by Kate Elliott
Sanglant rode forward to take the rope bound to Bulkezu’s neck out of Ingo’s hand. “My army,” he repeated, “and Bulkezu is my prisoner.” The Quman chieftain said nothing, only watched, but his lips quirked up as if he were about to break out laughing. Sanglant turned to address Judith’s daughter. “Lady Bertha, have we an agreement?”
“Ekkehard to marry my sister in return for my troops riding under your command? I’ll accept that exchange.” She grinned. “I was hoping there might be more fighting.”
He stood in his stirrups, half turning to survey the soldiers winding back into the woods, awaiting his command. He pitched his voice to carry toward the rear ranks. “The war is not over yet, although we’ve won a great victory here. The threat to Wendar from the Quman is ended. But our enemies have not been defeated. Now I’m riding east. Who will ride with me?”
Not one among that host refused him.
XIX
THE UNVEILING
1
ADICA returned home just after sunset, stepping from southern heat to autumn chill as she crossed through the gate woven of starlight and set foot on familiar ground. She stood shivering and coughing as her lungs made the adjustment, as she struggled to place herself in the wheel of the year. The heavens were unbelievably clear. A full moon rose in the east, washing a silvery light over the sky that obscured all but the brightest stars.
Those bright stars told her what she needed to know. By the position of the Dipping Cup, swinging low in the north, and the trail of the Serpent along the southwestern horizon, she knew that the autumn equinox would have fallen just before the last new moon. That being so, the sun was only a short way from reaching the nadir of the heavens along its cyclical journey, and therefore she had less than a moon’s cycle left to her before that night came in which all the alignments of the stars and the heavens were in place for the great working.
She would never see another full moon.
She would never again lie with Alain and caress his body with only the moon to watch over them.
Unable to help herself, she wept. Far to the south, Shu-Sha’s weaving would tens of days ago have faded into sparks lost in the night, just as Alain and the men left behind to guard him had been lost. She twisted the lapis lazuli ring on her finger and with an effort wiped away her tears. Shu-Sha had scolded her more than once during the five days she had dwelt in her hall down in the southern lands.
“Do not mourn over the happiness you were fortunate enough to possess, lest you turn that joy into grief. Be glad that you had what others may never in their lives experience. The gods have dealt kindly with you, Daughter.”
It was impossible to argue with Shu-Sha, the great queen, who with her vast girth and magnificent beauty was often called the living embodiment of the Fat One, most powerful of the gods because she held both life and death in her hands. The people ruled over by Queen Shuashaana did not call their goddess the Fat One in their own language, of course, but in her heart Adica knew it was the same power who lived in both places no matter what name was used.
As a child, she had learned to stifle her tears and get on with it. She slung her pack over her shoulder and set off for the village. Her people had been busy. The lower embankment circling the tumulus had a stout palisade of logs set around it as far as she could see under moonlight. Piles of fresh earth alternated with crude shelters built for the workmen on lower ground between the ramparts. A whistling man came walking around the curve of one rampart, saw her, and stopped short. He put a horn to his lips and blew, three times, to alert the village.
“Who is there?” she called, not recognizing him, but he ran away. He had recognized her, and feared her, just as they all had in the days before Alain had come.
The lower ramparts overlapped to make a cleft between them, an easily defended opening. The workers had dug a steep ditch here and lined the bottom with stakes; planks thrown down over the ditch made a bridge. Two adults stood on sentry duty, but they shielded their eyes and murmured polite greetings without looking at her.
When she emerged from the cleft she looked down the slope at the village and, by aid of the moon’s light, surveyed the change two seasons had wrought. In the time she had been gone, the villagers had finished building the log palisade around the village, with watch posts set up at intervals and a double tower on either side of the gate. Torches burned at each watch post. Sentries stood by the torches, looking out into the night. How strange to see her peaceful village transformed into a camp made ready for war. How strange to see the serpentlike earthworks bristling with wood posts, like the ridged back of a sinuous dragon at rest.
It ruined the peace of the landscape. Yet they could only live in peace and without constant fear once the Cursed Ones were defeated. Her own sorrow, her own life, meant little compared to the life of the tribe. She hardened her heart as she descended the path.
The plank bridge had been drawn back, exposing a fresh ditch lined with pointed stakes. Lifting her staff, she shook the bells, calling out to the guard at the gate.
“Hallowed One!” By chance, her cousin Urtan stood on gate duty this night. Soon enough, the gate was opened, the plank bridge thrust across, and she welcomed inside.
“Where is Alain?” Urtan asked. Other villagers, alerted by the horn call, hurried up as torches ringed her.
“We despaired of you, Hallowed One!”
“The Fat One is merciful, Hallowed One. She brought you back to us!”
Beor shouldered through the crowd, pushing forward to see her. “Where is Alain?” he demanded.
Thinking of Alain made her so tired that she thought she might fall down where she stood, only no one here could touch her to lift her up again. Only Alain could do that.
“Let me sleep,” she said hoarsely, unable to say more. She had to choke her heart as in a fist; she dared not start crying now.
