by Sharon Shinn
“Sacrifices?” Ellynor repeated doubtfully.
Rosurie turned to her, suddenly eager. “Yes! An act of great and personal significance done to honor the Silver Lady. To prove how much we love her.”
“What kind of act?”
Rosurie kneaded her hands together. “Something difficult. If it is hard to do, the Pale Mother knows how important it is.”
“Yes, but—”
“Shavell cut her arms and legs with a crystal dagger. Did you know that?” When Ellynor shook her head mutely, Rosurie plunged on. “She did. Three years ago. She stood under the half moon after the ritual was sung and dug great wounds all over her body. Then she stayed there, all night, bleeding, her hands raised to the goddess. When they found her the next morning, she was so faint she could not walk under her own power, and so cold they thought she would die by noon. But she knew she would not. She knew the Pale Mother would keep her safe, because Shavell had sacrificed her body to the goddess. She became a Split Moon Daughter. She bears the scars still—see if you can’t get a glimpse of them sometime. Mostly her robes cover them, though.”
“Well—Shavell is very devout. All the dedicants are. I hope you’re not thinking of—”
“It would have to be something different,” Rosurie said, a note of brooding in her voice. “Something unique to me. Darris gave the Lestra her gold—and there was a lot of it, apparently. She comes from a merchant family and she was the only one to inherit her father’s wealth. And she gave it all up to the goddess. But I don’t have any money.”
Ellynor was trying hard to throttle her alarm, but it galloped around inside her constricted chest like a panicked pony. Rosurie had always been such a passionate girl; why had Ellynor not foreseen this? The Silver Lady loved a fanatic. “I’m sure if you pray hard and give it a lot of thought, something will come to you,” she said, trying to speak soothingly. “But I don’t think that the Silver Lady or the Lestra requires that—”
“No, of course they don’t require it,” Rosurie said. “That’s why it’s so powerful. It’s done of your own free will. You give of yourself to the goddess.”
“I can see giving money, but blood? Does she really appreciate a gift so extreme?”
Rosurie was brooding again. “They say that Nadia denounced her little brother as a mystic,” she said in a quiet voice. “That was her gift to the goddess. And she had loved her brother very much.”
Ellynor felt sick. “What happened to Nadia’s brother?”
Rosurie flicked her a look and went back to staring at the wall. “I don’t know. What I heard was that the Lestra thanked her and said the goddess would deal with him as he deserved. And then Nadia cried and said he was too small to be punished. And the Lestra said, ‘The goddess makes allowances for youth. But the goddess is greatly pleased with you.’ And so Nadia stopped crying.”
“I still want to know what happened to the brother.”
Rosurie shrugged irritably. “Your problem is that you think too much of people, and not enough of the goddess!” she exclaimed. “Your mind is not focused on the Pale Mother. Your heart is back with the sebahta.”
“It is,” Ellynor agreed. “I love my family. I miss them. Why is that a dreadful thing?”
Rosurie gave a long, shaky sigh, and finally stretched herself out on the bed. Ellynor thought she was still wide awake, though. She appeared to be staring in some concentration at the ceiling. “It is not dreadful,” she said. “Most people would miss their families—I did, at first. But now I am—I am different, somehow. I am filled with moonlight and wonder. I feel like my blood is running silver in my veins—like I have been possessed by the goddess. And I have this—this—tension inside me, telling me to do something splendid and terrible to prove I love her. I don’t expect you to understand. You’re an ordinary woman, like most of the novices. You haven’t been singled out. You haven’t been marked, like I have.”
Worse and worse. “Rosurie—don’t do anything too drastic,” Ellynor said.
“How can it be too drastic if it is in service to the goddess?” was the immediate response.
“Yes—well—I mean—just don’t hurt yourself. Don’t stand in the moonlight and bleed, like Shavell did. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. I wouldn’t want you to die. I mean, how would I explain that at the next gathering of the sebahta-ris ?” She ended up on a light note, making a joke of it, and Rosurie actually laughed.
“No, none of them would understand,” her cousin agreed. She imitated her father’s voice. “‘What? She died for a principle? Not in a fight over land or honor or love? There were no weapons involved at all? How can this be?’”
“The Lirrenfolk understand death, but it has to behave properly, in a manner they understand,” Ellynor said, still lightly.
“Well, don’t be afraid. I don’t want to die. I won’t do anything that will make you worry.”
“I am very impressed by your devotion,” Ellynor said, trying to make her tone admiring. She was appalled, more truthfully, but it had always been pointless to try to turn Rosurie away from any course of action. You supported her, or you lost her confidence forever. “I’m sure the goddess will smile on you, whatever you do.”
