The Golden Shrine

by Harry Turtledove

  Marcovefa stood beside Hamnet. Liv and Audun were still talking with that other priestess. A sinking feeling filled Hamnet. “Gudrid?” he asked.

  “If that is her name.” The priestess sounded impatient—and angry. “Where is she? She has gone where she is not welcome.”

  The garden courtyard had several entrances. One, of course, opened onto the outside world. Who could guess where the others led? The priests and priestesses here already knew. If they didn’t want strangers around, who could blame them? Hamnet Thyssen wouldn’t have left the courtyard without getting someone’s leave first. But Gudrid always assumed she was welcome anywhere.

  “I’m sure she meant no harm,” Hamnet said, though he wasn’t sure of any such thing. He wondered why he defended his former wife, even knowing she wouldn’t have done the same for him. The only answer he found was that the two of them belonged to the same time. He might have put in a good word for a Ruler who’d wandered away from the crowd.

  “You may be sure of that. I am not.” The priestess turned away from him and spoke to her colleagues. All of a sudden, Hamnet stopped being able to understand her. He looked over at Marcovefa. She shrugged—she couldn’t follow what the priestess was saying, either.

  An irate squawk came echoing out of one of the dark entranceways. Hamnet sighed quietly—yes, that was Gudrid. “Take your hands off me!” she said. “I didn’t do anything!”

  Two priests steered her back out into the courtyard. One had hold of each elbow. She tried to kick one of them, but his leg wasn’t there when her foot swung through. Hamnet couldn’t seen how she missed him, only that she did. He could also see that he wouldn’t have tried antagonizing those men. Their faces warned—warned him, anyway—they had no patience for foolishness.

  The priestess gestured. The two priests let go. Gudrid came forward all the same. Plainly, she didn’t want to. As plainly, she had no choice. “I didn’t do anything!” she repeated, louder this time.

  “Why did you go off where you had no business going?” the priestess asked in a voice like beaten bronze.

  Gudrid looked innocent. She did it very well—certainly well enough to have fooled Hamnet before. That made him distrust it now. “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to,” she said, wide-eyed. “I was just looking around.”

  “Is that so?” the priestess said.

  “By God, it is!” Gudrid’s eyes got wider and more innocent-seeming than ever.

  Beside Hamnet, Marcovefa stirred. He thought he knew why. He wouldn’t have used God’s name in this place, not if there was the slightest chance he might be forsworn. With Gudrid, as heartache had taught him, there was always that chance.

  Gudrid’s right hand went to one of the pouches on her belt. Her expression changed from innocent to horrified—she didn’t want that hand doing any such thing. It opened the pouch even so. What her hand took from it was a jewel on a chain. The chain was of some silvery metal, but Hamnet didn’t think it was silver. The jewel might have been an opal, but was more brilliant and shed more coruscating rainbows of light than any opal he’d ever imagined. He could see why Gudrid would have admired it. That she’d been rash enough to take it appalled him.

  “Did you bring this into the Golden Shrine?” the priestess asked, surely knowing the answer already.

  Gudrid made a ghastly attempt to smile as she shook her head. “N-No,” she said; not even she, with all her gall, could keep her voice from wobbling.

  “How did it end up in your belt pouch, then?”

  “I . . .” Gudrid paused. I just grabbed it because I liked the way it looked wouldn’t do. She did manage to put a better face on it than that: “I wanted a little something to remember the Golden Shrine by.”

  “A little something?” The priestess raised an eyebrow. “Do you have any idea what you stole?” She gestured. The jewel in Gudrid’s hand flared bright as the sun. Gudrid squawked. Hamnet wondered if it burned her. Evidently not. She showed no pain. “Do you?” the priestess repeated.

  Hamnet noticed the woman didn’t say what it was or how important it was. In a place like this, even such a marvel might be no more than a toy. He wondered whether Gudrid was too flustered to see that.

  He suspected she might be. “I—I meant no harm,” she quavered. He would have pitied her. Even knowing what he knew, he would have. He disliked himself because that was true, which didn’t mean he could help it.

  The look the priestess gave her made the Glacier seem warm. “Do you recall what you heard when you came in here?” the gold-robed woman asked.

