The Storyteller and Other Tales

by K V Johansen

  “Yet you loved him.”

  “I could not love a heretic, mistress.”

  “You shared the kitchen-girl Barley with him.”

  “Mistress, please. Barley knows no more than me about First-Son. He loved her. He would never have risked damning her soul.”

  “But he might have deceived himself and believed he saved it.”

  “He would never have risked her, mistress. No matter what sin he committed himself.”

  “He talked to her of the Nine. He taught her prayers. He would have taught them to the child she carried. Your child, He-Redeems-His-Father.”

  “My ... mine? Mistress, I know it was wrong of us to keep it secret. Please, please forgive us that, her and me. But you are a mother, you know how she must feel, and I know no matter how she listened to First-Son, she never believed anything wicked, she was just foolish, mistress, she said, just this morning, last night, she prayed for Skarritha’s mercy ...”

  A Hound struck him, with the flat of the heavy bronze blade this time, and he went cold and hot and nearly threw up again.

  “Forgive me, mistress,” he whispered again, shaking where he crouched, eyes once more fixed on the floor. But he could not seem to keep silent. “Forgive her. She was only foolish. You must know that, in your mercy. She surely only thought it a game. She repents now, I know she does.”

  His teeth clattered together with his shivering.

  “Your son, not the heretic’s,” the Divine Daughter said. “But what if he had claimed it his, raised it his in the pattern of his evil, corrupted it as he corrupted the girl? Would you have shut your eyes to it, remained ignorant of sin, then? Would she have whispered prayers of the lying Nine over it, and would you have let her?”

  “Mistress, I knew nothing.”

  “Yes. I know. A man less innocent and godly would have suspected more. Tell me, He-Redeems-His-Father, what I should do with you.”

  “Mistress?”

  “What am I to do with you? You are a good man. You are a loyal and devout man. I see it in you. I see your innocence. You were deceived, gravely deceived. You will examine the souls of your friends and bedmates more closely in future and not assume that all people are as virtuous as yourself. But I cannot have in my household a slave who has been tainted, however innocently, with apostasy. So what shall I do with you?”

  “You are merciful,” he whispered. “Send me back to the temple, mistress. I shall pray every hour to be worthy of your forgiveness and great Skarritha’s.”

  She looked at him, looked through him, sifting every sinful thought, every grumble, every failure. He huddled smaller, ashamed, wishing she would order him killed, set him on a quick, clean path to union with Skarritha.

  “Perhaps, in time,” she said, slowly, “perhaps, you will be worthy to serve in my palace again. I remember you have always been faithful, devoted, always been true in your heart. But you must be punished, for the well-being of the slaves’ halls. They must see justice.”

  “You are merciful, mistress. I’m not worthy.”

  “But you may be again. You will be banished to one of the estates, He-Redeems-His-Father, or — no. The-Cow-Eyed, your Hand has done well in this. I give this man to you, for the time being. You are not to kill him or sell him; I may ask for his return some day.”

  “Thank you, mistress,” a woman said from somewhere behind him.

  “And that is that,” the Divine Daughter muttered. “Captain, your Hand has three days’ leave.”

  The woman’s voice murmured acceptance of that, and the Great Lady’s footsteps left, followed by others. He-Redeems looked up for a last glimpse of her, something to carry in his heart until he was fit to return to her nearer service. He saw only the back of her heavy gown, a cascade of black hair, and two of her own Hand of thonor, bright in armour of bronze scales, walking close on her heels. The door shut between them.

  “Up,” one of the remaining Hounds said, nudging him with a foot, and He-Redeems stood, swaying, eyeing his new masters.

  The Hound’s mouth twisted. “He stinks.”

  “So wash him.” That was a third Hound, the woman by the outer door. Half her face was black, bruised, and her lip was torn, probably as painful as He-Redeems’ own. “Leave, boys. Take him to the barracks and let’s find a tavern.”

