Child of Flame Read online

  She gathered together the garments and hid them in the shallow grave next to the bronze sword and armor she had taken from the Cursed One. Finally, she returned to him. “Come.”

  He and his dogs followed obediently behind her. Now and again he spoke to the dogs in a gentle voice. He halted beside the shelter to examine the superstructure of saplings and branches, the hide walls, the pegs and leather thongs that held everything in place.

  “This is where I sleep,” she said.

  He smiled so disarmingly that she had to glance away. Had the Holy One seen right into her heart? Impulsively, she leaned into him and touched her cheek to his. He smelled faintly of blood but far more of roses freshly blooming. His scant beard was as soft as petals.

  Startled, he leaped back. His cheeks were so red and she was so overcome by her own rudeness, and the speed of her attraction to him, that she hurriedly climbed the nearest rampart to look out over the village and the fields, the river and the woodland and beyond these the distant ancient forest, home to beasts and spirits and every manner of wolf and wild thing.

  The dogs barked. She looked back to see them biting at Alain’s heels, driving him after her. He slapped at their muzzles, unafraid of their huge jaws, but he followed her, pausing halfway up to examine the slope of the rampart and exposed soil, and to study the layout of the hill and the span of earthworks that ringed it. Then he halted beside her to survey the village below, ringed by the low stockade, the people working the fields, the lazy river, and a distant flock at the edge of the woodlands that would either be young Urta with her goats or Deyilo, who shepherded his family’s sheep.

  He spoke a rush of words, but she understood nothing except his excitement as he pointed toward the village and started down, half sliding in the dirt in his haste. She watched him at first, the way he moved, the way he balanced himself, sure and graceful. He wasn’t brawny like Beor, all power and no grace, the bull rampaging in the corral, yet neither had he Dorren’s reticent movements, made humble by lacking all the parts necessary to an adult’s labor. He was young and whole, and she wanted him because he wasn’t afraid of her, because he was pleasingly formed, because she was lonely, and because there was something more about him, that scent of roses, that she couldn’t explain even to herself.

  Hastily, she followed, and he had the good manners to wait, or perhaps he had seen by her regalia that she was the Hallowed One of this tribe and therefore due respect. No adult carelessly insulted a hallowed adult of any tribe.

  Everyone came running to see. He stared at them no less astounded, at their faces, their clothing, and their questions, which ran off him like water. Adults left their fields to come and watch. Children crowded around, so amazed that they even jostled Adica in their haste to peer upon the man. After their initial caution toward the huge dogs, they swarmed over them as well. Remarkably, the huge dogs merely settled down as patiently as oxen, with expressions of wounded dignity.

  Into this chaos ran a naked girl, Getsi, one of the granddaughters of Orla.

  “Hallowed One! Come quickly. Mother Orla calls you to the birthing house!”

  Cold fear gripped Adica’s heart. Only one woman in the village was close to her birthing time: her age mate and friend, Weiwara. She found her cousin Urtan in the crowd. “This man is a friend to our tribe. Treat him with the hospitality due to a stranger.”

  “Of course, Hallowed One.”

  She left, running with Getsi. The cords of her string skirt flapped around her, bouncing, the bronze sleeves that capped the ends chiming like discordant voices calling out the alarm. As she ran, she prayed to the Fat One, words muttered on gasps of air:

  “Let her not die, Fat One. Let it not be my doom which brings doom onto the village in this way.”

  The birthing house lay outside of the village, upstream on high ground beside the river. A fence ringed it, to keep out foraging pigs, obdurate goats, and children. Men knew better than to pass beyond the fence. An offering of unsplit wood lay outside the gate. Looking back toward the village, Adica saw Weiwara’s husband coming, attended by his brothers.

  She closed the gate behind her and stamped three times with each foot just outside the birthing house. Then she shook the rattle tied to the door and crossed the threshold, stepping right across the wood frame so as not to touch it with any part of her foot. Only the door and the smoke hole gave light inside. Weiwara sat in the birthing stool, deep in the birth trance, eyes half closed as she puffed and grunted, half on the edge of hysteria despite Mother Orla’s soothing chanting. Weiwara had birthed her first child three summers ago, and as every person knew, the first two birthings were the most dangerous: if you survived them, then it was likely that the gods had given their blessing upon you and your strength.

