Divine Torment

by Janine Ashbless

  ‘No, General,’ he shook his head. ‘You were right. He is insulting you.’

  ‘Time to leave, then. I feel like a walk, Commander.’ Veraine threw open the door and handed his helmet to one of the soldiers outside. ‘Two of you stay here. If the Rasa should show his face, you may tell him that I am looking round the building to find suitable accommodation for my officers and myself. This city is now under the jurisdiction of the Irolian army. This temple will be my headquarters. He may report to me for further information. Is that dear?’

  Without any further delay he set off into the bowels of the temple, his entourage marching hard to keep up with him. Part of his intention was practical, as stated; part was a burning desire to scout out the building and find what was happening here, to gain some feeling of control over the chaotic mess he had been thrown into. A large part was just anger and the resulting restless need for action. The small party crashed through room after room, some clearly sacred, some administrative. There were surprisingly few people around for such a large building, and every priest they saw fled from them before they could close in. It would have been impossible to sneak up on any of them – not in full armour, with their bronze kilts clanking on their thighs. Hall followed hall in their progress, each seemingly darker and emptier than the last despite the frescos and the lurid shrines to the man-eating goddess. Even when they found what they judged to be the main chamber of the temple, with a gold-painted statue twenty feet high towering over the altar, there was no sign of the high priest.

  Taking a line roughly down the spine of the complex towards the rear, they eventually went rattling out of the front part of the temple and through an enclosed courtyard thick with scented bushes and even, to everyone’s surprise, a few trees. In the centre was a raised pool and Veraine scooped a handful of water up to his lips.

  ‘Fresh,’ he said. ‘That’s useful. I’ll want to know every water source in this city by nightfall tomorrow, Commander.’

  ‘Sir,’ Loy acknowledged.

  The back half of the temple was lit by lamps just as was the front, but it was immediately obvious that this place was different. The floor was not smooth flagstones but rough virgin rock, not even level. There was little decoration, and the walls appeared to be made of limed mud-brick. It was as if someone had decided simply to roof over the top of the hill. Directly in front of the entrance was a steep flight of steps leading up to two huge interior double doors made of ancient timber, grey with age and studded with bronze. The stairs and the facing wall were carved all of a piece from the rock of the hilltop. Veraine headed straight up the centre of the steps.

  ‘You can’t enter there,’ said a servant girl sitting on the stairs.

  ‘No?’ said. Veraine, not even slowing.

  ‘General!’ Rumayn called anxiously. ‘Please, a moment.’ He turned to the girl and demanded in her own language, ‘What’s in there?’

  She stood. ‘It’s the Garbhagria. No one may go in except the priests.’

  ‘It’s the womb-house; the Innermost Temple,’ Rumayn translated into Irolian. Veraine hesitated and turned back to glare at his adviser, who said with considerable emphasis, ‘General, I believe this would be one of the worst possible rules to break. To go crashing in on sacred ground; that would not be acceptable.’

  Veraine snorted in exasperation but stopped where he was. He could see that his adviser was pale despite the exertion of their progress through the halls.

  ‘Sothot’s balls. Ask her if the Rasa is in there.’

  ‘The Rasa?’ the girl said. ‘No. He’s not inside.’ She walked, barefoot, towards Veraine and stopped two steps above him, which put them roughly on eye-level. ‘You’re General Veraine. I’d heard you were coming here.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad someone has,’ he replied, falling into the Yamani tongue, but he spoke without great harshness because despite everything and even in her undyed homespun she was quite pretty.

  ‘You are going to save us,’ she said.

  There was no time for Rumayn to comment on this or for Veraine to work out exactly what it was about her that troubled him, before a flock of yellow-clad priests burst through the outside doors and dropped to the ground at the foot of the steps. They were followed into the vestibule by two of Veraine’s bodyguards. The man at the front pressed his forehead to the floor and cried, ‘Mother of a thousand torments, forgive our abrupt entry, for no impiety was intended!’

  Veraine felt as if the earth had fallen away from beneath his feet.

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Rumayn, not quite under his breath.

