Secret Sacrament

by Sherryl Jordan

  “I think so.”

  They watched as the last Shinali were brought into the fort and searched. Outside the gates, the greater part of the army prepared to return to Navora, the day’s work concluded. They were taking the horses of the small company that would remain to guard the rebel clan. While Gabriel watched, the massive wooden gate was banged shut, locked, and bolted.

  With drawn swords the guards herded the people over to the barracks. Inside, the dingy stone chambers were covered in dust. The stairs to the upper chambers were narrow and steep, the wooden floors damaged and rotting. There were no windows, only the gaping archways yawning over the courtyard below. Ordered to stay on the ground floor, the Shinali climbed two steps to the lowest barracks. The floor was thick with dirt blown in from the courtyard, and there were the remains of small animals eaten by hawks and other birds of prey. Forgotten nests, blown to pieces by the winds, were strewn across the dust, and there were piles of bird droppings. At the far end were ancient latrines, holes in the ground that once had wooden seats over them. Now they were half full of debris.

  Gathering in groups with their friends and families, the people spread out their sleeping mats and blankets. Voices echoed, unnaturally loud, along the stone walls, and every rustle and footstep was magnified. Children clambered up the perilous stone stairs, and were hauled quickly back. There was little space for them to play; quarters were cramped, the sleeping mats overlapping. Being sacred, Shinali beds were never walked on; here, in the desperate overcrowding, it was impossible not to step on them. But the people trod carefully around the edges, grieving anew at being forced to break time-honored traditions.

  Gabriel worried about other traditions, too, as he spread out his bedding, wondering where Ashila would place hers. To his joy, she spread her blankets with his furs, making one bed. Then Gabriel sat down and removed the gold coins from his boots. He asked Ashila for the coins she had carried, and put them all in the money bag again. Then he went to the back of the barrack chamber, felt along the wall until he found a loose stone, and hid the money bag behind it. Several Shinali watched, wondering what he was doing. He said to them, “If the soldiers come looking, never tell them.” They only half understood but shook their heads solemnly.

  Many of the clan, having organized their meager belongings, were standing on the steps of the barracks looking toward the enormous closed gates, where, unseen, their chieftain hung in his awful and lonely pain. Zalidas began singing a great Shinali prayer of encouragement and hope, and others took it up until the deep chant rang across the dusty yard and echoed around the high stone walls.

  There was a shout in the courtyard, and one of the soldiers ordered everyone to line up. They obeyed, leaving the sick in their blankets in the cold barracks. They were commanded to stand in lines, men first, then women, then children. Many of the Shinali did not understand, so others interpreted. About fifty soldiers stood in ranks facing the Shinali. They were all heavily armed, many with the lethal crossbows for which Navoran soldiers were famous. When the Shinali were in lines, the soldier spoke again.

  “I’m Officer Razzak,” he told them. “I’m in command. You’ll remain here a few days, while Her Majesty decides what to do with you. Make your food last. There’s water in the well. Our quarters are forbidden to you. Anyone who attempts to escape will be punished. Give me no trouble, and this time tomorrow you can have your chieftain back. Any questions?”

  There were none, and the officer walked toward them, looking them over carefully, and calling out several of the younger women. They went forward, Ashila among them. The Shinali men tensed.

  “You’re cleaning the kitchens and washrooms,” Razzak said. Then he called out ten of the youths. “You’re digging out the latrines, and cleaning up the well.”

  In a masterful display of Navoran military precision, the soldiers marched around the Shinali once, then over to their own quarters, where they dispersed. Several of them took up guard positions around the walls and by the gates; others led the selected Shinali men and women to the squalid kitchens and washrooms. The women were given buckets and scrubbing brushes, the men spades. The soldiers were admirably organized. They were at ease, too, now that the day’s work had been so smoothly accomplished. They leaned against the stone pillars outside the kitchen, laughing and joking as they supervised the women’s work. A group of them, armed with naked swords, went to oversee the men.

