Bound Home
Chapter 6
Green hills are indistinct, water stretches far,
The end of autumn south of the river - grass and trees are withered.
Twenty-four bridges under the bright moon tonight,
Where are the beautiful people blowing flutes of welcome?
Du Mu, "Sent to Assistant Magistrate Han Chuo of Yangzhou"
His countrymen take him by the arm and pull him into a well-lit house, laughing about something he doesn't understand and giving him smiles full of gleaming teeth and rancid breath. He looks around the packed room and realizes it is a tavern. Empty and turned-over mugs are scattered on the tables, a fire burns huge and bright in the hearth, and Englishmen fill the air with their drunken songs and chatter. Nearly all of them are clothed in local garb, as he himself is, their Crusade armor having been abandoned years ago. He knows their story – men who came to fight, who managed to survive, and who decided to stay in their victory city, carving out a life for themselves, defiant Christians in the midst of their former, but not forgotten, enemies.
Where did you fight? they all want to know, and he has the same answer for every man who asks: "In this city, briefly."
We've never seen you around.
"I've recently returned."
Why? You've come to see the Holy City?
"No."
(Laughter). You have the look of a pilgrim.
No more is asked of him. They pull him down into a seat and give him a drink and tell him to relax, for "You are with friends."
No, he thinks, reluctantly sipping his drink. Not tonight.
She can feel the woman's gaze even when her back is turned, as she mixes a poultice, scrunching her nose against the pungent odor of cooked onions. It's a familiar sensation, being watched. It's easier now to ignore.
Her patient draws in a sharp breath as the hot poultice is pressed against her arm, into the abscess that swells just below her elbow, but she quickly relaxes, and again stares unabashedly.
She waits at her patient's side, looking at the inflamed skin without seeing it. Finally, she lifts her gaze.
The woman's skin is pale. Her eyes are pools of dark amber. "You are with an Englishman."
It is not a question. Djaq, familiar with this as well, makes no reply.
"I have seen him with you," the woman says, sure of herself. "How could you bring such dishonor among us?"
Djaq lifts one corner of the poultice and sees that it is already working to draw out the infection. A trickle of clear, yellowish liquid has begun to course down her patient's arm.
"I did no such thing," she replies, pressing the plaster again into the wound. "He was an honorable man."
"Was."
Djaq meets her eyes briefly. "Yes."
A little boy comes into the room, cheeks flushed from the cold, and waits in the doorway. Djaq hands his mother a list of directions. "Apply this mixture three times a day for the next two days, and then switch to the root poultice for another two days. If the pus does not continue running clear, come back."
When the patient stands, her boy comes near to take her hand and stare up at Djaq with the same amber eyes as his mother. There is a silence. She can feel the weight of a thousand unsaid words, and knows with great exhaustion that some of them will be – must be - spoken.
"How did he die," the woman asks, as if it is her right to know. She clutches her child close to her legs, one hand on her other arm where the poultice still steams and draws.
"A fever," Djaq replies, tired of being gracious but unwilling to give in to her anger. "Why do you ask such a question?"
"He did not die in battle?"
"He was..." She is about to say He was not a warrior, but that isn't true, not really. He did make war. He did fight. But the things he fought against are wrapped up in too much history, and this woman, she thinks, does not deserve to know it. So she sighs and says instead, "He saved my life. He was a man of peace."
The woman continues to give her a hard stare. But there is, perhaps, a lessening of the anger within it.
"Be well," Djaq says, and turns away to go into her inner rooms.