The Seventh Gate (The Seven Citadels )

by Geraldine Harris

  “His voice is still young,” replied Viarki. “Now what about Desha here.”

  “A drab who acts as arrogantly as if she were pretty,” announced Gidjabolgo. “Lank hair, painted lips, the lower jutting like a drunkard's belly . . .”

  The rest was lost in Desha's shriek of protest. “How dare you say such things, monster . . . why, no one could look at you without . . .”

  “Be quiet, Desha,” murmured Viarki, “you'll wake Leth-Kar!”

  The old priest did indeed sit up and ask what the matter was. Viarki scowled at the girl until she muttered something about a nightmare. The signal was given to move and the ox-cart jolted forward again.

  “I think I had better finish the descriptions,” said Viarki. “Most of us think that Desha is pretty enough, when she's in a good temper. The lady walking by the ox is Marliann, Leth-Kar's wife. She's very tall for a woman. Her hair is grey now but . . . well, I always think she looks as our Lady Imarko must have done when she began to age. Does that give you a picture? Beside her is Feg. That must be short for something but I've never been able to find out what. Don't think, Gidjabolgo, that he's looking so gloomy because of the war. Feg always looks like that and the red hair makes the glumness underneath seem worse. He's our chief musician. The other two stayed in Viroc to serve as soldiers.”

  “And your fourth player?” asked Kerish.

  “He's played the role of the young hero so often, he thinks he is one,” said Viarki, with a curious twist to his mouth. “He stayed to fight.”

  Sunrise brought no rest to the convoy. They hurried eastwards throughout the morning. At noon they came to the ruins of a village. Every house had been burned to the ground but the little stone temple that was the villagers' pride was left standing. The Men of Fangmere had ripped up The Book of the Emperors and shredded tapestries woven by generations of village women. In the sanctuary itself, the statue of Imarko was smashed and the Flower of Idaala was daubed on the walls in the blood of the priestess who lay across the altar. The soldiers of the escort buried her and the convoy moved on.

  Late in the afternoon, the captain finally ordered a long halt and they made camp in a small valley, just off the Joze road. Sentries were posted on surrounding hills and a few small fires were lit to warm up some food. The temple actors settled down around their cart to wait for their share.

  As they rubbed stiff limbs and blistered feet, Kerish tugged at Gidjabolgo's arm. “Please take me away from them, from everybody.”

  “Where do you suppose we can go?” hissed Gidjabolgo. “You've no royal apartments to withdraw to now when you're not in the mood for company.”

  “Just for this first night,” whispered Kerish.

  “Just this night and just the next . . . I can see it going on. Don't flinch,” said Gidjabolgo, “it's not as if you were really blind.”

  “Isn't it?” Kerish wouldn't let go of the Forgite's arm. “I order you . . . no I don't. I ask you . . . please!”

  “Be quiet, they're staring at us. All right. Just this once.”

  Gidjabolgo darted away and spoke briefly to Leth-Kar, then he led the Prince to a hillock, just inside the ring of sentries and out of earshot of the rest of the convoy. He left Kerish guarding their meagre luggage and queued at the fire for food.

  Tense and exhausted, the Prince sat listening to the subdued sounds of the tired and frightened convoy and thinking about Forollkin. It was almost sunset. Suddenly he felt a warm but preoccupied presence, as if his brother had briefly looked up from his work and smiled.

  “It's me,” said Gidjabolgo, as Kerish stiffened at his approaching footsteps. “And more to the point, a bowl of stew. By the look of it the meat's been dead longer than my grandfather, but you won't notice under the stink of spice.”

  The Forgite squatted down. “I'd best feed you, since you can't hold bowl and spoon.”

  “No,” protested Kerish.

  “Am I not fit to serve your Highness?”

  “I'm sorry. I..I didn't mean that,” stammered Kerish, “but I just can't bear . . .”

  “I know what you meant.” Gidjabolgo thrust a horn spoon into the Prince's hand. “You had better learn to read my voice instead of my face.”

  “I used to watch your hands and eyes,” admitted Kerish, “to see if they betrayed your voice.”

