Firebrand's Woman

by Vanessa Royall

  “There is no mark,” he said quietly. “I myself did look for it.”

  “Ah,” replied Teva in a tone of uncharacteristic gentleness, her eyes still locked upon those of the child. “Such beauty is another kind of mark. And there is…something else. But I do not know it yet. Here, give her to me.”

  The gathered Indians gasped in surprise. The witch-woman of the Chickasaw nation did not perform common tasks; her touch was reserved for sacred things, such as healing, or the casting of spells, or the reading of minds. Perhaps she hated the beauty of little Gyva and wished, by ancient embrace, to kill the child, or to afflict her with lingering disease—or, merely by touch, to turn her ugly as a snake at shedding time!

  But the woman took the child from Four Bears, and nothing transpired—at least not immediately. Teva carried the little girl into the chief’s own wigwam, meanwhile giving orders to certain women in the tribe to bring her what was required: water, that the girl might be bathed, fresh blankets made fragrant by the sun and the pine-scented mountain air, goat’s milk sweetened with honey. The women worked, and Four Bears stood by, watching from the shadows along the wall of his wigwam, which was the largest in the village save for the council place. The walls were covered with the pelts of bear and mountain lion, and the many scalps that he had taken in his life. I should have taken another, he reflected, and he would have been bitter save that he possessed Chula Harjo’s great mount, and that he had saved the child.

  “What do you see?” he asked old Teva, Mark-of-the-Cave, who, like himself, watched the woman bathe and feed the girl.

  “There is a destiny for her,” begrudged the seeress.

  “There is a destiny for everyone. Is that not true?”

  “For some it is destiny. For some it is only life.”

  “Ah. Her father was my son, who had the courage to follow the path of his love. Her mother died in battle, howling the war cry of our people, in combat with their best, the One-Who-Is-Old-and-Fierce.”

  “Such things are on my mind,” murmured Mark-of-the-Cave. “But how will the blood mix? And what strengths and passions—and what weaknesses, for we all possess weaknesses—will be her heritage?”

  Four Bears was surprised. “But you are the seeress:”

  Teva cackled, not rudely and not in derision. The sound was an expression of humility, of her own weakness. “If one knows the nature of the material with which one works,” she answered slowly, “then being a seeress is not difficult. But if one does not know the nature…”

  Four Bears nodded. Mark-of-the-Cave said no more.

  The girl was bathed and fed and made ready for sleep. One of the women had brought several soft doeskins, upon which female Chickasaw babies were placed to sleep, that they might acquire softness and beauty, that they might grow to love and be loved and win a strong brave. But as the doeskins were being spread out upon the earthen floor of the wigwam, Teva stiffened. Blood surged beneath her old skin and came into the place where the mark was. Four Bears and the women saw the bloody hand take shape upon her face until it was red as fire and the veins throbbed beneath it. A dull light glowed within Teva’s eyes, and she took the little girl from one of the women, who shrank back, half in awe and half in alarm.

  “No!” Teva said, gesturing toward the soft skins. “Take these away. Beloved-of-Earth was born with softness and beauty. They are her birthright and already her possessions. The days are gone in which our people lived joyously in peace beneath the sun and circling moon. There is blood ahead, and dark trails, and a river of tears. No, bring panther skins, as for a manchild, and lay the child down upon them that she might win courage and grace. She will require in her lifetime the spirit of the panther, and its patience, and its stealth. And so will we all, but it will come to far too few of us.”

  The women did as they were commanded, and old Teva herself bent down and wrapped the child within the panther skins, and knelt beside her until Gyva slept. Gradually the blood withdrew from Teva’s mark. The child slept, and Teva arose.

  “It is up to destiny now,” she said.

  Four Bears nodded, and made a silent prayer to Ababinili. Thou hast heard the seeress, Great Spirit. Grant the child courage as thou hast already granted her beauty. And may she be truly beloved of earth. And may she be beloved on earth.

  Long that night did Four Bears stay awake, smoking his clay pipe and sipping venison broth beside the fire, watching as the child slept.

  Finally the night took him, too, and he went gently into it.

  The Book of Prophecy

  Chapter I

  The mountains had not changed in the seventeen years since the small girl had been brought into the village, and the village itself had changed but little. There were a few more wigwams, perhaps, and a new council hall had been built. Those who had been babies or children on that long-ago evening were beginning to assume the full responsibilities of tribal adulthood. Indeed, many of the young men had already forayed against the encroaching white settlers, and those who had been blooded, who had taken the scalps that hung now from the pole in front of the wigwam of Four Bears, the dying chief, were sometimes asked to speak in council. And sometimes they were listened to. After all, the new chief must come from the young braves who excelled in the manhood ritual by which the chief was selected. The young men had set their hearts on glory.

  The young women thought of the young men, and of marriage. Beloved-of-Earth—whom the tribe called Gyva—was no exception.

  “It will be difficult for her,” sighed the women who squatted in the center of the village, near the well, shaping grain meal into cakes that would be baked for the evening meal. Their sighs were not completely bereft of sympathy, because Gyva worked hard and well at the tasks to which she was assigned. But the women were not without envy, either, because the maiden of eighteen suns was startlingly beautiful. She was also uncommonly bold, and the women worried about that, too.

