“I don’t like it here,” he said. “One… one can’t see clearly from here, and it’s the first place the priests will look. They make their sacrifices here, you know.”
“I didn’t,” Carole said. “I wish you hadn’t told me.” She leaned backwards across the teeth, bracing herself with her hands, and stared up the nostrils. “I can’t believe the detail in this thing. Will you look at those little crystal hairs? They’ve gone to incredible trouble to make this idol look like a real person.”
“Oh, I doubt very much that anyone made him look like anything,” Rupert replied somewhat absently, for he was studying the distance between the corner of the mouth and the earlobe and wondering if the dimple in between would provide sufficient handhold until he could set foot on the end of the curl jutting out along the chin. “The family resemblance is proof enough to me that they left him entirely authentic.”
“Left him? Whatever are you talking about?”
“Rowan the Recreant, of course. This poor fellow we’re standing in. Mother help him, I always had a feeling that the stories were wrong. Cowardliness just isn’t a family trait. I had supposed they just made him up as a cautionary tale, but apparently not.” Carole continued to look puzzled and a shade annoyed. “He was one of my ancestors—one of the great frost giants from before we Rowans came to Argonia. Father told me about all of them, way back, as soon as I was able to recite the family chain. Not much about him, you understand, because he was a disgrace, left Great-great-etc-grandmother Adelheit alone with a whole passle of gigantic Rowans. But Sir Cyril took an interest in him and did a bit of research among other tellers of tales for the archives, to add to the chronicles of the Royal Family. I used to spend a great deal of time with Sir Cyril before I was sent to Wasimarkan. Splendid fellow. It must have been that shape-shifting enchantress who did him in.”
“Sir Cyril?”
“Rowan the Recreant. There are stories about the enchantress elsewhere in the family chronicles, and a descendant or two later in the lines who supposedly was attributable to her. She was very powerful--much more powerful than anyone we know today. She was thought to be immortal, though since she’s not around now she couldn’t have been, could she? And she could change her size at will, which was the aspect that I imagine attracted the forefathers. Ladies of their own stature in foreign lands must have been hard to come by for a fellow as big as this one.” He patted Rowan the Recreant’s upper lip sympathetically.
“I suppose it’s not unlikely, considering that she was able to shift her own shape and also considering the wealth of crystal in this country, that she might have been able to change him into crystal, too. The way I would reconstruct the story, going on what was told to me already, was that after that first fling—the one that’s in the family chronicles—where he outsmarted the enchantress and escaped her land with all those jewels that he took back to give to Adelheit’s father to win her hand, he must have had second thoughts. The next time the ship was passing by, he decided to give the enchantress another look-over. Perhaps Grandmother Adelheit wasn’t that easy to live with. Perhaps the enchantress had more to offer than jewels. Who knows? But apparently she was not the sort of lady who took kindly to being left to pursue her own career while her lover ran off with the proceeds. Perhaps, who knows, those descendants that were hers were also his, unbeknownst to Grandmother Adelheit. At any rate, I think this is absolute proof that when he jumped that ship, he never intended to desert his lord, but was merely taking a little detour to see an old friend who proved not so friendly. Clearly, he was never again able to leave this harbor.”
“Uck,” Carole said, “You mean to say that we’re in him?”
“Yes, isn’t it intriguing? I shall have to speak to Father and to Sir Cyril about clearing up his reputation when we return home.”
“Do that,” Carole said, “I’m sure they’ll be relieved to hear that he’s come up in the world from being a berserking coward to being worshipped as a god.” She yawned and shivered in her wet clothing.
“Well, yes, I suppose legend might choose to see it that way. I hope you won’t make too much of the resemblance though, when we tell them about it. I confess I find it rather embarrassing.”
“Convenient though.”
Rupert couldn’t argue that, but nevertheless he felt a twinge of guilt for making use of the situation. He wondered what he would do if they were somehow unable to make good their escape and he was forced to continue in the role in which the priests had cast him.
“Rupert?” Carole asked.