“Thank you,” Rosurie replied, her voice finally sounding sleepy. “I feel so much better having talked about it! It is always easy to tell you things.”
“You can always talk to me, you know that.”
An indistinguishable reply, and then they both lay in silence for a few moments. But Ellynor was far from sleep— concern over Rosurie now added another layer of pressure on her chest, which was already leaden with fear for Justin and depression at her own unhappy situation. But before Rosurie had gotten caught up in this religious ecstasy, she had been just as passionate about a young man who was every bit as unsuitable as Justin was.
“Rosurie,” she whispered, in case the other girl was asleep. But the “What?” came back instantly, just as quietly, and so Ellynor raised her voice just the tiniest bit to ask, “Do you ever think about him?”
“Who?”
“That Bramlis boy. The one they would not allow you to marry.”
A long silence, and Ellynor almost expected a disdainful reply. Women who devote themselves to the goddess do not remember unworthy men. But finally Rosurie let all her breath out in a wistful sigh. “I think of him,” she said at last. “When I can’t help it. I don’t suppose I will ever stop thinking about him, though now there are more and more days between the times I remember and the times I’m able to forget.”
“Do you want to forget?”
She heard the sound of Rosurie nodding her head against the pillow. “I want to forget the look on his face when I told him I didn’t love him. I lied, of course—I love him still, even now. But I didn’t want him following me, starting a clan war. Dying. I knew he would only give me up if he believed I had given him up first.”
“Maybe that is what you have sacrificed for the goddess,” Ellynor suggested. “Your love for this boy. Maybe there is nothing else you have to relinquish.”
“I didn’t give him up for the Pale Mother,” Rosurie said, and even in a whisper, her voice sounded hard. “I gave him up for the men of my family. Maybe it is the men of my family I will give up for the Silver Lady.”
ANOTHER week passed; the moon flowered toward full. Almost every night, Ellynor managed to be among the novices left behind to sing to the waxing Silver Lady. But she managed not to be in the group of women sent to Neft to hand out moonstones and benedictions on the city streets. Justin would see the white-robed girls. He would circle them eagerly, looking for her face, but he would go back to the stables disappointed. Ellynor would not be there; he would not see her again.
He would never see her again.
Ellynor would never see him. Never gaze on his strong features, his sandy brows drawn down in concentration, his brown eyes narrowed as he puzzled something out. Never watch his quick changeover from watchfulness to merriment as she
said something that made him laugh. Never see the surprised wonder in his eyes as he kissed her and pulled back to stare down at her and find that her expression matched his own.
There were moments she hated her brother Torrin.
But not enough to risk his life.
Rosurie recovered some of her usual animation, though it was clear she was still mulling something over. The days were cold but sunny, so Astira and Ellynor worked in the gardens, clearing out the old stalks and roots, and whispering secrets. There was a young guard named Daken from a half-noble family in Brassenthwaite; he was lonely and homesick and so very sweet. He and Astira had been meeting in secret down by the barracks. It was wrong, Astira knew it was wrong, and yet she was so fond of him. She would be circumspect, no one would find out, didn’t Ellynor think it would be all right as long as they didn’t allow the situation to go too far?
I am the wrong one to ask for advice, Ellynor thought. “Just be careful,” she said. “What will the Lestra do if she finds you’ve been consorting with a guard?”
Astira shook her head. “I don’t know. Will I be thrown out of the convent? Will he? I know there have been indiscretions before, you always hear stories, but no one ever says what happened.”
“Just be sure you know what you’re risking,” Ellynor said. “Make sure it’s worth it.”
Ellynor was tempted, but she resisted the urge to reciprocate with her own confessions. Bad enough to trade kisses with one of the Lestra’s own guards, who at least professed to love the goddess and belonged inside the convent walls. But to play at romance with some idle stranger? About whose background you knew nothing at all? Even the lovestruck Astira would cavil at that.
Lia stuck her head out of the kitchen door, which overlooked the garden. “Can you two come help? The supply horses have arrived and there’s no one else in the kitchen and I can’t carry everything in by myself.”
Always glad of an excuse to get away from gardening, Astira and Ellynor jumped to their feet. “They’re late,” Astira observed. “I noticed we were running low on flour.”
Packhorses came every three or four weeks from Neft, a small caravan of five or six animals led by a couple of freighters. Ellynor supposed wagons, which would have been more efficient for hauling bulk quantities, couldn’t force their way through the overgrown forest path. Of course, the Daughters grew and canned some of their own produce within the compound, and the soldiers often hunted for fresh meat, but there were necessities they relied on the city to supply.