  “A pity we can't read ourselves that way,” said Gidjabolgo. “I'm holding up the bowl.”

  Kerish tried to scoop up a piece of meat. “Don't watch me.”

  “I wasn't,” lied Gidjabolgo. “You are familiar, Galkis is strange. I am no longer beholden to my fellow travelers for amusement.”

  He talked about the things that had interested him on the journey from Viroc until Kerish had finished his clumsy attempts at eating. Without comment, Gidjabolgo wiped the Prince's face and ate the rest of the stew. They lay down side by side, with one cloak spread on the damp grass and the other covering them.

  Gidjabolgo slept almost immediately but he was woken before midnight by muffled sobs. The Forgite listened for a long time before saying quietly, “Which of them are you crying for?”

  “For all three of us,” gasped Kerish.

  Gidjabolgo turned over and gripped the Prince in his arms. “Don't waste tears on your brother.”

  “But he loved Gwerath so much.”

  “No,” said Gidjabolgo harshly. “It was the idea of being loved that attracted him, not Gwerath. Until he realized that you didn't need him anymore, he never gave her a thought. By all the gods I don't believe in, your brother's simple lust for Pellameera was more honest than his love for Gwerath.”

  “No,” Kerish had almost stopped sobbing but his body still shook. “No, you must be wrong.”

  “Oh, it makes a prettier tale your way,” agreed the Forgite, “but I'm not wrong. As for you . . . I suppose what you felt could have been called love. You saw shadows of yourself in Gwerath and loved those. Your love would have forced her to look at herself too closely, and that she'd never have tolerated. As I once said, when you were in no state to listen - she was best out of it.”

  “Why did you dislike her so much?” asked Kerish.

  “Because I know what love is,” said Gidjabolgo. “As for Forollkin - he'll grieve for you longer than for Gwerath, but even facing death for Viroc he won't really be unhappy. He thrives on the need of others and where could he be needed more? Cry for yourself if you must, but only this one night. We have a task to finish.”

  Kerish didn't speak again and after one last sob, he lay quietly in Gidjabolgo's arms until morning.

  At dawn, ten of the escort left on a mission to scout the hills and organize resistance among the remaining population. The captain still kept the convoy moving at a punishing pace but the tension among the refugees gradually lessened. The forested hills began to be noticed for their beauty rather than as places where the enemy could be hiding. Conversation grew louder and was more concerned with the future than with what had been left behind. People began to move out of their tight little groups and songs were heard again. Chiefly they were the melancholy airs that Kerish remembered haunting the Golden City at evening, but here and there someone would launch into a comic song and the ancient jokes were received with almost hysterical pleasure.

  At halts, the convoy broke up and people wandered freely. Kerish and Gidjabolgo could not fail to attract attention. Courteous enquiries were made to Gidjabolgo by old men, anxious to show off their Zindaric, or even the odd snatch of Forginish. Many small kindnesses were pressed on Kerish. He kept his temper and responded with cool politeness. When one garrulous woman asked directly about Kerish's illness, Viarki suddenly appeared at his side, to change the subject and send her away.

  “Your friend has got into an argument with Feg, so I'll stay with you to fend off well-wishers. You mustn't blame them. Most people like talking about their ailments, it makes them feel important. I would guess that you don't need that kind of encouragement. Is it because of your music?” asked Viarki. “If
there's one thing you're truly good at, you don't have to lengthen your shadow.”

  “My music?” They would be moving off again soon and Kerish was gripping the edge of the cart. “You've never heard me sing.”

  “No,” admitted the young actor, “but your speaking voice is lovely and Gidjabolgo has told me a little about your talents.”

  “And what about you?” asked Kerish, suddenly warming to Viarki. “What is your one true talent?”

  “I can turn my hand to most things, “ answered Viarki, “and my tongue too, but there's nothing that I'm better at than anyone else.”

  “Not even acting?”

  “No, I'm just competent and reliable. Leth-Kar is pleased with me. I used to dream of playing gods and emperors in the Golden City itself . . . but I'm no fool. Desha still dreams like that and she has a right to. You'd take her for a shallow, bad-tempered chit, but ah, when the masks are on . . .”

