Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  “Isn’t your teaching the goddess’s grace, Mother?”

  “I am only a vessel. The teaching is not mine, though I will pass on to you what I know.”

  “And what must I learn?”

  “You already know the healing arts, with me you shall develop these skills, for what heart needs not the healing balm of Love? And you will learn of enchantment.”

  “Magic?”

  “A magic you already have sensed remotely. You have enchanted men with the goddess’s gifts. And in you Her gifts are great. But while you have discerned the faint image, you have not yet seen the source. When you learn these ways, none will be able to resist the radiance of the goddess in you. She will shine through you as the sun shines at noon in the summer sky.”

  “As she shines through you?”

  “Goddess willing. We are all but her servants.”

  “And who will the goddess enchant through me, Mother?”

  “With you we must find a lover worthy of your gifts, one who doubts himself also. You understand doubt so well. You will guide him to the faith.”

  “What will be required of him, Mother?”

  “At first, nothing but love. But in love is Love’s triumph. Is it not so?”

  “How could I still doubt it?”

  “That is your gift, child. In seeming weakness is strength. As strong as is your doubt, so strong your faith becomes, and with your knowledge of doubt you will bring the faithless to the faith that rests in all our hearts, waiting for us to open them.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Is that not much? In the end he may do so much more for the goddess than feel that love which is her benediction. Or he may not. But he will love. He who thinks himself immune to love will love with a passion that will amaze himself and his friends.”

  “He doubts love so much?”

  “He thinks our nuns nothing more than expensive prostitutes.”

  “I once thought so myself.” She felt ashamed at the memory.

  “In your heart you always knew the goddess. As clouds hide the sun, so did doubt hide your heart from yourself. But the sun always burns brightly, does He not?”

  “All clouds pass.”

  “Indeed.” The abbess nodded her approval of Rose’s insight.

  “Reverend Mother?”

  “Yes, child?”

  “Isn’t love truth?”

  “It is.”

  “And you want me to seduce…to enchant this man.”

  “Yes, child.”

  “But isn’t seduction deceit?”

  “You think deeply on the mysteries of our mistress. This is good. Love has two faces, one of truth, the other of falsehood. Enchantment is only the first step on her way. To lay we lie, but a deeper truth is found in the intimacy that seduction’s deceits grant. This is the paradox of our mistress’s nature, capricious but bountiful.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Your head cannot. Only your heart can.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “Only your heart can tell you that. But you are asking what to do with this, no?”

  “Yes…I think…I…shouldn’t think?”

  “Rest your head. Worry not the great mysteries with that organ so little attuned to their logic. Trust is the road to lasting influence.”

  “So I must trust…” Rose looked guiltily at the floor.

  “Feel no guilt, child. Do you trust me?”

  Rose looked up again, and into those eyes, in which there was no mockery, only love. She did not know why, or how, but she knew she did trust the abbess. She nodded, more certain of herself now.

  The abbess smiled. “And so you must be trusted. Earn this man’s trust and don’t betray it.”

  “Is he so important?”

  “Are any of us important?” The abbess let the question hang in the air, while her eyes gently caressed Rose’s soul, melting the last traces of doubt in her heart. “In himself he is only a man, but in your embrace he could be Love’s greatest courtier. You will see this in the future. Value his love, nurture it. Your fortune may rise or fall with his, and ours with yours.”

  Now Rose passed through the novices cloister of the convent. Along the walls were statues of the male gods, beautiful in their human manifestations, unlike the bestial forms in the Avenue of the Gods. All had erect phalluses, gift of the goddess to men. On these phalluses young girls, consecrated to the service of Finusthi, now impaled themselves, practicing their arts, strengthening the muscles with which they would squeeze the hardened flesh of men when they became ordained as nuns. More than one girl cried out, perhaps in unexpected pleasure, perhaps in anticipated pain, as sisters of the order walked by and urged them on.

