King of the North

by Harry Turtledove

  Gerin would have probed harder at him, but Selatre had another question: “Did you chance to see the temple restored when Biton worked his miracle and undid the damage from the earthquake?”

  “Lady, I did,” Clell replied, and his eyes went wider yet. “I was at the edge of the wood, hunting a—well, one of the creatures that dwells in it: a bird, you might say, for lack of a better word. As I drew my bow to shoot at it, it fluttered away. I glanced down, sadly, toward the ruins of the great shrine—”

  “I never saw that, for which I thank the farseeing god,” Selatre broke in. “When the earthquake hit, I was in a faint after the last oracle he gave me.”

  “I remember, lady.” Clell paused to drink ale. “But anyhow, there I was, figuring I’d go hungry a while longer, and all of a sudden, the air started to quiver. I was afraid it was another earthquake, or the start of one, even though the ground wasn’t shaking. And I looked down at the wreck of what had been the temple, and it was quivering, too. It was like it was coming alive. And then, in the blink of an eye, it was back, exactly the way it had been before. The monsters were gone, too, though we needed longer to be sure of that. But I haven’t seen one since, till now.”

  “I’d have paid gold—a lot of gold—to see that with my own eyes,” Gerin said. But, since he’d caused Biton to help Mavrix get rid of the monsters and the god had rebuilt the temple in that same sequence of events, he supposed he was entitled to some small part of the credit for it.

  Clell said, “Most amazing thing I’ve seen in all my born days … except maybe some of the creatures and trees in the woods. I wondered if I dared try killing them, but when your belly drives you, you take the chance. And some were good eating, and some weren’t, but I managed not to starve to death till farseeing Biton stretched out his hand.”

  “Good,” Gerin said. Tm as surprised—and as glad—as my wife to learn any of the old guards lived after the monsters came up from under the shrine.”

  “As your—wife, lord prince?” Clell stared, first at Gerin, then at Selatre. “We had heard somewhat of this—at Ikos, we hear a deal of news, though not so much as in the old days—but hearing and crediting are two different things. When you think what the god requires of his Sibyls—”

  “I am Sibyl no more, as you must know,” Selatre told him. “And I am now mother of three living children, all begot in the regular way. And it is by my choice; Biton would have taken me back when he restored the shrine, but I asked him if I might stay where I was, and he allowed it.”

  “Not all this news ever reached Ikos,” Clell said, and Gerin believed him, for Selatre seldom spoke of what had passed between her and Biton after the monsters were banished back to their gloomy underground haunts. The guardsman took another pull at his ale, then said, “If my asking does not offend, what question will you put to the farseeing god when you go below the shrine to meet his Sibyl? The Sibyl he has now, I should say.”

  “We’re not here to ask farseeing Biton anything,” Gerin replied. Clell was no priest, but was a servant of Biton’s all the same. Gauging his reactions would give the Fox an idea of how the priests would respond. “We’re here to treat with whatever gods or powers the monsters reverence. The monsters aren’t gone, you know—they’re just back where they were before the earthquake.”

  “You’re joking,” Clell said. Gerin and Selatre both shook their heads. The guardsman delivered another snap judgment: “You’re mad.”

  “We don’t think so,” Selatre said.

  She who had been the Sibyl at Ikos spoke with a certainty close to that which she had used when Biton spoke through her. Gerin had noted that several times since he’d decided to come here and to bring her with him. He did not know what it meant. He did not know for certain it meant anything. He did not even know whether to be awed or frightened or both at once.

  Selatre’s tone inspired respect in Clell, but no agreement. “They’ll never let you do that,” he said, sounding very certain himself. “They have the monsters walled and warded off so they can never break free again, and if you think I’m sorry about that, you’re bloody daft.”

  “The wards are to keep the monsters from getting out,” Gerin countered. ‘They aren’t intended to stop anyone from going in to them.”

  “Of course they aren’t,” Clell said. “Nobody in his right mind would want to do such an idiot thing. Why d’you want to do such an idiot thing, anyhow?”