  They left, shoving He-Redeems along with them. Thonor didn’t march. They strode in a ragged pack, seeming connected as if by invisible ropes, always aware of the precise location of their fellows, always alert, to react on the drawing of a breath.

  The Divine Daughter had a company of thonor garrisoned in the palace itself, and others in barracks on the plaza and in the city. He was relieved to see they were going through the palace, not out onto the plaza. This Hand was of the palace company. He would not be leaving the palace, not leaving the Great Lady’s vicinity.

  They went through a series of ground-floor rooms, through a heavy door, and then they were out in a courtyard he had not known existed. The barracks was like a separate building, with its own courtyard, its own gallery and well. The air smelt of the kitchens, of pork and onions. His throat spasmed and he clenched his teeth, to stop his stomach heaving again.

  “Wash-room and laundry,” the Hand-captain said, pointing in under the gallery. “Clean yourself. Slaves’ hall is by the kitchens. My Hand’s hall’s up off the gallery, there. Find Tamarind. He’s ours, too.”

  She pointed, slapped his shoulder, not unkindly, and ran up the nearest gallery stairs, the other two following.

  He-Redeems stood where they had left him.

  The grunts and shouts and laughter of the Hounds exercising in the courtyard were very far away, floating on a sort of beelike buzzing. And the sun was very hot, the air sticky with the last of the rainy season humidity. He felt a little as if he were floating in a dream, as if it would all fade away and he would wake, holding tightly to First-Son and Barley, holding them so they would never slip from him again.

  Instead, he walked in the direction the Hand-captain had indicated, and found the wash-room, a long room with a bitumen-sealed floor and a drain, brick benches around the walls, a few copper cauldrons and a row of empty jars. Two slaves, a man and an older woman, were laundering clothes and swapping gossip about their Hands. They fell silent, eyeing He-Redeems suspiciously. He ignored them and they said nothing, went back to their tasks in silence.

  Water. He trudged, staggering crookedly, to the well, and pulled down the long beam to raise the pail. His hands shook as he filled the jar, but he made it all the way back to the wash-room before he plunged his face in, sucking the water like a greedy animal. He stopped when his belly began to cramp, stripped, with slow and clumsy fingers, and began dipping water over himself. Then he drank some more, poured water over his gown and wrung it out, and just sat, shivering, his back against the bench.

  He was supposed to find someone, but the name had slipped away from him. Everything had. The two doing laundry had left, and the wash-room was quiet, peaceful.

  “Wake up, palace boy.”

  A bare foot was planted in front of his face. He-Redeems sat up slowly. He had tipped over where he huddled, stark naked, on the wash-room floor.

  He peered up at a middle-aged man, broad-faced and grey around the temples. In the palace, they called the slaves who served in the barracks kitchens and the slaves belonging to the thonor “Hound’s meat,” or worse, but that automatic response to “palace boy” died barely thought.

  “You the heretic, palace boy?”

  “’m not,” he muttered, groping for his clothes, which were still sopping.

  “Yeah, so they said. Innocent of Nine-worshipping, but not too bright. I’m Tamarind.”

  “He-Redeems-His-Father.” He-Redeems got his gown over his head, stood, swaying, to pull on his drawers. He fell, but the bench was und
er him then.

  “They beat you?” Tamarind asked, with detached interest.

  He-Redeems shook his head. A few kicks were not a beating.

  “You look half-dead. Turtle said you fainted a couple times. You prone to that?”

  Another silent denial. “I just ... I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Yesterday. Or to drink.” He waved a hand at the empty jar. “Till now. I’m not sick. Really.”

  Tamarind might be happy to have a fellow to share his work; he wouldn’t be if he thought he was going to end up responsible for a weakling.

  “Ah. Well, come on then. It’d better be the kitchens.”

  He-Redeems staggered gratefully after him.

  “So,” said Tamarind, as they walked along under the gallery. “I heard, well, you’re innocent of heresy and all that, right, but still, the kind of people you called your friends ... I heard they didn’t kill you only because, um ... the Great Lady... were you ...? I mean, did you, you know — with her? The Divine Daughter herself?”

