Frostflower and Thorn

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  Purplefumes’ voice again. “Glad to hear it. Can’t blame any poor warrior too much for not chasing away a demon, can you now?”

  “Don’t worry about them, merchant. They’ll be back on duty in a day or two. Now go on and peddle your stock. They’re in a bloody good mood for buying wine, his Reverence and her Ladyship.”

  Purplefumes drove on toward the hall, while Thorn lay inside the wagon and thought things over. So Maldron had peeled the bloody fathermilkers, had he? Good! All the same, getting strips of skin the length of a beanpod peeled off some part of your body was no mild punishment, no little pat with a ceremonial whip. Maybe Maldron had ordered the rest of his warriors to talk as if Clist and Cutbone had been given a token grinding only, but it sounded to Thorn more as if he was taking out a blistering rage on them. No, it was not quite that, either, or why not have it out where all his people could watch? He must have been trying to get the truth out of them. That would probably mean that they had not told him the truth at first—maybe that they had indeed pushed Spendwell’s silly dummy into a bog before the farmer saw it—but that he suspected something. They must have told him what he wanted to hear, or he would not have stopped with a few strips of skin the length of a beanpod.

  Well, then, how much could the bitches tell him? That they had drunk themselves woozy on a passing merchant’s wine, tumbled the merchant while they left his woman to watch the gibbet for them, then fallen asleep on duty and found a dummy on the gibbet when they woke up. Maybe that they guessed the wine had been drugged with some kind of nightmare-syrup. But they could not have been sure it was that same merchant and his woman who took the sorceress away. Thorn thought they had not recognized Spendwell (though they had seemed close for a while), and she was pretty confident they had not suspected her of so much as being a swordswoman. All Maldron could have learned from them, assuming they had told him what they knew and not a batch of lies, was that someone had taken down the sorceress and she might still be alive.

  Nevertheless, if he knew even this much, what the Hellstink kept him from acting on it? All the gossip in Three Bridges and Frog-in-the-Millstone was about the demon or demons (sometimes Smardon or Vuck came instead of or along with Azkor), about whether they had rotted, dried up, burned, mashed, or eaten the sorceress, and whether she had still been alive when they did it. If the priest knew any of the truth at all—even if he thought Clist and Cutbone had taken a little fun with Frostflower against his orders and then buried the evidence—why was he allowing the demon story to go around unchecked? Why in the names of all the gods wasn’t he sending out messengers to tell people it was all a pile of donkey turds about Frostflower being snatched by demons?

  Because it was another hate tale to keep commoners hot against sorceri, that was the reason!

  Thorn let out a string of curses in her mind and twisted Stabber’s pommel until the cloth cap and wax loosened from the garnet. Then she sat trying to push it all back together with the heat and pressure of her hands, and remembering how Frostflower had more than hinted that sorceri, too, did their damnedest to encourage the stories—those bloody stories that kept up the fear of their powers.

  Damn them all, then! Farmers and sorceri both—bloody motherprickers, between them mangling poor bastards’ minds into gulping down the whole big bloody lie. Damn them all to the deepest pits of Hellbog! But damn the bloody farmers deeper—the sorceri were only trying to stay alive, after all.…

  But the sorceri had more than just their reputation to help them stay alive. Smardon’s fleshhooks! The way Frost had grabbed that lightning—

  The way Frost had grabbed the lightning…but sorceri were blasphemers! Where was the Goddess of the Lightning when Frostflower grabbed it away from her?

  Gods! Was it all lies, then? Hellbog and Glorious Harvest, gods, goddesses, and demons, Lightning Goddess, Warriors’ God, Smardon with his fleshhooks, the Great God of the Seven Secret Names—all farmers’ lies? All bloody stories to make us do what the damn priests want us to do?

  But no, the tales weren’t all false. This bloody lunacy about Frostflower’s rescue is one thing—but I saw for myself what the sorcerer did to that poor bitch of a warrior in West-of-the-Marsh. And if there’s no Warriors’ God, then Who the Hellstink got me through the woods to Spendwell? Who’s been straightening out all the little kinks for me?

