The Earth Goddess

by Richard Herley

  That was the plan. Rian did not know how far Hothen would get with it. They must have known how backward he was, how incapable of assimilating such learning, but still this elaborate scheme for his future had solemnly been laid out. Perhaps it was all a show. Perhaps the Home Lord did not intend him to finish his education or to assume control of Valdoe. The appearances, however, would have to be observed.

  The first stage in this process was beginning today. At any moment now the tutor would be coming over to be introduced to his charge. The Vansard would accompany him. General Teshe had arranged a small ceremony to mark both this event and the refurbishing of the residence. Food and drink had been prepared; three musicians had just arrived and were tuning their instruments.

  Hothen had been ready for at least an hour. He was sitting with his mother in the main room, while the slaves straightened mats and hangings that were already straight and Rian looked nervously out of the window towards the gate of the inner palisade.

  She still could not believe that events had moved so quickly. She still could not believe that Lord Torin was really dead or that Hothen, poor little Hothen, had been propelled with such speed into the highest and most dangerous reaches of power. Three weeks ago he and Ika had been nothing, despised, ignored. Now Ika was important. She had new clothes, new jewellery, her own suite of rooms, everything she wanted. By sledge or litter she could travel anywhere she pleased. Hothen, naturally, also had his own retinue: Rian’s work had been reduced to a tithe of its former amount. In three weeks her life had been transformed. It was unbelievable, but true. And for proof, she saw at last two grey-clad figures passing through the inner gate and crossing the mist-soaked turf towards the residence.

  “They’re coming,” she said, and hurried back into the main chamber.

  * * *

  “You must leave us now,” the older priest said.

  Beilin Crogh stood up, turning his hat in his hands, and looked anxiously at Paoul. The younger priest took his arm and drew him to the door. “The first examination will last till sunset. Come back then.”

  Paoul did not look round. He heard the door close behind him and felt even more afraid – Beilin Crogh was at least familiar. Paoul had begun, almost, to like him.

  They had been staying in Valdoe Village, at the house of Beilin Crogh’s father.

  The walk from the west had taken four days. From Sturt, Beilin Crogh had moved Paoul to another village, nearer Matley fort. He had remained there for five days until collected by Beilin Crogh and two of the soldiers who had been at Sturt. In the interval, it seemed, Beilin Crogh had heard some momentous news about Valdoe, about the Flint Lord. Because of it he had been on the point of abandoning Paoul to the village. Then he had changed his mind. At a rapid pace they had travelled the roads and tracks Paoul had last walked with the group. Each familiar bend and prospect, each river crossed, had reminded him of Tagart, of the old life which now was over and would never come again. Paoul was bewildered as well as frightened and unhappy. Beilin Crogh had asked so many questions that he had made Paoul cry, but Paoul’s own questions had been ignored or evaded. He knew that Beilin Crogh had bought him from Bocher and that he was going to Valdoe to be resold, as a slave. But he also knew that he was too small to work usefully in the mines or anywhere else, and he could not understand why he warranted this treatment – why a harvest inspector and two soldiers were troubling to escort him sixty or seventy miles across country, or why Beilin Crogh was so anxious to know every last detail of his life.

  Beilin Crogh had interrogated him most closely on the subject of his parents. Paoul remembered nothing of his mother, but Tagart had told him that she had been kind and beautiful and had died after drinking bad water. Beilin Crogh had insisted on hearing about her, not just once, but over and over again. And her husband, Tagart, had he always been a vagrant, a nomad? How had he come to be crippled? Was Paoul sure that his father had never been connected in any way – especially by blood – with the important families of Valdoe or the mainland? And his mother? What had been her name? Had she ever owned precious objects? Necklaces, for example, or brooches? Was he sure? Had anyone in the group, anyone at all, ever owned or come by such things? And how had he known about the trapdoor? Was it truly a dream that had shown him, or did he have access to the spirits? How often did he have such dreams? Had he ever seen the future before? Never? What did he know about magic, or ritual words, or secret markings, or how the pentacle was made? What did he know about the heavens? What did he know about the sun, the moon, the seasons of the sky? Nothing? Was he sure?