  “Because Baivers lord of barley has told me their gods, with him, offer the northlands the best hope against the Gradi and their gods,” the Fox answered. “I don’t know whether that best hope is a good one, but I have to find out.”

  He wondered whether Clell had even heard of the Gradi incursion. As the guard had said, Ikos wasn’t the center for news it had been in years gone by. Clell did turn out to know; he said, “If that’s true, lord prince, it may change things, but I wouldn’t bet anything I didn’t care to lose on it.”

  “I’m betting everything I have on it,” Gerin answered: “my holding, my family, my life. The way things are now, I don’t think I have any other choice. Do you?”

  Clell didn’t answer, not directly. What he did say was, “You poor bastard.” After a moment’s reflection, Gerin decided that fit the situation well enough.

  Van rode with Gerin and Selatre in the wagon as they approached Biton’s shrine. Beside them came Duren, Geroge, and Tharma in the chariot Germ’s son drove. The rest of the warriors stayed back in the town of Ikos. Gerin had not brought enough men to fight his way into the temple precinct. If Biton opposed him, he did not think he could have brought enough men to fight his way into the temple precinct.

  “It all looks just as I remember it,” Selatre said, “but then it would, wouldn’t it? I thank the farseeing god for not letting me see it all tumbled into ruin.”

  No one else waited ahead of them to hear what the Sibyl would say. Selatre was used to that, her term as Biton’s voice having begun after the Empire of Elabon blocked the last remaining pass through the High Kirs into the northlands. To Gerin, it still felt strange, unnatural. He remembered Ikos full to bursting, with folk from all over the Empire—and from beyond it as well—coming to consult the oracle.

  The temple guardsmen stared in horror and what looked like a good deal of fear at the two monsters who rode with Duren. But the guards did not attack; Gerin’s guess was that word of Geroge and Tharma had already reached them, most likely from Clell but also, perhaps, from the innkeeper who ran the hostel where they’d stayed or from anyone who worked with or for him.

  “We do come in peace,” the Fox called, holding up his right hand to show it was empty. The two monsters imitated the gesture.

  “You had better,” said a soldier whose gilded helmet proclaimed him a captain. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t. If we don’t take care of that, the farseeing god will.”

  Gerin didn’t mention that he hadn’t come down to the shrine to talk to Biton, but to the powers that dwelt below it. He did say, “I’d like to speak with one of Biton’s priests, to talk over what we need to do on our visit.”

  “All right,” the guard captain said. He pointed to Geroge and Tharma. “You want to take them underground, you’re going to have to see one of the priests first. Unless you do, it won’t happen, and that’s flat.” He hadn’t called the monsters things, though, which Gerin took for a better sign than most he’d had lately. One of the guards in a helmet not only ungilded but also unpolished hurried off to find a priest.

  He returned a little later with one of Biton’s eunuch servants. The plump, beardless priest bowed and said, “You may call me Lamissio. How may I, serving Biton, also serve you?”

  The Fox nodded at that; Lamissio made his priorities plain. Gerin also approved of his taking no outward notice of Geroge and Tharma, who, by his bearing, might have been a couple of troopers rather than a couple of monsters. Thus encouraged, Gerin explained to the priest exactly what he had in mind.

  Lamissio heard him o
ut, which raised his hopes further. But then the eunuch shook his head, the soft, flabby flesh of his jowls wobbling as he did so. “This cannot be,” he said. “Item: those not affiliated with the temple are not allowed below it, save only to consult with the Sibyl in her subterranean chamber.”

  “But—” Gerin began.

  “I heard you out in full, lord prince,” Lamissio said. “Have the courtesy to extend me the same privilege.” Challenged so, Gerin had no choice but to bow his head in acquiescence. The eunuch ticked off successive points on his stubby fingers: “Item: creatures of the kind of these two”—he pointed to Geroge and Tharma—“are not permitted within the holy precinct for any reason whatsoever.”

