Queen of the Eight Banners

Part 2, Scene 6 - Past

The Chakhar Gols' encampment was achingly familiar.  The circular ger made from wooden frames and felt-curtained walls was home--and yet it wasn't. Ilha had left this life behind.  Though her people had not abandoned their Gol-styled dwellings when they came to live along the perimeter of the Hu encampment, she herself now dwelt in her husband's excursion tent and the wooden house he shared with his extended family in the Hu city.  But here--here her old life lay spread before her. The colors: somber grey, honey brown, and poppy red.  The cooking fires' smoke rising here and there from the top of the ger. Children frolicked and ran in the sunshine while women busied themselves at their tasks, laughing and talking. 

No, she reminded herself. They are Chakhar.

Ilha rose in her saddle, lifting to get a clearer view of the people and animals scattered about. She felt her husband's eyes on her and turned to him. "No men."

"None?" He frowned up at her. Then he, too, lifted his gaze to the encampment.

"Old men stay. Others--gone. Some hunting," she offered, searching out the words to explain and settling into her seat again. "Some with sheep. Not…waiting trouble."

"The women will be capable enough of making trouble." He gave her a glance and a smile that reached his eyes.

Ilha smiled back and patted the bow sheathed at her thigh demonstratively.

"What do you suggest?" he asked.

"Go slowly. They see us."  Then she gestured to the packhorses and Ligdan's body and said, "These horses stay back. Not see that. Not yet."

"Agreed."  He gestured the others to fall back behind them as they approached. 

A young girl sitting beside an old woman at the edge of the Qinghai camp was the first to notice their arrival.  The girl stood abruptly with a shout of surprise, colorful yarn tumbling out of her lap. Ilha could just make out the old woman's halting gesture and then the flick of her hand to shoo the child away. The crone's lips moved with instructions, but try as she might, Ilha could not make them out. Then the girl bowed and scampered off, raising a cry to the other women as the crone sat in the sun, watching their approach.   By the time Ilha and Dorgide pulled their horses up before her, the women of the camp had all left their work, some bustling to retrieve bows and belted quivers of arrows, others to herd the children into one of the central ger and out of sight.

Beside her, Dorgide gave a start. Ilha pulled her gaze away from the women forming ranks and glanced to him. He was staring at the crone.  "Blind," he said, hushed and awed.

She frowned and turned her attention to the crone-guard.  The old woman's eyes were indeed water-washed pale and roving.

"What brings you here, Ilha of the Kharachin?" The crone's voice cracked as she spoke, but she enunciated every word clearly, speaking Gol in Ilha's own Kharachin dialect.

Ilha gaped in surprise at the blind woman's recognition then heat rushed into her cheeks. Though the woman questioned her, there was no challenge in her words or tone.  Nothing rough or barbaric--or bloodthirsty. Nothing that reflected Ligdan's anger or insulting jabs about the marriage-treaty.  Ilha had come expecting to meet a dangerous, perverse people who cared for nothing and no one but themselves, but instead an old woman greeted her kindly and in her own language. 

"How do you know me?" she asked and wondered if perhaps she addressed a shaman. Her blood chilled again as her shame cooled into fear. Perhaps the woman's kindness was nothing but a pretense shadowing power. Ilha reached a hand instinctively for her bow but stopped the motion with a clenched fist. Without a shaman of their own, they could not easily fight spirits, and even if they could, this was not the time or place to draw her bow.