Windbourne shook his head. “I will not look for one, Lady. I would not ask one of my own kind to give up her power out of pity for me.”
“And yet we farmers and our folk live very comfortably without power, at least without your species of power,” she said. “Windbourne…on the way to Center-of-Everywhere we’ll talk of how best I can repay you.”
Perhaps Eleva wished to begin talking of it now, alone with him. Frostflower rose quietly and left. Only Dowl followed her back to the hall.
Thorn, who had assisted at the burial, found her some time later in Eleva’s study alcove, staring at a scroll-case door marked with the Self-Lighting Candle, the sign of a forbidden scroll within its cubicle.
* * * *
Quickly as Frostflower had followed Windbourne up out of the tunnel, Rondasu’s raidleader, Strongneck, had already been dead. Shara refused to let a sorceron touch her, so Eleva had bound up her wound, pronouncing it superficial. Windbourne had bolted Rondasu in the alcove readied for him, and Frostflower set the bone in Starstroke’s upper arm, which had been broken by the spear, and sped the healing. The young warrior had accepted sorcerous help passively, continuing to weep after she was healed, even as Frostflower tried to assure her that with practice and exercises she would be able to use her sword again.
“Don’t waste your effort, Frost,” Thorn had said when she approached them after bolting Shara into another alcove. Then, looking down at Starstroke, “You lousy, rotten set of dice!”
“Thorn,” the sorceress had protested softly.
“You didn’t see it, Frost. If this young idiot had done what she was supposed to do, instead of snapping on me like a brat’s damn toy sword…” The older swordswoman shrugged and moderated her tone. “Well, I guess it’s my fault, too. I must’ve been tired, I made a bad gamble. Not the first in my life, probably won’t be the last. Just get the sniveling bitch out of my sight for a while.”
At Eleva’s direction, Frostflower had taken Starstroke to one of the hallside cottages and put her into trance to compensate for speeding her body’s time to heal the wound.
Eleva had put Rondasu’s stableman in another cottage. He was confused and uninformed, but he seemed glad enough of luxury to rest in while he tried to work things through his obviously slow mind.
Then the priestess had sent a request to Youngwise and Eaglesight that they meet her on Mideastroad Straight at the Farmfork and accompany her into Rondasu’s Farm. She had not taken Thorn or the sorceri on this errand, for their appearance might rouse opposition, and they deserved to rest. They later learned that on reaching Rondasu’s Farm, Eleva had gathered his houseservants, principal workers, and second raidleader to inform them her brother and sister had suffered grievous injury in an accident and might not recover, even though she was taking them south to the priestly town for their treatment. She made her brother’s folk accountable to Master Youngwise until she or their own priest returned. Shaken by the news, none of Rondasu’s people protested when Eleva claimed Intassa’s body and brought it, along with Invaron and the nurse, back to her own farm, the child weeping with confusion and infant sense of loss, alternately clinging to Coddlemeasure and to Eleva.
Vari’s wounds, at least, seemed likely to scar over quickly; little more than two years old, he had spent most of his life with his nurses, and he showed delight in returning to his former playmates Evron and Evra. “Indeed,” said Eleva, “for all of poor Intassa’s love and the greater part Deveron allowed her in her child’s rearing, the difference might not yet have grown quiet clear to Vari between his natural mother and the other priestess in his first home. And Coddlemeasure suckled Vari—Intassa could not. I suspect old Silkhands reduced Coddlemeasure to a breechcloth-washer in Rondasu’s hall, but now she can take the chief part of Invaron’s daily care again. That may help console her, too.…Rondasu’s Farm will be named Invaron’s as soon as possible, for the sake of his mother and lest the Demon-Goddess of Greed clutch me as tightly as she clutched my brother. With Master Youngwise visiting the farm once or twice a hatching to receive the reports of the chief workers, and Silkhands in the hall to direct them between his visits—she was a fearsome nurse, but I think she may prove a passable administrator—with Crinkpetal sending them word when the Marker Days come, and with no neighbors powerful enough to dare attempt a raid, Rondasu’s folk—Invaron’s folk—should be able to store their winter supply of food and fuel without a priest in the hall.”
