Читать книгу Kama - Terese Brasen - Страница 17

RAM MONTH KIEV 935 CE

Beach fires were burning along the riverbank outside the front gates, lighting one part of the wide, ice-covered waterway. Every winter evening became a festival with women, men and children strapping blades to their boots. An ancient mode of transportation had become a pastime and a game. Men who preferred to be sailing and marauding brought ball nets down to the ice to play a winter version of ball. Sticks pushed a small stone. Bodies shoved roughly as they fought for control of the object. The game often became a full brawl with fists mercilessly pounding each other. Grown men grabbed at beards. They screamed like children and then laughed at their own bloodied faces. Kama preferred the other end of ice where Ula sat on a wooden trunk playing a lyre. Her simple songs were like gentle kisses that made Kama enjoy every push her blades made on the ice. Forward and backward, she turned and glided. The moon, stars and fires agreed that this moment was connected to all time, to everything that had always been and would always be.

That night, Kama joined in a new game, boys against girls. A line waited on each side until the whistleblower let out a sharp call. Each line rushed, bent down. Skaters pushed their blades into the ice, hoping to reach the other side untouched, unhurt and uncaptured. Kama was forgetting herself in the game, when bodies collided. With a crash, the game ended. Her back hit the ice hard. Reaching to break the fall, her elbow crashed against the ice. A piercing scream. At first, she didn’t realize it was her own, and then he was there, trying to help her up. He smelled of onions, different from the cold sweaty scent of the skaters. Kama was only wearing a short dress, like a man's tunic. Wool stockings covered her legs.

Kama didn’t want his help, but she was in too much pain. The man helped her off the ice to the bench where people often sat as they buckled on their blades. He removed one of her skates and used it to chop off a piece of ice from the riverbank, then placed the cold block against her arm. He held it there. The relief was immediate. Soon she was following him, her skates unbuckled, her good hand clasping them, two blades in one hand. He had promised her a special tea, something to make the pain subside.

He led her towards the school and then into his room. It was dark except for two candles burning in large silver candelabra that stood by the fire pit. The flames sputtered and flared then shrank, moving their light across the ornate carpets that covered the floor and walls. Kama had never seen such a crowded room. Between the pillows, stood stacks of books and scrolls of papyrus beside silver boxes—at least half a dozen cases, large and small, with colored stones ornately placed over the lids and sides.

The room was icy.

“Isn't that dangerous?" Kama asked, about leaving the candles burning while he was out and the room unattended. And why had he let the fire itself burn out on a winter day when the stores of milk and cheese could freeze in a few hours?

He took off his boots, and Kama followed his lead, although it wasn't her custom to remove her shoes inside the house. But this was different. The rugs were as ornate as tapestries and too fine for footwear. He took her to several large pillows. His hands gently pushed her down until she felt comfortable. The fire was out, but the water in the kettle was still warm. He dipped a cloth in the water, wrung it out then wrapped it inside another cloth and placed it on her arm. He had a small nose and black beard. So much about this man was small and thin, small brown eyes, thin hands. He wasn't strong or tall, just a miniature man who spent too much time in the dark reading, yet his hair was a mass of unkempt curls that radiated up and out, like thoughts determined to escape.

He made tea and they sipped and talked about her pain. After a while, he lifted a shawl from one of the pillows, unfolded it, draped it over his shoulders, then unrolled one of the scrolls and put it down on the floor beside the pillows. He licked his small thin fingers, as though the scroll was too dry to touch, then knelt and despite the darkness began chanting in a strange language. Kama failed to recognize any of the words although the sounds were like the chanting at weddings and funerals. They were a flowered fragrance that marked the present as out of the ordinary.

“My father was a high priest, which means I am a high priest,” he said. Between each phrase, he paused, took a breath, and then started again. Words spilled from his mouth, as though each day he had composed thoughts and sentences that he could finally speak.