"John," I said tentatively, feeling it easier to address the man than the god, "you're asking me to act as ambassador for the Chara, but you must know that when I return to the Chara, I'll tell him who you are before he ever sees you, and then he may or may not choose to use that information against you. Why have you appeared to me unmasked?"
I waited apprehensively to see whether the weaponless peacemaker I had known would speak further of blood. But he must have decided that his earlier words had been demonstration enough of what he now was, for he said simply, "Andrew, you are my blood brother. I could have appeared to you in the god's mask, as I appeared to Ursula when I wanted to be sure that she would become a thief out of more than love for John the trader. But it seems to me that the time for secrets between us is over. I won't hide any more from you what I am, nor will I command an Emorian in the voice of a Koretian god. I give you the god's command through the request of your blood brother: that you hand the Chara over to me."
A heartbeat's pause followed before I said firmly, "I cannot do that."
"I don't see how you can," he replied. He looked back again at the land outside, grey as ash after a fire. "I can't ask you to choose between your friendship to the Chara and your friendship to me, and yet you must make your choice, for there is no other way that I can meet with the Chara as the Jackal."
"Come with me to the palace," I said. "Come with me and tell the Chara who you are in private. He'll listen to what you have to say."
"And if he doesn't agree to what I want, what then? Will you give witness for me at my trial for my murders? Will you stay beside me as they slowly break my body for my treasonous acts?"
Out on the mountainside, the howl of the hunting jackal cut off abruptly at the same moment that my breath did. I opened my mouth to reply, but already John was saying, "I'm sorry. It's not you I'm angry with, but the Emorians, for infecting this land with their brutal and godless ways. That spy I killed had been too long around the Emorians and refused to believe I held the god's powers – and without some small portion of belief in him, he could not deem that what he saw came from the god. The Chara won't believe in my godly powers either, not unless he is a man very different than I take him to be. And if I am not a god-man, then I am no more than a murderous rebel, a man whom no ruler of any sense would negotiate with. He won't negotiate with me if I come with you, and he won't come to me if you tell him who I am."
I sat with my back stiff against the window jamb. "You misjudge him, John. He may come."
"I can't take the chance, Andrew." Something new and hard had entered into the tone of John's voice. It reminded me of how Peter spoke when he was in judgment. "If you leave here tonight and tell the Chara who I am, and he has me arrested rather than talk with me, then war will come. And when war comes there can be only two ends: either we will kill the Emorians and gain our freedom, or the Emorians will kill the Jackal, and his people will be put to the sword. I can risk my own death, but not the death of this land."
I placed my hands over my face, as I had every morning after dreaming of the death of this city. Then something about John's stillness made me look up. He was watching me carefully, and for the first time his eyes were guarded. I put my mind to what he had said, pursued the unspoken words, and said slowly, "The Jackal won't allow me to leave here and betray him."
"No, I will not. If you cannot serve me, then you must be my captive." He paused and searched my face again, as I had seen the palace slave-keeper search mine before he beat me, in order to decide how much punishment I could bear. Then, in the dispassionate voice of a judge pronouncing sentence, he said, "Ursula knows that you are my blood brother, so she did not think of one thing when she brought you here. The Jackal is always in danger when he makes his lair, either in caves or in taverns or in the empty house of a trader who has gone away on business. But I and my thieves are in greatest danger here, close to the city. The governor is so eager to find the Jackal's lair now that we will not be able to stay here more than a day or two longer, lest the soldiers find us, and when we leave, we will be on the move from then on, for war is close at hand. When we leave, we will take only what we can carry, and when we leave, we will not be able to take prisoners with us."
He turned his head then, and I somehow knew that this time he was not staring out at the land, but escaping the look in my eyes as he spoke his final words.
Had he spoken those words the previous day, I would have felt deathly sickness in my spirit. But since that time I had spoken to the subcaptain, and he had brought together images in my mind that had been separate until then. Now, as I looked at John, I could think only of the Chara as he judged me under the flickering torchlight and spoke the words that cut deeper into him than into me.
When John finally turned back to me with his steady gaze, I said, "That's why you went to the priests' house today."
Something flickered in John's eyes, and the shallow guard he had placed against my next words disappeared, as though he had expected any statement but this. "You told me to trust the god," he said simply. "So I went to the priests' house and spoke to the Unknowable God who had refused to tell me why I must fulfill my blood vow to him by luring and perhaps killing my blood brother. I told him that I would do as he wished, without any questions. And then he gave me the understanding I had sought before. If needs must, I will kill you to save my land, and you will die rather than betray your own land. In doing so, neither of us will break the vows we made to each other. I still love you, and we will always be blood brothers, beyond betrayal and beyond death."
