The Price of Blood and Honor

by Elizabeth Willey

  There on the riverbank she paused a moment, struck by a thought that had not before occurred to her: she could not have had supper with Prospero in their cozy cave, as she had so wanted to do. Prospero had removed most of the furnishings from there—everything but his sorcery books and tools, and the heavy table and chairs—to the square stone house on the mainland, and now Dewar was in the cave, copying the books. She had not brought him there when they had come to Argylle together the first time: Prospero had, now.

  Rowing, a sudden spasm of startling anger boiled up in her, and she thought to throw the bow and arrows into the river outside the framework of hide and wood; but she still had them when she arrived at the cave where Dewar looked only at the book and paper before him. She dropped Sherlon’s bow and the arrows in a corner.

  Three of the women she’d just seen were round-bellied with children. Still she had not had an opportunity to tell Prospero about what Golias had done to her, nor about what she had done to herself in the strange place Dewar had taken her: the memory of it all felt nearly like a delirious dream, now, but she knew it had been no dream, and that she carried no other legacy from Golias than that of nightmare. The marks on her body were gone, except for the scar across her chest, which would fade. Freia sat down outside the cave, against the rock face, clasped her knees with her arms, and crept her thoughts away from the chasms of pain and fear that riddled them.

  On the third day, Freia found her brother asleep and left him there. She went to Prospero, who had accelerated the work on the city walls and other structures and was rushing about, over-seeing the construction.

  “Papa, how long should Dewar sleep?”

  “Sleep?” repeated Prospero. “Doth sleep?”

  “His head’s on a book and his eyes are closed. I think he’s asleep.”

  “Sooth, ’less ’a learns the book by osmosis. Wake him; can sleep when ’tis finished. When I’m finished,” Prospero added in an undertone. “Wake him; give him tile-tree leaves, a decoction of a handful in a quart of water boiled to half-a-pint. The white crock on the third shelf, behind the tall blue cordial-bottles.”

  She nodded. “Yes, Papa. I want to talk to you about something tonight—”

  “Puss, needs must finish these walls. I’ve a mind they’ll be needed.”

  “After dinner—” Freia began, in a small voice.

  “Freia, thou hast no sense of time,” Prospero snapped; “the hours are precious, and there’ll be none beyond to accomplish what I must do now. I’ll sup as I work, with the men. Go thou, mind thy brother’s pen moves on; ’tis vital to us as these walls.”

  “But I—”

  “Art deaf? He dallies in dream as we speak! Go!”

  Freia went.

  3

  HARVEST-TIME HAD COME TO AIË.

  Seed-heavy golden grasses nodded on the slopes below the ideally proportioned temple, where Odile of Aië lived with such attendants as pleased her. Yellow and scarlet leaves flashed bright, then dried to crackling brown, fluttering on the branches and twigs of the mauve-grey thickets around the cleared lands. The pigs that lived in the forests rooted urgently for nuts and fungi and anything edible, knowing that the fair days would soon end, that the season of cold and fear would soon be on them, when they’d become winter food to their fellow-woodlings, the wolves of Aië, running before teeth that would slice hamstring and slash throat. Smaller prey was hard to find in Aië in the snow; most of the lesser animals hibernated or hid themselves well from the wolves. Hart and hind dined on the year’s late bounty too, desperately, and mated and danced and fought in full knowledge that the wolves’ jaws might tear throat and belly in a month’s time. Stags whetted their antlers on stones.

  In the fields, cattle dragged sheaf-laden travois through the stubble toward the low, thatch-roofed stone barns. Other cattle were lifting the sheaves from the field and loading the travois that returned empty from the barn. Among all the animals, a lone human figure could be seen, a bent young-looking woman whose task it was to bind the sheaves; she labored blank-eyed with weariness, but not daring to rest, gathering the scattered stalks and tying them with a straw twist, stooping and straightening, again and again, her arms criss-crossed with red: the marks of her mistress’s displeasure. The grain was cut by horses pulling awkward mowing blades, like scythes on clumsy rough-rounded wheels. Some of the more agile dogs supervised this work and helped with the sharpening, running on a treadmill that drove the grindstone to sharpen the wheeled scythe.

