"Go and look at them!" Mother Kanzal had cried indignantly once Neshvann returned from this morning's visit with the Saire. Rage shook the Keeper of Virgins like a palsy. "Go and see what they have done to our Summer Festival! The King cannot know the extent of the blasphemy, or he would not permit!"
This year, as every year, the priestesses had petitioned the monarch to ban the entertainers, prostitutes, and vendors that swarmed across the hill like ants on spilled honey. This year, as every year, the temple's petition was denied. King Heratinn's official response claimed precedence: the Summer Festival had grown into more than a religious event; every element of the populace was now involved.
With precedence as an excuse, Mother Neshvann had assured her superior, King Heratinn would never change his mind. But the argument availed her nothing, and, once again, Mother Neshvann agreed to inspect the grounds so that next year's request might be more convincing. Better she than the High Priestess. Raised a Virgin Candidate, Mother Kanzal would have felt obligated to personally root out and castigate every harlot on the hill.
The brunette forced her way to the top of the temple steps, where the crowd washed restlessly against the buttress of a triple cycle of priestess-guards. Recognizing the Drumbearer, they parted to let her pass with a clash of silver-plated axes. Mother Kanzal, adorned in her finest ceremonial robes and the heavy silver belt of her rank, awaited her with the sacred drum and a double-cycle of priestess-guards.
"Her sedan chair approaches," she announced. "We will follow directly behind the King and his entourage. It is our right."
"I only hope that they'll make room." Neshvann brushed at the dusty fringes of her robe until a thoughtful acolyte brought her a fresh one.
"Oh, they will make room for Her." Kanzal knelt onto her prayer mat. "They have so quickly grown to love Her."
"I meant for us."
The silver-haired Keeper of Virgins did not look up. "I feared you might, and you are right to do so. I think, Drumbearer, Saire Elzin is my punishment from Telriss."
"What?" Neshvann's head had been inside the clean robe. Surely, she misunderstood the High Priestess.
"I prayed for a powerful Saire, one whose influence would change the meager offerings of our populace from coppers into gold and gems. I longed to see the ragged prayer tents of our itinerant priestesses replaced by temples of stone and marble, fit to rival those of Shador. The goddess chastened me for my vanity by granting me my wish."
"Was it such a bad wish?"
The High Priestess shrugged her shoulders, a common gesture uncommon to the woman who had governed their order for so long. "The goddess chooses the rewards of those who serve her, and the time of their awarding. Woe to the mortal who would hasten her hand."
o0o
Elzin peeked out between the rich, embroidered curtains of her sedan chair, though she had been asked repeatedly to remain hidden. She saw nothing but people, hundreds upon hundreds. Some pushed for a better view. Some climbed aboard the shoulders of family members. All were shouting.
"Elzin! Elzin! Elzin!"
Shrinking back among the velvet cushions, Elzin pulled the curtains closed. She reached up to adjust the silver circlet on her head, but her hands trembled so, she knocked the thing askew. Gods… The rhythm of her simple, back-bay name swelled to a roar, like the furious spring wild-waters that could smash a rivercraft to splinters.
How many voices fed the torrent? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Zendriam had told her that the roads to the capital had been clogged for weeks with pilgrims, more than ever gathered here before. So many that the Royal Army, too, had been called in force to help the elite maintain some semblance of order.
Unconsciously, she twisted at the bracelet at her wrist, half-expecting the old comfort of smooth abalone against her skin. But her mother's band had finally worn through, and it was a silk-smooth mastwood dragon that her fingers now caressed. With a smile, Elzin recalled the Tarskan children's gift and the rugged lands around their camp. She lifted her left hand to her nose. There it was -- the scent of wild sweetness that assured her that somewhere, far from here, was yet a world not overwhelmed by sound.
By degrees, her heart beat slower, until her chair at last was lowered and the dark curtain swept aside. As if summoned by her thoughts of Tarska, Caldan stood before her, bowed, and offered her his arm. Gratefully, she took it and stepped out onto the tall dais. Before her, the vast ocean of the crowd roared at the sight of her, and Elzin's fingers tightened as if her grip alone might save her from being swept away by sound.
