The Earth Goddess

by Richard Herley

  Its site – and hence the site of Hohe, the “High Place” – had been decreed by Gauhm: easily defended, easily reached from the Great River, and surrounded by the rich farmland of the Home Plain. The precise position of Mount Atar also had symbolic properties with respect to the earth’s surface and the celestial dome. Its latitude and its relationship with the solstitial positions of the five major constellations and the paths of the five planets produced a unique web of coordinates which fixed Hohe as the only possible location for the temple. The distance between the temple altar and the waterfall, furthermore, was exactly one five thousandth of the equatorial axis or, measured in standard bars, three thousand one hundred and twenty-five – or five raised to the power of five. Paoul had also been told that the temple altar, suspended as it were between heaven and earth, was exactly one fifth of this height above sea level.

  For those sensitive to such influences, the citadel had a special, spiritual feeling about it, weakest in the outlying parts of the township, stronger in the vansery, stronger still in the temple, reaching its purest concentration at the altar stone itself. The Prime dwelt directly above the stone, sharing its focus of coordinates, absorbing Gauhm’s power. This power he radiated outward and downward through the ranks of his priests. Paoul could feel it even now, just as he had felt it yesterday in the temple, and just as, to a lesser extent, he had felt it in the Prime’s presence at Bohod Thosk’s hall.

  The door opened. The attendant had returned. “The Lord Prime will see you now. Quickly.”

  Paoul followed. After being made to pause in a panelled antechamber, he was escorted through a pair of tall doors and found himself in the Prime’s huge day-room. The doors shut behind him: he and the Prime were alone.

  “Be seated,” the Prime said, indicating a broad, leather-covered stool in front of him. “I shall not keep you waiting much longer.”

  Wearing a cream and dark-green robe, he was sitting at a walnut writing-table, his back to an alcove on the right-hand side of the room. On a smaller table beside him were a sheaf of swan quills and several parchments covered with columns of neat black hieroglyphics.

  Most of the far wall was taken up with a line of canopied windows which overlooked the formal grounds and, beyond the billowing treetops of the Founder’s Grove, the greeny-grey water of the lake. As Paoul crossed the room he noticed a heron far below, gliding over the trees.

  He sat down, his eyes irresistibly drawn by the quiet scratching of the Prime’s pen. With rapid, confident strokes, the Prime was adding comments in red to the columns of black. Upside down, and from this distance, Paoul could make out none of the words but, observing the movements of the nib, he was able to guess at some of the characters being formed. “Borders.” “Province.” “Blue priesthood.” “Gehan.” “Petitioner.” And again, “Gehan.”

  Despite his terror of the approaching interview, a corner of Paoul’s mind was left free to be intrigued by the sensation of sitting here in the sanctum of the Prime, of being able to observe closely the weave of his robe, the pattern of the braid edging on his cuff, the shape of his fingernails and his neatly manicured cuticles, the way the veins on his left hand were just beginning to distort the shape of his tattoo; and, most intriguing of all, displayed on the polished surface of the table, two small objects which were evidently personal possessions: a flint pen-knife in an ivory holder and, no more than three inches high, a limestone figurine of the Earth Mother. For these few seconds Paoul was privileged to witness what none of his friends had ever seen: the Prime at work, attending to the minutiae of his awesome office.

  “Now,” he said, setting down his pen, and Paoul felt his heart in his throat. “Tell me what you know of this Starrad business. From the beginning.”

  “Last spring, my lord, I understood he met a young woman in the township.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Then do you know anything else that would serve to identify her?”

  The Prime’s tone was so ominous that Paoul made the mistake of hesitating before answering.

  “Your reticence does not please me.”

  “She is a daughter of one of the fishmongers, my lord. I do not know which.”

  “Continue.”

  “Starrad … Starrad was conducting improper relations with her. Once or twice a week, sometimes more often, he would visit her at night. We believed he was getting over the palisade near the physic gardens.”

  “By climbing the yew trees?”

  “That is what we thought, my lord. But we were never certain. He always denied everything. I never saw the girl or heard anything but rumour and speculation. That is all I really know, my lord.”

  “You were aware of his absences, of course.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Then why did you not report them to your teachers?”

  Paoul was unable to reply.

  The Prime sat back, subjecting Paoul to the full force of his searching grey eyes. “Tell me, young man, why do you think you are attending the temple school?”

  “To … to learn the ethos, my lord.”

  “And what is the ethos? How do we define it?”

  “Gentleness through strength.”

  “From where does that strength derive?”

  This was a line from an elementary catechism. “Perfection of the self, obedience, and loyalty.”

  “Loyalty to whom?”

  “To Gauhm, my lord.”

