Time of the Eagle (33 page)

Refreshed, I went downstairs and discovered that many of the ones I had healed yesterday had gone and been replaced by soldiers and tribal men and women from the battleground, the ones for whom there had been no room at the Navora Infirmary. Many had appalling injuries, and there were a large number who had been trampled and were near death.

I drank a cup of sweet Navoran tea and ate a small meal, then someone brought me a white apron to wear to protect my clothes, and a tray of cleaned instruments, and I began my work. Again, my faithful friend Elanora helped and stayed until afternoon's middle. I admired her a great deal, for the battleground injuries were not easy to look upon. The sufferers near death I released from pain, so they could go in peace to the shadow lands. I was grateful that there were many people from the surrounding houses to help, and those dying ones were not alone in their passing. Even young Navoran girls, barely more than thirteen summers, bravely sat with those who were dying, holding the hands of
once-wild warriors. Elanora, too, was staunch, and only once, while we were healing, rushed out to get sick.

At last we finished mending all the people in that big room, and I thought, with a huge weariness and relief, that I had finished; but one of the surgeons came and told me to go to the courtyard outside, and that he would join me there shortly. In dread, I went. And there, with flies buzzing over them in the afternoon heat, were a hundred or more soldiers and tribesmen waiting to be healed. Some were in the shade, sprawled on the white stone steps, leaning against the pillars, or under the branches of the potted trees outside; others lay in the sun, flies crawling on their wounds and about their eyes and mouths. Already many of the wounds were infected, and people needing the toilet had gone where they were, unable to move. The stench was unbelievable. My heart went out to them, in pity; it was a day and a half since the battle, and they still awaited help.

Elanora looked desperately tired, and I suspected she had picked up a fever of some sort, from one of the soldiers. I told her to go and rest and was relieved when she did not argue, though I would sorely miss her help. I went into the house, had a few mouthfuls of food and a drink, got some clean instruments and bandages, then returned to the hot and fetid courtyard.

I do not know how I managed to carry on, except that sometimes, in the midst of that terrible suffering, there came to me a peace, a sense that I was not alone, that left me strengthened in my mind and in my body.

Some of the soldiers newly arrived brought news from the other parts of the city. One seasoned old Navoran fighter told me, as I picked bits of bone out of his shattered knee, that
Jaganath had been tried and executed yesterday.

“I heard that he was arrested by a slip of a girl,” the soldier said, grinning at me through the flies buzzing about his face. He brushed them off, mingling blood with his sweat. “It's the biggest wonder of the last two days. Not sure I believe it, though.”

“What other news can you tell me?” I asked, smiling.

“Jaganath's advisors and aides are in prison, awaiting trial for corruption, murder, and other felonies. That I do believe. There were more criminals ruling the city than there were in the prisons. I guess that'll change, now that Jaganath's been beheaded.”

“There will be many changes,” I said. “The Time of the Eagle is a new beginning for us all.”

“True,” he agreed, “and some of us in Navora have hoped for it. But there's a lot of fear. When they were bringing us in from the battleground, the road was jammed with rich Navorans fleeing with their family treasures, no doubt because they thought everything would be seized. Or maybe because they were Jaganath's supporters. They'll be in the ports along the coast by now, buying berths on ships bound for other countries. And I've heard there's rioting in parts of the city, and looting. There's an army commander in charge. He's put up proclamations saying that nothing will be confiscated, that people are to stay calm. This is a time of restoration, of liberty for everyone, including slaves, he says. I reckon that'll mean anything but liberty, for some Navorans, especially the rich. Some of them have never lifted a finger to help themselves. I'm glad my wife was always industrious. Has her own business, you know, weaving cloth. Always busy, even though she can't walk. Accident when she was a child.” He added, with grim humor, “We're going to be a good pair, she
and I. I don't suppose I'll be galloping about, either, when I get home.”

I began binding splints about his knee. “Not for a few months,” I said. “And then you'll be galloping with crutches.”

He gazed intently into my face, curious. “You speak Navoran very well,” he said. “I've been trying to figure out who you are. Slaves from Amaran have dark skin and blue or green eyes, but if you were a slave you wouldn't have these healing skills. I give up: where are you from?”

