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With the chilly autumn weather come early, there were no more fish traps to set; the fish had moved to deeper waters as we would soon move deeper into the steppe. This morning, I'd come to collect the last of them and found Aric standing naked on the shore.
I froze in my tracks and quickly averted my gaze. "Oh, I didn't see you there; I'll return later," I stammered and spun around to leave. His wound was mostly healed now, but he hadn't fully resumed hunting or watches yet, and I didn't expect to find him this far from camp so early.
"Anaiti, wait," he called to me, "I was only about to bathe."
I'd probably never get used to seeing the many scars and tattoos inscribed across his skin. The Skythai did not often show their flesh to the world. Not only was the climate too harsh for bare skin in both summer and winter, but undress was something private, something sacred, held between themselves and the gods. This was because they covered their skins with images not suitable for uninitiated eyes—holy signs charged with meaning only their own knew how to read. Many were singular images spawned by dreams or mystic rites. Most of the marks remained a mystery to me, and it was not my place to look on them..
Erman told me that men in the earth's walled cities prepared animals' skins—sheep and the like—to be painted with wise sayings. They called these inscribed hides books. Others pressed and dried the leaves of plants or planks of linden wood to scribble on. Or scratched into slabs of clay or wax. With these texts, they recorded the sayings of their peoples and the laws of their gods. And they collected these scrolls and tablets in great repositories and temples. But the Skythai had no storehouse but the people. So they carried their scriptures in their flesh—in their memories and on their skin. Each man and woman was a leaf in the great Skythai book. Each kept his portion of the story. Over a lifetime, some grew to be works of art and, after their owners were carefully embalmed, they were buried like treasure in the earth. Others were stripped and prepared like those scrolls—illuminating for all the people the wisdom gathered in the ancients' wanderings and the knowledge of the long journey ahead.
"Why don't you join me?"
"At this hour?” I asked, still averting my eyes. “The water's freezing."
"You're not scared of a little cold water…?"
All my embarrassment receded with his well-aimed jab at my pride. Indignant, I stripped to my underclothes and stepped, albeit haltingly, just into the stream. Every muscle in me contracted. I bit my lip and held myself still as gooseflesh erupted across my bare skin.
He unbound his hair and shook out his arms. Then strode straight into the depths and disappeared beneath the surface. My flesh crawled just watching. He reemerged, pulling in a deep breath of air, and beamed, splashing the frigid water at me. I flinched as if he'd shot an arrow.
"You'll never get wet standing there," he said, swiping the water back from his face and hair with both hands.
"I'm coming."
I wasn't. My feet rooted themselves to the shore. Breathing deeply, I readied myself for the biting cold. I still couldn't do it.
"You must go all at once. To do it by degrees is torture."
He was right. And I was a coward. Closing my eyes, I plunged myself into the frosty current. The water closed around me like an iron vice, and I went rigid in its grip, sinking to the bottom. My heart may have stopped. Then I remembered the air and light above me. Pushing to the surface, I gasped more from shock than breathlessness. "Oh shit! I've done it!" It was like swimming through a sea of swords, but I was fully immersed in the frigid water.
He laughed his hearty, mellow laugh. "You could do it with less shrieking."
"I'm not sure that I could!" I giggled. "I don't understand. How do you bear it with such ease?"
"I don't mind it. It's only flesh."
"Tell that to my flesh."
"You must tell it to your own," he said as he waded toward the shore. "You dwell too much in your flesh."
"Where else should I be?" I asked with perhaps more sarcasm than necessary as we climbed ashore again.
Aric, dripping before me, handed me his cloth to dry myself. "The priests say there is something in man that is sacred; that is not destroyed by death. I remember this when my flesh complains or cries out in pain, and I want nothing more than to submit to it." He scrubbed himself with the cloth when I was through.
"You make me feel ashamed," I said as I slipped on my linen tunic and wrapped myself snug in my fur-lined caftan, my underclothes still damp beneath.
"That's never my intention." He pulled on his trousers and tied them. "You've no reason to be ashamed. But know that one must train the inner beings of mind and will as much—or more even—than this outward form.” He stood with his hands on his hips, watching me dress.
Embarrassed, I stopped, holding my caftan close about me. "We can train the will?"
"The body is weak. It bleeds. It dies. You needn't let this pain taint your spirit. I ply my form with hardship each day, not to toughen my flesh, but my resolve."
I was never before convinced there was anything sacred in mankind. But for the first time in my life, I hoped it might be true. "I wish I could do it over: go back into that icy water again."
"Don't worry. Each time is like the first.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Blood
There’s a place in one of Plato’s dialogues where he talks about the origin of writing and claims that the Egyptian god Thoth warned that once men put their thoughts into writing their ability to remember would deteriorate.
🥶 cold just reading about it. Your dialogue is excellent. Reads so effortlessly. 👏