  On arrival at Valdoe the questioning had finally come to an end. Beilin Crogh had seemed satisfied, even pleased, with Paoul’s answers. He had become more affable; he had promised Paoul that nothing bad was going to happen.

  They had arrived in the village at noon, in drifting fog which had wreathed the base of Valdoe Hill and obscured the Trundle at its summit. After a meal, Beilin Crogh had taken leave of his father and had climbed the hill, returning late at night. From his corner of the rear chamber, Paoul had strained to overhear the ensuing conversation between Beilin Crogh and his father. He had heard “the boy” mentioned once or twice, and “Dagda’s brother”, and he had been able to distinguish a few other words and phrases, but nothing to signify what was happening or what the future held.

  Early this morning, for the first time in his life, he had been bathed in hot water. Beilin Crogh’s mother had scrubbed him with a doeskin pad soaked in a sort of colourless jelly. Afterwards she had rinsed and dried him, cleaned out his ears and nose, examined his hands and feet and teeth, and pronounced him ready to be dressed – in new clothes, clothes of a quality Paoul had never seen before: a supple jerkin with braided seams, a doeskin blouse, kidskin leggings and breeches, hide boots lined with marten fur and fastened with horn-toggled straps.

  Paoul had sniffed at his hand, tasted his skin. Even a summer bathe in the cleanest pool had always left him smelling slightly of natural things; even a swim in the most dazzling surf had made his skin smell of the sea, but today he smelled of nothing, not even of himself. He could smell only the sickly odour of leather-dressing, coming from his new clothes.

  “Where’s that other boy you brought here, Crogh?” Beilin Crogh’s mother had asked her son.

  “I think you must have left him in the bathwater.”

  And another boy, it seemed, had been left on the long ascent of the hill, approaching the ramparts and palisades of the Trundle, another as Beilin Crogh had led him through the jaws of the north-east gateway and into the enclosure, another as they had gained admittance to what Paoul realized were the priests’ quarters, and yet another as the door had shut on Beilin Crogh, leaving Paoul alone with his two examiners.

  “Now, Paoul,” the older and more important one said, rising from his seat. “There is no need to be frightened. Nobody is going to hurt you.” He beckoned. “Come to the light. We want to see what you’re made of.”

  Paoul had never been spoken to by a red priest before. He had never even been close to one. He knew these were red priests by their tattoos and by their grey clothing. He had occasionally glimpsed such men at gatherings or festivals or, twice, when travelling on the road. Tagart had told him that they were to be feared, much more than the blue priests of the villages, much more than the soldiers or the Trundlemen, more even than the Flint Lord himself.

  “Come along,” said the younger one. “Don’t keep Kar Houle waiting.”

  Paoul stood up. He made himself walk to the window. The older priest, a man of great age with a shock of white hair and clear blue eyes, laid a hand on Paoul’s head and felt his skull.

  “Why are you trembling so much, boy? Keep still.”

  “I … I want to know why I have been brought here. Am I … am I to be sacrificed?”

  The old priest looked amused. “What gives you that idea?”

  “I once heard someone say …”

  “Say what?”

  “That chil
dren were sacrificed to the Earth Mother. By the red priests. By you.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you. Here we cut no throats at all.”

  “Then … am I to be made a slave? Tell me what you want of me.”

  “Be quiet. You talk too much.”

  The old man continued, with gentle yet insistent fingers, to explore the shape of Paoul’s head. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Most interesting.” From a bowl beside him he took a small, flattened stick, squatted and, opening Paoul’s mouth, pressed the stick against his tongue. “Easy. Don’t tense.” Paoul watched his eyes making a swift, darting examination. Paoul started to gag: the stick was instantly taken away. Next the old man’s fingers probed under his jaw, feeling his windpipe and neck. “Turn your head. Now the other way. Back again. Now come closer to the light.” Paoul felt his left ear being pulled and the end of a short tube being inserted. “Yes. And the other. Yes.”

