The Death of Attila, page 14
The hair on Dietric’s forearms prickled up. The Fluteplayer had not touched the bowl, nor moved, nor even spoken; only his eyes stared straight into it, but from the glassy surface of the liquid thin smoke rose. Dietric’s tongue was dry; he swallowed with difficulty. He was afraid to speak. Through the corner of his eye he looked at Tacs, who had not moved at all, except that now the corners of his mouth smiled.
“Ho!”
Dietric jumped. The Fluteplayer stood up, uncoiling like a snake into the air, shaking his head and flopping his hands around on the wrists. “Now. Come with me. Tacs, carry the rattles, the feather-stick, and that brazier over there. Be careful, it is hot. Tell your friend to stay behind you and not to breathe the air around me.” He picked up the steaming bowl and went out the door of the aul.
Tacs grabbed up two gourd rattles and a long pole strung with dyed eagle feathers. Dietric reached for the brazier, to pass it to him, but Tacs struck at his arm. “Don’t. Let me do it, it’s important to do exactly as he says.” He took the brazier and went out, and Dietric followed him, empty-handed.
The crowd around the aul had doubled. The children were hiding behind their parents and a lean grey dog whined and slunk away when The Fluteplayer came out. It was an unusually hot day for early spring. The bright sunlight dazzled Dietric and made him blink.
The shaman led Tacs and Dietric single file through the crowd to the little aul behind his own, where Yaya had taken Ummake when she fell sick. The crowd followed. Dietric heard someone say, in Hunnish, “It is done by sunset.” Immediately someone else began to argue.
Holding the steaming bowl out in front of him, The Fluteplayer started to chant, and the crowd hushed. Dietric thought The Fluteplayer to be a young man still—certainly younger than Ardaric—but the voice he chanted in quavered and wheezed like an old man’s voice. Some of it was in Hunnish words but some was in hisses and strange soft whistles. Dietric would have thought it flummery; he wanted to think it nothing else, but the bowl was exhaling clouds of steam, and he could smell the strong hot odor of the boiling stuff inside, and yet no fire had touched it and The Fluteplayer held it in his bare hands. Finally The Fluteplayer stamped his left foot twice and stopped chanting and went into the little aul.
Tacs went forward again. Before he could reach the door The Fluteplayer came out again and stopped him. Taking the feather-stick the shaman turned to the crowd and shouting in Hunnish Dietric could not follow raised the feather-stick over his head and jabbed it down like a lance into the ground.
The crowd gave up a general sigh. The Fluteplayer went back into the hut. Tacs shifted his weight from one foot to the other; Dietric knew he was wondering whether to follow, and almost at once the shaman called from within the hut, “Well, come in, I need the brazier.” Tacs ducked through the door and Dietric went after him.
This aul was far smaller than the other. Piles of furs, fancy clay pots, and sticks decorated with feathers, bits of shell, horn and wood and berries crowded the walls. There was no furniture. It was very hot although there was no sign of a fire; Dietric could smell stale smoke. Ummake lay on her back on the floor in the middle of the aul. Her head touched the far wall and her feet nearly reached the door. Beyond her, in the dark, her husband Yaya sat. His eyes never left The Fluteplayer.
Ummake’s breathing came harsh and slow through her open mouth. Even from here Dietric could see how rough her skin was, parched and scaly. Bending over her, The Fluteplayer put his ear down to her lips and listened. With his left hand he motioned to Tacs and Dietric to stay back.
Tacs settled down, his feet flat on the ground and his knees to his chest, with the brazier and the rattles in front of him. The only light came from the smokehole of the hut, which was open, and the hut was uncomfortably warm. The Fluteplayer took the brazier and put it down beside Ummake’s head.
“Shut the smokehole.”
Tacs bounded up and looked around for the pole, found it leaning against the wall, and with the hook on its end maneuvered the cover over the hole in the top of the aul. The dark and the wet heat closed down around them. Dietric blinked. Gradually his eyes adjusted to the dimness. His ears strained; he heard the others shifting back and forth and The Fluteplayer muttering and Tacs putting down the pole. Someone cleared his throat.