  Veraine swung back to face the girl, wondering how in the world to rescue this situation. She met his gaze without flinching. He found it hard to believe what had just happened; she was only a young woman in the roughest of cotton dresses, her hair bundled up and hidden in a cloth wrap like any other Yamani peasant girl. Fine featured, in a way that Veraine considered slightly underfed. He was relieved to see that she did not look either amused or haughty. And it was that which made her strange.

  ‘Malia Shai,’ he said in a low voice that only she could hear. He did not dare apologise to her. ‘I didn’t realise it was you. I’ve never met a goddess.’

  She did not acknowledge his words in any way. ‘You may rise, Rasa Belit,’ she said. ‘This is General Veraine.’

  The priest scrambled to his feet and glared up the stairs. His eyes were bulging from his face in barely suppressed fury. ‘General, what do you think you are doing?’ he snarled in Yamani.

  ‘He will save us from the Horse-eaters,’ said the Malia Shai.

  Rasa Belit shut his mouth like a trap and Veraine felt a little flash of triumph. He walked without haste down the steps towards the theocrat, sizing the man up rapidly. He was certainly surprised by how tall the eunuch was; tall and big-boned, but with a softness to his flesh as if it had melted on his frame. His eyes were deeply bagged and his mouth was a thin, hard line. I’m not going to get along with this one, Veraine thought, without regret.

  ‘Rasa Belit,’ he said flatly, in Yamani. ‘So sorry we missed you when we arrived.’

  ‘I was detained by important rituals,’ the priest hissed.

  ‘Of course. I have no intention of interrupting the ritual life of this temple. The customs of our subject peoples are of importance to us.’

  Rasa Belit pursed his lips.

  ‘That is why you will be pleased that I shall be taking on the burden of defending this city from our foreign enemies. I require the minimum of your effort at this point, so that you may concentrate your own thoughts entirely upon theological matters. Merely room to set up a headquarters here. Space and supplies for myself, my officers and my men. Your full co-operation with any access or information we require. Maps of the city, if you have them. Inventories. I will be organising this city to withstand siege, Rasa. There’ll be a number of changes. But rest assured, your rituals may carry on as if we weren’t here at all.’

  The high priest made a noise like cold water on hot stones.

  ‘Of course I realise that we may inadvertently cause you a certain amount of inconvenience. This city is after all facing a major military crisis. But please take my word for it, Rasa; any small irritation your co-operation may cause will be trifling compared to the discomfort afforded by any of the alternatives I can imagine.’

  There was a brittle silence. Rasa Belit, with obvious effort, swallowed, blinked and nodded. ‘Very well, General,’ he said.

  ‘I am pleased we have an understanding.’

  ‘Nonetheless, General,’ he said with a fair semblance of politeness, ‘you stand in the presence of the Malia Shai, on sacred ground. You haven’t prostrated yourself before her as is correct.’

  ‘And I won’t. Neither will my men.’

  ‘She is the goddess,’ he smiled through clenched teeth.

  ‘A Yamani goddess. We don’t bow to your gods, high priest, no matter how immanent. I give the Malia Shai the honour that she’s due as a figurehead of y
our people.’

  Rasa Belit closed his heavy-lidded eyes as if unable to contemplate such a thought. ‘You damn yourself to a hundred lifetimes of torment,’ he whispered, with transparently insincere compassion.

  ‘My current concern is the month before us,’ Veraine said coolly.

  ‘Oh, I understand that, General.’ The priest’s smile was sardonic. ‘I am sure it will present you with many challenges.’

  The two men locked gazes.

  ‘You should offer them food, Rasa,’ the Malia Shai suggested into the unpleasant silence. ‘They’ve travelled a long way.’

  Startled, both men turned and looked at her. She descended between them, pausing for a moment to look into Veraine’s face before passing lightly through the door. Her eyes were clear and brown, with very dark, soft lashes. But her expression troubled him. He had known women of every kind look at him in all sorts of ways; with pleasure, or contempt, or calculation, or wariness. He felt that he could understand those people. But the Malia Shai looked at him with an expression he could not even name. He groped for a word and came up with ‘expectancy’, but even that he rejected. He wondered if she were slightly simple.

