Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  “You think I’m that wealthy?”

  “If anyone has the skill to make that sort of money in our trade it’s little Alex. But you’d better watch out, the guild is not happy. She was a good little earner, Rose. A bit too pretty for my taste, but everyone has their type. Warm and wet and experienced is mine, yours…well…yours is Rose. And clearly you’re hers for her to risk the guild’s wrath by up and disappearing like that.”

  “I don’t know anything about it.”

  Rob examined Alex carefully, as if not sure whether he was telling the truth or lying skilfully. Then he shrugged. “It’s nothing to me. And the guild can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned. Not that I would want the poor girl to get hurt. She might not be my type, but I wouldn’t kick her out of my bed.”

  “You’re all heart.”

  “And you’re too cynical a rogue to fall in love with a whore, yet here we are.”

  “I’d rather talk about something else.”

  “Like the guild chasing you around all over town.”

  “You heard?”

  Rob looked back to the whores behind him. “Have we heard?” he said with amusement. The whores giggled.

  “Beating me to a pulp and dumping me on the refuse tip.”

  “Ah!” Rob threw him a sympathetic look. “Well, you are eighteen. Consider joining the Guild of Misrule. You could have a great career on the stage playing the part of an honest, upstanding young man who wouldn’t steal to save his mother’s life. You’re a convincing enough actor for that. And I could teach you juggling. You have the reflexes for it. I could put in a good word for you. We’re always looking for talent, and you have plenty. Think about it, anyway. Then you’ll be able to give the bastards the finger and they won’t touch you. As it is…you’re nobody without a guild, and you will nick all the best stuff from under their noses.”

  “It’s not my fault if the guild thieves are slow. I can’t wait forever for them to do their work. If someone leaves ripe fruit and it falls into your hands, shouldn’t you eat it?”

  “Depends. Is there a farmer with a sickle watching?”

  “Always the philosopher. Anyhow, I’m not here to discuss rogue ethics with you.”

  “What then?”

  “This.” He drew the sword part way out of its scabbard to let Rob see.

  Rob looked sidelong at the sword then at Alex. “A bone sword?”

  “I can see that. You’re always going on about how much esoteric lore you know. Can you tell me something I don’t know?”

  “Well, bone swords are not much use as weapons. It’d probably break the first time it hit anything hard. I thought you didn’t like carrying weapons around. A bad idea in this town; good to see you’ve come to your senses. But get yourself a better sword. Anyway, this sort of thing is usually a ritual object, not a weapon, though I suppose you might cut a tasty steak with it. I don’t see anything remarkable in this one. You might be able to sell it for a tidy sum, if you can find the right buyer, which with a ritual object means finding whose cult it’s from. They’ll likely value it much more than it’s actually worth. That’s what fanatics are like with their relics. Don’t know why I’ve never gone into the business. Easy enough to fabricate the pinkie of the sun god, or the shrivelled right nut of the god of who knows what. Find the right cult. Sell the right nut to the right nut. That worthless hunk of bone might be worth a fortune. If you can find the cult that’ll kiss the forgery sooner than lick a whore’s nipple.”

  The whore’s behind them tittered.

  “Fulkthra’s,” Alex said.

  “You know that? I won’t ask how. If you didn’t steal it from them they might buy it from you. If you did, you might want to keep your head down, maybe dump it in the river; not a lot of fun being chased around by a bunch of angry blacksmiths.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “May I?” He reached for the sword.

  Alex slid it back into its sheath. Rob raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Alex said, “I don’t trust the sword.”

  “Don’t trust the sword? What do you mean?”

  “It’s not an ordinary sword. Not even an ordinary bone sword. I saw it slice through an…through a solid piece of iron like a hot knife through butter.”

  “A magic sword. Could I have another look?”

  Alex slid the blade part way out again. Rob gazed on it with newfound respect. “I’ve done tricks with swords, which some people call magic, and I suppose there is a kind of magic in sleight of hand, but real magic…a real magic sword.” He reached out a finger to touch it with a reverent expression on his face.

