by David Drake
A hard smile touched Ilna's mouth: this one was a warrior. She guessed that if she rolled him over, she'd find the mate to the pucker somewhere in his upper chest where the point'd gone in. Why he lay here naked and unconscious while the priests outside had died fighting the catmen was a question to ask as soon as the fellow could speak.
"Karpos, get some water," Ilna said. "I don't see any injury but there's something wrong with him."
"Asion!" Karpos shouted to his partner. "We found somebody! Fetch us water!"
Ilna frowned but didn't object. The hunters were her companions, not servants. Karpos was afraid to leave her alone with the stranger. His concern was misplaced, but it was a harmless mistake.
Ilna only wished that her own mistakes had all been so harmless. If she hadn't made a particularly bad mistake, she'd have a better reason to exist now than the hope of killing every catman in the world; though killing catmen seemed to be enough.
The floor of this temple was of simple stone flags instead of the designs in tile or mosaic that she'd seen elsewhere. The stranger brushed them with his palms, feeling for a purchase. His eyes remained closed.
"Here!" said Asion, striding swiftly out of the sunlight with a dripping mass in his left hand; the knife in his right pointed toward the ground, not a threat but assuredly ready for any trouble that arose. "I didn't see a gourd around so I soaked some cloth in the fountain."
"Off one of the bodies?" his partner said. "You're no better than a dog sometimes, you know, Asion?"
"Hey, I cut off the skirt," Asion said defensively. "There wasn't any blood on that part. Who's the guy?"
Ilna took the sodden linen from the hunter. She was more than a little inclined to agree with Karpos, but Asion had done what'd been requested. Since she hadn't told him what means to use, she had no right to complain about how he did it.
While she considered whether to daub the corner of the stranger's mouth or perhaps to mop his brow, he lifted his head slightly. His eyes opened, but only a slit. Bracing his arms, he raised his torso and brought his knees up under him.
Asion backed away, wiping his left hand on his rawhide breeches. He raised the knife to his waist with the point forward.
The stranger stood and opened his eyes. He glanced at the two hunters and smiled faintly. Then he looked at Ilna; the smile vanished. He'd risen smoothly, but his body swayed for an instant after he'd found his feet.
Ilna's face tightened in slight irritation. The man couldn't have been as old as she'd thought, not and carry so little fat. She'd mistaken the flaccidity of unconsciousness for softness. Now that he was alert, the flesh was molded tightly over his bones.
She handed him the wet cloth. "What's your name?" she asked.
She sounded peevish. She smiled a flash of self-awareness: I spend most of my life in a state of slight irritation, punctuated by moments of extreme anger. It's as well that I don't like being around people, because I wouldn't be very good company.
The stranger wiped his face, squeezing out runnels of water that splashed on the floor. When he'd finished with his face, he began to rub his shoulders and chest. The rag was by now merely damp.
He smiled at Ilna. "What is your name?" he said. His words were clear and audible, but his voice had the odd, echoing intonation of a gong speaking.
Ilna glared at him. "I'm Ilna os-Kenset," she said, because it was quicker to give an answer than to argue that that she'd asked him first. "What is your name?"
"And what're you doing in this temple?" Karpos said harshly. He'd backed two steps and now had drawn back his arrow enough to spread the bowstring into a flat V. Ilna suspected the hunter wasn't aware of what his fingers were doing. He was dangerously tense.
The stranger looked at Karpos and smiled again. It wasn't an ingratiating smile, simply one of amusement. He dropped the rag on the floor and stretched, raising his arms to their full height. His fingertips came impressively close to the crossbeams of ancient timber supporting the roof trusses.
"Answer me!" Karpos shouted, drawing the bowstring a little farther.
Turning to Ilna again, the stranger said, "My name is Temple?"
She thought she heard a question in the words, but the tone might have deceived her. She glared at Karpos. She'd taken the hank of cords out of her sleeve and was knotting them without paying conscious attention to what her fingers were doing.
"Karpos, put that bow down now," she said in a voice that could've broken rocks. "Put it down or I'll leave you here! You'll be no good to me."
Asion stepped between his friend and the stranger, murmuring reassuring words. Karpos let the arrow rotate parallel to the bow-staff, holding both with the fingers of his left hand alone. "What kind of name is Temple?" he shouted to the back wall.
"What is a name?" Temple said; softly, slowly. He still sounded amused, but he looked at the two hunters with a gentleness which Ilna hadn't expected.
Ilna grimaced and began picking out the knots from the pattern in her hands. "What happened here? Why were you spared when the catmen attacked?"
"Was I spared?" Temple said, looking down at his naked body. He was certainly big—as tall as Garric and even more muscular. Temple wasn't a broad plug of a man like Cashel, but he gave the same impression of tree-like solidity. Softly, barely whispering, he went on, "It's been a long time. Very long."
"Answer me!" Ilna said.