  The shepherd-dogs began keeping the sheep closer to the fold at night and watched them jealously during the day: counting. Two of the rams, newcomers comprehending for the first time the full scope of their condition, attempted to break away. They killed three dogs before being pulled down themselves, and the wolves watched from the undergrowth and laughed.

  From the steps of the temple, from time to time, one of the white-gowned maids might gaze over at the laboring beasts, but dared say no word to any. On the mistress’s errands, the maids came and went, sometimes (but rarely) beyond the bounds of Aië itself. From time to time in any season, the mistress, Odile herself, might walk abroad at twilight, followed by her white maiden-fowl, and the animals would fawn and kneel, trembling with their fear: it was ill with them, true, but they knew it could be worse. The wolves would come from the forest then, and the coarse-bristled swine and the deer, and all of them would bow to her and quiver beneath her gaze. She was capricious. Sometimes she selected one and changed it again: wolf to sheep, pig to dog, hart to man (oh, brief, happy reprieve, worsening the affliction) to hart again, or to cow or ass or anything that pleased her, that day, that hour.

  She changed many of them afresh after the sorcerer swept away from Aië again on his black horse that was no less than a true horse. Each creature in those days knew greater dread than before; a chained dog became a chained bear, and the yellow-eyed wolves tore it apart as she watched, perhaps amused, and played further games with her subjects, bestowing and removing favors whimsically, unpredictably. Some had (the few survivors) memories of her rages many years ago when the cold-eyed sorcerer had left the temple after his long sojourn, but more recalled the night that the sorceress’s son had fled Aië, and of the punishments visited on them after, conspirator and innocent alike. The maids had had more liberty in those days, and one had whispered to a spit-dog, who had told the other dogs, who’d told the sheep and cattle and a wolf, who’d spread word in the wood, that the boy might free them all someday: their only chance. When the boy, joining their number for a few days, had stood transformed, chained and terrified, they had despaired, every soul, but Odile had relented and in the end the boy escaped her. The panting wolves had lagged in their pursuit; he had outrun the deer, and had taken refuge in a thorn-thicket impossible for even the strongest boar to penetrate. For that, they had all suffered.

  Now the tall sorcerer had come and gone again, and Odile was restless, her cruelties quicker and cruder than usual. The subjects of Aië abased themselves before her and received her anger on dumb, but not insensible, heads. Through the summer she shut herself away in her sanctum, dedicated to her sorcery, brooding indolence displaced by passion-fed activity.

  She transformed various of them to horses, then back again, seeking some particular look. At last two suited her. A maid worked in the stables, grooming the horses and preparing their tack and a little-used high-wheeled black phaeton. The maid said nothing, but they all knew: Odile was going to travel. None of them could recall such a thing happening before. Odile never left Aië, her seat of power and pride, had never stirred from the precincts of her black-pillared temple from the hour of her possessing it and gathering its forces in her hands. Never, indeed, did she leave, until one night, in the hour before moonrise, she swept down the wide steps and stepped into the carriage held by the maid and took up the reins of the two black horses. A ball of fire followed her, lighting her way. The beasts crept forward on their bellies, bowing in farewell. The sorceress turned and her
fingertips grazed the head of the silent maid who had prepared the carriage and horses: now a bird bobbed away from the carriage and crouched with the others.

  Odile of Aië stung the horses with her whip and set out on the Road.

  Dewar’s pen moved on. On his surrender, Prospero had gotten eighteen days from the Emperor, concerned not so much to complete his vow as to complete his walls. The Prince had reckoned eight days’ travel from the Palace to the Spring, six days to work and one to burn the books, and then three to return to Landuc by leaving the Spring’s domain at a desperate pace and opening a Way as soon as he’d entered the Well’s influence. Then, by the terms of his surrender, would Prospero be at the Emperor’s command, stripped of earthly wealth and sorcerous power and every title save that inalienable one of Panurgus’s son. But Dewar had Summoned him less than a day into his journey back to Argylle, they had spent another three going from the desert to the city, and thus Prospero had twelve days to build his walls, Dewar twelve days to copy his father’s words and save what he could from the fire.

