by Glenda Larke
When he groped through the gloom of his mind, he found the link, travelled down it. And was there, in an alien, Avian mind once more.
From the bird, through time, to his body, he tightened the link to bridge the interval, building it stronger, pulling himself closer. Nausea swept through him like a cresting wave. He spoke to the bird, ordering it to perch on his shoulder, and felt the lurch through his being as the eagle launched itself from the tree and dropped down, bringing the two periods of time together into one whole. His stomach heaved and then quieted. The taloned feet hit his shoulder, propelling him forward a step, then pinions brushed his head as the bird strove to balance itself and fold its wings. He opened his eyes and heard voices. Laughter. Shouting in the distance, chatter close by, men and women.
And then silence. The three of them were standing near the edge of the massive oak and the eagle was settling its weight on to his shoulder, digging its claws into his skin. People, far and near, were staring at them, rooted in place by varying degrees of shock or consternation.
Vervain Wintergreen had told him that the age of the tree was at least a thousand years. Unlike many shrines, this one did not have any walls. As its lowest branches dipped to the ground at the point furthest from the tree trunk, the sheltered area resembled an upside-down bowl with the butt of the oak at its centre. Entry was through a break between massive boughs.
“We’re here,” he said, letting go of the hands he held. “You can open your eyes.”
When he’d visited the shrine before, it had stood at the edge of an outcrop of huge granite boulders half buried in a meadow. On the side closest to the town there had been a row of houses, but most of the tree had jutted from the boulders into a wild meadow, beyond which was a forest. He could still see the boulders and the meadow, and a little of the forest, but the houses had vanished. At the limits of the meadow everything became blurry, as if he was looking through fog. Edges of the closest trees and bushes became indistinct, those further away dissolved into the mistiness. He had the unpleasant thought that if he walked outside the visual limits, he too would lose definition and start to forget who he was, or where he was. He’d be caught in a moment that had no end.
Hurriedly, he returned his gaze to the settlement. Everything appeared makeshift, temporary. Buildings of unmortared stone, or of untreated wood and reed thatching, had been constructed against the granite boulders. A well had been dug for water.
The scene reminded him of the hovels outside a city wall. Cleaner and less noxious, certainly, but too many people living in too few buildings, all with an aura of unspoken poverty. Pigs and cows and hens and humanity, all cheek and jowl – not what anyone associated with a shrine and its emphasis on nature. There were children as well, so he guessed that some of those who had hidden themselves here had brought their families with them. Even so, he doubted the whole settlement could have numbered more than two or three hundred folk.
Someone yelled for Vervain, and a moment later the ageing shrine keeper stepped out from between the drooping branches. As Saker had expected, he had not changed much in appearance over the years.
Nor had the old man mellowed. He took one look at the three interlopers and cried, “By the oak! Who are you?” His tone was larded with suspicion and alarm as he looked from one to the other. Then, directing his attention to Saker, he added, “I remember ye. Rampion! You’re the witan got hisself nulled out on Chervil Moors.” He snorted. “Didn’t hear your witchery was one of linking, though. To a bird, eh? That’s a strange one.”
Saker released his hold over the eagle, and it lifted into the air to perch in the oak instead.“Greetings, Keeper Vervain. These are my friends, Sorrel Redwing, and Ardhi from Chenderawasi.”
Vervain switched his attention to Sorrel. “Ah. Heared about ye from the oakmarrow over in Melforn. That’s a rare bewitching ye have.”
Sorrel blinked. “You mean from the shrine keeper? Marsh Bedstraw?”
“Oakmarrow is an archaic word for unseen guardian,” Saker said. His mind raced as he began to think things through.
“Archaic?” Vervain snorted. “It’s the true word!” He stepped over to Ardhi, the gaze from his deep-seated eyes shrewd. “But you? You’re a strange blood.” He reached up and placed his hand flat to Ardhi’s cheek. “Born by the sea and sea-borne. More the Way of the Flow than of the Oak, methinks? And your bewitching’s a right odd one. What’s your skill, lascar?”
