by Claudia King
As Adel descended the steps toward the central hall she realised that she now had nothing to do with herself that afternoon. After a morning spent with Atalyn discussing Netya and sun wolves she had been planning to teach Kiren more of the Sun People's tongue, but there was no chance of that if Jarek was with her. She gazed around at the crowd coming and going, feeling momentarily lost in the temple's restless ebb of activity. Standing back against one of the wooden pillars, she tucked her hands into the sleeves of her gown and stopped to breathe. The familiar old garment felt better on her than the crimson concubine's outfit had. She'd insisted on having it returned to her once it had been washed and dried by Atalyn's servants, and she was grateful to no longer be accosted by men desiring something she was unwilling to give. Her headdress had been returned to her as well, but she did not wear it around the temple. It seemed to unnerve the Sun People.
“Seeress.” A curt nod accompanied the greeting as the high priest of the Brother, the one they called Radeen-Na, passed by. She returned the nod, appreciating the warrior's conservative sense of propriety. He seemed more accepting of her than most of the other high priests. Perhaps it was the mutual understanding of another soul toughened by hardship, or maybe he was simply so loyal that he never questioned Atalyn's will. Adel was still wary of the man, for the lines of ritual scarring on his cheeks spoke of a warrior who had dedicated his life to bloodshed, but he was no barbarian. He carried himself with the same tight discipline shared by all the temple warriors—a discipline that valued respect over fear.
Radeen-Na caught himself and turned on his heel, pivoting to face Adel with a look of consideration. “You understand the spirits, don't you, Seeress?”
“My own better than yours,” she replied. “But yes, I have dedicated my life to serving them.”
He motioned for her to follow. “Come with me while I hold audience with the laypeople this afternoon. Disputes between farmers I can handle as well as any man, but their whining about the spirits vexes me.”
Her arms still folded, Adel stepped away from the pillar and followed him into the feasting hall. “Is it not your duty as a priest to understand the spirits also?”
“I am a high priest. The Brother's chosen. I need not understand him, only embody his power.”
“Then surely you should understand him better than most.”
“Mind your tongue, Seeress. The Brother is simple. He guides the hunt and lends us courage against our enemies. Some seek to make him more complex than that, and I have no patience for it.”
“Hm,” Adel mused. “A sacred warrior.”
“He is, and I am. Atalyn says we are to share our wisdom of the spirits with you, so here is your chance to learn.” He sat down at the middle of the largest table in the feasting hall and slapped his palms against the surface. “Listen to the laypeople's problems with me, and perhaps you can answer them when they seek guidance from the spirits.”
Between mealtimes the feasting hall became a communal spot for gathering. Adel had seen it used for dancing, tale telling, and performances by priests and village fools who enacted stories of the spirits and heroes of legend. During most of the day, however, it was the place the laypeople came to seek audience with the temple priests. High priests mostly took their audiences in private, but one of the six was always present in the feasting hall so that even the lowliest soul might have a chance to speak with them. Atalyn thought it very important never to become too distant from the people who served him.
Taking a spot on the bench to Radeen-Na's right, Adel folded her palms upon the table and waited for the guards to lead in the first family. She noticed the laypeople already present in the hall watching her. Many of those not in conversation with the priests gazed at Radeen-Na in awe, mostly the men and youngsters, and before long their eyes fell upon Adel as well. Who was this strange woman who deserved a place at the high priest's side?
Shortly thereafter a group of six came to sit before them, an ageing man and woman, a couple of a similar age to Adel, and a male and female child. Six souls to represent the six great spirits of the Sun People.
The first audience revolved around a dispute over goods exchanged during the recent traders' moon. The head of the family believed he had been given a bundle of low-quality furs concealed by more lush ones on the outside, and he sought recompense from the trader responsible. Radeen-Na berated him for his foolishness, then sent the family away with a temple guard to investigate their claim. The warrior would ensure the proper payment was extracted if the family's accusation proved true.
The second family wanted to discuss another disagreement over trade. This appeared to be a common complaint following the traders' moon, Adel realised, and while she approved of Radeen-Na's sharp and decisive way of handling things, it left her with nothing to do but sit and listen. Third came yet another family telling a similar story, and then a fourth after that. Adel began to regret her decision to join the high priest, and her eyes wandered around the room as she listened. Half a dozen priests attended to families of five or six apiece. One particularly conspicuous group carried a figure on a hammock suspended between two poles. He was moaning in pain, his face glistening with sweat. The family brought him to one of the priests, whereupon a young woman pleaded desperately for the mercy of the spirits. The priest approached the hammock, lifted the blanket covering the man, then paled and looked away. When he shook his head the woman fell to her knees and began sobbing, clutching the priest's gown as she begged for his help.
Adel stood up, but Radeen-Na caught her hand before she could move.
“We have not finished here, Seeress.”
She pointed to the family with the hammock. “They have a wounded man with them. I would examine him myself.”
For a moment Radeen-Na looked as if he might yank her back down by force, but the fierce glimmer in her eyes elicited a nod of respect from the warrior. “Very well.” He waved away the family he had just finished dealing with, then stood up and called across the hall. “Bring that man to me!”
