Instead he went straight to what hurt and asked, “Why should Alakar wish to poison me? Am I so terrible? Did she think it pleasanter to murder me than to wed me?"
Poor baby, what a blow to his ego.
I said, “The magician said it was probably a potion to make you sleep for several days. I don't think she wanted to kill you."
Nance added, “Ober believed Stargazer's powers could protect you. I think what she really wanted was time to get rid of Stargazer. Then when you woke, she would wed you to Alakar and take over the rule of the city."
"Take the city from me? I would not allow that!"
"You watched Alakar put a potion in your cup and then you drank it,” Nance said, smiling sweetly at him. “Anyone else would only have pretended to drink, clever cousin."
Tarvik glowered at us. “I should have banished you with Alakar,” he sputtered. “Besides, what you say cannot be so. How could Ober plan to rule when she knows my father will return by springtime?"
I wondered about that, too. Plus I'd had a vision of Kovat in some strange place, unconscious or dead. No point telling Tarvik about that. Still, I had a few questions. “Would Erlan turn against his brother?"
Nance sucked in her breath.
Tarvik stared at me, eyes wide. “He could not! Kovat is a far greater warrior than Erlan!"
"Erlan won't need to fight if he can use Ober's poisons."
Tarvik jumped to his feet and stood over me. I resigned myself to being grabbed by the arm and dragged somewhere. Instead, he only shook his fists in the air and shouted, “You lie, Stargazer! Your circles and your stars lie, also!"
"The stars don't say Erlan wants to kill Kovat. They only show Ober has a whole lot of wicked in her. I don't know what's coming."
He paced at the edge of the fire glow, where his pale hair caught the light. He wouldn't look at us or speak to us. Even Nance didn't want to taunt him now. If I was right, and Erlan poisoned Kovat, Ober's banishment had gained us a month or two longer to live, no more. We all knew Tarvik's men were no match for Erlan's army. If Erlan wanted to capture the city, its only defense was a small number of faithful temple and castle guards.
Unable to find a reply, Tarvik stopped his pacing and ran out of the courtyard.
"He will not sleep tonight,” Nance said.
"No."
"But I will. Erlan or no, I would have to stick my fingers in my eyes to keep them open. And if I judge my cousin rightly, he will be pounding on our gate again at daybreak."
Nance was wrong. Tarvik didn't wait for daybreak. A short time after she went to her room to sleep, while I stirred the last embers of our fire and tried to figure out what to do, Tarvik returned. He spoke as though he had never left, without greeting or explanation.
As soon as I closed the gate behind him, he said, “Tomorrow you must draw your circles and find a way for me to save my city."
"Me? Why do you think I can do that?"
"You drew your circles and knew what Ober planned and how to save me, did you not?"
"The magician knew how to save you, Tarvik."
"Yes, but you knew to seek the magician. There. And you were right. You will look again and your stars will show you what I must do,” he insisted, frowning at me.
"Okay, I'll look, but I can't promise to find an answer."
His agitation rose. “My father knew your powers were greater than the powers of Thunder or Ober. I know he was right about you. If your stars tell me how to save my city, I will reward you with more than gifts. I will build you a castle and you will have your own guards and slaves."
I was too surprised to reply. He pivoted on his heel and marched back out of the courtyard, and as I pushed the gate closed, I saw his guard waiting for him. Artur, who always acted as though I were invisible, gave me a quick smile, completely unnerving me.
A castle, power, and my own army of quaking servants and all I needed to do was figure out a way to defeat Erlan's army. Otherwise, we would all very probably be dead.
This nightmare just didn't want to stop.
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Chapter 16
With a flaming stick from the fire I burned a circle into Nance's largest wooden table.
"Scream away, child,” I muttered as I worked. “If I paint my circle, you forget and wash it away. If I mark it in the courtyard soil, you forget and run through it, rubbing it out. Order the servants to build you another table. This one is mine."
"But it belongs to the temple! It is sacred!"
As I had already told her what I had to do, I didn't bother to argue. The difficulty of my assignment helped shut out the noise of her complaints, until she gave up scolding and wandered off to clean her temple lamps.
Next to the circle I burned rows of straight lines I could use to set up new charts. Couldn't believe it myself, that I was trying to chart stars from their remembered placements last summer, without the aid of an ephemeris or even the simplest of writing materials.
I sighed and settled to the task. Throughout the past month I had thought I could miss nothing more than I missed the city and my own little house. Now all I wanted was a supply of ink and paper. I'd even be happy with a cup filled with crayolas like they give kids in restaurants.
I stretched my arms above my head to relieve the tension in my back. Nance watched me, frowning.
"Nance,” I said, “tell me this. Why has Tarvik's guard Artur suddenly decided to smile at me?"
"You saved his life and he knows it."
"What!"
"Artur knows we hid Tarvik here in the temple, saving him from Ober. He doesn't know how we managed it and may not care. What matters to Artur is this. If Kovat returned and found his son dead, Artur would be dead, too. Painfully."