  “Nobody told me not to go looking at things.” Even now, Gudrid tried to rally. She said something obviously true, something which also pulled attention away from the sorry truth that she hadn’t just looked.

  It didn’t work. Hamnet hadn’t thought it would. Maybe Gudrid hadn’t, either, but she’d tried. The priestess’ voice, though, remained implacable: “No. That is not what I meant. No one leaves the Golden Shrine with more than he—or she—brings to it. Did you hear that?”

  “I didn’t think you were talking about things.” Gudrid tossed her head. “I thought you people meant spiritual silliness.”

  “Spiritual? Material? Under the One Stone, what is the difference?” the priestess said. Count Hamnet had never heard that name for God before. The priestess went on, “We meant what we said. We commonly do. And so you will take no more away than you brought.”

  A priest strode up to Gudrid. She handed him the jewel and the chain. He made them disappear; Hamnet couldn’t quite see how.

  The priestess pointed her forefinger at Gudrid. She murmured something in a tongue Hamnet didn’t understand. Gudrid’s eyes went blank. A look of idiocy spread across her face. Eyvind Torfinn cried out in anguish. In his own way, he had to love her.

  “She will never remember anything of her time here,” the priestess said. “Never. Nor may she ever return. That is her punishment.” Face softening slightly, she spoke to Earl Eyvind: “She will regain her wits, such as they are, when she leaves this place. Be thankful the Golden Shrine knows mercy, even for those who may not deserve it.”

  Eyvind bowed—creakily, as an old man would. “I am thankful, priestess. Gudrid would be, too . . . if she knew.”

  “She will not.” The woman in gold sounded altogether sure. Eyvind Torfinn sighed and bowed again.

  Taking his courage in both hands, Hamnet Thyssen said, “May I ask you something, priestess?”

  “Not about that woman. I know you were also connected to her once. The judgment is made, and will only grow harsher if you push me.”

  “I was wed to her once, yes, but I will not say anything about that,” Hamnet replied. “I want to know what to tell Emperor Sigvat about the Golden Shrine—and everything else that’s happened.”

  Slightly but unmistakably, the priestess’ lip curled. “Oh. Him. Tell him this.” She spoke four words in another language Hamnet didn’t know. He repeated them after her till she nodded, satisfied. “They are truly ancient: from the time before the time before the Glacier last advanced,” she said.

  Hamnet repeated them once more. “But what do they mean?” he asked.

  “When this Emperor Sigvat hears them, he will know,” the priestess promised. “And so will you.” With that, Count Hamnet had to be content.

  XXI

  NOT EVERYONE WHO’D gone into the Golden Shrine wanted to leave so soon. Liv and Audun Gilli seemed to be learning things. So did Marcovefa. Trasamund and Runolf Skallagrim looked as if they were enjoying a safety they hadn’t known for too long. Ulric Skakki might have been a sponge; he was soaking up as much as he could. He might not be able to take away more than he’d brought, but he seemed ready to try.

  Eyvind Torfinn, though, kept twisting like a man in pain. And Hamnet noted that the priests and priestesses seemed steadily less welcoming. The men and women in gold steered the strangers toward the doorway by which they’d come in. Gudrid came along with everyone else. She could walk, but not much mo
re. Her eyes stayed blank. A thin, shiny line of spittle ran from the corner of her mouth down to her chin.

  “May God keep you safe,” said the priestess who’d ensorcelled her.

  “What is God?” Yes, Ulric was still doing his best to come away with something.

  The priestess smiled at him as she opened the door. “Why, exactly what you think he is.”

  That might have been true, but it wasn’t helpful. “Thank you so much,” Ulric said with a bow. His grin was wry.

  “Happy to help,” the priestess answered sweetly. The adventurer laughed and spread his hands, owning himself beaten.

  As soon as Gudrid walked outside, her face cleared. She looked around behind her. “Oh! The Golden Shrine!” she said. Then she went on toward her horse. Her interest in the place seemed to end right there. Hamnet Thyssen decided that the priestess had been merciful after all.

  “Where do we go now?” Trasamund asked.

  “Wherever we please. The Rulers are beaten,” Marcovefa said.

