A Dirge for Sabis

by C. J. Cherryh

  Two steps past the doorway, and they saw that they were in a tunnel. The walls were roughly hewn from the dark hill-stone, but the floor was sanded smooth, save for the faint ruts of cartwheels. In a few more steps they found the remains of a cart: large, square-built, stout, but with one axle broken and the front wheels collapsed.

  It was piled to the top with butter-yellow sulfur.

  Omis and Arizun poked fingers into the heap of yellow gravel, their eyes met, and they smiled. "Enough here alone to keep us in firepowder for a year," Sulun marveled. "But let's go on."

  At the end of the tunnel the walls fell away on deeper darkness, with the faintest draft of a breeze flowing from somewhere unseen.

  "Must have cut ventilation shafts," Omis murmured, then stopped as he noted the faint echoing of his voice.

  Sulun, keeping his eyes on the smoothed floor and his lamp held high, took the first steps into the echoing dark. He heard Omis and Arizun gasp behind him, stopped, and looked up.

  He stood in a hall of columns, stretching as far as the light spread and doubtless far beyond. The roof was higher than his arms could reach, rough-cut as the walls and columns.

  Roof, columns, and floor were sulfur-yellow, with occasional streaks of obsidian black.

  Sulun carefully lowered his lamp, keeping the flame away from the butter-colored stone. "We've found it," he said, amazed that his voice was so calm. "I'll wager, if we follow the wheel tracks we'll find another cart, plenty of discarded miners' tools, and a wall of sulfur thicker than anyone can guess."

  "And here," Omis whispered, "an unsuspected fortress, hidden in the earth."

  "Earth Goddess temple," Arizun added. "We should make images of Kula and Deese to place by the entrance. . . ."

  "We should go back to the others before we're missed," Sulun decided, "and before our talkative guide—who no doubt reports to Wotheng—guesses that we've found something of interest."

  "In which case, he will doubtless raise his price." Arizun grinned and turned back to the tunnel. "Let's go, then—and plan our tale to Wotheng."

  * * *

  On the journey back to Ashkell villa, Omis and Arizun rode ahead with Doshi and their guide, while Sulun conferred with the others in the wagon.

  "Even the outer building could be fortified," Zeren noted, "which is nothing to ignore in times, hmm, and places, like these."

  "Those side rooms were shops," Yanados added. "One of them houses a mill that once turned by that stream. The stones are intact, though much of the wooden gear needs replacing—"

  "Omis's ironwork would do better," Vari cut in. "We'll have to ask our host about sources of iron."

  "—and we'd have to replace the paddle wheel, but once we have the mill running—"

  "We could fix the house with stones from the others," Ziya piped up, surprising everyone. "Make the whole house out of stone, so it won't burn."

  "Yes, good thought," Eloti answered quickly. "But where would we put the forge and the larger tools?"

  "That big central room, once the roofs on—or even before," said Yanados. "We could use the other side rooms for kitchens and sleeping cubicles."

  "Hmm, only with much work," Vari grumbled. "I think we'll need to add more rooms, sooner or later. And a kitchen garden. Hmm, and a surrounding wall."

  "Should we bother trying to raise sheep on the surrounding land?" Zeren asked. "We'll need some animals for food, in case of . . . hmmm, siege, famine, other disasters."

  "Goats, more likely," Vari sniffed. "They give less wool, but more milk. A few pigs, some poultry . . ."

  "How would we feed them? How much of this grudging land must we plant and coax into yielding?"

  "Just a little for the birds, I think. Goats can feed themselves well on almost anything, and a few pigs could made do with slops from the kitchen, and perhaps a bit of grain."

  "Is it decided, then?" Eloti asked. "Are we determined to settle here?"

  Sulun looked at everyone in turn. "Do any oppose the thought?" he asked.

  No one did.

  "So be it, then." Eloti smiled, a little grimly. "If we bargain well, we may get the land cheaply. Restoring the buildings, however, will be more of a task than we can manage ourselves—and it will cost dearly." She patted the thick oak chest she sat on. "I suspect that our Sukkti treasure will be largely used before we're done."

  "Wherever we can manage for ourselves, Lady—" Sulun began.

