Tree of Truth (Book of Pilgrimage 1) (15 page)

Chapter XXV

“Stay close to the fence. We’ll walk alongside it until we reach the east gate. Then we can get on the road back to the village.” I grabbed Shelley’s hand, and we darted along swiftly. Next to the fence ran a well-manicured path used for maintenance and security. It was quite an easy walk. The air was cooling fast, and the morning’s humidity had drifted into the heavens, waiting upon the rain to begin the cycle again. We were lucky that day—there were no workers out doing their perfunctory assessments and repairs.

“But the rebel village—it’s too dangerous.” Shelley spoke with a slight pant in her voice as I dragged her along.

“Do you need me to slow down?” I asked.

“No, no—keep going. I’m fine. The village—don’t you think it’s too dangerous?”

“Surely the fighting has stopped by now. We should approach slowly, check it out from the ridge before we go down. Be careful. And
quiet
.”

“Okay, but it’s Shelley.”

“Huh?” She was looking at me very seriously.

“My name.
Shelley
. Not
Shirley
.”

I stared at her in disbelief before ejaculating, “Oh my god that joke was so corny. And so old. You must have said it a thousand times.”

Shelley laughed hysterically at herself.

“Shhh!” I held my finger to my lips.

She clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered as we rounded the last turn of fence and spied the road that would lead us home.

“So corny,” I said under my breath with a chuckle. “And your timing. You waited way too long after I said surely.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing.” I was laughing. A little.

“There it is,” Shelly blurted out as we approached the east gate. I put my finger to my lips again. “Sorry,” she whispered. The same guard we met that morning was sitting in that same chair in the guardhouse. We were fortunate—he took no notice as we crept passed his little hovel and onto the road home. Perhaps he was sleeping. It was unusually cool that August afternoon. The oft-sweltering guardhouse must have been quite cozy.

The roads were clear, and we made it to the hill above the rebel village quickly. Just before we crested the ridge, I took Shelley off the road and into the brush so as not to be seen coming over the hill. We scurried through some sparse grass and bushes onto the exposed surface of a huge boulder whose bulk lay buried in the earth. The rock kept the brush and trees at bay, so we had a good view of the rebel village and the surrounding valley.

“Not as bad as it could be, I guess.” The main gate was completely destroyed and the market burned to the ground, but the rest of the village seemed mostly intact.

“I hope those nomads get what they deserve. Those people—they were not nice people, but they didn’t deserve
that
.” Shelley climbed up onto a small outcropping of rock that peered over the edge of the boulder and down into the valley. She stared blankly at the desolate scene. “Who are
they
?”

“Who? Where?” I climbed up next to her and gazed into the village.

“Those people. They’re wearing Shrouds like Pilgrims.”

“Must be a holy tribe.”

“A
spirit
tribe, Pilgrim. There’s a difference.” The voice came from directly behind us. Shelley froze. I turned slowly to see a hooded figure standing at the other edge of the boulder. He had snuck up on us. Two more hooded figures emerged from the woods. The three were cloaked like Pilgrims, and each carried a formidable-looking walking stick in his hand.

I raised my arms and showed my empty palms. “We don’t mean you any trouble. We’re just trying to get back home.” Shelley covered her face with her hands. I trembled with trepidation.

The one who spoke drew back his hood to reveal a handsome, boyish face. “It’s okay. We’re not here to hurt you. We just thought you were lost, that’s all.” His blond locks were matted against his scalp, and as he brushed his hand casually back and forth across his head, they exploded into a mushroom cloud of soft curls. “You can turn around, miss,” he said to Shelley, who was still frozen with her back turned. He was really quite innocent looking.

The other two hoods revealed one darker, in both his hair and complexion, and one with those same blond curls as the one who spoke. The two said little, but always upon their faces was benevolent softness, accompanied often by loving smiles. They were kind in their looks, their words, and their deeds. When Shelley finally turned around, the boy who spoke reached out and helped her step down from the outcropping.

