The Earth Goddess

by Richard Herley

  “What did he say, if anything?”

  “That she was kind and beautiful. That she loved me.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “It hurt him to talk about her.”

  “Did Fodich or any of the others ever speak to you of your mother?”

  “No, Kar Houle. My father did not want them to.”

  “Don’t you find that strange?”

  Paoul said nothing.

  “I ask these questions, Paoul, because we are concerned that you do not appear to be what you are meant to be. Is it possible that your mother was not a nomad? Could she have come from one of the villages?”

  “My father would not have married a village woman. He did not like farmers. He was a chief. He was Shode, the first man of the spirit. He used to be a great hunter.”

  Kar Houle waited delicately before speaking again. “Forgive me for asking this. Are you sure that Tagart was your father?”

  Paoul answered at once: he could not have been more sure of anything in his life. “Yes.”

  “And you were born on Crale Day, seven years ago.”

  “That is what my father told me, Kar Houle.”

  “You see, Paoul, unless we are greatly mistaken, you are not of nomad blood. Your bones are not proportioned as a nomad’s are; your skin is too fair and your eyes are not dark enough. But, most of all, the shape of your head is wrong. If I had been told nothing about your parents, I would have said that they had come from the homelands. I would even have guessed that they had probably been born in one of the provinces round the citadel. Does this mean anything to you?”

  “No, Kar Houle.”

  “Do you remember at any time travelling across the sea?”

  “No, Kar Houle.”

  “When was the first time you saw the Trundle?”

  “I was very young. We came here for the spring fair.”

  “Tell me about it, please.”

  With only a few breaks, the questioning continued all day. This interrogation, Paoul soon realized, was much more searching than had been Beilin Crogh’s. Paoul answered honestly: he saw no reason to do otherwise. By dusk, or so it seemed, he had exposed his complete stock of memories to view.

  “So,” Kar Houle said, when he had finished. “I expect you would like something to eat.”

  The assistant brought Paoul a meal of fresh bread and butter, cheese, fruit, and a hot tisane, then left the room.

  Kar Houle sat watching benevolently, sipping a beaker of mint tea. “Is the food to your liking, Paoul?”

  “Yes thank you, Kar Houle.”

  “Good.”

  After a pause, Paoul went on eating.

  “The examination,” Kar Houle said, “is almost concluded. You have already guessed its purpose, have you not?”

  “Yes, Kar Houle.”

  “Tomorrow is the last day. In the morning you will meet the Vansard. That should not take long. Depending on what the Vansard desires, I shall then speak to Beilin Crogh. If, as is likely, we accept his terms, and if you agree, you will go to the citadel for instruction. When you are ready to return to Brennis to take up your duties, you will be offered the red tattoo. I think you have seen and been told enough in the past week to know what life here is like.”

  So Paoul had been right. He had guessed correctly. The priests wanted to take him and turn him into one of themselves. But, now that he was sure of it, he no longer knew how to react. Part of him, the part that belonged to the old life, was resisting strongly. But the rest was more practical. If he went along with this, he would at least be clothed, housed, and fed: and he had seen that the priests were supplied with the best of everything. If he hated the citadel, if they mistreated him, he could always run away. He could do that as well on the mainland as here, for he had no one in all the world. And despite his doubts, and the uneasy feeling that he would be betraying Tagart’s memory by accepting the offer, Paoul was secretly fascinated by Kar Houle and intrigued by the possibility of learning what it was that Kar Houle knew.

  “Most vanseries train their own novices,” Kar Houle went on, “but as yet we do not have the facilities here. Usually our boys go just across the channel to Raighe. However, as I have said, we propose to send you to the citadel. The school there is without equal. We have been privileged to be able to send it several pupils. All were talented in some way, or we would not have put them forward. Some are being supported by their parents; the others we are sponsoring. I examined them all, just as I examined you, just as I have examined many hundreds more, both here and in the homelands. Now listen carefully, Paoul, because you will never hear such words again, not, at least, in this or any other vansery. I should not even be saying them now. It is the Vansard who decides who shall be offered a place, not I. But, so that you may conduct yourself properly tomorrow, I am going to tell you that, in all my life, I have never examined anyone more worthy of acceptance than you. If you attend to your teachers, you may one day make yourself equal to your gifts. I can praise you no more highly than that. But if you are lazy, or if you choose to ignore altogether this opportunity Gauhm has put in your way, you will be committing an act of great sacrilege. Do you understand what I am saying to you, Paoul?”

