Frostflower and Windbourne (Frostflower & Thorn)

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  The first such division was at the bottom of the stairs down from the kitchen, where one tunnel would lead back toward the main hall, probably to the ablution chamber and storerooms. The other—Thorn hoped—should lead to the old holy hall. She was surprised on coming to a second and then a third place where two tunnels met. The town dwelling lacked the aboveground storage of a farm, but the priests should not need to store much here. She remembered barracks tales she had heard, while growing up in All Roads West, about midlands priests who still kept the ancient underground prison cells in use. In all her years of working in the midlands, she had yet to meet a warrior who admitted to helping priests get their prisoners down to those underground cells…but many edgelands warriors believed such tales and ballads almost as gullibly as did commoners and sorceri; and at the first groanlike sound from one of the side passages here, she was ready to turn and investigate. However, she heard only her own footsteps, Windbourne’s, and the cat’s.

  One of the first skills young warriors learned was how to keep a sense of distance and direction. After just about the right number of paces, Thorn brought her party to deeply footworn marble stairs leading up. They should lead into the holy hall, and this was borne out by the dark-blue curtain that hung in the doorway at the top of the stairs.

  Thorn stopped to listen, Windbourne obediently halting behind her and, for once, holding Coyclaws back.

  The curtain was somewhere between the thickness of summer cloth and winter cloth, and it moved slightly with the air currents, despite the fact that it trailed on the floor. There was just enough light in the holy hall’s interior to lend the curtain a faint sheen.

  There! Was that a sigh? Frostflower’s?

  Thorn climbed a few stairs, until the top one was within arm’s reach, before she stopped and listened again. She heard another distant sigh, followed by footsteps that sounded soft but not guarded. They stopped almost directly overhead, and then came the glur of liquid being poured, a little splashing, and some squishes as of a wet cloth being wrung out. The footsteps retreated again.

  Thorn handed her lamp to Windbourne, who had followed her up. She bunched her black robe together and laid it on one end of the top stair. Then, very gently so as not to hiss them against their sheaths, she drew Slicer and Stabber.

  She turned back and leaned toward Windbourne’s ear to whisper that he should stay in the tunnel—he couldn’t fight anyway—and at that moment Coyclaws made a sudden decision to streak past them up the stairs and beneath the curtain.

  “Damn bloody cat!” Thorn swore under her breath. She thrust the curtain aside with her left arm and sprang into the holy hall before the advantage of surprise was completely lost.

  As she had guessed, she came up in a semichamber—a scallop in the back of the hall’s circular inner wall. To her left was a cupboard; to her right, a ledge with basin, ewer, towels, and lighted lamp; straight ahead, another doorway, its curtain about two-thirds of the way open. The Grove itself began seven or eight paces from where she stood. Its several rows of artificial trees blocked her view—all she could see was one candle flame, the light of several more, a few corners of altar topped with unmoving black shadow, and a glimpse of moving white above the shadow. But the same trees would also be blocking that figure in white’s view of her.

  The cat was already trying to climb one of the carved trees. The white figure—the priestess—clearly alerted to the intruder’s presence, started between the trees toward the rear alcove.

  Windbourne crowded up behind Thorn. She gave him a light backward jab with her elbow. Sword at the wary position, knife held ready to throw, she strode forward.

  The priestess reached the outmost row of trees, and they stood in full view of each other.

  Thorn had seen Eleva often enough to recognize her—short, thin, cocky smile, ready frown. Right now, she was frowning. She carried a candle in her right hand and she lifted it higher, so that it caused grotesque shadows on her face.

  “Lady…Reverence—” Windbourne stammered from behind Thorn. “We don’t—we mean no—”

  “Quiet!” said Thorn, and took another step forward, raising her sword slightly. “You’ve got a sorceress here, Lady Reverence.”

  “You are forbidden to enter this Grove without my permission,” the priestess replied. “I do not give it.”

  Thorn dared not voice a threat—she might have to carry it out. Wordlessly, she raised Slicer to downthrust position, the blade hovering above Eleva’s left collarbone.