  The remaining Shinali watched them for a while, making certain their women were safe, then went back to the barracks. Many were dazed, still lost in horror and grief, unable to comprehend what had happened. A few sat alone in the dirt, rocking and weeping quietly.

  Gabriel went into the barracks and saw to the wounded. They were urgently in need of washing and clean dressings. With Thandeka interpreting, he asked their families to get water, and they returned with wooden bowls and cooking pots full of the brackish stuff from the well. Thandeka used a little of the water to make medicine from the dried roots and herbs she had brought, and gave it to those with infections. She went among the rest of the clan asking them to give clothes they could spare to be cut for bandages, and she and Gabriel spent the rest of the day cleansing wounds and rebinding them in clean cloth. As they worked, Gabriel made sure everyone was told to call him by his new name in front of the soldiers.

  It was still afternoon when the sun slid down behind the high walls, and a deadly cold settled over the fort. The women finished scrubbing the kitchens and washrooms and stopped at the cleared well to wash their hands and faces. Ashila went to the place she and Gabriel had chosen in the barracks and dropped wearily onto her sleeping mat. Soon after, he found her fast asleep. Her knuckles were raw from scrubbing, and he gently bound them in clean bandages. Then he lay beside her, his arm across her waist, and dozed. All around him Shinali rested, some sleeping from sheer exhaustion, others lying wide awake and staring at the broken timbers above.

  It was evening when Gabriel woke. People had gathered up some of the rotten timbers and lit a fire in the yard, and were stewing smoked fish and vegetables. Before the meal Zalidas sang a prayer, then, as always, the Shinali went in their ranks to choose their food. The meal restored some kind of normality to their devastated lives. Afterward, the children collected small stones, or removed beads from their hair, to play complex games with them on markings scratched in the fire-lit dust. One of the musicians produced his pipe, and the tune was haunting and plaintive. Always the people were aware of their chieftain, and often they looked toward the gates, their lips moving in prayer.

  When the fire was low everyone went to their places in the barracks, carrying their bowls of water for washing. The stone chambers were freezing now. In the blue moonlight, shivering, Gabriel and Ashila stripped and washed themselves. It was extremely difficult with so little room, and with everyone trying to confine their feet to the very edges of the bedding. People bumped into each other, and water spilled on blankets. Soon everyone was in bed, and the hollow dark echoed with whispers and sighs and the sound of weeping. Wind moaned through the stone archways, blowing in dust and the last smoke from the dying fire. Gabriel drew the furs and blankets up around their necks, and held Ashila close.

  “Tell me on Darshan,” she whispered. “Is he the Navali?”

  “No. He’s the handsome son of a Navoran woman and an Amaranian healer. That makes him Navoranian.”

  “I’m having a hard time knowing who I’m sleeping with,” she muttered.

  He laughed softly and kissed her, his hand roving. “Who’s sleeping?” he asked.

  “Some of us are trying to,” said Zalidas from nearby, and Ashila giggled and stopped Gabriel’s hand. They embraced quietly, constrained and aching.

  “I’ve just thought of something,” Gabriel whispered, suddenly tense. “You have herbs, don’t you, to stop pregnancy?”

  “Yes. My mother gives them to all the girls, until they’re being married. And after, if they want. Why? Are you worried on it?”

 
; “Yes.”

  “Don’t be.”

  They lay in silence, trying to sleep. Without thinking, he moved his hand over her shoulders and back, massaging them. She sighed blissfully. “Your hands, they’re being a high lot good,” she whispered. “They wipe away my fearings.”

  “There’s no need to be afraid. We have friends who can help us. One of the Masters, Sheel Chandra, taught me how to communicate with him through mind alone. I think you know that power. And if I can’t reach Sheel Chandra, I’ll leave here and go and see Salverion. He’d do something to help us. The Empress listens to him.”

  “You can leave this place?”

  “Yes. I’m not a prisoner. But I’ll only go if I have to; I can’t risk being recognized. There’s bound to be a reward for anyone who gives the city sentries information about me.”

  “You would be safer on your ship, far and far from here. I’m fearing that one day, time to come, you’ll be sorry you stayed with us.”