  “Careful! It has a mind of its own. It…has a taste…,” Alex shuddered, “…for blood.”

  Rob paused, nodded, and drew his hand back. “A cursed sword then.”

  “Do you think?”

  “I recommend you throw it into the deepest darkest hole you can find.”

  “And yet, if I do, I…” He thought of the blacksmith he had killed, that the sword had killed. He could not decide which.

  “You fear you won’t be rid of its curse.”

  “Are you sure it’s cursed?”

  “Probably. Or maybe just thirsty.”

  “For blood?”

  “Well, it is a sword; what else is it going to be thirsty for?”

  “You don’t really know what it is then.”

  “Only more or less, more of less really.”

  “Who would know?”

  Rob pondered for a while, looking out across the baiting pit. Two dogs were down, one licking at its guts as they poured out on the dirt, the other dragging its now useless legs behind it, its spine broken above the tail.

  “Damn!” Rob said. “Two or more. He’s stronger than he looks, scrawny, but still with a fire in his belly.”

  The man next to him held out a hand and Rob flipped him a silver coin. Rob sighed as he looked back to Alex. “It’s just not my day. There are two twins, reputed to be as old as the hills and wiser than the gods. Of course that probably means they’re fools, but there’s something to be said for divine foolishness, especially where magic is concerned. You might try them.”

  “Where are they? Who are they?”

  “Jared and Javid Pentafax. A couple of old monks, or at least that’s what they say they used to be. Getting to them is the tricky part. They’re above the southern tower of South Gate. But that shouldn’t pose a problem for an enterprising young rogue like yourself, should it?”

  Alex grinned. “A lovely climb above the city lights at night. Who wouldn’t like that?” Alex dropped a gold coin in Rob’s hand as he stood to leave.

  “What’s this for?”

  “I wouldn’t steal from a friend, not even from those pouch belts wrapped so tightly under his tunic he thinks no one can get to them…except to prove I can.”

  “Cheeky little bastard.” He feigned trying to kick Alex, and the young thief easily dodged away. “Watch out for the manglers,” he shouted at Alex’s back.

  “Always do, Rob, always do.”

  Chapter 30: Sophie: Fountain of the Nymphs

  It had been a long trek and Sophie was exhausted.

  The rituals of purification were rigidly defined. Animals, including even horses, were considered unclean for the purpose of this pilgrimage, so central to defining a girl’s transition to womanhood. So the pilgrims had to walk, from the steps of The Temple in Thedra all the way through the mountains to the lake, which they now approached. Beside them, water cascaded down in a series of waterfalls.

  Sophie hoped her mother would appreciate her humility in coming. Not that she did not genuinely care about the feelings of the young girls in this pilgrimage. She was leading them to what was known as the Fountain of the Nymphs, that mountain lake where many tributaries of Selta met with a fresh stream from the spring, emerging from a great cave, which was said to be the fount of the god. She had come here many times over the last few
years, and knew the way well. Many of the girls would have been frightened by the blood they had recently discovered, for the first time, on their clothes or their sheets.

  Every month, at least in the warmer seasons, the young girls of Thedra who had experienced their first menses would travel to the lake to ritually cleanse themselves in its waters. Sophie had done so herself when she was twelve, and she remembered well her anxieties. She had thought she was dying from some terrible injury when she had woken to find her sheets stained with blood. Even the explanations of her wet-nurse and her governess had not reassured her. Her mother had told her not to be a fool, and with what had seemed cruel pleasure had said, “now you will understand woman’s pain in this world. It is our lot. Why should that surprise you? You cannot hide in the innocence of childhood anymore.” Sophie hoped she was more compassionate with her own children if she ever had any, and she could at least be kind to these girls of the city. Noble and commoner, rich and poor, all the girls came here at least once in their lives; all of them shared at least that.