“I'm Shinali,” I said.

“Shinali! My enemy! By God, wonders never cease! What's it like to stick spears in people one day, and sew them up the next?”

“I don't know,” I said, finishing my work with him and standing. “I wasn't fighting yesterday. At least, not on the battleground you were on.”

“Why aren't you on the Shinali land, with your people?”

“I am with my people,” I said, and went to kneel by a stricken Hena warrior.

Evening came, and still I worked in the courtyard, while Navoran people from nearby houses brought pitchers of clean water and washed the instruments and tore up fresh bandages. Then lamps were brought, and I carried on. My hands shook, and I was terribly thirsty. Sometimes I was brought water to drink, and food, but I could not eat. At times in my weariness the suffering of those I healed seeped into my mind, and I had to shield myself against their pain. Sweat ran into my eyes, and I could barely see. I called for more lamps, and the flames drew big moths that
fluttered about me while I worked. It was a long, long night.

The skies were growing gray when I heard voices at the gate, and thought more wounded were being brought in. Unutterably weary, I knelt by a Shinali woman with a Navoran arrow in her chest. Waves of her pain came over me, and I bent my head a moment, guarding myself. She was suffering horribly and I marveled that she had survived this long.

“I have to take the arrow out,” I said. “I'll stop your pain first.”

I glanced at her face, saw it smeared with blood and sweat and blue paint. Her hair was plastered across her eyes, and I lifted my hand to brush it aside. Then I saw who she was, and dismay and grief went over me. She was my friend Santoshi.

Moaning, whispering her name, I bent over and kissed her face. Lifting a hand, she touched my wrist. “Don't cry,” she said, faintly. “I'll live. Zalidas said.” Sweat poured down her, and her flesh was yellow gray and feverish.

Unable to stop my tears, I moved my hand over her face, around to the back of her neck, seeking out the great nerve pathways to her chest, her laboring heart. But I was weary, overwrought at seeing her like this, and my inner powers were faltering. At last her pain eased, and I placed my hands about the arrow shaft, ready to pull it out. A girl knelt close to me with a lamp, but she was looking away, shaking so much that the black shadows from the flame leaped and wavered, and I could hardly see. The arrow was deep, had gone in on an angle, piercing Santoshi's lung and, I suspected, also tearing her diaphragm and liver. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the healing she needed, I closed my eyes for a few moments and prayed for strength. When I looked up another
pair of hands were about mine, steadying them. Old hands, strong and sure and beautiful, hands I knew and loved.

I raised my eyes. Salverion smiled, his serene old face radiant in the lamplight. “We'll heal this brave woman together,” he said. “Then we can heal the rest, and after that you can sleep as many days as you like. The hardest work is almost done.”

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I brushed them away. “She's my friend,” I said.

“I know, my dear.” He put Santoshi into a deep sleep from which she would not wake, no matter what pain we caused, then placed his hands on the arrow shaft again, about mine. “Now,” he said calmly, “on the count of three, we will withdraw this arrow. Are you ready?”

It took a long time, that healing, but throughout it Santoshi's heartbeat stayed strong. I noticed, over Salverion's shoulder, that the Navoran surgeons came in quiet moments to watch the Master, whispering among themselves, their faces awed.

While we worked, and Santoshi stayed in her deep sleep, Salverion told me, “I worked with your mother in the Navora Infirmary. She is well. When she knew I was coming to help you, she asked me to send you her love. So I do. They are very busy there, with more than two thousand wounded taken from the battleground. In the city I met the man in charge, Embry. A friend of yours, I believe. Sheel Chandra also sends you his fondest greetings. He is very tired, but well. He is staying with an old friend of his, a lawyer. The house is not far from here, actually. We have many friends in the city, people of integrity and wisdom, who will help Embry as he brings law and a new order. At
the moment there's a fair bit of chaos, and Embry's had a hard two days.”

“He would have been delighted to see you,” I said.

Salverion laughed softly. “He welcomed us all as if we had come back from the dead. His pleasure at seeing us made me feel very humble. By the way, while I was with Embry I met a young Igaal man. He was wearing the amulet Sheel Chandra gave you, and spoke of you with great affection.”

