Black Jade

Bemossed bowed to Mangus, and picked up the basin. He exited the chamber without a glance at anyone. We left Maram to Mangus's dubious ministrations, then followed Bemossed into the atrium, where we waited as he left the house by way of the rear door. A short while later, the scream of a goat broke the atrium's peace. Not even the tinkling fountain could drown out this terrible sound.

Mangus's wife poured us more of our lemony refreshment, but I could not bring myself to drink it. She told us that she had other duties to attend to, and excused herself, leaving us to ourselves. I waited, staring at the bust of Morjin as I wondered why Mangus had needed to be alone with Maram. Soon Bemossed returned, bearing a large bronze urn. Its contents sloshed against its sides as he moved through the atrium, and I smelled fresh blood. Then he went into his master's healing chamber, and shut the door behind him.

The tang of the lemons wafting into the air nearly sickened me. I looked over the rim of my glass at Liljana and Master Juwain, who were staring at Estrella. She sat on a stone bench near the fountain gazing with great intensity at the chamber's closed door. Her dark, liquid eyes rippled with little lights like quicksilver. Then her face came alive with a burning radiance as if a bolt of lightning had split the air above her. She jumped up from her bench. She looked at Daj as her fingers began fluttering as quickly as a hummingbird's wings. She looked at me. She fairly danced over to me, and took hold of my hand, gently pulling at me. Again, she stared at the closed door to the chamber into which Bemossed had disappeared. I almost couldn't bear the bright bursts of blood I felt pulsing out of her racing heart. I couldn't bear the brightness of her eyes, for in these twin pools of delight, I saw all her wonder and burning hope for the slave called Bemossed.

'He?' I said to Estrella. 'This one — are you sure?'

Estrella smiled, all warm and brilliant like the sun, and she quickly nodded her head. A dying scryer had once told me that she would show me the Maitreya; now that the moment had finally come, I almost couldn't believe it.

'So,' Kane said coming over to lay his hand on Estrella's head.

'So.' Master Juwain muttered something about wanting to know the

day and hour of Bemossed's birth, while Atara stood icily still

within a strange silence. Daj said. But he looks just Hke everyone

else! What should we do now?'

His question, I thought was very much to the point. There seemed nothing to do but wait, and so wait we did, I listened to the water splashing in the fountain drop by drop, and felt Estrella's hand gripping mine excitedly as a new life coursed through her veins. Kane's unfathomable eyes fixed on the door. If a dragon had burst into the atrium just then, Kane would have tried to fight it back with his bare hands. And yet I felt a deep doubt eating at him, too.

At last the door opened, and Mangus came out, followed by Maram and Bemossed. My eyes quickly took in Bemossed's curly black hair and neatly trimmed beard. He bore the same bronze basin, now full of more wads of stained cotton and blood. His motions were light and quick, yet sure, and he hastened out of the atrium as he had before. I wanted to stop and question him, but there seemed no way to do this gracefully.

Mangus cast no more light on the mystery of this man. All he said to us was: 'Garath's plaster will need to be changed tomorrow. And on the day following. After that, you may be on your way, wherever you are bound.'

He bowed to us, and then showed us to the front door. We left his house as we had come, driving the cart down the lane that led back to the village. When we had gone half a mile, I stopped the cart by a pasture full of sheep and looked at Maram. He sat on his horse, with his hand lightly pressed to his chest.

'Tell me what happened to you!' I said to him.

'Tell you?' he said. His gaze fell upon Estrella, who sat with me on the seat of the cart. 'Tell me! You all look as if you ate morning glory seeds and stared too long at the sun.'

I explained to him that our quest might very well have come to an end. And then he recounted what had happened in the closed chamber with Mangus and Bemossed: 'I couldn't see very much because Mangus covered my face with a cloth: it was of silk, thick and yellow and emblazoned with a Red Dragon. And fairly soaked in some perfume. Strange, I thought, very strange. But Mangus told me that I should meditate beneath the Dragon's protection.. Meditate! He told me that he must wash my wound with medicines. The cloth, he said, would protect me from their stench. It helped, I suppose, but only a little. I don't know what that damned quack packed the poultice with. But I smelled spirits and peppermint oil, and sandalwood, too, I think. And something really foul. And — I'm loathe to believe this, Val — that stinking goat's blood.'

