The Earth Goddess

by Richard Herley

  The man had been laid on a straw-covered pallet by the far wall. Behind his head, keeping watch, was another soldier, and beside the pallet, offering water from a wooden bowl, was an old man in coarse garments, a civilian. Paoul did not realize at first that the old man was a village priest, not until he saw the tattoo on his right hand and forearm, the blue tattoo with its three thin, wavering tracts and its crudely drawn pentacle. The old priest, noticing the newcomers, arose and moved aside.

  The room was silent but for the insects and the congested passage of the man’s breath. Ilven Fend squatted by the pallet, allowing Paoul and Enco to take a closer look. Paoul felt his stomach twist. The brigands had used an axe.

  “What is his name?” Ilven Fend asked the priest.

  “Reisen, master.”

  “What prayers have you said for him?”

  “All the prayers for the dying, master.”

  The man was conscious: he could understand perfectly what was being said. He recognized Ilven Fend’s robes and tattoo and the agony in his eyes was relieved for a moment by gratitude. His mouth opened more widely, but no sound emerged.

  “No, my son. Be quiet.”

  He seemed to be about Paoul’s age, no more, dark and strongly made, his skin deeply tanned and his hair streaked with grime and blood and with fragments and stalks of straw-coloured vegetation. The stump of his left arm had been clumsily wrapped in chamois. The terrible wounds in his chest and abdomen had been uncovered and sprinkled with what looked like fine wood-ash.

  “What is this?”

  “From the altar in the village, master. A sacred offering.”

  “Burnt bone?”

  “Yes, master.”

  Ilven Fend lightly shook his head. Bone ash: useless, worse than useless, an ignorant, stupid, pagan superstition. Paoul felt his pity turning to bewilderment. He had seen wounds before, and pain, and corpses: it was part of Ilven Fend’s brief to show him and Enco these things. He had seen suffering before, but never quite like this. Here, in this squalid room, on this red-soaked pallet, was the reality of the administration that Paoul had previously learned only as lofty and distant theory. This foul, mangled mass of flesh had this morning been the noblest pinnacle of the earth’s creation: a man. He had been strong and healthy and vibrantly alive, the same age as Paoul, with the same scantiness of memory and experience and the same hope and eagerness for the future. And now, through his trusting service to the Gehan ideal, to Lord Heite and the bohods and all the frivolities of the court, to the Atanes and the Yselds and all their kind, he was finished, cut down; his life was almost over.

  This morning, perhaps, the moment he had been brought in, he might have had a chance. If instead of this old fool he had been attended by a kar – by Kar Ander – he might have been saved. But now it was too late. Enco offered to clean his wounds; Ilven Fend refused. The young soldier was already slipping away.

  Ilven Fend began to recite the beautiful words of the Seventy-fifth Song, the Song of the Voyage, the song of death.

  Commander Yahl bowed his head and the others did the same. Paoul bowed his head too, but as he listened to the verses unfolding they began to take on a horrible and unfamiliar aspect. They began to sound like something hollow and contrived, a clever piece of mummery to beguile the credulous and keep them subservient to some ulterior cause. Paoul remembered the starving villagers he had seen; he remembered the gibbet; he remembered Lord Heite with Lady Atane at the lake, and it seemed to him in this moment that the words of the Song were meaningless, a travesty of the brutal truth of this young man’s death, robbing it of its dignity: and the worst part was that the dying man was deceived to the very last. He was wrong to be comforted by Ilven Fend’s presence, wrong to be reassured and grateful that a red priest should have appeared, as if by divine intervention, at the scene of his final agony.

  “He is dead.”

  Paoul was unsteady on his feet, light-headed and close to collapse. Suddenly, eagerly, he realized that this was more than enough to account for his hallucinatory perception of the Song. He was faint from hunger, from exhaustion, from the heat. He was in no state to think, to form opinions, or to withstand such profound emotional distress.

