by Jaine Fenn
He drained the mug and murmured, ‘Thank you.’ After a moment’s silence he added, ‘I’m sorry I worried everyone.’
‘Do not be; it is not your fault,’ said Kerin firmly. ‘But I must apologise to you. I am sorry for mistaking your intentions and making you the vessel for my hope. It was not your fault that I - I came to feel the way I did. And I was too proud to acknowledge that.’
Sais shook his head slowly. ‘It’s not your fault - I hated that I hurt you, Kerin. You’ve been through so much already.’
‘I am fine. Really, I am. And I forgive you. Do you forgive me?’
‘Oh, come here,’ he said, and held out his arms. She leaned down and let him hold her. It felt good: not a touch of passion, but of companionship.
She turned at the sound of a throat being cleared. Einon stood in the doorway, looking confused.
‘I should give you your room back,’ said Sais. ‘I’m sure you have work to do.’ He got up carefully. Kerin stood by, ready to assist. Einon waited by his desk like a monitor guarding treasure while they made their way out.
When Einon closed the door behind them Kerin said, ‘We left you in there because that is where you became ill. Do you remember? ’
‘Oh yes, I remember.’
Something in Sais’s tone chilled her. ‘What is wrong?
He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
Kerin hurrumphed. ‘Do not tell me “nothing” when you have spent the last two days asleep and several weeks before that walking around in a daze!’
He looked at her with haunted eyes. ‘Oh, Kerin, part of me wishes I could—No, just—No. I think I should go back to my room.’
‘As you wish.’ Perhaps he would tell her later, when he had recovered fully. She shadowed him, ready to help. When he got back to the room he shared with Fychan he said, ‘I assume Fychan is still out enjoying the delights of City life?’
Kerin frowned. ‘No, he - the Cariad invoked Gras Cenadol with him at the presentation.’
‘What? You mean she - she wanted to sleep with him?’
‘I assume so. He has not come back yet.’
‘Oh shit.’ Sais sat down heavily on his bed. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like, ‘But she’s . . .’ Suddenly he punched his hands down hard. ‘I have to go,’ he announced, no longer sounding vague with worry, but driven by fear.
‘Go where?’
‘Anywhere - I’m putting you in danger by being here. It’ll be better for you, and for me, if I walk out and keep walking. I’ve caused you enough trouble already.’ He stood up shakily.
‘You are leaving? Now?’ She strode over to the door, slammed it shut and stood in front of it. ‘I think not.’
‘Kerin, what the—?’
‘Get back into bed.’ She uncrossed her arms long enough to point at the bed, in case he failed to understand. ‘Lie down. I will bring food, and send for a healer. Unless you would prefer Einon examine you? Perhaps not, given t’was his meddling that caused the problem.’
He did not move. ‘What problem?’
‘When you first awakened in my hut, you had the power of speech and you had sense, but you had no recollection of your past. Now it seems you have lost your senses as well!’
‘You don’t give up, do you? The problem isn’t that I’ve lost my senses. The problem is I’ve got them back - and my memory.’
‘You have? This is good news, surely?’
‘Not as good as you think.’
‘Why not? Tell me - are we not friends?’
‘Yes, we are. And that’s why I can’t explain. I’m trying to protect you!’
‘From what?’
‘Not what, who,’ he muttered. ‘Please don’t ask, Kerin. You really, really don’t want to know.’
‘You are the one who insisted I am so strong! Strong enough to save myself, you said - but not strong enough for the truth? Or were you lying when you talked about respect and admiration and all those feelings men never have for women?’
‘I’ve never lied to you, Kerin.’
‘No, you have not. So why will you not tell me this great and terrible secret you have suddenly discovered?’
‘Because you’ll be happier not knowing,’ he whispered. ‘Please, don’t ask me to explain. Just let me go.’
‘If you think the purpose of my life is to be happy, then you do not understand me as well as you think. And I will not let you just walk out without a word.’ She had never stood up to any man like this. Some of her defiance came from the knowledge that he would not raise a hand to her, but she also felt a passion of the spirit that she had no name for. ‘Tell me why you are so afraid. And if your fear makes sense to me, then go with my blessing.’
