At dawn when the gang went back out to the rubbled pass, three Wolves were going away, their whiskers black with Horse blood, their white eyes sated and sleepy. They would not have dared come close enough to the Brothers’ buildings and fences to have got this meal themselves.
Now it was the Crows’ time to eat. There was plenty: not even Ravens, who disdained People, had found this place as yet.
Va Thornhill called, and one after another they all joined him, and as the cold sun grew higher the others came in and settled noisily to eat at the Wolf-torn body while Va and Dar Oakley and Kon Eaglestail looked on from the branches of the lone tree that bent wearily there, hungry of course but keeping watch. When they did join in, room would be made for them.
“Look there, Dar Oakley,” Va Thornhill said. “Your friends.”
Dar Oakley looked. Across the frost-sparkling field, a Brother, surely the same one as the day before, was striding steadily toward them, white skirts curling around his bare red shins, and with him a farm boy carrying a halter.
“In search of their Horse,” Dar Oakley said.
“Ha,” said the bigger Crow. “Our Horse.” He let himself fall from the branch toward the cadaver, which was so tugged and pulled this way and that by so many Crows that it gave an odd impression of fighting back against them.
They weren’t Dar Oakley’s friends, the Brothers and their other People; Va Thornhill spoke that way because, yes, Dar Oakley took an interest in them, and liked to frequent their stone buildings and watch them come and go on their inexplicable errands. Now and then he’d forget himself so far as to come down into their kitchen-midden, and find a bite or two there to swallow as he listened to them. They clearly despised him, but despite that he thought that in some way he belonged to them—as though his parents (whom he couldn’t remember) had long ago nested among them.
They were like a flock themselves, in some ways. Their dress was all the same, like the pelts of a species of beast, where the clothes of the other People who came now and then to visit them were more varied. He’d thought they were all alike too in being almost bald, like Vultures, but then on a warm day he’d seen them one by one sit down on a stone in the sun while one with a tool clipped away at the hair of their heads and made them all look the same. They scraped the hair off their faces, too, most of them, so it was impossible to tell if any were females (a bare face was a sign of a People female, he knew, and seemed always to have known), but there were never any young among them.
All this Dar Oakley found it good to think about; and because his knowledge gained the Crows advantages, they didn’t much mock him for his interest. Long ago, the story among them went, there had been a Crow in a far demesne who studied People and found a way to feed his flock on rich People flesh, with no trouble in the getting of it either.
But those days were past, if they had ever been, and the trick was long forgotten.
The Brother, one of the scraped-face kind, was close enough now that he must see, yes, the Crows eating the flesh of the Brothers’ Horse, and he began to run toward them, crying out and lifting the harmless stick he carried. Unafraid but cautious, the Crows arose and went away, though not far—they gathered on the rocks or in the dead tree and yelled from there. The Brother warned away the boy, and came stumbling down the rocks on his near-bare feet, and when he reached the remains of the Horse, he went down on his knees before it. He clasped his hands together as though he held something in them, though there was nothing, and made a rapid series of noises, varied and soft, like brook water running over stones; now and then he lifted his face to the white sky.
“It’s all right,” Dar Oakley said to those around him. “They do this.” He had seen them at it, though he hadn’t understood it. This was as close as he had ever come to one, close enough to hear. He’d never seen one do it beside a dead beast. It was hard to tell if he was old or young—neither very old nor very young was all Dar Oakley could tell—but his back was bent and the gizzard of his long neck stuck out like a Vulture’s.
He got up from his knees, plucking at his skirts, and looked around himself at the Crows. No beast with enemies likes to be stared at steadily, but as long as Dar Oakley stayed, calmly observing, the Biggers would all stay, and as long as they stayed, most of the others would too. The Brother made no threatening gestures or cries; he only went on, mouth moving, as he had when he had knelt beside the dead Horse, but now—there was no mistaking it—looking to them, to the Crows.
He raised a long, bony forefinger and shook it at them.
He put his closed hands on his hips, and thrust out his chin.
He spread his arms wide, his palms turned up, like branches they might sit on.
And all the time he went on making his stream of noises.
“Let’s mob the being, drive it off,” Va Thornhill said, still flush with the victory of the Horse. He assayed a sharp attack cry. No one took it up.
“What does it mean by this, Dar Oakley?” Kon Eaglestail asked. “What is it doing?”
Dar Oakley had no answer. But he felt the presence of an answer within him—so he’d put it later, remembering this moment. He left Kon’s side and went closer to the Brother, who took notice of his approach and spoke as though to Dar Oakley alone. For yes, it was speech, Dar Oakley was certain of it. Not speech he knew, but like speech he had once known.
“Have no fear,” the Brother said to him. “No fear.”
A trembling took hold of Dar Oakley’s throat and cheeks, as though he were about to bring up his food. Instead he brought forth a word, a word the Brother had said.
Fear, he said.
The Brother stopped speaking.
Mine, Dar Oakley said.
He wasn’t able to say many words in their language—but from close observation of the Brothers, he had come to understand some and to mimic a few. He could tell from the way the Brother looked at him now that he’d understood the Crow. When he spoke again, Dar Oakley knew his words.
“Crow,” was what he said. “Did you speak to me?”
Dar Oakley becked rapidly, head up, head down—which he just then remembered or conceived was a sign to People for yes.
The Brother fell to his knees. He clapped his hands together and with his eyes on Dar Oakley spoke too fast for Dar Oakley to catch any meaning. Later on, when the Brother retold to him the tale of that morning—as often he did—he’d say that he said, Sin no more, bird of death! Steal no more from those who have so little. Don’t be Wolves but, black though you are, be Doves. We are Doves among Wolves and we can’t harm you. But God will love you and feed you for our sakes if you don’t steal from us.
Whatever it was, Dar Oakley becked. He said words he knew: Yes, he said. Wolf, he said. Steal. Each word arising from his gut or his crop and making its way out, wringing his throat and twisting his tongue. From a safe distance the other Crows were laughing in derision at this absurd exchange: Were they speaking? The Brother on his knees smiled upon them—which seemed threatening enough, his long yellow teeth showing—and he held out a hand to Dar Oakley as though that Crow would be fool enough to just walk up onto his palm. But that’s just what he did. Yelps and cries of warning from his gang.
The Brother rose, Dar Oakley clinging to his hand. “Deo gratias,” he said. He raised his other hand and drew it down; then he crossed the line he’d made in the air with another going billwise-otherwise. He lifted the Crow up, and stared into his eyes as though to see within; and the Crow looked back.
A century or more later, when hagiographers wrote down in their lovely uncial script the full story of how the lowliest and least of the Brothers of that Abbey had preached to the Crows, they would write how at the name of God and the sign of the cross of his Son, the shaggy little pony that lay dead before him had stirred, stood, and gathered in his mutilated parts; and when he was whole, he had bent his knee to the Brother. And all the guilty Crows had bowed their heads, and in the Saint’s own tongue had begged forgiveness.