An Acceptable Time (16 page)

Then, seemingly out of the blue, came Karralys, bearing a staff, trying to thrust it between the two groups. “Stop!” he was shouting. “Stop this madness!”

“You can’t stop it!” Tav shouted back. “They have Anaral and the Heron!”

Polly was grabbed from behind and heaved up into the arms of one of the raiders. She grabbed at his hair, knocking his feathers askew. Og leaped to her defense, and was felled by the blow of a heavy club.

“Help!” Polly shrieked. “Help!” Then a hand slapped roughly against her mouth, and she bit at it.

“Help!”

Now Karralys was thrusting with his great staff fiercely, and his young warriors were shouting, too, and there was nothing but chaos and terror.

Polly wrenched her head free of the man’s hand.

“Help!” she screamed again.

Then there was a strange hush, still as the eye of a hurricane. A harsh cry of terror. The raiders holding Anaral and the bishop let go abruptly, and to Polly’s amazement they turned and ran away. She herself was dumped on the ground. She picked herself up and saw Louise the Larger slithering along the path, red tongue flickering.

As suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

The raiders were running away, bumping into each other in their fear.

The battle had been noisy and rough rather than lethal. The wounded were gathered together.

The raiders were in long, swift canoes, and were already well out into the lake, paddling fiercely.

Among the People of the Wind was a woman whose hair was white and who had a broken arrow still stuck in her shoulder. Karralys looked around and saw Polly. “Our Eagle Woman is hurt and cannot help with the wounded. Cub and I will have to have some assistance. What we need is a steady hand and head.” He looked at her questioningly.

“Sure, I’ll do what I can,” Polly said. “I’m not afraid of blood.” She looked around for Zachary but did not see him anywhere. Meanwhile, she was obviously needed. She turned to Karralys, who introduced her to a young man who had a grey-wolf skin over his shoulder, the young man who had been at the circle of standing stones on Halloween—Samhain.

“This is Cub, our young healer.”

“I have not the experience of Karralys or the Old Wolf,” the young man said. “I will be grateful for your help.”

She did whatever Karralys and Cub told her to do when they took the arrow from Eagle Woman’s shoulder, which had been broken from the impact. She clenched her teeth while they worked, and Polly kept wetting a soft piece of leather and wiping the sweat from her face. Then they moved on to set broken bones, stanch blood from a few wounds.

Mostly what was required of Polly was to hold a bowl of clean water and replenish it from the lake after each use. One of the raiders was laid out with a concussion, and Karralys had him stretched out on a bed of moss, covered with skins to keep him warm. Another had been left behind with a compound of his leg, and Polly helped hold his head while Karralys and Cub set the leg. It was a bad break, and the young raider clutched her in pain. Cub gave him something to drink, telling him it would ease the pain, then poured a thick greenish liquid into the wound where the jagged bone had broken through the skin, explaining that this would help prevent infection.

When the leg was set and bound between two splints, the young raider was able to talk. Polly had difficulty in understanding him, and Karralys translated for her. “He says their crops have failed. There is no corn. Their grazing grounds are parched and the earth is dry and hard. They will not have enough to eat this winter. They will raid us again, with more men this time. They have no choice, he says. If they do not take our land and our crops and herds, they will starve.”

“Couldn’t they just come ask you to share with them?” Polly asked.

Karralys sighed. “That is not how it is done.”

“Well.” Polly sighed, too. “At least nobody was killed.”

“This time,” Karralys said. “Thank you for your help, Poll-ee.” He glanced over at the white-haired woman, who was still among the wounded, her shoulder held immobile by a stiff leather sling. “Eagle Woman is our—” He paused, searching for the right word.

“Medicine woman?” Polly suggested. “Witch doctor? Shaman?”

Karralys shook his head. None of these words had any meaning for him. “From what the Heron tells me, I think she is something like what you call doctor, and that you have no one like Cub, who is healer. She has knowledge of herbs and the cure of fevers and chills, and helps Cub nurse the sick or hurt. But the wound in her shoulder will keep Eagle Woman from work for some time. The bone is shattered where the arrow penetrated. You have done well. You did not need to turn away. You have training in the care of wounds?”