“Climbing.”
“The higher the height, the deeper the fall.”
Ardhi smiled faintly. “Tell me something I don’t know, bapak.”
“That’s a word of respect, I hope, young man.”
“In my land, the elderly are always respected.”
“Hmph. Beware of those high places. A slip kills.”
Ardhi merely inclined his head politely; it was Sorrel who leaped to his aid. “Is that a promise or a warning, sir?”
Vervain shrugged and turned back to Saker. “We were alerted about Va-forsaken witcheries, and such is he. He’s neither trusted nor welcome here.” He signalled to several of the men who had been watching them from nearby. “Burr,” he said, “shepherd this fellow yonder. Disarm him, and confine him well.”
“He’s here to help us!” Saker protested. “I suggest you listen before—”
“And perhaps you are gullible,” Vervain snapped, contempt layered over every word. “Va-forsaken means what it deems. He’s not one of us. Take him away, Burr.”
“I can vouch for him,” Saker said, and laid his hand on his sword.
Vervain’s eyes flickered to the weapon and back to Saker’s face in a glance that was dangerously unfriendly. “I am hardly likely to have confidence in an unfrocked cleric who was once nulled for blasphemy and apostasy. Especially one who’s thinking to draw a blade in the sanctity of a shrine.”
Va, what has happened while we were gone? Shrine keepers were never like this… “Do not harm him or you will face my wrath,” Saker said. Pox on’t, Vervain’s archaic speech was contagious. “My power lies not just in my sword,” he added for good measure. As the man called Burr came forward to grasp Ardhi’s arm, Saker stepped between them. “Treat him as an honoured guest.”
Burr glanced at Vervain for confirmation. The shrine keeper hesitated, then nodded. “We are not savages.”
When Burr and another man led Ardhi away, Saker saw the kris sheath at his belt was empty. Sorrel was holding her tote close to her chest, her face blank.
“You must tell how came you here,” Vervain said, addressing Saker. “I’d not thought it possible since the shrines were locked.”
“I’d not thought to find them so, after returning from a journey across the face of the world,” Saker said in bitter anger. “Over two years absent, and we come back to this: a land where shrine keepers no longer serve their congregation, and folk with witcheries abandon those who need them? You may find us uncomfortable visitors,” he warned, his ire seeping into every word. “We want answers.”
The old man spat. “You’ve no rights here, not to answers, not even to be fed. We don’t have victuals to spare.” He waved a hand at what had once been meadowland on the other side of the oak and Saker glanced to see what he was indicating. A couple of cows grazed there and an area had been walled off to keep the animals away from a vegetable plot. “No food comes in here. We feed ourselves.”
“What’s the point of all this?” Saker asked, surprising himself with the intensity of the rage he felt. As he spoke, he kept an eye on Ardhi to see where he was being taken. “The lands out there are struggling, people are frightened, with no recourse to help from shrines, while you hide in safety and grizzle about raising your own cows?”
Vervain glowered at him. “Cobble dwellers are the ones who chose to desert their shrines in the first place, favouring the stone-walled chapels in their towns and cities. So let them turn to their clerics! We owe them little.”
Saker and Sorrel exchanged glances and he knew she was as app
alled as he was.
“Vervain, Vervain,” came a voice behind them, “calm yourself. There is no point in condemning without listening.”
Saker turned to look at the speaker, a middle-aged woman dressed in cleric’s garb. His glance went to the medallion around her neck; the oakleaf was edged with gold, denoting her rank. District Arbiter.
She nodded to him. “Willow Partridge, once Arbiter of Hornbeam. You want a conversation? Then let’s have one.” She waved a hand at the interior of the shrine. “Enter, both of you, and remember this is a sacred place. I think, Witan Saker, we have met once before, when you were hardly more than a student.”
He recalled he had once made a courtesy call on her in the Hornbeam Va-faith office, but he had little memory of the event. She was a quiet, greying woman with grief-stricken eyes, and he wondered why she would have remembered him.
“I am no longer a witan,” he said as they followed her into the shrine itself.
