by Speer, Flora
“It is so,” Osiyar agreed gravely. “Tamat is the only person Sidra loves, and so she sees Janina as a threat.”
“Love does strange things to people.” Reid was thinking about Janina. He had at first imagined that his strong feelings for her were the result of exhaustion, of the strangely beautiful and peaceful sacred grove, and of the aphrodisiacal scent of the red khata flowers. He had repeatedly tried to tell himself that he could not really care for an unknown girl, that he had known more than a few women before and never fallen in love with any of them. All his excuses and rationalizations were useless each time he came face to face with Janina. As the days passed, he felt more and more drawn to her. Just now, he had wanted to protect her from Sidra’s jealousy, wanted to see the hurt look in her mist-blue eyes dissolve into laughter. He had never heard Janina laugh. He wondered what the sound would be like.
“It is best not to love.” Osiyar’s voice startled Reid, making him wonder if the High Priest had entered his thoughts without permission. But it seemed Osiyar was talking about himself. “Because I love no one, I am not tortured by jealousy as Sidra is. When I am called upon to judge a dispute in the village or some quarrel between farmers, I am not cursed by affection for one side or the other. I can make an impartial decision. Because of that ability, I am respected by all in Ruthlen.”
“Surely you loved your parents,” Reid objected, recalling his own love-filled childhood.
“I do not remember them. They died when I was young, of an illness that suddenly swept through Ruthlen, killing many. On the day I was born I was dedicated to the temple, so when my parents died, Tamat took me in and gave me to the last High Priest to raise.” Osiyar dismissed his youth with a quick movement of one hand, letting Reid understand it was not to be discussed again. “I hold Tamat in reverence, but no one else. Tamat has been a remarkable High Priestess.”
“And Sidra?” Reid asked, thinking again of Janina and the loveless future she faced. “What kind of High Priestess will Sidra be?”
Osiyar’s handsome face hardened. Reid thought at first that the man was angry with him, but Osiyar’s tone of voice did not change.
“Sidra is very different from Tamat,” Osiyar said. “Sidra has…other attributes that will make her a powerful High Priestess. When her day comes to reign, I shall be her willing Co-Ruler, as I have been Tamat’s. Sidra and I are well matched.”
Reid said no more. While he liked Osiyar in spite of his apparent emotional coldness, Reid also felt sorry for him, believing his loyalty was torn between Tamat and Sidra in a way Reid could not fully comprehend.
Regardless of his claim to love no one, Osiyar treated the people of Ruthlen with unfailing kindness, employing his healing skills whenever needed, and, as far as Reid could tell, judging all disputes with scrupulous fairness. He treated Janina fairly, too, never scolding her as Sidra did, and for that fairness Reid liked him even better.
Each day Reid walked into the village with Osiyar and at least one of the two scholar-priests. There Osiyar dealt with any problems the villagers were having, while Reid and the scholars listened in order to learn from him. Always on these occasions, Reid could feel the women staring at him, assessing him. He was aware that the villagers had been informed of Tamat’s plan for him. They seemed to accept it. The men, from whom he might have expected jealousy, were guarded and a bit brusque with him when he spoke to them, but they were not openly hostile.
“Your cousin and your friend are safe,” Tamat said to Reid one day when they were alone.
“Are you certain of that?” he asked without thinking, then knew it was a foolish question.
“I would not tell you an untruth, Reid,” the High Priestess said calmly, with no sign that she had taken offense. “While Commander Tank slept, I implanted in his mind the information he needed to find the ones you call Herne and Alla. The following day, we modified the blanking shield enough to allow him access to them without revealing our location.”
“If you touched Tank’s mind, you must know he would bring no harm to your people,” Reid said. “Surely now you will let them come here, or let me go.”
“For your sake, I regret that is impossible,” Tamat told him. “You will remain with us, Reid.”
“He won’t stop searching for me.”
“But he has,” Tamat said. “Tarik and his wife, Narisa, both believe firmly that you are dead. I pity the sorrow they feel, but it was necessary to make them believe it is so in order to protect Ruthlen. They will search for you no more.”
Reid stared at her, thinking of Alla and the grief she must be enduring for his sake, believing him dead. Poor Alla.
Just then, Janina came into the small private room where he and Tamat were. She bore a tray of fruit and the hot herbal brew they called dhia, for Tamat’s midday meal. Reid promptly forgot his cousin in the pleasure of looking at Janina. He was so strongly attracted to her that he wondered how he could avoid going to her and taking her into his arms. He controlled himself only because he did not want to cause trouble for her. He told himself for the thousandth time that she was sworn as a virgin priestess, but it made no difference in how he felt.
