This is the twenty-eighth chapter of Wealthgiver, an alternate history serial romance about nationalism and cave-Thracians. For the back-of-the-book description and an index of chapters, click here. For the beginning, click here. For the previous chapter, click here.
Andrei wasn't surprised that the cave-Thracians had strong opinions on how to dig a good hole.
In particular, this was a "three-level sacrificial pit." One began by digging out an oval patch about six feet long and one foot deep. Women lined the edge of this first level with stones, while the men excavated a smaller oval to the depth of two feet.
Andrei now stood in the third pit, about six feet deep, and he was under no illusions about the numerical symbolism of his work.
Awkwardly, he levered another spadeful of soil up over the lip of the third pit—really more of a trench—and left it on the grass for Cenk to remove. His breath puffed like a locomotive and his back and shoulders ached. Sweat chilled on his face.
They'd begun before dawn, but now the sky was silver blue. Birds sang from Pazardjik's remaining trees, and the only star still in sight was Venus.
Andrei looked back down at the soil around his boots. He wanted to lie in the trench he'd made and tuck his knees under his chin. Instead, he knelt and used his hands to smooth the sides and floor of the pit.
It was darker down here and smelled more strongly of spring growth. It was as if Andrei had ducked both back and forward in time. Earlier in the day and later in the year, after this new war was finished.
A cock crowed in some neighbor's yard, Cenk and Arsen silently shoveled, and Andrei's fingers smoothed the dirt as he wondered what the devil he would tell the people of this town.
A meditation on cowardice, Doctor?
Andrei grimaced and pressed the backs of his fingers into the knee-high wall. He was a doctor. Not some orator. Some stupid young revolutionary. He couldn't stand up in front of a half-ruined town and tell them to go to war again on behalf of people who'd been lying to them for fifteen hundred years.
No, you can't.
"My Master," said Cenk. "The pit is ready."
Andrei nodded silently, but stayed where he was, crouching in the shadow cast by the pit's eastern wall. He reached into his jacket pocket for the coin he'd been given. A golden sultani, snipped from the scarf of Arsen the rope-merchant's wife. She had worn this on her wedding day. Would it be enough?
Not nearly, Doctor. What I have to give cannot be bought at all. Either seize it or wait for it to find you.
Andrei shook his head. What the Wealthgiver had could not be. This was all what he already knew.
Because I already told you, Doctor. So stop hiding in this pit.
"The guests are arriving, My Master."
A gate squeaked and women's voices rose in greeting. Still silent, Andrei straightened and reached for the grassy edge.
The sky was pink now above the pale city smoke. The heavy gates of the wall were open and people spread from them to fill the garden. The upper crust of Tatar Pazardjik society just managed to fit into Arsen's courtyard. Only a little over half of that crust knew what they were doing there.
Andrei could tell who the real Christians, Muslims, and Jews were, because they were clustered together in one corner of the garden, sharing worried looks with each other.
They could tell. The bishop, the rabbi, and the hodja suddenly felt like brothers, and they didn't know why.
Andrei wiped his forehead with this sleeve and spoke in the best Bulgarian he could manage. "Today you all wonder why we call you here."
Everyone looked from him to Kori, who stood near the gate, and had no dirt on her arms or legs.
"We called you here to make a confession and a promise," she told them in Bulgarian much better than Andrei's.
At that point, someone in the crowd was supposed to say, "What confession?" Instead, the ragged, somewhat squirrel-like bishop raised his hands and said, "What's going on? Who are you people?"
Andrei raised his hands, black with Earth, and said, "Me éma Béssatsa."
There was no outcry from the gathered Good. That wasn't their way. Instead, cold silence spread through the crowd. Death hollowed the air like the space inside a cavern.
Andrei met the eyes of one would-be assassin after another. What are you going to do? He asked silently. Kill everyone in earshot? Kill me and the Mistress of the Mountain? Stop it.
"We are all Bessians," he said.
Some of the crowd only blinked at him. One old woman turned to another, asking "We're what? What did he say?"
He turned and nodded toward Kori.