  “I made the choice to stay, Ashila, and I’m not sorry for it. I swear that, with sharleema.”

  “I bless your swearing, healer,” said Zalidas in his deep voice, making them both jump. “And I’ll be blessing you again, if you stop talking and let us sleep.”

  Several people chuckled, and Gabriel blushed in the darkness, wondering how much they had all heard. He and Ashila lay very still after that, and soon her breathing became calm as she slept. Even in sleep she looked strong, her lips and chin firm, her brow clear and steadfast. Sudden, overwhelming tenderness swept through Gabriel. He gazed at her with wonder, his heart full of joy, knowing that nothing else in his life—whatever he might have gained or lost—nothing would ever compare with her. And he knew beyond doubt that, of all the places in the Empire to which he could have fled, this place with Ashila, with these people, was right.

  In the mystic and dusky edge of sleep he heard the Empress’s voice saying to him, in another life, “Do you believe in destiny, Gabriel?”

  “I’m not sure,” he had replied then.

  He was sure, now.

  Ashila spread the wet clothes across the hemp line to dry, and watched Gabriel and the children running around the inside perimeter of the walls. The first time around he always ran slowly, letting them think the fastest of them were keeping up with him; but after that he ran alone, swiftly, and they shrieked with glee when he came up behind them on the following laps, gasping and staggering, pretending he was nearly dead of exhaustion and they were winning. Then he would pass them again and run on, around and around until they gave up and collapsed on the dirt so he had to jump over them. One day four of the soldiers had run with him, and they made a race of it. Gabriel won easily.

  He ran without his shirt today, for the sun was warm. The children soon gave up, and counted his laps in Shinali. They cheered when he finished, because he had run two more than yesterday. He came over to Ashila, and she gave him a wet cloth to wash his face.

  “I’m not knowing why you run like that,” she said.

  “It uses up the strongness,” he replied, unable to think of a better word to explain tension. “The Shinali men should run with me. They might not argue so much.”

  “The hunting, they’re missing it. And they’re missing freedom. Ten days we are being here. It’s too long. Will you talk to Razzak again, ask him why?”

  “There’s no point; he just gets angry with me now. He’s waiting for orders from Navora. But he has requested supplies. At least we’ll have more food soon. And firewood.”

  Gabriel glanced toward the barracks. Most of the people injured in the battle had recovered, except four whose wounds had become seriously infected. They lay in the dimness with several other Shinali suffering from diarrhea and vomiting, caught from the contaminated well water.

  Seeing where Gabriel looked, Ashila said, “Tarkwan’s much better today, though his wound is still bad. He was talking to me while I washed him. And later the men were fighting, and he sat up and told them to wake up the . . . ah, the laughter-spirit in them. More than that. The life, the spirit that lasts, that overcomes all things. He said we have to dance, not argue. We have to remember we’re Shinali and strong.”

  “The musicians brought their instruments,” said Gabriel. “We’ll light a fire tonight, and dance.”

  The courtyard began to fill with soldiers preparing for their exercises. They wore no armor now, but their uniforms were immaculate, each gray-blue tunic decorated with white shoulder ribbons and emblazoned on the front with the red horse. Shinali children gathered to watch, enthralled. They loved drill times with the precision marching, stunning archery, and breathtaking swordplay.

  Suddenly there was a hammering on the gates, and guards opened them. The exercises stopped, and everyone watched as a wagon came through, piled with provisions. The soldiers unloaded it, laughing with satisfaction at the large kegs of army ale and the huge cheeses and hams. Their own supplies they took into the kitchen under the porch, but they threw the Shinali stores onto the dirt in the sun. When the wagon was gone, Gabriel went over and inspected the Shinali supplies: one sack of flour and a box of withered vegetables. There was no firewood. Fuming, he went into Razzak’s dingy office. The officer was sitting behind his makeshift desk, reading a letter.

  “There’s no firewood for us,” said Gabriel. “No decent food, just rubbish left over from the Navoran markets. It’s not fit for humans.”

