Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn)

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “Lady Reverence?” said Frostflower.

  Eleva straightened and turned toward the others. “You see? I told you it was merely one of their strange sleeps, just as I told you her dog would not harm us. And small blame to her for sleeping through her afternoon’s wait!”

  “Admirable indifference,” said Rondasu. “I could have thought of quicker ways to awaken her with that lamp than by peering at her. And why do you call this lady a ‘Reverence,’ sorceron?”

  True—there was no way, so far as they were aware, that Frostflower could have known. “The wreath?” she said, looking at the metal circlet on Eleva’s head and realizing even as she spoke that its very pale gold was not easy to tell at a glance from silver, especially in twilight.

  “You cannot expect these people to know all the intricacies of our customs, brother,” said Eleva. “To her, any priestly matron might be ‘Lady Reverence.’”

  “Then they should study our ways with greater care,” said Rondasu, “when they plan to come spying among us.”

  “Your Reverence,” said Youngwise, and added a few words in an undertone, too low for the sorceress to hear. Rondasu nodded sharply, turned one palm up in a gesture of annoyance, then changed it to a gesture of goodwill by laying his hand on the townmaster’s shoulder.

  Frostflower could not deny forthright that she had come to spy, but she said, “Your Reverence, I have a token from Reverence Elvannon—”

  “A priest of your own neighborhood, no doubt?” Rondasu laughed. “An edgelands reverence?”

  Shara joined in his laughter. “They care little what mischief you people work in our midlands, so that you leave their own small farms in peace.”

  “Shara,” said Rondasu, turning to her. There followed another conference too low for Frostflower to hear; she guessed that Rondasu was transferring his annoyance, along with the townmaster’s advice—whatever it had been—to his older sister. Perhaps Youngwise had counseled him to be more subtle in questioning the sorceress; Rondasu now gestured once or twice at the third priestess, as if commending her continued silence. Shara scowled, the silvery-haired Intassa smiled, and meanwhile Youngwise went on to Frostflower,

  “Did you find the wall a comfortable backrest, sorceress?”

  “Was it built for one, Master?”

  The townmaster grinned slightly, then frowned. “In plain words, sorceress, were you touching the holy hall wall?”

  She knew why he asked, but not whether she should hope to be put under his judgment or that of the priests. How difficult it was to gauge minds when the natural inclination to like and trust had been overlaid with years of training in the need for caution and mistrust when among farmers’ folk! “Master,” she said, “I understand that my offense is having listened to the priestly ceremonies, but is my guilt greater or less for leaning or not leaning against the building? Is the very wall consecrated somehow?”

  “It is,” said Youngwise, “but that isn’t the reason I ask. According as you touched the holy hall or did not touch it, so you are to be judged by me as townmaster or by their Reverences.”

  At least he told her that much plainly and truthfully. “Why should this be, Townmaster?”

  “Will you question us, sorceress?” said Rondasu.

  “Allow her the natural curiosity of any creature, brother!” said Eleva.

  “Curiosity! Does any ruler—priest or townmaster—allow curiosity in an outlaw?” Rondasu slapped right fist into left palm. “Next you’ll say it was mere curiosity that caused her to listen to our sacred rites!”

  “Your Reverence,” Frostflower said quickly and timidly, “if I could unsay my question—”

  “You cannot,” said Eleva. “It remains in the air, and it remains an understandable question to any but a man who lacks the imagination to see himself ever in the disfavor of anyone with power to destroy him for his sins. Sorceress, the holy halls are priestly ground, under our governance, but the rest of Five Roads Crossing is profane ground, under the governance of Townmaster Youngwise and his undermasters.”

  The sorceress drew a deep breath. She must tell the truth sooner or later, be the outcome what it may; they were not likely to let this point rest. “I sat cross-legged, not leaning against the wall, but I will not swear that I never touched it with any part of my body or robe. I did not know it would prove so important, so I did not notice the matter closely enough to remember it now.”