Polly shook her head. “I come from a large family, and when we lived on Gaea—an island far away—where there weren’t any doctors, when anybody was hurt or sick I helped my parents. Karralys, where is Zachary?” She had followed Zachary out of a sense of responsibility, and now she had no idea where he was.

“Zak?”

“He was with me, the one I told you about, who saw Anaral. He was with me, and then when the fighting began, I forgot about him.”

Karralys looked troubled. “He is here?”

“That’s why
I’m
here,” Polly said. “I tried to stop him—but then I couldn’t let him come alone, so…”

“I do not understand why he is here,” Karralys said.

“Neither do I.”

“He is an unexpected complication. He may change the pattern.”

“Karralys.” Polly pondered the question. “If Zachary and I have come to your time, couldn’t that change what happens in our time?”

“Yes,” Karralys replied calmly. “The future is often changed by the past. There may indeed be many futures. But someone blundering into our time who is not part of the pattern may tangle and knot the lines.”

“Unless,” Polly questioned, “he is part of the pattern?”

“It is possible,” Karralys said. “If it is so, then it will not be easy.”

“But where is he?”

Anaral came up to them, hearing the question. “Zak? He is all right. He is with Bishop.”

Polly then remembered that Dr. Louise had said her brother had gone off wearing hiking boots. Had he crossed the time threshold, knowing that he would be needed?

Anaral had brought a clean bowl of water so that Karralys and Polly could wash their hands. The druid looked at Polly gravely. “You were a very great help. You are brave.”

“Oh, I didn’t do anything much.”

“Your hands have the gift,” Karralys pronounced. “You should serve it. Now we must join the others at the standing stones. They will be waiting.”

They sat on the stone chairs within the great ring of stones—Polly, Anaral, Karralys, Cub, Tav, Zachary, the bishop, and several others of the People of the Wind.

Polly still had a feeling of nightmare from the strange battle between two small armies, or bands of people—they could hardly be called armies. But if the skirmish had ended differently, Anaral could very well have been taken by the raiders.

And what about Bishop Colubra? What would have happened if the raiders had taken the bishop? How would that have affected the circles of time? She shook her head. What mattered right now was that she had helped Cub and Karralys with the wounded, and she had to understand that although this clash of two tribes was over, there was more danger to come.

She looked around at the circle of men and women, the leaders of the People of the Wind. Each one wore an animal skin or bird feathers or something representing a specific role in the affairs of the tribe. Eagle Woman was in her chair, her face white but composed, her arm held immobile by a leather sling and cushioned on a bed of moss and fern.

The bishop was sitting across from Polly, and beside him was Zachary, pale as alabaster. Karralys sat in his stone chair, looking unutterably weary. He wore the long white robe and the torque with the stone the same shade as the topaz in the bishop’s ring. Og was lying beside him, bruised from the raider’s blow, but, Karralys assured them, no bones were broken.

“The snake,” Tav said. “How was it that the snake came to end the fighting?”

Karralys looked at Polly. “We have few snakes, and they are revered as gods. That you should have called a snake—you did call this snake?”

“No!” She was astonished. “I just shouted for help.”

“But immediately the snake came.”

“It had nothing to do with me,” Polly protested.

“Maybe she was just coming—on her way somewhere.”

“A snake does not willingly come through lines of battle,” Cub said. “You called, and she came.”

Tav hit the butt of his spear against the hard ground. “The snake came for you before, at the wall, when I was first speaking with you. She is your friend, that is what you said.”

As Polly started to protest, again Karralys raised his hand. “It must have seemed to the raiders that you called the snake, that you had special help from the goddess, and that you yourself had special powers.”

“Archaiai exousiai,”
the bishop said.

It was Greek, Polly knew, something about powers. The bishop had called out the Kyrie. Could not Louise have come as much for that as for her own cry for help? Or was it not, most likely, coincidence that the snake had come along the path at just that moment?

“Principalities and powers,” the bishop said. “It would have looked to the raiders as though you could call on the principalities and powers.” He spoke gaspingly, as though he could scarcely breathe.

“Bishop!” Anaral’s voice was sharp with anxiety. “Is something wrong?”

All attention was drawn to the bishop, who was breathing in painful gasps. The rapid fluttering of his heart could be seen through his plaid shirt.