  “Yet you prefer to give yours to a liar and a fornicator.” The Prime paused, allowing his words their maximum effect. “Did it never once occur to you that you were doing Starrad a disservice by failing in your duty? If this matter had been brought to light at the start, the outcome for him may not have been so serious. By your connivance you contributed to his weakness and must be held partly to blame.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “You understand, do you not, the damage that such an incident can inflict on the Order? What may appear to you as no more than an infraction of vansery rules may have profound and unforeseeable consequences. If we are to serve Gauhm, our reputation must remain unassailable. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The Prime’s gaze relented. He seemed satisfied that the lesson had been taken to heart. “It is customary,” he went on, “for offending novices to be dealt with by the Principal. However, in order to impress upon you and the whole school the gravity of what has happened, Forzan Zett has asked me to conduct the investigation myself. That is one of the reasons you are here. Another is the question of your recent progress, which, as I informed you yesterday, has been giving him cause for concern. He wished me to have an opportunity to speak to you in circumstances which would arouse neither the suspicions nor the curiosity of your fellows, and nothing I am about to say is to be transmitted by you to any third person.”

  Paoul did not know how to respond to this enigmatic statement and could do little but nod in compliance.

  “Your part in this Starrad affair is perhaps indicative of what the Principal means when he tells me your work is disappointing. Since you are no longer a child, I can speak to you bluntly, without fear that you will mistake my words for praise or derive from them any grounds for conceit. I trust you will bear this in mind when considering what I am about to say next.”

  Again Paoul could only nod.

  “Judged by normal, commonplace standards, your work has always been excellent. In the ten years you have been at Hohe you have developed well. Your progress has been so rapid that you are now at least two years ahead of your age and on course to becoming one of the youngest initiates the Order has ever known. By commonplace standards, you would be considered an exceptionally able pupil. In your case, however, the commonplace does not apply. Your gifts are such that you cannot be measured against your peers. For your work to be merely excellent is not enough. It should be exemplary. You should not be two years ahead, but three, or even four. Do I begin to make
myself understood?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “The decision to advance you into the higher school was taken some months ago. Since then, Forzan Zett has had occasion to question his own wisdom. He sees that you are becoming content to adopt the pace of your fellows. He sees that you appear to defer to them, that you seek at every turn to spare their feelings, that you thereby waste time on tolerating inferior debate. Perhaps this is understandable. You are unassuming by nature. The age difference inhibits you still further. But, while making full use of the advantages your teaching group has to offer, you should not become subservient to it. You must be more assertive. Do not be afraid of making yourself unpopular. Such unpopularity is the product of small and envious minds and must not be allowed to hold you back. This is what the Principal fears, Paoul, that you are holding yourself back. Gauhm does not choose her servants lightly. You have no right to squander her gifts in this way. They are not yours to dispose of as you see fit.”

  For a moment Paoul remained silent. He could see that Forzan Zett was right: he had been failing his teachers for some months past. Quietly he said, “I am very sorry, my lord.”

  “You are resolved to take your rightful place in the school?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good. Well and good.” The Prime contemplatively reached out and made a tiny adjustment to the position of the figurine. Gauhm’s broad hips and narrow shoulders were inverted and vaguely duplicated by the reflection that descended into the illusory depths of the tabletop. Her face could not be seen from here: she had her back to Paoul. “More may hinge on your resolve than you might guess. You have eighteen months more at Hohe. Then, of course, you will embark on your six months of travel. If you acquit yourself well you will return here to take the pentacles. You will then leave us and go back to Brennis. That is only proper, for Brennis is where you began and you have a debt to repay to the vansery at Valdoe. It is not, however, a foregone conclusion that you will spend the rest of your life in Brennis. As you must be aware, the Order is constantly searching for men of special promise. For such men, the opportunities are almost without limit. I trust this is something else you will bear in mind.”

  An air of finality in the Prime’s manner hinted that the interview had come to its end. The Prime’s expression confirmed it: Paoul stood up, his head swimming.

  The Prime remained seated. “Do you have any questions, Paoul?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Good.” The Prime picked up his pen. “Do not forget what has been said here this afternoon.”

  As if anyone could forget such words! “I won’t, my lord.”

  “The attendant will escort you to the stairs. Good day, Paoul.”

  “Good day, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”

  Paoul found himself crossing to the doors. He opened them and, turning to back out, looked up, half expecting the Prime to be watching; but he had already taken another parchment from the small table beside him and, his pen held ready, was again immersed in his work.

  6

  The mathematics lesson would be finishing by now: there was no point in going back there. And besides, he needed a few minutes on his own. He needed to think, to compose himself.

  Scarcely aware of the treads beneath his feet, Paoul descended the staircase and entered the cloisters, slowing only in deference to the three or four priests he passed. From the cloisters he went straight to his dormitory and pressed shut the door.

  Too stunned and excited to think of changing his clothes or preparing for the next session, he made himself sit down on the edge of the bed and tried to make sense of his feelings.

