She kneeled at the lifeless man and removed her head scarf, revealing a ghastly sight to Keubroc and Reiba. Her eyes were dried out peach pits barely resting in sockets whose lids could no longer close, as they were not there. Like streams feeding a lake, puffy, old scars meandered from cheekbone, forehead and temple to those eyes. She put her hands to those eyes for a moment, and shook her shoulders in a stilled way, prompting Reiba to whisper "What is she doing?"
Before he could answer, however, Anita responded, having easily heard the woman. "One is supposed to cry, isn't that right? This is what it looks to cry, yes?"
"She says she is attempting to mourn the man." Keubroc translated to Eirdren for Reiba's benefit.
"I don't see why." Reiba began to reply matter-of-factly, but Keobroc interrupted her,
"Yes, when someone you love dies, you are supposed to cry. And you are doing just fine."
Anita rose again in haste, seeing her task as accomplished, though no tears were shed. "I do not love him, of course. Do not mistake it."
"No, but you did."
"Perhaps. I don't remember."
"I will tell no one." he promised. She rewarded him with what would have been a nasty glare, had she the use of her old eyes.
"I will dispose of the body." she said unceremoniously, replacing her headscarf, to the relief of both Keubroc and Reiba, who had been disgusted by her visage. "and then we must go."
The bei collected the man she had once held in her arms with tender affection. Her smaller frame made the task difficult, but the exposed part of her face made no expression of it. She brought it to a large, flat exposed rock where she laid the body out carefully. The bei'thal had imprinted in her mind the need to erase the idea that a deceased bei ever existed by any means possible. But fortunately for the man he once was, Davin was to leave the world in the way his male ancestors had since the Nedjleen had been carved from the stone of Mount Kidje by the all-mother. He would rest in the palm of the all-mother's hands until the father sent his servants to take him, bit my bit, back to the sky, back to the firmament. The all-father's crows would pick Davin's bones clean in a glorious sky burial and soon he would be sitting with the all-father in embrace of the all-mother and her daughters, the women of the Nedjleen.
Or so Anita would have believed long ago. Now, she did not know what to believe, she only knew that this was what was done. She stripped the body of its weaponry first, and pocketed it for her own use. Of the black clothing he wore, that too was removed, including his chiffon headscarf. His eyes, like hers, remained eternally open, and eternally dried out. The lines of his scars, like hers, ran to his eyes and his eyelids were long gone, though the wounds of their removal had long since healed.
She started a small fire, using some dried brush and a few pieces of wood she had salvaged from one of the ruined houses of the village. To the fire, she first added the clothes, pausing for just a second before finally adding the headscarf, in a failed effort at sentimentality. It too burned with the rest.
Keubroc was finishing the last of a quick make-shift bandage for Reiba when the bei returned.
Anita walked over to the woman and roughly grabbed Reiba's right arm. Reiba was pulled up without grace, but the disgraced noblewoman, still in pain and grasping at her side with her left hand, was unable to resist or defend herself. "You will come with me until I am told what to do with you." Reiba looked at the bei uncomprehendingly, as Anita's speech had never changed from the Yibouh tongue.
"Good. You will help me to complete your master's quest. Let us head to Pho-Boteth, then."
"You are not the one to order me, you who sound like bei'thal. After the Silent Scholar has worked on you, perhaps our interactions will be different." As if to punctuate her intent, she drew a dagger to his direction.
Keubroc stepped back attempted some measure of diplomacy, "Of course. Lead the way then. I will follow."
"I am not going to Pho-Boteth."
"Where then?"
"When you are bei'thal, you will ask that question, and you will receive an answer. If you are to be who you say you are to be, then you should follow the orders of the masters. Go to Pho-Boteth on your own. Begin your training."
"What of Chet? Where shall this one go?" the gegleth worried, but he was ignored by both the nüdwuob and the bei.
"If you will not answer, then I will follow you. I will not let the woman who killed my brother in arms walk away from my sight without seeing justice!" Keubroc said with agitation.
"I don't care about your feelings." Anita barked. "I am trying to follow everything my masters tell me. This is supposed to be easy! The bei'thal speaks and the bei obeys. Yet you and your stupid woman make me feel that if I obey one of my commands I betray another. I do not know how better to follow orders!
"You may not follow me. You may have the scent of Vaughn bei'thal on you, and the words of the insect to back you up, but you are not bei'thal. I cannot kill you if the Silent Scholar has designs on you, but I cannot show a foreigner anything more. Do not even attempt to follow. Make so much as one step towards me or this woman, and I will hear you, and I will kill you and I will kill her. I will kill everything I see." she backed up, dragging the injured Reiba.
"What is going on, what is she saying?" Reiba shouted, panicked. "Where is she taking me?" Her face was a mask of pain. "Don't let her just take me away!"
Keubroc did not move a muscle and he watched the former Lady Archne get pulled away. He stood frozen for some time as the two moved slowly back down the mountain. "Keep an eye on that wound or you will not have a prize to return to the bei'thal!" Keubroc called out to her.
When she had left from sight, Keubroc gathered his things. "Come with me, Chet." he sighed. "It looks like you are with me."
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