He met her angry gaze. "The Coerli didn't attack, Ilna," he said. "Others did. I do not know them, but it was the others."
Then, scarcely audible, "Very long."
"I didn't think it was the cats neither, mistress," Asion said in a tiny voice. He was staring at his right big toe as it drew circles on the stone floor.
Ilna spat out a short, bitter laugh. The cords in her hands gave her the power to kill or compel; she could drive Temple mad or make him say anything she wanted to hear.
And none of that was the least use to her now. She didn't know what it was she wanted, and she needed a better reason to kill than the fact she was—as usual—angry and frustrated.
"All right," Ilna said to the hunters. "There's no point in our staying here. There'll be food in the huts. We can milk the goats before we leave, too. I'd like a drink of milk."
"What about the bodies, mistress?" Karpos said quietly. "Do we leave them, or . . .?"
The dead were merely meat of a sort that other men didn't eat; they didn't matter. But—
"We'll put them in one of the huts and block the door with stones," she said after a moment to consider. The cold smile touched her lips again. "I suppose that makes it a mausoleum. The sort of thing rich people have . . . when they've become dead meat."
"Ilna, you are leaving?" Temple said.
Ilna looked at him sharply. "Yes," she said. There wasn't much reason for him to remain here at that. "Do you want to come with us?"
Then, in a crisp tone, "You'll have to find clothes if you come."
"I will find clothes," Temple said. He flexed his arms and smiled at her again. "And I will come with you."
"Mistress?" said Karpos. His left hand twitched unconsciously, rotating the arrow back to nock. He caught himself, glowered, and snatched the arrow away with his free hand. "Mistress, do you think that's a good idea?"
"I think it's a humane idea, Master Karpos," Ilna snapped. "I don't insist that being humane is good, but it's how I prefer to act when I can. If Temple doesn't want to remain alone at the place his companions were massacred, then I can't say I blame him. When we arrive at a more suitable place, he can leave us."
She looked at the stranger. He was smiling again, this time very broadly. "Sorry," she muttered. "I shouldn't have talked about you as if you weren't here, Master Temple."
"Just Temple, Ilna," he said. He looked at Karpos and said, "I will not be a burden to you, sir."
"The Sister bloody knows you won't!" Karpos said in an undertone, but it was just words rather than a threat. Ilna knew—and Karpos knew as well—that if she ordered the hun
ters to carry Temple on a litter, they'd obey.
The chance of that happening, barring accident or serious wounds, was vanishingly small. The man was clearly as fit as the hunters and they'd spent their entire lives in the wilderness.
Asion cleared his throat. "Look, I didn't see weapons out there with the bodies," he said, "but maybe in the houses they have something for Temple. A sickle or a billhook or something. He oughta have a weapon, out where we're going."
"They should've had weapons," Karpos said. "Here in the middle of nowhere without a spear to hand when they needed one!"
"Right," said Ilna, pursing her lips as she considered. Tunics and a cloak for Temple shouldn't be difficult; he was unusually tall, but several of the dead men were fat enough that their garments should cover him adequately if in a rather different manner from the way they did the original owners. Sandals, though, or boots—
"I will have weapons, sir," Temple said. He turned and squatted, then slid his hands to midpoint on opposite sides of the stone barrel between the images of the Gods.
"Are you praying?" Asion said. Then, to his partner, "Is he praying, do you think?"
The muscles of Temple's back and shoulders sprang out in bold relief. For a moment there was silence.
"Look, buddy," Karpos said, "if that's solid, you can forget about moving it by yourself. It weighs more'n all three of us together, aye and the mistress too!"
Stone scraped though nothing seemed to move. Temple's legs straightened with the slow certainty of sunrise. The massive cylinder—it must be at least as heavy as Karpos said—rose with him. He started to turn, balancing the stone above his head.
"Get back!" Ilna cried, but the hunters were already scrambling away. Nobody could balance something that heavy for long. When the barrel tipped one way or another it'd fall to the floor with a crash that'd shatter flagstones into flying splinters.
Temple squatted with the grace of an ox settling, still holding the stone. His smile was as set as that of a bare skull, and his muscles seemed to have been chiseled from wood. He lowered the stone barrel to the floor with no more than a tock and a rasping sound.
"By the Sister," Karpos said softly. "By the Sister."
Asion's left hand gripped the amulet bag he wore around his neck. He was mouthing something, probably a prayer. He absently sheathed his long knife, though Ilna guessed he wasn't aware of what he was doing.
Temple shuddered and wheezed, drawing in deep breaths and expelling them with the violence of a surfacing porpoise. He continued to grip the cylinder, now to anchor him so that he didn't topple over backward.
After a moment he turned his head to look at Karpos. Between gasps he said, "I will . . . no-not burden . . . you. Sir!"
"I give you best," Karpos said. He sounded awestruck. "By the Sister!"