"Brave heart," Caldan spoke into her ear and gave her arm a final pat. "You will enchant them all."
The breeze tugged at her gown of pale violet. Her hair, bright against it, fluttered as she waited for the chanting to subside. The multitude grew quiet and expectant. Wordlessly, she brought the Saireflute to her lips.
The Flute spoke for her, though, and its voice was huge. Its eerie rhythms displaced the rhythms of her body. The dead Saires stirred within her in surprise, then fell gently back to troubled rest. The unsettling, keening voice lifted her high above the thousands. Like them, she journeyed.
o0o
Castandra stared at her father, open-mouthed. Like thousands and thousands of astonishing statues, in utter silence and in every position, the petrified populace surrounded them. Saire Elzin, the soundless Flute held to her lips; Superior Ableman, his eyes on the crowd; Heratinn, leaning forward in his throne with anticipation; all frozen. All motionless.
The ceaseless cacophony that had set her teeth on edge for days was gone. In its place was a deathly stillness. No barker cried, no minstrel sang, no dancing girl clashed her cymbals. Even the animals had fallen mute. Castandra paused, unnerved by the quiet rustle of her skirts as she stepped closer to her father. She wanted to speak, to ask him what had happened, but she feared to break the silence almost as much as she feared the silence itself.
Her father harbored no such trepidations.
"Look," he said, tugging on Ableman's sleeve. The arm of Elzin's new superior did not move. "He might as well be stone."
At last she found her voice. "What happened to them?"
He shrugged. "The Flute, it seems. Yet, not to us. Were I a thief, I would be a rich one, today."
"Not to the coursers, either," she observed.
"No," Caldan agreed. "Never the coursers."
"Except at the Starsinger."
"She did not play then, but you are right. No," Castandra had moved even closer, but he stopped her with a gesture. "Stay. They may revive soon. We may wish to keep this our secret."
The sorceress obediently stepped backwards until she was where she had started. "I have never known such quiet."
"I have. Once," the councilor confessed. Once, when Elzin trapped me in the Mist.
Castandra cocked her head, curious, but unwilling to pry. "Even the breeze has stopped. And the birds--"
"Yes, the birds."
She followed his gaze up. Overhead, a gull had been frozen in mid-flight. She could plainly make out the stolen crust of bread carried in its bright orange beak.
Something was wrong with her knees; she felt weightless, but somehow they had begun to buckle. It was too much. In the unearthly hush, below the impossibly suspended bird and surrounded by the petrified onlookers, it was too much to hope that world she had once known might ever again be restored.
"All will be well." In spite of his previous warning, he had come to her. She felt her panic slide back at his touch. "You shiver like an aspen. Close your eyes."
His hand felt warm where it molded to the back of her head and neck, gently but firmly pressing her chin into his shoulder. She could feel his head tilt back.
"The clouds move," he told her. "The rest of the world goes on. I do not think that we have anything to fear."
"I am ashamed to be such a coward all of the time," she said.
"Hush. You are no coward, Castandra. You faced the snow lion; you stayed both times when we though
t the Queen might have us; you rode after me in the mist and in the dark. Did you think I did not notice? Oh, at times you are foolish, stubborn or disobedient, at times too gentle--you did not get that from me--but you are no craven. I am proud to call you Daughter."
She held him very tightly, forgetting all else in her elation over those words that she had waited so long to hear. "I am proud to call you Father," she said at last.
"Are you?" he said darkly. "You may wish to wait and see."
Far away, thunder rumbled with a low voice. The wind began to stir.
o0o
Hold, lest ye sin!
The memory of the priestess's voice, of the dozens of eyes and knowing smiles turned toward him, darkened Adnir's cheeks. Quickly, he hurried back toward the patch of grass near the plaza that his younger brothers guarded so courageously.
"You look fevered." His mother took his hand, and Adnir felt the heat of shame rise once again.
