Part 20 (1/2)
Here was my savior, whom I must kill.
Wilam sprinted toward me, spear in hand, like a G.o.d bent upon rescue. His muscles were strung tightly, his jaw was taut, his eyes blazed. They'd found the guards dead and my hut empty, and in a fury Wilam had gathered his warriors and struck out to save me.
My memory of that morning is still thin. I remember Wilam's hot, heavy breath as he pulled me close. I remember his arms, already wet with sweat, holding me. I remember a sea of bodies swarming around us. I remember Wilam's voice demanding to know if I was safe.
I'd had no idea how I would react when I saw him, but I only nodded and clung to his neck and wept.
They had already come to a conclusion.
”He's taken the son!” a warrior cried. ”Kirutu has taken Wilam's son!”
Wilam stood and silenced the outcry with a raised hand. I had never seen a look of such rage as the one that settled in his eyes as they swept down my body. His chest rose and fell like a bellows fueling a hot fire.
”Tell me he did not succeed.”
Every fiber in my body screamed for me to tell him why Kirutu had taken me, knowing the knowledge would send him and his warriors into the Warik village to raze it to the ground. He would be too filled with rage to consider sparing the innocent, much less Kirutu.
Or he would follow the law and do as Kirutu had said he would do. I could not sentence my son to death.
Tears flooded my eyes. ”Please, Wilam, please take me home. I'm safe, just take me home.”
I saw the darkness in his eyes and I wondered what power lay behind them.
”Tell me!” he said.
”He did not,” I said. ”I still bear your child.”
”He tried.”
”Yes. But my muscles are strong.”
”You bled?”
”No. Only a little.”
Telling him any less would make him wonder why Kirutu had let me go before seeing blood.
”How can you be sure?”
”I did not lose our son!” I cried, filled with a deep denial that shook me. ”I know!”
Wilam stared, unmoving, considering the meaning of my words, undoubtedly judging their truth.
I put my hand on his neck and brushed his cheek with my thumb. ”They took me in the night and beat me, but I did not lose our son. He means to draw your rage. I covered myself in mud to hide my shame for having disgraced you by being taken so easily. Forgive me, my husband. I beg you...”
For several long seconds he stood in silence. Then his spear slipped from his fingers and he sank to his knees. Tears filled his eyes and his mouth opened in a cry. The silence was quickly swallowed by a terrifying wail as he bowed his head to the ground and dug at the earth with his fingers. I had been too preoccupied with my own anguish to consider the full extent of his own.
Kirutu had taken his most prized possession and sent it back bruised. My value to him might be judged only by what I could produce for him, but it was value, and having it I couldn't dismiss it.
Wilam stood, reached for me, took my face in both hands, and buried his head in my neck.
”Forgive me, my wife, forgive me, my wife,” he cried.
His words cut to my heart.
”I have let that beast hurt you. Forgive me, forgive me...”
Seeing such a powerful man so undone by his failure to save me filled me with a new and dreadful pain. I knew that I couldn't kill him easily if at all.
The circle of warriors had taken to one knee, watching their fearless leader express the appropriate outrage. They knew already-this would mean war.
With a sudden grunt Wilam seized his spear, leaped to his feet, and swung the spear at the tree to our right, shattering its fire-hardened shaft. He sprang to the nearest warrior, seized his bow, and beat the tree in a rage.
Surrounded by his splintered weapons, he faced his warriors, eyes fiery. Silence gripped the clearing.
When Wilam spoke, his voice was low and certain. ”For this, Kirutu will give his one life,” he said. ”His spirit is full of darkness. We will send his body to join it.”
Immediately a familiar chant spread through the warriors as their dark, steely gazes turned down the valley toward the Warik. ”Whoa, whoa, whoa...”
It wasn't a show of bravado, only simple resolution to defend honor without consideration for danger or consequence. I could only imagine the kind of bloodshed a battle with so many warriors would bring.
I couldn't let that happen. My son was down there.
”No!” I cried.
Wilam turned to me, glaring. ”No man may do this and survive. Any threat against my seed is a threat against my rule!”
”My husband, I beg...”
”Silence!” he thundered. The vitriol in his tone set me back. A new kind of resolve had steeled his mind. In another context I might have been honored.
Knowing what I knew, I felt only fear.
He turned to his army. ”We meet them in the Tegalo valley in three days' time. They wear the black grease but we are stronger and our numbers are greater.” He paused, stalking before me, fists clenched, muscles strung like cords.
”Last night Isaka pa.s.sed from this life. I, the rightful ruler of all Tulim, will burn his body when we have burned Kirutu's. Send word. In three days' time we take what is ours.”
Then he swept his arms under my knees and my back and lifted me as if I were but a leaf. The sea of warriors parted for him as he struck out for the village.
Chapter Nineteen.
MELINO AND her servants swarmed around me the moment we entered the upper courts. She tended to me like a mother hen, snapping orders for hot water and herbs to speed my healing, muttering her curses at the Warik and the spineless purum Kirutu, who would feel the wrath of Wilam as no living being had yet felt it.
She kept asking me if I was OK, was I sure that I was OK, and I could only rea.s.sure her that I was, though my words were undermined by my own conflict.
I could not bring myself to speak of what had happened in Kirutu's hut. I dared not speak a word of Stephen. The thin roll of poison lay against my skull, a haunting reminder that I'd imagined none of what I had seen or felt.