  The tile-tree leaves kept him bolt-awake. His hand cramped and he sent Freia for hot water and a towel to rub it back to flexibility. He sent her for cold water, too, to splash on his face. At his curt, preoccupied commands she mixed ink for him and found more pens, filled the lamps and trimmed their wicks, gathered all the paper and parchment there was in Argylle, sharpened quills, and bound the loose pages together with red thread when he handed her a stack saying “This is done.”

  Freia said nothing more to him than “Ink,” “Tea,” or “Here.” From the shore of the island, where Dewar scratched away in the cave where she’d once lived with Prospero alone, she watched as Prospero’s walls rose and trees were felled, conspicuously idle in a beehive of industry. She said nothing to Utrachet or Scudamor either, the few times she saw them, nor to anyone else. The whole population of Argylle was an army of workers obeying Prospero’s commands, digging, raising, lowering, chopping, chiseling; the work went on night and day, drums beating and pulley-crews chanting, and the walls went up.

  On the seventh day of the twelve, they began felling trees on the island. Freia flew at Prospero, argued with him furiously, and was hotly rebuffed. Father and daughter didn’t speak to one another after that, and Prospero oversaw the building of the walls with trees from his island as his son scribbled on, oblivious of the alterations around him. Freia had slept outdoors on the island, under a favorite tree; now she slept in the cave, outside the sphere of Dewar’s lamplight, in the corner where her bed had stood before Prospero had moved the beds out to the first house he had had his men build on the mainland.

  A curious alchemy began to work on Freia. The pressure of Prospero’s changes heated her sad heart and aching soul, reforming the pain there to the first true anger she had ever felt. She seethed with hot energy, but, confined to the island to serve Dewar, could do nothing, could not run through the dark forest and cool herself with distance and exercise, so she sat pulled into a clenched knot and raged within. She could not be angry at Prospero; he was the primum mobile of her existence. She could not be angry at Dewar; was he not helping Prospero, had he not helped her as well? Thus she directed her anger at the Argyllines, who did Prospero’s bidding and ravaged her world and changed it. Prospero had made them, but they were intruders and aliens who did not belong; and left with nothing to hate but them, Freia hated them as well as she could: which was not very satisfying and not very well done, by the standards set in Landuc, but sufficed to disturb her peace and make her unhappy and ill.

  She slept in wrath and awoke wrathful, and her brother sat staring red-eyed at the books and papers, writing like a madman at the table she and her father had used for every meal, for cutting cloth, for counting seeds, for kneading bread, for her lessons, for everything, for years.

  Dewar was blind to all save books and words. He had no means to follow the time, and so he wrote as if every page he turned might be the last he’d see of the knowledge his father had spent a lifetime assembling. But it never was; he turned page after page and wrote page after page and the time passed word by word.

  The flyleaf of the book said, in Prospero’s neat hand, “On the Quickening of Life in the Inanimate. Toward the Reshaping of the Animate (after the manner of Aië).”

  This book was one that Dewar had added to the pile himself, after Prospero had left him; the word “Aië” had caught his eye, and he began looking through it furtively to find what Prospero said of the place. Freia never looked at what he had written, so he did not think she would notice; and Prospero had not returned since he had left him to the copying.

  His eye strayed on the words to shape a human form and he was caught.

  It was a journal, of a sort, written in tight-clustered lines; scattered throughout were references to other notebooks by number. He flipped to the beginning.

  In this book I note effects of mine early efforts in creating a folk native to this place to dwell and serve here.

  I. Caliban (added later, in a darker ink)

  That man is shaped of mortal matter is evident for in decay the Elements sunder; to Water and Earth, Air and Fire being lost with the breath and spark of life. Moreover the infant man is shaped in the womb of what matter the woman taketh in, thus be she starved so be her offspring, and be she well-nourished so be the issue taken of her body and of her body made.

