by Speer, Flora
He left the brewery building with fury in his heart. He and Janina belonged together. He was certain of it. Yet she was being forced into a barren existence he firmly believed she no longer wanted, while he would be made to couple with some unknown woman in the name of genetic improvement. It was cruel and unfair, and he had to find a way to save them both.
“Reid, must you be so clumsy? You almost knocked me down.” Sidra watched him from bright, suspicious eyes. She was so close that her sweet perfume filled his nostrils, reminding him of the crimson flowers in the sacred grove. “What were you doing in there? Only priestesses are permitted in the brewery.”
“Janina was explaining how batreen is made. Don’t blame her; I blundered into the place and then insisted she tell me.” Reid had had enough of rules. These people were worse than the Jurisdiction when it came to trying to force everyone to conform. He’d be star-blasted if he’d follow their rules! He’d lie with no woman he hadn’t chosen for himself, and he didn’t care if Sidra knew everything he was thinking.
Sidra raised her elegant eyebrows at him. Reid, thinking she might know what was in his mind and expecting to be accused of corrupting a scholar-priestess, decided to attack first.
“I’m surprised you didn’t know what I was doing in the brewery without asking me. I thought you were always aware of everything that happens in the temple complex.”
“You know perfectly well by now that I cannot enter anyone’s mind without permission,” Sidra answered calmly, heading toward the temple and drawing him along with her. “That is our Chosen Way, Reid, and I will uphold it.”
“Does no one ever break the law?” Reid wondered.
“I doubt there has ever been a law made that no one has broken.” Sidra mounted the steps to the temple.
“Tell me, Sidra, is it possible to touch someone’s thoughts without that person knowing it?”
“Not from telepath to telepath. To non-telepaths, yes, it is possible, because they don’t understand how the Gift works. Why do you ask?”
“I knew it when Tamat examined me the first day I was here,” Reid replied.
“If you knew it, then she meant you to know.” Sidra smiled, looking right into his eyes, and for just a moment Reid felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, until Sidra spoke again. “I believe Osiyar is waiting for you in his house.”
She pulled open the heavy wooden door and went into the temple. Reid stared after her, feeling rather than hearing her mocking laughter and knowing that beautiful, dangerous Sidra was fully aware of his frustrated passion for Janina. When the temple door had closed again and the silent laughter had stopped, Reid turned toward Osiyar’s house, aware that he had learned two valuable facts that day. He knew about the effects of batreen, and he knew that despite her profession of respect for the Chosen Way, Sidra did not obey its laws.
Chapter 7
“You will come with us to the shore this evening, Reid,” Tamat said. “Since you are to spend the rest of your life with us, you must begin to celebrate our festivals as we do. You will start by offering yourself, and the seed of new life that lies within you, to the full twin moons.”
Janina saw Reid’s mouth tighten. An angry flame sparked in his grey eyes. For an instant she thought he would turn on his heel and leave the central room of the temple, or possibly even try to escape from Ruthlen itself.
“You need to master your proud spirit.” Tamat had also seen his anger. “It is an honor to be required to sacrifice yourself for the community. Accept our will, Reid. Do as you are told.”
“It is not my community.” He was just short of open defiance, though still respectful of Tamat.
Janina held her breath, hoping he would do nothing to merit severe punishment. Surely Tamat would not want to punish him on this of all days, when his co-operation was so vital to her plans. “Nor is blind worship of two dead moons and an overlarge star a religion I can believe in,” Reid added.
“The moons are not dead,” Sidra declared. “They grow and change and then dwindle as the days pass. They rise and set at differing times, until the evening comes round when they rise and set together. On those sacred nights, they are either bright disks or else so dark they are only barely discernable. Are not such changes proof of life?”
Sidra regarded Reid with so much scorn that Janina feared the priestess would strike him. She trembled, waiting to see Sidra’s hand rise. It was Tamat who soothed Sidra’s temper and Reid’s pride.