  “Yes, Kar Houle.”

  “And what is your inner wish?”

  “I think you already know it, Kar Houle.”

  * * *

  The next morning was sunny and exceptionally clear. Beilin Crogh was sitting nervously on a bench in the ante-room next to the Vansard’s chamber, wishing, more than ever, that he had not been so foolhardy. He should never have taken this chance; he should have left the boy at Sturt.

  Through the open window he could hear the martial shouts and cries of the priests at their weapons practice in the enclosure.

  “To you! To me! Now! Strike! To me!”

  With each ferocious clash of staves, with each thud of wood on leather, Crogh wanted to cringe, to flinch, to put as much distance as possible between the Vansard and himself. But, beyond repeatedly wiping his palms, crossing and uncrossing his legs, and adjusting the position of his hat on the bench beside him, Crogh did not move. He had come this far: he would have to see things through. Besides, it was too late. He had already woken the beast.

  At last the door opened and Paoul emerged, ushered by Kar Houle’s assistant. Crogh sprang to his feet. From this angle little could seen of the interior of the Vansard’s room: oatmeal-coloured hangings, the edge of a dais, sunshine on waxed floorboards. The assistant closed the door behind him. “Kar Houle will be with you presently,” he told Crogh. “Please resume your seat. Paoul and I will be waiting nearby.”

  From Paoul’s face Crogh could divine no clue as to what had happened. Paoul looked up at him, briefly and expressionlessly engaged his eyes, and was gone.

  When Kar Houle came out he offered, with his customary, scrupulous, and intimidating politeness, profuse apologies for the delay. “Would you care for some mead, Beilin Crogh? We do not take alcohol ourselves, but we like to offer it when the occasion arises.”

  The chamber reserved for entertaining lay visitors was at the end of the corridor. It overlooked the herb garden and was much more richly and comfortably furnished than the rest of the vansery. On the wall hung a circular wooden plaque, finely polished and inlaid with ivory strips in the shape of a perfect pentacle. This, and a discreet but superbly made figurine of the Earth Mother in the niche below it, was the only sign that Crogh had not been invited into the private residence of some high-ranking soldier or wealthy merchant.

  “The mead is excellent,” he said, but in truth he was so scared that he could hardly taste it. “I don’t suppose you make it here? No, well, it’s delicious all the same.”

  Kar Houle accepted the compliment with a gracious smile and sat back, making the cushions creak. “Now,” he said, fixing Crogh with a clear blue gaze. “To the matter in hand. Before we begin, however, I feel it will not prejudice our position if I tell you we are deeply grateful to you for bri
nging this child to our notice. He is quite exceptional.”

  “I thought of you the moment I clapped eyes on him. The policy of the priesthood is … it’s well known. Even as far out as Matley.”

  “Ah yes. Matley. We have been in contact with your commander. On his orders the head man was questioned and the village searched. You may be interested to know that a mass grave was found in the woods. It contained six males and four females, all adults. If we take the boy, their bodies will be sent here for examination. It seems that the good people of Sturt have devised a thrifty method of paying their debts to itinerant labourers.”

  Crogh did not know whether he was meant to smile.

  “That, of course, concerns us not in the least. What does concern us, Beilin, is the apparent inconsistency in your version of events in the Meeting House. The boy, truthful in all other verifiable respects, is convinced that there was a secret chamber whose contents you did not want him or the serving girl to see. You, however, have already assured me that there was not. The head man, even under duress, maintains that you and not the boy are correct. By a remarkable coincidence, the floor of the Meeting House has recently been relaid. Thus your comrades from Matley were unable to get at the truth.”

