Black Jade (90 page)

I thought of King Arsu's present campaign, and the thousand men he had mounted on crosses. I looked at Bemossed. 'You say you were born near Avrian?'

'I think so. I think I was three or four when they killed my parents.'

'And how old are you now?'

'Twenty-two, I think. Perhaps twenty-three.'

'You don't know? Didn't anyone ever tell you the date of your birth?'

'No - why should they have?'

The sun falling on his face seemed to bring out much of his essence, and I saw him as many things at once: sad, compassionate, strong, innocent and wise. I thought he lived too close to the dark, turbid currents of the unknown self that flowed inside of everyone. And yet I felt a wild joy of life surging there, too. And so I said to him, 'Most people celebrate the day they were born.'

'Most free people, perhaps,'

I watched as he rose up off his rock and went over to scratch beneath the jaw of one of the goats. I could not imagine him ever using a sharp knife to slit this gentle animal's throat, and I said to him, 'Do you ever think about being free?'

He looked up at the hawk still circling on the morning's rising wind, I felt him building inside himself a wall of stone to keen his storming passions within - even as I tried to keep those of others without. Then he said a strange thing: 'Does a bird think of flying beyond the sky?'

I caught his gaze and said, 'You hate your service with Mangus don't you?'

'But why would you think that?'

'Because I know about hate,' I told him.

A gentleness came into him as he looked at me. 'I think you do. Master Arajun. And I think you speak about things that it is best not to speak about.'

'Then let us not speak but act,' I said to him. 'Tomorrow, after Mangus changes Garath's dressing, we shall leave Jhamrul. We have need of a healer - why don't you come with us?' His eyes grew restless and bright. He called out softly, 'A healer, you say? But I am Hajarim!'

'Truly, you are. But you must know what the people of your village say about you.' 'They do not understand.'

'With some power you were born with,' I said to him, 'with some virtue that runs like fire along your blood, you lay your hands on others, and they are healed.'

He lifted his hand away from the goat's throat and looked at it. 'You ... do not understand. I can do nothing to heal anyone. I'm only a slave.'

I wanted to tell him that he might heal the whole world, But old doubts tore into me, and terrible memories, too, and because I wasn't wholly open with him, he couldn't quite bring himself to trust me.

'Bemossed,' I said again, rising up off the grass. Then I crossed over to him and took hold of his hand. At the touching of my palm to his, he gasped, in astonishment. His eyes went wide with horror, exaltation, delight and dread. I stared at him deeply as he did me; it was like staring at the sun. 'You . . do not know what you do,' he told me. He seemed to be searching for something in me as his hand gripped mine.

I felt in him a vast, cold loneliness and a wild hope, too 'What do you do?'

There was a moment. Something inside him seemed to pull me into a place of deep brilliance. I felt time slowing down as the whole world suddenly stopped. The trilled-out notes of the blue-birds hung like drops of silver in the air. The birds themselves brightened with an impossible blue, as if their leathers flamed with a lovely fire that didn't burn. Along the hills, the grasses and flowers shimmered green and pink and white. Everything - the meadow and the goats grazing upon it, the sun above and the earth beneath my feet and Bemossed's hand within mine - seemed to be made of a single substance that kept pouring itself out in a blaze of light. In this splendid land we dwelled nearly forever. But then some fearful thing buried in Bemossed's heart, or perhaps within mine, darkened the meadow and drove us back into the world. I saw that the goats were just goats, the grass was only grass, and the sky shone no bluer than it ever did. And Bemossed was only a man, even as I was.

He looked at our clasped hands, and I thought that in his whole life since his parents' deaths, no one had ever willingly touched him. He said to me. 'What do you want?'

'You don't have to remain a slave,' I told him. 'Come away with us, and we'll leave Hesperu.'

'To go to the Dark Lands?'

'The only darkness in any land,' I said, 'is what men have brought into it.'