Mother Weiwara came forward, looking prosperous and healthy. “Let the Hallowed One go to her bed,” she said sternly to the folk crowded around. She escorted Adica to her cottage and crouched outside, just beyond the threshold, as Adica ducked under the door and dropped her pack on the floor, then sank onto her knees on the musty pallet.
“You have been gone a long time,” said Weiwara through the door. “More than two seasons, now. The dark of the sun is only half the moon’s cycle away—”
“I know.”
“Oh, Adica.” Once, Weiwara had been her dearest friend, two girls growing up together. With the darkness hiding them each from the other, she had the courage to touch that lost friendship again, despite the evil spirits that could smell the threads binding one person to another and use those links to sink their claws into the unsuspecting. “Where have you been?”
“On a long journey. I’m so tired. I lost Alain.” His name caught in her throat. She had to pinch the skin of her neck with a hand to strangle a sob. “But do not fear, Mother Weiwara.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “The working will go forward. Soon you will be freed from fear.”
If the weather held. If the Holy One still lived. If Laoina reached her people in time to lead a strong band of warriors to the aid of Two Fingers, in the land of Horn. If they could drive the Cursed Ones away from that stone loom, and so link up with the others. If Hehoyanah did as her uncle asked, and joined the weaving. If no Cursed Ones attacked the tents of Brightness-Hears-Me. If Falling-down did not die. If she herself did not break of sorrow.
“Tell me what you saw,” breathed Weiwara in a low voice.
She began to object but caught the dismissal before it passed her lips. Alain had taught her how to listen to others in a way that allowed her to see past the words to glimpse the heart. Was that curiosity, even wistfulness, in Weiwara’s tone? Did her old friend conceal a hankering to see distant lands and strange sights?
Sometimes telling is the only way to make the pain end, or at least lessen.
She told Weiwara the story of their long journey, of the strange creatures they had seen,
of the unknown cities they had glimpsed, of the ambushes they had avoided. She even told her of the vision she had seen of the banquet of plenty, burnished by gold, and the woman with fire in her heart who had given her a ring to return to Alain. As she told the story, she pressed the ring into her cheek.
“But I didn’t see Alain again. When I woke from my trance, I was in Shu-Sha’s palace, where Laoina and the others had carried me. Alain had gone with three of the men of Shu-Sha’s tribe, back to get the dogs. He never came. I waited there for five days, but he never came.”
Wind breathed through the chimes hanging around the outside eaves. A cow lowed from a nearby byre. If she stopped now, she would fall into pieces and never be able to go on.
“Tell me about Shu-Sha,” said Weiwara, as though she had seen into Adica’s heart. “What is her palace like? Do the people of her land look the same as we do? What do they eat?”
“Queen Shuashaana is powerfully fat. You’ve never seen a woman with so much power in her body, thighs as big as my hips and arms as big as my thighs. Her belly is as large as a cauldron and her breasts are like melons.”
“She must be very powerful,” whispered Weiwara in awe. “I wasn’t even nearly that fat when I was pregnant with the twins.”
So drowned had Adica been in her own fears and sorrows that she hadn’t thought once to ask of doings in the village. So much might have happened since she was gone, and yet she had to be careful how she asked, never to mention any person by name who might thereby become vulnerable to the darts of the evil spirits listening around her.
“I hope the Fat One’s favor still smiles on the village.”
“Spring and summer passed swiftly, Hallowed One. There were two raids by the Cursed Ones north of here, at Seven Springs and Four Houses, and some people were killed but the Cursed Ones were driven off. Dorren came from Falling-down to tell us that we must fortify Queens’ Grave. We had work parties from the other villages all summer to build the palisade on the lower embankment, to protect the stone loom. One time just at the autumn equinox a scouting party shot arrows at us, but both palisades were finished by then, so they left when they saw they could do no damage with such small numbers. Still, we’ve sent for war parties from the other White Deer villages, in case they come back. The Fat One has blessed us with three births and no deaths in the moons since you departed. Her favor has been strong over us.”
“May it continue so,” prayed Adica softly. “Forgive me, Weiwara, to speak of fate when the spirits swarm so near to me, but one thing troubles me. Since you are Mother to our people, it falls to me to ask you.”
“I remember our friendship. I will not turn my back on you now.”
Adica sighed, shuddering. “Promise me that you will lay me beside the ancient queens, if you can.”
Adica smelled Weiwara’s tears. “You will be honored among us as if you were one of the queens of the ancient days. I promise you that. No one in this tribe will ever forget you, as long as we have children.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything else you would ask of me?”
To think of lying down alone on her old pallet made her think of the queens, asleep under the hill, but she knew she had to sleep, to keep up her strength just as she had to eat. So Shu-Sha had told her. Nothing mattered more now than that the great weaving be completed successfully.
“I will sleep. You must look to the village now, and I will prepare for what is coming.”
Amazingly, once Weiwara had left and she lay down undressed on her pallet, covering herself in furs, she dozed off easily. Weariness ruled her. She slept, and she did not dream.
But the morning dawned cold and ruthless, nor had sleep softened her heart. She rose at dawn and did what she could to air out her bedding. She examined the dried herbs hanging from the rafters, weeding out lavender that had gotten eaten away by a fungus, burning a tuft of thistle too withered to be of use.
