Voices aotws-2

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  I shrugged. What did boys do? Scrounged for food and firewood, mostly; like everybody else in my city except the Alds. “Play stickball,” I said finally.

  He looked more depressed. Evidently he was not the game-playing type.

  “What’s so strange here,” he said, “there’s women everywhere. Out in the open. Women all over the place, but you can’t…They don’t…”

  “Aren’t there any women in Asudar?” I asked, playing stupid.

  “Of course there’s women. Only they aren’t outside, all over the place,” he said in an aggrieved, accusing tone. “They aren’t always around where you see them all the time. Our women don’t go flaunting around in the street. They stay home where they belong.”

  I thought then of my mother, in the street, trying to get home.

  A great, hot rage rose up through my body and if I had spoken then it would have been a curse, or I would have spat in his face; but I didn’t speak, and the rage slowly died away to a cold, hollow sickness. I swallowed my saliva and willed myself to be calm.

  “Mekke says there’s temple whores,” the boy said. “Anybody could go there. Only the temples were shut down, of course. So they do it in secret somewhere. But they still have them. They do it with anybody. You know anything about that?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed.

  Very carefully, I stood up. I needed to move, but move slowly.

  “My name’s Simme,” he said, looking up at me with a squinting smile, like a child.

  I nodded. I moved slowly away—towards Shetar and Chy, for I did not know anywhere else to go. The blood was singing in my ears.

  Chy looked me over and said, “The Gand’s about done talking, I think. Go to the stables and ask them to bring the maker’s horse out. Say you want to walk him. All right?”

  I nodded and went round into the great stable courtyard. For some reason I was no longer afraid of the men there. I asked after the maker’s horse, and they took me to Branty’s stall. Branty was playing with a taste of oats. “Have him saddled and brought out,” I said, as if they were slaves and I a master. The old man who had taken him from me at first went to obey my orders. I stood with my hands behind my back, looking over the beautiful horses in the long line of stalls. When the old man brought Branty out, I took his bridle without hesitation.

  “He’d be about nineteen or twenty?”

  “Older,” I said, with the same assurance.

  “Good blood,” the old man said. He reached up to part Branty’s forelock with thick, dirty, gentle fingers. “I like big horses,” he said.

  I gave a brief nod of approval, and walked away with Branty. Chy and Shetar were just at the entrance to the stable court, and Orrec was coming towards us. I gave him a knee up to mount, and we set off sedately for home. As we went out through the gateway of the Council Square, past the Ald guards in blue cloaks, I was overcome suddenly by tears, they burst hot from my eyes, my mouth quivered and jerked. I went walking on, seeing my city, my beautiful city and the far mountain over the straits and the cloud-swept sky through tears, until they ceased.

  ♦ 8 ♦

  Ista made one of her special dishes that night, what we call uffu, pastries stuffed with a bit of ground lamb or kid, potatoes, greens, and herbs, and fried in oil. They were crisp, greasy, delicious. Ista was grateful to Orrec and Gry not only because they had provided meat for the kitchen—we were sharing Shetars dinner, is the fact of it—but because they were our guests, restoring honor and dignity to the house by their presence, and giving her somebody new to cook for. They complimented the uffu, while she shrugged and growled and criticised her pastry for being tough. Can’t get decent oil, she said, like we had in the good days.

  After dinner the Waylord took our guests and me to the back gallery; and again we sat and talked. Three of us were very curious to know what the Gand Ioratth had said to Orrec beneath the fern-palm, And Orrec was ready to tell us. He had news indeed.

  Dorid, Gand of Gands, high priest and king of Asudar and commander of the Ald armies for nearly thirty years, was dead. He had died of a seizure over a month ago in his palace in the desert city Medron. His successor was a man named Acray; his nephew, or so called. Since the kings of Asudar were high priests, and priests of Atth were officially celibate, a king couldn’t officially have a son, only nephews. Other nephews or claimants to the throne contested Acrays succession and had been killed in uprisings or behind the scenes. Medron had been in turmoil for some time, but by now Acray had seized firm hold of power as the Gand of Gands of all Asudar,

  And this was evidently much to the Gand Ioratth’s liking. From what he said, Orrec gathered that the new priest-king was less the priest and more the king than Dorid had been. The palace factions that had tried to keep Acray from the throne were, like Dorid, followers of the cult of the Thousand True Men—those who had declared a war of good against evil, urging the invasion of heathen Ansul to find and destroy the Night Mouth.