  “Did you hear her speak up at the meeting of nations?” inquired an old squaw, shaking her head in wonderment.

  “It was but a courtesy,” spoke another. “Gyva but asked him how long it would be until the white men enter our home mountains.”

  The women frowned anyway. Such things were simply inappropriate, as any maiden should know.

  “She is one of us,” declared an old woman who, overworked through the years and approaching death, was allowed to sit by the others, to bask in the sun.

  “And yet she is not,” demurred Little Swallow.

  The women were careful to hide their smiles. Little Swallow was a good worker, too, and fully as beautiful as Gyva, if not as exotic. After the manhood ritual, which would occur when old Four Bears passed on into the clear sky, the new chieftain was certain to choose one or the other of them. But knowledge is knowledge and wisdom is wisdom. Little Swallow was full-blooded. Could the tribe expect less of a young chieftain’s wife?

  The women nodded and returned to the business of slapping grain meal into cakes. Little Swallow truly had but to wait. The chief would be Torch-of-the-Sun or Hawk-of-the-Sky. There was not a woman present at the well who would have thought to spurn either one of these handsome, powerful young men. Little Swallow—with her fine bronze skin, her lush black hair, breasts full and ripe beneath a gingham shirt seized by braves at a white trading post, legs long and smooth beneath a quilted skirt—was sure the new chief would choose her.

  In darker moments Gyva silently agreed. But then she thought of Torch. Never, she vowed. Swallow shall not have him.

  How oddly one’s feelings changed while the years passed by. Not too long ago Gyva avoided him whenever she could.

  “Little Gyva,” Torch had teased her through childhood—he who was only a few years older than her. “Little Gyva, who was nursed by Jacksa Chula, and who cost five braves!”

  He had taunted her constantly; she had hated him then. Yet there had come a time, and not so long ago, when she watched him leave boyhood behind, watched his body shoot up straight and tall
, watched his chest deepen, his shoulders broaden, his face grow hard and wise. And then one day he had spoken to her in a new voice, one of authority and maturity, with his eyes upon her.

  “Ixchay, Gyva, you are well?” And, thus formally, he passed and went about his business.

  “Ixchay,” she had said, returning the greeting. But her body had been changing, too, and with it her mind. The thoughts that came to her were no longer those of games, of sweets, or worries about curbing her tongue in the presence of the older women. No, that day, having exchanged greetings with him in the manner of adults, having felt his gaze, she turned to look at him as he strode away, saw the bronze, powerful shoulders ripple as he moved, the bear claws on his necklace brushing his skin, saw the iron muscles of his legs hardened by bareback riding, and sensed rather than saw the sinuous movement of his body beneath the breechcloth. Gyva knew fully the nature of the hunger in her—she had heard the women speaking about it in the darkness of the wigwam when they thought she was asleep. But it had come so suddenly, and so hard.

  Days later she lay wrapped in pelts at midday, thinking that the fever had caught her. One moment the day was bright, and the wedge of sun was golden where it entered the wigwam. Next moment all seemed hazy, dark, and her whole body was wet and hot. She felt a yielding sweetness all over, impossible to describe and previously unknown to her. She began to give way to it, to drift with it…

  She started in surprise. The witch-woman was standing in the shadows.

  “Who is it?” Mark-of-the-Cave, called Teva, had demanded, her face dark in the shadows.

  “I…what?”

  “Who is it? Who is the one?”

  “The one? I am… I think I am ill with the fever.”

  “That is so. But not the fever you believe it to be. Who is the one?”

  The seeress knew! How could she know? Gyva felt the blood rush beneath her fair skin, the blush that made her almost as red-skinned as her sisters in the tribe.

  “I must know,” Teva demanded. “It is of importance to the tribe—if not now, then later.”

  “Torch,” Gyva answered, because she was afraid to defy the witch-woman, who had never spoken to her before, but whose sly gaze she seemed never to escape.

  “Look at me!” ordered Teva; and Gyva, who had averted her eyes in embarrassment, forced herself to turn toward the old woman in the gloom. “You are sure it is he?”

  Gyva nodded.

  The old witch-woman was silent for a long time, deep in thought. Finally she spoke: “Child, I must give you what wisdom I can, to serve you at this time in your life. There is attraction and there is love. Remember that. Both are natural, but the one can be as much bane as the other can be gift. It is very difficult to distinguish between them, until it may be too late, and the person afflicted with one or the other might never know. It is my wish and my prayer that you should know the difference, and that whether it be love or attraction, the one you seek shares it with you.”

  The words were faintly ominous. “How…how will I know the difference?” Gyva wondered.

  “You will know it, precisely,” the witch-woman said. “You will feel it If you are lucky.”

  That did not sound especially bad, Gyva reflected.

  “If he called you now, in secret,” Teva asked harshly, “would you go to him?”

  The image of Torch came to Gyva’s mind—the way he looked, the manner in which he spoke, the way he moved.

  “Yes,” she nodded.