‘No, you—What can I say to convince you that you don’t want to know this?’
‘Nothing! You claim to respect me - so give me the truth!’
‘You’ll think I’m mad.’
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ she said more gently.
His shoulders sagged. ‘All right, but you’re either not going to believe me, or you’ll hate me forever.’
‘So be it.’
He sat down again and moved along the bed to make room for her. ‘You’ll need to sit down for this. Alcohol would help, but we don’t have any.’
She sat next to him, suddenly afraid. Perhaps he was right, perhaps she should let him keep his terrible secret.
He took a deep breath. ‘First off, I don’t come from this world.’
‘What you do you mean, “this world”? The world is the world - Heaven, Creation and the Abyss. If you mean you come from a distant land, somewhere beyond the mountains where life is very different, then that I can well believe.’
‘No, I mean another world.’ He looked apologetic. ‘I’ll understand if you say I’m damned, or mad, but you asked for the truth.’
‘Aye, I did. So what is this world then? I might wish the Abyss did not exist, though the priests tell us otherwise. But we can see the Mothers in the sky, every night!’
‘The stars aren’t goddesses, Kerin. They’re suns, like—’
‘No! This is blasphemy!’ She turned to go, rather than hear any more unthinkable, impossible words - but his expression, sad, almost pitying, stopped her. ‘How can you believe such things?’ she whispered, in no doubt that he truly did.
‘I believe in what I’ve seen.’ He sighed. ‘But I’ll understand if you don’t want to know.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘I have to know.’ She focused on the lesser heresy. ‘You say there is more than one world. Please, explain how that can be.’
‘For a start, this world isn’t a flat plain, it’s a globe, like - like an apple. Imagine we live on the outside of a massive apple, so big we don’t know we’re on it.’
‘We would fall off.’
‘You’d think so, but there’s a force that keeps us, well, stuck to the surface.’
What a bizarre idea. ‘And what about Heaven? Is it all around this apple that we are somehow stuck to?’
‘Yes, it is - and the sun is a far bigger globe, and it shines like the light-globes outside. Our globe - our apple - goes around it.’
If this was sense, then she was a skyfool. ‘And where are the moons in this strange world of yours?’
They’re smaller than the world, your globe, but closer, and they go round it.’
‘And the globe we live on goes around the sun? How can that be when we see the moons and the sun travel across the sky?’
‘They just seem to, from the globe’s surface. It’s an illusion, like - like when you look down the street at night and the light-globe on the corner appears tiny compared to the one outside. And if you walk past the window with the shutters open at night and look out at the globe across the street it looks like it’s moving across the open window, doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose it does.’ Though Kerin could not imagine how these globes moved, when he described it that way it sounded plausible. And intriguing.
‘It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the theory. Now here’s the difficult bit.’
Despite herself Kerin laughed. ‘Oh good, it gets hard now, does it?’
‘Yes, and I’m impressed you’ve managed to keep up this far. Right. This world - this . . . apple and its light globe and its moons, all that stuff, it’s just one world. And there are many, many worlds like - like embers swirling up from a fire.’
Kerin tried to picture every ember as a tiny glowing land - no, a round world with its own sun and moons. The thought made her dizzy. Every answer prompted more questions. But he had not yet answered the most obvious one. ‘Sais, even if it is true - and I am not saying I believe you - why should remembering that the world is this way suddenly make you want to flee for your life?’
‘Because there are people out there in the sky, people from another globe, another light in the darkness, and they’re my enemies. They’re called the Sidhe. If they find I’m here, they’ll come after me.’
‘Then why have these Sidhe not found you yet? You have been here the best part of a season, and you have hardly been hiding! On the contrary, we have told people about you everywhere we have been!’
‘Perhaps they thought I was dead. The way I escaped from them was pretty risky. And once I was down here, on your world, they had no easy way to find me. Only now—’
‘Only now what? What has changed?’ He had merely been preoccupied and subdued until she told him about Fychan being called into the Tyr. You said “who” earlier - do you mean the Cariad? Is this about the Daughter of Heaven?’ Kerin raised her arm to trace the circle, then stopped with her hand halfway to her breast, suddenly self-conscious.