  There were some older women among the girls, some of them mothers, nurses or governesses accompanying their daughters or wards, others recently delivered mothers, since childbirth made them unclean. Only one mother, the young wife of an ageing merchant, carried her child with her, a daughter who had cried much of the way, perhaps aware of her father’s disappointment that she was not a boy. “Wait till she grows up and discovers men,” one of the older women had said, “then she’ll have something to cry about.” The young mother had ignored the bitter remarks and offered a breast to calm her child, singing a soft lullaby to her as she fed. Soon the baby girl was quiet.

  There was also a eunuch, self-made, or unmanned, in the Ritual of Spilled Seed, who was explaining to a wide eyed young girl the reason he had to join her and the other girls on this pilgrimage. His face was soft, his eyes gentle, his body covered in the sweeping green robes of the order of Dalthi’s Nuns. “As the tilling is completed for the sowing of the spring grains, the devotees of Dalthi, Great Mother, most worshipful wife of Sun, dance our holy dance around the fields in the Plain of Thedra. Oh, the sound of timbrels, fifes and drums! Oh, the ecstasy!”

  “The lunacy,” muttered the girl’s chaperone, a matronly looking woman.

  “The dance promotes the ecstasy, you see?”

  The young girl nodded, though her pretty face seemed more puzzled than enlightened to Sophie.

  “Anyway, some men, and I was one, though no longer, bless the mother of all mothers…some, so overwhelmed by the great bliss of knowing her presence…and you can feel her in the earth beneath your feet, in the newly ploughed soil where she resides, waiting benignly for our awakening…overwhelmed by her presence, they castrate themselves and throw their genitals into the furrows as a gift to the most fertile of all divinities, may her blessings never fail.”

  The sceptical older woman interjected, “No peasant farmer, serf or free, is fanatical enough to join that throng.”

  “Ah, my lady, the farmers worship her in other ways, tending her body with great love.”

  “But they aren’t stupid enough to chop off their own cocks and balls.”

  “They consider it a great blessing for such an offering to be cast in their fields, and know they can expect an abundant harvest if so blessed. Why, when I gave to her what had cost so me much pain…”

  “Funny that, cutting off your cock hurt.”

  “To my very teeth, but the greater the suffering, the greater the devotion. But when I made the cut many a peasant begged me to cast it in his field, not that of his neighbour. The peasants know the beneficence of the Goddess. Who better? They who live by her moods, her sadness and joy, by her endless compassion and infinite nurture, do not question the value of what is given.”

  “As long as it’s not their own dick being sliced off. Sensible.”

  He sighed, as at a sadly ignorant child, then continued addressing the girl, “Because of the bleeding…”

  “You know,” said the woman to the girl, “many men don’t survive the stupidity…”

  “The gift is great indeed.”

  “…and those who do, a lot of them kill themselves later, when they come to their senses and realise what bloody fools they’ve been.”

  The eunuch did not try to contradict her, instead nodding his agreement. He raised a finger, and said, “But…but, but, but…those who do survive, and recognise the blessing for what it is, are consecrated to the order of Dalthi’s Nuns, and is not that a great blessing, greater than what some,” He looked meaningfully at the woman, “take to be good sense?”

  The young girl looked back and forward between the woman and the eunuch, and seemed to be about to ask a question, first of one, then of the other. Then, wisely choosing not to take sides, she closed her mouth.

  “But,” said the eunuch, “as I was telling you, they become nuns of the most fertile of all orders.”

  “The most sterile, you mean.”

  The eunuch snapped, “the Goddess’s fertility is greater than any loss of manhood.”

  “Can’t have been much of a man then.”

  “Don’t be mean,” the girl suddenly blurted out, then blushed furiously and turned her eyes to the ground as the woman raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “Sweetie, I could never be one thousandth bit as mean to that,” She pointed, more with pity than contempt, “as it was to itself. Anyway, it’s not a man, or if it is it’s sterile; and it’s not a woman, or if it is it’s barren.”

  “Dalthi is fertile enough for all,” said the eunuch.”

  “Oh, and did the Goddess carry my children or did I? Did this young girl,” She placed her arm maternally around the shoulders of her young ward, “was she born of her mother or of the dirt?”