  That was true . . . now. Would it stay true? How many more invaders would come through the Gap? What would happen when they did? Hamnet decided to worry about that when it happened . . . if it did.

  For now, he had other things to worry about. “The priestess gave me a message to take to Sigvat. I don’t understand it, but she said he would. And so I need to go south. Anyone who wants to come with me is welcome—I’d be glad of the company. But I’ll go alone if I have to.”

  “I’ll come,” Ulric said. “I want to see him get this message from the Golden Shrine. I don’t know how these people can be so sure he’ll understand it. He doesn’t understand much.”

  “I will come with you, too,” Marcovefa said. “I have my reasons.” She didn’t explain what they were.

  Hamnet didn’t press her about them. Instead, he asked, “Did you understand what the priestess told me?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “From not just before the last time the Glaciers moved, but from the time before that?” Her eyes went wide with awe. “I had never dreamt of so deep a time.”

  “Who would have? Who could have?” Hamnet said. “Only the folk here. I wonder if these are the same ones who saw that distant day.”

  “Nothing about this place would surprise me any more. Nothing,” Marcovefa said. Count Hamnet nodded. He felt the same way.

  His horse seemed happy enough to ride away from the Golden Shrine. It had no trouble staying on the narrow road that led from the Shrine to the former shore. The mud to either side of the road seemed as thick and wet and uninviting as it had when Hamnet rode out onto the lakebed toward the building from days gone by.

  Trasamund looked over his shoulder. Hamnet understood the gesture—he not only understood it, in fact, but imitated it. In a low voice, Trasamund asked, “Do you think we’ll ever come back here?”

  “Come back?” Hamnet started to laugh. “I never thought—I never dreamt—we’d come here once. I’ll worry about doing it again some other time.”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .” Trasamund also chuckled sheepishly. “I was looking at that wall of war mammoths. I was looking at the Rulers’ shamans out ahead of them. Meaning no disrespect to Marcovefa, but I thought I was a dead man. I thought we were all dead. I was angry, because I hadn’t got as much of my revenge as I wanted.”

  “How far has that wall of water gone now?” Hamnet murmured. “How much has it carved up?”

  “Probably just kept going till it smashed up against the mountains.” Trasamund pointed far off to the west. “Maybe there’s a new lake over there now. The clans that roam that part of the plain must be mighty surprised. Where’d all this water come from?” He mimed a surprised Bizogot very well.

  “Are you riding south with me, or will you head back up toward the Gap?” Hamnet asked him.

  “I’m with you for now,” Trasamund answered unhappily. “My clan is broken. One of these days, I may go back. With luck, we can keep more Rulers from coming down into our land. But that’s for another day, not this one. The Bizogots aren’t ready to try anything so grand.” He sighed. “My folk’s not really ready for anything.”

  “And the Empire is?” Count Hamnet suspected there would be endless uprisings and revolts and attempted breakaways. All he wanted to do was stay clear of them. Whether he’d get what he wanted . . . he would just have to see.

  A few of the Bizogots who’d stuck with the band rode off across the steppe on their own. With the Rulers crushed, they’d try to find a clan to which they could adhere. Or they might try to live on their own. Hamnet wouldn’t have wanted to try that, but the Bizogots knew this country more intimately than he ever could.

  Off in the distance, a man on a riding deer saw strangers on horse back approaching and rode away from them as fast as his mount would take him. Not all the Rulers were dead, then. Well, that would have been too much to hope for. Most if not all of their wizards were. That mattered more than anything. The surviving warriors might make brigands, but brigands were a nuisance. They wouldn’t overrun the Bizogot steppe or overthrow Raumsdalia.

  “I do wonder what those words mean,” Marcovefa said.

  Hamnet wasn’t sorry to think about something besides the fall of empires. “So do I,” he answered.

  HAD HAMNET BEEN coming north, the scraggly fields of oats and rye ahead wouldn’t have been worth noticing, much less talking about. Since he was riding south, out of the great dark forests that marked the Raumsdalian Empire’s northern border, those sad little fields took on more meaning.

  “We’re back in the country where crops can grow,” he said, pointing toward the weedy green.