In the silence that followed, Kerin heard a door bang downstairs. Finally Sais said, ‘Kerin, I’m sorry, she’s not the “Beloved Daughter of Heaven”, or whatever title she uses.’
‘Are you saying the Cariad is not divine?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
‘You did not see her at the presentation, Sais! She was clothed in light, and she called forth flame with her hand.’
He looked a little taken aback, then he laughed and said, ‘That’s nothing divine - it’s technology, like . . . like the windmills on the way here. You’d never seen them before, you had no idea how they worked, but when Einon explained them, you understood. It’s like the light-globes, or Einon’s lantern.’
‘This is more than a new means to grind flour or banish darkness! Are you saying the Beloved is just an ordinary woman who uses this “technology” to appear divine?’ She could accept, even welcome, the idea of new and marvellous devices; claiming the Cariad was a trickster was quite another thing.
‘She’s not a goddess, Kerin - but I don’t think she’s exactly ordinary either, and that’s the problem.’
‘Then what—?’
The door flew open. Fychan stood on the threshold, looking pale and exhausted and insufferably pleased with himself.
Sais sprang to his feet. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Aye,’ said Fychan, ‘who would be with me? The Cariad herself?’
‘You weren’t followed here? I mean, you’ve just come from the Tyr, haven’t you?’
‘Aye, I have just come from the Tyr.’ Fychan’s tone implied he thought this might be more important than Sais’s ravings.
Kerin raised a calming hand. ‘Sais is awake, as you see, but he is still not himself.’ She caught Sais’s eye.
He sat down again. ‘Kerin’s right. I’m sorry, I just . . . Fychan, your shirt - did the Cariad say anything about it?’
Sounding smug, Fychan said, ‘No Sais, she did not. Most of our business was conducted with me out of my clothes.’
Sais said, ‘She didn’t ask where you got it?’
‘No, of course not. Why should she?’
Kerin answered that question for herself: because it came from the sky, with Sais, and if Fychan had told the Cariad about that, then she would know Sais was here—Mothers’ sakes, she was starting to think like Sais!
Sais shook his head. ‘No reason.’
‘Good,’ said Fychan. ‘Now I need to get changed and go out again.’
‘Go out?’ said Kerin. ‘But Damaru’s testing is this afternoon.’
‘Aye, so I cannot waste time.’
‘Where are you going, Fychan?’ asked Sais.
‘That is between me and the Cariad, and t’would not be any of your business.’
‘But perhaps, ah, it is mine, Chilwrau.’ The three of them looked up to see Einon standing in the doorway.
Kerin and Sais exchanged looks. What if he had heard them talking before Fychan burst in?
‘Aye, Gwas, of course,’ said Fychan, ‘but I did not want to disturb you.’
Einon said, ‘It might be best if I, ah, speak with Fychan alone.’
In her most demure voice Kerin said, ‘Gwas, we would be deeply honoured to hear the words of the Beloved, if you permit us.’
The priest looked uncomfortable. He could hardly refuse such a humble and devoutly phrased request. ‘I suppose that could be allowed. Kindly do not interrupt, though.’ He closed the door. The room felt very crowded now.
Einon started, ‘You have been truly blessed, have you not, Chilwar?’
‘Aye,’ said Fychan, a little uneasily. He had just had the most amazing sex of his life, and he was not sure he should be bragging about it to a priest.
Kerin stifled a smile.
‘To say you have, ah, experienced joy such as most men dream of would sum it up, I think.’ Einon nodded to himself. ‘But her Divinity also made a request of you. What is the, ah, the nature of this request?’
‘It might be best if I showed you, Gwas.’ Fychan reached inside his shirt.
Sais tensed, then when the lad produced a bundle of papers, relaxed. Fychan handed the bundle to Einon, who whispered, ‘Mothers preserve us! Do you know what you have here? These, ah, these are promissory notes. Each one, ah, of these pieces of paper could be taken to the mint and exchanged for a hundred marks. Why would her Divinity give you a fortune?’
