The Blood-stained Belt (3 page)

When Osicedi
came into sight, we finally stopped to rest. It had been a
breathless rush, driving the sheep at a fast pace over broken
country. Now, for the first time in two days, we felt that it was
safe to slow down and take a break.

Sharma said
triumphantly, 'We did it, Jina, we did it!' Grinning, he thumped me
on my back.

I replied,
'Maybe.'

'What do you
mean -- maybe? All's well that ends well, man.'

'Maybe it
hasn't ended yet.'

Sharma frowned
before he grinned and punched me lightly on the arm, saying, 'Hey,
Jina, you worry a lot, don’t you?'

'What if they
come after us?'

Sharma snorted
and exclaimed dismissively, 'They can't! They're dead!'

'Sure, they're
dead. But what about their comrades? They aren’t dead.'

Sharma wrinkled
his nose, snorting, 'Huh! Those men were just rustlers. They were
lone operators.'

'You're
probably right.' I tried to sound positive but I wasn’t
convinced.

As we walked
down the hill towards Osicedi, Sharma muttered, ‘Let’s keep this
quiet, hey? You know what adults are like. They’ll just make a fuss
if they hear what happened.’

I said, ‘I
think that we should tell them.’

‘Do you have to
tell your parents everything?’

‘No, man, it’s
not that!’

‘What,
then?’

‘It’s like I
said – what if they come after us? Our people need to be
prepared.’

‘I told you,
man, they were just rustlers who were working on their own. Anyway,
the bodies are out of the way. Nobody will find them.’

‘But what if
..?’

‘In any case,
how will anyone connect them with us? Did anyone see us? Did we
leave anything at the scene? Did anyone follow us?’

‘They could
follow our tracks.’

Sharma snorted
dismissively, saying, ‘Man, there are tracks all over the hills.
How could anyone follow our tracks in particular?’

Even although I
didn’t raise any more objections, I still felt uneasy. On the one
hand, I wasn’t convinced that the matter was as open and shut as
Sharma said it was. On the other hand, part of me agreed with
Sharma but for a different reason. It was because Aggam unwittingly
taught me the idiosyncratic ways of the god Zabrazal in dealing
with the nation of Keirine. When Aggam embarked on his favourite
subject, which was the History and Glorious Destiny of the People
of Keirine, he loved to recount the sensational aspects of the
national saga. For instance, eyes shining, he would tell us about
the sandstorm that Zabrazal raised in the desert to annihilate the
pursuing Usserdite army when the People of Keirine escaped from
slavery. Or, with the same bright-eyed enthusiasm, he would tell us
about the various kings and their armies that our ancestors
annihilated when they took possession of the hill country that
became the heartland of Keirine. Also, to illustrate the rigorous
standards that Zabrazal set for his people, Aggam would relate how,
during the Great Retreat, the whole nation was infected with warts
because one of the generals misread the omens before a battle.

To Aggam,
stories like these were evidence of the divine favour of Zabrazal.
To me, however, they provided different lessons. The first lesson
was that Zabrazal favoured soldiers with strong arms. For sure, I
never heard of Zabrazal bestowing his favours on simple people like
weavers, shepherds, housewives, or carpenters. The second lesson
was that in dealing with an exacting god like Zabrazal, it was best
to keep my nose clean, cover my tracks, and keep a low profile.
Hopefully, by so doing I would escape Zabrazal’s attention. Then
some day, as a man amongst men, when I wielded a sword in the
service of Keirine I would step forward and catch Zabrazal’s eye.
Until then, caution would be my watchword. Mainly for that reason,
I agreed with Sharma that we wouldn't tell anyone about our clash
with the Dornite rustlers.

On the
outskirts of Osicedi, we met my brother, Abozi, who was pulling a
handcart to the rubbish dump. When he saw us, he let out a holler
and ran up the hillside to greet us. Breathlessly, he asked, 'Where
have you been?'

I was about to
reply when Sharma put a hand on my arm and said smoothly, 'One of
the sheep got lost. It took us so long to find it that we had to
stay out an extra night.'

Abozi looked
disappointed when he asked, 'Is that all?' Then he brightened and
told me with lugubrious satisfaction, 'You're in trouble.'

