Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn)

by Phyllis Ann Karr

“And suppose they do go to Eleva instead of coming to us?” said the priestess Shara, pulling the legs from a roasted grasshopper.

  “It’s hardly likely, sweet sister.” Rondasu motioned the young servant who stood near the table to refill his wine cup. “Not after what I said to them yesterday.”

  “She’ll be handier to them, as long as she remains in Five Roads. And there’s been no sign yet that last night convinced even our younger sister of the malice of sorceri.”

  Rondasu drank deeply. “Aye. It seems the sorceress was more cautious than we…feared. Or Master Youngwise is slow in sending us the news.”

  “I pray all is well,” murmured Intassa. “But I had never seen it in her, husband…the vindictiveness you hinted at. Not in two hatchings of living with her after his death.”

  The priest smiled. “You knew her only as an elder wife, my dovelet. You did not grow up with her as a sister, to learn all her little signs of temper. A tiny wrinkle at the corner of sweet Eleva’s pretty mouth, a small crease half hidden by the brown mole at the inner tip of her eyebrow.”

  “Oh, aye, brother,” said Shara. “You watched her face closely enough, did you not, all those years she was ripening? And the rest of her body, as well?”

  He made a fist, thumb wrapped inside fingers, and smiled at it. “No more closely, dear Shara, than I watched yours.”

  “Aa! I am five years older, sweet sib. You never watched me ripening. You could only admire me ripened.”

  “Do not think, dove Shara,” he replied, with a sliding glance at her, “that you taught me everything.”

  Intassa stirred uneasily in her cushioned chair and opened her mouth as if to speak, but Shara spoke first.

  “A great pity, younger brother, that we could not have traded private parts.”

  Intassa blushed. “Shara, this is for Raes and Aeronu to decide in their godly wisdom. You cannot question—”

  “Oh, but I can. From the time I was six years old and they told me that this red-faced squalling baby brother of mine would inherit everything—even my own little garden of stalk-lilies and herbs—and I must marry someday and leave this farm of my birth. Do you know, I remember very clearly looking down at you one day, Rondasu, while you slept between feedings, with the nurse dozing and Silkhands gone on some errand, and that day I thought, All I need do is reach down and cover his mouth and pinch his little nostrils.”

  Intassa shuddered.

  “But you mustn’t let her words trouble you, dovelet. Here, try the sweetherb sauce.” Rondasu leaned across the table and spooned reddish sauce onto the small squares of crust-fried chicken on Intassa’s plate. “How long must we wait before lighting more candles, Shara? We are not poor edgelands or Center-of-Everywhere priests. We can afford to waste. I can hardly tell the sweet sauce from the peppery.”

  Shara smiled and glanced around at the sunset twilight reflecting faintly from the white, mosaic-covered walls and floor. “Is any color important to you, brother, except the color of wine? As for our wealth, I am the one who inspects the storerooms. You merely strut about the fields showing off your holy authority. Two candles give us sufficient light to finish our meal.”

  Rondasu took another drink of wine, laughed, and turned back to his wife. “As you can feel, dovelet, they’re only her words. She did not pinch her baby brother’s nose, and she lived to rejoice in her virtue.”

  “No, I did not follow my impulse that day. But I prayed every morning and night to Raes and Aeronu, Voma, Aomu, Raellis, Meactira, Maejira and every other god and goddess to correct the old mistake and give me my brother’s sex.”

  Rondasu motioned again for wine. When his cup was full once more, he lifted it a little unsteadily, drank, and tried to hold it out to his sister. It tilted in his hand, spilling a dollop. He put it down and shoved it across the polished tabletop to her. “Share my wine, sweet sister. Celebrate our mutual joy that the gods were right after all.”

  Shara lifted the cup and drank. Lowering it, she said, “Turtlefoot, wipe up that spill of your priest’s. Gods, must I tell you everything?”

  The young servant blushed, compressed his lips, and bunched up the towel he carried across one arm.

  “His name is Swiftcurrent, Shara,” murmured Intassa.