  “We’re no more ‘creatures’ than you are,” Tharma said.

  If her speaking surprised Lamissio, he did not show it. ‘That is true,” he said gravely, “but you are no less creatures than I am, either.” While Tharma pondered that, Lamissio went on, “Item: any meddling with the wards restraining creatures of the kind of these two is forbidden on pain of death, even were the other two difficulties abated.”

  By that, Gerin concluded, he meant he might have been bribed into letting the monsters into the temple precinct and even into the underground passages below the shrine, but that he would not let the Fox try to meet with their kin no matter what. “Are you sure you won’t be reasonable?” he asked. “The temple would benefit from this—”

  “The temple would be endangered,” Lamissio countered. “That is unacceptable. We were lucky enough when farseeing Biton restored the shrine with one miracle; we may not rely on his giving us two.”

  He had a point. But Gerin had a point of his own: “If we don’t treat with the powers that may dwell with the monsters down below Biton’s shrine, all the northlands will need a miracle to restore them.”

  “This grieves me,” the eunuch said. “What happens beyond the shrine, though, and especially what happens beyond this valley, is not my concern. I have to look to my own first”

  “Look to your own long enough and you’ll soon be looking at Gradi swarming out of the woods,” Gerin said.

  “I doubt that,” Lamissio replied with great confidence: confidence that, considering those woods, might well have been justified.

  Gerin corrected himself: “Swarming down the path, I should say. And, before too long, swarming up from the south where the woods don’t protect you.”

  “I do not think this likely,” Lamissio said. Did he sound smug? Yes, he did, the Fox decided.

  “Why not?” Van demanded. “Did they take your brains along with your balls?”

  “You will speak to the servant of farseeing Biton with the respect his position deserves,” Lamissio said, his voice cold as a winter night in Gradihome.

  “I’m not speaking to your position,” Van retorted. “I’m speaking to you. If you talk like an idiot, I’m going to let you know it.”

  Lamissio gestured to the temple guards. They hefted their weapons and made as if to surround Gerin and his comrades.

  “Stop that.” The command came not from the Fox, not from the outlander, but from Selatre. It was not loud, but most authoritative. And the temple guards stopped.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?” Lamissio demanded. “Who are you, woman, to—” He checked himself, looking cautious. “Wait. You are she who was once the voice of Biton on earth.”

  “That’s right,” Selatre said, and added, with a certain relish, “I trust you will treat me with the respect my position deserves.”

  That was probably a mistake. Gerin knew he wouldn’t have said it, at any rate. Flicking a priest on his dignity was only likely to make him angry. And, angrily, Lamissio said, “And what position is that, you who have polluted yourself by contact with a whole man?”

  “Be careful with your mouth, priest,” Gerin warned.

  But Selatre held up her hand. “I will tell you what my position is. When Biton remade this shrine after the earthquake cast it down, he purposed restoring me to the Sibyl’s throne. That is simple truth. If you like, you may inquire of the Sibyl that is. Through her, the farseeing god will tell you the same. If Biton was satisfied enough to want to retain me as his instrument, though I was then no longer untouched, no longer even maiden, who are you, priest, to question me?”

  Lamissio licked his lips. “But you are not Sibyl now,” he said: more a question than a contradiction, for it was obvious Selatre intended to permit no contradiction.

  “No, I am not Sibyl now,” she agreed. “But by my choice I am not Sibyl, not by Biton’s, though the farseeing god was generous enough not to force me back into a place I had outgrown.”

  “If you are not Sibyl, and it is by your own choice, why should we pay you any heed?” the priest asked.

  “Because even though I am Sibyl no more, the god spoke truth through me,” Selatre answered. “Has the god spoken through you, Lamissio?”

  The eunuch priest did not answer. The temple guardsmen muttered among themselves. They made no further move to surround the chariot and wagon. A couple of them, in fact, stepped back toward where they had been.

  Gerin said, “Can we talk about this like a couple of reasonable men?”