  “It was a long time ago,” he said dully.

  Tamarind pursed up his lips. “Hah. Well.” He gave He-Redeems a lingering, sidelong look.

  In the cavernous kitchen there was bread and a bowl of boiled lentils, and a number of curious glances and whisperings. He-Redeems didn’t see Barley anywhere, and realized he had been expecting to. If he was sent away, so would she be, and maybe to the barracks kitchen.

  “What about the kitchen-girl?” he asked Tamarind quietly.

  “Kitchen-girls? Lots of kitchen-girls, take your pick.”

  “Barley. She was locked up. But she was innocent too. She prayed to Skarritha. The Great Lady can see our hearts. She knows Barley loves Skarritha, truly. She’ll show mercy. Did they send Barley here too?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He cleaned out the bowl with the last piece of bread, handed it back to the old woman who had brought it. “They must have sent her off to the country, then.”

  Poor Barley. She’d never been out of the palace in her life. He didn’t even think she had ever been beyond the gates onto the plaza. A country estate would be a foreign land, to her.

  And he would never see her again.

  “Ah, that kitchen-girl,” Tamarind said.

  “You must have heard.”

  “Um, yes. Forget her. She’s gone. Come on back to our hall, you can sleep or something. Not much to do right now, actually. They’re all off in the city and I’ve done all the chores.”

  “You go,” He-Redeems said. “I want to look around. If that’s all right?”

  “I suppose. Stay out of people’s way, don’t get yourself beaten up, captain won’t like it.”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  He followed Tamarind back out to the courtyard, watched to see which gallery door he entered. They didn’t want him thinking about Barley, of course they didn’t, didn’t want him doing anything that would make people think about heresy. The poison of the Nine was contagious. He should thank Skarritha Tamarind was charitable enough not to treat him like he had some sort of catching plague.

  But Barley wouldn’t know what had happened to him. She might be thinking of him like ... the other one ... dead and bloating in the sun as an example to the rest. If he could learn where Barley had been sent, he might be able to get word to her, so that she would know he was alive, and forgiven, as she was surely forgiven. But she would need comfort.

  And the baby would be a boy, a son for them — for the two of them. He would grow in the Daughter’s service on whatever estate Barley was at, he would be loved, he would serve the Great Lady ... maybe someday He-Redeems would even be able to see him.

  He walked through the heavy door separating the barracks from the palace, walked the old familiar rooms and narrow passageways feeling already a stranger, an intruder, avoiding the central yard where First-Son’s body would be hanging. He could hear crows, squawking and squabbling. He clenched his teeth, refusing to think of it, and headed down the wide stairs to the palace kitchens. A butcher flattened himself against the wall as He-Redeems passed, holding his basket high, and muttered, “Skarritha bless,” as though he were a ghost.

  He-Redeems couldn’t catch anyone’s eye. People he had known looked away, found errands that took them up the other stairs. A girl who had been Barley’s closest friend among the women turned her back when he spoke.

  He still felt weak, sick, tired, from going so long without water or food. He felt like lying down where he was, weeping like a baby. “I just want someone to tell Barley ...” he started to shout at them all, when an old woman plucked at his sleeve.

  “Shut up,” she said. “Come along. This is no place for you. We can’t have your kind in here, getting us all in trouble. Barley wouldn’t want that.”

  The last words silenced him and he followed docilely, towed towards the stairs. But then she jerked him in behind one of the brick counters.

  “Sit,” she ordered, hissing toothlessly, and he sat on the debris-covered floor. The old woman thumped the pot of honey she carried down on the counter, took up a pestle and began pounding a big mortar full of nuts.

  “I’ve seen you around. Nice boy, I always thought, if a bit dim. Good boy for my Barley. Thought that about the other one too. Ugly boy, but kind. And smart.”

  “You’re Barley’s mother?”