“Yes?” He was busy inspecting the ear again.
“What do you suppose that Midnight Rainbow ceremony really does? Besides scare everyone with the power of the priests?”
“Eh? What? Oh, I haven’t the foggiest idea about that. You’re the magician here. Look, I’m going to climb to the top of Grandpa’s curls and keep a lookout, what do you think?”
“You could stay here and rest where it’s dry, but I agree that one of us should go up there. That way if Grippeldice passes by she’ll be sure to see us. It would be wonderful to have her on hand as soon as the nurse and the baby arrive. But we could always take turns. Dawn is still a long time off.”
“I know,” he said, “But I’m so tired that if I fall asleep here I probably won’t wake in time to relieve you. Up there the light will waken me.”
“Suit yourself,” she said. “But I could go as easily.”
He shook her shoulder in a friendly grasp, like a mother dog mouthing a pup. “I have a better disguise than you do in this situation, cousin. If I am spotted, nothing very dire will happen to me. What could be more natural than a god perching on his own likeness? I’d be able to warn you, so you could jump into the sea. The other way wouldn’t work nearly as well. Wait. Here…” With a certain amount of fumbling and genteel cursing, he un-slung the shield from his back and handed it to her. Shortly thereafter the mer comb clattered down upon it. “The christening gifts should all be in one place, with you, where they can be bestowed as soon as possible. Even though we’ll have to carry the gifts for her later, the bestowing will give her some protection. Now you stay here and rest up so your magic will be ready to use when we need it.”
With that he hooked his fingers over the sharp crystalline edge of the famous Rowan dimple, crawled along the Rowan cheek until he could place a large foot on the tip of the Rowan curl, and grasped the Rowan earlobe to pull himself up into the ear. He had little problem maintaining a grip on the slippery crystal surface—Rowan the Recreant had large pores. The giant’s stony curls proved easy to climb. Rupert found a flattened place at the crown, probably where the giant’s helmet usually rested, since Rowans had never had to worry about baldness.
For her part, Carole made herself as comfortable as possible, curled up against the giant’s gums, her head resting on the curve of the shield. The comb she tucked safely in her medicine pouch. She knew, despite Rupert’s gallantry, that she would never be able to manage sleep under such circumstances, but she did.
Rupert slept sitting up amidst the crystal curls, his head drooping against his chest. The scrape of wood on stone just before dawn was not as loud as the pounding of the waves, but it was a different sound, and woke him at once. It came from behind him instead of in front of him, however, and he peered over the back of the giants head to see the nurse sitting in her little boat, wringing hands stung red and raw by the salt water. Naturally, he realized, she would bring the boat in at the idol’s rear, where she would not be so easily observed. Utilizing the many good gripping places offered by the giants coiffure, he scrambled down to meet her.
Though Jushia looked as charmingly fragile as ever, with a hint of wildness added by her blowing hair and red-rimmed eyes, Rupert noted at once that something was conspicuously missing. “Where’s the child?” he asked, lowering himself into the boat beside her while keeping it moored with a grip on one of Rowan the Recreant’s stray tendrils.
She apparently noticed t
he same thing about him that he had noticed about her at about the same time. “You don’t know?” she said, wailing slightly, which was fortunate for he could barely hear her over the pounding of the surf.
“Of course not. You were going to bring her here, remember?”
She pressed her face into her hands before looking up at him again, eyes wet with more than sea water. “Oh, dear. I thought perhaps you were testing me after all and had transported her here in some divine fashion.” Her head craned slightly sideways, as if he might be concealing a child behind his back. “You really don’t have her?” She saw without a reply that he did not.
He touched her shoulder reassuringly. “Maybe she woke up crying while you were gone and one of the other ladies fetched her to give her something to eat. Have you asked?”
“I looked in the quarters of Lady Fanya and Lady Aseneth. Both were alone and sleeping. I was afraid to raise a general alarm for fear you were testing me, you see. Now I must. Be gentle when they sacrifice me tomorrow.”