  Only after the words left his mouth did he realize the answer could be something other than yes, of course. Himself reasonable to the core, he had come to see over the years how unreasonable so many people were, though their lack of reason struck him as being unreasonable in and of itself. And priests, by the very nature of their calling, were more apt to incline toward what they saw as following their god’s dictates than toward thinking; out what was best for them to do.

  And how am I different? he asked himself while waiting for Lamissio’s reply. Why am I here, if not at the advice of a god, to recruit other gods to oppose still other gods? But there was a difference; Lamissio not only accepted that Biton was more powerful than he, but made that fact the cornerstone of his being. Gerin accepted the gods’ superior strength—he could scarcely have done otherwise—but did everything he could to exploit their rivalries and blind spots to build as much freedom for himself as he could.

  Slowly, Lamissio said, “I shall do this, lord prince, not for your sake—for you are a mere man—but for the sake of the lady to whom you are wed, through whose lips the words of the god once sounded.”

  “Thank you,” the Fox answered, and said no more. The priest’s reasons were his own. So long as they gave Gerin what he wanted, or a chance to get what he wanted, he would not make an issue of them.

  Selatre accepted Lamissio’s acquiescence as no more than her due. She also accepted it without the slightest hint of I-told-you-so aimed at Gerin. The Fox took that for granted till Van whispered behind his hand, “If Fand ever got me out of a scrape like that, d’you think she’d let me forget it? Not bloody likely!”

  No doubt the outlander was right. Fand came first with Fand, first, last, and always. Selatre put the good of the principality ahead of her own self-importance without a second thought. I’m lucky, Gerin thought, not for the first time.

  Hoping to benefit his own cause, he asked Lamissio, “Shall we move the discussion to the forecourt of the temple?” He pointed to the opening in the marble wall surrounding the temple precinct.

  But the eunuch priest shook his head. “As I told you, it is not permitted that creatures of their kind”—he pointed once more to Geroge and Tharma—“enter the holy grounds.”

  “That’s foolish,” Geroge said. “If what we’ve heard is true, there are lots of creatures like Tharma and me right under your silly temple. How are you keeping them out? And if you can’t keep them out, why fuss over us?”

  Lamissio opened his mouth, then shut it again without saying anything. Geroge might not have been reasonable, but a lifetime lived with Gerin had shown him how to reason. For a monster, he was clever; even for a human being, he wouldn’t have been stupid. And he had a child’s directness to him.

  “I had not thought of it like that,” the pri
est admitted, winning Gerin’s respect as he did so. “We do not think—we do not like to think—of the monsters still under Biton’s shrine. We have walled them away with bricks and with magic charms, and we have walled them away with forgetfulness, too.”

  “Letting these two come onto the temple grounds would be a way of remembering, then,” Gerin said: “And if it displeases Biton, the god has ways of making that known without going through priests or guards.”

  The Fox knew that was true; Biton smote with a loathsome and fatal curse those who tried to steal his treasures from within the sacred precinct. Asking Geroge and Tharma to pass inside that marble wall put them in some danger, but Gerin could not believe Biton would reckon them a worse threat to the northlands than the Gradi and their gods.

  “You would have made a formidable priest, lord prince,” Lamissio said.

  “Maybe,” Gerin said, though he aimed to profit himself first and the gods only afterwards and as he had to. He also contemplated with something less than eager enthusiasm the mutilation Lamissio had suffered so he could serve Biton and the Sibyl.

  Selatre said, “Will you let us—will you let all of us—enter the temple precinct, Lamissio? No one will seek to harm or steal anything inside.”

  “Very well,” the priest said, which made several of the guardsmen give him surprised stares. He went on, “As you say, and as I find impossible to deny, Biton has the power to punish these monsters, should that prove his will.”

  “Of course he does,” Gerin said reassuringly. “He banished them underground, didn’t he?” What he said was true. What he didn’t say was that banishing the monsters back to haunts in which they’d dwelt for ages was different from destroying a couple of them. If Lamissio couldn’t figure that out for himself, that was his lookout.