Emberverse 08: The Tears of the Sun

by S. M. Stirling

  “Speaking of which, witch . . . it’s time for a talk about religion.”

  “And you’d rather pull your toenails out with your teeth,” Delia observed, and then gurgled laughter at her start. “I’d be a very unobservant witch if I didn’t know you well after fifteen years, love. You don’t just let sleeping dogs lie, you prefer to bury them and plant a tree on the grave. For someone so brave you can be so chicken sometimes.”

  Tiphaine knelt on the rug and extended her right hand, twitching back the fall of the houppelande. The overlong cuff on her shirt slid up, exposing the seamed pucker of white on the back of her right hand. Delia’s face went pale, throwing the spray of freckles across her cheeks into high relief. She gasped as she pulled it across her lap for a better look.

  “Why haven’t you shown it to me?” demanded Delia, bending the hand and carefully tracing the length of the scar. “What happened! You were talking about idiots and then keeping this secret?”

  “I was afraid it was a danger to you . . . and Heuradys,” Tiphaine said, which halted Delia’s tirade in midword. “And it was. Dangerous to you and her; which means I was entirely justified; plus reasons of state. Mary Liu did this.”

  “What? In person?”

  “With her embroidery needle.”

  Tiphaine winced again at her look; this time it was her professional vanity that twinged. It was rather like a wolf confessing to a rabbit bite on the buttocks.

  “With a sewing needle?”

  Delia’s callused finger tips stroked the length of the scar. Her strong fingers turned the sword-hand towards the light. Tiphaine nodded grimly.

  Great. We could be running around the bed playing The Lustful Knight and the Innocent Country Maid and what are we doing? Discussing wounds and prisoners in Fen House.

  “I don’t think it actually scratched the skin, just ran down it . . . but by the time I walked back down the stairs it was a welt and it was hurting. It got badly infected and I wouldn’t let anybody touch it. Mary said, Bad cess to you and yours, and I believe that she meant what she said and knew what would happen. That’s magic, Delia. Real magic!”

  Delia didn’t look any calmer, and her grip on Tiphaine’s hand was hurting. “Damned right, that’s magic! Why didn’t you get help! What did you do? Why haven’t you . . .”

  “I went to BD. You know, of the Kyklos.”

  “Oh.” A hesitation. “I’m . . . well, she is a witch, I know that. I’ve met her, of course. And a good field-competent healer. I just wish . . .”

  “I know. If it had been an ordinary wound, I would have come to you.”

  Tiphaine gently put a forefinger over Delia’s parted lips. “Sweetheart, listen. This is very hard for me to talk about.”

  Delia closed her mouth, let go of her hand and walked over to the crib in the corner. She picked up the sleeping Heuradys and held her close. “I’ll be quiet, but you’d better tell me everything!”

  Tiphaine nodded. “Gods do live and walk among us and . . . I don’t believe in the Christian god, His son or His mother.”

  “They’re real enough,” Delia observed—not enthusiastically, but readily; her arms cradled the infant and she stroked a cheek.

  “Yes, they’re real. Oh, what my mother would have given to hear me say it! But I don’t . . .”

  “I understand. Actually it’s probably your mother’s fault you don’t like them, after she tried to force-feed you. That’s just not how your heart inclines. But now you want someone you can believe in, a guardian and pillar. Of course that means They must want you.”

  Delia kissed Heuradys and the baby stirred. She frowned as she put her back in the crib and turned to Tiphaine.

  “I’m not going to yell . . . but there’s a very big yell in me. Why didn’t you go to Mount Angel or the main hospital in Portland, or Bethany? BD may be a witch, but she’s not a doctor. Good field-grade healer, but not a professional, at that.”

  She went over to the sideboard and pulled out the stopper of the brandy, reaching for a glass.

  Tiphaine sighed.

  “Mostly because I just let the infection get worse and worse. I was doing stupid things to it, too. At Bethany they told me I nearly lost the hand. I think . . . what Mary Liu did to me may have made me act that way; pushed me to be . . . even more stubborn than I am naturally. Like a budo move, a come-with, using your opponent’s strength against them.”