  "No, no regrets, my friend. If we succeed, I'll count it as well spent." Eloti's smile changed to something slightly more wicked. "Now, shall we discuss tactics for bargaining with Wotheng this evening?"

  * * *

  Dinner that evening was a whole roast suckling pig stuffed with apples, boiled green beans with bacon, thick wedges of sheep-milk cheese, roasted grain sweetened with berries, sweet pears pickled in honey, fresh rye bread with new butter, cider, perry, beer, and berry cordial. Everyone in the household, with the exception of the two outer guards, ate at the same huge trestle table. Sulun, remembering his days in Entori House, noted that the only division between the masters' and servants' sections were the bowls of salt, pepper, nutmeg, and vinegar formally arranged in the middle of the table. The servants, he noted, were well and warmly dressed—if in much plainer cloth than Wotheng and his wife—and all seemed healthy and well fed. They also talked freely, laughed loudly, and showed no particular fear of the personages at the high end of the table.

  I've known worse masters, Sulun thought, stuffing himself with a clear conscience. The food was well cooked, if a trifle short on spices, and the assorted drinks were superb.

  After the dishes were emptied and cleared, Wotheng dismissed the lower table diners with a brief hand clap. Sulun noticed that a few of the servants chose to stay, and that this was not remarked upon.

  Wotheng called for more jugs of beer and cordial, and for his pipe: a tiny wooden bowl with an attached hollow stem, filled with some resinous chopped leaf which he lit with a spill of burning wood from the fire. The apprentices watched, wide-eyed, as Wotheng calmly inhaled the aromatic smoke and seemed to enjoy the taste. Sulun guessed that the leaf was some manner of medicinal incense, and the pipe arrangement was certainly more efficient than a Sabisan-style incense burner.

  "So, my friends," Wotheng began comfortably, pipe in one hand and full cup in the other, "did you find your shrine today?"

  "Ah, yes," Sulun agreed with a mournful sigh. "It's in most wretched condition: all the images gone, the building all a wreck, half buried in rubble. Simply restoring would take, oh, moons and moons."

  "Ah, but it could be repaired?"

  "Oh yes, and the priest house as well, but . . ." Sulun rolled his eyes, "Good gods, the work! The expense! We wondered most seriously if 'twould be worth the trouble, or if we should just continue north to the next shrine."

  "Ah, how sad." Gynallea cast a quick look round the cluster of guests. All of them looked mournful. Yes, they might truly consider moving on. "But how can you be certain that the next shrine will be any better? The gods know, all the lands north of here suffered far worse in the wars."

  "True, true." Sulun shrugged expansively. "But what can we do?"

  "Ah, well." Wotheng waved expansively. "The rent there would be very cheap—oof!" He threw a quick glare at his wife, and rubbed his ankle.

  "Rent?" Sulun rolled his eyes piously. "Ah, 'tis hopeless, then. By our most ancient tradition, the land dedicated to the god must belong to the god—of whom we priests are but servants. We were hoping to purchase the land outright, but seeing how much work must be done there, well, the expense . . ."

  "Now, now, it need not be so costly as all that." Gynallea seized Sulun's nearer hand and patted it warmly. "Much of our custom hereabouts is done by barter. I'm sure that we could arrange a fair trade for the purchase price—" she glared at her husband "—of the land. Your smithy work, for example. Perhaps you might purchase title to the land in exchange for, say, forging goodly blades for our household guard, or some
such work, in perpetuity. 'Twould be easy enough, for folk of your skill."

  Sulun was about to say yes, enthusiastically, when his memory snagged on the words "in perpetuity." While he was thinking that over, Omis spoke up.

  "Ah, good Lady, how could we serve your own blacksmith so? Biddon is a fine workman, and an honest fellow. How, then, should we take his custom away from him? 'Twould be a poor service to a fellow smith."

  Wotheng and Gynallea blinked over that, momentarily set back.

  Eloti seized the moment to speak up. "Good hosts, 'tis true we have more of smithcraft than poor Biddon does. But how, then, if we were to repay your kindness by teaching the fellow our skills? Then you would have a smith upon your villa who could work iron as well as we, and you'd not have to journey ten leagues every time a horse threw a shoe."

  "Oh, aye," Wotheng muttered. "Well for Biddon and his household, and we'd make some little gain thereby, but to purchase a whole stretch of land . . . And how much, said you, that you wished?"