She left her own farm in the charge of Crinkpetal, even installing him in her hall. He grumbled at having to leave his own business under his sons’ management for most of the summer, but finally confessed it would be good experience for the lads; and more than half his selling for the year had been done earlier in the spring. “Besides,” Eleva confided to Frostflower and Windbourne with a chuckle, “whether he admits it or not, he’d much rather be left here to guide my farm than taken along to Center as a witness. Oh, yes, looking back, I think I understand what all his talk about rose thorns and edges of the wind meant that morning, but I’m not going to inquire into it. If we ask you to keep our secrets, Frostflower, we must be ready to keep yours.”
The priestess transferred her raidleader Splitgut to Rondasu’s Farm and persuaded Youngwise to lend her Eaglesight to get her own barracks in order and find her a better permanent raidleader. “I no more fear an attack on my farm than on Invaron’s during my absence,” she said, “but no farm will remain secure forever without a good, strong barracks. Eaglesight has promised to inspect my smith Rediron’s work and buy a sword from him. That should encourage my own warriors to buy their weapons at home.”
The priestess spoke of all this to both sorceri, but she looked oftener at Windbourne. That was the night Thorn spent resting after receiving her second brand of pardon, which she had insisted Eleva give her before they set out on the journey to Center-of-Everywhere.
* * * *
They left on the second morning after Intassa’s burial. All the party rode. The priestess took one tent-wagon for the sorceri, Swiftcurrent, Dowl, and Coyclaws; a second tent-wagon for Rondasu and Shara, mules for Starstroke, two servants, and another pair of chosen warriors—brought more for honor than for protection, since Eleva’s priesthood was enough to keep away outlaws, and as yet only Thorn dared handle Shara and Rondasu, with a little help from Starstroke, who seemed trying plaintively to make up for her failure during the crisis. Eleva and Thorn rode horses, Eleva’s a rust-red mare named Rastar. Horses being the privileged mounts of priests, Eleva honored Thorn highly by mounting her on one. The first few evenings, Thorn grumbled to Frostflower that the honor was damned uncomfortable by the end of a full day.
The journey would have required nearer two hen’s-hatchings than one on foot, but with all of them riding, they shortened the time considerably. Most nights they spent in a farm or a town, lodging in the priestly alcove-hall if the town were large enough to have one, otherwise in the house of townmaster or prosperous merchant. Thus, Frostflower reflected, they left a trail of spreading rumors about two blackrobes traveling in all apparent friendship with a priestess and entering farms without fear. On the few nights they spent in woods or wildfield, one of Eleva’s servants cared for the animals and the other helped the warriors make camp and cook the meat while Frostflower and Windbourne prepared the rest of the meal.
Eleva clothed Rondasu and Shara in blue silk robes such as might be worn by wealthy merchants, and explained them in towns as cousins of her nurse. They had been crazed, she said, by the loss of the rest of their family in a fire, and must be bound in their wagon by day and put behind bolted doors at night lest they injure themselves. How she explained them in farms Frostflower did not know, for Eleva always spoke privately with the other priests, who remained silent on the matter afterward.
One skeptical townmaster tried questioning the sorceri about the crazed old man and surly woman. Windbou
rne answered, sternly and sharply, according to Eleva’s tale. “After withering Rondasu to save her Reverence,” he explained to Frostflower next day, flushing slightly, “shall I hesitate to tell a small lie for her sake?”
Midway to Center-of-Everywhere, on the second night they had to camp in the wilds, Shara somehow managed to free herself, crawl from the wagon, and get to the pointed iron spit which the warriors had used to roast their meat.
For some reason—either because Shara had disturbed her or because she was pursuing some nocturnal creature, Coyclaws leaped onto Thorn’s chest and off again, waking the swordswoman in time to see Shara in the fireglow, moving toward the sleepling Eleva. Thorn shouted and threw her knife, striking Shara in the leg. With the wakened camp closing in around her, Shara plunged the spit into her own stomach.
Reaching the wagon’s tent-door at that moment, Frostflower had seen the end of Shara’s arm movement and the first dark spurt of blood.