  None of this could he reveal to Ilven Fend. As much as anything else, the tour was a practical test of endurance and fortitude. If he failed it, Paoul would not be accepted for his initiation. And so, as Ilven Fend shut the soldier’s eyes and rose to his feet, Paoul imperceptibly braced his shoulders and assumed the impassive, self-contained expression of strength that was second nature to any man who belonged to the Red Order, who was dedicated to it and served it body and soul without question.

  “Will Reisen be buried here?” Ilven Fend asked the commander.

  “Yes. Tomorrow morning.”

  “I will officiate, if that is your desire.”

  * * *

  The retaliatory raid on the brigands next day was described by Commander Yahl as a complete success. Of the two hundred soldiers in the fort, a hundred and eighty took part, led by the commander in person. The brigands’ new camp – two miles from the last, which, as expected, they had vacated following its discovery by the patrol – was surrounded and each of its sixty-three occupants, women and children as well as men, was captured or killed. Children under the age of about nine were routinely dispatched as worthless; the others, and all the surviving adults except one, who, being lame, was therefore dispatched also, were bound and fettered and brought back to the fort.

  They arrived late in the afternoon. Once the prisoners had been sorted they were interrogated. As a result of the interrogation – which had involved torture with burning brands and with tourniquets wound round the forehead – Commander Yahl decided that two more of the men, leaders and troublemakers who would anyway be unlikely to make suitable slaves, should be given to the soldiers for disposal as they saw fit, bearing in mind the murder of Reisen and his comrades the previous day. Lastly, most of the younger women, and some of the older ones, were taken to the barracks for the evening to be used in any way the soldiers pleased.

  “You were very quiet at supper, Paoul,” said Ilven Fend, studying him closely.

  They had just left Commander Yahl and returned to the guests’ quarters. Before retiring, as was their habit, Ilven Fend and the two novices had sat down to discuss the events of the day.

  “Yes, Ilven Fend. I was.”

  “Nor did you eat much. That was a discourtesy.”

  “I am sorry, Ilven Fend.”

  For the instructive experience it had promised, Ilven Fend had accepted the commander’s invitation to take Paoul and Enco out with the soldiers on the raid. There had been little danger, for both the novices were proficient in the use of weapons and had gone armed; and Ilven Fend had in any case kept them well back from the fighting. They had been close enough, though, to observe everything that had happened; and afterwards, at the fort, they had watched the interrogation and seen the execution of the two leaders. And, during supper, Paoul had from time to time heard laughter and vile shouting from the barracks.

  He knew in theory the justification of the policy that countenanced the soldiers’ behaviour, just as he had known the theory that had brought Reisen to his death. Gentleness through strength: that was the key. By the application of strength, peace was maintained. In this peace, this “gentleness”, the empire was able to flourish. It was the same in nature. The weak submitted to the strong, resulting in beauty and harmony. The empire was indeed not to be distinguished from nature: it was merely one part of the manifestation of the universal and therefore continuous with Gauhm’s will. Any and all actions taken in defence of the empire were thus a form of worship. Had the brigands not been stopped, they would have burned another village, and another, until the whole province was in ruins and its people without food.

  This was the irrefutable proof of a theory which was easy enough to understand in the safety and comfort of a tutorial chamber, but a different matter entirely out here.
The brigands’ ramshackle tents and shelters had been inexpertly concealed among dry scrub on a hot and barren hillside; the camp had seemed to Paoul less like the stronghold of dangerous criminals than the pathetic refuge of a tribe of frightened destitutes. The brigands themselves, most of them, had been pitiful creatures, like vagrants and outsiders almost anywhere. If they had met the same hostility in the valleys as once had been shown to Tagart and his group, then it was not surprising that they had been reduced to such straits of evil and despair.

  What Paoul had seen here had also affected him in another way. Until today, the existence of slavery had been a fact of his life which he had not thought to question. Nor had he wondered about the source of its raw material. If asked, he might have said that the slaves had always been so, and, surely, replaced themselves in the usual manner.