'And what have you brought into the world ... Arajun?' I knew that I could lie to him, in my words, but not in the light oi my eyes. His hold on my hand suddenly tightened. I had spent too many hours of my life gripping a sword, and so I was stronger than he in my sinews and bones. But his will beat at mine with all the fire of the desert sun. I could keep no secret from him. He must have sensed the hatred poisoning me, and more, that I was a slayer of men, for he let go of my hand as he might a heated iron. I stood staring at him in shame. The day before he had washed in the gore of a goat, and yet it was I who had blood upon my hands.

'Come with us,' I said again. 'My friends all agree that you would be a welcome addition to our troupe.'

I felt him wanting to leap toward this offer as a starving wolf toward meat. But something stopped him up short.

'No,' he said, 'I would only be caught, and this time I
would
be strangled.'

I did not, at that moment, sense in him any fear of death. But something else grieved him terribly, some dark thing that I could, not see.

'You
won't
be caught,' I told him. 'We'll protect you.'

'But how can anyone protect me?'

'We won't let anyone take you.'

He looked down the hill at where the bright colors of our cart blazed in the distance. 'You have
weapons
hidden away, don't you? You, and the strongman, Taras?'

I remained silent as I gazed into the luminous centers of his eyes.

'You would kill, wouldn't you? Kill to keep your freedom?'

I said nothing to this accusation, and so said everything.

He looked at me with a terrible longing, as if that which he had sought his entire life lay just beyond his grasp. His voice grew sad almost beyond bearing as he told me, 'I'm sorry, but I can't go with you.'

'But don't you want to be
free
!' I cried out to him.

His eyes pulled away from mine, and seemed to drink in the cherries all red and ripe along the branches of the tree. The sky opened out into an infinite blueness beyond it. I felt him return to that shining place that was his secret home. This time, however, he could not take me with him.

'I am free right now,' he finally said to me. He looked back at me, and the burning in his eyes brought tears into mine. 'All men are free. They just don't know it.'

After that, he asked me to play a song on my flute, and this I did. There seemed nothing more to say. When I finished, I bade him farewell and walked back through the meadow's swishing grasses to the field where our cart stood. My friends immediately gathered around me.

'Well, what did you find out?' Maram asked me.

'Not as much as we hoped,' I admitted. I turned to Master Juwain and recounted much of what Bemossed had told me. Then I said, 'It could be nearly impossible to trace back Bemossed's owners to anyone who might have known about his birth. Probably anyone who
did
know was killed or sold off at the pillaging of Lord Kullian's estate.'

'But we can't he certain of that,' Master Juwain said to me.

'No, we can't. But we can't either go up around Avrian asking where Lord Kullian's old estate might lie and if anyone thereabouts remembers a slave boy named Bemossed.'

Master Juwain rubbed at this bald head, gleaming in the morning sunlight. His disappointment seemed as thick as the porridge that Liljana had prepared for breakfast.

'I'm sorry, sir,' I said to him. 'But likely we will never know the day of Bemossed's birth.'

'But Master Matai's horoscope -'

'Has led us this far,' I said. 'And we should be glad for that. For I'm nearly certain that Bemossed is the Maitreya.'

Kane held a jangling chain in his hands as he inspected its black iron for weak links. Then his black eyes fixed on me, and he said, 'But what of the signs, then, eh? Do you think you are able to tell? Does this goatherd look upon all with an equal eye?'

I thought of Chedu who had nearly skinned Bemossed alive, and I said, 'Nearly all.'

'Is his courage unshakeable?'

'He has little fear of death, I think.'

'But does he abide steadily in the One?'

I drew in a long breath as I looked up the green hills above us. I said, 'He
could
abide there - I'm certain he could.'

At this. Master Juwain's lips tightened as if he had sucked on a sour cherry. 'But did he give any other sign, in his words or manner, that he might be the Maitreya?'

I smiled sadly as I said, 'He wouldn't even admit to being a healer.'

Master Juwain sighed at this and said, 'I was afraid it might be thus. Do you remember the verse, Val?'

I nodded my head, then recited lines from an ancient vesrse that had once perplexed me and led me to make the greatest error of my life:

The Shining One

In innocence sleeps

Inside his heart

Angel fire sleeps

And when he wakes

The fire leaps.