  “Lost the hand?”

  Delia handed a brandy and soda to her and took a long pull on her own drink. Then she coughed and choked and coughed again.

  “It looks a lot easier when you or Rigobert do it!”

  Tiphaine had to laugh at Delia’s disgusted expression.

  “We get hardened to it. You’ve never drunk much and that must have gone straight to your head.”

  Delia peered at her glass and then set it carefully on the sideboard.

  “It did,” she observed. “I don’t think I need any more, or I won’t be able to have this conversation with you . . . BD is Apollo’s priestess. But I think you’ d be better with a Goddess. There are many different pantheons—”

  “Greek,” said Tiphaine. “I don’t know too much about them, but I think they’re the ones I could put up with. And vice versa!”

  “Why?” Delia asked.

  “Because of the Olympics. I dreamed about it so long . . . used to have actual dreams about Olympia.”

  “There’s Artemis the Virgin Huntress.”

  “No,” Tiphaine said thoughtfully.

  I’m actually feeling better about this. If it has to be done, do it right. And remember those eyes looking at you at Fen House. I know when I need a friend who can operate in the same league! Poor Sandra again; she just couldn’t do this. Well, she’s got me.

  Aloud, she went on: “No, I like hunting, but it’s not what I am and I’m definitely not a virgin. I’m . . . I’m a warrior. I’m fighting for my home, the people who depend on me. For you and the kids.”

  “Athena,” Delia said firmly. “Though she is a virgin too, I’m afraid. But she’s a war Goddess.”

  “I thought Ares was the Greek God of war?”

  “Ares is a God of frenzy; he drives men to battle and reaps them like grain on a bloody field. Achilles was His, and died young and childless and alone, trading length of days for everlasting fame. Athena is the defender of the polis, of art and skill, including the art of war. Odysseus had Her for a patron; the man of cunning mind who wanted nothing to do with Troy, but who ended the Trojan war and spent ten years scheming and fighting to get home to his wife and son so that he could end his days among his own people, by Penelope’s side.”

  “That sounds a lot better than Mr. Frenzy.”

  Delia nodded soberly: “Athena gave Her people the olive and the high fortress that was their strength; she carries a spear and a shield and a tall crested helm. Her symbol is the owl, for wisdom and clever plans. And . . .”

  Delia looked at her, blue eyes suddenly a little laughing as they met her glacier-colored ones.

  “And?”

  “And she was the Gray-Eyed One.”

  Tiphaine found herself laughing. There weren’t many people she did that easily with, and only one when anything serious was happening.

  “It’s a natural.”

  “Then, let us go on a journey . . .”

  Somehow they had reversed positions and Tiphaine was lying in Delia’s arms, not vice versa, and she was feeling lazy and floaty; much more pleasantly than when it had been fever induced.

  Delia’s voice ran on, like a spring wind through the treetops, while you lay and looked up and made stories in the clouds.

  “And Ouranos wed Gaia . . . Metis was swallowed by fearful Zeus and their daughter Athena who was born from the bloody head . . .”

  Umbrella pines growing twisted on a rocky headland with asphodel blooming beneath them, a sea dark purple stretching to a horizon of islands. Sails, and a white froth where the oars stroked and the water curled back
from a bronze ram. The smell of dry spicy dust and the taste of wine; a tower of rock and the gleam of marble atop it and the scent of incense. Water-broken light glittering on a great helmed form, ivory and gold, the shield leaned against her knee with the contorted Gorgon face and Victory poised in Her palm, up and up to the calmness like stars in her eyes. Chanted prayer and the music of the aulos. A bull with golden horns pacing to the altar before robed and flower-garlanded maidens who lifted a great embroidered cloth in their hands and sang . . .

  Tiphaine came to herself with a start and looked up at Delia’s face hanging over her and blinked.

  “You witched me!” she said.

  “Not so much,” said Delia with a smile, and kissed her. “I relaxed you with the brandy. And then I put you in a hypnotic state; so you could hear and see the Gods as I spoke to you of them. And then She spoke.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Delia wiggled away, checked the cradle, and then propped the door to the bedchamber open so that a baby’s cry would carry through.