  Adica knelt by the cleansing bowl set just inside the threshold and washed her hands and face in water scented with lavender oil. Standing, she traced a circular path to each of the corners of the birthing house in turn, saying a blessing at each corner and brushing it with a cleansing branch of juniper as Weiwara’s panting and blowing continued and Mother Orla chanted in her reedy voice. Orla’s eldest daughter, Agda, coated her hands in grease also scented with lavender, to keep away evil spirits. Agda beckoned to Adica with the proper respect, and Adica crept forward on her knees to kneel beside the other woman. Getsi began the entering rituals, so that she, too, could observe and become midwife when her age mates became women.

  Agda spoke in a low voice. A light coating of blood and spume intermingled with grease on her hands. “I thank you for coming, Hallowed One.” She did not look directly at Adica, but she glanced toward Weiwara to make sure the laboring woman did not hear her. “When I examined her two days ago, I felt the head of the child down by her hip. But just now when I felt up her passageway, I touched feet coming down. She is early to her time. And the child’s limbs did not feel right to me.” She bent her head, considered her hands, and glanced up, daringly, at Adica’s face. The light streaming down through the smoke hole made a mask of her expression.

  “I think the child is already dead.” Agda spat at once, so the words wouldn’t stay in her mouth. “I hope you can bind its spirit so Weiwara will not be dragged into the Other Side along with it.”

  Weiwara labored in shadow, unbound hair like a cloak along her shoulders. She moaned a little. Orla’s chanting got louder.

  “It’s time,” gasped Weiwara.

  Agda settled back between Weiwara’s knees and gestured to her mother, who gripped Weiwara’s shoulders and changed the pattern of her chant so that the laboring woman could pant, and push, and pant again. Agda gently probed up the birth canal while Getsi watched from behind her, standing like a stork, on one foot, a birthing cloth draped over her right shoulder.

  Adica rose and backed up to the threshold, careful not to turn her back on the laboring woman. A willow basket hung from the eaves, bound around with charms. Because the birthing house was itself a passageway between the other worlds and this world, it always had to be protected with charms and rituals. Now, lifting the basket down from its hook, Adica found the things she needed.

  From outdoors, she heard the rhythmic chop of an ax start up as Weiwara’s husband spun what men’s magic he could, splitting wood in the hope that it would cleave child from mother in a clean break.

  Weiwara began grunting frantically, and Agda spoke sternly. “You must hold in your breath and push, and then breathe again. Follow Orla’s count.”

  Adica found a tiny pot of ocher, and with a brush made of pig bristle she painted spirals on her own palms. She slid over beside Agda. “Give me your hands.”

  Agda hesitated, but Orla nodded. Weiwara’s eyes were rolled almost completely up in her head, and she whimpered in between held breaths. Adica swiftly brushed onto Agda’s palms the mark of the moon horns of the Fat One, symbolizing birth, and the bow of the Queen of the Wild, who lets all things loose. She marked her own forehead with the Old Hag’s stick, to attract death to her instead
of to those fated to live.

  With a sprig of rowan she traced sigils of power at each corner of the house. Pausing at the threshold, she twitched up a corner of the hide door mantle to peek outside. Weiwara’s husband split wood beyond the gate, his broad shoulders gleaming in the sun. Sweat poured down his back as he worked, arms supple, stomach taut.

  Somewhat behind him, looking puzzled, stood Alain.

  Adica was jolted right out of her trance at the sight of him, all clean and pale and rather slender compared to the men of her village, who had thicker faces, burlier shoulders, and skin baked brown from summer’s work. Her cousin, Urtan, had a hand on Alain’s elbow, as if he were restraining him, but Alain started forward just as his two black dogs nosed up beside him, thrusting Urtan away simply by shoving him aside with their weight. They were so big that they had no need to growl or show their teeth.

  “Aih!” cried Weiwara, the cry so loud that her husband faltered on his chopping, and every man there glanced toward the forbidden house, and away.

