The Sighs of the Priestess Ch. 02

"Then I need a little time to prepare," she said.

The warrior stood up, "I will lock the door then so that you are not disturbed as a precaution."

He heard the lock on the door click shut. As he turned to look, he saw three heavy bolts on the door that he was certain had not been there earlier. His gaze went from one to the next as they slammed into place. His eyebrows rose to approach his hairline as he began to turn back. "That is a useful ability," he said, but whatever else he'd thought to say was cut short when he found the priestess against him with her arms as far around his ribs as she could reach.

"Ow," she said, grimacing from the impact against the studded leather cuirass. She looked up at him and he felt her arms against his skin. He had no idea where his cuirass had gone. She reached up with one hand and pulled herself up a little to kiss him. "Thank you, Lugalbanda," she said, "but why do you help me like this?"

"Firstly, because I knew you by your name as your mother told me. Then I was moved for you because while I am a fighter and much-used to killing and blood, I hate to see what often comes after – people in chains, when it should often be their leaders who are bound. It was much worse for me to see one such as you – even if you were not the one that I was told to seek – the way that you were brought to me, covered in dirt and consumed by hatred, even though you had reason."

He nodded, "Now your smile is my reward, for you look so much better and if passing the things to you that I was told to pass brings you to freedom, then it is enough."

She looked up at him thoughtfully. "I am not free yet, my large and clever friend, and if it happens, it will not be enough, not for me – not unless you are free as well." She kissed him again softly and gestured at the table, "Come. Eat a little more with me so that I do not feel so much like a glutton, now that I have a little more room."

As they sat, she took one of his hands and began to teach him the motions. They were very foreign to him, but he began to get the idea and was able to move from one to the next by himself, though slowly. Once he had a grasp, she told him the significance of each one, saying that there were others and what one "said" was changeable depending on the order, which hand was used, and whether one's hands were used together. "I can recite two different prayers at the once," she said, "and even three if I use my hands together. The hand signs are tied to thoughts in the mind after a time, and so I can speak one prayer and say three others with all of them in my mind."

She stopped as she thought for a moment. "If what the lamp here shows us is what is real for me now," she said, "then I must learn new ones. I already knew some of them in truth, but was never able to say the prayers before."

He got up and picked up the dagger. "I will get the things that I have for you," he said.

She nodded and got up to follow, carrying the lamp in the darkened room. The storage room was almost pitch black, but she crouched as he knelt and used the knife to pry up the tile.

"If you must speak in here," he hissed, "you must whisper. I do not know what is on the other side of this wall here." She nodded.

When she saw what was there, she set down the lamp and kissed him again and then whispered in his ear. "You must know that these are the things that your lord wanted above anything else. You help me so much, and now you risk your life for me." She looked at him, "I might have guessed that one of my faith might do a thing such as this, but ..."

"I try to learn your faith," he whispered back, "for the gods that I was taught to believe in offer me nothing. No hint or hope that I will escape the sword stroke or the slash of the pike or the arrow that is marked for me one day."

"Everyone must die one day, Nisi-ini-su. I know this. I am nearing my thirtieth year, being twenty-eight. I see fewer and fewer fighters of my age. I have never even heard of a fighter older than thirty-five, one or two legends, and in the business of being a fighter, a legend is one who is dead. I only want a different life for myself before the end."

He looked down for a second as he reached down to get what he'd hidden there. The sounds that came from him were made more for himself, "It will likely never happen because of the way that I look and the scars that I carry, but one day, ..."

As he leaned a bit and fished for the second item, he turned his head and it caused him to miss the expression on the priestess' face there in the dark storage room. She squatted holding the lamp for him in one hand.

The fingers of her other hand were flying there in the darkness, asking questions, seeking answers.

At the table again, he handed her the rolled up papyrus. "I have never seen something like this before, but I know what it is."

She nodded, "Things such as this are used far to the south and west of here to hold words. Did you read it?"