  “Grandmother. Poor child. I thought the Hounds had you.”

  “No.” He swallowed. “I mean, yes. I’m to serve Hand-Captain The-Cow-Eyed now.”

  “The mistress looks after her favourites, I see.” She sniffed, poured a dollop of honey into the nuts, catching a drop on her crooked finger and licking it. “Don’t come here again. Don’t ask about Barley. You’ll get others in trouble, and they won’t escape.”

  “But Barley. Is she sent to the country? I thought someone could take word to her, so she wouldn’t worry. Is she still here?”

  His voice was rising. The old woman hissed at him.

  “She loved First-Son. Loved the both of you. Were you truly his friend, or you just put up with him to have Barley? Or, hah, you put up with her to have him?”

  “No!” he protested. “I loved them both. Skarritha forgive me,” he added, angry, afraid.

  “And you a good, pious boy. Your friend had some secret way out of the palace into the city, they say. They say he met with Nine-worshippers and they lay with goats and drank the blood of newborn boys to call up the outcast gods.” She snorted. “More fools them that say it. They’ll know better one day, and soon. But the Great Lady spared you, for your pretty eyes, I suppose.”

  “Because I was innocent. I never knew where First-Son went, or what he did.”

  And he would never have done anything like she said, goats and babies, not First-Son. That was ... nonsense. If First-Son was apostate, then it was because ... because he believed something. First-Son always wanted something better.

  Better than the god.

  “Innocent! That you are. Not like poor young Barley, who couldn’t even say who fathered her child. No, the Daughter wouldn’t throw such innocence as yours away. She needs that. Tastes it like honey, I suppose. Not much of it around. Innocence and pretty eyes, and her bed’s empty again, isn’t it?”

  As though the Daughter were any foolish girl from the weaving hall.

  “The Great Lady did no wrong,” he said stiffly.

  “Oh no. Not to you and the others, my innocent boy, picked up and tossed aside like toys, eh? Not to First-Son stinking up the courtyard. Or my poor Barley. Never. All her acts are holy, our great mistress. Skarritha bless her. Such innocence. Such devotion! Only the gods deserve such, boy.” And all the time she was grinding and thumping with the pestle, dropping more nuts in, more honey. But she looked up then, a flash of dark eyes, and down at her paste again.
>
  “But where’s Barley?” He-Redeems demanded.

  “Beyond your saving, poor child.”

  Stupidly, he asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Dead.”

  “But why? Barley wasn’t ...” He whispered it. “She wasn’t a heretic. She never believed what First-Son said. She just did it to please First-Son. She wasn’t heretic. Was she?”

  “It would be all right if she were, then? Like your beloved friend First-Son out there? That’s all right?”

  He-Redeems shook his head.

  “Maybe she believed and maybe she didn’t. She was screaming for Skarritha’s mercy when they took her away. Doesn’t matter, does it? She was contaminated, defiled. She slept with him. You see?”

  “But ...” So had he.

  “Barley didn’t have your face to save her,” the old woman said. “Hah. And then again, maybe she did, they both had you and that didn’t help matters, eh? The Great Lady’s a woman in the end, after all. Jealous of her toys even after she tires of them.”

  “Where is she?” he whispered, barely hearing. “Barley, where is she? Not ... out there? Did they... did they take her to the temple?”

  “No. No to both. Those prisoners that survived the Hounds were all burnt this morning in the yard of the public temple, ’cept two the Great Lady killed on the altar. To testify to the glory of Skarritha, you know. I had permission. Went down to see.”

  He-Redeems was revolted. “Why?”

  “Why? Why witness such a holy act, the cleansing of the city of such evil? A good pious boy like you has to ask? Why did I go? To say a few prayers for their souls. But your Barley ...” She reached out and took both his hands. “I’m sorry, He-Redeems. The priests took her out for the adulteress’s death.”

  An adulteress taken in the act could be sewn into a sack weighted with rocks, and thrown into the river.