The more I heard of their customs, the more my head ached. I bent again over the charts, had another idea.
"How old is the castle?” I asked.
"I don't know. It's always been here."
"What about the temple?"
"Ah. It was built by Kovat's grandfather for the god of Thunder and I do know how old it is because Kovat said he was cleansing away sixty years of false gods when he dedicated it to the Daughter of the Sun. That was fifteen years ago."
"So he didn't build the temple for the Daughter?"
"No. He added on my rooms. Actually, he originally built them for the Daughter and her consort to live in. And he had those paintings done on the wall. He probably did other things, but that's all I know."
Toss in a chart for one seventy-five year old temple, remodeled fifteen years ago, I decided.
"How long has Kovat's line ruled?"
"You sound like Kovat. He asks questions like that, to see if Tarvik and I are paying attention."
"And the answer is?"
"About two hundred years."
I moved a pebble backwards around Tarvik's horoscope 200 degrees. He was the last of the line and so it might give some small hint. As Erlan and Kovat would be under the same influences, I did the same with their charts. And, oh, yes, I added Alakar, the only other direct descendant.
And then, after painful hours of concentration, did that ingrate Tarvik thank me? I drew all those horoscopes, did recessions rather than progressions, studied the incomplete information from which I had to work until my head pounded, and finally saw a pattern.
I told him what I saw.
"You wish me to do what?” His low voice was more terrifying than Kovat's roar.
If only I could have delayed the magician long enough to learn a few of his tricks. Nothing less than a chart bursting into yellow smoke would impress Tarvik.
I said, “I can only tell you what the stars say. I can't change their messages."
"Then you have heard them wrongly."
Talking to illiterates did odd things to my vocabulary and left me with even odder images. No point telling him I read the charts because the word read had no meaning for him. So instead, I was left with this image of myself standing outdoor
s in the dark of the night chatting with stars.
He had sent for me and had me escorted to Kovat's private courtyard, one of many tucked between rooms and wings of the sprawling castle. He ordered his guards to wait outside its walls. I wondered if he did that so they would not overhear us or so they would not see him sit on Kovat's raised chair. He hunched forward, his elbows jammed into the fur-padded arms of the chair, his chin propped on his joined hands. Was that how Kovat would have looked with twenty years of battle scars removed?
"What other choices do you have?” I asked him. “You don't have enough guards to make up any sort of army. You can't stop Erlan's army."
"We can defend the castle."
"And let Erlan's men march through the city murdering all those people who live outside the castle walls? What good is that? You would have no one to rule. More than that, with all your servants dead, do you plan to learn to shepherd your flocks and scrub your floors yourself?"
Tarvik's lower lip jutted out. He blew out a sharp breath that lifted his yellow hair from his forehead.
I continued, “Nance is angry because I drew charts on her table and you are angry because I told you what they say. I think I am going to confine my tasks to templekeeping until Erlan enslaves us all."
His eyebrows drew together and his expression turned from anger to doubt to sorrow. I waited. He did not want to ask and I did not want to answer.
"Do your stars say my father is dead?” he asked softly.
I wished I was a better liar. No matter what I or anyone else thought of Kovat, it was clear Tarvik loved him.
"I have bent over Kovat's horoscope until my head aches. All I know is this, his stars and those of his brother cross violently in the House of Death at the winter solstice. It looks like only one of them will return alive."
"He should have taken me with him."
"And what could you have done? If Erlan can poison Kovat, he can poison you, Tarvik."
"So instead, your stars tell you I must move my whole city."
"Yes. If we leave while Venus aspects your sun, Jupiter will help. You can settle your people in a far valley. If your father returns, you can bring everyone back safely. If it is Erlan who returns, he needs to find an empty city and empty storerooms."
"Am I to run and hide forever from my uncle? The water supply here is good and the winter grazing, too. And these are my lands. No, I will not leave. Search your stars for another answer."
There was no other answer. Although we argued again at each meeting, and I studied the horoscopes again after each argument, Tarvik knew I was right. If Kovat lived, fine. Otherwise, the survival of everyone depended on evacuating the city.
I sat by candlelight and decided to again touch a chart. Sure, at first my reaction to Ober's chart was maybe caused by my dislike of her. But then she drugged Tarvik and proved me right. The evil in her heart was as bad as bad got, more terrible than any vision I ever imagined. I never again wanted to feel the cold absence of a heartbeat and I didn't want to know what happened to the deathwalker.
I don't go looking for horror, am not one of those people who watch gross-out films on late night TV. If Kovat's heart was as black as Ober's heart, I didn't want to know.
I thought of a thousand reasons to avoid seeking truth. Then, with my eyes closed to shut out distractions, I placed the palm of my hand over the sun in Kovat's natal chart.
Nothing. No warmth, no chill, no heartbeat. Enough. I wasn't going to try again. If Kovat lived, he'd be back before Tarvik had to make a decision.