“Then you have met Ishtok,” I said, smiling. “I gave him the amulet for protection. He cleared the way for me to go to Jaganath.”

“I heard about that,” Salverion said. “The whole city's talking about it, how Jaganath was taken prisoner by the daughter of his old enemy. Some say she took him all alone, using supreme powers her father gave her; others say that her father was with her, and they both stood in a light that was shining and unconquerable.”

“I think the stories are both wrong,” I said. “She took him with many great friends beside her. There were Salverion and Sheel Chandra and Taliesin and Chetobuh and Ishtok and Embry and . . . Well, it's a long, long list.”

“A long list, indeed,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “Jaganath didn't stand a chance.”

The sun rose in the clear blue skies, and the courtyard grew hot. Salverion and I finished our work on Santoshi, and she came through it well. Before we left she opened her eyes and thanked us, and a girl brought a drink for her. “Have Santoshi taken into the house, and put in a clean bed,” I said. “Stay with her every
moment. If her pain returns, call me.”

I knelt and kissed Santoshi's face again, and Salverion and I together said a prayer over her, then we turned to the others who still needed help. Some of the wounded soldiers, realizing who Salverion was, touched his robe as he went past, then lay back, wonder on their faces. During that bright morning the Navoran surgeons came one by one to Salverion, taking his hand in the Navoran way, and giving him words of welcome and love. One of them, speechless with emotion, simply knelt at his feet, and was lifted up and embraced.

Rhain said to me, during a brief break for food and water, “You seem to know each other well, you and the Master. They say that he and the others from the Citadel were living in the mountains, in an old hidden city they called Ravinath. A place that might have been found by a Shinali woman, in her wanderings.”

“It was a place that found me,” I said.

He grinned and said, “Well, that explains a mighty lot of things.”

It was past noon when everyone in the courtyard had been tended to. Salverion and I washed our hands, took off our filthy aprons, and ate a meal. I was weary to the point of dizziness, and Salverion's hands shook—something I had never seen before.

“I've found a little room to sleep in,” I said as I helped him up the stairs. He was pale, and we rested twice on the long stairway. “It has a bed, and a window seat. I'm happy with the window seat, and you can have the silk sheets.”

“I'm so tired,” he said, leaning on me, “that a pile of straw in a horse stall would be heaven, right now.”

In the little room, I pulled back the sheets on the bed for
Salverion and helped him on. I removed his shoes and covered him. I thought he fell asleep immediately, and kissed his cheek before I lay down on the sunny cushioned seat under the window. But as I closed my eyes he said, “I know this house, Avala. I've been here before.”

“It must have been a long time ago,” I said.

“It was,” he said. “I remember it for the big mural in the entrance hall, of the ships moored at the wharf. The house was owned by a very famous sailor and merchant. I came here to deliver a parchment scroll to his son, a letter to say that he had been chosen to train as a healer with me, at the Citadel.”

I sat up, staring at him through the sunbeams. “This is my father's home?”

“It was. His mother sold it not long after he came to us, and bought her farm on the edge of your Shinali lands. But this was Gabriel's childhood home.”

I lay down again, lost in wonderment. “I dreamed about him last night,” I said. “He was a young boy. He was wearing a Shinali amulet.”

“It was not merely a dream,” said Salverion. “He did wear a Shinali amulet. He never took it off.”

I said, very low, “Jaganath told me about it. He said my father stole it, that he helped my people because of guilt. He told me things about my father that I don't believe. Things I don't want to believe. But my mother said that my father had a secret that he never told her. Do you think he had a secret guilt? That he stole the amulet?”

Salverion said, “A secret guilt? Perhaps. We all have our secrets, our guilts. I don't know how your father got the Shinali amulet,
Avala. But I do know this: that the amulet became a driving force in his life, forging his dreams, changing his heart, setting him on that high road to his great destiny among your people. How he got that amulet, whether he stole it or was given it, is not important. It came to him, was meant to be his, and that is all that matters. And there's another thing I know, which I must tell you quickly before I fall asleep: Jaganath will have done his utmost to rob you of your love for your father, which is one of the great driving forces in your life. Don't let it be said that the old goat succeeded.”