  “Elegant!” said Rondasu. “Elegant and convenient. See how she tries to escape by throwing us into confusion?”

  “If you are confused, wise brother,” said Eleva, “withdraw and save your delicate brain for weightier decisions. Master Youngwise and I will judge the sorceress together and satisfy both our gods and those of the town.”

  “Gods of the town? There are no gods, sister, who speak first to the townmasters and only afterward to us!”

  “Without entering into questions of doctrine, your Reverence, which are, of course, for you to decide,” said Youngwise, “I may point out that while we are in doubt whether she touched the holy hall, we know absolutely that she touched the street.”

  “The gods of the Truth Grove,” said Rondasu, “have power to restore memory, even to heretics and unbelievers.”

  God! thought Frostflower. Will they torture me for nothing more serious than to learn whether or not I touched a wall?

  And what of my own vow never to utter falsehood, even in such a matter as this?

  “Your Reverences,” she said aloud, “and Townmaster. I will answer your questions as truthfully here as in your Grove. Surely willing truth is better than truth enforced?”

  All turned to look at her.

  “Whether or not willing truth spoken elsewhere is preferable to truth uttered within the consecrated circle of a Truth Grove,” said Youngwise, “is not for an unlearned townmaster to say. But without delving into doctrine, the point that occurs to me is whether it might not be simpler and more convenient, as well as more preserving of life and labor, to question her here first, at a little distance, before arguing which of us should provide a young man for the stripping that would be a necessary preliminary to the Truth Grove.”

  At worst, thought Frostflower, I can leave my body again before it comes to that! Nevertheless, she could not stop trembling. She glanced at Eaglesight, but the wallkeeper only gazed back as if to say she regarded what her prisoner had told her as a secret for the prisoner to repeat or not. The sorceress bowed her head. “I have already been raped, Master.”

  Rondasu was first to speak. “I did not know that any of you people continued to prowl our midlands afterwards.”

  “There…are many things we do not know about each other, priests and sorceri,” said Frostflower.

  Master Youngwise took several steps forward, patting Dowl as the dog turned to him. “Lift your head and look at me, sorceress. As your dog is doing.”

  She obeyed the townmaster. He squinted at her face, took the lamp from Eleva, bent closer, and squinted again. She blinked once or twice; he did not.

  “Mismatched eyes,” he said, straightening at last. “Like those of the sorceress in the ballad.”

  “Unh?” Eaglesight grinned. “So that’s what jogged my memory about her.”

  Rondasu spoke at almost the same moment. “What ballad?”

  “Not, perhaps, the most likely ballad to be sold to your Reverences,” the townmaster replied. “Briefly, it concerns a sorceress who retained her powers after being stripped.”

  “Impossible!” said Rondasu.

  The silvery-haired priestess put her fingertips to her forehead in what might be a gesture to ward off evil, though the sorceress had not seen it before.

  “It seems you were mistaken, sorceress, to assume Reverence Rondasu knew little about your ways,” said Eleva. “He knows enough
to judge what is possible and what impossible touching your powers even though he has always called such matters filthy knowledge—small wonder if no singer ever tried to sell him this ballad! But I would have paid to hear it,” she went on, with an angry glance at Youngwise. “If such things are possible, we priests should not be kept ignorant of them!”

  Youngwise touched palm to chin in another version of salute. “There will be few ballads sung, Lady Reverence, if you take all the singers to the Truth Grove. And that you would have to do in order to sift the true ballads from the exaggerations. Assuming the singers themselves know which is which.”

  Dowl whined and looked around. Eleva began stroking him again. “And you are that same sorceress?” she asked Frostflower. “Or is the color of your eyes coincidence?”

  “I…As far as I know, I am that same sorceress, Lady.”

  Eleva laughed. “Well, then, brother, I see little thrift in doing the thing a second time, and we can hardly take such a sorceron to the Grove. We’ve no choice but to question her here.”