‘Tis not for me,’ said Fychan, though he kept his hand on the notes. ‘The Cariad wishes this to go to a young woman called Anona. She says this girl must be given the money and instructed to leave the City at once.’
Kerin guessed everyone else was as confused by this request as she was. In the stunned silence, Fychan unrolled the notes. Inside the bundle was a small, crudely made child’s poppet. ‘Her Divinity said that this doll would convince Anona to do as she was told.’
Einon said, ‘Fychan, you are, ah, are you saying that the Cariad, the Beloved Daughter of Heaven, wishes you to find a girl, show her a child’s toy, then, ah, give her money to leave Dinas Emrys?’
‘Aye, Gwas.’
‘Did she, ah, inform you of this in the presence of any priest?’
‘No, I met no one else in my night in the Tyr. The Cariad herself escorted me at all times.’
‘And you, ah, agreed to her request, of course.’
‘Of course. But I am not sure where to go. She gave me an address and directions, and I was going to ask Ebrilla—’
‘I will find this girl for you,’ said Einon. ‘You must, ah, conserve your strength for your duties as Damaru’s guardian.’
‘Are you sure, Gwas?’ asked Fychan. ‘She gave the task to me—’
‘I know the City, and it would be my honour to do the Cariad’s will.’
Fychan still looked unsure, but Kerin understood at once: Einon suspected this girl might be the key to whatever was going on in the Tyr.
Einon clapped his hands. ‘Good, then, it is, ah, it is decided. Fychan, where is this Anona to be found?’
‘She is the daughter of Dilwyn the clerk, whose house is on the upslope corner of the Street of Lesser Reckoners.’
‘Excellent. Then I shall leave as soon as I have broken my fast. We must not, ah, keep her Divinity waiting.’
Kerin wondered
why a goddess needed to send people from outside the Tyr on such a strange errand . . . unless she was not a goddess at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Einon left as soon as they’d eaten. Even if he had overheard Sais’s conversation with Kerin, he obviously had other priorities.
Fychan, who looked exactly like a man who’d gone ten rounds in the bedroom with a goddess, went to lie down.
Kerin took Damaru to their room. Quite aside from her desire to spend what time was left with her child, she had a lot to think about. After all, someone she trusted had just told her she was living a lie.
Sais shouldn’t have admitted the truth, no matter how she pestered him. But if anyone here could handle it, Kerin could. He’d had faith once too, in a male duality of loving father and self-sacrificing son. And he’d grown up somewhere where belief was the norm, though he didn’t remember it being as all-pervasive as it was here. He had lost his faith and survived.
He went and sat in the parlour, where Ebrilla’s cat immediately colonised his lap. He stroked the animal and listened to the comfortable chaos of the household. It looked like his initial panic about the Cariad had been unfounded. If she were Sidhe, she wouldn’t have asked Fychan to find the girl - she would have compelled him. Though he no longer felt the immediate need to run, he had no intention of attending the testing, just in case he was wrong about the Cariad. He eased the cat off his lap and slipped out into the anonymity of the streets.
He had assumed the Cariad was the Sidhe representative on the planet, in which case she should have recognised the smartchute fabric. Of course, if she was Sidhe, the fact that she hadn’t asked Fychan about the shirt didn’t mean she hadn’t found out through more arcane means. Or she might have asked, then removed the memory from Fychan’s mind. The Sidhe were good at that. Then again, given the Sidhe left the Cariad to rule alone for years at a time, she might not have any technical knowledge beyond that necessary to keep the ‘divine magic’ of the City of Light ticking over. She might just have thought the shirt was unusually fine, not an offworld product.
As ever with the damn Sidhe, he had no way of knowing. Perhaps he’d have been safer if he’d stayed in Dangwern. The Sidhe probably assumed he’d been killed when his evac-pod got shot down by the planetary defences - he probably would have been if he hadn’t been cushioned in gel and crashed into a bog. Even if they thought he’d survived, with the pod at the bottom of the mere and any celestial visitations likely to cause widespread panic, trying to find him would have been more trouble than it was worth - assuming they even cared: he’d been seriously messed up when he escaped, and they had no reason to think he’d recover from their ministrations.
