Страница 100 из 120
Red Leaf cocked an eyebrow. "But I hear Boise has thrown in with the Cutters, made an alliance at least. That kicks up their numbers even more. We're not afraid of the Cutters, exactly, but we sure don't want to take 'em on by ourselves again. Once bitten, twice shy."
Rudi smiled. "Now, those numbers of theirs are a shame and a pity. But it isn't necessarily so that if you fight them you must do so alone."
Red Leaf nodded slowly. "We haven't had much luck with alliances," he said. "Virginia's dad aside. We'll talk about this more later. Right now, there's some things pla
"So this ceremony is OK?" Mathilda asked, feeling a slight flutter of nervousness beneath her breastbone.
Father Ignatius nodded. "It's more a civil matter than religious in our sense, strictly speaking," he said. "I've questioned the Catholics here. In fact, there would be no problem with even a priest taking part. God is no respecter of either persons or names-Dieu or Gott or Kyrie or Adonai or Wakantanka. He is the Great Spirit whose pity we ask. If this helps you direct your thoughts to Him, or to Our Lady or your patron saint, there is no harm in it."
The women's sweat lodge was surrounded by a square of leather panels on poles. Two older women stood at the east-facing flap with their arms crossed and stern expressions on their faces. Mathilda swallowed and ducked through. Within was the dome-shaped lodge, set directly on the earth, with a door made of a hide flap, facing eastward. The fire was ready, and the rocks were already starting to glow and crackle…
Rudi blinked into the dimness of the men's sweat lodge. It was made of sixteen willow poles bunched to the four points of the compass and covered in buffalo skins; the last of the hot rocks had just been handed in held between wooden paddles and dropped into the pit in the center. The roof was no more than four feet high at the tallest point, and it was crowded with the five men of his party, plus Red Leaf and Three Bears and the wicasa wakan, the Sacred Man, the shaman sitting at the end of their circle by the entrance. Naked bodies crowded to either side of him. It was already hot; there was a smell of sweat and earth and scorched rock and leather, of the tobacco and sweetgrass already burned, of the sage padding beneath them.
"Yuhpa yo!" the Sacred Man cried, in a cracked elderly voice.
The flap was thrown closed from the outside, and the darkness became like hot wet cloth over the eyes. The stones hissed as the shaman sprinkled water on them. The eight men cried out together:
"Ho! Tunkasila! Ho, Grandfather!"
The shaman's voice rose in nasal chanting prayer, directed to the four points of the compass; the sprinkling and response was repeated, and each time it finished the men called out " Hau! " together.
The rite was strange, but Rudi could feel the power in it. A calling had been made, and Someone had answered. Sweat poured from his body, and with it he seemed to feel all impurity leaving him; the darkness was absolute, but he could see with a clarity he'd rarely had before outside dreams. He stilled mind and heart, breathing in deeply of the scented steam, drawing it down into the depths of his self. Something glowed in the darkness…
A command, and the flap was thrown open. He gasped and shuddered, his skin rippling as the cooler air flowed in, and with it a little light. The old shaman gri
"Mitak oyas'in," he murmured as he'd been instructed, and passed on the dipper to Odard beside him.
The Baron of Gervais was looking very pale, he thought; beyond him Father Ignatius had a secret smile on his face as he stared into the heat quaver over the rocks-almost the look a man might have when he contemplated his beloved.
I wonder how Matti is taking it, he thought. And I wonder if the women's rite is much different.
The thought flitted through his mind without leaving any tracks; it was as if something within-the part that carried on a conversation with itself and watched itself in endless contemplation-was being lulled to sleep. Then the shaman cried:
"Yuhpa yo!"
Darkness fell once more. He was falling with it, like a particle drawn in by the breath of a beast larger than the Earth. He tumbled through the dark, and panic started to build up, and with it consciousness of the sage beneath him and the others around. Rudi took a long breath and released it, letting his heartbeat slow, letting awareness of everything but the steam hissing up and the wailing chant vanish.
"Ho! Tunkasila! Ho, Grandfather!"
He sank again, but this time it was a spiral glide-a dance, where his feet moved through a mist of stars. He could hear thoughts roaring by him, buffeting at him like storm winds against a man on a mountaintop. It was exhilaration, like a perfect stroke with the sword, like the kiss of danger, like the exultation of rising above fear.
Light glowed again. It took shape The flap opened. He felt as if he could laugh aloud, but there was no impulse to actually do it. Instead he took the water, sipped, poured a little over his head.
"Mitak oyas'in."
Darkness fell again, and he danced with stars. Flaming curtains walled creation; beacons shone across endless skies. But he was not alone; the others were with him; Edain's earth solidness, Ingolf's elk strength, the priest's joyful stillness that vibrated like a single harpstring, Odard's sharp-flavored complexity, Fred's young eagerness. Distantly he knew he was slapping his hands on his shoulders and thighs; when he cried Hau! at the end of a prayer it was as if the breath left him in a plume of silver light.
The cycle repeated. The sword is a mind, he thought. The sword is my self. The sword is a song that They sing through me.
Light returned; the light of common day, but it was shining through him now. He became aware of the shaman's high call:
"… but the one eye which is the heart, Chante Ishta. We give thanks to the helper, may his generations be blessed. It is good! It is finished! Hetchetu welo!"
The men turned and paced sunwise, the shaman leading them out of the lodge, each stopping to purify their hands and feet over the fire of sweetgrass. Rudi blinked; hands led him gently to the edge of a leather tank on poles, and he scooped cold water over himself. With each shock of coolness he could feel himself sinking down into his body once more, but that was good as well. That was where he belonged, and there were things that must be done before he walked amid the sea of stars again.
And I could use di
The helpers handed them their clothes. The shaman looked at him.
"You're one strange white man," he said. "I wasn't sure if my nephew was being smart about this, but he was right. You've got some important wakan people looking after you, Strong Raven. Your friend Swift Arrow"-he nodded at Edain-"has a Wolf; and White Buffalo Woman is with the Father. But you, you've got Mica-Coyote Old Man-nosing around, and not just him. That can be really good or really bad…"
Rudi bowed gravely, and made his own people's gesture of reverence, as he might have to an antler-crowned High Priest in the sacred wood.
A crowd stood outside, a blaze of feathers and beadwork and finery in the light of the setting sun; a shout of "Hunka! Hunkalowanpi!" went up. Red Leaf and his son led them proudly to the great tipi which had been pitched nearby-this was no ger, but in the ancient twenty-eight-pole conical form, the hides snow white and drawn with pictograms. His wife and the women of Rudi's party were there as well. Suddenly Red Leaf and Three Bears seized Rudi by the shoulders and thrust him within; he staggered past the doorway, nearly colliding with Mathilda and then the others as their hosts pushed them through. An earthen altar stood in the center of the tipi, with a buffalo skull and a rack that held the sacred pipe. Two wands decorated with horsetails and feathers stood in the rack; another was speared into the earth, with an ear of corn on it.