I took Geret’s jug of icy water, and sponged myself, careless of the puddles which formed on his rugs. I took one of his pig’s-bristle brushes, with which he scraped his thin curls, and brushed my own hair into silk. Next, I rummaged in his clothes chest, and found a green cloak with fastenings down the front of it, and holes for the arms to come through. It was very voluminous on me but not too long, for he was a short, squat man, this leader of the wagons.
Ready now, I went up to him and kicked him in the side.
He gave a grunting snort and woke up. His eyes fixed on me at once, bleary, angry, bulbous eyes.
“It’s you, is it? What do you want, then?”
“Get up,” I said. “Go and tell the people of the wagons that Sibbos demands justice for the crime against the healer.”
He gave an unbelieving laugh, turned over, and prepared to sleep again. I got the water jug, and tipped what was left of the icy stuff over his head and face. He came up at once,
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spluttering water and fury. Another moment and he was on his feet, reeling at me, swearing, his hands ready to beat me into pulp. But he was looking in my face. I felt my eyes widen to absorb him and his petty little consciousness, and all at once he was stopped, his mouth slack, his eyes fixed, his hands still raised to begin the beating.
“Now, Geret,” I said, “it is time you knew I am under the protection of Sibbos. You have wronged me, and must be punished for it. Oh, Sibbos!” I cried out. “Punish this man.” I waited a moment, and Geret began to whimper. I said, “The god has set light to the soles of your feet, Geret. They are burning.”
Almost at once his face contorted with agony. He yelped and screamed, hopping up and down, and clutching at his feet in vain attempts to beat out the nonexistent flames.
I watched him, and then I said, “I have Interceded for you with the god, and he has put out the fire.”
With little cries of distress, Geret sank down on the wet rugs.
“Now there is only coolness, and no pain,” I said to him, and he began to sob with relief. “But next time,” I added, “the punishment will be greater and more lasting. My guardian, Sibbos, is angry with you. You must do what I say in the future and offer me no violence. Now wake, and do not forget.”
Then I went to him and slapped him across the face. The trance dropped from his eyes, but he remembered, and there was a look of utter terror there instead.
“You will obey me now, Geret,” I told him. “Yes, tribal woman. Yes.”
“Not tribal woman. Now I am Uasti, your healer. Go and tell the wagon people that Sibbos is angry and demands judgment. Tell them it will be a trial by fire.” He got up and pulled his robe together, and lurched out. It seemed so easy then, I was suddenly afraid I had forgotten some vital part, and the plan would not work. But it would.
I had taken her name already, and that would hold them to me by her bond. After a time, they would ignore the differences between us, and I would have been healer always. As for the trial by fire, they would love such a show. They would long to see the miscreant writhing in agony, and so they would hold off from tearing me limb from limb, because that would spoil the entertainment. Geret was away a long while, and the noises outside were
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confused. Finally, five of his men came, and motioned me to come out. I walked among them from the shelter of the wagons.
The crowd was there, as before, yet very different. They jostled, hating me. A few women spat curses, but, as I had judged, they did not attack me.
We got to the back of the cave, where the god still stood in his red and yellow, and his jewels. Geret stood there, too, sallow and nervous. When I came up to him, he nodded.
“I told them.”
“Good,” I said. “Now have them bring out Uasti’s body in her wooden chair, and place it before the god.”
Geret did as I said, and a great muttering went up. The women had already washed the body and bound its neck, and dressed it in black garments and all its trinkets and beads, and then stuck black round discs over the lids to keep them closed. All this was their tradition, done out of fear. They feared the spirits of the dead, particularly of the murdered dead. Now four of Geret’s men went and got the corpse, and they were uneasy going, pale-faced coming back.
The crowd hushed and drew away, and much female weeping and imprecation broke out.
Uasti was very stiff, but it gave her a certain dreadful majesty. I did not like what they had done to her face, for they paint their dead like dolls-white, with red lips and cheeks, and scarlet nails. Yet it was only revulsion at their ways which stirred in me, not anything else. This was not Uasti, only the dry stalk, broken off. The men set her down and drew back, and she sat there, staring with her black disc eyes.
I stepped forward and held up my hand, and growling broke out.
“Tell them to let me speak,” I said to Geret, and he shouted at them, and when the noise went on, his men-distributed strategically around the cavern, I saw-prodded and pushed them into silence.
“You think me guilty,” I shouted at them then, “but I am innocent of this beast’s act. You see I have no fear of the dead one, nor of the god. Yesterday the women tore my flesh. Many, I expect, remember what they did.” At once shrill cries of malicious agreement. “Look, then,” I said, and pulled open the fastenings of the robe and dropped it, and stood there naked and healed. The susurration of surprise went up. I had been badly marked but there was not a scratch on me.
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Then a girl had forced her way to the front, ducked between Geret’s guards and was yelling, “You did it with your witchcraft, evil one! Don’t think to confuse us, standing there naked and shameless in your wickedness.”
It was Uasti’s girl, and at once the crowd began to bay behind her voice. Geret shouted again, without my prompting this time, the guards hustled, and quiet came once more.
“No,” I said, “the god has taken your marks from me to show you my innocence. But I will give you further proof.” The stir of anticipation. “Get them to bring an unlit torch,” I said to Geret, “and a stand for it.”
A man went and got one from a stack nearby, while another hurried away for the stand. The tension in the cave mounted, and the delay while things were fetched increased it. My nakedness confused them also; they themselves would have been ashamed to be stripped before so many, and were even a little embarrassed to look at me.
When the torch was set up on the spike of the stand, I dipped a taper in the altar brazier and set it alight. Mv hands were trembling as I turned my back on them, and confronted Sibbos as if to pray. Could I do this thing? Well, too late now if I could not. I stared at the bright blue jewel on his breast until my eyes unfocused, and slowly, slowly, an avenue in my brain came open, and I walked down it. Now I seemed two people as I turned back to them. First myself, heavy as a sleeper, conscious of my body only as one is conscious in a half-dream, without any control over it at all; and the second-an entity, cold as an ice-crystal in the top of my skull, who controlled my body perfectly, as the first “I” could not.
I turned myself to face them, and, as I did so, I placed one of my hands on the hand of Uasti.
“I am guiltless of your murder, dead one,” I called out, yet not I but the other “I,” a voice that I did not feel vibrate in my throat. “If this is as I have said, let the fire not burn me.”
I heard them hold their breath, the single held breath of the crowd, all one.
Then I leaned myself forward across the torch, and the flame lapped my shoulders, breasts, and bellv. I did not feel the flame at all; even had it burned me, I should have felt nothing, but the yellow luminance slid like water on my skin, and left no mark. Cries and shouts went up from the crowd. I stood myself straight, and drew the torch off its spike in my numb hands, and stroked it up and down me. It glowed on my flesh, but without smoke. The noise had fallen off again. It was totally silent as I made the torch go back into its posi-