  Adica stepped back in horror as Alain passed the gate. As the hide slithered down to cover the door, an outcry broke from the crowd waiting beyond the fence.

  “It is born!” said Orla.

  “Yet more!” cried Weiwara, her words more a sob of anguish than of relief.

  Agda said: “Fat One preserve us! There comes another one! Hallowed One! I pray you, take this one. It has no life.”

  Adica took the baby into her arms and pressed its cold lips to her own lips. No soul stirred within. The baby had no pulse. No heart threaded life through its body. Yet she barely had time to think about what she must do next, find the dead child’s spirit and show it the path that led to the Other Side, when a glistening head pressed out from between Weiwara’s legs. The sight startled her so profoundly that she skipped back and collided with Alain as he stepped into the birthing house. He steadied her with a hand on her back. Only Getsi saw him. The girl stared wide-eyed, too shocked to speak.

  What ruin had Adica brought onto the village by bringing him here? The baby in her arms was blue as cornflowers, sickly and wrong. Dead and lost.

  The twin slipped from the birth passage as easily as a fish through wet hands. Agda caught it, and it squalled at once with strong lungs. Weiwara began to weep with exhaustion.

  Orla took her hands from Weiwara’s shoulders and, at that moment, noticed the figure standing behind Adica. She hissed in a breath between her teeth. “What is this creature who haunts us?”

  Weiwara shrieked, shuddering all over as if taken with a fit.

  Agda sat back on her heels and gave a loud cry, drowning out the baby’s wailing. “What curse has he brought down on us?”

  Oblivious to their words, Alain gently took the dead baby out of Adica’s arms and lifted it to touch its chest to his ear. He listened intently, then said something in a low voice, whether to her, to the dead child, or to himself she could not know. All the women watched in horror and the twin cried, as if in protest, as he knelt on the packed earth floor of the birthing house to chafe the limbs of the dead baby between his hands.

  “What is this creature?” demanded Orla again. Adica choked on her reply, sick with dread. She had selfishly wanted company in her last days and now, having it, wrought havoc on the village.

  “Look!” whispered Weiwara.

  The dead baby stirred and mewled. Color swept its tiny body Blue faded to red as life coursed back into it. Alain regarded the newborn with a thoughtful frown before lifting the baby girl to give her into Weiwara’s arms. Weiwara had the stunned expression of a ewe brought to the slaughter. Living twins were a powerful sign of the Fat One’s favor.

  “Aih!” she grunted as the last of the pains hit her. Without thinking, she gave the baby back into Alain’s arms before gripping the stool one more time. Getsi expertly swaddled the other newborn in the birthing cloth.

  When the afterbirth slid free and Agda cut off a corner of it for Weiwara to swallow, all the women turned to regard Alain. He waited quietly. Adica braced herself.

  Yet no flood of recrimination poured from Orla. Agda sat silent. The afterbirth lay in glistening splendor in the birth platter at her feet, ready for cooking.

  No one scolded him. No one made the ritual signs to protect themselves against the pollution he had brought in with him, the one who had walked into a place forbidden to males. Though it was wrong to let him stay, Adica hadn’t the strength or the heart to send him out. He had brought light in with him, even if it was only by the lifting of the flap of hide tied across the threshold, because the flap had caught on the basket hook, halfway up the frame, and hung askew. The rose blemish on his cheek seemed especially vivid now, almost gleaming.

  “What manner of creature is this?” murmured Mother Orla a second time.

  “The child was dead,” said Agda. “I know what death feels like under my hands.” She, too, could not look away from him, as if he were a poisonous snake, or a being of great power. “What manner of creature is he, that can bring life out of death?”

  But of course that made it obvious, once it was stated so clearly. “He is a man,” explained Adica, watching him as he watched her. He seemed confused and a little embarrassed, half turned away from Weiwara as Getsi cleaned her with water and a sponge of sound rushes. “He was walking to the land of the dead when the Holy One brought him to me to be my companion.”

  Weiwara was still too dazed by the birth to respond, or perhaps even to have heard, but Agda and Orla merely nodded their heads and pulled on their ears to make sure no evil spirits had entered into them in the wake of such a provocative statement.