  “Ah, I wouldn’t know,” she said from the doorway and put the back of her hand theatrically to her forehead. “I am but an innocent country maid . . .”

  Then she turned and darted inside.

  COUNTY OF THE EASTERMARK

  CHARTERED CITY OF WALLA WALLA

  CITY PALACE OF THE COUNTS PALANTINE

  PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

  (FORMERLY SOUTHEASTERN WASHINGTON STATE)

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  AUGUST 24, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  Rigobert gave her a slight ironic look and tilt of brow. She didn’t think Count Felipe caught it, but Ermentrude did; though she wouldn’t know exactly what to make of it.

  Right, Rigobert, so I gave them a heavily edited version. They’re both good Christians; no need to shock them.

  Felipe was frowning and looking at his bandaged hand. “Did finding a spiritual patron help you with . . . with this sort of thing?” Then he snorted and laughed. “It’s really like something in a romaunt. Except that I just saw a dead man get up and fight.”

  “One of the nastier romaunts,” the Countess agreed. “And did it, my lady d’Ath? Help, that is?”

  She was afraid, but completely in control of it. Tiphaine inclined her head in respect; she knew from Delia’s pregnancies that they made emotional control more difficult.

  “Oh, yes, my lady Countess. Shortly thereafter, I was back at Fen House, on the Lady Regent’s orders, just at the end of Winter Court this year. Then—”

  INTERLACHEN PRISON

  THE NEW FOREST, CROWN DEMESNE

  (FORMERLY NORTHERN OREGON)

  PORTLAND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

  HIGH KINGDOM OF MONTIVAL

  (FORMERLY WESTERN NORTH AMERICA)

  JANUARY 8, CHANGE YEAR 25/2023 AD

  Tiphaine shook herself violently, water splattering all over the plain concrete floor from her hooded cloak of greased wool. It stank of wet lanolin, and the peculiar smell of chilly mud. There was mud spattered up her legs as well, cold and gelid, and her suit of plate armor was performing its usual miracle of being as shivering-miserable in cold weather as it was sweatingmiserable in hot. At least she could afford stainless steel, not as likely to rust. All that was familiar enough; the Black Months were like this, except when they were honestly frigid and you got snow.

  “Close behind me,” she said to her page.

  It was as close to midnight as made no matter, but the prison was awake and humming. The guards milled around in the common areas and the prisoners called to one another from their cells overlooking the panopticon. The smells were fairly rank, much worse than the last time she’d been here, and the ordinary damp winter chill was even worse than in most places. Chill moisture seemed to be flowing up from the floor into her legs, as well as leaking down her collar.

  The lamplight flickered, and somewhere a man was beating something metallic on the bars of his cell and shrieking, “It was Tom, not me! Tom! Tom did it! You’ve got to believe me! Why won’t you believe me!”

  “Oh, shut up, you silly bastard, nobody gives a damn!” a guard shouted back.

  I wish I’d had time to bring Armand or Rodard with me. Velin would have been even better! It’s not like Sandra to be hasty like this; she’s tight-stretched.

  A few of the guards were finally noticing that a high-ranking agent of the Crown was there, which was fortunate.

  For them, she thought.

  None of them seemed to know what to do about it.

  I am not a happy camper. I could be on my way back home with Delia, sitting with my feet by the fire watching Rigobert do that stupid macho trick he learned from Conrad where he cracks walnuts in his hand and then tapping one open with my dagger hilt. Instead I’m wading through a lunatic asylum in a swamp.

  Then she drew a deep breath. Gray-Eyed One, give me patience and wit.

  “Where’s Sir Stratson?” she demanded, grabbing a man by the collar.

  “He’s over there in the other block.”

  “That’s, The noble knight is over there in front of the other block, my lady Grand Constable.”

  He repeated it as she twisted the collar, raising him on his toes. From the chevrons on his sleeve, he was supposed to be a sergeant.

  “Get this place quieted down. Now.”