“Are they out front?” Ellynor asked. It was a tedious chore to carry baskets and bags all the way from the courtyard through the great receiving hall and down progressively narrower corridors to the large kitchen at the rear of the main house.
Lia shook her head. “I told them to come around back,” she said a little defensively.
Astira looked reproving. “You know the guards don’t like it if they can’t see visitors from the gate.”
“It’s two men! And seven horses! I think we’re safe. Anyway, my foot hurts. I can’t walk that far twenty times in the next two hours.”
Ellynor smothered a laugh. From around the side of the building, she could hear the sound of horse hooves clopping on the dry dirt, and a man’s voice raised in a soothing tone. “Easy there, girl. Just a shadow. Come on, you’ve made it this far. That’s right.” She saw a stocky, middle-aged man round the corner, leading a skittish gray horse by the bridle. It was late in the day and the bulk of the convent itself instantly covered him in shadow, but Ellynor could see him clearly enough. Behind him were three horses on a lead rope. The rest of his party had not yet pulled into view.
Astira was eying him with some disfavor. “That one seems too high-strung to be a packhorse,” she said. Ellynor grinned. At times like this, Astira’s haughty noble roots were most evident.
“Her first time out. Well, second,” the freighter grunted. “She’ll get quieter. Here, is there someplace we can tie them up while we start to unload?”
Ellynor and Astira hurried forward to help situate the animals. Lia turned to greet the second man as he stepped into sight, leading his own string of horses. The first man started unbuckling straps on one of his packhorses and hoisted a canister of flour out of a pouch, handing it to Ellynor. “It’s heavy,” he warned.
“I’ve got it,” she replied, and pivoted back toward the kitchen.
And then she almost dropped the canister in a moment of dizzy shock.
The second freighter was standing by his lead horse, securing the reins, but he glanced her way as she turned. It was Justin.
CHAPTER 19
IT was impossible to speak to Justin—impossible to look as if she wanted to speak to him—with so many other people around. Not just the novices and the other freighter but, within five minutes, two convent guards, who showed up to oversee this interaction between the novices and city folk. But Ellynor was acutely aware of him—every gesture he made, every word he uttered, every glance he sent her way.
How could he come here? How could he? Perhaps there was no risk to it, not really, for all sorts of visitors came to the convent and left again and didn’t make a ripple in their calm lives. But there was something about Justin that was not calm. There was an inherent challenge in the way he stood, in the way he carelessly swung bundles down and settled them into Lia’s arms, or Astira’s. In the way he looked around, really looked, as if curious to know the exact layout of the compound, the square footage given over to gardening, the number of guards visible on the walls.
In the way he gazed at her, when she had the courage to glance his way. You might stay away from me, his expression seemed to say, but I will not stay away from you.
It terrified her. It exhilarated her. Sweet Mother, look at his face, alive with laughter at something his companion had said. Watch the way he tossed back his fair hair. See his muscles bunch under his shirt, then smooth out as he handed over his burden. She was almost staring at him, despair and longing in her face. She forced herself to glance away.
The freighter was squinting up at the sky and wearing an expression of concern. “Be dark in an hour or two,” he said. “We got such a late start—not a chance we’ll make it out of the forest by nightfall.”
He handed Ellynor a heavy, shifting bag. Dried beans, maybe. She altered her grip on it, pretending she didn’t have a secure hold, and then set it on the ground and adjusted her robes. She wanted to hear the rest of this conversation.
“You afraid of traveling in the dark, Jenkins?” one of the convent guards asked, sounding amused. “Even when the moon’s practically whole?”
“Damn it, I am!” Jenkins replied, a little ruefully. “Almost got killed by a wolf one night—three, four years back—ever since, I just don’t care for journeying by moonlight.”
“Room in the barracks,” the other guard said thoughtfully. “You couldn’t go roaming, though.”
“No, no, we’d stay put,” Jenkins said.
“Well, you could step outside the building, maybe as far as the training yard. No farther.”
“You sure about this?” the first guard objected. “Don’t recall that we’ve housed visitors before.”
“Oh, sure. Mostly in winter, when the roads are bad and daylight’s so short. You can check with Koban first if you want, though.”
“I think I’d better.” He hurried off toward the back of the compound where the barracks and the training yard could be found.
“Don’t worry,” the remaining guard said nonchalantly. “You can stay the night.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Jenkins glanced at Justin. “That do for you? Do you need to hurry home? Forgot to ask.”
Justin shook his head. “I’m clear. Not expected back till tomorrow afternoon.”