About the Maitreya

One thing is known:

That to himself

He always is known

When the moment comes

To claim the Lightstone.

'As it was thought with you,' Master Juwain said to me, 'Bemossed is young, and it may be that his time has not yet come to awaken. And so he may not know that he is the Maitreya. Unfortunately, we don't either.'

I stepped over the cart and drew forth my sword. When I pointed it up the hill toward Bemossed and his goats, its fiery light still ran with glorre. And I said to Master Juwain, 'But we
do
know . . . that he might be the Maitreya.'

'So might others be. Others with whom we could confirm their hour of birth. Perhaps we should still search for them.'

'Perhaps we should,' I said, 'but we must take Bemossed with us.'

'But how, Val?' Maram asked me. He jingled the bells of his fool's cap that he was playing with. 'You said yourself he refused to run off with us. We can't just throw a cloak over his head and abduct him, can we?'

'No, we can't,' I said. I looked at Estrella, whose deep, liquid eyes seemed to tell me that we were all being fools. 'But we might buy him.'

This suggestion seemed to shock Maram - and everyone else -as much as it did me. And Maram called out, 'What? What are you saying?'

'If the priests have been asking after him,' I said, 'he is in great danger here. It would be for the best.'

'But doesn't he hate emptying bloody basins for that damn Mangus?'

'He
does
hate his servitude, yes,' I said. 'But I think there is something he loves greater than his hate.'

'Ah, I don't understand. Do you mean, then, that we should buy him as our
slave?'

'Only until we've left Hesperu. Only until he comes to trust us. Then we shall tell him all, and free him.'

It seemed a dark and desperate deed, but then we had reached the end of our quest to find ourselves in a dark and desperate place. None of us could think of a better plan. And so Liljana finally said, 'All right then, but please let me handle the negotiations.'

Later that morning we returned to Mangus's house, and Maram disappeared into Mangus's healing chamber to have his dressing changed. After Mangus had finished, he left Bemossed to clean up while he met with Kane, Liljana, Maram and me in the atrium. It was there, with flowers perfuming the air and water bubbling from the fountain, that Liljana proposed buying Bemossed.

'We're only poor players,' she told Mangus, 'but we could give you one of our horses for him.'

As she spoke, the sounds of Bemossed tidying up beyond the open door to the healing chamber suddenly quieted. And Mangus said, 'But what would I want with a horse? And why would you want to buy a Hajarim?'

He knew well enough the answer to his question. As Liljana started to say something about all the dirty tasks involved with a traveling troupe's constantly making and breaking camp, Mangus held up his hand to interrupt her.

'Mother Magda,' he intoned as his face fell stern, 'I know there is talk about Bemossed in the village. But it is only idle talk. The villagers are only simple folk, and know nothing of the art of healing.'

'Are you saying that Bemossed is of no help to you?'

Mangus ran a finger along one of his coils of white hair. He pulled at the cuff of his tunic. I sensed his great interest in dealing with Liljana. But it must have occurred to him that if he insisted that Bemossed was of little value, he could ask only a small price for him.

'Bemossed,' he said, 'is a
great
help to me. No one has ever kept our house so clean My wife and I are very fond of him.'

'But is he of no help in
healing?'

Mangus looked at Maram and Kane, and then back at Liljana. 'I did not say that. He helps in ways that you wouldn't understand.'

'Is he a healer, then?'

'Bemossed?'

Liljana sidled over to Maram and grasped his arm. She said, 'Garath felt sure that Bemossed laid his hand upon him. The people of the village have told of such laying on of hands as well.'

Mangus now ran his finger along the collar of his crimson tunic as if the atrium had suddenly grown too hot. He said, 'You should know that this is an unusual situation and that we have the sanction of the Kallimun. Before my slave touches anyone, he is purified.'

'Then he
is
a healer?'

'No, certainly not. He does help me, but only as a bandage draws out pus.'

'You were right,' Liljana said, 'I
don't
understand.'