He chuckled, "Read it? You are lucky that I didn't think to try to eat it. I cannot read, my friend. Who would waste the time to teach me of this?"

She glared at him, "Forgive me if I assumed it in error. I did not think that you might not have been taught, but do not dare to tell me of your low position as a poor fighter again. If I may not spit on your floor or hang my head before you, then I want no more of this from you."

"Our floor," he said, "I will only sweep it half of the time, and you must sweep it the rest of the time."

She raised one finger menacingly, "The hair on your backside hangs in the balance here. It would be much sport for me to watch you run for the bath with your tail on fire."

It was as long as she could hold the glare now and she chuckled as she reached over to tousle his hair. "If you can sit still in between conquests, I would teach you."

He was surprised, "Do you mean this?"

"Certainly," she nodded seriously, "How else could you know what is important and what is not the next time that you plunder?"

Before he could withdraw, she seized his hand and kissed it, "It was meant in jest," she smiled, " but I will teach you."

She unrolled the scroll and began to read. He brought her bread and water. After a time, he went to wash and clean his old dagger and used it to cut meat into small pieces for her. She said nothing, but ate and sipped as she read. At times, she stopped to sit and look at the far wall and then he saw tears there, but said nothing. He knew now that she was reading the last thoughts for her from her mother.

Now and again, he would see her looking at him in a strange way for a few moments. She said nothing of this either and went back to her reading most times, but now and then, she would smile at him quickly before putting her pretty nose into it again. Finally, she sat back in her seat a little away from the table and moved her elbows back against her ribs to bring her hands near to each other. "So," she said, "then let us see what I can do."

Her fingers began to fly so quickly that they were a blur to him, but after a moment, her face showed her surprise. She moved her hands so that she leaned with her elbows on the table. After a minute, she stood up very slowly and stepped away from the table.

"We go to the hearth now," she said, "Bring the lamp and sit with me."

He stood up, watching her intently, but then remembered and picked up the burning lamp to follow her.

"Sit there, facing where I stand," she instructed him, "sit with crossed legs there." She nodded at the spot, so he sat, setting down the lamp, looking up and watching as she slowly sat facing him. She moved herself forward a little until her knees touched his legs. She leaned forward a bit and placed her elbows so that they rested on both of them where her knees touched him.

He stared at those small hands for a minute and then looked at her face. He found her looking back at him in an almost sublime way and the expression that her mouth showed slowly changed from one of concentration to a bit of joy and then he saw her soft smile.

"Your hands," she said with a bit of care, not wanting to lose her place at the speed that she was managing, "Slowly now," she said, "grasp my wrists gently and only follow where my wrists go. Do not, ... do not try to hold them in place, only follow along holding them."

She watched him nod and he placed his own hands carefully, asking if it was what she'd meant.

"Yes," she nodded with a small grin, "Listen now, Lugalbanda, I will try this a little harder in a moment. You will tell me when you feel me – not, ... not that you feel my hands move, tell me when you feel me as I am in your hands and then inside you."

He nodded, but had no idea what she meant. The speed of her fingers increased and then she began to bring her hands toward each other. To his amazement, she brought them together and from what he could see, the fingers of one hand never struck or got in the way of the ones on her other hand, but it seemed to him that they ran through each other. He didn't know what it was, but he did begin to feel something in his chest. "I feel ... something," he said.

She smiled as she looked at her hands, "Well that it good, but it is not enough for us here, you and I. Wait."

He looked at her lovely face, lit by the fire in the hearth from the side, and he wondered. If it were him here, he thought, his own face would be fixed and stern from the concentration of this – whatever this was that she was doing. Then he noticed the other light, the soft glow that lit her face from below. When he looked down, he felt his own jaw begin to drop.

Their hands were glowing. It was very faint, but it was there. A moment later, his chest felt warm, as though he'd been working or fighting. Another minute of this, he realized, and he'd be sweating profusely.