  ‘Follow me, General,’ said Rasa Belit through set teeth. ‘I will find you suitable rooms in the Outer Temple. And you shall eat with us this very hour. This way.’

  The priests preceded the military men back out into the courtyard. Loy and Rumayn fell in line immediately behind Veraine, who let his steps lag for a moment.

  ‘That could have gone better,’ he admitted in an undertone. He knew that was what both of them were thinking.

  ‘You made your point, sir,’ said Loy, who’d been rapidly updated by the adviser.

  ‘So that was the Malia Shai,’ Rumayn muttered.

  ‘She was smaller than I expected,’ Loy said. ‘Nice arse, though.’

  3 Foreign Gods

  They did not emerge from the promised repast until many hours later, when the assembled priests departed for some nocturnal ritual and they found themselves free to return to the room which had been hastily designated as the military headquarters for the Irolian forces. Rather to their dismay, it turned out to be the painted room in which they had originally waited. Their actual sleeping quarters had been arranged in adjoining chambers but, stuffed with many variations on the theme of steamed wheat and spiced meat, the command staff of the occupying forces were too replete to retire straight away. The four men – Arioc was included in their number, though the other officers of the Eighth Host had been left to organise and find billets with the men elsewhere in the temple complex – stumbled into the room befuddled with physical exhaustion and, in Rumayn’s case at least, with alcohol. Throughout the meal a fiery plum brandy had been served and the civilian adviser was still carrying a pottery jug of the liquor.

  ‘What a hospitable people,’ he enthused, slumping onto the mounded cushions.

  ‘They certainly eat well,’ Loy grunted as he sat back, ‘if you like the taste of goat. Did you see them? All as plump as puppies.’

  Rumayn smiled a beatific smile; ‘Yes. Those . . . ample priestesses.’

  ‘There’s not much use to be had from a locked box,’ Veraine reminded him. ‘Not when the key has been thrown away. Sun’s blood, Arioc, help me off with this lot.’ He began to unbuckle the heavy formal armour that he had been forced to wear all evening, dropping the pteurges from his hips to the floor with a crash. Arioc hurried to loose the straps that secured his breastplate at the back.

  Rumayn frowned.

  ‘There’s always a hole of one sort or another,’ Loy advised comfortingly.

  ‘Gods, that’s better,’ Veraine muttered as he escaped from his bronze greaves. ‘Put them in my room, Arioc. Get them cleaned tomorrow.’ He had drunk the least of anybody at dinner, only a thimble-sized cup of the brandy, trying to keep a clear head, but it was now swimming with fatigue. For most of the meal he had picked at his food and stared down the length of the cavernous refectory at the ranks of priests, catching only snatches of the conversation around him. Rasa Belit had been in no mood to converse with the general. However, Rumayn, under the influence of increasing quantities of alcohol, had interrogated the high priest enthusiastically about the temple theology. Veraine had not bothered to overhear that conversation, assuming that his adviser would pass on any relevant information at some later point.

  ‘I’m not impressed by this,’ he said as he lowered himself onto cushions down almost at floor level. ‘No chairs. No furniture.’ He stretched his legs out in front of him one at a time. They were painful from the hours spent kneeling in armour while he ate at the low sandstone dais that served as a table for the priests. Arioc kneeled in front of him without having to be ordered; he knew his duties well.

  ‘No wood, General,’ Rumayn finished, ‘not around here.’

  ‘Not good enough,’ Veraine growled as Arioc began to massage his calves, fingers digging deep into the hard muscles. ‘I can’t run a military campaign squatting on the floor like a Yamani stone-breaker. Somewhere in this nest there has to be a proper table. Find it tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Loy acknowledged.

  ‘The priestesses have to be fat,’ Rumayn said happily, ‘so that they can sit comfortably on the hard ground all day while they pray.’

  Veraine nodded, thinking of the priests in the refectory, who had certainly looked well fed and used to the sedentary life. There was no sign of any asceticism among the devoted of Mulhanabin, unless you counted the segregation of the sexes, in that the priestesses had, after serving all the male diners, sat at their own table at the far end of the room. Veraine stifled a wince as Arioc’s fingers probed deeper. The Malia Shai had not been present during the meal.