  His world had been shattered and remade. He had suddenly been freed from the many small doubts, each insignificant on its own, that he now realized had been weighing him down. At their root – which the Prime had so perceptively uncovered – was a doubt that the horizons of Brennis were broad enough to contain his future. From slight beginnings a sureness had been growing within him, a confidence that he would one day be of service to the Order and thus to the empire and his fellow man. How, he was not certain, but he knew he could not serve best in isolation, and Valdoe was no place for an ambitious forzan: it was for phedes, astronomers, an observatory of a very high standard, but of little interest to him. Whatever nostalgia he had felt for Brennis itself, he believed, had long since glimmered and died. His life there had ended with Tagart’s death, with the horrible scenes he still sometimes relived in his nightmares, with Dagda and Bocher and Beilin Crogh.

  Without even being aware of it, Paoul had been assuming that he was somehow sentenced to a lifetime in Brennis, and that he would soon have to leave for ever the place where he felt he belonged. The citadel had become his home, and the Order had become his family; more than a family. It had been better and kinder to him than any parent could have been. And all the time, while his doubts had been growing and proliferating and bearing strange fruit – such as his encounter with the Lady Yseld – his teachers had been planning for him and wisely guiding his course.

  They wanted him for something more than a provincial forzan. It all seemed to fit into place: first, his early elevation to the higher school; second, his selection as lamp-bearer; third, the remark that Lord Heite had made at the lake – “the Prime has spoken to me of you, Paoul”; and fourth, most important of all, the circumstances of the interview and the things the Prime had said.

  He would have to spend some time in Brennis, the Prime had made that clear. But after that? Would he be coming back to Hohe? It seemed likely, perhaps even certain: why else should the Prime have spoken as he had? Why else should he have told Paoul, in so many words, that his opportunities were “almost without limit”?

  Paoul could not imagine what form those opportunities might take. Just to be in service here at Hohe would be more than enough. Would he be offered a post in the temple? Or in the school, as a teacher!

  But then it struck him that he was meant for an even higher position than that. Perhaps, after many more years’ study, he would be put in charge of a minor vansery of his own, become a vansard! Or would they train him for the High Council? Would he sit with Lord Heite and become an adviser on the Prime’s staff?

  It was all too dazzling to contemplate. The Prime, indeed, had tried to slow down this line of reasoning, to reduce its final impact, by explaining his motives for conducting the Starrad inquiry in person. It was inconceivable that the Prime, even by the subtlest omission, should ever be guilty of falsehood; but nothing could get away from the fact that, in the past, breaches of discipline, however serious, had always been dealt with by the school Principal. There was surely a reason for the Prime’s intervention on this occasion, and Paoul could think of only one. Was it possible? Was it possible that the Prime – the Prime himself, and not just the Prime acting on behalf of the Principal – could have wanted an opportunity to speak to Paoul alone, arousing “neither the suspicions nor the curiosity” of his fellows? Was it possible that the Prime thought so highly of him, was so interested in his career, and was so anxious to impress upon him what was at stake? Incredible as it seemed, there could be no other explanation. The rest naturally followed. And it also followed that, in the plainest terms available to him, the Prime had warned Paoul that he was in danger of risking whatever it was that had been planned for him. “More may hinge on your resolve than you might guess.” Were those not the very words the Prime had spoken, not half an hour since?

  Paoul arose. He had decided, as a man decides. His determination to heed the Prime’s golden advice would not be sudden, dramatic, or flimsily contrived. It would be slow to build, strong, immovable. There would be no immediate or superficial results. His reform would come from within, from the core of obduracy at his centre, a gradual change in his habits and outlook that would irreversibly increase his capacity for work. His mind was made up. He would not fail his teachers or the Prime; he would not fail Gauhm.

  Calmly, unhurriedly, he took off his robe and hun
g it in its place. From the wicker basket by his bed he selected a clean taug tunic and his swimming things.

  As he was washing, Enco and Buin arrived.

  “Well?” said Enco.

  “Yes,” said Buin, also fearful about his own interview later in the afternoon. “What did he say?”

  Paoul told them all they were allowed to know.

  * * *

  During the next eighteen months each of the boys spent progressively more time in specialist classes: Paoul with the forzans, Enco with the kars, Buin with the ilvens, and Relle – Starrad’s replacement – with the phedes. As their basic training drew to a close, they were being prepared for their vows and for the years immediately after initiation.

  They were also being prepared for the six months of travel which completed every novice’s training and gave him a chance to see at first hand the way the empire worked. The novices, in pairs, were always accompanied by a teacher to act as guide and mentor. The itinerary was left to his discretion. There was not time to see more than a small part of the empire, which, counting the extensive tracts of uncivilized mountain and forest outside the settled regions, covered some three-quarters of a million square miles. Of this vast area, only a fraction was under the direct administration of the Gehans or their subordinated, blood-related clans – the Abendgehans, the Felsengehans, the Nordengehans, and the others. The remainder, especially in the south and west, was the original territory of a legion of chieftains large and small who had been conquered by the Gehan clans and paid them yearly tribute. This process of expansion was still continuing, with the fiercest wars being fought in the chiefdoms of Iberia. Along the borders of the north and east, however, there was no expansion, only an unremitting struggle to hold back the invasive tribes of barbarians whose warlords, if ever they became united, would be a formidable threat indeed.