  “Perhaps her emptiness is greater than yours,” suggested Kerish.

  “That's what Marliann says and she's usually right. She said something curious about you last night,” continued Viarki. “What was it now? Something about being given blindness to perfect your sight.”

  “What were Feg and Gidjabolgo arguing about?” Kerish asked hastily.

  “Oh, impending doom. That's Feg's favorite subject. Now things are really bad he's beginning to look quite cheerful. I suppose they weren't really arguing, just agreeing maliciously, except that Feg insists that only Galkis is doomed, because we've all sinned and turned away from Zeldin. Your friend says that people are the same everywhere and that no one deserves happiness . . . Is he always so bitter-tongued?”

  Kerish nodded absently. A familiar scent was overwhelming the sharp smell of the sweating ox and its leather harness. The scent of moxia: Traveler’s Joy. Kerish pictured the tall amber flowers. How long was it since he'd seen a clump growing beside a Galkian road? Two years at least.

  “Yet he must be kind-hearted,” Viarki was saying. “He cares for you like a brother.”

  “For some reason, Gidjabolgo enjoys my company,” answered Kerish, with the first real smile that Viarki had seen on his lips. “So he would disclaim any virtue in looking after me.”

  “How perverse!” said the young actor. “There must always be pleasure in serving God through serving men. Still, you can't expect a foreigner to look at things the way we Galkians do.”

  Kerish almost laughed aloud. “No, but you're right. He is a good friend to me.”

  “I'm glad,” said Viarki, with surprising earnestness, “I often think that people make too much of love; between men and women that is. Everyone thinks their life will be incomplete without it, but who can love as truly as Zeldin and Imarko? For ordinary people, friendship is easier to catch and keep.”

  “You have a friend . . .” began Kerish gently.

  “Sharvin, our fourth player,” said Viarki. “I would have stayed in Viroc with him, but he wanted me to look after Desha. She doesn't seem to worry about him, though he's never held a sword in his life.”

  Kerish could imagine Viarki's anxious expression.

  “Still, we have a new Lord Commander,” continued the young actor, “and with the Third Prince to pray for them, how can the men of Viroc lose?”

  *****

  In the late afternoon, four soldiers of the escort rode up into a village built on a plateau and half-hidden from the road by a hedge of flowering thorn trees. They found it deserted, but animals still bleated in the pens and the aroma of lentils and spices came from the communal fire-pit. After a brief search of the hastily abandoned houses, the four soldiers signaled to the waiting convoy that it was safe to come up and planted the standard of Jenoza in the village square, in front of the mud-brick temple.

  The curtain of the sanctuary stirred and an old man crept out. The priest, who had refused to leave his temple, now told the soldiers that the villagers had fled when the children they used as scouts had reported troops on the road. They had been raided once by a small party of Orazians and were already sheltering refugees from villages further west. The old priest rang the temple bell and gradually the villagers came down from the caves that riddled the hills, to greet their new guests.

  Though under Galkian law they could not be compelled, most of the young men had gone to Viroc to fight. So it was mainly old people, women and children, that Gidjabolgo saw gathering in the square and staring with some suspicion at the newcomers. The old men were dressed in plain kaftans but the women and children wore richly embroidered robes, caught at the waist by strings of the same brilliant beads that entwined their dark hair.

  “Don't they know they're at war?” asked Gidjabolgo. “It looks like a festival.”

  Viarki overheard him. “In Jenoza, Death is respected. We put on our best clothes to greet her.”

  “No doubt the worms are impressed,” retorted Gidjabolgo and he turned his attention to the houses. They were chiefly square, two-storied buildings in mud-brick, surrounded by small, neat gardens. The windows were shaded by patterned rolls of matting and the flat roofs were crowded with racks and trays of drying vegetables and herbs. The walls were whitewashed and painted with scenes of family and village history, renewed several times in each generation. Sometimes the pictures were accompanied by passages of verse, which had lost all meaning after countless recopyings.