  Acray’s followers, it seemed, didn’t put much stock in the existence of the Night Mouth, especially since the invading army had never been able to find it. They considered the occupation of Ansul, though it had brought some profit and luxury goods to Medron, as a drain on the resources of the Ald army and also a spiritually questionable enterprise. For the Alds were a race apart, dwelling in their desert, singularly favored by their single god. They had always kept clear of the pollution of the unbelievers. To continue to live among the heathen was to risk their souls.

  What should the Alds in Ansul do, then?

  Ioratth, considering these matters aloud to Orrec, had spoken remarkably plainly. The question, as he saw it, was which would be more pleasing to Atth: should the new Gand of Gands recall his soldiers home to Asudar with all the loot they could bring, or should he send settlers to colonise Ansul permanently?

  “He put it just about like that,” Orrec said. “Evidently the new ruler has asked Ioratth for his opinion, as a man who’s lived all these years here among the heathen. And Ioratth sees me as disinterested, an impartial observer. But why does he see me so? And why does he trust me with his damned indecisions? I’m a heathen myself!”

  “Because you’re a maker,” the Waylord said. “Therefore, to the Alds, a truth-speaker and a seer.”

  “Maybe he has nobody else he can talk to,” Gry said. “And whether or not you’re a seer, you certainly are a good listener.”

  “A silent one,” Orrec said, with some bitterness. “What can I say to all this?”

  “I don’t know what you can say to Iorarth,” the Waylord said. “But it may help you to know what little I know about him. In the first place, he took a woman of Ansul as a slave, a concubine, but it’s said he treats her honorably. Her name is Tirio Actamo. She’s the daughter of a great family. I knew her before the invasion. She was a beautiful, clever, spirited girl. All I know of her now is servants’ gossip brought to me by others, but the gossip is that Ioratth honors her as a wife, and that she has great influence on him.”

  “I wish I could talk with her!” Gry said.

  “So do I,” the Waylord said, and his voice was wry and melancholy. After a pause he went on. “Iddor is the Gand’s son by a wife back in Asudar. They say Iddor hates Tirio Actamo. They also say he hates his father.”

  “He taunts and defies him,” Orrec said, “but seems to obey him.”

  The Waylord sat silent for a while, then got up, went over to the god-niche, and stood before it. “Blessed spirits of this house,” he murmured, “help me speak truly.” He bowed his head and touched the worn sill of the niche, stood a moment longer, and came back to us. He spoke standing.

  “It was Iddor and the priests who led the soldiers here to find their Night Mouth. They tortured the people of the house to make them reveal the entrance to the cave or sewer or whatever the Night Mouth might be. Some died in torture. The Alds kept me alive. They had—” he halted a moment and then went on, “they had the most hope of me, since they perceived
me as a witch. A priest, in their terms, but a priest of their anti-god. But I wasn’t able to tell them what they wanted to know. Ennu laid her hand on my mouth and would not let me lie. Sampa stopped my tongue and would not let me speak the truth. All the souls of Galvamand came round me. The priests knew it. They were afraid of me, even while they… Not afraid of me but of the sacredness that came into me, the gathering of souls around me, the blessing of the gods and spirits of my house, my city, my land.

  “After a while the priests didn’t want to have anything to do with me, so Iddor himself was my only questioner. He feared me too, I think, but also he prided himself on his daring, since he believed me a great sorcerer and yet he could do what he liked with me. I proved his power, by being a toy for his cruelty. I had to listen to him. He talked and talked, always explaining to me, telling me over and over how the demon that filled me would come forth at last and tell him where to find the Night Mouth. When the demon came forth and spoke I would be allowed to die. All evil would die. Righteousness would rule the earth, and he, Iddor, would sit by the throne of the King of Kings, burning in glory. He talked and talked. I tried to lie to him, and I tried to tell him the truth. But they would not let me.”