The night was very quiet. Outside the door I could hear a rustle that might have been the thieves, awaiting the results of their master's interview as they had waited the night before and two weeks before that. Down the slope of the mountain I heard the low, muffled boom of the priests' bell as it called the hour. And at the foot of the mountain, past the wild-berry bushes and the golden cave, I could almost hear in my mind the light chatter of Koretians in the city market and tavern.
I said, the words bitter on my tongue, "You are right when you say that I cannot choose between you and Peter, between the Jackal and the Chara. I love you both and will always love you, whatever I do to you or you do to me. But one thing you have said falsely tonight: that I love Emor. I have never loved Emor, only its Chara, and so I will betray the Chara because it will save my land."
Then I hung my head, and for a long while there were no words between us, only John's hand on my arm.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Some time later, I sat in a windowless cell, resting on a thin pallet upon a stone bed. A wooden, candle-lit table stood next to the bed, holding the dinner which had been brought to me but which I had not touched. As I stared blankly at the wall, seeing nothing but darkness ahead of me, a soft knock came at the door. I mumbled something unintelligible. The door opened a crack, and I caught sight of pale skin and dark hair.
I beckoned, and Ursula entered, shutting the door behind her. She seated herself beside me, bit her lip, and then burst out, "I'm so sorry, Andrew."
I looked at her, and some tenderness that she seemed to bring out in me caused me to force a smile and say, "At least I once again know how I love this land, and that's something that I hid from myself for too long. It's good to be home again. I've missed the smell of wild-berries."
Ursula looked at me, and then at my abandoned dinner plate. Without a word, she reached past me to take it and hand it to me.
I bowed my head to her in obedience and forced myself to eat the food. She did not speak until I was finished, when she said, "John and the others have gone into the city to spread word among the thieves there of what will happen. John believes that kidnapping the Chara may itself provoke the war we expect, and he wants his followers to be prepared. He said that you wouldn't be leaving until the morning."
I placed the tin dish back upon the table. "John told me that it would be better to carry this plan out by daylight, when the Chara would be less likel
y to suspect danger. And I told him that, though I was known in the Chara's palace for my discretion and impenetrable thoughts, I doubted I could deceive the Chara for an entire evening. Peter was my only friend for many years, and he knows me too well."
Ursula sat with her arms hugging her legs. "I wouldn't have wanted to be you, having to choose between blood brother and friend. It's a choice that would have driven some men mad."
"Perhaps it would have, if I'd been forced to make it as a boy." I stared at the corner of the cell where a bit of candlelight had become caught in a spiderweb. "I owe Peter the gift of teaching me to love when it is painful, but I owe this much to my previous slave-master: he taught me to do everything else when it is painful. I feel as though I've been dropped into a bottomless pit, but I felt that during my time as Lord Carle's slave, and I knew then how to do my duty." I closed my eyes; little changed from the darkness I had seen before. I added quietly, "All these years, I've been troubled at night by a dream of the day when I left Koretia. I watch my mother die and my blood brother die, and I lose all my blood kin. Since then, Peter has been my kin, and I may have to watch him die as well. . . . I don't think I'll ever dream my old dream again, but I think this will be a sleepless night in any case."
I felt Ursula stir beside me. Fearing that my words were bringing her pain as well, I opened my eyes and tried to look at her in a reassuring manner. Her usual quick movements were stilled, as they had been during our first exchange, as though she were controlling some deep emotion inside her. She looked quite young, and I reached out to touch her, placing my hand on hers.
She spoke then, very softly. "Andrew, I've had bad dreams about my mother too for many years. Mine are about the manner in which I was begotten, though of course I didn't see it happen. When I wake from these dreams, it has always been a comfort to me to find myself beside John and know that he is there and that I can hold him until I stop being afraid. Would you like me to stay with you tonight?"
She intended to say more, but I jerked my hand away from her at these words and turned to face her on the bed. Startled, she did not speak as I said stiffly, "Ursula, I do not know what you are offering me when you say that. If you are telling me that I may sleep with you tonight as a brother sleeps with his sister, then I thank you. But if that is not what you mean—" She tried then to speak, and I held up my hand to stop her. "If you mean that I should sleep with you as a man sleeps with his lover, then you should know three things. One is that I have come to see you as a friend. The second is that I would not break my blood vow to John by making love to his wife. And the third thing— The third thing is that I could not if I wished to. I am—" I stumbled, looking for the words I would have prepared before, if I had not blinded myself to the necessity of this moment. "I am not capable of loving a woman as a man ought to. That power was taken from me when I was sold into slavery."
I thought at first that I had been too subtle and that I would have to explain further. Then she swallowed hard, and her eyes dropped. I waited, my heart beating, to see what her expression would be when she raised her eyes again. When she looked up, her gaze was as firm as John's, and her voice was gentle.