  There was momentary confusion while Doshi produced the pertinent map and unrolled it on the table. Wotheng raised his bushy eyebrows and peered closer.

  "I've never seen a chart so fair," he commented. "What, be there towns, cities, all that hereabouts, and I never heard thereof?"

  "This is a copy of a much older map," Doshi explained, surreptitiously scattering a pinch of salt over certain items on the chart. "This is how the land lay before the great invasions. Many towns and villas you see marked herein be long gone, cast to the winds of fate and war. I suppose there are many new towns now, built in the years since, that this map's makers never knew."

  "A well-made copy of that chart could help make up the price of the land," Gynallea purred.

  "We are always willing to share learning," Eloti smiled sweetly, "for that too is part of our trade."

  "Hmm . . ." Wotheng traded significant glances with his wife. Both of them could read, write, and work figures; hardly anyone else within twenty leagues could do so, which had proved a constant inconvenience. Here, now, an idea caught fire and blazed.

  "Well, now, there's a bit more of a fair price," said Gynallea. "Would you make a school, also, and teach whomever we sent you, that would be worth as much as, hmm, the price of a small field."

  "Here it is," Doshi cut in, pointing to the map. "This hill, and the ruins upon it, and the field below where the two lesser hills come nigh the stream. That's all the land we need or ask."

  Wotheng grinned behind his pipe. That was a piddling acreage, in such poor land as that. "Ey, yes, I'd agree that a school and a goodly map would almost be worth the purchase price, even for so much land as that." He smiled at his wife's anxious look. "Cast in also a simple agreement, and I think we may call the bargain fair."

  "Agreement?" Sulun worried. "Concerning what matter, m'lord?"

  "Why, just that if you folk should choose to sell your wares beyond Ashkell and its holdings, you shall bring the same to me to sell for you." Wotheng winked at Gynallea, grinning. "I know the roads, aye, and the towns north, and the times when the merchants' caravans come by, and the usual prices as well. Let me arrange the selling for you, friends, and you'll profit more handsomely than ever you could by yourselves."

  He held his breath, marshalling further arguments: the danger of bandits, the usefulness of his men-at-arms, his knowledge of the other lordlings to the north.

  "Yes!" said Sulun, eager to close the bargain and be done. This Wotheng would make a better patron than any he'd had before. "Certainly, m'lord."

  Wotheng beamed.

  "Ah, but at what commission?" Eloti purred. "We should agree, before putting seal to any parchment, what part per hundred of the sales shall be yours, and what part ours."

  Wotheng narrowed his eyes, but still smiled. Aha, these smith's women were quite as clever at bargaining as his Gynallea. Priests or no, these folk were good merchants, and could make his holdings prosperous. "Well, seeing that we shall share the labor—you of making, myself of peddling—should we not share the profits equally? Say, half and half?"

  The others looked at each other. Eloti only smiled and leaned closer, and settled in for a good half-hour's dickering—sure of her element as a bird in the air.

  * * *

  Wotheng closed the bedchamber door while his wife put down the candle. Then they fell upon the creaking bed, grabbed each other, and rolled back and forth, giggling like mischievous children. The hysteria stopped only when Wotheng jabbed himself on Gynallea's brooch, and pulled away swearing.

  "Gold in hand, lovey," Gynallea chuckled, sitting up to unfasten her clothes. "One way and another, gold in hand!"

  "Umm, yes," Wotheng grinned, sucking his poked palm. "Gods, but they've good wit—and they're rich. Rich! Sweet moo-cow, we're going to be rich!"

  "Hah, don't milk the cow before she's bred," Gynallea snickered, pinching his near buttock.

  "Let me get out of these clothes and we'll celebrate," Wotheng snorted, tugging at pesky ties and buckles.

  "Hee-hee! And you thought the bargaining was done when they signed the parchment and you gave them the deed to the land. Ho, ho!"

  "Ah, my cow, you know I always sit about after a good trade, free with the jug, just in case other dealings might be offered. . . . Vona's balls! Woman, can you get this knot undone?"

  "Here, turn toward the light. Yes, but whose thought was it to ask them what repairs they'd need to make, what supplies and workmen needed, eh? Eh?"