Maram pushed his hand down beneath the collar of his tunic as if intending to rip off the bandages bound to his chest. But Master Juwain nudged his horse up close to Maram and said, 'No, leave it be. Let us wait a few days to see if the poultice actually helps. Perhaps Mangus is not as much of a quack as you fear.'

'But what would he want with an animal's blood?'

I turned to open the cart's front door, behind my seat. After looking about at the nearby houses and pasture to see if anyone might be watching us, I pulled out my scabbarded sword. I drew Alkaladur, then pointed it back up the hill toward Mangus's house. The blade flared a soft glorre.

'The blood was used to purify,' I said with a sudden sureness. 'To purify me?' Maram said, shuddering.

'No,' I told him. 'Don't you remember Argattha? I heard one of the priests there speak of sacrificing virgins … for their blood. Blood washes clean, as the Kallimun says, yes? But I don't suppose Mangus finds virgins so easy to come by, and so he has to slay innocent goats instead.'

Maram's hand worked beneath his tunic as the light of understanding filled his eyes. 'That slave, then? The one Estrella believes to be the — '

'He is the Maitreya,' I said softly. 'He must be.'

'But, Val, the mark — the black cross! How could fate be so cruel as to make the Maitreya a damned Hajarim?' I smiled grimly as I sheathed my sword. The Hajarim of Hesperu and the other Dragon Kingdoms, I thought, were truly damned, for no other orders of humanity — not even murderers or slaves taken in war — were treated so vilely. Most people loathed them as they did blowflies. Hajarim were born of Hajarim, and so it had been for ages, far back into the mists of time. No one knew their origins. But too many agreed that the Hajarim must perform the lowliest and most hated of tasks: gong farming and cleaning stables and streets; slaughtering animals, butchering their meat and tanning their hides. The Hajarim handled the dead. Not all the Hajarim were slaves, and not all slaves were Hajarim, particularly in Hesperu, with so many ships packed with men arriving from Surrapam. Slave or free, however, whatever 'free' still meant, the Hajarim were forbidden even to brush against the garments of others or let their exhalations fall too near their faces. Above all, they must never touch their hands to another's person.

'That slave did touch me,' Maram said. 'At least, I think he did. Someone laid a hand upon my wound I it didn't feel like an old man's hand.'

His great body shuddered, and he turned to look back up at Mangus's house.

'You, too, then?' I asked him. 'Everyone here hates the Hajarim.'

Maram's face soured as he said, 'It doesn't bother me that! Bemossed is Hajarim. But that he washed his hands in blood before laying them upon me — that vexes me sorely.'

'But how else to clean,' Atara asked him, 'the uncleanable?'

I thought of the black cross that blighted Bemossed's forehead; all Hajarim babies were marked thus at birth, an ineradicable sign of their error in even being born.

'I don't think we should concern ourselves with the rites of these Hesperuks,' Master Juwain said. 'No blood, a goat's or a virgin's, is going to do very much toward healing Maram's wound. But the Maitreya might. Let us see if we can find out more about this Bemossed.'

Toward this end, we returned to the village and set up in the square for a show. We waited some hours for the word of our performance to spread to the outlying farms, and even to the nearby village of Nur. At dusk, with many curious people packing the square, we donned our costumes as we had a dozen times before. Kane broke his chain, and Alphanderry sang. Atara told several young women that they would find love and happiness. And Maram made the women, men and children laugh. Afterwards, a fletcher and a barber vied for the dubious honor of sharing conversation and spirits with Garath the Fool. Maram matched these men in a drinkfest, one cup of brandy following another until tongues loosened and words began to flow. But Maram, being Maram, kept his wits about him while the two men spoke much more freely than they should have. It was nearly midnight when Maram staggered back to