  He had not sat down as he spoke, and now he went back to the god-niche, put his hands on the sill of it, and stood there in silence a while. I heard him whisper blessing on Ennu and the house-gods. Then he turned to us again.

  “All that time, all the time Iddor held me prisoner, I never saw his father. Ioratth kept away from the prison cells and had no part in the witch hunts. Iddor constantly complained to me about his father, railed at him, saying he was impious, contemptuous of priests and prophecies, and flouted the order of the Gand of Gands to find the Night Mouth. ‘I obey my god and my king, he does not,’ he said. But in the end, whether at Ioratths order or not, I was let go. The hunts for caves and demons died down. Now and then Iddor or the priests would raise up a scare, finding a book to destroy or a scholar to torture. Ioratth let them do it, I suppose to satisfy the Gand of Gands that the quest was still going on. He had to walk carefully, since his son was of the kings party and he was not.

  “But now, it looks as if Ioratth has a king of his own kind, and the power Iddor and the priests had will be suddenly reduced. This could be a dangerous moment.”

  He sat down with us again. Though he had spoken painfully, he did not seem troubled now, only grave and weary; and as he looked around at us, a gentleness came into his face, as if returned from a journey, he saw people he loved.

  “Dangerous because…” Gry said, and Orrec finished her half question: “Because Iddor, seeing his faction losing power, might try to seize power?”

  The Waylord nodded. “I wonder where the Ald soldiers stand on this,” he said. “No doubt they’d like to go home to Asudar. But they respect their priests. If Iddor defied his father, and the priests were with Iddor, which of them would the soldiers obey?”

  “We can do some listening at the Palace,” Gry said. She glanced at me, I didn’t know why.

  “There’s another element of danger, or hope, or both,” the Waylord said, “which I tell you of asking you for your silence. There’s a group of people who hope to rouse Ansul against the Alds. A group that for a long time now has been laying plans for rebellion. I know of it only through friends. I don’t take part in making its plans, I don’t even know with any certainty how strong it is. But it exists. Seeing a power struggle in the Palace, such a group might try to act.”

  Now at last I knew what Desac came to talk about, and why I was always sent away when he met with the Waylord. That sent a rush of anger through me. Why hadn’t I been allowed to listen to talk of rebellion, of rising against the Alds, fighting them, driving them out? Did Desac think I’d be afraid? Or go blabbing about it like a child? Did he think, because I had sheep hair, that I’d betray my people?

  Gry wanted to know more about this group, but the Waylord was unable or unwilling to say much about it. Orrec was silent, brooding, till he asked at last, “How many Alds are here in Ansul—in the city? A thousand, two thousand?”

  “Over two thousand,” the Waylord said.

  “They’re greatly outnumbered.”

  “But armed and disciplined,” Gry said.

  “Trained soldiers,” Orrec said. “It gives them an edge… But still. All these years—”

  I burst out, “We fought! We fought them in every street, we held out for a year—till they sent an army twice as large—and then they killed and killed—Ista told me that in the days after the city fell, the canals were so choked with the dead that the water couldn’t run—”

  “Memer, I know your people were overrun and overmatched,” Orrec said. “I didn’t mean to question their courage.”

  “But we’re not warriors,” said the Waylord.

  “Adira and Marra!” I protested.

  His gaze rested on me a moment. “I didn’t say we couldn’t have heroes,” he said. “But for centuries we settled our affairs by talking, arguing, bargaining, voting. Our quarrels were fought with words not swords. We were out of the habit of brutality… And the Ald armies seemed endless. How much more would they destroy? We lost heart. We have been a crippled people.”

  He held up his broken hands. His face was strange, wry; his eyes looked very dark.