When Dietric could see again, The Fluteplayer was scooping glowing coals from a pot into the brazier with a long-handled shovel made of brass. He hung the shovel on the lodgepole and Dietric saw that it was formed in the shape of a serpent with a yawning mouth and arched fangs to keep the coals from rolling out. The coals gave off a faint red glow; in that light Dietric saw Yaya’s face, rigid as a mask of wood, and realized that Yaya was afraid for his wife’s sake. Dietric had not thought him capable of that.
With the brazier full of hot coals The Fluteplayer set it down near the sick woman’s head. The pot of boiling medicine he set on top of the brazier, careful not to smother out the coals. Gesturing with his hand he brought Tacs forward to fan the coals and keep them burning hot. At first Tacs used his hands but after a moment The Fluteplayer, groping along the floor, found him a piece of bark, painted with symbols, and Tacs used it as a fan.
The Fluteplayer sat back on his heels and watched Ummake impassively. With each stroke the bark fan made a soft whirring sound and the steam washed across the woman’s face. Dietric could feel the sluggish air move against his cheeks. In the brazier the coals glowed a deep orange-red. The medicine began to bubble. Torrents of steam flooded from its surface and billowed into the air, driven by the strokes of the bark fan. Tacs’ face dribbled sweat. The Fluteplayer took his rattles in his hands and started to shake them.
Dietric wished himself away from here. The steam clogged his nostrils and seemed to penetrate behind his eyes into his mind. His skin streamed with sweat and his clothes were drenched. The hot, thick air was impossible to breathe. He had to force his lungs to take in the air. Lights danced before his eyes. The man hunched over the brazier fanning the coals seemed to him like a creature from hell, foul and crooked with his sins.
The Fluteplayer with the rattles shaking in his hands swayed back and forth, his eyes fastened on the sick woman’s face. His lips writhed and his head bobbed loosely up and down. The sound of the rattles filled Dietric’s ears: dry, sibilant, like snakes hissing. He saw sinuous curved shapes in the air, coiling languidly toward the ceiling. Each stroke of the fan seemed stronger than the last, each shake of the rattles louder, until the noise packed his ears. The air was too thick to draw into his lungs. Ummake lay in a puddle of sweat the shape of her body, two fingers wider than her body all around. Beyond her, Yaya was swaying wildly back and forth, his head wobbling.
The Fluteplayer bounded to his feet and fell forward across Ummake, braced up on his hands and knees. The rattles sailed across the aul. He lowered his face toward Ummake’s and pressed his mouth against her mouth. Dietric gave a low cry. He wanted to look away, but the scene held his eyes fast. He thought at first that The Fluteplayer would crawl into her mouth and down her throat. The shaman hovered over Ummake like a demon. The woman’s body lay caged inside his spraddled arms and legs; they were attached by their mouths, as if they grew together at the lips. It was a sin even to watch such wickedness. Dietric’s head pounded. The hiss of the bark fan and the harsh breathing of the three Huns hurt inside his mind. The Fluteplayer was rising, drawing Ummake up with him. She came up almost to a sitting position, mouth to mouth with The Fluteplayer. At last he let her lie down again, and turning his head he spat something into the palm of his hand.
Dietric thought that it wiggled and tried to escape—a bloody worm, as long as a man’s finger, lying on The Fluteplayer’s palm. The Fluteplayer flung the worm into the bowl of medicine, and a great cloud of smoke rose and the medicine foamed over the lip of the bowl and splattered sizzling on the heated sides of the brazier. Tacs backed away. With short, jerky motions the shaman closed the brazier, beckoned Tacs to open the smokehole, and tipped the last little trickle of medicine from the bowl into a jar.
He looked up at Dietric and Dietric hastily lowered his eyes, but his gaze strayed back to The Fluteplayer almost at once. The shaman was staring at him, unblinking. Dietric mumbled something, got up, and went out into the open. He felt sick and drunken. The cooler air outside the aul struck his overheated body and sodden clothes, and he trembled, nauseated. The crowd watched him silently. The Fluteplayer came out behind him and walked away.