  The older priestess shrugged. “It was Turtlefoot when he was a child, and he should not have been allowed to change it. Swiftcurrent! It should still be Turtlefoot, Turtlehand, Turtlelimbs, Turtletrunk!—Of course you’ll share our cup also, dear Intassa, our new little dovelet?”

  Intassa nodded, meanwhile trying to give the young servant a furtive, reassuring touch as he bent and wiped up the spilled wine. Shara waited until he had finished before attempting to pass the cup.

  “We must train new houseservants for table as soon as the old ones take their adult names,” she remarked.

  “The expense, Shara dove,” Rondasu murmured sarcastically, choosing which saucebowl to dip a grasshopper into. “And when you’re finished there, boy, pour me another cup.”

  “Not only is he still as graceless as when he was Turtlefoot,” Shara went on, “but now the whole meal must stop when he bends over the table. At least when he was a child we could still see one another over him.”

  “As well as we can see anything by two candles.” Rondasu coughed. “I’d aimed for the sweet sauce!”

  “Likely your hand was more at fault than your eye,” said Shara.

  “And yet Swiftcurrent is very slender,” said Intassa. “And very quick on the road.”

  “I don’t deny he has his uses.” Shara ran her gaze over the young man’s body. “But they are not at the tableside. Ah!” she went on as he straightened. “Finished at last, Swift-turtle? Here, Intassa, celebrate our joy in the places we hold here in Rondasu’s hall.”

  Intassa drank and began to return the cup to her husband. He waved his hand. “I don’t take back the wine I give my women.”

  “Very true, once you’ve decided where to give it,” said Shara. “Turtlehand, didn’t you hear his Reverence ask for another cup?”

  The servant put his left arm across his chest in sign of obedience and left the hall, running as if to disprove her names for him.

  Shara gathered several grasshopper legs between her thumb and forefinger, dipped them into a bowl of sauce, and ate them daintily. “Meanwhile, brother, suppose some guilty townsman decides to unburden himself to the nearest priest, rather than the mildest? When you planned yesterday’s preachment, you hadn’t planned on leaving Eleva in Five Roads, had you?”

  He waved his hand and smiled. “Chastising a sorceress. She put herself in grave danger there, of a spellcasting like her husband’s.”

  “We lighted candles and offered prayers for her safety, of course,” said Shara.

  He glanced at her and licked his lips as if to taste the film of wine. “Aye. In any case, she’s proved her severity—rumor will take care of that, if Eleva does not. What townsman would go to her now?”

  Shara half turned to Intassa. “Hear the wisdom of Rondasu drunk. Even more awesome than the wisdom of Rondasu sober, is it not?”

  “Slustru was always my chosen god, sweet sister,” the priest replied. “His wine clears my thoughts. Eleva promised to share the judgment with Youngwise.”

  “You can still trust Master Youngwise after his stupidity in allowing that sorcerer’s escape?” said Shara.

  “Master Youngwise should be all the more anxious to prove his severity, dove, if he would keep our favor.”

  “Unless he prefers Eleva’s favor.”

  “Not prefer us, with his own former second wallkeeper for our raidleader, and Eleva with no one but Splitgut?” Rondasu licked his lips again. “Oh, no. Youngwise may try to keep one foot in each farm as long as he can, but when the crisis comes, he’ll set both feet firmly inside o
ur walls.”

  “It…seemed a gentle enough sorceress,” said Intassa. Then, as if abashed at having spoken, she plunged her silver pick into a piece of chicken and made a desperate effort to eat.

  “Poor, trusting dovelet Intassa,” said Shara. “How fortunate you are to have found a haven with us, who can guide your thoughts. Had you lived much longer with our heretic sister, she might have pulled you down into Hellbog along with herself.”

  Rondasu drummed his fingers on the table. “Hellbog or Glorious Harvest, it’s still far off for all of us.” He glanced around in the direction from which Swiftcurrent should return with another cup for his wine.

  “Deveron thought it was still far off for him,” said Shara. “We would all do well to keep our actions as clean as our dovelet Intassa does, would we not, brother? But, of course, you’ve been studying very closely with her of late. Why do you not come more often to pass her instruction on to me, Rondasu?”