"There is another nation here," she said. "Before the Roman Empire, there were people here who worshiped the Shrouded One. They believed that men do not really die, but merely travel into the Earth, where they stay with the Master of that place. Fifteen hundred years ago, they went still breathing into the mountain, and they shrouded to become unseen."
The portly, turbaned hodja bent to whisper with one of the members of his entourage. He straightened and called out, "Are you telling us that you're some kind of latter-day Thracians?"
"Devil-worshiping pagans," said the bishop in disgust.
Kori wagged her finger from side to side. "We are the Good. We are not evil."
"I am not so reassured by that, miss," said the rabbi.
"This is absurd," said a townsman, bearded and prosperous-looking in a western-style coat. "We didn't fight for this—this—"
But another raised his hand. "Wait, my friend. You don't know what you haven't heard before you've heard it."
Andrei supposed that was as good a cue as he would get. "Ask us what we can do for you!" He reached back into his pocket and pulled out more sultanis, which he tossed into the Earth.
Half the members of the crowd narrowed their eyes.
"This," said Andrei, "is a ritual that outsiders were not meant to see."
"Come here, Good people," Kori ordered, though still not in the Bessian language. "Come and give back to the Earth. Come now and prove your faith."
She walked toward Andrei and his pit, pulling off her earrings and bracelets. Arsen's wife donated her jewelry, while Cenk and Arsen had come prepared with golden coins. When they made their example, more Pluto-worshipers followed.
Neighbors startled back from grim-faced neighbors. "You're a Thracian? You too?"
Andrei raised his voice. "When there's a flood or an avalanche or a famine, you help each other, don't you? When the invaders come, you side with each other against them. This is an investment. We prove we will," the word in Bessian came to him, followed by the word in Bulgarian, "protect each other."
"You're the invaders," shouted someone in Bulgarian.
The bishop smiled and nodded at that. The hodja and rabbi drew away from him.
Andrei resisted the urge to shout over them. Let them quiet themselves to hear his voice.
"Some of you laughed when you heard that. Some cheered. But the rest, they were silent and afraid. You know what will happen to you."
"Yes! It's what happened to us," shouted the same man. The heckler had the look of a farmer, and not a successful one. Andrei had seen a thousand like him. He had marched to the Balkans to free men exactly like this. To free them from what, he had only recently come to understand.
Andrei pinned the farmer with his eyes. "What do you feel? Hold it. Look at it."
He stopped. Andrei had been about to diagnose hatred, but now he reconsidered.
"It's cowardice," he said.
The farmer looked as if he'd been stabbed in the chest.
"You hide behind hatred. You only don't want to go to war again. I understand."
"What do you know about it?" That was a woman's voice. "You don't know a tenth of what they did."
"We did nothing!" shouted one of the men of the hodja's entourage. The man himself looked pained, maybe regretting the things he had failed to do. Or simply wishing he'd evacuated earlier.
Andrei waited for the crowd's reaction to die down.
"It is not a matter of want. The massacres would repeat. If this town becomes part of Bulgaria? If it goes back to the Sultan? If it goes back and forth? Death will come again and again if we do not go out now and meet him."
He kept his hands still, his voice slow. "We will defend these mountains," Andrei said. "We can keep out their armies if we join together. Pledge your trust to each other. Whatever they say in Moscow or Constantinople or Berlin, promise to be a people!"
He held the tension of the crowd for a moment and put it down. It felt like settling a burden into the three-level pit. Giving a treasure to the Earth.
Andrei bowed. "Any tokens of good faith you care to put in our hole would be appreciated."
The crowd shifted back and forth, talking to itself, while Andrei turned to Cenk. "Who was that defending us against accusations of absurdity?"
"Ah." Cenk looked proud. "Telegraph operator. When Süleyman Hüsnü Pasha withdrew his troops from this town, he wired to the Porte asking for permission to burn it and massacre its people. Savadjian there received the reply in Morse Code, which said 'yes.' He deciphered it as 'no.' A good man." The spy raised his chin and smiled. "A very good man."
"Let's let him work, then." Andrei looked around to see where Kori might be. It would be a relief to stand next to her and give the crowd somebody else to stare at.
Where was Kori? Andrei turned, trying to find her.
"Oof!" said the bishop. "Don't shove."
Andrei spun back around to face the assassin.
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