'Trouble?
Why?'

'Because mother
says she's sick with worry and father says he'll take the strap to
you for making mother sick with worry.'

Sharma asked
calmly, 'And what about you, Abozi? How do you feel?''

'Me? Oh, I have
no problems! What's the use of worrying? Either the two of you are
all right, or you're not all right. If you're all right, that's
good. If you're not all right -- well, what can worrying do about
it?'

As so often, I
couldn't help laughing out loud at Abozi's phlegmatic temperament.
I asked, 'So it doesn't matter whether we're all right or not all
right? It's all the same, is it?'

Abozi looked at
me as if he wondered about my sanity and replied heatedly, 'Of
course it matters! You're my brother. Why should I want you to …
you know …?' His voice trailed off. I punched his arm lightly and
gave him a hug.

As we walked
down the hillside, Abozi whispered, ‘Is it true what Sharma
said?'

I never could
lie to Abozi. His nature was so plain and so direct that I always
felt guilty if I tried to deceive him. What was more, if he found
out that I had deceived him I knew that he would shake his head in
sorrowful disbelief as if he had been struck by a source from which
he expected no harm. When he did that, it put a burning rod through
my soul. So, of course, I told him about our escapade. He nodded as
if my story confirmed his suspicions and said calmly, 'More than
ever, it’s good that you are safe.' I grinned, hearing my father's
tone and manner of expression in Abozi's words. Then, after a few
seconds, Abozi turned to me and said heatedly, 'That's the way to
treat the Dornites!’

‘You
reckon?’

‘They should
leave our things alone! They have their own territory and they
ought to stay there.' Now Abozi sounded so much like my father that
I burst out laughing. When I stopped laughing, I said, 'Don't tell
anyone. Keep it a secret. All right?'

Abozi nodded in
reply.

Within a few
seconds, Sharma pulled me aside and hissed, 'You told your brother
what happened, didn't you?' My face gave me away; Sharma cursed and
said, 'Man, we agreed to keep this thing to ourselves and now, the
first person you meet --' He broke off and cursed again.

I said
heatedly, 'He's my brother. He won't tell anybody.'

'Oh, is that
so? We’ll have to see, won’t we?'

I faced Sharma
squarely and said, 'I’m telling you, we can trust Abozi.'

Sharma glared
at me and said between gritted teeth, 'I hope so!'

I said, 'He's
my brother! I trust him and you can damn well trust him, too.'

Sure enough,
Abozi kept my confidence as I knew he would. He didn't even say
anything when our escapade had unfortunate consequences not long
after that.

Abozi scurried
off to let our parents know that we were safe while Sharma and I
drove the flocks down to the pens. I was leaning over the rail
watching the sheep file into the corral when someone said, 'Hello,
Jina. Where have you been?'

It was Roda.
She was standing right by my elbow, so close that I could smell the
mingled aroma of freshly baked bread and rose-petal scent that
lingered about her. I gestured eastwards and said, 'We've just
brought the sheep back from the hills.' I tried to sound casual
even while I was aware that my pulse had picked up its pace so much
that my whole body was stirring and tingling.

Roda wrinkled
her nose and whispered with what sounded like a mixture between a
warning and satisfaction, 'Everyone is looking for you, you
know!'

I replied, 'I
know. I heard.'

Roda’s violet
eyes widened as she moved a little closer. She was always doing
that, standing so close that, with one small dip of my head, I
could have laid my cheek against the top of her head. Sometimes the
instinct to do so was so overpowering that I had to move away
feeling foolish and wondering why, in the light of reason, I wanted
to do that. This time, when I shifted away, Roda's eyes glinted as
if she had gained a small victory. Now she put a hand on my wrist,
on the bare skin just where the sleeve of my coat ended, and asked
in a concerned voice, 'Did you have any trouble?'