  This was the moment Crogh had been dreading. He had taken every possible precaution, but he had never dealt with a red priest before.

  “You well appreciate, do you not, Beilin, the penalties for depriving Valdoe of its due?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the penalties for abetting such behaviour?”

  “The boy had a nightmare. He wasn’t himself, Kar Houle. It’s not surprising when you think how they’d treated him, locked up in that shed for ten days. At least ten. Perhaps more. Then don’t forget his father and all his friends had just been massacred. No wonder he was seeing things. I’d be seeing things myself in those circumstances.”

  “You are a clever fellow, Beilin Crogh. Somewhat of a scoundrel, but a clever fellow nonetheless.”

  “I assure you, Kar Houle —”

  “No more assurances, if you please. Let us merely point out that our gratitude to you has precluded the further investigations that otherwise would certainly have been made. It is not every day a Paoul is brought to us. We do not wish to discourage the process by which he arrived. Nor do we wish to treat you unjustly. He may be, as you claim, mistaken about the trapdoor. But I think I need hardly remind you of the fate of those who earn an evil reputation for themselves. You need look no further than the example of Lord Torin.” Kar Houle indicated the pitcher. “More mead?”

  “No. No thank you.”

  “As to price. You suggested four toles of copper. I have discussed this with the Vansard and he feels three would be more suitable. Three toles of copper, or nine thousand first-grade scrapers or their equivalent in raw celts or worked tools.”

  “Copper is more portable. Yes. Copper, I think.”

  “Very well. Copper it shall be.”

  8

  Paoul spent another six days at the vansery, but Beilin Crogh was no longer there to collect him each evening and take him down to the village. Now he remained after nightfall with the priests, eating their food, absorbing their conversation, sleeping in his own tiny cell. Alone in the darkness, he would hug himself and weep, but at dawn, awoken by the sound of chanting, he would feel a little better and in full daylight his unhappiness receded almost completely. There was so much that was new, so much that was strange and that promised more strangeness for the future. Kar Houle and the others used these six days to prepare him for the journey and ultimately for his arrival at the citadel.

  The last boat of the autumn, due to leave before the crossing became too rough, was the Veisdrach, a huge new vessel of nearly sixty feet belonging to the merchant Bohod Thosk. Paoul first saw her at mid morning, glimpsed among the trees and between the sheds and workshops on the Apuldram quay. The sky, softly blue, promised more fine weather; a cold breeze was keeping the ship facing generally west, riding her mooring in the middle of the channel. From time to time, the wind disturbed a drooping standard, red and black, which hung from the sternpost.

  “Those are the colours of the Thosk clan,” Kar Houle told him, as they came out of the trees, two hundred and fifty yards from the precincts of the sheds, where Paoul could see men busily at work.

  After taking formal leave of the Vansard and saying goodbye to the other priests he had got to know, Paoul had walked with Kar Houle down from the Trundle, along four miles of muddy road which ended here, at the Flint Lord’s main harbour.

  Paoul noticed four men launching a black coracle from one of the landing stages. They began to scull towards the ship. “Bohod Thosk,” Kar Houle was saying, “is an important merchant. He owns at least a hundred villages and an estate near Hohe where Lord Heite himself is often a guest. His traders cover the whole empire, even to the east. He has built many ships: the Veisdrach is one of the finest. You are lucky to be sailing on her.”

  “Yes, Kar Houle.”

  The quayside was strewn, seemingly at random, with stacked boxes, bales, cases of tools, bags, coils of rope, sacks, furled sails, bundles of pelts and furs, goats and pigs and sheep in wicker pens; two shag-haired deerhounds had been tied to the corner of the nearest shed. “Those were once Lord Torin’s dogs,” Kar Houle said. “Now they are to be given to Bohod Thosk.” He held Paoul back as two men came past, carrying a spar. “Keep by me.”

  The shingle crunching under their boots, Kar Houle led him past the partly opened rear of the main building, an enormous repair shop which fronted the stone flags of the quay. Inside, looking out of the darkness, Paoul saw the stern of a small ship. A carpenter was chipping at the rudder with a curiously shaped adze. Another, on his back, was scraping at the keel.