As winter moved slowly across the mountains, trailing thin sheets of snow behind cold winds, the people packed up their households. They didn't argue and they didn't whine. They just followed Tarvik's orders.
"They move with their flocks to follow the grasslands,” Nance explained. “They are used to packing up their households."
Tarvik added, “If Erlan brings his army, he will count on finding us here to re-supply his troops. We will leave him nothing but empty storerooms."
This was what he said on his more sensible days. Other days he rushed around our courtyard complaining and waving his hands, then grabbing me to question me, his hard grip leaving bruises on my arms.
"What good does this do?” he demanded. “My uncle will not be fooled by an empty city! He will follow us. Are we to run forever? Stargazer, I would rather stay here and fight."
He had grown older, fiercer, his brow constantly drawn forward above his eyes in a scowl that reminded me of Kovat. He was no longer the boy whose hand I'd bitten to teach him manners. All I could do was run away to my room in the temple.
He sent me a gold bracelet as an apology, which I gave to Nance to add to her temple ornaments. Then I made him wait a day before again opening the courtyard gates to him.
Although I had little hope, Tarvik was not ready to believe his father was dead.
He constantly said, “Erlan could never trick Kovat."
Waiting was almost unbearable. Each day we watched for a scout from Kovat's army, wishing for good news and expecting bad news. When neither came, patience disintegrated into quick tempers and stupid arguments. I tried to think of ways to calm Tarvik because I didn't want him making snap decisions.
So I made a point of inviting him to join me, to spend more time talking, less time thinking.
"Come sit by the fire,” I'd say, and we wrapped ourselves in sheepskins and furs against the winter cold, and I turned the talk to nothing of importance. He needed company and he needed to have some time away from his worries.
Tarvik liked to sit yoga-fashion, his legs crossed with his feet tucked under his outspread knees, warming his hands around a mug of heated mead.
"Tell me about this star magic you do. Who are the stars? How do they speak to you? Are they your gods, then?” he asked.
Okay, where could I start to explain Homer and all the other poets? Besides, he believed in a Sun god and a pantheon of other gods, most connected to weather phenomena.
Nah. It would take years to get through that lesson and I was planning on leaving as soon as I figured out where somebody'd hidden the exit.
Instead I tossed him a bit of palmistry. “I don't know why the stars leave messages, they just do. Here, give me your hand. See that line? That's your heart line and that's your head line and they are so close together, I think your heart rules your head."
"Is that good or bad?"
Was there an answer? For a warrior, probably thinking with his head was more important.
"It makes you a good friend,” I said.
Once I questioned him about the Daughter and her consort. He said, “They were very clever about some things. They knew how to heal injuries. But they knew nothing about the mountains and kept asking if I could show them the path to the outlands."
"Is there a path to the outlands?"
"That's what death is."
"Tarvik! I came from the outlands, you said so yourself. Do I look dead?"
He touched my hand, grinned and said, “You don't feel dead."
Another time, when his mood was as stormy as the night sky and I could not even interest him in stories, I tried another approach. Although he liked to hear me talk, he liked even better to have a listener.
"Tell me what you know of the lifedrainers,” I said.
His brow smoothed and he smiled at my question.
"Tales,” he said. “Something to frighten Nance with when we were small."
"So there is no such thing?"
"I didn't say that."
"Are there?"
He set his mug down on the ground, leaned back on his hands and stared into the embers. “Umm. I know of no one who has seen them. But the shepherds believe in them. So does Kovat, who fears nothing, and so does Erlan, who is terrified of them. My father told me once he left Erlan tied to a tree in the forest and told him the lifedrainers would eat him. They were small boys. He did it as a prank. Erlan was so terrified he bit and tore his way free and was covered with
scratches and blood by the time he found his way home."
"A story to make you glad you never had an older brother,” I said. “Does Kovat often tell you stories?"
He frowned. “He is gone often and when he is here, he is surrounded by others."
"Okay, explain these lifedrainers to me. Nance believes in them."
"Nance believes anything. About the lifedrainers I know little except that they are large and have wings. I always thought they sounded like giant bats. I might believe in giant bats, but in creatures who can change their shape or disappear? I would have to see them to believe them and I never have."
"I would rather not see them or believe them,” I said.
He grinned at me. “A girl who is afraid of horses isn't going to like giant bats."
Now what sort of story could I make up about giant bats, I wondered, and as I hurried through the following day, I let my imagination play with the idea. But I never had a chance to tell him that story.
Our short but pleasant evenings by the courtyard fire ended in despair.
Although Tarvik's scouts found a sheltered valley two days walk from the city, in the direction of the high plains where Nance loved to camp on her secret outings, we agreed that everyone would stay put as long as possible. There was way too much cold and hunger involved in an evacuation. Until the choice came down to get killed or run, we'd wait.
Scouts watched from higher ground for the returning army. They could reach the castle on their horses in one day, a distance that would take four days for a marching army. That would give us enough time to evacuate.
"These plans are for nothing,” Tarvik complained. “My father will return and he will be furious when he finds his whole city disrupted."
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