"I -- I'm fine. It's just exciting. They say her sedan chair has been sighted." His mother smiled broadly as he handed her the berries he had been sent to purchase, but was that suspicion in his father's eyes?
"Elzin! Elzin! Elzin!" The thunder of the Saire's name saved him from the possibility of questions. Gratefully, the boy cried out her name, though his family was too far to the west to actually set eyes on the Saire. No matter, they would hear her and receive the blessing of her music, an honor no one of their back-bay village had ever known before.
Next time, when a passing bard sang in Saire Elzin's honor, he would regale the knot of boys who lingered near the tavern's doorway with his own true tale of what this Playing had been like. Next time eyes were turned on Adnir, they would fill with awe, not laughter.
He forgot about his earlier humiliation as the crowd roared, then settled to near-silence to await the Saireflute's voice.
Adnir remained for just the first three notes. Then he left the plaza.
He was Harwinn, Uncle Harwinn, a tough ship's mate aboard The Star of Shador. Bald as a toadstool and twice as homely, Harwinn wore a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun from scorching his scalp. He worked atop the deck and barked orders for the sailors to unload the cargo. His vehemence was not needed, for the young men were as eager to set foot on the pleasant shores of Buktoz as he, but he was not a man who held with gentle ways.
"Curse all your great goose-feet!" he shouted when a crate of expensive spice was dropped. It split with a cracking sound, and the precious, brown crystal spilled onto the deck. Harwinn continued with a tirade of impressive duration and obscenity, even for a man who had spent his life at sea.
The sailors rushed to salvage all they could and clean the deck, under the mate's critical eye and whiplash tongue, but their task was interrupted. Soldiers approached in a long column, at least a hundred strong. Harwinn heard a sailor's warning and met the first of them at the gangplank.
"The papers are in order. I saw to 'em myself," he said with all the manners he could muster. He didn't much like the look of this. He had traveled to Buktoz port cities for nearly forty years, and he'd never seen the like. Here, in the city of Bugmukaaz, the folk were friendlier than most toward foreigners. Like some of his sailors, he had a woman and several bastards here himself. Certainly, the government had imposed some idiotic trade restrictions now and again, but wasn't that what governments were for, to get in the way of natural progress?
The soldiers halted but stood stupidly before him, so he repeated his objection in Buktoz. It set a man at ease to hear his own tongue, his captain said, and he could see the sense in that.
A man whose fancy uniform implied a higher rank came to the forefront. In Buktoz, he stated imperiously: "This ship is hereby the property of the Kingdom of Buktoz and its occupants declared prisoners of war, thereby the right and legal chattel of His Imperial Majesty…"
Harwinn didn't hear the rest. Before his chin could fairly drop, they had him slapped in irons and began to drag him off through the grimy streets of the port district.
Adnir was very frightened. He didn't want to be his Uncle Harwinn anymore, but still, he was forced to trudge on, followed by his uncle's shipmates, through the city streets. He stumbled on the chains, and a soldier gave a rough jerk. There was general laughter when he fell on his face, not only from the soldiers, but from Bugmukaaz's citizens, who had come out to enjoy the show. His nose spouted crimson, and from the pain he knew it to be broken. He couldn't touch it though, or even struggle to his feet, for his arms were pulled behind him.
"Bloodsucking leech!" several angry voices shouted. A woman stepped forward to kick him in the ribs.
A soldier hauled him to his feet and shouted at her, "You want to kick him anymore, you buy him at the sales tomorrow. This is imperial property now, not just some Lhantian parasite!"
That prompted a cheer from those near enough to hear him. Still, stones and sticks were thrown, more insults hurled, and only the presence of the soldiers, surly at their own inadvertent pelting, saved the captives from murder at the hands of the growing crowd. Harwinn was relieved to be thrown into a huge holding cell, where he was soon joined by his fellows.