Cub rose and went to the bishop. “Heron, our dear, it would please me if you would let me try to slow the beating of your heart. It is fast, even for a bird.”

The bishop nodded. “Of course, Cub. It would be a great inconvenience to everybody if I died now, and it might produce a paradox that would distort the future.”

Cub knelt beside the bishop, placing one hand under the plaid shirt, firmly against the bishop’s chest.

Polly saw Zachary’s eyes lighten with interest and hope.

Karralys watched Cub intently, nodding in approval.

Tav looked from Cub to Karralys, then to Zachary. Zachary had disappeared during the fighting, and it seemed to Polly that Tav was looking at him with scorn.

But instead of accusing Zachary he demanded, “Where did the snake go?”

“Louise the Larger,” the bishop panted.

“Hush, Heron,” Cub said, and pressed his palm more strongly against the old man’s chest. Cub’s own breathing was slow and rhythmic, and the pressure of his hand reinforced the rhythm.

“Where?” Tav repeated.

“Hey,” Zachary said. “Translate for me, Polly.”

“They’re talking about the snake,” Polly said. “Tav wants to know where she went.”

Zachary said, “I saw her going along the path there, and probably she went three thousand years into the future.”

“You—” Now Tav’s voice was definitely accusing.

Zachary’s fingers were white as he held the sides of the stone chair Karralys had assigned him. “You’re talking much too fast for me to understand you, but if you want to know why I wasn’t in that beer-parlor brawl with you, I wouldn’t have been any help. I have a weak heart and I’d just have been in the way.” He spoke with stiff pride.

Quickly Polly translated as best she could for Tav and the others.

Cub withdrew his hand from the bishop’s chest. “There. That is better.”

“Yes, my son,” Bishop Colubra said. “I could feel my heart steadying under your hand. I thank you.”

“Is he all right?” Anaral asked anxiously.

Cub nodded. “His heart is beating calmly and regularly now.”

“I am fine,” the bishop said. His breathing had steadied with his heart, and he spoke normally. “Now we must think what to do next.”

“Please,” Zachary said. “I saw that kid”—he indicated Cub—“steady the old man’s heart. I saw it. Please. I want him to help my heart.”

Polly spoke in Ogam to Cub.

“Yes. I will try. Not now. Later, when we are back at the tents,” Cub assured her.

“He will try to help you,” Polly translated for Zachary, “later.”

“The snake,” Tav insisted. “The snake who came for Poll-ee—”

“No—” Polly started to deny again.

But the bishop held up his hand. “Yes, Tav. We must not forget Polly’s snake.”

“But she’s not—”

Karralys addressed the bishop. “Can you explain?”

“I’m not sure. You said that for you the snake is sacred?”

“We revere the snake,” Karralys agreed.

“And the People Across the Lake? They ran from the snake.”

“True.” Karralys leaned on his elbow, his chin on his hand. “They did not retreat just because we fought well.”

Tav said, “They thought that if Poll-ee could call the snake, then she could cause the snake to do them great harm. That is how I would feel.” He looked at Polly and she remembered his first reaction to Louise.

She spoke directly to him, then turned to the others. “Louise—that is what we call her—is the first harmless snake I’ve ever met. Where I came from before I went to live with my grandparents, the snakes were mostly very poisonous.”

The bishop said, “The Anula tribe of northern Australia associates a bird and a snake with rain.”

Karralys shook his head. “The People Across the Lake have different traditions from ours, but as far as I know, they do not believe that snakes can bring rain. But neither they nor we would kill a snake.”

Eagle Woman said, “The kindred of the snake would come and cause harm in vengeance. If we kill a snake because otherwise it would kill us, or by accident, we beg pardon of the snake’s spirit.”

Tav pointed his spear at Zachary, and all eyes turned in his direction.

“This is Zachary Gray,” Polly said.

“He is from your time spiral?” Cub asked.

“He is the one who saw Anaral,” Karralys explained, “because he is near death.”

“What’s he saying?” Zachary asked.

Polly was grateful that Zachary could not easily understand Ogam. No matter what he said about his heart and his brief life expectancy, she was certain he was not ready to hear anyone talking about his imminent death. She tried to make her face expressionless as she turned to him. “Karralys wants to know where you’re from.”