  Here I am, snug in Purplefumes’ wagon, inside Maldron’s walls with not one suspicious glance…damn sacrilegious to start doubting the Warriors’ God now! All right, so some of the stories about sorceri are dog-vomit and donkey-farts—that doesn’t make it all false. So maybe some of the farmers deserve getting sunk in deepest Hellbog if the Great Giver is really just—that doesn’t mean everything every priest ever says is a damn lie.

  Remembering uneasily that, while she had disobeyed Maldron, it had been the guiltless Inmara whom she had actually threatened and on whose account she faced the worst Hell-tortures, Thorn made the Quit-Sign and settled down to work the wax and cloth back firmly on her dagger’s pommel and to keep her mind on what was happening outside the wagon. The surest way to lose the help of the Warriors’ God was to expect Him to do all the work Himself. She had better give the God of the Sorceri some thanks, too; and she guessed he might use pretty much the same rule as the Warriors’ God about expecting you to move your own two legs along the way he cleared for you.

  When the wagon stopped, Thorn lay down on her side with her face half buried between the greasy pillow and her arm. If any of Maldron’s people sneaked a look into the merchant’s wagon and saw her sitting up awake and doing nothing, at worst they would think it pretty damn suspicious and at best they would want her coming out to drink or gamble. If they peeked in and saw her sleeping, they would leave her alone, might even mistake her for Purplefumes’ regular swordswoman.

  Her right eye was almost covered by a mound of pillow and her left eye by the bloody red patch and her arm on top of it, so she could not have seen much even if she opened her eyes; but she did not hear anything suspicious, although she was ready to fake a couple of snores at the first sound of somebody looking in. Eventually she dozed off in earnest, waking with a snort of surprise after a dream about some bloody old warrior trying to show her how to put a wick in the tip of her sword and keep it lighted.

  She heard voices coming nearer, and the wagon started shaking. Purplefumes was climbing back into the driving seat. About time, damn the pricking guzzler. What was he fumbling around with? Oh, yes—putting in the damn basket of food he had gotten Lady Inmara to pack for his warrior. Now he was climbing back onto the seat and starting the bloody donkeys at last.

  She could no longer put off the next big decision: Slip out without telling Purplefumes, or tell him first and then slip out? Either way was a bad gamble. Slip out without telling the old bugger, and he might come back looking for her as soon as he noticed she was gone. Quite a mess that would make at the gates! But if she told him first—no matter what threats she used, since she was not going to be there to hold Stabber at his kidneys, he might must betray her to the gate-warriors. She could hardly tell him the reason she was hiding somewhere in Maldron’s Farm: “I’m doing it to steal back a bratty grub to give it to a sorceress and keep her from dying.” That sounded idiotic even to Thorn herself, when she thought about it; and to anyone who did not know Frostflower… And even suppose she could make up a story to persuade the dull-brained old drunkard to go along, she could see him giving it away by stammering and doddering at the gates.

  So she had better not give him the chance to betray her through his greed or bumbling. If he did not know what was going on, he could not tell anyone much, except that she had disappeared somewhere.

  Good. Purplefumes had begun to sing. It was a rowdy old drinking song, and the old sot did not have the words right; but between the noise of his voice, the creaks of his wagon, and the slightly tipsy way he seemed to be driving, he was not likely to hear or feel Thorn’s departure. If this was not another sign the
Warriors’ God was on her side, what was? Practicing the woodcat crawl, she worked her way to the back of the wagon, undid a few of the tent toggles, pulled back a finger’s length of cloth, and peered out.

  She could not go yet. Three workers were only half a field off, cutting hay. Alert for any break in the lazy, steady pace of the donkeys or any catch in the silly song that would warn her Purplefumes was aware of her movement, she continued peering out until they had passed the hay fields and entered an orchard.

  Nobody seemed to be around here. Thorn pulled the cloth back a little more and managed a wider view. Still seeing no one, she put her head halfway out. She was tempted to flip up her eyepatch for a better look; but no matter what she did, she would not be able to see anyone in front of the wagon. At least she could see that nobody was behind or to either side. With the fruit trees stretching around the wheelpath, she would probably not get a better chance than now. Undoing the rest of the lower tent toggles, she swung her legs out, aimed her feet downward, and wiggled the rest of the way like a fish flipping through a hole in the net.