  The younger priest had meanwhile left the room. From somewhere just beyond the doorway came a very faint tinkling sound, as of fragments of shell being blown by the wind. “Do you hear anything?”

  Paoul nodded.

  “Hold up your hand when it stops.”

  The test was repeated with a variety of sounds and whispered words, and repeated again, first with the right ear blocked and then the left. At the end, the old man seemed satisfied.

  He next made an extended and meticulous examination of Paoul’s eyes, folding back the lids, asking him to look from side to side and up and down and, with the lids closed, lightly pressing the eyeballs in a dozen different ways. After this he directed Paoul’s attention outside, into the enclosure. A black board, marked with concentric patterns in red, green, and white, had been hung from a post some twenty paces from the window. Using either eye, and then both together, Paoul had to describe the markings in great detail.

  As question followed question, Paoul began to feel less fearful. He was even beginning, in a curious way, to enjoy himself.

  “And inside the inner one? Is there anything else?”

  “No … there might be. I’m not sure. Is it a dot?”

  Once more the old man squatted, to share Paoul’s view of the board, and Paoul noticed how lithe, how controlled, how unlike those of other old men, his movements seemed to be. Paoul allowed himself to become aware of what he had not wanted to acknowledge before: an indefinable, tingling sensation of fascination, attraction, a desire to please, to win the approval of his questioner. “Don’t strain,” the old man said. “Blink normally. Breathe easily. Don’t screw up your eyes. Just guess. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong.”

  Suddenly Paoul knew the old man did not intend to hurt him. And if the old man did not intend to hurt him, then neither, perhaps, did the young one nor any of the other priests, and perhaps Beilin Crogh’s promise, that nothing bad was going to happen, had after all been true.

  “So. What do you think it is, Paoul?”

  “A cross. A white cross. Is it a cross?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Yes. It’s a white cross.”

  The old man rose to his feet. “Please remove your jerkin and blouse.”

  Over Paoul’s head the young priest said, “He might even do, Kar Houle.”

  “There’s a long way to go yet. But I agree, he might. If, that is, we decide to meet the beilin’s price.”

  The beilin’s price? Paoul did not understand; but he dared not ask.

  “Quickly, boy,” the young priest said. “We’ve better things to do than wait for you.” And, firmly but not at all roughly, he helped Paoul pull the new leather blouse over his head, deftly folded it, and laid it on the shelf.

  7

  Paoul was examined daily for almost a week, usually by Kar Houle, who was always present, but often by other priests too. On the first day they completed the examination of every part of his body – his frame, his muscles, tendons, the shape and feel of his internal organs – and, with a graduated rod and large and small pairs of pivoting, sharp-pointed tongs, they measured his height, girth, the length and thickness of his limbs, the size of his head, and the proportions of his face. They immersed him in a vat brimming with water and balanced him on a counterpoised beam. They made him run against an older boy, made him step up and down on a log, jump, lift stones, throw spears and bend bows. They felt his neck and counted his breaths, listened to his chest through a small tube, and made him perform contortions to test his suppleness.

  The next day another priest, younger than Kar Houle but still very old, gave Paoul a selection of strange objects, both man-made and natural, and asked him to guess their origin and function. He then set Paoul some puzzles. At first they were simple and Paoul could answer without hesitation. Later they became harder, much harder, until, however much time he took, he still remained baffled. After this the priest showed him a tray of small objects: a feather, a crab’s claw, an acorn, a toadstool, a dead mouse. Almost at once he covered the tray and asked Paoul to remember what he had seen. That was easy. Paoul could name all the objects, even when more were added or some were taken away; but, by the time there were twenty or twenty-five to remember, and the time was reduced to just a few moments, his memory began to falter.