  One of the girls sat cross legged on the floor by a statue of Saruthra, crying, holding something in her hands. One of the nuns stopped and knelt beside her.

  “What’s wrong, child?”

  “Oh, Sister! I’ve broken it.” She held out her hand, on which rested the large, smooth stone cock of the god. The statue in front of her was emasculated. Tears of humiliation poured down her cheeks.

  The sister smiled kindly. “Then you have passed to the next level. This is a time for joy, not lamentation.”

  The novice gave the nun a puzzled look. The nun simply smiled and helped her to her feet. “You have shown you have the strength to break any mortal man, if the goddess should wish it. Now you must learn to hold a man to her whim with tenderness. This is the deeper secret.”

  “Isn’t tenderness weakness, sister?”

  “It is the strength without strength, and none know this so well as the goddess. Only when a man begs you for what he deems weakness will you truly control him.”

  “And…I haven’t failed?”

  “No, dear. You have not failed. But the path is long, and this is only the first step. Go to sister Phillipa. She will instruct you in the next level. Take this with you,” She closed the girl’s hand about the stone cock, “to remind you of the strength Finusthi gives.”

  “Finusthi blesses me?”

  “Finusthi blesses all who hearken to her call. All who love, and all who long for love, we are all her servants, and she blesses all in what way her caprice chooses.” The nun gently wiped the tears from the girl’s face.

  The girl reflected on that for a moment, then asked, “Does her caprice mean I may never be loved?”

  “You will always be loved by the goddess. And her love is eternal, asking only that you love her.”

  “I do love the goddess, Sister.”

  “I know, child, I know. Now hurry along. A man’s pleasure may be increased by delay, but the goddess’s pleasure is ever impatient for our devotion.”

  The girl hurried out of the hall, beaming. The nun approached another girl, who was not moving, only holding tightly to the statue she had mounted. The nun touched her back gently and the girl turned her face.

  “Oh, sister,” the girl cried, “I can’t do it.”

  “Is it painful, child?”

  “No, sister. But I feel so much pleasure. I come and then come so soon again. It’s exhausting. There must be something wrong with me. I can hardly move without coming. It’s too much. Can’t I rest?”

  The nun was clearly surprised. “Don’t you enjoy pleasure?”

  “I do, but,” the novice twisted slightly to look more directly at the nun and her eyes suddenly took on a surprised expression, then she pressed them tightly closed as she gasped and pressed her face against the stone body of the god. Every muscle in her body trembled. The nun waited patiently for the convulsions of the girl’s orgasm to pass. Then the girl said, without daring to move her body or turn her head for fear of what would follow, “I can’t stop it. There must be something wrong with me. How will I ever please another if I can’t control myself?”

  “You please the goddess with your pleasure, child. And you will one day learn to give as much pleasure as you feel. You will learn. But given your remarkable gift you must fir
st learn to thank the goddess for the abundance of your pleasure. You try to hold back, thinking it is a curse, but the goddess does not curse with pleasure, only with its absence. Don’t hold back her blessing. Thank her and let it flow through you, for with that pleasure she shows her presence more directly than in any other way. This shows you are close to her heart. Is this not something to rejoice?”

  “Yes sister,” the girl said in a tone between despair and resignation. But she did not move, only clung the more desperately to the statue. The nun moved down the line.

  Rose passed out of the cloister and hurried through the refectory toward the central staircase. The abbess would not be angry with her if she were late, she seemed incapable of any unkind behavior, but Rose did not wish to disappoint her in any way. She wondered at how much and how quickly the abbess had affected her, so that now all she wanted was to please her.

  When she reached the circular room she found the most senior nuns gathered around the abbess’s circular bed, sister Angela, sister Bertha, and sister Selene. On the crimson sheets lay a naked woman of breathtaking beauty. Before seeing this woman Rose would have thought no woman could be more beautiful than the abbess, but this woman’s beauty could only be described as divine. She had hair so long it flowed from her shoulders all the way to her feet like a river of liquid gold. The colour of her eyes shifted as Rose walked across the room, first blue, then green, then silver, then grey. The abbess looked up. “Ah, Rose.”