“Where’s your home? Maybe we can help you. That’s
our
tribe.” He pointed to the village. “Some nomads ransacked the trading post. We were camped just a few miles north. One of our scouts—my little brother over there,” the boy grinned and raised his prideful chin, “saw smoke and heard gunfire, so the deacons came to heal the hurt and mourn the dead.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Shelley asked.

The boy who spoke pressed his palms together as though about to pray. “It is our way. We spend our short lives helping others. The deacons know what they are doing, and Pastor is very old and wise—he has seen this many times. Come. We will take you to meet him.”

*.*.*

The spirit tribe elders—they called them
deacons
—were spread about the charred remains, checking for survivors, bandaging the victims, and preparing the dead. Just past the gate, in the public space before the charred remains of the market, elders were carefully laying bodies upon biers. Some bodies were all alone, others accompanied by mourning friends and relatives (and business partners). There were women among the elders—they provided condolence to the grieved and sustenance to their own. Piled over to the side was another set of bodies. These bodies looked coarser, wilder. They waited patiently for their fiery fare to the heavens.

We walked through the charred gate together, but then the one who spoke ran ahead and parleyed with an elder. The other two boys held their staves out to stop us, but there was never a sense of menace about it. The elder disappeared and returned presently with another elder, quite old it seemed—he had more gray hair than I had ever seen on a man. He also had that benevolent look I saw in those boys. The whole tribe, in fact, seemed always peaceful, always content.

The old man waved off the two taciturn youths, and they retreated with their weapons. He offered his hand to me, and I repaid the ancient custom. He took my hand in both of his and shook it firmly but gently. Then he turned to Shelley and gave her a grandfatherly hug. The boy who spoke then spoke once more: “This is Pastor Milton.”

“You may call me Pastor,” he said. “I wish I could welcome you on more pleasant terms. We have much to do. Much to do. Come.” Pastor turned and led us swiftly but calmly through the carnage. “The sun will set soon, and we must mourn the lambs that were slaughtered today.” He looked despairingly at that pile of other corpses. “And too we must mourn the wolves that took them from their fold.” Looking back at us he said, “You look hungry. Earn your dinner.” He exhorted us no more. He merely set the example for us to follow.

So we joined the spirit tribe in their work. I with the men helped situate those fated merchants upon their funeral beds, while Shelley with the women hugged and cried and lamented with sister, wife, brother, husband, even loyal patron.

The funeral for those slain villagers was simple, but solemn. Pastor read verses from a dog-eared book of poetry he had carried for many years, and then each pyre was lit with a prayer. We stood silent and watched their last moments on this earth. The sun was beginning its set, and there grew an eerie glow behind those burning bones. The fire warmed us on that unusually cool August evening. Shelley held my hand and laid her head on my shoulder. It was a good funeral, if there were such a thing.

When those innocent bodies had ascended to heaven, Pastor said a brief and earnest prayer for the lot of sickly nomads who had attacked that greedy but peaceful village. Around the bodies was laid a motley kindling—paper, straw, twigs, anything that would burn quickly and easily. One gentle touch of an elder’s torch sparked a flame that spread rapidly about the corpses and engulfed the mass of murderers in an adumbration of their hellfire.

The flames died and the torches were lit, for the sun had crossed the western horizon, and its rays, though still glowing orange and gold and purple, were fading fast. Pastor’s wife, who was there to console those who remained, pulled him aside to speak with him. When he returned, he was wearing again that gentle smile upon his face.

“We will have a special dinner tonight. The parishioners are preparing it now. It will be a solemnly sanguine dinner, for we must lament those who have left us before we celebrate those who will join us on our Pilgrimage.” He turned to a small group of villagers who were gathered around Pastor’s wife. Among them was that saucy girl from the hostel. She glanced at me with a faint glimmer of recognition overshadowed by despair and uncertainty. I knew exactly the feeling behind her gaze, for I saw the same aspect every time I looked in the mirror.

