“What are you going to do?”
“Feed you, when you say you are hungry.”
“I mean, after that.”
“Watch as you sleep, lest you lapse again into the fever.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“After I have eaten and rested and recovered my strength—what then?”
Tathagatha smiled as he drew the silken cord from somewhere beneath his robe. “Nothing,” he replied, “nothing at all,” and he draped the cord across Rild’s shoulder and withdrew his hand.
The other shook his head and leaned back. He reached up and fingered the length of crimson. He twined it about his fingers and then about his wrist. He stroked it.
“It is holy,” he said, after a time.
“So it would seem.”
“You know its use, and its purpose?”
“Of course.”
“Why then will you do nothing at all?”
“I have no need to move or to act. All things come to me. If anything is to be done, it is you who will do it.”
“I do not understand.”
“I know that, too.”
The man stared into the shadows overhead. “I will attempt to eat now,” he announced.
Tathagatha gave him broth and bread, which he managed to keep down. Then he drank more water, and when he had finished he was breathing heavily.
“You have offended Heaven,” he stated.
“Of that, I am aware.”
“And you have detracted from the glory of a goddess, whose supremacy here has always been undisputed.”
“I know.”
“But I owe you my life, and I have eaten your bread.”
There was no reply.
“Because of this, I must break a most holy vow,” finished Rild. “I cannot kill you, Tathagatha.”
“Then I owe my life to the fact that you owe me yours. Let us consider the life-owing balanced.”
Rild uttered a short chuckle. “So be it,” he said.
“What will you do, now that you have abandoned your mission?”
“I do not know. My sin is too great to permit me to return. Now I, too, have offended against Heaven, and the goddess will turn away her face from my prayers. I have failed her.”
“Such being the case, remain here. You will at least have company in damnation.”
“Very well,” agreed Rild. “There is nothing else left to me.”
He slept once again, and the Buddha smiled.
In the days that followed, as the festival wore on, the Enlightened One preached to the crowds who passed through the purple grove. He spoke of the unity of all things, great and small, of the law of cause, of becoming and dying, of the illusion of the world, of the spark of the atman, of the way of salvation through renunciation of the self and union with the whole; he spoke of realization and enlightenment, of the meaninglessness of the Brahmins’ rituals, comparing their forms to vessels empty of content. Many listened, a few heard and some remained in the purple grove to take up the saffron robe of the seeker.
And each time he taught, the man Rild sat nearby, wearing his black garments and leather harness, his strange dark eyes ever upon the Enlightened One.
Two weeks after his recovery, Rild came upon the teacher as he walked through the grove in meditation. He fell into step beside him, and after a time he spoke.
“Enlightened One, I have listened to your teachings, and I have listened well. Much have I thought upon your words.”
The other nodded.
“I have always been a religious man,” he stated, “or I would not have been selected for the post I once occupied. After it became impossible for me to fulfill my mission, I felt a great emptiness. I had failed my goddess, and life was without meaning for me.”
The other listened, silently.
“But I have heard your words,” he said, “and they have filled me with a kind of joy. They have shown me another way to salvation, a way which I feel to be superior to the one I previously followed.”
The Buddha studied his face as he spoke.
“Your way of renunciation is a strict one, which I feel to be good. It suits my needs. Therefore, I request permission to be taken into your community of seekers, and to follow your path.”