  “We all come from dirt and return to it. And of your own children, it was with Her blessing that you carried them. With Her blessing that they survived.”

  “Perhaps I should curse her for the ones that didn’t.”

  The eunuch ignored her interruption, and blasphemy. “Her blessing is boundless. But without…” The eunuch left the rest unstated.

  The woman scoffed her scorn, though Sophie wondered what pain her bitterness was born of.

  “Anyway,” the eunuch continued, “because of the bleeding of giving…”

  “Of knob and nut chopping.”

  “…we Nuns of Dalthi are considered polluted by first menstrual blood, as is a born girl like yourself.”

  “So that’s why you have to wash yourself in the Fountain of the Nymphs?” the girl said, shyly looking back up to meet the eunuch’s eyes.

  “That’s right. And that’s where the motto of our order comes from, ‘once bled, ever after pure.’”

  “Pure nonsense,” the woman muttered, “if any son of mine ever tries to join that cult I’ll drag him back home by his ear.”

  “Maybe your husband will join instead,” the eunuch said, nastily.

  “If he does I’ll drag him back home by his prick. And a magnificent prick it is, more than a handful. It’s not his to cut. If anyone cuts it, it’ll be me.”

  “You see, without knowing it you are a manifestation of Her divine nature. She also would cut off the pricks of the world so that she might plant them in Her womb, the earth, the sweet pregnant soil. She also is possessive of what belongs to her.”

  “Ugh!” She rolled her eyes.

  The baby girl began to cry again as they passed beside the waterfall and between two giant granite statues of nymphs which stared down through the mountain passes toward distant Thedra. The girls were now talking excitedly. At Sophie’s side, Florence, the young daughter of a minor count, climbed wide eyed as the vista opened up before them. The verge of the lake was verdant, its stones covered with multi-coloured mosses, thick un-scythed grass flowing away beneath groves of beech and ash and oak, willows weeping their leaves into the lake.

  At the edge of the lake a woman stood, staring into the water. She was
completely naked, and of unearthly beauty, with emerald green eyes, and hair that was so light it seemed translucent. Sophie wondered whether the woman was a priestess, waiting to guide the young girls and eunuch, but she did not recall a priestess attending when she had washed away the first blood of her own womanhood with the purifying waters of the Nymph’s Fountain. The woman turned to the approaching party and watched them, and Sophie was struck by the confusion in her eyes. They lacked that strange mixture of humility and pride she so frequently saw in the eyes of those puritan priestesses who thronged about her mother.

  Florence whispered, “She’s so beautiful,” and Sophie had to agree; she had never seen a woman so beautiful, despite the stunning feminine displays within her father’s court. The baby girl abruptly stopped crying, and reached out a little hand toward the woman.

  The woman looked directly at Sophie, and spoke to her. It was a hauntingly beautiful language, sounding more like music than words, though the tune was not well organised, and Sophie, entranced by it, wished she could speak it herself. Unfortunately it was a language she did not know. Though it did not sound like any of the many languages she hand encountered among emissaries to her father’s court, it did sound vaguely familiar. She gestured with a shrug and said, “Do you know the common tongue?” The Low Ropeuan language was widely known, both in the kingdom and beyond, and was referred to, in its own lexis, as the common tongue. Around Sophie the others whispered among themselves, casting curious looks at the woman, and at Sophie, as if they expected the princess to answer all their questions, but Sophie knew as little as they about the woman’s identity. The woman spoke again, her manner clearly questioning. Sophie tried another gesture which she hoped would successfully communicate her lack of understanding. The confusion fled from the woman’s eyes, chased away by anger. She screamed at Sophie now, a sound as painfully discordant as her earlier speech had been harmonious. Sophie stuttered and stared, unsure how to proceed. The woman kept talking in her strange tongue, and the anger changed to desperation. The sound had become exquisitely harmonious, though the harmony carried a weight of sadness. Sophie was sure the woman was pleading. She started crying, and Sophie stepped forward, thinking to calm her, but she backed away, toward the water.