Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn)

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “You stuff only one with cheese, Frostflower?”

  “We eat nothing that has required the death of a mobile creature, Lady.”

  “Not even to share my danger, if there is any?” Eleva cut a slice of cheese and held it out on the palm of her hand.

  To taste cheese again, and with such a reasonable excuse as that of proving good faith with Eleva, was double temptation. But at last the sorceress shook her head. “Forgive me, Lady. There are still two eggs. Shall I mix a new filling for your bread?”

  Eleva flipped the cheese round in her fingers, lifted it, and took a bite. “You would have disappointed me had you taken it. Gods, if we were so scrupulous in our creed! Hurry and cook those things, and be sure you remember which is which. Does your dog share your scruples?”

  “I do not feed him what I would not eat, Lady, but I do not question any food he finds elsewhere.”

  Eleva cut more cheese and fed it to Dowl. Frostflower marked her flatbread and Dowl’s with the initials of their names in the sorcerous alphabet, left Eleva’s unmarked, and slipped them onto the white stones below the fire to bake. It seemed to her that whenever a test of good faith arose, she was the one asked to undergo it. Yet did not Eleva’s entire treatment of her provide evidence of good faith?

  “We won’t sleep in the chambers I told them,” said Eleva. “We will sleep on the other side of the hall. In one alcove together, perhaps?”

  “Did you lie to them purposely, or have you changed your mind on a sudden?”

  Eleva cut another piece of cheese. “You think me overcautious? Likely I am. A woman does not gain confidence by seeing her mate die thrashing at invisible horrors, screaming of thirst and green wasps.” She looked down at the cheese in her hand and pressed it back against the larger lump. “Perhaps he did see what he screamed of seeing. For all the lamps we lit around his bed, the pupils of his eyes almost swallowed the irises, as if to enable him to see things we could not.…Tell me your opinion, sorceress. Could that have been sorcery?”

  It could not have been, but to explain that no sorceron could have caused such a death, nor any death at such a distance, might endanger the vow of prudence. “Lady, we do not harm any creature without reason. Nor would any sorceri do such a thing to the endangerment of their own freedom and power.”

  The priestess poured two cups of charcoal-water. “Nor do I believe in that sorcerer’s guilt, for my own reason. A reason you might not accept, being atheist, but you could hardly mock it more than my sibs mock it. The gods speak to me in my dreams, Frostflower. Not often, not on every matter, usually not clearly, but truthfully. Maejira has shown me in a dream that my husband was killed by no one who wore a black robe.”

  “And yet…forgive me, Lady Reverence…and yet you sent the townmasters word to look for a sorceron?”

  “The dream did not come until two nights afterward.” Eleva’s tone was bitter. “But I was not the one who sent that message to Master Youngwise. I was still watching at Deveron’s bed—he had fallen quiet at last, and I hoped even then to pull him up from the bog of death with a few damp cloths and a little burning incense. Intassa sent the news to Five Roads, under my sister’s urging, I suspect, and I have never been able to learn how exact were their directions in my name, whether it was their prudence or Master Youngwise’s to seize the nearest sorceron.”

  “Your sister? Lady Shara? I had thought Lady Shara lived with—”

  “With her brother and mine, his Reverence Rondasu. She does. But Deveron insisted on entertaining one another from time to time, in token of kinship. He said that friendliness, even when not demanded by ties of blood, was the surest way to avoid raids between neighbors.”

  “And you think that your sister may have…” Frostflower stopped, uncertain whether the hint, even though it had come from a priestly mouth, might now draw down priestly wrath if repeated by a sorceron.

  “I have made no accusation. If they wanted Deveron’s Farm without an unfamilial raid, they should have poisoned me as well. We all ate the same dinner and drank from the same flask of wine, served by Deveron’s own servants. As well accuse poor Intassa as my sib Shara. It was in her bed, Intassa’s, that he died.…Nevertheless, there are certain plants—thornapple, wintergreen in concentration, no doubt others—that can produce apparently sorcerous deaths. And if no sorceron had been found that night, they could have blamed the townwarriors’ incompetence.”

