Tathea

by Anne Perry

“The birds and beasts have souls, just as we do,” he said fiercely, his voice ringing with certainty. “You rode here on a horse. Look into its eyes and then into a man’s, and tell me why you conceive in your heart that you have some immortal spirit which he does not! Speech? Because you understand your own words and not his, you think that gives you some divinity? Because he carries you patiently, lends you his strength to perform your labors? Because he carries your kind to war and is prepared to die for you, that makes you a better creature?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “It makes us cleverer ... and therefore gives us the greater responsibility not to abuse our power.”

  He looked at her curiously, a quickening in his face. “All beasts? Or merely horses?”

  She did not know the answer. She had not considered beyond the beasts she knew—horses, dogs, cats.

  “You hesitate!” he charged.

  The assumptions of pride would be ridiculous here in this murmuring forest with the wild depth of green above them. A million leaves whispered and turned in the air. Sunlight reached the earth only in glancing shafts now and then. Gnarled roots writhed like curled snakes. In their protected hollows, mosses lay in sudden pools of emerald.

  “Because I don’t know the answer,” she admitted.

  “All beasts, all birds,” he replied gravely. “Everything that lives. And more, the trees, the flowers, the green plants, the rocks themselves are possessed of a form of intelligence which must be revered. Nothing must be wasted, or willfully broken or abused, spent for no cause.”

  They continued moving westward through Hirioth, sometimes under trees crowded so close the dense shadow was like deep water. Then gradually the glades became more frequent. Sunlight glanced bright on grasses still starred with late flowers, and the same blossoming vines cascaded down, filling the evening air with sweet, heavy perfume.

  Immerith walked often in silence, but when he did speak it was to recount some of the old legends of his people, stories that mingled man and beast in a time when they were not divided, when there was no death, when man and beast ate only fruit and grain and. each creature communicated with all others and there was innocence upon the earth.

  Both knew they were fables, but as they passed into evening and then day again, Tathea began to see a new vision of all things. Words in the Book which she had not understood were lit with a clarity that now seemed so plain she hardly knew how she could have failed to have seen it before.

  Miracles no longer seemed a manifestation of the power of God to move nature against its will, but nature itself responding to the will of the God it too loved and obeyed with a spirit purer than man’s. The greatest gift of all, the right to choose, had been given to the children of God, and with it went the terrible burden of knowledge of the law, and the power to keep or break it. The rest of creation kept the order for which it was designed and bore no guilt.

  They left the edge of the forest and climbed upward into a bare, steep land where the mountains were jagged against the sky and great rivers plunged from cliff edges and disappeared into a roaring void. The wind was harsh and clean, and when it blew from the west it carried a dark, bitter aroma of salt and weed. This was Kharkheryll, one of the last strongholds left of the Flamens, where imperial power had never reached.

  Immerith continued to teach Tathea, and she learned a new kind of respect for him, unlike anything she had felt for anyone else. He lived close to the earth and loved it as if it too were a living thing, capable of passion and pain, and its beauty was not accidental but full of purpose and intense, fragile joy which must be nurtured by those who would share it.

  Still she had not spoken of her own beliefs, and he had not asked her. Once or twice over the fire in the evenings she had caught his dark eyes watching her, and he had seemed on the edge of speech; then the moment had died, and she had said nothing. She had promised that she would listen to him, and she had been abundantly rewarded, not with a new faith, but with an immeasurably deeper understanding of her own.

  “What about the law?” she asked him as they walked together up a steep path over the rise of one of the great, bare mountains of Kharkheryll. The wind was colder here, and the heather was dark amid the burning bronze of the bracken. It was a land of merciless and terrible beauty, like a great truth, scouring the soul.

  He looked at her once, turning his face to the light, then strode forward again, answering her. “The greater law is kept by eternity. We do not administer it. If a man or woman commits sin, they step out of unity with the earth. That is punishment greater than any pain man could inflict upon them, and we cannot save them from it.”

  As the words came from his lips, she knew it was truth. It was in the heart of the Book; she simply had not understood it.

  They walked in silence for a while, feeling the spring of the turf beneath their feet and watching an eagle soar into the great sweep of the wind-dragged sky.

  “What of the lesser law?” she asked him at last.

  “That we must answer to on earth,” he replied. “If a man wrongs his neighbor or his neighbor’s beasts or his lands or that which is common to all, then he must answer to the council of the priests, who will judge him. If it were not so then the weak would have no protection from those who would abuse the strength or the skill they have been given. The ignorant or thoughtless would not learn, and mistakes would serve no purpose.”

  “That sounds like the law of the Book!” The words were out before she thought, or remembered her promise.

  Immerith stopped and turned to look at her, surprise in his face. “Does it? Is not man the master of the earth in your faith?”

  “He should not be,” she answered instantly. “To be truly lord means to be protector and lover of the earth, to guard it from violation, to nurture its vulnerability, and to take joy in its beauty.” She dropped her voice in amazement at the understanding illuminating her mind. “Truly to be in the keeping of God is to serve. Nothing gives you the right to hurt needlessly. Why should you wish to, unless there is a darkness inside you where there should be light? How could one ever imagine holiness while thinking of pleasure in any creature’s pain?”