  “She lies,” said Shara. “She lies to escape stripping, so that she can blast us all.”

  The silent priestess moved to Rondasu’s side. He put one arm around her. “We aren’t quite so poor in choices as you suggest, Eleva. We have a spearwoman with us.”

  “Reverences!” cried Frostflower. “I will use no power against you—the ballad is also true when it tells that I used none against the young man—”

  “Brother,” said Shara, trying to move between Rondasu and the silent Intassa, “if a sorcerer could put wasps into the bowels of our sister’s husband at such a distance…”

  He nodded. “Aye. Intassa, there’s no need for you to be here, dovelet.”

  Intassa looked at him, shook her head a little, and opened her mouth for the first time; but he forestalled her. “No. Hurry away, wait in one of the buildings above—don’t tell us which one, don’t even decide until you reach the yard. For the sake of our son, Intassa!”

  Intassa nodded and hurried away. Shara moved into her place beside Rondasu and said, “I have no child, brother. I am free to share the danger with you.”

  “Nonsense!” said Eleva. “If there were danger, we would have felt it by now.”

  “Reverences,” Frostflower pleaded, “our powers are not—perhaps—what you imagine them to be.” How much more could she say without betraying the delicate, carefully nurtured impression of being dangerous that was one of her people’s protective devices? “If you do not drive us to—”

  “This builds into a denial of her fellow-sorceron’s guilt,” said Shara, pressing closer to Rondasu.

  Youngwise sighed. “Well, Eaglesight, is your woman prepared to throw at need?”

  Eaglesight, who had been watching the scene with her arms folded and her back against the wall, moved her weight from one leg to the other and said, “Well, Whistlepoint, what’s your opinion about making a throw?”

  The spearwoman touched fist to lips before replying, “It’s possible, Wallkeeper. I don’t need as much backspace as some. But her Lady Reverence should move a little farther away. And, frankly, I’d as soon you got down Swoop or Quickarm for the job. She seemed like a gentle little bitch, for a sorceress, even if she did cost me five kips.”

  “So she is the same one you and Splathandle let in this morning, hey?” said Eaglesight.

  Both gatewarriors nodded, fists to mouths.

  “And you didn’t notice her eyes, either of you? I thought you were a keen one for spending your pay on ballads, Splathandle?”

  “She looked down all the time,” said the axewoman.

  “Yes, she has that habit,” said Eleva. “Even I, watching her awaken, did not notice the color of her eyes. Well, I was standing to one side and saw only her profile. But have we not encouraged her people to walk with gaze lowered? An outward token of respect for honest folk?”

  “Speaking my own opinion, Master Youngwise,” said Eaglesight, “I’d say there’s no reason to be flitty as flies over this. As her Reverence says, if the sorceress was going to blast us, she’d have done it by now. But she knows if she does, she sits here in those copper chains and either starves while we rot away around her to keep her company, or Snagcut brings a few more spearwomen and they take off the grate in the garden up there to get a clear throw at her.”

  “Aye!” said Rondasu. “We cannot depend on hearing anything but lies from her now, and we cannot strip her and bring her to the Truth Grove, but we can leave her here for a while. Starvation may do what stripping did not, and bring us more truthful answers as well.”

  “Starvation is not holy ritual, brother,” said Eleva.

  “Reverences,” said Frostflower, “his Reverence Elvannon knew the ballad, and yet he gave me his token. I have it in my right-hand pocket.”

  Eleva bent and felt Frostflower’s robe for the pocket.

  “Gods, sister, do you fear neither sorcery nor defilement?” said Rondasu. “To touch the creature—”

  “Yes, brother, I fear the defilement of punishing any innocent creature—even a sorceron—for our own guilt.” Eleva found the token and waved to Youngwise. He stepped close and together they examined it by the light of their lamps. Eleva nodded and drew back her hand as if to toss the small piece of silver to Rondasu, but clearly changed her mind at the last moment and retained it instead. “Sorceress, what is your name?”