But it didn't happen.

The warmth moved inward and after a moment, he knew.

"I feel you," he whispered, awe-struck.

She nodded very carefully, "Now, this is not a time for minds, warrior. Do not let your thoughts come in the way. You feel me and I feel you. Let us sit like this for a moment longer so that we might learn of each other."

He nodded, since it was all that he could do, really. It was all that he trusted himself to do. He saw into areas of her heart and with that came some scraps of memories, glimpses of her life. He was surprised to see her with a sword, or with a sword and a dagger. A separate fragment showed her on a horse for an instant. All of these things fell away like a crystal curtain that he passed through and he saw her for once, on the other side of her proud nature, beautiful still, but also a little vulnerable and to his shock, it came to him just how deep he was here.

He was staggered to see that she was also shy.

More than that, most of her shyness concerned him.

She looked and worked her way around and past his memories. She was searching for many things in him and what she found was sometimes like wading through an abattoir. It was no wonder that he was fairly quiet, she thought. He'd seen it all and carried enough horrors within him to keep any two score of people far from sleep for the rest of their lives.

She saw his parents lying slain, and also the sister who had been so close to him. She found a young girl that he'd cared about but then saw her face when he'd come back to her as a young fighter. The priestess felt what he had when she told him that she wanted no part of him then. She almost felt herself twitching at the remnant memories of his many cuts and injuries as they flashed by her.

She looked for cruelty in his past, but found none, other than what he'd dealt in battle, and that was only out of needing to save his strength for the long fight. He'd seldom felt hatred toward the ones that were arrayed against his side before a battle, but once it was begun, he just settled to it, hoping that the day would end and it would get too dark to continue.

She watched him wait in a ditch in the sun for a whole day, from before sun-up for one rider to pass by. When it happened in the early evening, he stood up and drew back the heaviest war bow that she'd ever seen in her life and shoot down the two other riders before sending the third arrow deep and low into the spine of the one that he hunted as the rider urged his horse to gallop away.

The closest thing that she saw to cruelty came when he'd walked up to retrieve his arrows for the man was still alive and begged for mercy, but Lugalbanda had only wrenched his arrow free and dragged the man out of sight of the road with the other bodies. He told the man that he doubted that he'd remember, but he was there to avenge the way that his sister had been left to die years before. He took the man's dagger so that he could not kill himself and began to walk away. He told him to hope that he was dead before the jackals were about.

In spite of what he'd said to the man, she watched in an instant as he sat in the shade of some boulders, sipping water and watching until the jackals arrived. He used the same arrow again before they really got started.

She looked for any attachments in him and found none, after mistaking some glimpses of him with several different women for love. It had only been his memories of what he'd paid for now and then. There had been women that he'd looked at and had a thought about, but he knew his place.

To most, he looked to be too much of a killer to be attractive and many women stepped back out of nervousness when he walked by. And anyway, he was a fighter after all, good to have close by if one had the need of him and his kind, and fun to make jokes about from behind them. A brute such as him could never understand if he'd heard anyway.

She heard the words and knew that he'd heard them too or they wouldn't be here for her to sift through.

She looked at is heart and liked it, seeing at once that everything that he'd told her was the truth. She even saw herself there. Her intellect came to a decision and she spoke into his mind.

"I feel that you have no one for you," she said, "and you believe that no one cares whether you live or whether you die." Her fingers moved only quicker, never slowing up even a little. "You now have someone who cares."

The fighter stared, his eyes moving from her hands to her face and back. Finally, there was no way to resist the draw and he looked at her face in wonder.

"No thoughts here, warrior, only what you feel of me and the wonder that I feel of you. I will suffer no argument here in this place between us. I only guide you this once and if you wish, we can come here often."