  Maybe the priestess sensed that, for all her bold front, Thorn had not quite shaken off religious dread. The threatened woman gazed back at the warrior steadily. “You cannot cut a new mouth anywhere in my flesh that will grant you my permission to enter the sacred Grove.”

  “But if we beg you, Lady?” said Windbourne. “If we swear to you that we mean no harm?”

  Eleva stared over Thorn’s shoulder and squinted—the light was excellent for a warrior, but no doubt very bad for anyone else.

  A scream came from inside the Grove. The priestess turned her head, and Thorn seized the moment to swing her sword arm out of range and bump Eleva aside with her left shoulder. The priestess fell against the nearest artificial tree. Thorn pushed past her.

  The warrior felt a spot of pain on her back and a thin arm around her waist. Eleva was trying to hold her back. Thorn could have pulled free from the arm—maybe breaking it—but the spreading spot of pain meant the priestess had set fire to her flimsy undertunic.

  Dropping sword and knife, she half fell, half rolled backwards. The trees were well anchored, but the one they fell against cracked as they rebounded from it to the floor. The cat jumped down spitting, landed briefly on Thorn, and sprang to safety.

  Rolling and wrestling, Thorn got the fire out and was about to pin Eleva beneath her—the priestess had good fighting instincts but no training or weight—when she felt arms around her neck, trying to pull her away.

  “Wedgepopper!” she choked, striking upward with one arm, trying to hold Eleva down with the other, and feeling a beat like approaching footsteps echoing with the pulse of her blood. “Damn you—”

  “Stop this!”

  Windbourne’s grip loosened and Thorn glanced round. Frostflower stood leaning against a tree in the middle row, trembling violently, one hand stroking Dowl’s head in rapid, unconscious strokes, the other squeezing a damp towel until its last moisture dripped to the floor.

  “Stop it!” Frostflower screamed again. “Lady Intassa’s dying!”

  “Or don’t stop it,” said yet another voice, “and I’ll save you a bad scaffolding.”

  Thorn looked around and up. Eaglesight was joining the party.

  “Thorn?” the first wallkeeper went on. “Young idiot, you were free and clear! All right, roll off her Reverence and lie flat. Don’t go for your sword—I’ve got three more women outside and it was hard enough to keep two of them from following me in right away.”

  “Oh, God!” Frostflower gave a sob. “To come from that and find this!”

  “You are her friends?” said Eleva.

  “They are my friends, Lady,” the sorceress replied with another sob, more controlled. “As her Reverence is my friend, Thorn!” she added.

  Thorn rolled away, stood, and looked at Eaglesight. “Then I want a bloody good explanation before I die!”

  Eaglesight squinted at Windbourne, who was standing by and staring at Eleva, his hands twitching as if he would help her up but didn’t dare offer to touch her. “Lady,” said the wallkeeper, “I think that’s the bastard we caught last winter for causing his Reverence’s death. Should I—”

  “No!” The priestess rose, rubbing her arms. “I take them under my protection, all three of them. Intassa, sorceress—what have they done to Intassa?”

  Dowl whined and looked up at Frostf
lower. “Poison, Lady,” said the sorceress. “Oh, God!” she repeated, burying her face in her hands. “To stand there—to see it all—not even to be able to warn her!”

  “The same poison they used for my husband?”

  Frostflower shook her head. In helplessness, not in negation. “I did not see his Reverence’s death. But I think…I think it must have been the same.”

  “Gods!” said Eleva. “I thought she’d at least be safe from that! At least until Rondasu had a son of her—Gods forgive me! What happened? Did she learn? Did she come to suspect?”

  “There’s nothing we can do, Lady?” said Frostflower. “No way, no hope?”

  Eleva struck her small fist against one of the trees. “She could be dead already—pray the gods she is, and out of her pain! If there were any way to help, I might have saved Deveron—”

  “But you thought it was sorcery?” said Frostflower.

  “I did not! No—perhaps I did—but I also suspected…Gods, I’m not sure how much I already suspected that night, but I nursed my husband as if it might have been anything and everything. Oh, gods, Shara was nursing him, too! Frostflower, was it both of them, or—”

  “It was Shara, Lady. I think Rondasu did not know, did not plan it for Intassa—but he had planned it for your husband! Lady, I hurried back as if running. If you have horses—”

  “None closer than my farm.”