  “So be it,” said Orla. “If the Holy One has brought him to you, then she must not be afraid that he will bring any bad thing onto the village.”

  “If he was walking to the land of the dead,” said Agda, “then truly he might have found this child’s soul wandering lost along the path, and he might have carried it with him back to us.”

  Orla nodded in agreement. “It takes powerful magic to call a person off the path that leads to the Other Side. Maybe he has already seen the Other Side. Speaks he of it?”

  “He cannot speak in any language I know, Mother Orla,” admitted Adica.

  “Nay, nay,” retorted Agda. “None who have glimpsed the Other Side can speak in the tongue of living people anymore. Everyone knows that! Is he to be your husband, Adica?” She hesitated before going on. “Will he follow you where your fate leads?”

  “That is what the Holy One promised me.”

  “Perhaps,” said Orla, consideringly, “a person who can see and capture wandering spirits, like that of this child, ought to stay in the village during this time of trouble. Then he can see any evil spirits coming, and chase them away. Then they won’t be able to afflict us.”

  “What are you saying, Mother?” Agda glanced toward Alain suspiciously.

  “I will speak to the elders.”

  “Let me take him outside,” said Adica quickly. “Then I will purify the birthing house so that Weiwara can stay here for her moon’s rest.” The new mother’s bed lay ready, situated along one wall: a wooden pallet padded with rushes, a sheepskin, and the special wool padding bound with sprigs of rowan that brought a new mother ease and protection. Cautiously, Adica touched Alain on the elbow. His gaze, still fixed on the newborn in Weiwara’s arms, darted to her.

  “Come.” She indicated the door.

  Obediently, he followed her outside. It seemed in that short space of time that the whole village had heard of the adult male who had walked into the birthing house. Now every person in the village crowded outside the fence, waiting to see what would happen.

  Beor shouldered his way to the front. He took the ax from Weiwara’s husband and fingered the ax head threateningly as he watched them emerge. Like bulls and rams, men always recognized a rival by means not given to women to understand.

  “I will take care of this intruder,” said Beor roughly as Adica approached the gate.
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br />   “He is under my protection.” The dogs pushed through the crowd toward their master. Their size and fearsome aspect made people step away quickly. “And under the protection of spirit guides as well, it seems.”

  One of the big dogs, the male, nudged Beor’s thigh and growled softly: a threat, but not an attack. Alain spoke sharply to the dog, and it sat down, stubbornly sticking to its place, while Alain waited on the other side of the fence, measuring Beor’s broad shoulders and the heft of the ax. Under the sunlight, the rose blemish that had flared so starkly on the tumulus and inside the birthing house faded to a mere spot of red on his cheek, nothing out of the ordinary.

  Urtan hurried up and spoke in an undertone to Beor, urging him to step aside. Beor hesitated. Adica could see the war waged within him: his jealousy, his sharp temper, his pride and self-satisfaction battling with the basic decency common to the White Deer people, who knew that in living together one had to cooperate to survive.

  “No use causing trouble,” said Urtan in a louder voice.

  “I’m not the one causing trouble,” said Beor with a bitter look for Adica. “Who is this stranger, dressed like a Cursed One? He’s brought trouble to the village already!”

  “Go aside, Beor!” Mother Orla emerged from the birthing house. “Let there be no fighting on a day when living twins were given to this village out of the bounty of the Fat One.”

  Not even Beor was pigheaded enough to go against Mother Orla’s command or to draw blood on a day favored by the Fat One. Still gripping the ax as if he wished to split Alain’s head open, Beor retreated with his brother and cousins while the villagers murmured together, staring at the foreign man who had come into their midst.

  Alain swung a leg over the fence and in this way crossed out of forbidden ground so casually that it was obvious that he did not understand there was any distinction. He could not feel it down to his bones the way Adica could, the way she knew whether any hand’s span of earth was gods-touched, or hallowed, or forbidden, or merely common and ordinary, a place in which life bloomed and death ate. The crowd stepped aside nervously to make a pathway for him.