by Dave Duncan
"By whom? The satrap or that awful wife of his?" Saltaja, without a doubt!
Her father winced. "I know we cannot be overheard here, but remember that the satrap has Maynists to advise him. They can probably see us and hear us even here. A careless word could cause a lot of trouble, Frena."
Not the satrap! Frena could not imagine dumb old Eide bothering to spy on anyone, but she wouldn't put it past the Queen of Shadows.
"Of course, Father. Just in case a seer's watching, I'll tell you that I quite like the satrap. Even if he does have horns, he's a lot less grotesque than some of the other monster Werists I see wandering around the city." She laughed at his frown. "Don't worry! I'm old enough to guard my tongue where it matters."
"I hope so. It was your age that was mentioned. You're sixteen now."
"Yes, I know."
He tapped fingertips together. "Satrap Eide and his lady wife are... The problem is the Pantheon. It's falling apart, in great need of repair. The satrap wants to rebuild it. But the cost will be—"
"He wants you to rebuild it, you mean? Well, that's hardly fair. You're not a polytheist. You never go near the Pantheon."
"He wants me to make a contribution," her father said reprovingly, "which I said I would do gladly. And if my god does not object, then I fail to see what business it is of yours."
Startled by the rebuke, Frena nodded. "I'm sorry, Father."
"Your name came up because High Priestess Bjaria is wondering when you—"
"When I was going to have my dedication, I suppose? What business is that of hers?"
"Don't be tiresome, Frena. Of course it's her business. Most girls make their vows at fourteen or younger. It is very irregular to wait past fifteen."
"Only for the poor. The rich often wait longer." The dedication ceremony was official recognition that a girl had become a woman, so it was also the signal that her parents were open to offers. Unless they were wealthy enough to be choosy, a wedding would usually follow within a season. Nubile maidens were always in demand to replace wives who died in childbirth. "You promised me faithfully—"
"I know what I promised you, child!"
She jumped. He never raised his voice to her!
"I spend my life making and keeping promises, and I know exactly what I promised you—that I will accept no marriage offer you do not approve. Gods know I do not need a bride price. Nothing in the world could reward me for losing you, my dear, and I have missed you terribly while you have been away. But I never promised you could put off puberty until you reached menopause. You're my hostess, you wear a seal, you give orders to servants—it's unseemly that you have never made your vows. Scandalous, almost. It's being remarked on."
Stern did not suit him.
"By whom? Since when have you ever cared for gossip? You never go near the Pantheon. Mother never went near the horrible—"
"And see what happened!"
"What do you mean?" Frena cried, leaping to her feet.
Horth looked very small, sometimes. "The reason I do not offer sacrifice in the Pantheon is that I am a henotheist, as you well know. As everyone knows. Your mother did not have that excuse. Florengians worship much the same gods, but she found our rites strange. She was undoubtedly lax in her religious observances, and I blame myself bitterly for not foreseeing the danger. Most people did not understand her reasons. They jumped to fearfully wrong conclusions."
Frena shuddered. "I am sorry, Father." She began pacing, to the nearest fountain and back. They never discussed this, normally.
"It is too late for recrimination, but I should have seen that you are running the same risk. You must make your vows right away. High Priestess Bjaria has agreed to officiate in person, and I want you to organize a very lavish celebration. Spare no expense! Let the whole city know that you have done homage to the Bright Ones."
He had begun by mentioning his visit to the palace. Then he had implied that the dedication ceremony had been suggested by High-Mucky Bjaria, although she had come calling on him this morning, after he had sent for Frena. Had she also been present at the palace yesterday, or was he molding the truth to a more convenient shape?
"Who is hiding a needy bridegroom behind this, Father? Am I to be fighting off some snotty, spotty priestess's grandson, or a brutal, brainless relative of Satrap Eide's?"
"Frena!"
"Sorry," she muttered, although she wasn't. Bridegrooms and marriage and babies could wait. She wanted to travel and see more of Vigaelia. She had plans to set up an art factory, to encourage artists and craftsmen. Horth's wealth ought to defend her from unwanted suitors, but it would not keep the satrap away. "When do you want to do this?"