  “A few fast donkeys, then,” Thorn suggested.

  “We’ll try it! Sweet Raellis, we’ll try it!” Eleva ground fist furiously in palm. “We might be too late to save her, but, by the Seven Names, we can get her son and her old nurse out of that Hellbog farm—we can do that much for her! Eaglesight, have my wagon…” Her tone changed. “Wallkeeper, whose notion was it to set four warriors outside this building?”

  “Master Youngwise’s, Lady,” said the old warrior.

  “At whose command? Not at mine! Gods!” the priestess screamed suddenly. “Are you all in my brother’s pay?”

  “I wish to Hell I was in somebody’s pay,” muttered Thorn.

  “It’s my guess and Master Youngwise’s, Lady,” said the wallkeeper, “that Reverence Rondasu could find some reason for breaking in on you, even here. Pretending he didn’t know, or—”

  “Or charging me with heretical ceremonies.” Calming herself with visible effort, Eleva picked up one of the lamps Windbourne had left on the floor near the wall. “Don’t bother with my wagon. I think Youngwise keeps mules for certain messsengers? Have his best mules saddled and haltered at once.”

  “Listen!” said Windbourne.

  Footsteps in the yard, approaching the holy hall—a group of four, Thorn guessed, at least two of them warriors, and one of them…

  “Here comes Master Youngwise now,” said Eaglesight, her head slightly cocked.

  “My sibs!” Eleva struck the tree again. “They’ve sent their message to seize the first sorceron as a blamecatch for Intassa’s death—as they did for Deveron’s! And they already know which sorceress they’ll charge, and where to find her!”

  Eaglesight waved her sword at Thorn’s where it still lay on the floor. “Get your weapons, warrior. I won’t ask you to die empty-handed.”

  “You aren’t my commander now,” Thorn snapped back, recovering Slicer and Stabber. “I’d have gotten them without your bloody permission.”

  “You will not squabble, and when they come, you will remain quiet until I give the command,” said Eleva. “Wallkeeper, you’re Youngwise’s warrior; I cannot command your allegiance, but if you will stand by me—even should he command you otherwise—you may claim your place as my chief and most honored raidleader. Thorn—”

  “I’m content to be chief townwarrior,” said Eaglesight. “But I’d say Youngwise is still on your side.”

  Eleva sighed. “We’ll hope so—as nearly as he can be called on anyone’s side but the town’s. Thorn?”

  Thorn gave the full-armed salute, touching the garnet in Stabber’s pommel to her forehead. “Promise me a pardon, Lady Reverence, and I’ll fight Azkor for you.” I’ll fight anyway, to save the sorceress, she added to herself.

  “You have my pardon at this moment. You are also in my pay. If Jehandru is kind, my pardon will still be honored by most of my fellow priests.”

  The townmaster’s party was at the door; they could hear him mumbling with the three guards Eaglesight had left there. The wallkeeper took an uncommitted position near the wall. Eleva glanced at Frostflower. “It seems our tunnel is hardly a secret, but it might still give you a way to elude the search.”

  Frostflower shook her head. “I would rather stay here and trust to your protection, Lady.”

  Eleva smiled and turned to Windbourne. “And you, sorcerer? They won’t know of your presence, and none of us will tell them.”

  He went down on one knee. “Lady Reverence, if my presence will endanger you further—”

  “Go or stay!” said Thorn. “Here they come.” She got in front of the sorceri. Her back and shoulderblade throbbed where a draft hit the bare, burned skin. She wished there were time for Frostflower to heal it.

  New points of light, flickering in and out of sight behind the artificial trees, cast moving shadows that marked the progress of Master Youngwise with his group. Piously keeping to the clear space between Grove and wall, they appeared in a few heartbeats and stopped, facing the priestess across the last few strides. A long-legged youth in the short tunic of a runner stood beside Youngwise. Both the men carried lamps, and the one in the runner’s hand was shaking uncontrollably—it must be almost out of oil, or it’d be slopping. Five warriors waited in the rear: Eaglesight’s three and two more that the townmaster had brought. They looked uncomfortable.