  Rose could hardly drag her eyes from the woman on the bed. She wanted to crawl onto the bed and lie down beside her, to look deep into her eyes and be lost in that kaleidoscope of colour, to feel her beautiful hair between her fingertips, to caress her face and kiss her. To know her name.

  “She is remarkable, is she not?” the abbess asked.

  Rose nodded, still staring. The contours of the woman’s body were like a beautiful landscape of mountains against the plains, and a scent like spring flowers filled Rose’s nose. There were flowers on the balcony, and the abbess’s cell was always aromatic, but no wind blew, and the scent was more pungent than ordinary flowers. Rose was sure it came from the woman on the bed, a very strong perfume perhaps, concentrate of spring flowers.

  “Do you recognize her?”

  Rose shook her head. Was this a lesson? Did she need to discern the identity of the woman beneath some enchantment? It must be enchantment, she thought, no woman could be so beautiful without. But the abbess had only begun instructing her in those arts, and she could not recognize the spell. Then she looked up, into the abbess’s eyes. She had expected there to be a teasing look there, both kind and instructive. But she only saw concern. The woman on the bed spoke. It was a foreign language. Rose knew a smattering of many languages, having needed to communicate with customers from across the kingdom and beyond, but this one was completely unfamiliar. Not only was it unfamiliar, it seemed impossible. If birds at dawn, singing in the boughs, had harmonized their voices, this might be what it would sound like. Yet it came from a single human mouth.

  “Who is she?” Rose asked “What’s that language?”

  They had seemed simple questions, but as Rose looked into the eyes of each of the nuns, she saw they all stared with the same confused expression at the woman. The woman stopped speaking, then the abbess spoke to her, haltingly, apparently in her own language. As she did so Rose felt drawn to her in the way that enchantments caused, but she did not understand any of the words. The woman did though. She turned her eyes to the abbess and talked rapidly, her eyes searching the abbess’s face. The abbess took the woman’s hand and held it tightly, and tears welled in her eyes, then she sank to sit on the bed beside the woman and the woman sat up, speaking excitedly, hopefully. The abbess spoke again, and now the woman cried. She threw her arms around the abbess, and the abbess held her tightly. But the abbess was sobbing so deeply she shook. Then she took the woman’s face in her hands and kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. The woman became more excited, and returned the kisses.

  “Be praised, you still understand the language of love. If you did not we would all be lost.”

  All of this seemed to puzzle the nuns as much as it did Rose. Then something even more startling happened. The woman vanished. The abbess’s hands were holding empty air. She dropped her arms to her side in what looked like a gesture of defeat. She sat there for a few moments more, staring into space, then she stood. Rose wondered whether she had imagined the whole thing. Perhaps the woman’s presence had been a powerful illusion. But the expression on the abbess’s face had not changed, and tears still streamed down her cheeks. She seemed tired, as if she carried an aeon’s weight of weariness.

  Sister Angela asked, “Who was she, Mother?”

  The abbess shook her head, choked by her tears, unable to answer. She walked to the balcony, and looked out over the city, gripping the balustrade, her back bent over, shaking with her tears. The nuns watched, puzzled. Only Rose dared to approach her. Sister Bertha tried to hold her back, but she shook off her hands. “Reverend Mother?” The abbess turned. She seemed to have aged, so that her body and face had become as ancient as her eyes. “She needs our love as much as any mortal woman now.”

  “Finusthi will love her,” Rose responded hopefully. If there was one thing she had become certain of under the guidance of the abbess it was that Finusthi loved all who needed her.

  “I am afraid the goddess cannot aid her.”