  On the third day the same priest sat with him in the examining room. Much of the morning and the whole of the afternoon were taken up with a difficult series of tests, using pebbles at first, then wooden shapes, and then multicoloured cubes laid out on a large chequerboard. The markers formed confusing patterns which Paoul had to study and, if necessary, complete, by moving, adding, or taking away one or more of the markers. When the tests became too complicated they began again, but this time the priests engaged in distracting conversation which made it even harder to think.

  By dusk, when Beilin Crogh again came to collect him and take him down to the village, Paoul felt exhausted. He was beginning to feel angry and resentful, too: for not once had Kar Houle or any of the others told him when he had given the right or wrong answer. Not once had they praised or corrected him; not once had they indicated the purpose of all these tests.

  “That’s enough,” Beilin Crogh growled, when Paoul asked him for the hundredth time what it was the priests wanted. “I’m not listening to any more. I’ve already told you, it’s for the best.”

  “But —”

  “Another word and I’ll wallop you. That’s a promise.”

  By the fifth day, however, Paoul thought he knew. The previous morning had been spent testing his ability to remain motionless. In the afternoon, Kar Houle had lit incense and, with the examining room in near darkness and Paoul lying on a couch of layered oxhides, had asked many questions about his dreams, particularly the one at Sturt in which he had seen the trapdoor. During this, from somewhere at the far end of the vansery, Paoul had heard chanting, five or six voices in unison, and in the soothing, extended music of their song he had thought he had sensed the thing that made Kar Houle different from other old men. He had sensed that Kar Houle was searching for signs of this thing in him. Last night, in the village, Paoul had lain awake thinking, and now, this morning, as Kar Houle again entered the examining room, as his assistant again bade Paoul make himself comfortable on the layered couch, Paoul thought he knew. He thought he knew and was indignant. He considered deliberately failing the rest of the examination. But then, Kar Houle would not be deceived, and besides, what else could the future hold? If he failed the rest of the examination – not that he was sure he had passed so far – he knew that Beilin Crogh would sell him as a slave, to work in the fields, in the mines, or worse. Paoul was alone; and he was lonely. He was lonely for Tagart, for the others in the group: for Fodich and his jokes, for Tanda’s little songs, for the many smells of the forest, for the excitement of arrival and departure. He wanted nothing more than to lead that life for ever, but it was gone, just as Tagart was gone, just as Tanda and Fodich were gone. Of all the people he had met since that night in Sturt, there was none he could admire as he
had admired Tagart; and yet, despite his tattoo and grey tunic, despite all that Tagart had said about the red priesthood, Kar Houle had come close to earning Paoul’s respect. More than once Paoul had caught himself trying to emulate the old man, wishing that he could be like him one day, wishing that he could be so calm and patient, so knowledgeable, and so wise.

  “Now, Paoul,” Kar Houle said, seating himself on the floor, his assistant some way behind. “You know you have no cause to be tense. Let the couch take your weight again. That’s right. Like that. Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes thank you, Kar Houle,” Paoul said, just as he had been trained by the assistant. “I am comfortable.”

  “I would like to begin today by talking about your parents. Beilin Crogh has told us a little, but not enough. Your father was called Tagart, and your mother … Mirin. Is that right?”

  “Yes, Kar Houle.”

  “Those are ancient names. Savages’ names. Was your father a savage?”

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon, Paoul. Was he a nomad?”

  “Once. Long ago.”

  “He was crippled at the siege of Valdoe, was he not? And then became the leader of a party of itinerants. The others must have held him in high esteem.”

  “He was a chief, chief of all the southern tribes. Fodich told me.”

  “Fodich being another of the nomads? I see. Beilin Crogh tells us that your mother died after drinking bad water and that you do not remember her. Did your father speak of her much to you?”

  “No, Kar Houle.”