  Frostflower turned the flatbreads to bake more evenly. “Lady, you said you had some use for me?”

  “I had other dreams, too, in my youth,” said the priestess. “Dreams of a young man…tall, blue-eyed, hair and lashes golden as the inner crust of lightly baked bread…and always he came to me in a black robe. I never knew whether these dreams were sent by gods or demons, or simply by my own desires. Rondasu always said I was tainted with heresy, even in childhood. I did not dream of my blackrobe more than twice or thrice in the years I was Deveron’s mate, but this past winter and spring, now my husband is dead, the dreams have been coming again.”

  Frostflower shivered. It was not possible…and yet, a year ago, she would have said it was not possible for a sorceron to retain power after being raped.

  “It is true, is it not,” the priestess went on, “that you people send your souls from your bodies and travel in dreams?”

  She must have heard some rumor of free-travel; but was free-travel not a conscious state, however the body appeared to others? “Lady Reverence, a sorceron could not enter the dreaming mind of anyone else, not even another sorceron.”

  Eleva chuckled. “It isn’t my dreaming mind he enters.”

  “Then it cannot be a sorcerer, and still retain his power. Your…experiences must be simple dreams, Lady, nothing more.”

  Eleva detached the piece of cheese she had cut earlier and pressed back. This time she began to eat it. “Yes, I know your stricture. We use it against your people often enough. But dream couplings touch the flesh no more than wakeful imaginings. No woman ever conceived from a dream—that’s simply a rumor to serve women who find it strange that priests and a few ruling priestesses should be allowed several mates, and no one else. And why should my spirit blackrobe not love me as he does and keep his power, when you kept yours, as you say?”

  Frostflower shivered again. The dreams for which Windbourne punished himself overseverely…The power for free-travel, being the same power used for time and weather maniuplation and to a lesser extent for all the functions of life, was latent in every child, of the farmers’ folk as well as of the sorceri. Was there indeed some instinctive form of free-travel that took the shape of dreams, that sorceri and farmers’ folk alike practiced without recognizing it? Was Windbourne unknowingly so proficient in this form as to seek out the same priestess time and again, although in trained free-travel he was still like a baby trying to take its first steps? But Windbourne was no older than Eleva, perhaps a year or two younger—he could not have visited her as a “tall young man” when she was still a young girl.

  “Lady, do you wish me to stand guard over your dreams?”

  The priestess laughed. “The only bedmate I’ve had since my husband’s death? No, Frostflower, he does not force me—god, demon, sorcerer, or heresy, he is welcome. So you can leave your body, then? Where had you been this afternoon when you left your body in a trance in the townmasters’ cellar?”

  I have trapped myself, thought Frostflower. “Not far away, Lady Reverence.”

  “But you can go farther?”

  “Not quickly.”

  “You cannot fly like thoughts? Nor even like birds?”

  Frostflower shook her head. “No faster than our physical bodies. That is another reason I believe your young man in a black robe must be a simple dream.”

  Eleva sighed. “Unfortunate. I had hoped to send you tonight, but if you must go at
a walk…and then, no doubt, you’ll need a chance to sleep first. Well, tomorrow may do as well—or as ill, depending on how guarded they keep their talk even when alone. And I can promise you plenty of time undisturbed. I’ll guard your body myself.” She paused, twisting left fist in right palm. “We had best go to the Truth Grove. My sibs and other priests have the right to enter this alcove-hall at any time; but once a ruling priestess has begun a private ritual in the Truth Grove, not even a ruling priest may intrude against her command.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Thorn did not like sleeping in rooms above stables. She was used to the smells of warriors’ barracks, but not to those of animals’ stalls. The stink whuffled up through the cracks in the floor and hit her nose through the smudge-incense when she woke in the night.

  What had waked her this time? One of the fly-ridden cows or donkeys stamping and snuffling again, there below the loft floor? Or Windbourne’s damn cat, which now sat on the window ledge licking its paws?