Then he noticed the braziers and the branding irons heating just beyond the bars.
o0o
The wind rushed suddenly past Zermiann's face and across her strange and lurid bosom, and just as suddenly, she was not Zermiann. She was Jandiss, her young brother, aboard the great ship that he called home. He hid behind a stack of crates, as young boys will who wish to idle instead of work. This was his first voyage, and he was thrilled to be cabin boy aboard the new ship, Shador’s Fidelity, but he only had eleven years, and his masters worked him like a man. He didn't often have the opportunity to shirk the captain's endless list of chores, but the distraction of an approaching ship allowed him to slip away unnoticed.
Peeking around one of the crates, he watched the Lhantian ship approach. He heard someone shout the name Seawinds. It traveled in the opposite direction, bound for home. Fidelity raised the flag to signal she had news to share, and both ships went from sail to oar to pull closer together. It would have been many months since the men aboard the second ship had heard news from Lhant, and the crew of Shador’s Fidelity was eager as always to break up the long and dreary journey.
All available hands threw grappling hooks and helped to tie the ships together, and Jandiss laughed at his own cleverness in avoiding yet another tiresome task. Then the men aboard the Seawinds began to leap onto Fidelity's deck--many of them, far too many. Cries of alarm erupted as the reason was discovered; they were Buktoz in disguise aboard the tradership, and they were heavily armed.
Paralyzed with fear, Jandiss watched the sailors battle. The men aboard Fidelity had expected nothing and were mostly without weapons. Still, they struggled bravely using ropes, strong arms, and such knives as they had to repel the attackers. Many of his crewmates died in the attempt to cut the ropes that bound the ships together.
Jandiss trembled in his hiding place as the deck grew slick with blood. All around him, the men he served with wailed in agony as they were gored and hacked to bits. A few flung themselves overboard, into the arms of Shador, rather than face the cruel, curved swords empty-handed.
Surely, he would be killed too, the moment they discovered him hiding. Quickly, he decided what he must do.
Jandiss/Zermiann raised his hands high to signal his surrender. Carefully, he picked his way among the dead and dying, avoiding their faces with his eyes. He would not die here, not yet. Perhaps the Buktoz would let him serve; perhaps his life would be little different from the life that he knew now. He could, after all, work hard to earn his keep. He stepped forward hopefully, toward a broadly smiling Buktoz.
There was a quick movement, and then his mouth filled with blood. Dull pain radiated from his middle, and he looked down slowly to see what could have happened. The smiling soldier's fist was in his belly, behind a short, curved blade. He felt the twisting of the steel inside him.
"Why?" he tried to ask, but the word was caught within an opaque bubble of blood. The ship grew vague and dappled, like the ocean under moonlight.
o0o
Foolish, untutored girl! Mother Neshvann cringed inwardly as she watched Elzin take the dais and lift the Saireflute from its case. That dress… Was it not enough that the Flute had chosen one outside the training? Was it not enough that this child-woman had more power than her carefully groomed predecessors? Would she mock the very goddess with her impudence?
If the Saire would have accepted the priestesses that had been sent, she would have been told to hide herself beneath thick robes until the child was born. And then, another blessing of the Flute would have appeared, a child met with awe and wonder, not a simple bastard.
Mother Neshvann resisted the temptation to glance at any of the high-level priestesses who stood beside her near the platform. Even a single look of disapproval might be misconstrued by the unfaithful, and this moment, she could not trust her features to assume a pious mask.
An unprecedented roar of acclamation caught her off guard, and Neshvann wondered if part of Elzin's popularity came of the fact she was no Virgin from a privileged family. Was the Saire perceived as a sort of champion by those of humble birth? As anticipation built a fragile silence, Neshvann wondered at the implications.
She wondered as the Saireflute's first uneasy notes swept her out to sea.
o0o
The blade was nicked and the guard rusted, realized Captain Neltinn as he examined his old cutlass. Callused fingers curved around the grip, hesitated, and then laid down the short sword. Neltinn frowned. He couldn't quite remember walking to his cabin, or digging out his father's aged blade. Nor could he imagine why. This far out to sea, aboard his own ship, he feared naught but wave and wind, and both worked to his advantage on this fair afternoon.
The Night Holds the Moon Page 35