  Ulric Skakki nodded. So did Runolf Skallagrim and Eyvind Torfinn and Audun Gilli. Raumsdalians themselves, they understood what that meant. North of these fields, people either brought grain up from where it would grow or did without, living by hunting and gathering like Bizogots.

  “Back in civilization,” Earl Eyvind said, perhaps incautiously.

  “Huh!” Trasamund said: a scornful sniff. “I didn’t see the Golden Shrine showing up in Raumsdalia.” Eyvind Torfinn opened his mouth, then closed it again. That might have been the wisest thing he could have done.

  If it was civilization, it was no more than the ragged edge. The local farmers didn’t want to hang around and talk things over with men on horse back who carried weapons. They ran their livestock off into the woods. Pines and firs and spruces didn’t stop growing south of the forest line. It was only that other plants could claw out a foothold there along with them.

  “They ought to know we aren’t Rulers. We don’t ride deer—or war mammoths, either,” Runolf said.

  “Even if they know, it’s not obvious they’d care,” Ulric pointed out.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Baron Runolf had served the Empire his whole life, and took its inherent goodness for granted.

  Ulric Skakki had also served it for many years. As far as Hamnet could see, Ulric took nothing for granted. “I’ll tell you what,” he said now. “It means they think Raumsdalians would be just as happy to plunder them as the Rulers would. And you know what else, Your Excellency? I’d bet they’re right.”

  Runolf Skallagrim spluttered. “We are His Majesty’s soldiers, by God!”

  “All the more reason to run, wouldn’t you say?” Ulric replied. Runolf spluttered some more. He looked to Hamnet for support. Hamnet had none to give him: he sided with Ulric here. Seeing as much, Baron Runolf eyed him as if he were in the habit of accosting young girls.

  Hamnet sighed. Runolf was a decent sort. Men like him had been Raumsdalia’s backbone for generations. They had their limits, but within them were solid as iron. He’d been a man like that himself, till too much to do with Sigvat turned him into another kind of man altogether. Well, that was nobody’s fault but the Emperor’s. If Sigvat didn’t care for the kind of man Hamnet was now, he had only himself to blame.

  Riding up alongside him, Ulric spoke in a low voice:
“What do you suppose dear Sigvat will do after you give him the message from the Golden Shrine?”

  “Depends on what it means,” Hamnet answered. “I feel like a seed that hasn’t sprouted, but I don’t know if I’m a lily or a stinkweed.”

  “Well, Your Grace, I’ve got news for you,” Ulric said. “If those folks in the fancy gold robes have anything good to say about Sigvat—or to him—they’re dumber than I think they are.”

  “Or maybe we’re dumber than they think we are, because we can’t see how wonderful Sigvat really is.” Hamnet Thyssen considered that. Then he shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but no. I’ve been stupid all kinds of ways, but if I were that stupid I would’ve died a long time ago.”

  “I feel the same way,” Ulric said. “Of course, we could be wrong.”

  “Yes. We could. I used to think the Glacier stretched north forever, so the Gap couldn’t melt all the way through.” Count Hamnet sighed. “Shows what I knew, didn’t it? But if Sigvat’s a good Emperor, if he’s done even a lead slug’s worth of good against the Rulers, I think I’ll go ride off and find a land somewhere that isn’t so wonderfully ruled.”

  “Come up to the plains,” Trasamund boomed. “Even if you’re dark, you’d make a pretty fair Bizogot. I’m not trying to butter you up, either—I’ve said the same thing before.”

  “So you have,” Hamnet agreed. “And maybe I will. Or maybe I’ll go way down into the south so I don’t have to think about the Glacier at all any more. Ulric here has seen more of that part of the world than I have.”

  “Too hot’s as bad as too cold,” Ulric said. “Worse, maybe. When it’s too cold, you can put on more clothes or make a fire. When it’s too hot, what can you do? Sweat—that’s about it. And too hot will kill you just as easy as the Breath of God will.”

  “Not too hot right now. Not too cold, either,” Hamnet said. “Let’s ride down toward Nidaros while the weather stays good.”

  ON THEIR WAY to the capital, they skirted the badlands Hevring Lake had gouged out after its earthen dam broke. They rode across the rich cropland that had been lakebottom when the edge of the Glacier lay not far north.