  “One could not,” he answered softly. “Perhaps there is something of God in you after all.”

  She kept her peace as they walked eastward again, but her mind was filled with thoughts, and she knew that in time he would ask her.

  They were in the open, rolling land beyond Hirioth when at last he did. “I too keep my word,” he said. “Tell me of this Book.” He did not look at her, but she knew he was listening and his heart was open to hear.

  They walked steadily, Casper still a step behind at her shoulder, and she told him of Asmodeus’s argument with God, and all that was planned for the soul of man.

  Sometimes he debated with her, requiring her to clarify, to explain, and as she did so she found her own understanding enlarged. She saw quite dazzlingly, as if in a shaft of light, how one thing enhanced another, how every law was magnified by its reflection in others.

  “Yet it is unreconciled,” he said at last as they passed into the wide sweep of lowlands towards the eastern shore. “The workmanship of God’s hands,” he gestured at the broad earth and the sweeping skies around them, “has been violated, ignored, or abused by His children and His heirs. How can those who have kept their first estate abide the injustice of the greatest of all glories, the blazing stars of joy, being given to the one creature who has broken commandment after commandment? It defies all you have said, and I cannot believe it.” At last he looked at her, and his eyes were fierce and searching, and she knew in that moment that he hungered for an answer of truth, a right and pure answer, more than for the breath of life.

  “They could not,” she said quietly. There was no sound but the wind whispering and shivering in the grass and the far crying of birds overhead. “God Himself has said He cannot break the law, He cannot defy justice or He would cease to be God.” She hesitated, then spoke with a certainty lik
e a white fire inside her.

  “An atonement must be made for the outrage of worlds. If it were not, then Asmodeus would challenge God and chaos would reign. The universe of spirit would crumble into darkness. Light itself would be dead, light of the mind, the heart, the soul. Unruled by law, the fabric of creation would decay and life cease. In his fall into oblivion, Asmodeus would take all existence with him.”

  Immerith nodded slowly, the wind tugging at his hair, the sweet smell of grass around them. He waited, such hope in his eyes as kindles the stars.

  “There was a beloved Son, of whom God spoke,” she said, “who lived on another world from ours, in such a way that he might answer the law and redeem worlds without number. I do not know how He did it, only that He did. I cannot touch such a thing with the furthest reaches of my imagination, but I know that it is so.” She looked into his eyes. “I cannot give you my certainty. But if you ask God yourself, He will cause you to know it. You will feel a fire of warmth inside your heart, a radiance, and a great peace, and it will be the voice of God.”

  “I will do it,” he said, then started to walk again, and he spoke no more all that day.

  The day after, they reached the eastern shore. They stood above the long, low sea line, the sunlight and the salt wind in their hair. Great cloud racks stretched across the endless sky. The breakers roared white up the sand, the scent of late lupins was almost gone. Birds wheeled and plunged above them, their cries clear above the thunder of the sea.

  Immerith turned from the horizon and looked at her. “What you have told me is the greatest of all truths,” he said softly. “Greater than this world. It is for all creatures, everything that moves and breathes and has life, for every rock and star in worlds beyond all the stars we can see or dream of. I shall keep it, and teach it to as many as will listen to me.” He hesitated. “I would wish you well, but you walk the path of God; there is nothing for me to add or to give.”

  “You have given me much,” she answered him truthfully. “Wisdom, love of the earth, and knowledge of how to live with it in peace. And you have given me friendship.”

  “I return to my people,” he said. “I must tell them they are the heirs of God, and if we are just and faithful to His way, then He will answer all our hopes and fill the emptiness we have not dared name.” He held out his hand, his eyes never leaving hers.

  She took it, held it for a moment, felt the warmth of him; then before the parting could gouge too deep or leave a silence for words that were not needed, she turned and mounted Casper and rode west again and south to find Tugomir. She would share with him the higher law of stewardship of the earth, and perhaps also a glimpse she had seen of an act at the heart of time and space upon which all things rested.

  She found Tugomir in high spirits. News of her coming had traveled ahead of her, and he was waiting for her where the track widened towards the village. He still looked at odds with the forest, dressed in clothes of island fabric but worn as if they were Shinabari.

  Tathea smiled. She had been gone two months, and he still hated the forest just as much. It was there in his tight muscles, the way his narrow body hunched, the little grunt he gave, and the startled look of distaste as a bright weasel ran across the path.

  “Tugomir!”

  He swiveled round to see her and his face lit with joy.

  “Ta-Thea!” He came forward, his dark eyes bright. “Are you well? Did you find the Flamens? How are you? Did they listen? Here ...” He held up his hand to help her dismount, even though they were five hundred yards from the village yet.

  She slid down. “I am well, and so are you, I can see it. Yes, I found the Flamens, and I have much to tell you, all of it good. Tell me of the people here. Are they progressing? They must be, from your face!”