  “As you say; Orrec, they have the edge,” he said. “Having one king, one god, one belief they can act single-rnindedly They’re strong. Yet the single can be divided. Our strength embraces multitude. This is our sacred earth. We live here with its gods and spirits, among them, they among us. We endure with them. We’ve been hurt, weakened, enslaved. But only if they destroy our knowledge are we destroyed.”

  * * *

  TWO DAYS AFTER THAT, when we went to the Council Square again, I found out why Gry had given me that glance when she said, “We can do some listening.” She wanted Mem the apprentice groom to talk to the Ald stableboys and cadet soldiers who hung around to hear Orrec recite. “Keep an ear out,” she said. “Ask about the new Gand in Medron. About the Night Mouth. You were talking for a long time with one of those boys the other day.”

  “The pimply one,” I said.

  “He took a shine to you.”

  “He wanted to know if I’d sell him my sister for sex,” I said.

  Gry whistled, a soft little down-note, tiu.

  “Endure,” she said softly.

  The Waylord had used that word. I took it as my guide word, my orders. I would obey. I would endure.

  This time, when the Gand came out of the great tent to hear Orrec, Iddor and the priests didn’t follow him. Partway through the recitation a noise began inside the tent, a lot of loud chanting and drum banging—evidently the priests performing a ceremony. Some of the courtiers around the Gand looked disturbed, others shrugged and whispered. Ioratth sat imperturbable. Orrec finished the stanza and fell silent.

  The Gand gestured to him to go on.

  “I would not show disrespect to those who worship,” Orrec said.

  “It is not worship,” Ioratth said. “It is disrespect. Proceed, if you will, Maker.”

  Orrec bowed and went on with the piece, another Ald hero tale. When it was done, Ioratth had him brought a glass of water and began to talk with him, several of the courtiers joining in. And I, obeying my orders, slipped back towards the group of boys and men in the shade of the stable wall.

  Simme was there. He came right over to me. He was bigger than I was, a tall, strong boy. There were fair, fuzzy hairs among the pimples around his mouth—the Alds are hairier than mypeople, and many have beards. Yet when I saw the way he greeted me, almost cringing, hoping that I liked him, I thought: he’s a little boy.

  All I knew was my city and my house and books, while he had travelled with an army and was a soldier in training, but I knew that I knew more than he did, and was tougher. He knew it, too.

  It made it hard to hate him. There’s some virtue in hating people who are stronger than you,
but to hate somebody weaker is contemptible and uncomfortable.

  He didn’t know what to talk about, and at first I thought we wouldn’t be able to talk at all, but then I thought to ask him something I really wanted to know. “Where did you hear what you were talking about the other day,” I said, “all that stuff about temples and prostitutes?”

  “Some of the men,” he said. “They said you heathens had these temples, where they had these orgies with these priestesses of this goddess, this demoness, that made men, you know, have sex with the priestesses. The demoness possessed them. And they’d have sex with any man. Anybody who came along. All night.”

  He’d brightened up considerably at the thought.

  “We don’t have any priestesses,” I said flatly. “Or priests. We do our own worship.”

  “Well, maybe it was just women who went to this temple, and the demoness made them have sex with anybody. All night.”

  “How could people get inside a temple?”

  In Ansul, the word “temple” usually means a little shrine on the street or in front of a building or at a crossways—altars, places to worship at. Many of them are just god-niches like the ones inside houses. You touch the sill of the temple to say the blessing, or lay a flower as an offering. Many street temples were wonderful little buildings of marble, two or three feet high, carved and decorated, with gilt roofs. The Alds had knocked those all down. Some temples were hung up in trees, and the Alds left them, thinking they were birdhouses. In fact if a bird nested in a temple it was a joyful thing, a blessing, and a lot of the old tree temples had swallows and sparrows and thrushes in them year after year. The best luck of all was an owl. The owl is the bird of the Deaf One.

  I knew that to the Alds a temple meant a full-sized building. I didn’t care.

  My question did get his mind off the notion of allnight sex, anyway. He frowned and said, “What do you mean? Everybody goes into temples.”

  “What for?”

  “To pray!”