For a moment I
was tempted to tell the whole story to Roda. Her liquid eyes and
close presence had that effect on me. In those days I always wanted
to impress her, if only to hear her suck in her breath and say
huskily, 'Oh, Jina, fancy you doing that!' I was still wondering
how much to tell her, if anything at all, when Sharma called,
'Roda! Hey, Roda, come over here!' She turned away from me, giving
me a knowing look as if saying, You understand why I'm going, don't
you, but we will meet again, won’t we? She squeezed my hand,
pressing her fingers into the flesh, and then moved away, calling,
'Oh, Sharma, I've been so worried. You shouldn't stay away so
long.'

Sharma grinned
and called out, 'I can take care of myself, Roda. You don't have to
worry.'

They walked
away together, heads inclined towards each other, conversing in low
voices. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched them resentfully,
wondering what Sharma had that I didn't have. I continued watching
them while, at the corner of the corral, they talked together in
low voices, Sharma standing with his hands on Roda's shoulders.
Then Roda stretched up, kissed Sharma lightly, and ran off
laughing. Sharma shouted something after her and she looked around
as she ran, laughed again – it was so merry that it cut into my
soul because it wasn’t for me -- and waved lightly.

Sure enough,
there was a fuss when we arrived home. Our fathers were furious and
our mothers were both tearful and indignant. However, in spite of
being closely interrogated, we stuck to our story about a lost
animal. After a lot of huffing and puffing, the fuss subsided and
life returned to normal by the next day.

Unfortunately
normality didn’t last long. A Dornite search party found one or
more of the bodies, put two and two together, and did manage to
follow our tracks to Osicedi. No one knew anything about it until
they attacked our town five nights later. The raiders had an easy
passage because, although Osicedi was quite close to Dornite
territory as the crow flew, like most of Lower Keirine the
mountainous country around it protected it from attacks. Guards
were only posted in periods of general alarm and as this was a time
of relative peace there were no lookouts. Consequently the raiders
were able to make their way right into the centre of Osicedi before
they were discovered. Even then, the alarm was only raised after
they set fire to a house.

There were only
ten or fifteen raiders and they operated in a cohesive group. They
knew the layout of Osicedi well – they must have studied it from
the hills around the town -- and they moved so quickly that there
was no time to rally a force to oppose them. In any case, most
people were so concerned about the danger of fire, which leaped
from one thatched roof to another, that there was no time to
organise any resistance.

Although there
was a lot of damage to property, only three people were killed. An
elderly couple burned to death in their beds and the raiders killed
one of Sharma’s older brothers. This happened when the men of
Sharma’s family spilled out of their house just as the raiding
party was approaching. Fatally, as they discovered, people in night
attire carrying whatever weapons they were able to find as they
scrambled out of bed were no match for fully armed assailants. The
band swept through the street ruthlessly, leaving one of Sharma’s
brothers dead in the street and his father and two neighbours
wounded.

For three days
after the attack, Sharma closeted himself in his room refusing
food. He only came out of seclusion to attend the funeral, looking
shaken and subdued. As the clods of earth were shoveled into his
brother’s grave, Sharma muttered to me in a voice that was thick
with anger and shame, ‘It’s like I said the other day.’ He jerked
his thumb eastwards and muttered tersely, ‘Like I said, one day
we’ll conquer the Dornites.’

After such a
disaster, our escapade with the rustlers couldn’t be concealed any
longer. When our fathers had finished raging and slapping us about,
we were reprimanded publicly at a town meeting. Even worse, we also
had to submit to a cleansing ceremony in the temple where the
priest implored Zabrazal to forgive our lack of truthfulness. For
me, the ceremony was the worst aspect of the whole sorry affair. I
was certain that Zabrazal would have his eye on me from now on. How
else could it be when I had to kneel at the altar, the centre of
attention for nearly an hour, while the priest and the congregation
sang, prayed and chanted? I was weighed down by the ominous feeling
that I had leaped near to the top of Zabrazal’s list of those who
ought to be watched in future.

However, it
wasn’t all doom and gloom. Underneath the public disapproval, we
sensed that a lot of people admired us. Although they didn’t like
the consequences of our actions, people told us that there would be
a lot less trouble if more people followed our example in dealing
with the Dornites. Even old Aggam gave us his grudging approval
when he stopped to speak to us in the street a few days later. That
was something that we had never had before – and never would again,
very likely.