  Landing lightly on her feet, she turned and glanced around. Nobody was in sight. The wagon was less than halfway through the orchard, and going slowly enough that by walking behind it for a few moments she was able to fasten up the toggles again, covering all outward sign of her departure.

  Then she struck off the path and in among the trees. She tried to walk boldly, as if she had nothing to hide. If Purplefumes or anyone else saw her at this point, she would say she was just looking for a good place to shit, and planning to catch up with the wagon again before it reached the gates.

  In fact, she was looking for a good place to hole up the rest of the day without being found. Getting found would mean a death to make burning alive from a torch in your hair look cozy. If anyone found her, her only chance would be to kill the poor bugger—swordswoman or haymaker—without anyone else noticing, hide the body, and then probably have to find a new hole for herself. Gods and demons, was the damn grub worth it? Was Frost worth it? Was this the way to get the gods back on her side? The God of the Sorceri, maybe—well, if the farmer-priests were right, the real gods and goddesses probably could not keep her nose above the surface of Hellbog whatever she did, and the God of the Sorceri might be her only chance.

  Of course, her success so far might be a big, divine trap to clamp down on her like a bloody axe.

  When, near the edge of a barley-field, she found some kind of animal burrow big enough for her to squeeze inside and pull a couple handfuls of stubble and root-clods over the entrance, she muttered several prayers of thanks to the Warriors’ God, promising to burn nine drops of her blood on a piece of bread at the first statue of Him she found. She had no idea what, if anything, she could offer to the God of the Sorceri.

  The ground was dampish around her; it had a sour stink; and now and then she thought she could feel the damn worms crawling in it. Once she felt something moving beneath her feet, and kicked down savagely, causing a few squeaks and a scuffle, and bruising her own knee on the side of the tunnel. A couple of times she dozed off and started slipping—or dreamed she was slipping—down to the bottom of the burrow. Another time, something started chewing her heel and when she kicked downwards she dislodged the earth so that the whole bloody burrow began to cave in on her, until she woke with a curse. Later yet, she suddenly panicked for no reason, tried to climb out, found her feet were stuck in slime and the slime was oozing up to her knees and thighs, tried to shout for help, and woke up again with the scream quobbing at the back of her throat. Hellstink! she thought; one more nightmare and I’ll be screaming aloud and bringing them over to find me. And I haven’t even eaten any nightmare-berries lately.

  Through the holes in stubble and root-clods, she watched the sky get dark. When it was dark enough to show the first stars, she dug her knees and elbows into the earth and began wiggling upwards. She made it out easier than she had half-feared, after the nightmares. All the same—gods! she had been lucky so far. She had been much safer from discovery here than in some haystack or field shed where landworkers might come during their daily chores; but if they had stumbled on her in that hole—Smardon’s fingernails, she wouldn’t have had a chance!

  Squatting in the barley, glad to be out in the open air again, she removed her eyepatch and stuffed it into her pocket, then ate her sausage and raisins, working up her saliva to swallow with in place of water. She thought of the basket Inmara had packed for Purplefumes’ warrior, and wondered if the wine merchant was eating its contents himself, in the inn at Gammer’s Oak. What had the old bastard done when he found her gone? She had not heard any sounds of a hunt inside the Farm; she hoped he had not even looked until long after leaving Maldron’s gate behind him. Maybe he thought she was some other farmer’s spy, and was keeping quiet about her so that he would not be drawn into a quarrel between priests.

  After a while, still flipping raisins into her mouth, she got up and began to prowl around the fields, circling towards the hall while keeping away from the wheelpath.

  She saw the lights of the workers’ cottages to the southwest, and beyond them the dim outlines of the animal barns and stables. The warriors’ barracks were to the north, well removed from both the workers’ dwellings and the farmers’ hall. Thorn was too far away to hear the usual noises of singing, drinking, and gambling that went on in the barracks until whatever hour the priest had laid down for curfew. If it were not for their lights and their distance from the cottages, the barracks would have looked pretty much like another big stable.