Frostflower hurried down, but Eleva held her back. “Lady,” the sorceress said, “wounds that must be fatal in the body’s natural time, we can sometimes heal quickly enough to—”
“She’s pulled Thorn’s knife out of her leg,” Eleva replied, pointing. “Keep back! She’ll stab whoever comes near enough.”
Starstroke came forward, took a spear from one of the other warriors, and finished it, while Frostflower turned away, able to avoid the sight, if not the sound—a last scream that seemed less of fear or pain than rage. Windbourne half carried the sorceress back into the wagon, where she lay listening to the burial chants that Eleva began at once.
So they left Shara cut and buried in a field of wild grasses. “In her place,” Eleva said the next morning, “I would have done the same as she did. She would never have confessed willingly. The most she could have hoped was to demand my Groving also, with a counter-charge against me. And I think my Groving would have been gentler, for the witnesses are all mine, even to Youngwise’s written parchment.” She looked at the sorceress, whose shock must have shown in her face, and went on, “Yes, Frostflower, even we priests can be submitted to such questioning, but only in the Truth Grove in Center-of-Everywhere, and only by priests of the High Gathering. And I would not have allowed you to be Groved. I would have demanded to answer all questions, myself alone, on behalf of all my witnesses, as would have been my priestly right. And I would have outlasted Shara, if there’s any truth in the doctrine that the gods prefer justice.”
“Why go on to Center now?” Thorn asked. “Rondasu shouldn’t be any danger to you. He might’ve been if he’d reached that age naturally, but if he’s still got any spirit left, he sure as stink hasn’t shown it.”
Frostflower nodded. Rondasu was still a young man with all a young man’s greeds, lusts, and ambitions; but now he was hopelessly trapped in an old man’s body, with no chance to have acquired an old man’s wisdom and serenity. He appeared to be sinking into the senility that came of ceasing to expand one’s wisdom and knowledge.
Nevertheless, Eleva covered her left hand with her right. “If judgment on my sibs had been our only purpose in journeying to Center, then I think that now I would return home. But we have a better purpose. We must go on.”
Nothing but apprehension—which Frostflower could not help but feel now and again despite Eleva’s reassurances—disturbed the rest of their journey.
* * * *
Where edgelands farmers like Elvannon tended to be tolerant of sorceri—perhaps because they knew more of them as neighbors, perhaps because very few intolerant priests chose to live so near them—hatred of blackrobes seemed to grow harder as one traveled deeper into the midlands. So it was a surprise, even to Eleva, when they neared Center and found the suspicious glances decreasing again, more and more folk inclining to treat Frostflower and Windbourne with tolerance, courtesy, sometimes even tentative acquaintanceship beyond what Eleva demanded for them.
Priests and priestesses seemed to make up at least a quarter of the crowd in Center-of-Everywhere, and they had no reason save example to the commoners for extending courtesy to sorceri because a rather young priestess demanded it. Yet when their curiosity was satisfied, most of them accepted the situation more easily than had common folk in towns ten or fifteen days to the northeast. The widowed Lady Ena, who lodged Eleva’s party, had heard nothing of them until their arrival; but she instructed her cook to prepare food according to the restrictions of sorcerous diet, and then proceeded to show more interest in discovering whether she and Eleva might be distant cousins than in any other aspect of the case.
Eleva went at once to claim her place in the High Gathering, but returned to announce that she had found the Great Hall empty, the few priests who had met there that day having left early. “Small wonder the nearedgelands priests have such a poor opinion of the Gathering!” she remarked to their hostess as they sat at supper.
“The meetings are larger and longer in the winter,” replied Lady Ena. “At this season, they’ve all gone to see to their farms and crops—those who still have farms. I think your mother’s aunt Weldra was a daughter of my father’s grand-uncle Imron.”
“I do not think my mother had an aunt name Weldra, Lady.” Eleva still seemed annoyed at the state of the Gathering. “Who is First High Priest this year?”