  He slapped the table lightly in a gesture of annoyance. “Because you’ve always insisted on making yourself the instructress, older sister! By the Seven Names, Intassa could teach you much, if you were eager to learn!” The priest rose and strode halfway across the hall, not quite in a straight line. “Swiftcurrent! Turtlefoot! Do you have toes or roots on your feet?”

  Shara, having finished her own chicken, speared and ate a piece of Intassa’s. “It’s a pity, dovelet, you had no better material than that to instruct. I wonder if you could have taught me the meek and gentle way to the Harvest Gates?”

  Intassa looked nervously towards her husband in the darkening hall. “Shara, if you would marry—it isn’t too late—you aren’t old, many priests would—”

  Shara cut her off with a laugh. “Many old priests would be glad enough of a helper drudge with my ability for a second or third wife, to help them run a farm I could hardly hope ever to rule. As for the priestlings still in need of a first wife, where would I find one beside whom even our Rondasu did not look mature? Here I am in my own farm, the place I have loved since my memory began, the place that should have been mine…”

  “But you have not the joy of husband, you can never bear babes—”

  “You found bearing your son a joy, did you? As for the joys of a mate to come to my bed…” Shara laughed again. “Oh, no, dovelet, I know very well what I am lacking there!”

  “Turtlefoot!” Rondasu shouted again, going a few steps farther. “Demons’ droppings, boy, I’ll take a strip off your ankle!”

  Intassa rose and hurried across the hall to him. “Rondasu, you must not—must not be too stern with the boy. Here—come back to us, take my cup if you won’t have your own back again…”

  “That tiny cup of yours, dovelet?” It was his turn to laugh. “Two mouthfuls at a time, it holds—more pouring than drinking! Well, let it do until that rootfoot comes. Intassa, little lovelet, my little guide to the Glorious Harvest…”

  “Aye,” said Shara. “She’ll guide us both to the Harvest Gates. You’ve left one of your carrots, Rondasu.” She leaned over and poised her pick above his dish. “Hurry back or I’ll eat this little carrot of yours!”

  Rondasu and Intassa returned to the table. Shara waited until they were seated again before she skewered the carrot and ate it, still leaning toward her brother. “And one thing I’ve learned, Rondasu, is that you should not have prodded the townsfolk’s consciences up again yesterday. But you would not listen to me, so now we’ve reminded all of Five Roads—aye, and Eleva as well—of what they would have gently forgotten without your prodding.”

  “What do you mean?” Intassa seemed about to sway forward, but supported herself with one arm against the table. “Could any of us—Eleva, you, I—especially Eleva—have ever forgotten Deveron and how—he died?”

  “In your opinion, probably not,” Shara replied. “But your opinion, dovelet Intassa, is worth very little now.” She turned back to Rondasu. “And why, wise Reverence, did you think it advisable to rouse them up for a sorcerer who, if he is crafty, will never come near this area again? Was his absence not serving us as well as his death?”

  “But we should have hunted him down!” cried Intassa. “Why did we wait so long? The gods will punish—”

  Her voice had grown loud, and perhaps that was what woke the child in an alcove to the right. “Little Vari!” Intassa went on, tying to rise. But she gasped slightly and fell back into her chair.

  “Silkhands will lull your little bratling back to sleep soon enough,” said Shara. “Rest easy, dovelet, she knows how to rear children. Did she not raise me, Rondasu, and Eleva, all three, after the old nurse died? And did she not raise us without your foolish Coddlemeasure’s help? Ah, here is our Turtlecurrent back at last!”

  The young servant had paused, panting, at the edge of the hall. Besides the cup, he carried another jar of wine. “Forgive me, Reverence,” he apologized, coming forward and putting the cup down on the table with as much respect as he could manage, his arm being unsteady through haste and nervousness. “Spicefingers said you would likely want more wine to help fill it, too.”

  “How presumptuously clever of Spicefingers,” said Shara. “And was it because of Intassa’s scruples, sweet brother, that you decided to make yesterday’s pretty gesture?”

  “Intassa’s not far from right. They must have been gossiping, wondering why we had done nothing all this time.”

  Shara twitched one corner of her mouth. “Does Intassa need a salve for conscience to soothe her for marrying again so quickly? Or did she marry you so that she could stir up your lazy scruples?”