Fascinated, Dietric went after him around the curve of the shaman’s living-aul. In sight of the door, he stopped, afraid to go farther. The Fluteplayer looked over his shoulder at him, stopped, and went inside his aul. Dietric sighed. He felt limp and enfeebled but his mind leapt with hope. He began to see how it could have been done: on The Fluteplayer’s lower lip there was a swelling, as if he had bitten himself there to draw blood.
BUT THE NEXT DAY, WHEN he came to see Tacs, Ummake was sitting in Yaya’s aul trading lies with the others and eating boiled meat. Dietric sat down opposite her, stunned; when she looked at him he stammered a greeting and just barely managed to keep on meeting her eyes. He could see at once that she was weak—her hands trembled and she was propped up against a frame of wood—but color glowed in her cheeks and her eyes were bright with health.
“Ummake,” he said. “I am glad to see you happy again.” He did not know the Hunnish word for well.
Her shining dark eyes widened with good humor. “It makes me happy that you should speak to me in my mother’s speech, Dietric.”
Tacs came over to him, bringing a little jar of The White Brother. For a moment they sat together without talking and passed the jar back and forth. Finally, Tacs said, “The Romans are still camped on the plain, did you see them?”
Dietric nodded. Everybody knew that the Kagan had refused to see the Romans or even to let them come into the stockade. “My father went there last night.”
“Oh? Why didn’t you go with him?”
Dietric lay back on one elbow. “He didn’t ask me. I don’t think anybody was supposed to know. The Kagan must have sent him to make secret arrangements.” He glanced over his shoulder at Ummake—Yaya was beside her, feeding her tidbits of meat with his fingers. “What did Yaya give The Fluteplayer for that little spectacle yesterday?”
“He has promised him half of the foals his mares will drop this spring.”
Dietric laughed. The White Brother was flowing through him, warming and relaxing him. “No wonder he is rich, The Fluteplayer.”
“The Fluteplayer is a very great shaman,” Tacs said. “You saw how he sucked the evil out of Ummake.”
Dietric handed him the jar. His mouth was full of the sweet taste of the tea. “I saw him put on a great dumb show of curing and then he spat out something bloody. Did that cure Ummake?”
“Look at her—she is better now, isn’t she? Of course it cured her. You saw that thing that came out of her—that bloody thing.”
“Tacs,” Dietric said. He glanced around to see if anyone was listening. “How do you know that The Fluteplayer didn’t have it in his mouth all the while?”
Tacs shook the jar to raise the sediment and drank. He wiped his mouth on his forearm. “What do you mean?”
“When I think about it, it seems to me that he only spat out something that he had been holding in his mouth all the while. I saw a cut on his lip afterward. Maybe he bit his lip to make blood to cover something he had put in his mouth—a bit of rope, maybe. I don’t think it came from Ummake.”
Tacs was watching him obliquely. His reaction puzzled Dietric, who had expected disbelief or outrage. “He cured Ummake by sucking the bad thing out of her,” Tacs said. “You saw it. Now Ummake is getting better.”
“But I’m positive that the thing he spat out was a fake.”
“Here.” Tacs bent away to pick up a handful of little fruit-filled cakes. “Have something to eat. I don’t understand you. Ummake is well, isn’t she? Monidiak’s mother made this, they are very good.”
Dietric bit into one of the cakes; they were just large enough for two bites. Inside the warm crust there was a thick paste of apples. “She isn’t well yet.” It was frustrating to know himself clever as The Fluteplayer and yet be unable to convince Tacs of it. He finished that cake and took another.
“She will be.”
“Maybe she would have gotten well in the normal course of things.” But when he thought of that, doubt overtook him; Ummake had been very sick. He shook his head. “I’m sure that The Fluteplayer is a fraud.”
“He has a great power in him. Perhaps, as you say, the bloody worm he spat out did not come from Ummake. But the thing that it was meant to be came from her, and now that it is gone she is well. That isn’t faking, that is real. None of us could cure her, but he did. You worry about things because you don’t understand them, which is silly. The cakes are good, aren’t they?”
“Delicious,” Dietric said, chewing.