Every priest at least twenty-five years of age, every ruling priestess, and every eldest wife of a ruling priest had the right to sit in the Gathering and vote on any matter for decision. All other members of the priestly class, high-ranking warriors with at least twenty-five years of experience in their work, and townmasters could also sit in the Great Hall when there was room for them (it seemed there was rarely lack of room) and give their opinions in discussion; sometimes one who showed special wisdom might be granted the right to vote. Each Midsummer Hatching-Day, the Gathering elected one of its members First High Priest to preside over it for the year and make any decisions that must be made between meeting and meeting. This year, as the year before, Lady Ennealdis was presiding as First High Priestess.
Eleva went to visit her in the First High Priest’s alcove hall that same evening and came back in a more cheerful mood to say that Lady Ennealdis was a wise and venerable woman, very likely worth the rest of the Gathering put together. She advised them to present their case the day after tomorrow.
Next morning Eleva went to the Great Hall early to take her place and stir up sympathy. Windbourne also left Lady Ena’s hall, with no companions except Coyclaws and the messenger Swiftcurrent. Frostflower had planned to spend the day in Lady Ena’s study alcove, but at last, about midday, she forced herself to venture out with Thorn.
“You can’t just sit here and let your mind swelter the whole silly day,” said the warrior. Besides, Thorn had received generous payment from Eleva for her services and was eager to visit the shops. “And if you aren’t with me, Frost,” she added, “I’m likely to dice all my money away before I can buy myself a new pair of trouser-lacings.”
Center-of-Everywhere, or what the sorceress saw of it, seemed a clean and lovely town…and surprisingly quiet, almost as if the center of the Tanglelands resembled the center of a storm. The heart of priestly government was also a refuge for priests who had lost their farms to their raiding neighbors. Those who knew enough of the past said that this town’s inviolate sanctity was more ancient than the sanctity of priestly flesh; and if Center had ever been walled, no trace of the walls remained. Even the small and modest dwellings of the most impoverished priests were surrounded by gardens, and most of the gardens were unwalled, save for the small, private area behind the hall. The town had a score of holy halls, and many of their yards were planted with herbs, grasses, clover, and flowers rather than paved with stones. The noisier and more odorous crafts, like smithing, tanning, the making of candles, soaps, salves, and many kinds of foods, were banished to the edges of the town, as were the inns with stables; and i
nstead of large neighborhoods of shops crowded together on long streets, the shopkeepers’ buildings tended to cluster in groups of four or five, each group with its own gardens. Where other towns had pissing-alleys, Center had a scattering of small, enclosed buildings and passageways to underground tunnels. Perhaps a third of the commoners who lived in Center worked as priests’ servants rather than as merchants and artisans, and a kind of semipriestly dignity and cleanliness appeared to have worked its way through most of the population.
To Frostflower’s relief, she and Thorn continued to meet far more simple curiosity than open hostility, even though rumors of strange sins connected with their reason for coming had spread by now through the town. The common folk of Center had seen other cases of priests bringing priests here to chare them with crimes, such cases often ending in the quiet disappearance of one of the priests. Fortunately, whatever the folk of Center suspected, they did not seem to blame the sorceri for corrupting anyone’s faith. Perhaps they understood that no sorceron guilty or even suspected of that would have been allowed to roam the streets. At the same time, they seemed much less timid of sorcerous power than their counterparts in the midlands. More than once, small children, many of them in priestly white, gathered around Dowl to pet him with a touching carelessness of whether or not they brushed against the sorceress while doing so.
Thorn bought a warrior’s tunic of heavy crimson silk with a few gold threads in the weave, trousers of light, unbleached wool lined with linen, brown velvet trouser-lacings, a new belt of black leather with a large buckle of carved oakwood, new boots of plain dun hide (her purse was growing light by now), and a kneel-length blue wool cloak. All this before she saw a leather sheath crossed with silver and studded with a flawless piece of blue sheen-amber. Frostflower thought the sheath rather ugly except for its gemstone, but it fit Thorn’s knife exactly, and the warrior remarked with a shrug that did not quite hide her disappointment that had she seen this at the beginning of the afternoon, the rest of her new clothes could have gone to spiked tails.
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