  “Seven Names, Shara!” Rondasu waved his cup at the servant. “This will die down like the first alarm, and meanwhile we’ll get a better place in the gossip because we made the motion and Eleva didn’t.”

  “Husband!” said Intassa.

  Even allowing for the natural whiteness of her skin and the uncertain light of two candles, she appeared to have grown deathly pale, and the expression on her face heightened the effect. Pushing down hard on the armrests of her chair, she rose to her feet, leaned heavily against the table. “I did not…you did not marry me to…” She gasped, clutched her midriff, and fell sideways to the floor.

  “Intassa!” the priest rose, overturning his newly filled cup.

  She was already writhing and twitching. She began to scream.

  “More sorcery,” said Shara, standing and looking down at her. “Swiftcurrent, you know whom to summon. His Reverence and I will get her to her bed.”

  The young servant was still holding the wine jug. In his haste, he dropped it while turning, and ran out without seeming to notice the breakage.

  “But I fear Herbwise will not be able to help her,” Shara went on. “No more than Eleva could help Deveron.” She looked at her brother and smiled.

  “Gods, Shara!” Tipsiness shaken off, he pushed past her and gathered Intassa up in his arms. She made an effort to lie quiet there, but her mind seemed beginning to wander. From the nursery alcove, her child’s screams were mingling with hers.

  “You taught me, brother!” Shara said in a low voice. “You instructed me to devise ways of getting poison into one person’s wine beneath the very eyes of everyone else around the table. Should I have let the skill rust away after using it only the once?”

  “Gods!” he repeated, turning to her, speaking over his wife’s constantly moving head. “She knew nothing—she suspected nothing—”

  “There’s another sorceron prisoner in Five Roads and a chance to purge out the townsfolks’ consciences on her. Would you rather have died yourself to give them that chance, Rondasu?”

  “It was not necessary, Shara!” His voice shook with anger, and there seemed to be tears in his eyes. “Great Jehandru! I loved her!”

  The nurse Silkhands appeared in one of the archways, holding the child
in her arms and staring into the hall. “Lady Intassa? How shall I quiet your son if—”

  “Sorcery is at work here,” said Shara, turning to the nurse. “More such foul sorcery as killed Reverence Deveron. Light both candles over the child’s cradle and pray! We’ve already sent for our physician, and we must begin our own prayers, to guard ourselves. If we live, we’ll make the sorceress pay for this, Reverence Rondasu and I!”

  Horrified, the nurse nodded and disappeared.

  Shara turned back to her brother. “You’ve got the heir you needed—her son, the heir you couldn’t have from me. We have the sorceress to blame, and she sent out her spell against our household while in Eleva’s keeping—what further evidence do you need of our sister’s heresy? And you’ll forget you thought you loved your dovelet, brother, once you come back to my bed at night.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The moon would be just past full. Not that bright moons mattered so much inside a good-sized town. In the warm seasons, when thieves could come out without freezing their fingers, Master Youngwise kept most of the street lamps kindled all night.

  “I don’t suppose you can do anything to get us a little more cover?” Thorn asked Windbourne. “A good wind and rain to douse the lamps? Or a nice, heavy fog?”

  He shook his head. “The conditions passed with last night’s storm. I might be able to wrap a small fog around us, maybe a little wider than the street.”

  “Unh. Nice and inconspicuous.” Thorn shook her head back at him. “Well, better trust the common robbers’ way. We had one in All Roads West who used to make it a big game, never went out except when there was a full moon. Lasted three bloody years before we finally caught her, too! Called herself Moonchild. Gods, I wish I’d taken a few lessons from her before the scaffolding!”

  The flowerbreeder had refused to give Thorn any garments that might be traced back to him, but he did provide her with plain flax-twine. She used it to garter her loose buff underbreeches and the top of the light smock that sorceri wore under their robes. The skirt of that smock she cut off. It left her hardly decent—Windbourne, turning around to make some comment, blushed and quickly turned back until she had put on her black robe. But all she had to do now was shed the outer robe and she would be ready for action, with no hindrance from loose cloth.