  Now he knew otherwise. And, since he himself had once been part of a band of vagrants, since he had in effect been captured by the ruling clan, what was he if not a special and unusual kind of slave? And if that were so, to whom exactly was he enslaved, when it was the Red Order that, by guiding and confining the actions of Lord Heite, was in reality the controller of the empire?

  And further: it appeared to Paoul that the controller of any system must be responsible for the conduct of all those in its administration. If the soldiers committed atrocities in the name of Lord Heite – and hence in the name of the Prime – then surely the Prime, by failing to punish or forbid these acts, was equally if not more to blame. And, because it was the Prime who made the laws, who ultimately controlled the apportionment of land and titles and favour, then it was also the Prime who was to blame for the conditions which produced the misery of such people as the brigands.

  Paoul felt he had not yet comprehended the full implication of these thoughts, but already he knew they must be wrong. The idea that the Prime could ever be considered blameworthy in any way was clearly a preposterous contradiction in terms. It had to be. The reason Paoul felt so shaken, so disturbed, he told himself, had nothing to do with the Prime. It was the simple result of heat, fatigue, and exposure to scenes of violence and brutality. On the hillside it had taken all his strength to prevent himself from being physically sick. It had been the same during the interrogation and the executions that had followed.

  He had tried to keep his feelings hidden from Ilven Fend, but without, it now seemed, much success.

  “And you, Enco,” said Ilven Fend. “You too are guilty of discourtesy to our host.”

  “I am very sorry, Ilven Fend.”

  Ilven Fend straightened the folds in the front of his robe and laid one hand upon the other in his lap. “I must say I had been expecting greater insight and self-control from you both. Have you already forgotten the most basic principles of your training? In a few weeks you are due to be taken into the Order. To all intents and purposes, you should already be behaving like red priests. Yes, Enco?” he said, even more sharply. “Do you have a comment to make?”

  “No, Ilven Fend.”

  “Doubtless you imagine that what we have seen today is both monstrous and wrong. By the standards expected of a man of refinement, it is monstrous. Of course it is. But not wrong. The conduct of Commander Yahl and his men has been in complete accord with the teachings. That is why I am so glad we came to Chaer when we did, for you have been allowed to observe what few of your fellows will ever see: the most extreme example of the ethos at work.” He lifted his hands. “Well. You are young. Perhaps I am being harsh. I remember my own tour. I too had never been beyond the citadel, not, at least, with intelligent eyes. But I think you are old enough now to understand the ethos not as an intellectual abstraction, but as an emotional reality. I think you are mature enough to understand why the soldiers act as they do. Enco?”

  “I confess to being shocked,” Enco said, and Paoul watched, fascinated, as his friend seemed to swell with the pride of being able to accept Ilven Fend’s compliment. “I had never seen such things before, but now I understand. I meant no discourtesy to Commander Yahl, nor did I mean to criticize him.”

  Ilven Fend nodded, pleased with Enco’s answer. “And Paoul?”

  In all his years of training, Paoul could not remember ever once having told his teachers a conscious lie. Falsehood was wrong, contrary to the ethos. And besides, he had always imagined that lies were instantly found out, that the liar always betrayed himself, if not by blushing or stammering, then by some change in voice or expression that would be apparent to his elders. He had not guessed how easy a lie could be, especially when it was a lie only by omission: for what Ilven Fend had asked him was whether he understood the ethos as Enco did, and to this Paoul could give what was in fact a truthful answer.

  “Yes, Ilven Fend,” he said, “I too understand.”

  But, no sooner had he spoken, no sooner had his lie, so glibly framed and delivered, found its mark and done its work of deception, than Paoul realized he had taken an irrevocable step towards alienating himself from everything he had aspired to be. With these few words he had begun to set himself apart, to dissociate himself from the Order. A cold and yet enticing feeling rose within him that had lain dormant since his early childhood, since the time when he had been orphaned and sold and sent across the sea.

  It was the feeling of being alone.