  With a full moon shining through the window screen and fighting two pots of cheap smudge-incense sending out their heavy smoke, the room was not so much dark as murky gray, as if the smells had become visible. The cat had the right idea—get to the window for a breath of fresh air. Thorn got off her straw mattress and joined Coyclaws at the window screen, which was thin, old, badly carved, and splintery. The cat was splintery, too—hissing and turning with paw raised and spread. But Thorn put out one hand to rub its head, muttered, “Quiet, Azkor gut you,” and Coyclaws dropped the angry front and went back to licking her paws. Pretending not to recognize her comrades was a favorite game of the cat’s, probably to show how different she was from Dowl, who regarded every damn bugger that came along as a bosom friend. “Go down below and catch a boggy rat,” said Thorn. Coyclaws went on washing her face. At least cats kept themselves clean.

  The warrior studied the moon—a raider’s moon, according to the old theory—full, bright, and unclouded. Said to give raiders the best chance of invading unfamiliar territory, while the defenders, who were supposed to know their farm blindfolded, would have the best chance on a moonless night. Thorn was not so sure…

  Just as she had begun to think about dousing the smudge-pots and letting the night air come in unchoked, the breeze, which had been blowing parallel to the window, died down and a bunch of mosquitoes danced through the air towards her face. Waving, slapping, and cursing, she backed away into the smudge-protected interior. A warrior learned to put up with insects without moving when she had to, as during a raid, but Thorn had no reason to leave herself open to their stings, buzzing, and feathery little wings and legs now. Besides, on a raid she would be dressed.

  Sorceri slept fully clothed or in their undergarments, but Thorn did not want to wake to the instant need of fighting or escaping and trip over a long, tangled skirt as soon as she jumped up. And she needed whatever little luxuries she could find as tokens to herself that she was not really a blackrobe. Most nights she stripped completely as soon as Windbourne, worn out with his penances, had fallen asleep on his side of the room.

  She looked at Windbourne. He lay trance-stiff. If he were free-traveling already, his entity, as they called it, might be sitting up trying not to look at her. Resisting the temptation to spread her arms and spin around a few times to torment him, she got her robe from the chair and put it on. Windbourne’s entity might not be alone.

  Thorn shivered, shrugged, went back to her mattress, sat on it, fished Stabber up from beneath its edge, and began polishing him with her robe in order to be doing something. Maybe it had been Frostflower’s entity, free-traveling up to this room, that woke her. Frost claimed that no one, probably not even a dog or mosquito, could sense a free-traveler except another disembodied free-traveler. But Thorn found that hard to believe. Surely there must be some hint—a breath on the eyelids, a whisper in the brain, a slight stirring of the smudge-incense smoke.… Maybe a sense of Frostflower’s presence had called Coyclaws up to the window ledge?

  Still, the cat was washing itself as if totally unaware of any unusual tension. Thorn changed her position on the mattress.

  She wished she had slept through. Waiting was always the worst part of warrioring, but waiting like this, completely excluded from whatever was going on—not even sure anything was going on—no action to look forward to except hearing a report of what was happening a quarter of a day’s walk away…She glanced at the moon again. It was higher than it should have been according to the plan. If Frostflower had started from Five Roads at full dark, she should have been here before now. So either something had happened—she was late, not coming until tomorrow…or not able to come at all? Or she had come and gone and the bloody sorcerer had fallen asleep again without waking Thorn and reporting. Or maybe she was here, telling Windbourne half a damn night’s worth, and Thorn unable to glimpse her or hear her.

  She should not have let Frostflower go into Five Roads alone. And she felt too damn useless sitting here like a—

  Windbourne stirred, groaned, sat up. The cat jumped down from the window and strolled over to him, tail up.

  “Was she here?” Thorn demanded.

  He sighed and shuddered. “She was here. God, and us not there!”

  The swordswoman stood. “Tell it straight and clear, sorcerer!”