TWELVE
THE KAGAN THRUST OPEN the window shutters and leaned out into the air. Beyond his stockade wall, the oak tree was a mass of pale green buds, opening to the warm wash of sunlight, turning and turning in the spring wind. He could smell the tree, and the new grass and the river; the smells filled even him with coltish energy. That amused him, to think of himself as a colt, and with his vast belly dented by the windowsill and his head and shoulders cramped into the windowframe, he burst out laughing.
The door behind him opened and sandals padded on the wooden floor: Constantius. “My Kagan.”
“Not today,” Attila said, still leaning out the window. “My mind is on other affairs.” Ardaric was to come today and describe his plans for the new assault on Rome. Attila shut his eyes and inhaled the spring wind.
“My Kagan,” Constantius said stubbornly. “I beg that you hear my opinion.”
The Kagan opened his eyes. Far out there on the plain, hidden from his eyes by the Gepids’ hill, lay the Roman camp. They had been there now for five days, and each day their messenger had appeared to ask for an audience; the day before, the messenger had come twice. Attila heaved himself straight and turned to go back into the room. “I am listening.”
Round and butter-fat, Constantius as usual wore immaculate white cotton, hemmed with blue and green. After ten years among the Hiung he still wore Roman clothes, brought every six months with the caravan from Italy. He cleared his throat, looked around him, and went to the backless chair beside the throne. “May I sit, my Kagan?”
“Sit.”
Constantius lowered himself onto the chair, pulling up the hem of his gown out of the dust. Attila walked across the room to his throne. Constantius scratched his nose.
“Well, Constantius?”
“Yes.” The other man sighed. “My Kagan, you cannot keep the Romans waiting there too much longer, or they will go back to New Rome. That would give the Emperor an opportunity to stop sending you the annual gift.”
“We can force him to renew it.”
“Only by diverting energy and time from the Italian campaign. Nor can you keep up this pretext of anger that they should have tried to bribe Edeco to kill you, since—”
“It is hardly a pretext,” Attila said. “No one hears of attempts against his life with an even mind.”
Constantius rolled himself around in the chair so that he faced the throne, his short legs slewed over to one side. “My Kagan, everybody knows now that Edeco sent a rider back to tell you what had happened in New Rome, that you knew of the bribery long before the Romans came, and yet you had preparations made for them and allowed them to camp near Hungvar. My Kagan, people will think you a tyrant, arbitrary, and small-minded.”
“I am,” Attila said. “I enjoy it.” But Constantius was right; the game had its limitations. “I could allow them to—Yes?”
Edeco came into the room, his lance in his hand. “Attila, King Ardaric is waiting to see you.”
“Have him wait.”
Edeco nodded; his eyes remained on Attila’s a trifle longer than necessary before he turned and went out. Attila settled back into the throne, folding his hands across his belly. “Bring me a cup of milk, Constantius.”
“My Kagan.” Constantius levered himself up from the chair and went across the room to the table.
Attila pondered the situation. The night before, the Romans had sent a messenger secretly to Ardaric and taken him to the Roman camp, where he had stayed almost until dawn. When he returned to his own house he had been the richer by many little presents and a lot of gold. All this Edeco had discovered. There was always the possibility that Ardaric had not allowed himself to be seduced, and of course Attila had to remember that Edeco hated Ardaric. Constantius waddled back across the room with the ivywood cup in one hand and another cup in the other. Giving the one to Attila he sat down again to sip his wine.
The Kagan drank some milk and set the cup down carefully on the arm of the throne.
“Constantius,” Attila said, “when the Roman’s messenger comes today, tell him that the envoy may come to Hungvar—see that they are given the four rooms in the rear of the palace, the ones facing the stockade wall.”
Constantius looked up at him. “There are far too many of them to be comfortable in those rooms, my Kagan. There are twenty of the Romans, and those rooms are very small.”
Attila grunted. “I don’t wish them to be comfortable.”
“And the rooms are now in use—we are storing lumber there.”
“Move the wood.”
“Where shall I put the wood, my Kagan? If I put it outside, what if it rains? There are no rooms indoors, not with so many important men coming to Hungvar.”