  ‘How are the men settled, Commander?’

  ‘Plenty of space, sir, and comfortable quarters. They like that. They don’t like the place. It puts the wind up them. Every room in the hall has a statue of that witch-goddess.’

  Veraine lay back among the cushions. ‘Full inspection and parade tomorrow, Commander. At noon. I want to address them.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘They’ll get used to being in a temple. And the statue’s only a Yamani hag. Sothot knows they must have seen enough of them.’

  ‘Just a pity the Horse-eaters aren’t marching on Jalatabin instead, sir,’ Loy said lightly. The Temple of the Abundant Goddess was a byword among Irolian soldiers for its rumoured debauches.

  Veraine snorted. ‘No, Commander – I need them to be in a state capable of fighting!’

  ‘I’ve been to Jalatabin,’ Rumayn offered, sitting up again so that he could drink more.

  ‘Right,’ Loy grunted.

  ‘No. I mean it. I’ve visited the temple of Gelewi.’

  ‘Really?’ Veraine rolled himself on to one elbow. ‘How did you manage that? It’s forbidden to Irolians.’

  ‘I was young, and piss-stupid.’ Rumayn shook his head wonderingly. ‘And in disguise. I wore Yamani clothes and wrapped a shesh around my face.’

  ‘Is it true about the women?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Rumayn widened his eyes and smiled. The effect was more of alarm than lechery.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Well.’ He gazed down into the pitcher of brandy. ‘I was in Jalatabin on business. My family is in the spice trade and one of the big pepper markets is held there. I was sent by my brothers to oversee our agents. You know the sort of thing. Well, I could speak Yamani by then and fake the accent too. You have to speak to them if you’re in trade. It’s not like being a noble and having slaves to order around; your sort only have to learn a few words – “go there, pick up this, suck that” –’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Veraine growled.

  ‘Of course, General. I ramble, you know that. Too many things in my head. Well, I wanted to see the temple of Gelewi – who wouldn’t? We’ve all heard of it. I traded a silk hood to get some old clothes that looked right. I told the washer-boy that it was for a serva
nt, but I don’t know if he believed me. It was strange, wearing Yamani clothes. The men have to put up with these baggy trousers that flap around the knees. Disconcerting. Anyway, I chose a quiet morning when I wouldn’t be missed and I just walked in past the guards through the men’s gate. The temple is huge, you see, but it has a wall all the way around the enclosure and enormous gates in each of the four walls –’

  ‘I’m not interested in hearing about the architecture!’

  ‘Ah, it matters. You see, there are four gates into the temple: one for women, one for priests, one through which only gods can go, and one for men. And when you walk in through that you’re in a courtyard, straight away. The courtyard is closed, you can’t see the rest of the temple. But all around that square there are women sitting on benches against the walls. Maybe a hundred women. They wear these red silk veils that cover them from head to foot and you can hardly see the features beneath. There are men in the courtyard, too, walking around, looking at the women.

  ‘Well, I was lost at first. I hardly knew what to do. The women sit so still, only the men move. I thought, every woman in the city has been in here, or will be here before she marries. I could find anyone. A beggar or a princess. Well – I know they have no royalty left, but I was young and romantic then. Such a choice of women. I was nervous, I admit, but I was so excited too. I began to walk around the perimeter of the courtyard. When you get close you see the women making little movements, turning their heads. They’re watching you through their veils. But you can’t see anything, just the shape of the body beneath. She might be beautiful, or the plainest snag-toothed drab; you can’t tell. She is – all of them are – just female. That’s the point of the temple.

  ‘Most of them are young, of course. They’re getting this over with so that they can marry, paying their duty to the goddess Gelewi. You can see that, after a while. They’re slim little things – well, you know how young Yamani girls are married off. I didn’t want that. Even then, I wasn’t interested in some skinny virgin. I wanted a real woman, one with . . . curves.’ Rumayn put down the jug long enough for his hands to describe extravagant shapes tenderly in the air.