  Yet man is ill-shapen for many things and I would have a more durable and essential creature here, thus have I worked in stone and clay, made a creature man-shaped and infused it with a Sammead.

  It moveth well through earth and upon it, but lacketh much wit, being dull and cowardly, and though it be strong and easily bent to my will I do not deem it a success, for it cannot bear the full light of the sun. Moreover its appearance is loathsome to me, which I regret mightily, my sculpting of its form being indifferently done. It hath a great terror of water for which I cannot account. Yet it labors unceasingly once compelled to do so, though its labor of necessity be done in dark of night or deepest shade. I do not consider this creature much good and I shall destroy it when I have made some further study of it.

  Dewar skimmed onward, past Prospero’s observations of the creature’s behavior.

  Though I am still dissatisfied with Caliban I have found it to be of great use to me. It delveth most excellent well and I therefore set it to enlarge my cell here to more commodious aspect. That accomplished well and to my satisfaction I have made it understand the pattern of the works within the earth which it was my intention to shape with sorcery. The creature’s digging and burrowing are so fluently done as to suit it right well for this labor, and I have ordered it to commence thereon.

  What works within the earth? Interesting. Dewar made a note in his mind to investigate this, and paged onward.

  Caliban continues his labors below. Quarrels with Ariel when they encounter. Disaffinity of Earth and Air.

  Well, but that was obvious, thought Dewar; any apprentice would have guessed it. Caliban wasn’t terribly interesting. Where were the Prince’s notes on Aië? He flicked pages.

  My discontent is great enough to have set me to another attempt. His surly nature ill-pleaseth me and other things (not least his uncomely shape), therefore shall I next attempt to form a female being, which shall be more tractable and docile as females are. I take a different approach (see notes in Vol CL) which is slower to show result but perhaps better suited. My own haste hath undermined my building of Caliban; this creature will I better make.

  Dewar stared at this passage, which was boldly written at the top of a page, as if Prospero had turned over a new leaf and begun this thought fresh. A female shape. Sweat pricked Dewar’s hands. He turned pages, reading a few lines on each.

  The skeleton is complete. I must use greener wood for the ribs; felled the smaller apple tree and bent its wood thereto, steaming and forming them; truly Water is ever the means by which Earth is shaped, more so than Air.

  […]


  Today the fourth failure in carving the jaw. It goeth ever awry in my hands.

  […]

  A coating of beeswax to the joints was all that was lacking to the skull; it regardeth me now from the dresser, its jaw at rest from all my work. The wax maketh the movement of the jaw smooth and natural. I am pleased.

  […]

  The preliminary experiments on the clay and sand are ill-ended. I must find other matter to work with, some better way of fleshing the bones. Cragiolo by his evidence did use human flesh fresh-killed. I mislike it; and had I men to slay for the work I need not undertake it. Animal flesh?

  […]

  Today’s labor’s a most repulsive carcase-mess, half-animate and corrupt, that I needs must blast with fire. Animal flesh serveth not; for the base essence of the creatures lingereth. It must be done with clay.

  […]

  A fool was I not to think of it, but Cragiolo’s errors misled me; his notes seem to show blood as much a culprit in his early failures as dead flesh, but ’twas blood alone kept his works from utter barrenness. This morn I did admix as much of mine own blood as I dared let into the white earth, reddening it; ’twas not sufficient and I put a deep entrancement on a young gryphon that hath harried the horses earlier, then bled the beast for the rest. It is but a small portion and it will do no harm as my blood dominates, and as the beast is an admixture of Earth and Air it will provide reconciliation of the two, which do not naturally compound. A fine dovetailing of purposes in circumstance.

  The wet clay cannot be let to dry; I have worked rapidly and as nicely as I could and shaped and placed the organs and vessels of the body in the cavities, then molded muscles and flesh on the skeleton, exerting all my skill to shape a human form. I did not care to make the creature bare-nobbed and bald-felled as Caliban, and so I pressed grasses to the body for hair.