“You need not believe as we do, Reid,” Tamat said. “Only respect our beliefs. That is all we require of you.”
“I can do that,” Reid said.
He still did not look happy, but when Tamat dismissed him he bowed politely and went away with no further protest.
“He will be difficult to control tonight,” Sidra said, looking after him. “He is too independent to do what you want of him, Tamat.”
“He is a young and healthy man who has lived a celibate life for many days now,” Tamat responded. “Give him a few cups of batreen and a willing woman, and he will not resist for very long.”
“You may be right,” Sidra said. “Janina, why are you standing there listening to words that cannot concern you? Go to the kitchen at once. You were to help Philian with the bread baking, and you are late, as usual. Tamat dear, let me help you to your bed. You should rest before the great effort you will make at moonrise.”
Janina found Philian hard at work. Preparations for the feast had begun at dawn, when several of the village women had arrived at the temple kitchen to lend their hands to the mixing and kneading and cooking that needed to be done.
“When it’s time to take men tonight, I’ll chose Reid,” joked Senastria, one of the fisherwomen, who was well known for her love of men and her wild ways. “I like danger, and he looks dangerous to me.”
“You have enough danger on the sea,” retorted her friend Anniellia, slapping a pile of dough around on the table. “You worry about the sea monsters and leave Reid to me. I shall be the one to give the village its first dark-haired baby. He’s so big, that Reid. Do you suppose that means -?” She glanced at the priestesses before whispering something to Senastria. The two of them went off into a fit of laughter.
“Stupid, crude fools,” muttered Philian to Janina. “All they ever think about is lending themselves to men.”
Janina punched harder at the lump of dough she was kneading. She was angry with herself because she was as wicked as the two village women. She could think of nothing but Senastria in Reid’s arms, kissing him while he put his hands on her. He would surely choose Senastria. She was much prettier than Anniellia.
For most of that day, Janina tried to shut her ears against the women’s talk about lovers and their comparisons of the sexual skills of certain village men, mixed with speculation about Reid. She was greatly relieved when Sidra sent for her in late afternoon to help Tamat dress, so she had an excuse to leave the giggling women.
It seemed to Janina that Tamat was more fragile than ever. The aged hands shook often while Janina and Sidra robed her, and as soon as her headdress was arranged, Tamat sat down, looking as though she might not rise again.
“Dearest Tamat,” Sidra said, “you are unwell. Shall I put on the headdress and go out to the people in your place? The walk to the beach will tire you badly.”
“You are not High Priestess yet, Sidra,” Tamat said with unaccustomed irritability. “Janina, help me to stand. Sidra, call in the lesser priestesses. It is time to go.”
Despite her frailty, Tamat walked out of the temple with her usual dignified composure, nodding to Reid, Osiyar, and the two scholar-priests when they joined her. Moving to the entrance of the temple complex, she greeted the villagers who waited in the gathering twilight, then stepped onto the ceremonial road and began the procession to the beach with Osiyar by her side.
Reid fell into step next to Janina. “What will happen at the beach?” he asked in a low voice. “Osiyar has told me nothing except to bat
he and put on clean clothing, and then do whatever I am told to do.”
Janina could see Sidra walking just behind Tamat and Osiyar. After her came the lesser priestesses and the scholar-priests. From that distance Sidra could not hear anything Janina and Reid might say, so they were safe from her scolding or criticism. The villagers who followed the group from the temple were also too far away to eavesdrop. For the next few moments it was safe to speak to Reid.
“I wish you well this night.” She spoke quickly. “When Sidra tells you to kneel, do so at once. Beyond that I cannot advise you or explain what will be done. It is a power given only to those who are full priestesses or priests. Because I am not a telepath, I will never be capable of understanding it, nor will I be able to do what the others do. The ceremony is intended to honor the full moons, and tonight Tamat will also ask for new life to be given to Ruthlen.”