Chapter XXVI

We walked in a grim parade just a short distance north to the spirit tribe’s camp. They camped in a large oval. In the center was a gathering place. Like the poet tribe, they too ate upon a carpet on the ground. On one end was a makeshift kitchen, and on the other an altar. The altar was adorned with white tapers and flowers—I wondered at its purpose, but there were many things to wonder about. Their tents were decorated with symbols; some I recognized, like the cross and the crescent moon. But others were unfamiliar. They always wore their cloaks, even the women. The strangest thing about the tribe was their pastor—that venerable old man was thirty-five!

Pastor sat me down next to him at the head of the textile table. He asked me where we were from. I described our village to him. “Ah, yes—I’ve been to your village, many years ago. Probably about the time you were born.”

“Are you telling your boring stories again?” Pastor’s wife was directing the setting of the makeshift table and the serving of the food, but she took a moment out of her busy schedule to tease her husband-chief.

“Oh, come now, Harriett—you love my stories.”

Harriet looked at me with a wry grin. “I haven’t had a bad night of sleep since I married that old man.” She giggled as she took Pastor by the arm. “May I speak with you for a moment?”
              “Of course. Would you excuse us?”

They spoke privately of some matter, likely of no importance—it seemed to evoke little emotion in either of them. When Pastor returned, he asked about our journey.

“It’s my brother—he doesn’t want me to marry Shelley. He thinks she’s dying. But I don’t care. I’d rather spend one night with Shelley than the rest of my life with,” I could hardly get the word out, “Sy-Sy-
Sylvia
.”

“You love her truly.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never seen the moon gaze upon the water as you stand and read that young lady’s face. Why don’t you ask her to marry you?”

“My brother would kill me.”

“How old are you, Marlowe?”

“Almost sixteen.”

“You are a man, my son. It’s time you made your own decisions. Follow your heart.” My mind and my gut dithered incessantly, but my heart was steadfast. “I’m a minister, Marlowe. I can perform the ceremony, right here, before my God and my Tribe.” He took my hand and said, “I will marry you to the woman you love. I will marry you and Shelley.”

“But when? Where? How shall I ask her?” That moment I had the strongest instinct of my life. He was right—I had to marry her. I
had
to. My brother couldn’t stop me. It was
my
decision, not his—I was but kin to my affection! The thought terrified me, though not because of my brother. “What if she says no?”

“She won’t say no, son.” He chuckled softly. “Ask her at dinner tonight. You will know when the moment is right.” It was time to screw my courage to the sticking post. It was time to take charge of my life. I was almost sixteen—I
was
a man! I spent every second between that moment and my imminent proposal gathering my mental strength to ask the most important question of my life.

In the meantime, Pastor entertained me with stories of his youth and his tribe’s beliefs and views. “I was twenty when my first wife died. She was older—I was her second husband. Her first husband, my cousin, was killed on a journey into the city. You two were lucky. The cities are safe havens from the horrors of the suburbs, but they are not inviolable. In desperate times like these, where man lurks, so too lurks his evil. But God protects this tribe, and we have never lost a parishioner except to the Light.”

“But your wife,” I began inquisitively. “I thought you said her first husband was
killed
.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But I’ve digressed. That was before I found my way. I was twenty when she died, and it crushed my heathen heart. I had no one to turn to, no one to console me—we had not been blessed with children, and the rest of our families had been taken by the Light. It was a terrible time in my life. So one night I woke up from a dream, loaded my pack, and began my Pilgrimage in the divine splendor of God’s nocturnal lamp.”

“The moon?” He spoke almost like the poets.

“Yes, my son. The moon.” Pastor chuckled and placed his hand upon my shoulder.

“So, you still believe in the old gods? All of you?”