“I’m not surprised at that,” she said. “You were nulled, after all.”
He winced and turned his attention to the interior of the shrine. The light, filtered through the translucence of the roof of woven branches and layers of living leaves, was luminous and soft. The seating, part of the living tree, woven from roots and branches, had been smoothed and polished by the worship and pilgrimage of generations. “I have never been faithless, Arbiter Willow.”
Keeper Vervain, trailing behind Sorrel, snorted. “And are we to swallow all the sweet words tripping so easily from your lips, nulled witan? Sit, fellow, and before you hear any truths from us, you tell us whence you came, and how, and what you want.”
It was hard to condense their story into a tale that was succinct and still coherent, but Saker did his best. It helped that he left out everything to do with Piper, the Chenderawasi feathers, Avians and the kris, simply saying that Ardhi was a sailor with a witchery from the Va-forsaken Hemisphere who wanted to help.
“We have been there,” he said. “We’ve seen first-hand the faith of Ardhi’s people, and it’s not so different from ours.”
“And we are supposed to be impressed by the testimony of an apostate?” Vervain asked, furrowed eyebrows eloquently expressing his doubt.
Va-damn. That is all coming back to haunt me still?
Sorrel intervened then, saying, just as snappishly as Vervain, “May I point out just who brought the charges against Witan Saker, and who prosecuted the case for nullification?” She paused for effect. “Why, I believe it was Prime Valerian Fox!”
He blinked in surprise. Sarcasm was not something he had heard Sorrel employ, even to make an argument. She pushed on, eyes flashing, her whole body rigid with annoyance. No, with rage. “And why do you think that vile man might have done that?” she asked. “Because he knew that Witan Saker was a threat to him. Because he knew Saker Rampion was the Pontifect’s agent.” She shook an irate finger at Vervain. “I was there. I saw it.”
“And who do you think warned me that our troubles might have their origins in the Va-forsaken Hemisphere?” the Arbiter asked. “Pontifect Fritillary! She had heard that there was Va-forsaken witchery loose in Ardrone, threatening her agents. Something about sorcerous feathers and daggers…”
Saker winced. Fritillary knew about those because he’d told her. But he hadn’t known Ardhi then. Cankers ’n’ galls, everything in his past was coming back to kick him in the rump.
“How did you get here?” Vervain asked. “How did you find this shrine?”
Deciding any mention of sakti and feathers would make Ardhi’s situation worse, and that any explanation he tried to make now would only dig a deeper pit for himself, he said vaguely, “As you saw, my witchery is a connection to birds, and it was the eagle that led us here. The shrines have been taken out of our world’s time, haven’t they? Apparently time does not mean much to a bird.” It was a weak explanation with just enough truth to make it plausible, and they appeared prepared to accept it. “What we need to know,” he added before they could find holes in the explanation, “is what happened in our absence. Why are all the shrines hidden? Where is Pontifect Fritillary?”
“She is managing resistance to Fox and his sorcerers from outside,” Arbiter Willow said, “in ordinary time.”
“How can I contact her?” he asked.
“You folk’d be the last ones we’d tell,” Vervain muttered. “We have our ways. Ancient ways, not for ordinary folk to use.”
“But how long do you intend to hide the shrines?” he asked, puzzled. “For ever? Do you even understand how people will lose heart?”
“It’s already happening,” Sorrel said.
Arbiter Willow opened her mouth to reply, but Vervain silenced her with a gesture and said, “I don’t think we hanker to discuss our plans with you. I suggest you return to the world, and keep your wagging tongue behind your teeth about all you saw here.” When Willow seemed set to disagree, he added, “Can we trust them to keep silent? They came here with that Va-forsaken nut-skin!”
Sorrel sent him an indignant look. “They are your words, not Va’s. There is nothing in Va-faith about people on the other side of the world not being cherished. We are not leaving Ardhi behind.”
“Then ye’ll have to stay yourselves!” Vervain said. “Locked up with him, till we get the word from the Pontifect what to do with ye. And that might be a long time in the coming.”