  She had never thought much about it before, but what the Hell were warriors except another kind of stock animal for the priests? Some time so long ago nobody gave a damn anymore, warriors had been priestesses, farmers’ second-wives, the fighting bodyguard of their husbands and families. At least, that was the story a farmer told you when he wanted to prick you. Now the holy bastards gave you a stable to live in, and kept you downwind from their own scented living quarters.

  Well, at least the warriors were free, could move around and hire out to any bloody farmer or merchant or townmaster they chose. Landworkers were farmers’ animals, too, and they stayed put like damn cows. Maybe they could go out and find another farmer or a place in some town, but how many of the clods ever did?

  Then again, this farmer, that town, what was the difference? Farmers’ herds, all of them, doing the priests’ work, or carrying goods from one farmer to another, or fighting raids and getting killed so the farmers could swap around their lands like squares on a bloody gameboard. Gods! The only people who were free of the damn priests were outlaws and sorceri! That must be why farmers picked their brains out of their snotty noses thinking up ways and excuses to kill sorceri.

  Meanwhile, Thorn had to locate the grub. One of the nurses would have it. Maldron probably intended to keep the brat, but not even Maldron would be so obvious as to give it to one of his wives for safekeeping while they were still supposedly looking for the parents.

  Maldron had a smallish family for a priest: three wives, one dead and one barren; two sons and a couple of daughters; two younger sisters, one never married and one widowed and back home again with a brat of two of her own—so much Thorn had picked up from local gossip. Depending on how spaced out the brats had been born, one nurse, the one Spendwell had seen at the rape-party, could have handled them all. Even if the chief nurse had two or three helpers for show, or training, or whatever farmers’ nurses did, chances were the old biddy would have Frostflower’s grub in her own room.

  Nurses were favored servants. If they did not have bedroom alcoves in the same row as the priestesses and unmarried priests, then they usually stayed in cute little nursery cottages near the farmers’ hall.

  Maldron had only two such cottages beside his hall, both dark and one seemingly used for storage; a light shining out from an alcove bedroom onto this cottage showed Thorn a stack of farmers’ bedroom doors taken off their hinges for the summer and piled
up behind the window lattice. The warrior slunk up to the hall itself and crawled slowly around, listening at each bedchamber for a few moments. At one of them she ought to hear the grub crying. Grubs were always crying, weren’t they?

  She went all the way down the west row of alcoves, crawling on hands and knees. She heard a couple of itchy young priestlings in one bedroom bragging to each other about the women they were going to pricK, and the ways they were going to purify them first, as soon as they got some stubble on their chins. In the rest of the alcoves she heard nothing, not even snores. Bloody family must have finished their supper by now, and the nurse ought to have the grub in her room with her; but it looked as if the rest of the farmers were still in the long hall. Crouching near the front doorway, by the priest’s offices, Thorn could see light and hear voices filtering through the loosely-woven summer doorcurtain. Someone was singing, a slow tear-jerking ballad about a blighted harvest and a young priest who cut himself up to fertilize the fields. Damn priestesses had no right to have such lovely singing voices.

  The first farmer for whom Thorn ever worked, his Reverence Ablamar, used to set a pair of warriors at his chosen wife’s alcove every night on guard. Nobody else ever did it. Raiding parties never attacked the farmers themselves—in fact, just about the safest place a warrior could be during a raid would be the entrance to the farmers’ hall. But his Reverence Ablamar had a good, deep, mellow singing voice, and he wanted to make sure his favorite young swordswomen got a chance to hear it.

  Probably, by crawling on her belly like a grubby caterpillar, Thorn could have gotten past Maldron’s threshold. But there was always the chance one of the farmers would come out for a starlight stroll. Deciding to go the long way, around the garden wall, Thorn started crawling back, past the boastful priestlings and the nine silent alcoves.

  When she reached the garden wall, she stopped crawling. Even on her feet, it took a pretty good while to get all the way around. Maldron might not have the biggest hall she had ever seen—Hell, she had worked for a priest with twenty-one alcoves on each side of his hall—but Maldron made up for it with the size of his private garden. The bastard must have room to pasture cows in there around his Truth Grove.