“Now, now. Lets not be hasty. The child has to be around somewhere. There are only so many things you can do—er—” He stopped, deciding not to go into what things could be done with a helpless baby. “We’ll return to the castle and search it as well as we can without rousing anyone before you raise the general alarm. I’m sure that we’ll probably find the baby tucked away in the corner of the kitchen in the care of a kindly maid or something. You’ll see.”
He took the oars and pushed off with a kick from his large bare foot, cutting it slightly on the sharp-edged hair of his forebearer. His feet were so numb with cold that he hardly noticed. It occurred to him that perhaps he should wake Carole and apprise her of the new developments, but there was little she could actually do until they had found the child. She was much safer staying where she was and guarding the christening gifts. And should he and Jushia not find the baby, he would need to return through the secret passage to the temple. If the child caught between the powers that ruled Gorequartz was not with the King and Queen there was only one other logical place she might be—with the priests.
Chapter XI
Carole dozed off with the pounding of the surf vibrating against the giant’s teeth, shaking her and, at the same time, lulling her with its rhythm. She became aware that the sound had quieted in the middle of a dream. She rolled fitfully over, so that her other cheek would rest against the carved rowan leaf on the shield. Her body had been clenched tight as a fist. She ached all over from cold, even as she slept. She heard the familiar Rowan rumble as she turned in her sleep. Rupert stood over her. His voice came and went with the waves and he gazed down at her, his face curiously altered. While she somehow did not find it strange that he should be glowing with his own light, she did wonder that he should have found a change of clothing: sandals of a design she had never seen and a sort of breechclout made of bearskin, which would have made her a very welcome blanket. Furthermore, the whole ensemble— bearskin, sandals, glow and all—was distinctly see-throughish. Rupert’s expression was anguished and vaguely hostile as he looked down at her.
She raised herself on one elbow to ask what he wanted, but sank back down again as if her limbs were made of noodles.
“Morag, how come ye back?” the voice asked. It was at once softer and deeper than Rupert’s. It gonged in the back of her mind rather than falling on her ears. He continued to look at her. She realized he had mistaken her for someone else.
“Come, lass, would you mock me, to lay here in your small size upon the rowan shield and look as innocent as if you had never doomed me to this?” He flung his arms up and shook his head helplessly at the crystal interior of his own mouth. Carole was not unacquainted with ghosts. Argonia was lousy with them. She just hadn’t been prepared for this one in this place. She could not quite wake up but she did manage to gather her thoughts, to pull them in from the woolly world of other dreams so that she could focus. Someone needed to have their wits about them. The giant’s ghost had obviously mistaken her for his old mistress and nemesis, the shape-shifting enchantress. Did she, Carole, resemble this Morag then? Perhaps the woman was an ancient Brown ancestress… but surely not. The giant was far older than Argonia and the whole line of Browns.
“Did you know what you did to me, Morag? Did you know it all? That I would stand here forever and never feeling with my body but feeling all the same? That I would stand for years in the sea, looking for you, that I would watch you die at the hands of the newcomers and never be able to save you any more than I could slay you?” He sighed and looked at her with infinite sadness. “Oh, girl, if you had to die, why did you not join me? I could have done you as I’ve learned to do those other poor sods those crazy religious fanatics stuff down me throat. Oh, Morag, I only wanted to see you again. Was this any way to treat the man you loved?”
He turned his face to the side where the tears slid off his nose while his shoulders and chest heaved and collapsed like the waves rolling against his stone body. Carole pitied him and also hoped he didn’t grow so distraught he stepped on her. While in one sense she felt he was no larger than Rupert, in another she felt herself to be very much smaller. The matter of size seemed rather confused. Now, for instance, his face hung very high above her and his tears splashed toward her like washtubs full of water that never quite hit.
Carole sighed softly and somewhere inside of her another Carole stood to meet the giant. “Brace up,” the dream self said, slapping the giant encouragingly on the ankle, which was all the farther she could reach. “Just look at you. You’re a mess. What sort of god blubbers like this? Hundreds of people are sacrificed in your name and you stand about feeling sorry for yourself? What would your worshippers think? Aren’t you supposed to be setting an example?”