  She released the man and turned to the page with her; he was thirteen, and looking cold and miserable but alert, his tow hair darkened with the half sleet, half rain and sticking to his face under the steel cap.

  “Henriot, you stay here. I may send messages back to you, or you may see things . . . go very wrong. If they do, your mission is to get back to Portland. This is the code word you’d use.”

  She leaned close and made him repeat it.

  “Good. You’ll be taken immediately to the Lady Regent with that. Tell her: Nuclear meltdown. Interdict and burn. Answer any other questions she has, but that first.”

  The youngster hesitated, took a deep breath and said, “Code, then nuclear meltdown. Interdict and burn.” He walked over to a barred window and nodded. “I can see the courtyard, Grand Constable. They’ve got a lot of torches out there. I’ll wait.”

  Old for a page, but a much better choice for this mission than Mollala’s cousin.

  She’d left young Brendan Carey with the horses. Because he was very good with horses, but inclined to be reckless. A natural impulse to run towards trouble rather than away from it was good in itself, but learning to control it was hard for a pubescent boy. Henriot was serious and more naturally disciplined.

  This page-squire system has its good points and its bad. The good one is it starts them young. The bad one is that you’re pretty well stuck with them once you’ve taken them on unless you want to expend political capital offending the little rat’s kinfolk.

  The courtyard was worse than the main block. Guards jostled each other, and torches flared: pine knot torches, gas torches, lanthorns swung and the wind blew and the rain gusted past, and shadows passed gigantic and distorted on the dim rain-wet walls. Crossbowmen stood, sheltered by minimum-security prisoners holding tarps and umbrellas. Stratson was striding back and forth, issuing orders.

  Those she could catch mostly seemed to contradict each other. The rest would cause a good many deaths if anything set a light to this soggy tinder; the crossbowmen were all in each other’s fields of fire, for example, and by their uneasy glances some of them had realized it, despite the darkness and chaos and rain.

  He caught sight of Tiphaine and strode over. “My lady Grand Constable. Glad to see you. What should we do? I’m ready to fire the building.”

  Tiphaine took a deep breath. “What exactly has happened since your last dispatch, Sir Stratson?”

  He drew back and hesitated. Tiphaine looked closely at the face lit by the flickering gaslight. He was more than ever like a spooked horse as the whites of his eyes showed, rising and sinking on
the balls of his feet. His head was jerking up and down slightly, too. She didn’t remember that.

  Mary Liu, she knew. This is worse than I thought. What did Delia tell me? “You have to make them do something nice, or at least dutiful. It breaks the hold on their minds.”

  Tiphaine nodded to herself.

  “Wonderful job, Stratson, wonderful!” she said.

  She turned to the men, pitching her voice to cut through the burr of noise and the hiss of the rain.

  “Men of the guard detail! I am impressed by how well Sir Stratson has coped, and all of you. Thank you. I’m sure Sir Stratson will express his gratitude in ways that you will very much appreciate. Stay alert and maintain your present positions. Help each other stay awake. Buddy up, partner up and stay alert.”

  To Sir Stratson: “Good man!”

  She smacked him on the shoulder, gauntlet to the overlapping lames of a backplate, a genial gesture . . . and much more tactful than a slap on the face but just as likely to jar a mind out of a rut.

  “The Lady Regent and old Norman certainly knew how to pick the right man for a job that might turn deadly. Let’s go to the maximum security wing and assess the situation.”

  The horse-faced man hesitated, his shoulders slowly straightening up. He closed his toothy grimace and blinked. Tiphaine relaxed the least little bit, and Sir Stratson never knew how her hand had ghosted towards the hilt of her long sword.

  I’m no witch, but I can see this man’s come back from whatever corner of the void he was sitting in.

  The guards were quieting down too, watching their commander and the Grand Constable approach Fen House. A few of them looked around, and began shouting or pushing the others into ranks.

  Tiphaine spoke in a quiet voice, easily drowned by the hiss of the rain at a few paces:. “Something happened to you, Stratson. You had your men set up in positions that were an invitation to friendly fire, and I saw some of the guard talking with your more dangerous prisoners. Do you remember anything?”