  “It’ll do for savages,” Razzak replied.

  “I’ll go out and see if I can get us better food,” said Gabriel, thinking of Salverion.

  “That’s not possible right now. You have to stay here.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “Some of my soldiers are sick. Just dysentery and other minor ailments, but I need them healthy. I’ve requested a physician, but in the meantime your peculiar methods of healing are better than nothing.”

  “I’ll do what I can for them, sir. Then I’ll go.”

  “You can go when a physician arrives, not before. This discussion is over. Leave.”

  A deep fear came over Gabriel and he asked, “Have you had further orders, sir? Are we to stay here much longer?”

  Razzak shuffled the parchments on his desk, and did not reply. Gabriel turned and went out, his heart troubled.

  The flames sprang high against the stars, and the thick smoke swirled across the courtyard, mingling with the glittering dust kicked up by the Shinali dancers. The soldiers leaned against the pillars of the porch and watched, their faces made ruddy by the firelight and the ale. Some tapped their feet in time to the Shinali drums and the wild strains of the pipes, longing to join in the abandonment, and secretly envying the strange young healer who spoke like someone high born and danced like a savage.

  Later, while the Shinali chanted age-old songs of the land they loved, Gabriel asked a guard if he could climb one of the four corner towers.

  “Do what you like,” the soldier replied. “You’re not a prisoner here.”

  Gabriel went to the southwest tower and found the door unlocked. Inside, narrow stairs spiraled steeply upward to a small room. Its walls were hexagonal, and all around were wide windows. Through them the wind came, sweet with the scent of grasslands and the sea. Leaning on the thick stone ledge, Gabriel looked out. The view was breathtaking. He was so high, he could see all the land to the ocean. Directly below lay the Shinali plain. Past that were the farms, the sown fields smooth and shining under the moon, the lights winking in the houses. Then there were the hills, and the luminous walls of the Citadel. And beyond those, spread out on the rocky coast like tiny embers aglow, was the city of Navora. He could make out the road leading into it, the lights of the Navora Infirmary, and the Sanctuary of Healing Dreams. Beyond the city was the sea, smooth and serene under the stars.

  For a few moments, while he looked at Navora, he felt an unbearable longing for all that he had left behind. Struggling to forget, to embrace only the present, he stood very still, his hands folded on the stone ledge, and ma
de his breathing slow and calm. This was the first moment of privacy he had had since being in the fort, and it was sweet. He had craved the solitude and shining silences of the Citadel. Closing his eyes, he imagined himself walking in those brilliant corridors. They would be drenched in reflected moonlight now. In his mind he walked down the pillared porch to the Great Library, beside the herb garden with its fountains and sundial. He passed through the great golden doors to the Library, crossed the luminous floors, and climbed the marble stairs to the meditation room high in the central tower. The peace of the place, the blessedness, overwhelmed him. Incense burned, its smoke musky and aromatic. On a cushion on the floor sat Sheel Chandra, his eyes closed, his body so still he seemed not to breathe. His face was lifted, fine and reposed in the starlight. He sat upright, relaxed but alert, as if he listened or waited. There was another cushion beside him, and Gabriel sat on it.

  “I need to talk to you, Master,” he said, and was not sure whether the words were audible, or only in his mind.

  “I’m listening, son of my heart.” These words, too, might have been only thought; but they were real enough, and the love in them was empowering.

  “The Shinali are interred in Taroth Fort. I’m with them. There’s little food. Everyone suffers from dysentery and minor infections, and two have liver sickness. We’ve been here ten days. The Shinali are peaceful so far, but I don’t know how much longer they can last without rebelling. No one knows what’s going to happen to them, and the uncertainty is unbearable.

  “Would you please help us, Master? Would you and Salverion go to the Empress, persuade her to let the Shinali go? If that’s not successful, would you please send us some supplies? Fresh food, and medicines.”

  “Consider it all done.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for everything, for your wisdom, your presence in my life, your love. I can’t say I’m sorry for . . . for the way things have turned out. I think it was all written. But I deeply miss you, and Salverion.”