“God, Allah, Buddha. My people choose their god. But they choose only one god, one symbol, one metaphor for the transcendence of this body, this earth, this dreaded Disease. We are not like the fundamental tribes—they believe their god is the only god, and every other god is evil. Some of them are quite despicable, even violent. Most of the religious tribes of the ancient times were the same. But that is not our Pilgrimage—we are an enlightened people.”

“I don’t understand. Do you believe in God or not?”

He laughed. “The God that can be spoken of is not the true God.” Pastor smiled at my puzzled look. “We human beings are funny—we say there is a God who knows all and who created all, as though we have any place to describe such a being. To think that the human mind and human language can describe the Creator of this vast universe is the height of human arrogance.”

“Then what
is
God?” I asked.

“I could not explain if I had an eternity to try. For God does not exist in our language, nor in our perception. I can see light, but His divine light is not visible to mine eyes. I can hear sound, but the word of God is none that mine ears can understand. His glory is not felt on the skin, but in the heart. God, Allah, Buddha, the Tao–these are but a few of the names Ancient man gave to that which is beyond his perception, beyond his consciousness.” He laughed heartily. “Even now we are talking about things we cannot talk about. It strikes me every time.”

The carpet filled with guests and drinks and dishes, and Shelley glanced often at me as she helped the parishioners prepare the feast. Pastor spoke again after a short pause. “To look inside yourself is to find the God you seek, for He exists not among books and prayers and prophets, and you will not know Him with that mind you think is yours, but with another mind, a purer mind, what the Ancients called the soul, the spirit. Understand?” I nodded in agreement, but I did not understand. At least not then.

Harriet finally settled down next to her husband, granting me a brief reprieve from his abstruse musings. “It’s time, dear,” she said. Shelley plopped down next to me—she was blithe and energetic, and there was a lively streak of blush in her cheek. Pastor took Harriet’s hand with his right and mine with his left, and each of the parishioners clasped hands in that great oval of people.

Pastor closed his eyes. “Let us pray. We thank thee, oh Numen of Nature, for these gifts of meat and vegetable. We thank thee, oh Master of the Men, for our health and our families and our loved ones. We thank thee, oh Forger of Fate, for guiding these new parishioners home. We thank thee, oh Namer of the Nameless, for your blessings and your mercy. Amen.” It seemed strange to thank a nameless god for the palpable misery of this world.

The feast was modest, but good. They did not glut themselves as the poets did. They were far more reserved. Nonetheless, all were laughing, smiling, enjoying the love and companionship of the tribal family. Shelley was absorbed in conversation with Harriet, despite Pastor’s attempts to cut in with his stories. I was absorbed in thought—how was I to ask Shelley to marry me? What would I say? I hardly spoke a word at dinner.

“What’s wrong, Marlowe?” Shelley finally asked.

“Nothing, it’s just that, uh, the food—it’s so delicious.” I feigned enthusiastic mastication. “Mmm, mmm, so good.” She smiled and flew back to intercourse with Harriet.

Pastor leaned back behind Shelley and hailed me where she could not see with his outstretched hand. “It’s time,” he whispered. My heart raced. I felt as though I might vomit. I tried to stand, but my knees gave way to gravity.

“What are you doing, silly?” Shelley asked.

Pastor stood, drawing Shelley’s attention away from me. The happy din and clamor fell to a murmur and then a whisper before it faded altogether. “Deacons, parishioners, little lambs.” He made a face at some children sitting near him. They giggled. “God has blessed us with new lambs for our flock.” A round of applause erupted as parishioners seated near the new members of the tribe hugged and patted them. “But God has also blessed us with two young Pilgrims wandering on a lonely path. I look at these
two
bodies,” gesturing at us, “yet I see
one
soul.” The entire tribe was staring at us. Shelley, though she should have been quite bewildered at this point, was calm and nonchalant. “And now our young brother Marlowe would like to say a few words. Marlowe.”