Already, at dawn, villagers gathered before her house.
“Hallowed One, the birthing house hasn’t been purified properly.”
“Hallowed One, my daughter got sick after drinking cider, but Agda says it was the berries she had, not the cider. There are still five jars left. Maybe evil spirits got in them, or maybe they’re still good.”
“Hallowed One, is it true that Alain didn’t come back with you? My dog got a thorn in his paw and one of the geese has a torn foot—”
It was a relief to be busy. She dressed, broke her fast with porridge and goat’s milk, and went first to the birthing house. After three new births, it desperately needed purifying; she smelled spirits lingering in the eaves, making it dangerous for the next woman who would enter to give birth here. As she examined the outside of the house, testing how the thatch had weathered the summer, looking for birds’ nests, spiderwebs, and other woven places where spirits might roost, she glanced occasionally back at the village.
Manure from the byres was being carted out to the most distant fields in preparation for the winter. Beor and his cousins were slaughtering a dozen swine to feed the war parties, camped up beyond the embankment, and his sister had just brought up a big pot of hot boiled barley to catch blood for a black pudding. Young Deyilo tended a flock of geese out on the stubble of a harvested field.
Getsi appeared with a covered basket. She had grown a hand in height since Adica had last seen her, and the shape of her face had begun to change. In another year she would approach womanhood. But Adica would not be the woman guiding her across that threshold.
“What do you have there?” she asked the girl, more sharply than she intended.
“My mother has been collecting herbs and flowers for you. Where shall I set them?”
“Here, Daughter,” she replied, a little shamefaced pointing to the ground just in front of the door. “Your mother will have my thanks. This thatch needs beating. You’ve had a frost that loosened it.”
“It’s been cold early this year,” agreed Getsi. “I’ll get my sister to come do it. My mother says I’m not strong enough to do it right yet.”
“You’ll soon be.”
Getsi smiled, careful not to look her in the eyes, and loped off back to the village, lithe and eager.
Best to keep busy, and not to think on what she had lost. She completed her circuit of the birthing house before kneeling down before the basket, uncovering it. A rush of scent billowed up, dust dancing as wind caught and worried at dried summer milfoil, placed at the top. Beneath them she found small woven pouches containing flower petals or juniper berries, and beneath these butterwort, betony, and mint leaves, the bundled stalks of tansy and five-leafed silverweed, as well as lavender so fragile that it crumbled at a touch. She laid the contents of one of the pouches on her knees to sort it, sheltering the light petals from the breeze: eglantine and wild rose, made pale by age.
A horn call blared: the alarm from the village, a triple blast to call every person in to the safety of the walls. Shocked, she simply froze, lifting her head to stare as children shrieked and men and women dropped what they were doing and went running.
The horn sounded again, a single blast followed by silence, followed by another short blast. She heard shouts and cries turn from alarm to amazement as people streamed out of the gates, running to meet what a moment ago they had been running from.
Still she did not move.
A dozen horsemen appeared around the southern flank of the great tumulus, the Queens’ Grave. In the next instant she saw they were not horsemen but the Horse people. One of them carried a rider, a human like herself. Running among the centaurs came two huge black hounds.
Petals slid unheeded down her thighs, catching in the cords of her skirt. Never could she mistake him for anyone but himself, nor would she ever mistake another man for him. She leaped up, rose petals falling in clouds around her, trailing after her, as she ran to meet him.
He pushed through the crowd gathered to stare at the centaur women. They gave way, seeing his purpose. Bre
aking free, he hurried forward and caught her in his arms, holding her as tightly as if he never meant to let her go, his face pressed against her hair.
He said nothing. She wept helpless tears of joy and relief, and after a while he pulled back to kiss them away, although even he could not catch every one.
“Hush, Adica. I am come safely home. The Holy One is rescued. We couldn’t return south to get you because of the war, but when we learned that Queen Shuashaana had already sent you home, my friends agreed to bring me here. All is well, my love. All is as it should be.”
“I love you,” she said through her tears as the hounds bounded up, great bodies wriggling like those of pups in their eagerness to get a greeting from her. “I was so afraid I had lost you.”
“Never,” he promised her as he embraced her again. “Never.”
Held within that warm embrace, she knew she would not falter now, not even when it came time to walk forward to the death that awaited her. She would not go gladly, never that, but she could go with unhesitating steps because she had been granted strength and joy by the gift of love.
2
PALACES floated on a river of fire, each linked to the last by means of bridges as bright as polished gold. At intervals brilliant sparks flew up from the river of fire in the same way sparks scatter and die when a blacksmith strikes molten iron with a hammer. These sparks lit on her body as she met the embrace of a host of creatures, daimones whose substance was made entirely of fire.
Where they touched her, crowding around, she burned. Her hands burned, her skin burned, and fire from within broke the bonds of the binding Da had wrapped around her so many years before. He had tried to seal her away from herself. He had crippled her for so many years, but in this place his magic held no power. Sparks pierced the locked door behind which Da had hidden her soul, melting the lock until the door swung wide and vanished in a cloud of steam, and she burned until her flesh was consumed and fire within met fire without.