* * * * *
While the personality of the High Priest allowed for little warmth, the tentative friendship between Reid and Osiyar grew stronger as Osiyar regularly defended Janina against Sidra’s verbal attacks. Reid thought Osiyar saw Janina as a combination of pupil and distant niece or cousin. This idea was not at all unreasonable, since the population of Ruthlen was so small that after six centuries everyone was related in some way to everyone else.
Reid had several times answered Osiyar’s questions about the way he had gained access to the sacred grove, and about his initial meeting with Janina. He never mentioned that they had almost made love, but one day Reid did speak of the presence he had sensed in the grove.
“An entity with feelings and intelligence,” Reid said, trying to describe an incident for which words were inadequate.
“Definitely, something is there,” Osiyar agreed. “As a man, I am not permitted to enter the grove, but Tamat has told me of a presence we do not understand. Perhaps it is the spirit of the grove itself, or it might be the essence of this world.”
“Has anyone ever considered investigating it?” Reid asked, intrigued. “There are simple, practical tests that might be conducted, even by the lesser priestesses.”
“A sense of mystery is important to the beauty of life,” Osiyar responded, shaking his head at Reid’s suggestion. “It is not necessary to examine and record everything that exists, and in the case of the sacred grove the attempt would be well beyond the capability of even the most adept telepath. Like the far reaches of the stars, or the depths of the sea, the presence that exists in the sacred grove will remain an eternal mystery to us, adding beauty and unexplainable joy to our ordinary lives.”
“Like a lovely woman?” Reid asked, catching sight of Sidra on her way to the temple with Janina. Osiyar followed the direction of his glance.
“That is a more mundane mystery,” he said. “But, like the greater mystery, it is best left unpenetrated.”
Reid stared at him, wondering if the usually serious High Priest had just made a joke. Osiyar looked back at him with a bland expression, and Reid dismissed the idea. But he remained puzzled by the words.
“Accept it,” Osiyar said softly, his eyes returning to Sidra. “Simply enjoy what is beyond explanation. It is the way of Ruthlen. While you live here, make it your way, too.”
With his own sight now upon Janina’s slim figure, Reid’s only answer was a shrug. There was certainly no explanation for what he felt about her. He thought perhaps Osiyar was right, and wiser than Reid could admit.
* * * * *
The days drew on toward the time of the double full moons, when Reid would be expected to mate with the village women who chose him. With each day that passed, Janina’s heart grew heavier. She understood Tamat’s deep sense of frustration about the gradual de
cline in the village population and her desperate hope that Reid would literally provide Ruthlen with new life. She accepted Tamat’s reasoning, but still she could not bear the thought of Reid lending himself to some other woman. She had no right to think of him as her own, but she did.
When Reid talked with Tamat while she was in attendance, she tried not to look directly at him, though it was hard. She always wanted to look at him. Now that he was no longer so foreign to her, she could see he was not ugly at all, only different from the people she had known all her life. With his face healed of its scrapes and bruises, and his beard gone thanks to one of Osiyar’s razors, she could see how strong and masculine his features were.
She often caught him looking at her while she stood behind Tamat’s chair in the small audience chamber off the central room. She believed Tamat knew they looked at each other - how could Tamat not know? - but the High Priestess ignored the glances Reid and Janina cast when each thought the other’s attention was elsewhere. And from the second time Sidra had caught them talking in the courtyard, after which she had subjected Janina to a long and very thorough tongue-lashing and hours of extra work, Janina had been careful never to speak to Reid when no one else was with her, nor to remain in private with him for even an instant - not until the day when Reid followed her into one of the smaller buildings behind the temple.
“What is this place?” he asked. “Osiyar told me all the smaller buildings not used for dwellings are storehouses for grain.”
“They are.” Janina gestured toward the casks neatly arrayed in rows along the wall, then to the vat in the center of the room. “You might say this is another way to store grain, for it keeps indefinitely. It’s batreen.”
“Never heard of it.” Reid suddenly grinned at her. “But I have a fair idea of what it is just by the smell.”
“The grain is fermented into a rather potent drink.” Janina picked up a long wooden paddle and began to stir the contents of the vat. “It is used at the twin moons festivals. This batch is almost ready.”
She looked down into the vat, unable to meet Reid’s eyes lest he see in hers her bitter despair over what awaited him at the next festival. She knew of two women who had spoken freely of their desire to bed Reid in order to discover if he was any different from the village men.