"The high priestess and I agreed on six days from now."
"What? You're crazy! Half a year!"
Horth rose. In his present footwear he was taller than she. "I am tolerant, Frena, but I am entitled to more respect than that."
"Sorry, Father. I spoke wrongly."
"Apology accepted." He smiled tolerantly. "You had better go and start planning."
Truly! Reports on Kyrn could wait, but Uls... She wished she had mentioned him sooner. "Uls broke his arm, Father. He was in a lot of pain, so we left him at By-the-Canyon and Verk drove me in. He will bring him to the Healers tomorrow. I told Master Trinvar to send a gift."
As well try to smuggle a mouflon lamb through a wolf pack as slide a half-truth past a Ucrist. Horth's eyes narrowed. "And how did Uls break his arm?"
Frena drew a deep breath. "Your hamlet of Bitterfeld—they were having some sort of ceremony and we drove too close. They didn't like us snooping, or something. Anyway, they threw things—"
"What sort of ceremony?"
Frena recoiled from his sudden shout, and then shouted right back. "They were going to bury a man alive!"
"No!" Her father collapsed on his chair, his face white. "And they thought you were coming to rescue him? Oh, Frena! How could you be so—What was Verk thinking—What did you do to Verk?"
"Do to him? Nothing at all. Whatever do you mean, do to him? I had no idea what was going on. I just wanted to see. Verk behaved perfectly, and we drove away as fast as we could." She stared at Horth. His eyes were oozing horror. "Father, what's wrong? Are you faint?"
He licked his lips. "You must take your vows, do you hear? Must! We'll make it three days from now, not six. Oh, why did I not see that this might happen? Tell Trinvar. I'll send word to the Pantheon."
Stupefied, she could only repeat "Three days?" like an idiot. "Oh, that's absolutely—"
"Three days!" Horth said, glaring, and she knew him well enough to know that he would not be moved.
eight
BENARD CELEBRE
knew that Cutrath would gain his revenge eventually, and now there was no doubt that it would be fatal, but the kitten had been declawed for the time being. Cheerfully reflecting that everyone must die eventually, Benard strode off through the warren of the palace. He was rich! Never in his life had he owned a speck of gold, or even expected to. The strip that had barely closed around the satrap's gross arm fitted nicely on Benard's thigh, hidden by Thranth's loincloth.
His way led him past walls of gleaming polychrome bricks, across courts and halls, and also up ramps and stairs, heading toward the temple of Veslih and the women's quarters beyond. All the way he was exchanging smiles with familiar faces, pausing frequently to discuss Nils's engagement and the evils of hangovers. He even ran into Nils's mother, who said he looked malnourished and promised him a man-size meal if he came to see her that evening. He promised he would—she was a widow and often lonely.
The lady Ingeld, while being hereditary dynast of Kosord, light of Veslih on Kosord, wife of the satrap, and mother of Cutrath, had also served as foster mother to a long series of young Florengian hostages. This part of the palace had been Benard's home from his arrival in Kosord until he turned thirteen. Although Kosord had never confined royal ladies behind bars or set eunuchs to guard them as some cities did, adult male
visitors needed good reason to enter, and must obey the rules. The sketch under his arm provided a perfect excuse. What her reaction to it would be, the gods alone knew—perhaps a near-fatal attack of nostalgia, for she claimed to have loved the monster once. Even dogs might be loved.
As he neared the temple, he heard the ominous echoing beat of kettledrums, the signal that she was conducting a formal pyromancy. This was not a holy day. The logical assumption must be that Ingeld put more stock in whatever omens Sansya had glimpsed in the court than Sansya had.
Moments later Benard emerged at the base of the pyramid. The sacred fire under the bronze tholos on the apex was currently hidden by the crowd of priestesses and acolytes standing among the pillars; a small congregation of worshipers had gathered around and below them, like snow on a mountain. This place had a better claim to being the beating heart of the city than did the Pantheon or the satrap's court. Women's ceremonies were held here—marriages, child namings, purifications—and here Ingeld took augury.
