“Soff nodded slowly, although she looked as if she were nodding off to sleep rather than affirming anything, eyes half-closed, chin almost on her chest. I didn’t nod. Or respond. Grubarr put his hand on my shoulder then, squeezed once. ‘Braylar,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. There are no choices here. You have suffered, I know. I will do my best to be quick. That, I swear. But we must go. Yes?’
“He was wrong, of course. Up until that point I hadn’t suffered at all. But I was beginning to, that morning, and I realized, some part of me anyway, I realized I was about to suffer immeasurably, and indefinitely, and I wanted nothing so badly as to climb back to that spot where words were wind and nothing meant anything. But it was too late. I was among the living again, and the truth of his words struck home-none of us had a choice.
“I looked at my mother. She said nothing. She just looked tired, very tired. And so, not knowing what else to do, I turned to Grubarr and nodded. And followed, walking across the patchy yellow grass, through the village. Several villagers saw us, but averted their eyes quickly, returned to their tasks.”
As much as I begrudged Vendurro’s interruption, I could not stop from asking, “Why did you have to help in the preparations? Was it customary for children to-”
“It was a punishment. For grave robbing. Soff and I had been caught during the winter.”
Vendurro said, “I told you Cap had some kind of experience with such things. Just figured it was, well, more successful.”
Braylar ignored him… “So my sister and I had been assigned to Grubarr to assist with burying our dead. All. I knew I wasn’t prepared for what we were about to see and do. That winter we had tended to a handful of dead, and being a small village, we knew all of them. But they were not relatives. They were not my father.”
“Plague me,” Vendurro said. “They couldn’t make a plaguing exception? For your da?”
Even in the dark I caught Braylar’s twitch-smile. “My people are not big on exceptions.” Then he continued. “Grubarr led us to his longhouse. It was larger than most, with several rooms, each separated from the others by a doorway and a thick flap of felt. The deadroom was the last. It was here that the preparations took place.
“Before we entered, Grubarr stopped us, touching our arms. He looked back and forth between us and said, ‘Words I give you, they cannot stem the pain. This I know. But I will tell you one thing, and that’s all. When I was nearly your age, Soffjian, my mother, she died. Droos. One day, strong, healthy, young; the next, stricken, ill for many moons. And then gone. The priests, they examined, they inspected, but they didn’t know. There was no knowing to be known.
“The Earth Priest went on, ‘I won’t lie. This wrenched my heart. I had no brother, no sister, and my father, he was-well, this isn’t about my father. No. It’s enough to tell you, I suffered. Truly. Deeply. Alone. I wanted to die. And this idea, this dying notion, it didn’t frighten, it didn’t pain. It was almost a comfort. I played with the idea, carried it with me, every day. Until one day, I lost it. I didn’t lose the grief, but I lost the dying wish. I don’t know who found it. Perhaps you.’ He looked closely at us, measuring, and then said, ‘Perhaps not. But if you did find it, it’s a thing that prefers to be lost. You’ll live. You’ll endure. And one day, you’ll recover. I did. All do in time. You will as well. No one told me this when my mother died. But had they, I wouldn’t have believed them. It’s no different with you, I’m thinking. But one day, many years from now, I’m also thinking you’ll give this same speech to another, and it will be their turn to be disbelieving.’
“I didn’t know whether to cry or scream or hit him or fall into his arms. So I did nothing. Soff opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but it got lost before it came out. He said one other thing, telling us that if we ever wanted to talk he would listen, and then he dropped his hands. He reached into a wooden bucket and pulled out three damp strips of cloth. He handed each of us one and then wrapped the last around his head a few times, covering his mouth and nose.”
“For the smell?” Vendurro asked. And then added, “Sorry, Cap.”
“Yes. The strips were saturated in fresh horse piss. There are numerous ways a man can stink, but never so powerfully as when he has decided to die. Even after a few days they begin to rot inside, to liquefy, and the stink is like the worst sulfur and swamp gas, enough to make the strongest stomach turn and the strongest man gag. Horse piss is a preferable alternative.
“We tied the strips around our mouths and noses, Grubarr pulled the flap aside, and in we went. Our father was laying on a table near the middle of the room. His chest was bare but otherwise he was dressed as he had been the morning he was stabbed. His skin had changed color and was now an odd greenish-blue tint. His body bloated, but not uniformly, some parts more swollen than others. There was some fluid collecting beneath his nose and at the corner of his mouth. And even with the cloth around my face I felt my gorge rise.”
He looked closely at me and said, “Perhaps it was a blessing you never knew your father, and your mother gave you away for a bag of coins. You never had to see them dead.”
It wasn’t said with cruelty, but stung just the same. I wondered if my mother was still alive.
Braylar said, “Soff and I stood next to each other, staring. Neither of us cried. Not just then. I had cried myself into a stupor just after his murder, and I wasn’t quite ready to begin again. I simply stood there, feeling empty, small, lost, exhausted. And as Grubarr had said, unbelieving. Despite the evidence in front of me, I refused to believe this was happening. Soff reached over, took my hand in her own.” He stopped and added, “I see your skepticism. Do recall, this was before broken vows, yes? At one point, there was some rough tenderness betwixt us.”
Neither of us responded and he went on. “There were no windows in the room-no one else in the village wanted to smell death and Grubarr didn’t want perversely fascinated children disturbing his work-but there was a hole in the roof, like a smoke hole, although there would be no large fires in this room. It was overcast that day, ready to rain, and the deadroom was very dark, lit only by a few candles in the far corners and what weak light came through the hole above. Flowers and herbs hung upside down from the support beams, drying, so many that it seemed there was an inverted field suspended above us. There were many, many shelves, all of them lined with bowls and vials, lidded jars and small boxes, all manner of things. I’d become familiar with some of them over the winter. Crushed flowers, tooth and nail from a hundred different animals, a multitude of dyes, mushrooms, small pelts, oils, dried milk, chalk, charcoal, and on and on and on.”
“What plaguing for?” Vendurro asked.
“Grubarr had told us once that there were those in our tribe who didn’t understand the old ways, the elaborate treatments of the dead, or the living for that matter. Some argued, although never loudly, and certainly never in the presence of their priests, that the dead should be burned, their ashes scattered, or simply buried, and be done with it.”
“Aye,” Vendurro said. “That’s how my people went about it.”
Braylar nodded. “I remember Grubarr had been smiling as he told us that, his heavy hands busy grinding holly with a stone pestle. And saying, ‘Old men keep old ways. Were I a youth, I might argue for change. But I’m old, and I do only what I can do. Someday you and your ways will grow old too, and you’ll cling to them, moss to a stone.’
“I tried to imagine another day, any day other than the one I was in, but it was no good. The stench was too strong and my imagination too weak. Grubarr stepped past us and approached my father. He rolled up his sleeves-his forearms were thick and the gray hair that covered them thick as well, almost fur really. Any other day this struck me as funny and put me at ease in this place, but it didn’t that day.