  “Oh yes!” he said eagerly, falling in step beside her, but carefully keeping her between himself and the horse. “They are most excellent people—diligent, quick to learn, and obedient to the commandments as soon as they understand them. I can easily see why the desert prophet spoke of them as those who will believe the Word and carry the light even when all other nations are plunged in darkness.” Unconsciously he was increasing his pace, waving his hands in his enthusiasm. “They have a most noble spirit.” He smiled with a rare flash of self-deprecating humor. “I can even say in honesty that I am glad I came here!”

  Tathea laughed at him and clasped his arm. “You have done excellently well, my friend. I am very glad you came too. And I have much to tell you myself.”

  He colored fiercely and stared straight ahead, flinching as a small animal stirred in the undergrowth close by.

  That evening Tathea sat with Garran and the other men and women of the village and listened to them talk. The change in the pattern of their lives was apparent in their obedience to the laws and teachings of the Book, their reverence for all they grasped of it. There was a dignity in them which was greater than before, a decorum in the young women, a lack of violence or hasty and ugly language among the younger men, a greater respect for each other. Now there was a willingness to share one man’s plenty with another’s need. But overshadowing and exceeding everything else was their love of Tugomir. His words were repeated with reverence as if they were holy. He was obeyed to the letter.

  She sat up late by lamp and firelight, wrapped in warm blankets of fleece, and told Tugomir something of Immerith and the beginning of what he had taught her. Tugomir listened avidly, seeking to understand it all.

  Long after midnight she went to her bed happy and deeply at peace in the certainty of their striving, and for Tugomir in his labor and his success.

  The following day she observed the same. It was not until the third day when a sudden crisis emerged, a moral decision between two men who differed over the weighing of a crop, that her joy slipped away like water between her fingers.

  It was Garran’s judgment to make, and he stood confused.

  One of the disputants glared at him. “He weighted the scale!” he charged, jerking his elbow at his neighbor.

  “He said the gleanings were mine!” the other responded furiously. “That was our agreement when I lent him my ox.”

  “Gleanings!” the first shouted at him. “You have half the crop there!”

  Garran looked from one to the other, apparently unable to make a decision as to what he should do.

  “I must ask Tugomir,” he said resolutely, then turned to see where he was.

  Tathea realized with horror that because Tugomir had not told him what to do, he was at a loss. The forest people had been taught rules, and they were obedient. They did not understand the principles which governed them. It was Tugomir they loved, and Tugomir they were following. No spark had been lit within them that would burn if he left. The true fire of the Book would remain alight even if heaven and earth were washed away and a man stood alone against the darkness.

  She must resolve Garran’s distress, and without humiliating him. She walked forward.

  “Do you know both those men well?” she asked him.

  “Oh yes!” he said quickly.

  “Perhaps if you consider their stewardship of the land, the needs of their families, and what has been shared in years past, you will know for yourself what judgment is wise and just. Maybe a surplus from the crop could be kept in a storehouse against the needs of the old or the sick.”

  Garran’s face cleared with relief. “That is excellent! Yes, yes, I’ll do that. Thank you!”

  The other two men looked at her, ill-satisfied but recognizing a finality in her voice and aware that Garran was set to obey her.

  How could she tell Tugomir? She sat by the evening fire and watched the tenderness and the pride in his face as he listened to a young man express his belief in the Book and his commitment to live by its precepts all his life. “I know it is the truth!” he said passionately. “I covenant with God to seek His way in all I say or do, in all I think, and in all I am. What I possess in His, lent to me to share and to magnify in
the service of all life, and above all in the love of my fellow beings.” He looked at Tugomir, and Tugomir smiled and nodded his approval and his joy.

  Another stood up and also promised all he was or should be in the love of God, again turning to Tugomir before he sat down, his eyes wide and clear, his face burning with innocence.

  Tathea sat among them and yet apart, the ache inside her growing till it blotted out all else. They seemed strangers, and this was an alien place. She was far from home. Her legs were singed before the heat and her back cold. She was not one of them. They believed she was. Their eyes looked at her with friendliness, no suspicion that in an hour she was going to shatter their comfort.

  She could not look at Tugomir. She remembered his instant loyalty in front of Azrub, his unquestioning courage. He had sacrificed everything he possessed, which was a great deal, and endured physical hardship, which had cost him dearly. He was uncomfortable and afraid most of the time, and yet he did not complain. Even when she had laughed at him, he had borne it with stoic graciousness. If she closed her eyes she could see his hunched shoulders in the rain and cold.

  After the others were gone and she and Tugomir were alone by the fire, she told him of Garran’s indecision.

  “I should have been there,” he said immediately. Then he looked at her with furrowed brow. “They are not evil men, just quick-tempered and afraid of the hardships of winter. Fuel and grain are vital to them. Without sufficient they will die.” His own face in the firelight reflected his horror of the season to come. His voice was raw with the dread of it.

  “I know.” She looked away from him, down at her hands. “It is not like Shinabar, except perhaps that we would have been as afraid of the heat. We might have fought over shade and water.” She stopped. How could she say it without hurting him?

  There was no way.

  “Garran waited for you to tell him ...”

  “He is eager not to do wrong!”

  She looked up. “You have taught them obedience, Tugomir, and they love you. It shines in their faces. They want to please you, and that is a mark of their respect for all that you say and do. You are like a father to them.”