  “Frostflower, Lady Reverence.”

  The priestess nodded. “She’s told the same name, both to us, to Wallkeeper Eaglesight, to our gatekeepers, and to the priest who gave her this token. Will you demand to see it, Rondasu, or will you accept your younger sister’s word for once?”

  “And was it also the name of the sorceress in your ballad?” Rondasu demanded.

  “The ballad gave no names,” replied Youngwise.

  “Master,” said Whistlepoint, “that young cloth merchant who rode in with Thorn last fall—Spendwell—well, he got a little drunk on Midwinter Longnight and boasted he had known the sorceress in the ballad. I remember because I bet on it later with Clampen and Steelsplinter, and then the bastard denied it when he sobered up, and cost me half a silver.”

  Youngwise raised one eyebrow. “Interesting. But since Spendwell left Five Roads two hatchings ago, and since you’ve just told the sorceress his name, the matter does not promise to be useful at present.”

  Frostflower offered a silent prayer of thanks. The net was sufficiently tangled without the need to determine whether she should freely confess or try to keep secret Spendwell’s true role in last summer’s events—on the whole, she thought secrecy best, for Spendwell’s role might lead to a revelation of Thorn’s identity as the warrior of the ballad.

  “Meanwhile,” the townmaster went on, “what have we? A sorceress who carries a priestly token of harmlessness and a dog who is obviously harmless. They were found listening to a priestly ceremony, which the sorceress probably understood no better than did the dog, at a time when all the folk in that part of town were attending the same ceremony and she could have little else to do while waiting to buy a midday meal. Otherwise, she has shown us no sign that your fellow reverence of the edgelands misplaced his confidence. Had she been listening at the door of our own judgment hall, Reverences, I would set her free at once and go to my supper.”

  “You do not deal with holy mysteries in your judgment hall, Townmaster,” said Rondasu, “but with mere practicalities.”

  “Frostflower,” said Eleva, “why did you listen?”

  “The music attracted me, Lady Reverence.”

  “The same feeble tale she told the wallkeeper,” said Rondasu.

  “So you yourself find our hymns so dreary, brother,” replied Eleva, “that you think no one would sing them nor listen to them but through duty?”

  “And the
oration?” said Rondasu. “The oration meant only for good, decent worshipers of the gods—as the hymns and readings were also meant?”

  “They were public mysteries we celebrated today,” said Eleva, “not private, not secret. Very public indeed, when we require every townsperson older than nine years to attend under pain of fine…though perhaps the fines were welcome in your town fund, Master Youngwise?” She turned back to Frostflower. “Well, and what did you think of his Reverence’s noble oration? Or did you prudently allow your mind to wander, as do more of our decent worshipers than would dare admit it?”

  “From what I heard, Lady—I do not think it was a great portion of the whole—I understood that one of my people is blamed for the death of a priest in this area.”

  “And so you were concerned to hear more,” said Rondasu, “in hopes of learning something of use to that murdering cohort of yours.”

  “Your Reverence, we have learned that when such things happen, they sharpen local feeling against all of us who wear the black robes. If you heard something likely to concern how the folk of a place were likely to treat you, would you not stay to hear more, whether you had had any part in the original affair or not?”

  “All sorceri have cause enough for guilty fears,” said Rondasu. “All priests are justly honored. I would have no reason to spy on matters in which I had no part.”

  “Very true,” said Eleva. “You do not recognize any matters in which you have no part, Rondasu, even if that part is only the interpretation of Jehandru’s justice. Well, we can relieve you of a part of your great burden of judging every creature that drinks of the Wendwater or the Mirrelstream. Go home to your well-earned rest, and leave this woman to my judgment and the townmaster’s.”

  “You’ve not yet ruled for half a year, sister,” said Rondasu. “You have not seen your first harvest stored, and you have no practice in wielding the Truth Knife or the Whip.”