The guards ushered the family over, whereupon the young woman began spilling out her tearful thanks to the high priest.
“Save your tears, woman,” he said. “The seeress wishes to see your husband.”
The priest who had been attending them before hurried over and said, “There's nothing to be done for him. The wound is too great, and it already shows signs of festering.”
“Who is she?” the crying woman said, giving Adel a nervous glance.
“I am a healer,” she replied. “Put him on the table. I have brought warriors back from the brink of the spirit world many times before.”
Warriors of the Moon People, Adel thought. She did not doubt her talents, but besides Netya she had tended to very few Sun People. Still, if this man could be saved, she had to try.
Lifting the blanket, she saw that his left forearm had been badly broken. The limb already looked lifeless, gelled with dark blood and showing splintered bone through the pale skin. It was surely infected, and the wounds were too deep to properly repair with any technique she knew.
“Your man is dying,” she told the woman.
“As I said,” the priest confirmed, “there is nothing to be done.”
Adel silenced him with a glare, then turned back to the wife. “Do you want me to try and save him? There is a strong chance he may die from this, but if we do nothing his death will be slow, painful, and certain.”
The woman gave a hesitant nod. “Anything. Please try.”
Adel beckoned one of the guards. “Give me your blade. Bring twine and a stitching needle, and something to catch the blood.”
“What do you mean to do?” Radeen-Na asked.
“I will cut off his arm. If the festering sickness has not reached his heart he may yet live.”
“Without an arm he will bleed to death for sure.”
“What else can we do?”
Radeen-Na rubbed his chin, examining the grisly wound the way a hunter mig
ht survey a herd of animals. “Very well, Seeress, but you'll need more than twine to staunch a wound like that.”
That was what Adel had been fearing the most. Moon People clotted and healed quickly, but the blood of the sun flowed like water.
“Do you have herbs to slow the blood? Something else to seal the wound?”
Radeen-Na unsheathed his blade and turned to place the leaf-shaped end in the fire behind them. “I am no healer, but warriors learn their own ways of stopping their brothers from dying. Fire seals wounds quickly.”
Adel looked at the end of the blade, then back to the man's arm. Yes, fire could stop bleeding. It was ugly, and she would not have trusted the Sun People to endure it well, but Radeen-Na's blade was broad and flat, and she knew that metal heated very easily. It might just be the perfect tool for her task.
The family looked on in fear as the guard returned with her supplies. Rolling up the sleeves of her gown, Adel knelt astride the wounded man and had Radeen-Na and two others hold him down. Using one of their blades, she set about the bloody work of severing the man's lower arm from his elbow. She sometimes forgot how horrible healing could look to those unaccustomed to it. The onlookers cried out and wept, and the man screamed until the pain overwhelmed him. Her work became much easier once he was unconscious. She'd told the other priest not to bring him anything for the pain, for if they sent his mind to the spirit world at a time like this it might never return.
By the time she had severed the arm the end of Radeen-Na's blade was glowing red hot. He handed it to her, and she pressed the flat surface against the tied-off stump until the sizzling halted the spurt of blood. Once the wound was properly sealed and dressed she lowered herself off the table and picked up the bloody blanket to wipe her hands. Beads of sweat ran down her brow, and she was breathing heavily. Time had slipped away from her while she worked, just like when she had tended her father's warriors the same way. When she looked up she saw a crowd of people gathered around her, all looking on in silence. Jarek was with them, his dark face distinct amongst the others.
“Will he live?” the man's wife asked in quavering tones.
Adel bent over her patient, her ear to his lips, one hand over his heart and the other feeling for the throb of life in his neck. “His breathing is weak but his heart is strong. By sundown we should know.”
All other audiences ceased for the afternoon. Laypeople and temple dwellers alike had gathered to witness the beautiful, bloodstained healer tending to the wounded man in a way few of them had ever seen before. The priests set Adel's patient down on comfortable furs by the fire, and his family gathered around to drip goat's milk between his lips as if they were nursing a newborn babe.
“You were like the spirit of the Sister to their eyes,” Jarek said as Adel finished cleaning herself in a bowl one of the guards had provided.
She turned to face him, wiping the sweat from her brow. The discomfort from earlier was gone. Healing was in her blood, in her bones. It took her deep within herself, to a place where the troubles of her waking life could not touch her. “I only did for him what I have done for many others before.”
“If he lives, they will not forget this. Few women are healers in these lands.” Jarek looked around with nervous excitement, then reached out to squeeze her hand. “Atalyn won't forget it either.”
Through Jarek's touch Adel felt his elation running into her, his excitement for what she had just done. Unbidden, a smile spread across her lips, and she felt herself squeezing his hand back.
“First let us make sure he lives.”
