The Village Shaman’s Lover
Part 1 of 3
By Alastair Anders
Copyright 2012 Alastair Anders
Smashwords edition
For adults only.
No one is coming after me.
It’s been eight months since I deserted. Just couldn’t do it anymore. Couldn’t wake up on that cold ground year after year anymore. Drifting from place to place, stealing from old women, cutting off the hands of farmers. So I walked one night. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. I just started making my way across the field, and then through the pass, and then down into the valley.
I have no name now.
And then there came the months of hiding in alleys, keeping my hood pulled far over my face, always looking over my shoulder. I drifted around the major towns and encampments, eating out of rubbish heaps, sleeping in trees. And then the days started to get shorter and the nights colder, and I started to worry about how I was going to survive. One of the other drifters told me that if you show up at some of these weird little villages and ask if there’s any work you can do, sometimes they’ll put you up for the winter. I figured that was fair. So I went around to a couple settlements until somebody told me a shaman needed a bodyguard.
I was picturing a grizzled old man with no teeth and a crazy laugh, or something, as I walked back to his house. But then I found that he was young, and beautiful, with his long dark hair and thin red lips and slender body. At first I couldn’t tell if he was a man or a woman, and I didn’t care. And then he asked me what I wanted, and his voice was low and deep and sweet, and I swallowed my lust and asked if he was still looking for protection. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he explained what he needed from a bodyguard, the way he moved - so graceful, so light. Been sleeping on his floor ever since.
So I happily do the dirty work – cooking, cleaning, fixing things, hauling around supply packs and provisions when we have to hit the road, and intimidating people when necessary. I figure this big muscle-bound body has to be good for something other than killing. And there’s a peace that comes over me, too, when I’m chopping wood or helping the old women slice up cabbages or sleeping on his floor, next to the fire. A meditative state. A quiet place.
People ask me what my name was before. I don’t ever tell them. It belongs to an old life.
As part of my duties, I follow him out to the western settlements. The old shaman who used to live out there died suddenly last year, and his apprentice wasn’t ready to handle it all by herself, so we go help her out. It’s a long road, and it takes us through the country where his rapist ex-husband lives, him and his vengeful family. He doesn’t talk about that.
I keep him company on these long treks. We walk side by side through the world, together, and it seems to me that nothing could ever be more perfect. We talk, and laugh, and sleep side by side at night, and I resist the urge to rest my head on his shoulder. I have never been in love like this before.
On this last visit, it became obvious to us both that she’s going to be able to manage her own communities. I walk home with him, in a silent frenzy. After this winter has passed, he won’t need a bodyguard anymore. No more duties for me. No more long sweet hours with each other at night. No more cuddling close to each other in the tent for warmth, no more waking up next to him.
Half a day’s walk from home, we break for the night and set up camp, building a fire and cooking up the last of our road food. The night is clear, and I know it’s going to be another of those sub-zero frozen nights, the ones where you’re never sure if you’ll wake up in the morning. We eat in silence, side by side under the felt blanket. I am so close to his body. It’s so hard to lift my spoon to my mouth, to eat. All my hands want to do is caress him, all my mouth wants to do is kiss him.