Iraj's Grave

—Iraj—

Everyone Iraj had ever loved was right there, all around him, on the north side of the garden where layered canopies gave way to fields of grain. Basket reed grew in narrow rows forming barriers as tall as men. Each new branch, when it reached a certain width, was either cut for weaving or woven live into the living fences. He walked with one hand brushing the narrow leaves, touching all the kin who had gone before him.

At last, he reached the place he sought and knelt. He gently laid aside new growth to expose a marker made of stone — granite quarried from the Spine. Objectively it wasn't special, just one of many knee-high stelae hidden in the hedges, but this one was his. His mother's mark was on it, as was her sisters', and their mother before them. For those with husbands, their marks were next to their wives. Each mark was a life lived in Pashtuk, a life ended in Pashtuk, a body decayed in compost heaps to feed new life in Pashtuk. Their dirt was spread among the hedges and nearby fields.

Iraj had never married because he couldn't bear the thought of calling some other garden home. He had seen them all and none could match Pashtuk in his heart. He had seen the world as a caravaner, far more than the average Calique. Much of it was wondrous but none of it was home. It didn't matter how far he wandered, his feet would always bring him here.

When one of his sisters had fallen ill, he had walked every centimeter of the surrounding desert to pick the plants to ease her pain. When she met her inevitable end he was the one who spread her body there, all around the family marker, his parents being too distraught to reach deep into the pile, to take hands full of her body's earth and lay it down. It was Iraj who spent long hours placing her mark on hard stone.

When his parents passed he did the same for them. It became his role in the family, laying down his aunts and their husbands when their time came. He would do the same for his surviving sisters and their husbands. If tragedy struck, he would do the same for his nieces and their husbands. In his own time, his soil would feed these reeds and these fields, and his mark would be carved in granite beneath the living hedge. Born in Pashtuk but never married, this is where he would live again, in the place he loved more than he could love any woman.

There was one mark that didn't belong, not according to the usual customs. It was a tiny star, stamped deeply in the stone. His son.

In Iraj's youthful days, the women called him beautiful but much too wild for husbanding. When gardens gathered in the winter, girls would sing to him outside his tent, in groups of five, enticing him to let their chosen in. Their music always pleased him and, following good custom, he took the chosen girl into his bed and planted seed inside her. The second night she came alone, and usually a third night also. He let those strange, sweet women steal a score of children from him never knowing any of their offspring.

Those children weren't his: he'd only given seed. He seldom thought of them, stolen as they were, but rarely, while visiting another garden, he caught glimpses of them: A flash of smile just like his mother's; Eyes that could have been his sisters'; His father's ears. Still, none of them had mattered to him because they were someone else's.

Until Nawaz.

The boy had shown up suddenly, a child of several years escorted by an uncle on his mother's side. They came from a garden in the south, a stricter one than Pashtuk, the kind that liked their men a certain way and rid themselves of those who didn't fit. Or maybe it was something else, a problem with a family member. Sometimes, a woman with a child would marry but her husband suffered jealousy when looking at the one who wasn't his. It was a primal hate whose only cure was distance. There were other reasons why a child was sent away to foster, but the man who dropped him off didn't explain.

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"This one belongs to the hunter known as Iraj." That's all the man had said, then turned his appalon south. He left behind a boy with dark curly hair, shining white teeth, and golden eyes.

Pashtuk wanted more boys at that time, so there was no barrier to keeping him. Iraj took him home and fed him well, then took him to meet his sisters. They sat him on their laps, passing him around, a timid and uncomfortable child who'd just crossed half the world to meet a family he'd never heard of. That was what women did when someone new entered the family: they passed the baby from one female relative to the next until it knew its family. Nawaz, too old for such treatment, escaped to hide behind his father after the first round of lap-sitting.

He nearly shouted, "Everybody's had a turn already! I'll remember who you are, okay?"

Iraj's father, long dead by then, would not have loved Nawaz. The old man had believed that hunting was the only manly occupation. Nawaz would never be a hunter: he had a gentle way about him and a tender smile for almost everyone; He couldn't bear to see a creature hurt, nor would he eat any egg or meat. Iraj never cared if the boy wouldn't hunt, so long as he learned all the other things a man should know. Nawaz was pretty and lithe and could climb the palm trees like he was born for nothing else. That first year, he set a record among the children for date harvesting. Iraj loved the child's quick fingers, the way a reed would whip and bend for him as he practiced the local weaver patterns. He was destined to be a hand, and a good one too. Always, his mind was on the garden and its people.

Sweet Nawaz! What citizen of their garden had not remarked on his kindness or his generosity? The boy remembered everything about everyone, and organized little gatherings as gifts for whoever needed them. There never was a mood so dark that Nawaz couldn't lighten it with selective company.

His departure was every bit as unexplained as his arrival. The winter winds were up and he was in the garden, searching for a younger boy who was missing. A heavy branch snapped in the wind, plummeted from upper canopy to the ground, and crushed Nawaz. He died alone, a fact that haunted Iraj to this day, but at least he died in a garden full of family who loved him.

There was no one to blame, no ill intent, no negligence nor mischief. A thing happened. A boy died and there was no sense to it. A family grieved and there was no cure for it.

Ever since Iraj had put Nawaz's body in the compost, and then months later spread his soil around the family stone with bare and trembling hands, he hated leaving home. As a younger man he had loved all his adventures, and traveled around the continent in full confidence his feet would bring him back to Pashtuk. But ever since Nawaz, every day away was ache and anxiety. His life would never be complete until his and Nawaz's soils were mingled.

"I'm back," he said aloud to all his aunts and uncles, his mother and father, his grandmother, but mostly to Nawaz. "These are cruel times. I'm almost happy you don't have to see them. I got your aunts out before things got bad, and all the children too. We lost your uncles Barback and Manuchar because they stayed behind to fight. Their bones are here, somewhere in the garden, so that's good.

"This new maul, he's a strange one for sure. I've never seen such strength. He's very young, younger than you were when …" No, that didn't bear talking about.

"Satoma's put together a raiding party, and Phillip is sending me out to fight. They promise if I die, I'll be returned properly. He's the kind to keep his word, so I've decided not to worry. Guess what my job is? I'm supposed to steal their mounts." He could feel the women of his family rolling their eyes — more than once he'd brought home strange animals and lied brazenly about their origins. "I know, I know. He caught me trying to steal his animals, just the one time, and now that's how he thinks of me. Not that I don't have some experience.

"Don't worry about Satoma. They're nothing compared to Nexus. They'll be gone, and soon we can bring the people back.

"I wonder how many appalons the little maul will let me keep? He has to give me one, at least, for helping. Right?"