  “This fever of yours,” said the old woman, again after a long silence, “it is not for you alone. It is for the tribe, for all of us. So be careful with it. But I tell you this. When he calls, go to him.”

  Then she was gone, as if she had not been there at all.

  For a long time afterward Gyva lay wrapped in the sleek panther skins that had been hers as long as she could remember, thinking of the seeress’s words. Suddenly she sat bolt upright, in wonder and joy. And fear.

  Teva had said when! When he calls, go to him. And she must know! Was it not her business to read the future?

  In the days that followed, Gyva thought often upon the words of the witch-woman, lying awake long into the night, her mind and heart fixed upon the image of Torch, wondering when he could call her to him. By day, in spite of the fact that she groomed herself most carefully, and always made certain that her garments were clean and mended, that her headband was of a bright color, he rarely seemed to notice her. It was true that in those days he had been preparing for his first raid against the whites, the first time he was to be allowed to accompany the older braves. But was that of such importance that it should close from his mind the very thought of her, save for a glance now and again, and his reserved, almost haughty greeting? He was aware of his strength, of the eyes of the villagers upon him. He knew his worth.

  In the nights, Gyva despaired. And then a suspicion came to her: Perhaps the witch-woman had told her those things in order that she might suffer. Anticipation can be the worst torture of all. But why? What had Gyva ever done to harm the seeress? And despite the harshness with which the words had been spoken, the meaning behind them was not ungentle. Or—just perhaps—Torch was leery of Gyva’s mixed blood. The young maiden suffered a moment of doubt, as she sometimes did when she thought about her parentage.

  But, as always, the doubt dissolved when she imagined the parents she had never known. How they must have loved! Her father, the son of a chief! And her mother must have been as bold as any brave, if the stories were true. To attack Chula Harjo with a common pitchfork, to give the Chickasaw war cry, and to fight until the death in a flaming town! No. Whatever her doubts about her ability to make Torch pay more attention to her, Gyva had no misgivings about the blood that ran in her veins, or of her own uniqueness. What did it matter, truly, if some of the women yammered about her at the well, or while pounding laundry on the rocks down by the river? What did it matter if Little Swallow smirked and whispered to the other maidens when Gyva approached, and then greeted her so sweetly when she joined them?

  Gyva had learned early to be strong, to go her own way when necessary, to be proud of what she was. But the new surging ecstasy that she had begun to feel toward the young brave altered everything, threw her whole being into tumult.

  Then one morning warriors gathered before the wigwam of Four Bears to embark upon yet another mission. Most of them bore the wounds of previous battles, and on their iron arms were rows of tiny scars, each scar the result of a ritual cut, signifying a man killed in battle. Many of the warriors had scars from wrist to shoulder, and some had scars on both arms.

  Many more warriors had gone out to fight the pale jackals and had never returned. Such might be the fate of Torch, who waited with the others for the blessing of their chief. Suddenly Gyva did not want him to go, although she knew how proud he was. She wanted to cry out, to stop him before it was too late. But there had been nothing she could say.

  The warriors waited, and their horses pranced and nickered, eager to be off. Then the buckskin covering at the entrance to the chieftain’s wigwam was pushed aside, and Four Bears appeared. He was old now, bent and bound for the end of his days, having seen the circling of eighty suns. But his spirit remained commanding, and he would be indomitable until death took him. He stood in the sunshine and gazed at the warriors who had gone forth so many times before, to win victory after victory that, somehow, had always turned into defeat. Slowly he moved toward his tribesmen, placing his hand upon the shoulder of each of the braves in turn. He did not speak, but the meeting of eyes was a message in itself. Then he came to the young men—Hawk, Torch, and a few others. Upon them, too, he bestowed the benediction of his touch.

  “It is not for men to live without hope,” he said, addressing the young men, the seasoned warriors, and the gathered tribe, “although sometimes it seems that such is our fate. And today, after we have already fought so long, so bravely, after we have already lost countless warriors, who watch us now from the sacred huntin
g lands of the Great Spirit, we are sending a new generation into battle. The white men come. The white men keep coming. Soon they will be upon us, even here in these sacred hills of home, upon which, once, Ababinili came to earth, and dwelt, and made us out of the living clay beneath the pine, and breathed life into our nation. If the tide is to be turned, it must be turned soon, by the bravery of these young warriors, combined with the wisdom and cunning of the old. According to our custom, I shall now ask these sons of ours, who go forth for the first time today, to tell us what wisdom is in their hearts.”

  The old chief’s gaze fell upon Strong Badger, a saturnine, powerfully muscled youth, somewhat shorter than the others.

  “I shall drink the blood of the jackal and spit it upon the earth he has tainted,” Strong Badger declared, lifting his chin.

  Four Bears nodded. This he had heard before. Often. Too often, and to so little avail. But he gave his approval nonetheless, and looked at Raven, who, though somewhat lamed by a hunting mishap in his youth, had overcome his curse, made himself strong and swift.

  “The bones inside me are Red Sticks, every one.”

  A murmur of approval arose from the gathered tribe, and even hardened warriors nodded. Raven had been gifted with a telling thought.