He sat down, but I still could not stand, so I knelt before my Shelley and took her hands in mine. My eyes filled with tears before I could utter the first word. “Shelley.” My voice cracked. Shelley giggled, then I giggled, then I composed myself again. “Shelley, I’ve loved you all my life, and all my past lives, and for all my future life I will still love you. I feel as though I’ve lived an eternity in the short time I’ve been with you, and yet eternity is scarcely enough for your eyes, your face, your smile, your grace—I could adore you until the sun refused to rise.”

I was uncharacteristically eloquent, though they were not my words. Something deep inside me wove that maudlin fabric, unconsciously threading word and syllable into a lovesick yarn. Shelley did not think it maudlin—she was deeply moved, I could see it in her face. I reached out and wiped a tear hanging from the end of her nose. She loosed that half-sigh, half-laugh that sometimes happens when a triviality treads upon a grave endeavor. “Miss Shelley, I do believe you are crying.”

“Go on, go on,” she uttered, as though anticipating what was not yet said.

I cleared my throat. “I know we have but a short time on this earth. We all do. And Time is cruel—he speeds past us in a blink of an eye all that we love, yet slows our misery and suffering to eternity. Our only hope is to seize every day, every hour, every moment, and never take a single of those precious moments for granted. Shel—” I tried to clear my throat. It was dry. Pastor gave me a cup with water, and I gulped it down. I gazed back at my Shelley. “Shelley, I want to ask you—” I choked up again.

But Shelley didn’t care. She burst out, “I will, I will!” and then threw her arms around me. The crowd rose to their feet in applause.

Shelley held me tightly and kissed my face all over. “Will you marry me?” I muttered.

“Yes. Yes, I will marry you!” And she planted a victorious kiss upon my quivering lips.

A chorus of children flew to flowers and candles, arranging and lighting the decorations for the wedding. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“You shall marry tonight!” Pastor said. Shelley’s face lit up with indubitable glee, and my heart was jolted to a gallop once again, but its furious beat this time was joyful, and I could not hide the broad grin on my face.

Harriet retrieved a small guitar from her tent, and she played a sweet melody while Pastor arranged us before him at the altar. The parishioners, still seated in their festive circle, continued to eat and be merry, though they quieted quickly when Pastor began to speak.

“We are gathered here to join two bodies whose souls have already been married in the heavens, for only God could bestow a love so great and so pure as the love that shines in the twinkle of Marlowe’s eye and the blush of Shelley’s cheek.” Pastor took Shelley’s hands and placed them in mine. He asked if I would love her and honor her and cherish her. Of course I said yes—I already did all those things. He asked if I would marry her. I wanted to say yes, yes, a thousand times yes, but only one yes crossed my lips before they were overcome by an intractable smile.

Pastor turned to Shelley: “Do you take this Marlowe to be your husband?”

“Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!”

We kissed. The tribe cheered. Pastor led us through hoots and hollers to a special tent they had prepared for us. It was covered in flower blossoms, and there were torches lighting a pathway to it. They must have known—they had made the preparations before I even asked Shelley to marry me. Pastor pulled back the tent flaps. “Your wedding bed.” We scurried inside. The tent flaps closed, and the torches along the path were extinguished one by one. I was alone for the first time with my new wife.

We embraced and kissed and made our marriage complete. Neither of us knew what we were doing—we just did what came naturally. We giggled at the awkwardness of it all, for true love knows no awkwardness, and nothing could have tarnished the most beautiful night of our lives.

We talked until the wee hours of morning. “When we get back to the village,” I said, “I’ll fix up my room—I can get rid of lots of junk, old stuff that I never use anymore.” I lay in Shelley’s lap, looking up at her soft eyes, rambling like there was no tomorrow as she played with my hair and caressed my face.

“We’ll finish school soon, and you can teach, and I can work on the farm and maybe one day follow in my brother’s footsteps and become a village elder.”

“You will make a great elder, Marlowe. I think you would be a good leader. And a good father.”

“How many kids do you want? I think three would be perfect. Two boys and a girl!”