He had last visited the temple during the baleful time following the Festival of Demern. Some years the fasting, abstinence, and lamentation would last several days, sometimes only one, or even none at all, depending on the weather. When Ingeld saw the holy star, Nartiash, at dawn, she relit the sacred fire to proclaim the first day of a new year and read the omens in the flames.
Benard had been present in the throng, sleepless and hoarse from a night of wailing, and had heard her prophecies, which had been guarded without being alarming. Horold had ordered extra sacrifices but had allowed the usual celebrations to proceed. Had some error roused the gods' ire since then, or had Sansya been imagining things today? Of course, whatever she had seen might apply only to today's audience, whereas Ingeld had been viewing the whole town's prospects far the year. From Horold's point of view the morning's proceedings had certainly not turned out well. Cutrath's opinion could only be imagined, and not with a straight face.
There, standing higher than the palace roofs and the triangular red sails of the riverboats, Benard could mark the Wrogg winding off across the plain until even that mightiest of rivers vanished into the blur they called the wall of the world. In the spring Kosord was an island, for even at low water the Wrogg flowed higher than the level of the plain, so a normal flood would overtop the levees. In years when it did not, famine usually followed. This year's flood had been fair, not spectacular, but the canals crisscrossing the plain were still full and green crops were just appearing in the fields, so the harvest seemed secure.
Kosord itself was almost invisible from above. The little courtyards of the houses were speckles of greenery, but the reed-thatched roofs were much the same mud color as the streets or walls—or the river and plain beyond, for that matter. The people going about their business were so well hidden under branches or overhanging eaves that the Bright Ones Themselves, peering down from Their blue heavens, might well assume that only the bustling river-bank was inhabited, for it served as dock, market, and main street.
The sun glare's was molten bronze on tender, bloodshot eyes. Shading them with his hand, Benard peered around and marveled anew that the world was so overwhelmingly huge. To east and north the sky was deep indigo; south-westward it paled to buttermilk. The great bulge of Ocean lay in that direction, but so far off that it was lost in the sky's blue.
As he hesitated, debating whether to wait for Ingeld or head home and catch up on lost sleep, a clawed finger poked his ribs. He looked down and laughed.
"Twelve blessings, old mother." He gave her a careful hug.
Molith was Ingeld's most trusted servant, and incredibly ancient. Her gnarled face split in a smile, toothless and welcoming, but not wide enough to imply that all was well.
"We heard that you had died of a wasting sickness."
"It has not been that long!"
"Too long." The smile had gone. "The lady said to go by the roseberry trees and wait for her."
That was a surprise. "Thanks, old mother."
She caught his wrist in a frail grip. Filmed eyes peered up anxiously at him. "Oh, be careful, lad!"
"Of course. I'm always careful." He wandered away, trying to be inconspicuous without actually slinking.
Ingeld must have given those instructions before she began the pyromancy, which was before anyone could have told her of the events at the audience. So how had she known he was coming?
Stupid question. Scary answer.
♦
Having been hunted through the palace so often by Cutrath and his pack of stone-throwing curs in bygone years, Benard Celebre knew it as well as any mortal could. He made his way to a rooftop littered with servants' sleeping mats. From mere it was an easy slither over a wall and a short drop into a wooded park where men were not supposed to venture, although it was known to the young bloods of the palace as the Baby-Making Place. There he was supposedly visible to rooftop guards, but they were merely armed men, not Werists, and would be paying scant attention in the heat of the day.
A massive roseberry tree grew in one corner. Clutching his sketch in one hand, he jumped, caught a branch with the other, and pulled himself up into the foliage. The boughs interlocked with those of an adjacent roseberry, providing safe passage over a wall whose coping bristled with bronze spikes. He dropped nimbly to the grass in an even more private courtyard and made his way to an unobtrusive but extremely solid gate in the corner.