She gave him a quick, slanting look. His face was flushed with anger, and she thought perhaps with embarrassment, too. Had she been in Reid’s position, she would have been horribly embarrassed. She forced herself to stop thinking about the village women, or wishing she could be one of them. She had her own destiny to fulfill. As always, she would obey Tamat, even if obeying broke her heart.
Side by side, Janina and Reid walked in silence past the tumbled rocks of the headland that separated the beach from the rest of Ruthlen. They had almost reached their destination. Janina could think of nothing more to say to Reid that would not cause her, or him, great pain. There was nothing either of them could do to change what Tamat had commanded to happen this night. It was Reid who found words.
“Janina,” he said, “I promise you I will not—”
She put up her hand to stop him, fearing that someone might overhear whatever he had been about to say, for now they had stepped off the end of the road and were walking across the sand. Tamat and Osiyar were standing together at the edge of the water, with Sidra just behind them. The other priestesses and the scholar-priests took their places behind Sidra.
“Come here, Reid,” Sidra ordered. “Stand there, close to Tamat.”
Janina remained alone, outside the half circle formed by white-clad backs. She did not belong in that circle, nor did she belong among the villagers. So it had always been. She stayed where she was, in case Tamat should need her.
In unison, Tamat and Osiyar began to raise their arms just as the full twin moons rose, one after the other into the clear, purple-blue sky. The moons gave almost as much light as the sun, but in contrast to the sun’s orange-gold glare, this was a pale, silvery light that pleased and rested the eyes. The ocean foamed pure white as it reached the shore, while farther out smaller waves sparkled silver in the trails cast by the moons.
Tamat and Osiyar, still acting in unison, lifted their arms over their heads and held them there. Emanating from their fingertips, sparkling particles of light began to pour in silver profusion, falling around the two figures at the water’s edge until they were only indistinct shapes seen through flowing, glimmering beauty.
Janina heard the villagers’ indrawn breath, then heard them falling to their knees in reverence, for though they were all telepaths, too, and had witnessed this ceremony many times, no one else had ever possessed the richness of power that Tamat held in her mind. With Osiyar’s strength added to Tamat’s, the spectacle the villagers now beheld was one of awe-inspiring wonder.
Then Sidra and the other priestesses all raised their arms, using their combined power to call down more of the moon-silver. The light they achieved was not so bright as that of Tamat and Osiyar, but still the space around them glittered and glowed.
By that light Janina read on Reid’s astonished face all the mingled delight and amazement he was experiencing at his first sight of the full power of Ruthlen. Watching Reid, knowing he could not partake of the sacred ceremony any more than she could, Janina did not feel her usual sense of inadequacy and loneliness. His eyes met hers across the space separating them. He smiled at her through a sheen of glittering light. Janina smiled back. It seemed to her that the silver power of the telepaths dimmed and receded into the distant background. She saw only Reid and his longing for her, while in her open, innocent face and eyes she showed him her own hopeless yearning for him and knew he understood her emotions as she understood his. Then Sidra moved, chanting an ancient hymn, and Janina’s visual contact with Reid was broken.
The light enveloping Sidra and the lesser priestesses faded. Sidra, still chanting, motioned to Reid to kneel. There followed a moment when he did not move, during which Janina wondered if he would defy the priestess. Then he went to his knees, but so awkwardly that Janina considered the possibility that Sidra had forced him down by the power of her mind and was holding him there on the sand.
Now Tamat turned from the sea, lowering her arms over Reid until the veil of silver light flowing about her fell across his bent shoulders like a mantle.
“Thou shalt bring new life to Ruthlen,” Tamat intoned, “Strength and health and vital life.”
Tamat’s arms fell to her sides, the silver light around her dissipating. At the same time, the light surrounding Osiyar was gone, too, leaving a pale, tired-looking man. Tamat staggered in weariness. Osiyar and Sidra took her arms.
Tamat stiffened her back and pulled away from them. “I am perfectly well,” she said. “Come, Reid, walk beside me so the villagers may all see you. It is time for the feast.”