The smug weasel, Saker thought. “You’d have to feed us then, wouldn’t you? But we’re not staying. If I write a letter to the Pontifect, will you send it to her?”
“No.”
“Believe me, she will be anxious to hear from me.”
“We’re not messenger boys! We don’t carry letters. It’s a long walk. And a dangerous one.”
Saker blinked in surprise. A long walk?
“We can send verbal messages, though,” Arbiter Willow said, earning a furious glare from Vervain. “We have… ways.”
Now that’s interesting. “How long before Pontifect Fritillary receives such a message?”
“Might be a day or two,” she said.
“Or longer. It depends,” Vervain added, still ungracious.
“On what?”
“When the Pontifect visits a shrine, and which shrine it is,” Willow said.
“Have you any idea where she is?”
“Last I heard,” she said, “in Lowmeer. But she does move around.”
Saker thought about the difficulty of a verbal message. He’d have to be cryptic and use their code words… He asked, “Will the message alter as it is passed from person to person?”
Vervain gave a scornful grunt. “We are not idle-headed dewberries. We can pass a coded message, if that’s what you mean.”
“It will be a long one.”
“Just as well most shrine keepers have long memories, isn’t it?”
Hog’s piddle, he’s a sarcastic fellow. “I’ll write down the exact words. You still have not explained what has happened in Ardrone that you had to hide the shrines.”
“Sorcery happened. That’s what.”
“Prime Fox is only one man. How did he bring about this disaster?”
“How did you know it was Fox?” Willow countered.
“Fritillary spoke of his… nastiness before I left for the other side of the world. And I was one of her informants anyway.”
Vervain shot a warning look at Arbiter Willow. “He might be lying. He could be one of the sorcerous sons, for all we know.”
His heart skipped a beat. “What sorcerous sons?”
“Who was your father?” Vervain asked.
The shrine keeper didn’t mean anything by it. He couldn’t mean anything by it. But suddenly Saker was remembering Robin Rampion saying, “I’ve always doubted you had the right to my name…”
Va’s acorns, he couldn’t be Valerian Fox’s son, could he? They had all been at university together – his mother Iris Grey, Fritillary Reedling, Valerian Fox… and his supposed father. It was such a ho
rrible idea that it had never crossed his mind.
“What sorcerous sons?” he asked again. I don’t look like Valerian…
It was Willow who answered. “Some folk say Valerian Fox had at least fifty. To suck the life out of them in order to extend his own lifespan. Others act as his agents.”
His heart hammered under his ribs until his chest ached. I am not a sorcerer. The Rani would have known if I was. His breath steadied.
“Later,” she continued, “he found some of them useful as his instruments to lead armies of coerced peasants.”
“The Grey Lancers.”
“Yes. But it is more Fox’s sons who have forced us to hide, not the lancers. The sons have the real power. The lancers are just a bunch of very nasty soldiers, twisted by sorcery into men who don’t care what they do. I would hesitate even to call them human any more.”
“And by hiding you think you are winning the battle?” Sorrel asked, arching a mocking eyebrow.
Neither of them answered that.
“What about Prince Ryce? What do you know about his situation?” Saker asked.
“He is besieged at his summer estate, Gromwell. Up near Twite,” Arbiter Willow said. Her sadness never left her, and her words sounded as if she had to drag them out of some dark place to bring them to light.
“And no one helps him?”
“It is the king’s decree. To go against the king is treason,” the arbiter pointed out.
“Then I suspect that a little treason is in order. The king has had his brains curdled by sorcerous treachery, and it’s time someone stopped him!” His indignation welled up again and he felt a strong desire to break something. Reason, though, prevailed, and he calmed enough to say, “I’d like to write that message to Fritillary Reedling, if I may.”
“Come with me. I have a slate.” Vervain jerked his head at Sorrel. “You stay here with Arbiter.”
“Wass lundia,” Saker muttered. “It’s all right, Sorrel.”
He hoped the glance he gave her was full of meaning.
17
The Foundations of Treason