"If the world were a garden, warrior," the thoughts rang in his head, "and there were no wars for you, would you want me there? Would you want a high priestess with no temple? I tell you that I would want a certain warrior with no wars chosen by others, a soldier in no one's army but his own – the one that he shares with me. Would you want me then? Would you want me if there are wars and grasping, greedy kings? Would you fight for me and beside me if I do the same for you?"

She paused as his answers came to her mind.

"Then hear me. We are chained here for this time, but after, there will still be chains between you and I. I have bound the chain that you did not wish onto myself when I hurt you. I cursed this at first, but now I welcome it, knowing that it was to be put there just as I now know that I could not give you a false name when you asked for how I am called. I am ready to put my own chain on you, my unexpected friend. Would you see it as a bridle, something that holds you and chafes against your will? Would you welcome it as part of the strength that we might share between us? Would you ask for this?"

"I see how you hold me in your heart. So I say this; I will not die here in this place and neither will you. We will leave the prison behind us. I will follow you and you will follow me, however the road leads us, but we will remain together because of these chains. I will never leave you behind when I leave this place or any other. We begin at any time, warrior. I hear your answers and you now have mine. I have made my choice."

"This is new to you, what we do here, and you may forget some of it. I will remind you now and again. If you have trouble, then remember only this one thing..."

"I have made my choice."

The last thing that he saw was that her fingers slowed to a stop. After that, the priestess sprang up to help him lie back. It was all that she could do so suddenly, but she found enough strength to ease him down so that he didn't strike his head on the stones of the hearth.

She knelt and looked down at him smiling as she brushed a lock of his hair out of his eyes. "It is almost done, Lugalbanda," she said softly, "I have used no charms or magic, beyond taking you to a place where the talk is honest between us and there can be no lies or cautious words."

She began to trace some of his scars with her fingertips very lightly, "The gods know that it was likely the only way to get beyond the thick shell over your heart here. Certainly my mother did, or I would not have tried this with you, what she wrote for me to do in the scroll. I have always given her a good fight when she told me what to do and what must be done, but the time for that is over, and I see her wisdom differently now. I will never make the mistakes that she knew that she made in her time."

She leaned down to kiss his lips very softly, "I never thought that for one so quiet, the words of your heart would be so loud. I only thought that you were patient with me and polite. The thickness of your mighty scarred chest here hides your feelings well. I will do what I can to keep arrows and swords from adding more on top or getting through. You give me gifts in what you brought to me, but I know the greatest prize when I see it before me here."

The thought crossed her mind that the very chains that she'd spoken of could also hold two people together who hated each other, but she knew what she was and she'd make the changes in herself. For him, it was worth it to come down from her high perch since right now, she was only the high priestess to one very special warrior.

He was a warrior, but out of his hunger, she would make him into what the faith had never had, and after he became her warrior-priest, well, ...

She saw the makings of a king in him. She had to allow him the room to grow into these things.

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He came to himself with his head down on the table. He sat up and wondered how he'd gotten from the floor by the hearth to here. She noticed that he was awake and smiled.

"Wine," she said, offering him the goblet.

"I have not had any," he said, sitting up fully and giving his head a shake.

"That is so," she grinned, "only have a little now and I will tell you what you would know."

He took the goblet. "How did I get..."

"We were there and now we are here," she shrugged. "Do you remember our talk inside then? You fell into the trance. It will not happen again, only the first time."

He thought about it and remembered, "Yes, but I don't think that I can remember everything."

She nodded, "It is alright, Lugalbanda, as long as you remember the feeling of the whole. Can you remember this?"

He nodded cautiously, "Nisi-ini-su, ... what I said then ..."

She chuckled as she waved her finger, "What you said then was the sound made by your large heart howling out its hope in truth, not the careful words that you would tell me now. There are no swords or blades or arrows in that place and there are none here between us. We have seen each other's hearts and so it is done, Lugalbanda – enough for us to begin when we do."

"But –"

She grinned at him, "Oh please, mighty one," she said, "please begin now to make your own hen sounds to me." She reached over, "Give me your hand."