Ilna sniffed. As a general rule she disapproved of boasting, and the feat Temple had just performed was certainly a boast. Still, it'd settled his place in this community of men without a fight, and it'd opened what turned out to be a cavity beneath the stone by the simplest if not the easiest means available. She walked over to look inside.
"Ilna," Temple said firmly. He bent over the barrel again, squeezing his eyes closed. He opened them and looked at her. "I'll take care of that, if you please."
"Yes," she said, stepping back. She stood as straight as the pillars, her face set. The stranger had rebuked her courteously. She'd often rebuked those who meddled in her business, but much less courteously.
Temple stood. She'd expected him to lurch, but the motion when it came was as smooth as all his other movements had been. He nodded to the hunters, bowed slightly to her, and reached down into the cavity.
Ilna laughed; a brief sound and half-suppressed, but even so more humor than normally passed her lips. Both hunters looked at her in surprise. Even Temple, straightening with armor in one hand and a sword in the other, glanced over his shoulder with an eyebrow cocked.
"Temple," she said, honestly saying what she'd thought but not explaining why she'd found it funny, "you and my brother Cashel would get along well together. He's a strong man also."
And he, like you, she added within the amused silence of her mind, doesn't pick fights to prove how strong he is. Though if the two of you did fight, it'd be something to see.
The hunters were looking at Temple's equipment. Helmet, cuirass, and the round shield were all made of a metal Ilna didn't recognize. It had a copperish tinge, but it was too dark and had a hint almost of purple.
"So what is it, eh?" said Asion. "Is it bronze?"
"A sort of bronze," Temple said. His voice was quickly losing its odd intonation. He set the armor on the ground and, gripping the sheath at the balance with one hand, put his other on the hilt. "It's harder than most bronzes, though."
He drew the sword. The straight blade was of the same dark metal as the armor, but the edge shimmered brightly golden even in the dim light filtering through the door of the building twenty double paces behind them.
"I've never seen anything like that," Asion said, stepping closer. He moved his hand cautiously toward the sword as though he was about to pet a lion. "Where'd you get it?"
Temple lifted the sword slightly, keeping it away from the shorter man. Asion stepped back, and Temple shot the sword home in its sheath.
"I've had it a long time," he said quietly. "A very long time."
"Is there anything more you need here?" Ilna said sharply to break the mood. When Temple shook his head, smiling again, she went on, "All right, then we'll search the houses for food before we—"
She shrugged.
"—bury the dead in one of them. And we'll get you clothes."
"I will bury the Coerli also, Ilna," Temple said. "You need not help."
Ilna glared at him, then shrugged. "If you wish," she snapped as she started for the door. "If you wish, you can walk on your hands all the way to where we're going!"
Temple left the armor where it was for now, but he slung the sword belt around his naked waist as he followed the others into the bright sun.
* * *
Sharina'd managed to sleep in the carriage during much of her return from West Sesile, but she jerked awake when the iron tires began hammering on the bricks of the Main North Road running along the front of the palace compound. She rubbed her eyes. She hadn't slept well, but any sleep at all was a luxury nowadays.
She smiled. She didn't think she'd had what she'd call a good night's sleep since the Change. There was simply too much for Princess Sharina to do.
And not just Princess Sharina. Mistress Masmon in the opposite corner looked up when she saw Sharina awaken. Masmon had been annotating a parchment codex by the light of a candle sconce in the side of the compartment. She was using a small brass pen which she refilled by dipping into the ink horn dangling from the stud of her travelling cloak.
Sometimes when the pressure of work seemed unbearable, it helped Sharina to remember that others were feeling the same pressure and nonetheless continuing to do their jobs. All the people who really understood that the struggle was between Good and Evil and that Good must win if mankind were to survive—all of them were working as hard as humans could, and maybe a little harder yet.
Sharina smiled at Masmon in sudden sympathy. The clerk blinked in surprise, then managed a wan smile in reply. She closed her pen, capped and removed the ink horn, and was placing them and the book in a carrying case when the carriage pulled up at the palace gates.
The barred gates squealed open, but a discussion between the guards on the carriage and people in the roadway continued. Sharina couldn't catch the words—partly because she was still logy with sleep and lack of sleep both—so she opened the window shutter and stuck her head out to see what was happening.
Admiral Zettin stood in the gateway, his left hand gripping the headstall of the lead horse while he argued with the under-captain in command of carriage guards. When Zettin saw Sharina, he let go of the horse and strode back to the box, callin
g, "Your highness? May I ride to your quarters with you? There's a problem that I really need to discuss—"
"Yes, yes, of course," Sharina said, her heart sinking into a pit of shadows. She was so tired. The only thing on her mind had been having her maid help her undress—you simply couldn't get into or out of court robes by yourself—and getting into bed to sleep. Lord Zettin had been waiting at the palace entrance because he knew she'd have to pass here eventually and he didn't want to leave his problem for the morning.
Zettin opened the carriage door. He lifted himself onto the mounting step but paused with a frown when he saw Mistress Masmon.