For the next several hours the feasting hall became host to a ceremony of spiritual prayer and song. Circles gathered around the wounded man to pray to the Mother and Father for their compassion, to the Son and Daughter for hope, the Brother for strength, and to the Sister for the fire of life that would bring the fallen man's soul back from the spirit world. Even the Dawn King arrived to witness what was taking place, and after speaking a few words to the crowd he told the servants not to bring in any meals that night. The temple would feast outside upon the grass so that the priests could continue their vigil over the wounded man uninterrupted.
Over the course of the afternoon it seemed that everyone in the temple came to offer a prayer, concubines and warriors, priests and servants, even Netya and Kiren. Word had spread, and like so many things Adel had done in her life, she suspected that the unusualness of her actions had lent the tale an ethereal quality. The sobbing wife, the chanting prayers, the Dawn King's blessing, and at the centre of it all the tall, dark-haired healer kneeling over the man she had attempted to save from a mortal injury.
By nightfall his heart was still beating strong, and he breathed more easily. When he finally opened his eyes he groaned, looked down at the stump of his arm, then whimpered in relief. “Thank the spirits. Thank the spirits it's gone.”
“Try not to move it,” Adel told him. “The pain will be intense. For a time the spirit of your arm will linger, and it will keep telling you of its pain, but that too shall pass.”
“Whatever the pain is,” the man moaned, “it's better than it was before.”
Adel smiled and touched his forehead. He had not flared up with fever. Looking up at the man's wife, she said, “I believe your husband may live.”
The woman fell into Adel's arms and began sobbing anew. “Thank you. Spirits, thank you! Whoever you are, Seeress, you will have my love for as long as you live. I shall tell everyone in the village about you, we will bring you gifts every year, I will name my next child in your honour!”
“Save your kindness for your husband, girl. You'd not give a huntsman such thanks for bringing home the meat that keeps you alive. A healer needs no reward for following her calling.”
“I have never seen a healer do what you did.”
“Then I will make sure that every priest in the temple knows how to tend wounds like this in the future.”
The woman wiped her face and kissed Adel's cheek. “Mother and Sister bless you.”
Many people wished to speak with Adel after that, the priests especially. They were curious to know what other strange methods of healing she might have brought from her distant lands, and the laypeople wondered whether she might tend the ailments of their sickly relatives too. Adel had to admit, the technique Radeen-Na had suggested with the blade had proven invaluable. Just as the Sun People wondered how she might help them, she too wondered what else she could learn by studying their ways. For most of her adult life she had known more than any seer in living memory, yet now she was among a people whose bodies differed from the ones she knew. She would have to relearn all her herbs and repractise all of her techniques. She suddenly felt like an apprentice again, with a world of exotic knowledge waiting to be discovered. It reminded her of how she had felt among Jarek's clan, when she was learning from Mother Leide. There was the sense of elation, the embrace of the people around her, the crackling firelight, and Jarek looking on with a smile. If only she could run out under the stars and laugh with him again.
During a pause in the conversation, Jarek worked his way through the crowd and took her by the hand. “Why not?” he whispered.
And unlike before, Adel felt no heartache when he touched her. There were no years of yearning that night, no pain of lost love, no hope for what might be. That night she was simply a healer, and Jarek was her friend.
Barely able to suppress the laughter tickling its way up her throat, she allowed him to pull her out of the hall and up the steps, brushing past the priests and warriors and concubines, feeling her pace quicken with every step.
“If you were a spark this whole temple would be aflame!” Jarek said. “And tomorrow, the village too. You've made a tale tonight, oh, and it's a good one! You've not changed one bit, Adel.”
“Everything about me has changed.”
“But not your spirit.” He smiled at her, sending a warmth through her soul that reminded her of the old days. How long had it been since she ded
icated herself to the seers' craft so studiously? Back in the valley she took every injury as an opportunity to teach others, not to practise her own skills. Such was a den mother's duty. She had almost forgotten what it felt like when a woman thanked her for saving her man, or to see a child smile when she told them their father would be returning to their hearth after all.
“You have changed much, Jarek,” she said as they ascended more steps up the tiers of the temple. “You still act the fool, but you are a high priest to these people. They revere you as they would an alpha.”
“Well, perhaps fools are good at fooling others.”
“It is not just that. No man could trick his way into status like yours. I've watched you speak to them.”
He gave her a half-playful look. “How have you managed that, when you are always running away from me?”
A flush of shame lit Adel's cheeks, but with Jarek she did not care. It was liberating not to have to play the den mother for once. “We cannot all be as carefree as you.”
“I'm just glad that tonight you seem more like your old self. Come, let's watch the stars. That's the one thing I miss, living in this great house.” He led her up to the temple watch and out into the moonlight, reeling her to and fro in a playful dance. She pretended to stumble, still feeling a little foolish, but Jarek did not fall for her tricks and coaxed her to keep on moving until they were circling one another in a gentle jig.
“We used to dance like this with your pack,” she said.
“Perhaps we should show the Sun People at their next feast. They love seeing a high priest act like a mortal man.”
Adel grinned, letting Jarek take both of her hands and swing them from side to side. “Do you really think this will win me Atalyn's friendship? Perhaps I should have been tending his people since the day I arrived.”