  He began stroking Coyclaws as if to help steady himself. “Her message to us is…that we should turn back northward. They seem tolerant enough of other sorceri in Five Roads Crossing, but the watch is still strict for one of my description, and the warriors would surely recognize you if they saw your face. And after today…The priests held ceremonies in the town today…”

  “She wants us to start out right away? Without waiting for her?”

  “At first she said we should go at once, leave her to follow as soon as she could. I persuaded her to let us wait three nights in South Edgewaste, but—”

  “What’s gone wrong? Where is she?”

  “She…did not want you to…”

  “Didn’t want me to know? Didn’t want you to tell me? By the gods, sorcerer, if—”

  “Rosethorn, she didn’t want to tell me, either! I made her tell—”

  “You made her?”

  The cat snarled and leaped away from Windbourne as if he had jerked her fur. “She could not lie,” he said, “and she saw that if she continued to say nothing, I would think it worse than it is.”

  “And? Bloody Hellbog, sorcerer, you can’t lie either, and if you don’t tell me what this situation is that could be worse, I’ll go back to that stinking town and find out for myself!”

  “She is…she’s a prisoner, Rosethorn. In the priests’ town alcove-hall.”

  “Gods! And it could be worse?”

  “She is being treated very mildly, almost like a guest. She was arrested for a small thing: coming too near a holy hall and listening to the ceremony. Her Reverence…the priestess Eleva…seems to mean her no harm. Nor do the townmaster and first wallkeeper. Indeed, Lady Eleva insisted on guarding her alone—there is no one else in the priestly house with them, she is not bolted in nor chained in any way.…They seem to have given one another their trust, Rosethorn. As you and I did that night. They’re even sleeping in the same alcove. No one would harm her body. It’d mean desecrating the bedchamber of a ruling priestess.”

  They were clever with their words, these sorceri. No outright falsehoods, but a careful selection of facts to give whatever impression they wanted you to get. Allow for a double-filtering through sorcerous prudence by the time it reached Thorn, and it sounded pretty damn bad. “No one can harm her except Lady Eleva. If they don’t intend to hurt her, why not purify her right away and let her go?”

  “The other ruling priest—Rondasu—seemed angered out of measure, ready to punish her severely. Her Lady Reverence crowded him out somehow, demanding that Frostflower be left to her a
nd the Townmaster. As if between them, they would protect her from Rondasu’s anger, perhaps guard her until she could safely travel north again past his farm.”

  Thorn snorted. “Master Youngwise polishes the dice for whichever Reverence he thinks he can get the most out of. And Eleva’s as likely as any other priest to have poisoned her husband, maybe a little more likely.”

  “No! This proves she did not! Why kill him and then show kindness to—”

  “Why not? If it is kindness. Damn your guts, sorcerer, you’re ready to trust a priestess you’ve never even seen? Hellbog, I’ve lived with them, worked for them, been brought up all my life to reverence them, and you’re readier to trust ‘em than I am! All right,” she went on, as he moved forward into the moonlight and she glimpsed the shock in his face. “I know what you want to think about her Lady Reverence Eleva, but which one’s more important—a sorceress you know, one of your own kind, who’s risking her guts for you like the selfless idiot she is—or a priestess who may have poisoned her husband and tried to get you stoned and swung for it?”

  “We cannot go north again, Rosethorn,” he said.

  “I’m glad you’re finally letting your bloody brain do a little of your thinking.” The warrior glanced around. “She isn’t still here, is she?”

  He shook his head. “She left before I came back into my body. She hopes to return to hers in time for almost half a night’s sleep.”

  Thorn nodded. “Better let her get back to her body as soon as she can.” The way she understood it, it was a kind of Hellbog for sorceri whose bodies got destroyed while they were out free-traveling. “Bloodrastor! We’d better not risk letting her see us on our way. We’ll have to give her plenty of time to get back, and by the time we get started…We can’t very well get to Five Roads, find a way in, find her, get her out, and have anything like a decent chance to escape without a full night for the whole job!”