  Kar Houle found the harbour Trundleman in his quarters and was directed to the water’s edge, where the ship’s master, standing among some of his crew, was waiting to supervise the process of bringing the Veisdrach in. Three of the four men from the coracle had clambered on board; the fourth was sculling back towards the quay, trailing a length of light rope.

  “Good day to you,” said Kar Houle.

  The whole group looked round and immediately their manner changed. The ship’s master, heavy and swarthy, with a grizzled beard and a pointed leather hat, smiled and proffered his palm, which Kar Houle lightly touched. “Good day, Kar Houle.”

  “I trust everything is going as you wish.”

  “Yes thank you, father.”

  “When do you sail?”

  “On time. At noon.”

  With a hand to the nape of his neck, Paoul was brought forward. “This is the child I told you about.”

  “Passenger for Hohe,” the ship’s master recalled. “His name is Paoul and he’s to ask for Forzan Zett.”

  “Just so,” said Kar Houle.

  “When we’ve done loading I’ll show you his berth.”

  “Excellent. Until then, we’d better leave you to your work. Come, Paoul.”

  They retreated to a safe distance. The Trundleman emerged from his doorway; the overseer yelled an order and a dozen slaves came hurrying to the landing stage. Paoul watched intently as the man in the coracle flung the rope ashore. It was attached to a heavier rope, and yet a heavier, which the slaves began hauling in. The three men on board, meanwhile, had freed the rudder and loosed the mooring cables and, gradually at first, and drifting on the incoming tide, the great ship started to turn.

  The figurehead came into view: a white dragon with half-closed wings, rising from an inferno of scarlet flame. Its tongue, protruding from jaws filled with incurved fangs, was forked and dark blue. As the prow came round the eyes swept the shore and Paoul felt a shiver of fear as he entered and left their sightless gaze.

  It was not just fear he felt, but anticipation, excitement. This ship, more even than the marvels of the Trundle or the workings of the vansery, embodied for him what the future held. The timbers of the hull drew their
strength from the oak forests of the mainland; the precision of its curves was the product of a masterly expertise. The means to arrive at such a thing came only through total domination and through wealth: the wealth of the merchants allied to the power of the Gehans. And, as Kar Houle had told him, the Gehans were the citadel and the citadel was the Gehans. It was their inextricable heart. At the citadel resided the Prime; at the citadel lay the temple and the centre of the priesthood, and it was to the citadel that, beginning here, today, Paoul was to be sent.

  There were the thoughts of a mere moment, fleeting and instantly gone. There were no words for them, only the shiver left by the cold-eyed stare of the dragon before its head turned further and the bows were facing down the shore.

  “Pull there! Pull, damn you! Pull!”

  Bending long poles to keep the Veisdrach clear of the shallows, the three men on board manoeuvred her into place. Inch by inch, the water between the hull and the landing stage narrowed and, with a creak of fenders, disappeared. Two ridged gangplanks were raised to the bulwarks; final turns were given to the cables fore and aft, and the ship was secured. The slaves immediately began fetching and stowing, in what could now be seen as a planned order, the heaps of cargo from the quay.

  Close to, the ship looked even larger and more impressive. She smelled almost more maritime than the sea itself.

  “Do you see how the gangplanks hinge?” Kar Houle said. “As the tide comes in you’ll see the ship rise. The gangplanks are made to rise with her.”

  Paoul nodded.

  “Those two men at the bollards. What do you think their job might be?”

  “To loosen the ropes as the tide comes in.”

  “And if they didn’t, what would happen?”

  “The ship would tilt over.”

  “Not tilt. The word is ‘list’. The ship would list.”

  Paoul nodded again. He was becoming used to this continual correction.

  “Now, Paoul, remember what I’ve been telling you. Keep your wits about you. This journey is the beginning of your training. I want you to keep your eyes open. Absorb everything you see. Everything.” Kar Houle pointed to his own eyes. “These. These are the essence.”