Time of the Eagle Read Online Free

healer, I thought, and looked at the rest of my face. Between the gleaming marks of paint, like two pieces of summer sky, were my blue Navoran eyes. Always they startled me, when I saw them, for they were a high lot strange against my brown skin, though my skin was light for a Shinali. I saw my straight eyebrows, almost meeting above the high bridge of my nose. My nose, too, was from my father, strong and beaklike. My image looked mysterious, fierce with the painted signs of war. I was not sure I liked my face, and I certainly did not like what Zalidas had done.
    As he took the mirror from me, he said, “The horse is the sign of the Navoran Empire, Avala, for Navoran blood runs in your veins; the eagle is sign of the Shinali blood in you; and the Navoran sword crossed with the Shinali arrow are signs of the day when you will fight for our lost lands. But outside the arrow and the sword is a circle, sign of unity and the fullness of time, for in you, in your mixed blood, the arrow and the sword are also met in peace.”
    He blessed me, then my grandmother took my left hand, and my mother took my right hand, and they led me over to the people. Yeshi was waiting for me at the entrance to his tent. One side of it had been raised on poles, and mats were put outside on the grass. The feasting-fires were not far off, and the fragrantsmoke drifted across us, and the flame light glimmered on the people on the edges of the gathering. Though so many people were crowded there, the silence was complete. Over their heads, beyond the mountains, a round moon rose.
    Yeshi held out both his hands, and mine were placed in his. To my surprise, my chieftain was near tears, and he did not speak the usual words of welcome for a new woman.
    â€œThis is a high night for me, Avala—for all my tribe. It has been a gift for us, great beyond telling, to have had among us the child of Gabriel. And it is a new gift, to have a woman among us, now, who has his blood in her veins.”
    He kissed my brow, and the bone torne swung between us, golden in the lamplight, its shadow black across his robe. My heart thumped painfully, and I thought how it was always like this—the image of my father golden, shining, almost holy, and myself lost somewhere in the shadow of him. I loved my father dearly, and I loved Yeshi, but I wished that tonight I would be seen for myself, just as Avala, new Shinali woman.
    He smiled and began the formal greeting. “I welcome you, Avala, to your old home, to the tent you have always shared with us. You walked out of here a child. You walk in here a woman. I welcome you with honor and with love.”
    Then my grandmother gave me the lamp, and I took off my shoes and went into the tent. The feasting-mats had been laid out, and the lamps upon them shone on clay bowls of leaf salads and boiled fish, and hollowed gourds of water. The meat would be brought in later, but before we ate there was to be the giving of the gifts. I sat at the far end of the mat, and people came in. My mother was the first.
    She sat in front of me and placed into my arms a rolled sheepskin garment. It was very old and worn. I shook it out and saw that the smooth side of the sheepskin, the outside of the tunic, was painted with canoes in a river.
    â€œLong years I have kept it for you,” my mother said, and her eyes were moist. “It was made on our own land before the days of the Wandering, when we had sheep. The paintings, they’re not good. The artist was in a hurry. He had been canoe racing in the river with Tarkwan, and their canoe had won. After, the children and young people wanted him to paint canoes on their clothes, for he was their hero. He was hurrying to finish, so he could walk on the Shinali lands with me. It was the first day I saw his face.”
    The words fell softly on my heart, as beautiful as first snow, and I asked, “My father, he did the paintings?”
    My mother nodded. Taking the garment, she