  Gidjabolgo examined a birth scene. The woman lay spread-eagled on the ground with her husband gripping her wrists and her mother her feet, while Imarko stood waiting to bless the child. On the next house was a freshly painted feast scene in which the whole village seemed to be depicted. Gidjabolgo described it to Kerish. “Oh, and above the door there's a circle made of feathers and a date written inside it. What does that mean?”

  “I don't know,” said Kerish simply. “I've never been this far south before and I've never entered a village house. I probably know more about how people live in Lan-Pin-Fria or Erandachu than I do about my own Galkians.”

  The captain of the escort was explaining to a relieved Headman that the convoy only intended to stay for one night and quarters were quickly arranged for all the travelers. The temple actors found themselves staying with the village baker and his two daughters. One of these had twin boys clutching at her skirts, but her husband was in Viroc. An embroidered border of flowers in bud on her sister's dress showed that she was unmarried. In accordance with southern custom, both were unveiled and the sisters stared with frank curiosity at their guests until their father chivvied them into the kitchen yard.

  The proper greetings and blessings were exchanged and the guests were invited to wash in bowls of water scented with flowers from the garden. The baker proudly pointed to a tattered scroll containing part of The Book of the Emperors which was kept in the main room, and promised that his younger daughter would read from it before supper.

  Having got through the expected courtesies he then asked for news.

  Leth-Kar told him all that he could about the state of Viroc. He deplored Lord Jerenac's death but praised the new Lord Commander who had been brought to them by Zeldin's mercy from the very camp of the enemy. The baker enquired by name about several villagers, young men and women skilled in healing, who had gone to Viroc. Marliann, who as a priestess served as comforter and counselor to many people, recognized some of the names and was able to give reassurance. Kerish listened to none of it. The sun was setting and his thoughts were with Forollkin.

  The travelers were then led to the upper room. It was simply furnished with heaps of lovingly patched cushions, a single chair, a wooden stool and bowls of garden flowers. The guest chair was at once allotted to Leth-Kar, but because of his disability, Kerish was offered the honor of the stool. Afraid of being separated from Gidjabolgo, Kerish declined and said that it was Marliann's place. In an accent almost too thick for Kerish to understand, the baker seemed to be insisting, but Marliann herself intervened.

  “The greatest courtesy is to be allowed discourtesy.”


  The baker and his daughters chuckled at the proverb and Marliann sat on the stool beside her husband's chair. Gidjabolgo led Kerish into the darkest corner and found him a comfortable cushion. Cold water, delicately flavored with crushed petals, was brought for the guests to drink. Lamps were lit and the scroll was sent for. The baker asked his chief guest to choose a favorite passage.

  Tactfully ignoring the history of Prince Jezreen, whose teachings were not fully accepted in the south, Leth-Kar chose an episode in the life of the Silent Emperor. It was falteringly read by the younger daughter, who was beamed on by her father and thanked and praised by his guests. Kerish marveled to find this ancient custom, no longer observed in palaces and great houses, still kept in a small village far from the heart of the Empire. Each guest was expected to comment briefly on the chosen passage and if they could, quote other sacred texts. When it was Kerish's turn, he murmured something about the flame of Truth bringing both light and pain and quoted from The Book of Sorrows. Heads were sagely nodded, but Kerish wondered if the villagers could understand his court accent any better than he followed their country one.

  When everyone had spoken, the two girls brought up food from the kitchen. The village had sent much of its store of provisions to Viroc but the baker did what he could to honor his guests. There was a great pot of spiced lentils cooked in the communal fire-pit, bowls of yoghurt and fresh star-shaped loaves. Having prepared the meal, the daughters were served first and then the food was handed to the guests.

  As they ate, Kerish heard the two sisters whispering about Gidjabolgo and debating whether all foreigners were as ugly. He hoped that the Forgite's Galkian was too poor for him to understand them. With a murmured blessing, food was set in front of him. Gidjabolgo put a piece of bread into Kerish's hand. “I'm holding up a bowl of lentils.”

  Kerish imagined the mocking eyes of the two girls and the children watching his clumsy movements.

  “Nobody's taking any notice of you. Go on,” hissed Gidjabolgo.