It was bolted, of course, but he knew that bolt very well. Laying a hand on the timber, he closed his eyes and sent a silent prayer to holy Anziel, calling up visions of the private garden beyond. When he was satisfied that there was nobody there, he reminded Her of the beauty he sought and asked Her to open the way for him. That was a little harder, but soon he sensed the bronze slide aside; he remembered to open and close the gate gently, knowing how its pivots squeaked. A stroll across a flower-decked lawn, between two shaded ponds where gold and silver fish floated in reflective silence, brought him to the lady's room.
Ingeld was both a state and religious personage and her private life was rarely private, so her chamber was very large, as befitted a hall of state, and pentagonal because it was sacred. Attendants bathed her in that huge bath of black granite, she stood on that dais to give audience, and even the children she had conceived and borne on the oversized sleeping platform had been matters of state. Five slim columns around the pentagonal hearth merged at head height to form a chimney reaching to the high corbeled roof. Although the day was warm, coals in a small brazier glowed to honor holy Veslih.
For sheer beauty as well as the memories it held for him, this was Benard's favorite room on all Dodec. Although the style was utterly different, something of its taste and beauty stirred dim memories of his father's palace in Celebre. A balmwood stool, a table holding alabaster pots of unguents, inlaid chests—the room held many lovely things and flattered them with opulent use of space. Cool in summer, with one side open to the garden's dappled flowers and silky pools; snug in winter behind massive doors of bronze-clad timber, when bright rugs deadened the chill of floor tiles and a vast log fire roared and crackled on the hearth, defying the storms ... this was a fittingly perfect place for Ingeld. Soft mats of ibex hair adorned the sleeping platform. A faint familiar scent of her haunted the room. He saw that the bath was still beaded with water, as was the tiled gutter that drained it; she would have bathed before going to consult her goddess.
Brilliant polychrome glazes adorned the bricks of the walls, two of which bore bright friezes above shoulder height. The one depicting the Twelve, the Bright Ones, had been Benard's masterpiece, which had won him acceptance into both the artists' guild and the mystery of the Hands of Anziel; later it had gained him the Pantheon commission.
He looked instead at the other, Ingeld's personal wall of memory, executed by Master Odok. The central figures depicted what she claimed were good likenesses of her long-dead parents, who had died together on the day Stralg seized the city. Nars Narson, the last state consort, stood t
here eternally in his black robes, silver-maned and exactly as bony-jawed and stubborn as his legend required. The lady Tiu wore the robes of a pyromancer. Ingeld said her mother's hair had been the same rich bronze as her own, but glazing technique had limited Odok to using a gold luster, a three-firing technique formula normally used only by potters.
Off to the side stood the twins, Finar and Fitel, a little older than Cutrath was now, smiling proudly as newly initiated Heroes in brass collars. They had been six years older than Cutrath, and sixty-sixty times as worthy to be immortalized, although one picture would have served for both. Odok's glazes had barely cooled from the kiln before the twins had gone off to the war and died without ever reaching it.
Now another portrait had been inserted in Ingeld's wall of memories. There really was no accounting for a mother's delusions. Although Cutrath smirking in his new brass collar should not be regarded as an improvement to any room, even a latrine, Benard grudgingly conceded that the old master had excelled himself, for this was obviously more of Odok's work. The background tones matched the original perfectly; every fold of the pall crossed every tile boundary in perfect alignment. And when he stepped back to admire the whole, Benard reluctantly conceded that the young brute really did have an impressive body. Pad out the muscles to full adult mass, correct the brawler's battered features, catch that ghastly arrogance half as well as Odok had done... and Cutrath would do very well as a model for unholy Weru.
Disgusted, Benard leaned his sketch board against the wall below Cutrath's feet to show how much more handsome Horold had been, then wandered across to the sleeping platform. He kicked off Thranth's sandals and lay down. Ingeld's scent enveloped him in a mist of nostalgia, but he detected none of Horold's sour animal reek. That one deserved a stall with dry straw, nothing more. Benard assumed she was not required to function as the monster's wife these days, although that was not something one could ask. It was not something a man could even think about.