Time of the Eagle by Sherryl Jordan Page A

upright, her face cold and furious. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mudiwar spoke first.
    â€œA long time you’ve been looking after these sick ones, Gunateeta,” he said.
    Her eyes, red-rimmed from the smoke, flicked upward to his face. “Yes, and death has not claimed many of them,” she said. “I’ve held it off, Mudiwar.”
    â€œYou’ve also held off life,” he said. “I’ve seen Kimiwe. Her burns are healing well, and she is almost as she was before the fire. To my mind, her healing is better than the healing I see here.”
    â€œYour mind is the mind of a chieftain and a warrior,” Gunateeta said. “Your mind cannot see the spirits of death coming and going. You cannot judge healing.”
    â€œI can tell whether people are alive or not,” he said. “I may not see the spirits, priestess, but I see plenty else. Come.”
    He turned and went out. I rushed after him. All the peoplewere watching us, waiting for the chieftain’s words. He said nothing, waiting for Gunateeta.
    At last she emerged, bent and limping, and wreathed in smoke. Blood seeped through the dirty bindings on her feet, and I felt sorry for her.
    Mudiwar said to her, with some gentleness, “Times past, Gunateeta, you were a good healer, and I honor you for that. But I think your healing power has become trapped behind your own pain, and now you need healing for yourself.”
    She looked at the far hills, and gnawed on her lower lip.
    Then Mudiwar said to me, “Shinali woman, can your munakshi heal the sick in this tent?”
    â€œI’m not knowing anything about munakshi ,” I replied. “But I can heal. The ways I worked on Kimiwe, they were learned by my mother from a healer from Navora. A very great healer. There is no munakshi , only a high lot of knowing.”
    â€œI thought the Shinali and the Navorans were enemies.”
    â€œOne Navoran was our friend.”
    â€œStrange, that a Navoran soldier caused my grandchild’s hurt,” Mudiwar remarked, “and a Navoran skill heals her. Those blue eyes of yours, they come from that Navoran healer?”
    â€œHe was my father,” I said.
    â€œSo, we shelter two enemies in one skin,” he remarked. I thought he was angry, but to my surprise when he spoke again he sounded kind. “I’ll turn a blind eye to the bloods in you,” he said, “if you will use your munakshi to heal my people.”
    I hesitated, my heart in turmoil. How long would it take to clean up the healing tent and those inside, and to do the healings for them? Three days? Four? Too long, already, I had beenaway from home. While I was silent one of the men called out.
    â€œWe’ll not have her heal our sick!” he cried. “Not a Shinali with Navoran blood! You may turn a blind eye to the bloods in her, my chieftain, but I cannot! And neither would my son, who lies in Gunateeta’s healing tent! He’d rather die than have that half-breed touch him!”
    Other men called out in agreement, and women nodded in support.
    â€œGo home, Shinali she-dog!” someone yelled.
    â€œIf that Shinali witch goes in my tent,” said Gunateeta in a low voice, “Shimit will surely curse us all.”
    â€œHow can Shimit curse us?” cried Mudiwar. “We’re already cursed! Two and forty of our kin gone in slavery, almost as many others dead, or dying in this tent. Is not that a curse? Is there anything worse to fear?”
    They were silent, angry.
    Mudiwar lowered his voice and said, “Consider another thing, my people: consider that Shimit might have sent this Shinali healer to us, for such a time as this. To spurn the Shinali healer now may be to spurn the gift of the gods themselves.”
    â€œShe is no gift, my chieftain!” called out an elderly man. “It was her father’s people who caused us this sorrow! As for her Shinali blood—it’s the