"Andrew," she said, "you know that the love of a man and his lover isn't the only strong love in this world. You love John, and you love the Chara – they are both your friends, beyond death. Why should you think that it would be any different for women? I have fallen in love and wished to be kissed and to be taken to a marriage-bed. But that isn't how I love you, and the love I have is no less powerful because of this."
I could not speak for a minute. Then I said, "Is it because John is my blood brother that you care for me?"
"Partly." Ursula bowed her head, and her hair fell down so that her face was hidden. She said, "Is it so hard for you to understand? I don't suppose many men can feel friendship toward a woman, but women often feel that way toward a man, whether the man knows it or not. What I feel for you is no different from what you feel for your blood brother."
I reached out and pushed back her dark hair from her eyes. She looked up silently. I asked her, "Is there such a thing as a blood sister?"
A smile trembled on her lips. "I've never heard of such a thing. In any case, I'm afraid of blades."
"Blood vows don't need blood to take place. I like the thought of gaining you as a sister, and if you'd like this as well, I could be your blood brother."
She moved suddenly, as though the great emotion she had been controlling was suddenly released, and her hands flung open in an eager gesture. "Andrew," she said breathlessly, "you've never asked me how I met John."
I waited, wondering what revelation would appear next. Her body swayed to and fro on the bed as she said, "I never knew my father, nor have I ever wanted to meet him, because he raped my mother during the Border Wars. After I was conceived, John found my mother and arranged for her to be cared for by the priests at their house. John cared for her as well, treating her as though she was his own mother. Then, when she died after I was born, he took me under his care, and I was like a younger sister to him. That has never changed." She paused, but I did not say anything, and so she continued, "Since we aren't truly brother and sister, we decided, when he first brought me to live with him in the city, that we must pretend to other people that we were married. So I've played the role of John's wife during this past year, though I've never loved him in that way, nor he me. I—" She hesitated, as though she were entering into dangerous ground, and then said carefully, "I'm capable of love of that sort, but I'm not sure that John is. He's like the priests, who never marry but dedicate their lives to the gods. I think also that his friendships are too powerful to allow him ever to form any other type of bond – especially his friendship with you. He told me several years ago that it was hard for him, not being able to help you when he cared for you so much. He told me—" Her movements stilled gradually, as though she were a fluttering bird that had come to rest on a branch. She said softly, "He said that was his first reason for taking care of me – that since he couldn't help you, he could at least help your sister."
I stared at her as she waited in silence for my reply. My training in silence overruled my voice, and I asked no questions but sat mutely, trying to understand what she had said. Into my mind drifted the image she had just given me, of John reaching out to help Ursula's mother, who had been left half-dead by a soldier. And beside it came a second image that had haunted me for so many years: John lying still next to the body of my mother, who had just been raped.
"She was alive," I whispered. "The soldier tried to kill her, but she lived. The soldier—"
I stopped abruptly. Ursula was once more hugging her knees. She stared at me silently with dark eyes, her pale face fringed with black hair. It was, I saw now, the face of my mother. But it was also the face of the Emorian soldier who had enslaved me.
I realized then why Ursula had not told me before.
I reached forward. As if I had had great practice in holding women, I slipped my arm around her waist and drew her head onto my shoulder. As she relaxed against my body, I whispered softly into her hair, "Sister, I will need courage tomorrow, and since the body supports the spirit, for courage I need sleep. I do not know what time we have left together in this dying land, but tonight, at least, I would like to spend with you."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"You're sure that you know how to do it?" John asked.
The next morning had arrived. Leaving Ursula still sleeping, I had risen from my bed and wandered the corridor until I happened across the outside door. At that moment, a man entered, his eyes narrow and yellow, his face black, his teeth bared in a ferocious grin. Then his hand removed the mask, and I saw the tired face of John, returning at dawn from his night-prowl.
"Have no worries for me," I said, slipping back with no effort into my cold composure. "It has been a while now since I kept my thoughts from Peter, but not so long that I have forgotten how to be his equivocal servant. I know how to tell lies with
the truth, and Peter trusts me enough that he will not guess what I am doing. He will not know what is afoot."
John smiled, a tired and somber smile. He slipped his mask into the trader's satchel where he kept it hidden by day. I paused at the threshold to the doorway, and then said quietly, "Thank you for taking care of Ursula for me."
John nodded. "I was wondering when she would get the courage to tell you. I'd tried to convince her that you wouldn't care if her father was a god-cursed demon, but you can see how she's treated in this land. It was hard for her to believe that you would love her despite her beginnings."
"She should not have feared," I said. "I know as well as she does what it is to be half Koretian and half Emorian. As long as the two lands remain at war with each other, those of us who have ties to both lands will always suffer. So we must see whether we can do anything to change that." With no further word, I turned and made my way down the mountainside toward the governor's palace.
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