“How can you speak to me so, Morag?”
“Not Morag, just a simple village witch and a priestess who knows good and well the responsibilities a deity has to its followers. And speaking of your followers, what do you mean allowing people to be sacrificed to you? That’s the most repulsive, tyrannical, barbaric thing I’ve ever heard of, even from a giant barbarian!”
The giant mopped his eyes with one hairy arm and blew his nose rather disgustingly, but the danger of enormous hysterics or a towering rage resulting in rampage and destruction to Carole’s sleeping person seemed delayed if not permanently abated. He bent and lifted the Carole dream-self in one hand, eyeing her suspiciously. “You’re not Morag, eh? You do sound like her.”
She assured him she was not, nevertheless. “Morag is long dead as you yourself just told me. What I’d like to know is why you aren’t. Do the sacrifices your priests bring you give their lives to sustain yours?”
He snuffled and mumbled. She looked up at him sharply. Like a child guilty of overturning the milk pail he looked quickly down at her with his eyes the size of a cart and away again. “I said no. It’s not like that. Not like you think. I’ve no wish for what those fanatics do to folk hereabouts in my name. T’was a fine thing to slay in the heat of battle with the blood rising in me, but to stand here forever cold and forever wet and forever alone, and have fools push people to death down my throat as if I were a man-eater of some kind, arragh, no. I never wished that. I would die and crumble and line the sea with these clear stone bones of mine if I could, but the stone preserves what was me, you see. I watch and listen and feel and never am able to stay a hand to those who would murder and cast the blame on me. I do all I can. When the bodies break inside me like cracked nuts I save the part that was human, the part that was that person, and before they can be trapped as I am, I belch ’em out quick as I can, and that much I can save. There are advantages for the disembodied who are not bound as I am, you know. A body who knows how can trick time and space, can enjoy anything. If only I were free of this crystal prison, I could do that.”
“Just be careful if you ever leave this crystal prison that your faithful devotees don’t snap you up as they do those poor souls you belch and put you and all of yo
ur wonderful otherworldly advantages in a shiny new crystal bottle to sell to anyone who wants to enjoy the benefits of both worlds.”
“They do so? In truth?” His voice swelled like the tide and his right fist clenched and unclenched. Suddenly Carole saw the dream-self fall, but she couldn’t tell if the height was great or small, or whether the moaning giant was growing or diminishing or if she was. In the middle of pondering the question she found that it wasn’t the least bit important, since she was quite alone after all.
* * *
When Rupert joined Jushia in embarking upon the search of the castle for Bronwyn’s baby on what would later be referred to as the Morning of the Divine Visitation, he learned one thing that had not previously impressed him about castles: Quite a few infants dwelt in one and each of those infants was prone to crying long before any sensible adult would consider arising.
He and Jushia separated to save time, she taking the west wing occupied by the royal family and the central portion containing the offices, meeting and court halls, and the kitchen. Rupert took the east wing, containing the quarters for the other nobles and the seaward extension that housed the servants. He realized almost at once that the search would have worked better the other way around. Jushia would have been far less conspicuous than he amidst the families and servants, he far more at home among the castles administrative offices. He prided himself on his regal appearance, even in bare feet and wet trouser legs.
He did not search every room, of course, only the ones where he heard babies crying. That accounted for approximately every other room. Rupert was not shy about popping his head in, holding aloft one of a series of guttering torches he borrowed from the hall sconces long enough to ascertain if the child in the room was the one he sought, which it invariably was not. Where the crying child was already tended by a woman or girl, he simply smiled and nodded amiably, checked the child, and headed for the next room emitting youthful howling. With babes in arms, some of the women followed him to the door and into the hallway, while others sank to their knees in awe and terror. Still others continued their tasks and wondered if the nice-looking, tallish fellow ever found his way to the privy tower after all.
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