-handed, but this - the rejection of those you lived amongst - is far the greater crime.”

  Yarragin’s rhetoric, honed by years of practice and impelled by the need to impress an audience, had pushed all his feelings for the girl one way. He fixed Caylen with a stern look, and said, “Do you wish to speak for your actions, before others give witness?”

  Caylen looked up and spoke. “I have only to say that the Tohubuho committed the first crime, against people who befriended me and accepted my wildness. I could not shrink from the vengeance such actions demanded. As for my remoteness now, I ask only to be left alone.”

  Bowman watched Elsis. Having been stung by the woman’s rebuke, he wanted to see her reaction to Yarragin’s speech. She stood with her back against a pillar, her body turned from the dais, her arms folded, her face set in the grim righteousness of the unjustly spurned. In this frozen stance it seemed she alone was silent; a steady murmur moved through the rest of the assembly.

  On the dais, Yarragin held aloft the Sword of Greald again and opened his mouth to speak. As he did he stopped, and frowned, and cocked his ear above the rising roar of the crowd’s increasingly heated discussion. Bowman shifted his attention back to Yarragin in time to observe the man’s consternation. He strained to hear what Yarragin heard. The agitation of those inside the Hall seemed to be feeding on a steadily growing commotion that came from outside.

  Yalnita had been standing just behind Bowman. He became aware of her swift departure and turned to see her running towards the source of the disturbance.

  The noise around the Pack became a clamour. At first, Bowman interpreted this as being impassioned response to Caylen’s speech. Leaping forward he grabbed her arm, reasoning that if the mood of the crowd turned out to be against them, it was as well they made their move now. “Let's go!” he said, and they leapt into the crowd.

  He expected
to be challenged but wasn't. He half expected Caylen to demur; she didn't. When he finally heard the alarm gongs ringing from somewhere outside, he realized his misreading of the situation.

  “Attack, we're being attacked!” Oyen was at his side, incredulous. “How can this be?”

  “Never mind the whys brother, to our weapons!” Roop had joined them; in fact the Pack was coalescing once more around Caylen and Bowman. Lowery yelled above the commotion. “Where's Yalnita gone?” As their eyes darted about for the Pack leader, her voice rang out of the turmoil. “I'm here!” She waved both arms above the heads of the assembly as she came up. Her eyes flashed across the Pack to ensure they were all present. Then she pointed behind the dais and said, "This way," and they streamed behind her like a comet’s tail through the panicked crowd.

  She led them to one of the many stairwells that dotted the Hall’s perimeter. As they flew down the rock spiral three steps at a bound, she shouted over her shoulder. “It's Tohubuho, they got through the mountain!”

  Lowery almost lost his footing. “Impossible! Never, how…” His voice trailed as he concentrated on the dark descent, and she didn't answer.

  They emerged in one of the dingy alleys that spider-veined Grealding. With the assurance of a homing pigeon Yalnita found the door she was looking for. She tried its handle, but rust and wood-warp had jammed it. She cursed her fellow Grealdeans’ unpreparedness. Such was their confidence in the citadel’s ability to forbid invaders, most Rory went about unarmed. They took only their personal weapons with them when travelling, and, unless widespread hostilities flared, their weapon caches fell into disuse. She took a half step back and kicked the door. It burst onto a small armoury, and the Pack fell on weapons like the starved falling on fresh bread.