  “It is sacrilege to intrude on a priest in the Truth Grove,” said Eleva.

  Youngwise glanced at the people around her. “Mine is not the night’s first sacrilege, Lady Reverence, or I would have waited outside, despite my news. Lady, your brother’s wife is dead.”

  “As my husband died?” said Eleva.

  Youngwise nodded. “His Reverence directs that the sorceress be speared at once.

  Thorn changed her grip on Stabber, ready to throw him at the first spearwoman who lifted her weapon. She heard Frost move and hoped the sorceress was getting into place behind one of the trees.

  “Does he also direct you to seize me?” said Eleva.

  The townmaster spread his hands. “Do not insult us, Lady. Your brother is aware that she has deceived your Reverence as well as the rest of us, and in his wisdom and concern for you, he deems it safest to spear her at once. And as we see two sorceri here,” Youngwise went on, looking at Windbourne, “and as we have two women with copper-headed spears and two more with iron-headed, it might be safest and most comfortable for all of us if we disposed of them both at the same time.”

  Thorn lofted Stabber and Slicer to catch the light. “The first woman who raises her spear, Master Youngwise, you get a knife in your fat belly, male or no male.”

  One of the women with an iron-headed spear began to raise it and took a step to the left to give her throwing arm more freedom, but a glance at Thorn made her lower the weapon and step back. The other four huddled a little closer together.

  Master Youngwise, however, only looked down at his small potbelly. “Fat? Rather less so, I think, than most other men of my age and prosperity. As for the rest of it, Thorn—that is Thorn, I think?—since you seem to be one of the obstacles between my spearwomen and the sorceri, the first spear will undoubtedly be aimed at you.”

  “No one but a priest or priestess may command blood to be shed in a Grove,” said Eleva.

  Youngwise put the tips of his fingers together and bowed slightly. “Nor have I given such a command, Lady Reverence. I have merely conveyed to you the directions
of your priestly brother.”

  And given us time to take cover, you old wall-straddler, thought Thorn. She glanced around, saw that Frost had gotten herself and Dowl behind one of the trees and Windbourne had gotten himself near the priestess. The swordswoman stepped behind the nearest tree, easing into a position from which she could spring out at the warriors behind the townmaster.

  “Rondasu may have commanded a slaughter,” said Eleva, “but he is not here present, and so my command is the holier. I take both these sorceri under my protection. Whoever harms them commits as great a sacrilege as if the blow were aimed at me!”

  Youngwise cocked one gray eyebrow. “I had never heard a priest’s sanctity could be extended quite that far, Reverence, though it hardly befits a simple townmaster to question these things. Your brother may question it, of course.”

  The runner put down his lamp and lay on the floor, arms extended. “Lady, I was sent—his Reverence directed—if you should not wish her speared at once, I was to serve as—as—stripper—”

  Eleva looked down at him. “Turtlefoot, is it not?”

  “I was Turtlefoot, Lady…my child name.…Now I’m Swiftcurrent, and…”

  “And anxious to prove you’re adult enough for such a task?” Eleva finished for him. “Tell Reverence Rondasu I refuse that kind of spearing as firmly as the other. Or if you fear returning to him with your hair still brown, leave off serving him and serve me instead.”

  “Seeing that we have two sorceri here,” said the townmaster, “and the second, if I’m not mistaken, the same young male we’ve been searching for since midwinter, we might try forcing them to strip each other.”

  “Leave this holy hall!” said Eleva. “I’ve endured your defiling presence too long.”

  Youngwise bowed once more. “I made the suggestion, Lady Reverence, so that I could tell your brother, with my hand in his, that I did everything in my poor power to see his directions carried out. From this moment, the quarrel must be between you and him. Unfortunately, were you both to stand before their High Reverences in Center-of-Everywhere tonight, I fear I would wager my goldens on him.” Youngwise touched fingers to forehead. “Before I go, may I ask if you’ll permit us to arrest this outlaw warrior, once our own third wallkeeper? Or is she also under your holy protection?”