  8

  The vessels plying the Great River between Coblenz and Hohe were of many different kinds and sizes. Larger even than the seagoing ships of the Gehans and bohods were the sturdy, blunt-prowed riverboats, designed to carry heavy cargoes of merchandise and passengers from port to port and from landing stage to landing stage along the way. They carried little sail; going upstream, they were drawn with long ropes wherever there was a towpath, or propelled by their crewmen with poles and oars.

  It was on a boat like this that Paoul and the others had begun the first stage of the tour, alighting at Coblenz. Now, for the last twenty-five miles to Hohe, Ilven Fend had decided, with uncharacteristic leniency, to take passage rather than walk. He had said that they all deserved a rest, and at first light they had boarded at the village of Imber.

  The ordinary passengers travelled in the open, among the goats and sheep and sacks of grain, and were expected to lend a hand with the towropes when required. For the others, though, there was usually a cabin, which provided a degree of comfort and somewhere dry to sit. On the first trip, nearly six months ago, Ilven Fend had chosen to travel on deck; but today, on hearing that the cabin was vacant, he had gone to the expense of hiring it.

  The cabin on this boat was built high on the after-deck, and was about eight feet square, with bench seats giving a view of the river to the rear and to either side. The flag at the sternpost, Paoul had noticed, was red and black: the colours of the Thosks, and he reflected that it had been a Thosk ship that had first brought him here from Brennis. Rain had been falling for much of the afternoon; Paoul had watched the flag becoming darker and more soaked, and now, as the light began to fail, it was no longer even moving with the breeze, but hanging dejectedly against its pole.

  They were nearly at Hohe. Already, once or twice, they had glimpsed the citadel. After three more bends, three more bluffs of grey, fir-grown rock, the lamps and smoke and jetties of the landing place, the merchants’ sheds, and the houses of the Lower Township would come into view.

  Staring out across the water, he could see several rafts and black coracles trailing nets and lines, and beyond them the huts and houses of one of the outlying villages. A cormorant was fishing too, its back almost awash and its neck and head protruding from the water at an angle, like a bent piece of burnt wood. With a shallow leap the cormorant dived: Paoul saw its webbed feet and the oily, dark feathers of its rounded tail, and it was gone.

  “Not far now,” said Ilven Fend. “We should be up at the gates before locking-up. They usually wait for the last riverboat.”

  Enco was eating raisins. He offered the bag to Paoul who, for Ilven Fend’s benefit, accepted a few and ate them. It woul
d be better not to stare at the river any more, better to make a more convincing job of hiding his despondency. So far he had been careful to give no grounds for suspicion. He had applied the techniques of the taug, and since Chaer had learned to be more guarded, even with Enco; he was sure that neither Ilven Fend nor Enco had guessed what was going on in his heart.

  Not that Paoul himself really knew. Looking back on the tour, he could not truly name the point at which he had realized that he no longer felt the same about the priesthood. Since Chaer he had wanted, several times, to broach the subject with Enco and more than once with Ilven Fend. His inner counsel, however, had cautioned him to keep silent. He had already received most of his tattoo; he was not fitted for life outside the Order. The only practical course now would be to accept the rest of the tattoo, to take his initiation, and to wait and see.

  This was logic speaking, the voice of philosophy and of the mind, his own special field. His emotions spoke differently. With each passing mile, with each yard gained against the river current, he wanted less and less to return to Hohe.

  “Look there!” cried Ilven Fend. They were rounding the second bluff, the crewmen straining at the oars, while the rain slanted down across the deck-passengers and the animals and the bales of skin-covered cargo, making the planking gleam. An area of thinner cloud, a rift of brightness, had appeared in the south-east, behind the lower flanks of Mount Atar, spreading its watery light down into the valley and across the river, illuminating the inside of the cabin. At its apparent heart, at its source, lay the familiar silhouette of the citadel gates and palisade, the township, the barracks, and, above them all, the roofs of the vansery and of the temple.