It seemed to Janina that the return to the temple took a long time. She walked alone, isolated between the inhabitants of the temple in front of her and the village folk behind her. The warmth of the day had given way to coolness, since the season was turning toward the dark time of year. She shivered in her sheer, sleeveless white robe and was grateful to the two scholar-priests who ran ahead of the procession to light the giant bonfire that had been laid outside the entrance to the temple complex. Its warmth was welcome.
Soon the smells of hot vegetable and fish stews wafted across the festival area outside the temple wall, and piles of steaming, fresh bread were brought to the tables to the delight of the hungry villagers.
Amid the cheerful, noisy crowd, Reid and Janina stood together, not speaking. Reid’s face still held an expression of wonder at what he had seen at the beach. When his look met hers, Janina felt as though they had pledged themselves to each other during the ceremony just completed. But how could that be when they were fated to be torn apart on this very night, when he must go to another woman’s bed while she returned alone to her virginal duties in the temple? She was fully aware of the way the women were regarding Reid’s tall figure and whispering among themselves about him.
“Reid, come with me,” Sidra ordered. “You are to sit over there. Janina, you know where you are supposed to be; why aren’t you in your place?”
As Sidra led Reid away, Janina noticed Senastria and Anniellia watching him closely. Dry-eyed and suddenly angry with fate, she went to stand behind Tamat, who waited patiently at the center of one of the long tables until the villagers had seated themselves and then quieted enough to hear her.
“The harvest will be a good one this year,” Tamat said to them at the close of a short speech of welcome. “Therefore, feast and take your pleasure tonight, for the days ahead will require hard work from all of you, farm-folk and villagers alike, to fill our storehouses against the coming cold season. Let us celebrate the fertility of the land and the women of Ruthlen, and the continuation of our Chosen Way.” She then sat down in an ancient carved armchair.
Pitchers and jugs of batreen were brought out to cheers and applause. Tamat was given the first cup. She drank it down without stopping, apparently gaining strength from the healthy brew. All of the priestesses, along with Osiyar and the scholars, then each drank a cup, after which the feasting began in earnest.
Sidra had seen to it that Reid was seated at another table from the one where the priestesses were, to give him the opportunity to talk with as many village women as possible. Knowin
g what he would shortly do with one of those women, Janina could not look at him again. If she did, he would surely see her pain and might be tempted to do something that would result in punishment for him. She directed her attention toward Tamat instead of Reid. But she could not help seeing on Tamat’s other side that Sidra and Osiyar were whispering together.
“You do not eat, child.” Tamat was looking at Janina’s untouched stew bowl.
“It’s the batreen,” Janina began.
“No, it’s the man.” Tamat patted her hand. “I understand how difficult it can sometimes be to hold to your vows. I’m old, girl, but my memory hasn’t failed me yet. Stay with me tonight, in my room. We’ll talk of other things so you need not think about what he will be doing.”
Soon after this, Tamat rose to leave the feast. She took Janina and the two lesser priestesses with her. Sidra and Osiyar would remain to preside until the villagers had eaten and drunk their fill and had stumbled off to bed with whatever partners they desired.
With an aching heart, Reid watched Janina go. He wanted to hurry after her, to tell her he had no intention of coupling with any woman but her. Then he saw Sidra looking at him and knew he would have to be on guard lest she discover what he was planning. He tried to make his mind blank, to think about nothing but the food and the batreen and the dancing that had just begun. He let the village women take turns teaching him how to dance in the circular, four-partner steps that seemed to go on and on forever. After a while he saw Sidra and Osiyar talking to a pair of well-dressed elderly men, whom he assumed were important in the village and he decided Sidra would be too busy to watch him carefully.
He pretended to drink heavily, but over and over again he managed to dispose of his batreen onto the ground or into the bushes. He began to weave and shout the way the other dancers were doing.
“Come with me,” urged a woman, catching his hand to pull him from the crowd of dancers. “I’m Anniellia, and I chose you for tonight.”