  Rose heard the expostulations of the nuns behind her, shocked by this heretical statement. The goddess incapable of aiding with her love? Rose was surprised also, and expressed the thought that perhaps all of them had, “How could that be?”

  The abbess wiped the tears from her eyes, and straightened her back. Once more she appeared both young as the dawning day and ancient beyond human understanding, a teenage girl’s beauty joined to the wisdom of the ages. “The goddess also must be loved. She needs our love as much as we need hers, perhaps more.”

  “And we all love her, Mother. With every love we feel and every love we elicit, always we love her most.”

  The abbess smiled, and came over to Rose, placing a hand on her cheek. “Yes, child, you do, that I cannot doubt, and that will be our salvation, and Hers.”

  “And Hers?”

  “And in Hers are we all saved. I must think on this, child. There will be no lesson today. I have so much to learn myself.”

  Chapter 29: Alex: Thedra

  In the baiting pit the bear roared, chained to its stake at the centre. Around it the pack of dogs circled, careful to remain out of reach of the bear’s claws. It was a smallish, brown mountain bear, and its coat was bald in places and matted elsewhere. In the bald places the scars of countless fights could be seen, and its nose was split unnaturally from an old wound. Though it was small for a bear and looked half-starved it was much larger than the mastiffs which circled it, and those of its claws which were unbroken could quickly disembowel any that came too close.

  Rob finalised his bet with a man sitting on his left as Alex took a seat on his right. Rob was a tall, slim, freckled, man in his late twenties, with straight sandy hair tied back in a short ponytail, and grey eyes which always seemed to be laughing. He was immensely talented, if truth be told, as well as in his own entertaining lies. As a contortionist he liked to title himself Rubbery Roberto, but Alex always thought of him as Rob Smart, because that was precisely what he did. He was not a member of the thieves’ guild but rather of the Guild of Misrule, which was mostly entertainers: sword swallowers, fire breathers, contortionists, acrobats, jugglers, actors and poets. Then there were the multitalented: writers of blank verse drama with the occasional sideline in forgery, actors convincing enough to pass for anyone convenient, jugglers with hands quick enough for pickpocketing or cutting purses, acrobats agile enough to cat burgle, contortionists lithe enough to squeeze through any space if there was treasure at the other end. Rob was most of these, though he did not write blank verse. The thieves’ guild would not
touch him though, since performances like his drew the large distracted crowds a pickpocket craves, especially in the crowded great market across the bridge, as well as in galleries of the baiting pit here and the theatre next door; and in the theatre’s “yard,” where the groundlings jostled each other, throwing abuse and rotten food at poor performances on the stage, groping willing and unwilling wives and the conveniently exposed breasts of businesslike whores.

  Rob cut the purse of the cobbler’s son, or whatever he was, sitting in front of him, dressed up, not very convincingly, as an aristocrat. Rob passed the purse back to the whore sitting behind him, who passed it back to another sitting behind herself. If the victim noticed anything, he would search anyone near him to no avail. Noticing Alex for the first time Rob started, then padded himself, as though checking for missing items.

  “I would never,” Alex said with affected indignation.

  “Get caught,” Rob said with a sly smile. “Your ethics are laudable, you little rascal.”

  “Hey, I’m not little where it counts.”

  “Not if Rose is any evidence.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Only that she’s disappeared. Word is, you had something to do with it.”

  “Rose is a free agent.” Except, he reflected, she was not free in the guild’s brothel. He panicked for a moment. Perhaps some violent customer had murdered her. Had her body been dumped, dishonoured in death as in life, on the very refuse tip where he had been dumped the other night? “Disappeared?” His voice remained steady, nonchalant. Years of dissimulation meant few people ever knew Alex’s feelings if he did not want them to. Rose had been one of the few he had wanted to know his feelings, and even her he was not completely open with. So Rob did not notice Alex’s anxiety now.

  “You’re a sly one,” Rob said, “hidden her away in some grand house in North West Quarter, I shouldn’t be surprised.”