  "So, you got in the first word. I'd have said it soon enough. Ho, they'll have the old mill going, will they? But only for grinding ore? Hah! Do we suffer a siege, or the new mill take storm damage again, we'll have another mill to use at need."

  "And where else would they purchase timber, and raw iron? Where else to get the workmen, tiles, mortar, seed, and breeding stock they want? To and fro, the trade shall go—with us and our children to profit, both ways. Yes, lovey, this has been a golden evening."

  "Golden, yes." Wotheng rubbed his hands together, smiling from ear to ear. "Show it to me again, dear love."

  Gynallea opened her hand with a flourish, letting the candlelight fall on the gleaming gold coin centered in her palm. "A full ounce, I'll wager." She smiled. "Did you ever see the like?"

  "Never, sweet cow. Who would have thought a band of pilgrims had such coin about them? And surely that can't be the only one."

  "Surely there's more to come; years' worth, with the bargain we sealed. And all this, for our pledge of goods and workmen for barely half a year! Happy enough they were to get it, too. I'll vow, the poor things have no idea of prices hereabouts."

  "Hmph, they'll learn soon enough when it comes to selling their goods. Still, once I begin selling in the north—and perhaps in the southlands, soon enough—they'll be content with the bargain. Come, blow the candle out, sweet cow. Let's to pounding the mattress."

  Gynallea set the coin down carefully beside the candle, and blew out the flame.

  In the creaking darkness, before plunging seriously into the task at hand, Wotheng thought to ask, "Oh, did you say aught to them about Folweel?"

  "Mmm, in a manner of speaking, while you were poking up the fire."

  "What manner of speaking, cow?"

  "Why, lovey, I simply mentioned that other small priests and hedge witches might grow jealous of their prosperity and favor, and if any such did so, they should come complain to me. That was plain enough."

  "Oh, aye . . . I suppose that suffices as warning. Move your thigh over."

  Gynallea giggled. The bed creaked.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The burly, grey-haired man sat in the sunlight at the window seat of his study-room, drinking a cup of bark tea laced with spirits of wine and examining a waxed tablet scribbled with figures. The figures were not reassuring. The sunlight picked out a frayed thread in the gold embroidery on his red outer robe. A rough spot in the silver inlay of his brass cup snagged at his lip. Fair weather or not, this promised to be a thoroughly
wretched day.

  A discreet knocking sounded from the carved panels of the study's door. The man frowned, got up and went to his parchment-littered heavy oak table, adjusted his orange under-robe to show the embroidery to good advantage, and snapped, "Come in!"

  A subdued maid in a plain grey dress opened the door, ushered in the visitor, and silently closed the door behind him. The newcomer, somewhat younger, shorter, and less burly than his host, wore a yellow under-robe and an orange outer one, both bearing somewhat less embroidery than the older man sported. His smile was wide, cheerful, and practiced.

  "Greetings, Brother Folweel," he chirped, eyes flicking to the waxed tablet lying close at his superiors elbow. "I assume you've read yesterday's tally?"

  "Greetings, Brother Jimantam. Pray sit." Folweel pointed to another carved oak chair. "Yes, I've read it," he said in Murrekeen, in case the maid was eavesdropping. "Most unpromising."

  Jimantam settled carefully into the indicated chair, his smile sliding away. "Attendance often falls off at this time of year," he offered, in the same tongue. "So much for the faithful to do: first harvest, second planting, shearing . . ."

  "Attendance at services was quite good last summer." Folweel interlaced his fingers and tapped his thumbs together. "The temple was packed last year for the Midsummer ceremony. Yesterday there was overmuch room at the same service. Could it be that our herd is being distracted by . . . worldly concerns?"

  "It does happen." Jimantam shrugged. He peered at the parchments on the table, hoping to see one in particular. "Still, the temple income is undiminished. The tally at equinox was most, er, generous."

  "The tally at equinox was three moons ago!" Folweel slammed his palm on the stack of parchments. "Its figures displayed the expected increase from the temple's own livestock—at lambing time. The only sizable income we've seen since came from northern sales of wool after shearing. Of course the temple flocks and crops are doing well; we've land and servants enough for that. The problem, dear Brother, is that funds from outside the temple have fallen away. That is the precise problem I wish to discuss with you. Just why is there poorer attendance and fewer donations, pray tell?"