“Do all the villagers become inebriated?” Reid asked. “Do you drink it, too?”
“I don’t like the taste,” Janina answered. “I only drink one cup, because it is required, but the villagers love it.”
“All of them?” Reid asked. “Do they all drink far into the night? The priestesses and Osiyar, too?”
“All of them, except Tamat and me. Because of her age, Tamat stays only for the ritual and the first part of the feast. I always retire with her.”
“But the others remain in the feasting area and drink heartily along with the villagers?” When Janina admitted this was so, Reid asked, “Don’t they all have sick heads the next day?”
“For a while,” Janina told him, “but the discomfort wears off quickly, and the drink has no dangerous aftereffect. In fact, it is quite nutritious. Why are you so interested in batreen?”
“I’m only trying to learn all I can about the life here, since it seems I’m fated to remain either in the temple or the village.”
“Staying in Ruthlen won’t be as bad as the alternative.” He looked so unhappy that Janina could not help herself; she had to put down the wooden paddle and place both her hands on his arm. She thought he must be missing his friends, and while she had never had any friends to care about, anything that made Reid unhappy, made her unhappy. His hand came down on top of hers and she trembled at the contact of flesh with warm flesh.
“What is the alternative?” he asked. “What would they do to me if they decided not to let me live here any more?”
“You would be set adrift.” Her voice was low. It was too horrible to speak about, so no one ever did. But in his ignorance, Reid had no qualms.
“Adrift? What do you mean? With no provisions?”
“Without sail, or oars, or rudder,” she said, reciting from memory the most terrible punishment decreed by the Chosen Way. “It is against the law to take a life, because there are too few of us to waste life. But occasionally, if someone does something truly unforgivable, that person is set adrift. There are dreadful creatures in the sea, Reid, huge monsters with tentacles that capture and crush their victims, then eat them. My parents died like that.”
“They were set adrift?”
“No.” She had never spoken to anyone about that terrible day. She had kept the horror locked inside her, but now she wanted to talk about it, to tell Reid what had happened. “They left in my father’s littlest boat. It was just for a short time, to watch the sunset. Days of thick fog had just ended, and the breaking clouds were so beautiful, with the sky a deep blue. I can still see the scene when I close my eyes and think about it. The tide was full; the water came right up to the top of the sea wall. I stood on the wall waving to them.
“Usually, the sea monsters stay well away from shore, on the opposite side of the swift current, but perhaps because of the high tide, this monster had come in near to the wharf. It rose out of the water and took my parents. There was no time for them to cry out. They were simply gone. I saw it happen.” She and her parents had never been close, but that had not made her loss any less terrible.
Reid said nothing. He just put his arms around her and held her tenderly. Janina had no tears to shed, but his concern for her was comforting all the same. Flouting the restrictions about priestesses avoiding any intimacy with men, not caring if Sidra might learn what she was doing and punish her, Janina let her arms slip around Reid’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder. She felt his hand stroking her hair with a gentleness she would not have expected from a man so large and strong. After a while his hand left her hair. He tilted her chin upward; and at the same time lowered his head.
The kiss began in tenderness, in reassurance and comfort. It quickly changed into a wondrous heat that ignited Janina’s very soul. She was stretched along the length of his body as though fastened to some instrument of exquisite torture. She wanted that contact; she craved it. She yearned desperately to be one with Reid, yet they dared not come together. It would mean certain death for both of them, a dreadful death on the sea. She could not do that to him, and she could not break her vows. Why then did she cling ever more closely to him and open her lips so willingly to take his tongue into the hot depths of her mouth?
Even as she asked herself the question she knew its answer. She had recognized Reid from the first instant she had seen his face during her Test. She had fought against her own feelings, had lied to herself and made excuses about Tamat needing her so she could spend as much time as possible in the same room with him and still not feel guilty. But now, in this deep, passionate embrace, she could no longer hide from self-knowledge. Reid was her one true love, the mate predestined for her. She wondered what cruel force had brought them together to suffer this violent conflict between duty and desire. It would have been better for both of them if they had never met, if neither had known the other existed. Still, she did know him, and loved him, and would never stop loving him. Wrong or not, she could not prevent herself from returning his kiss and wanting it to go on forever. It was all she would have of him, and even this much was forbidden.
It was Reid who drew back first.
“This can only hurt you if someone should discover us,” he said, setting her aside and heading toward the door.
“And you.” She faced him across the room, her eyes burning with unshed tears. “Three nights from now, you must lend yourself to some village woman and give her a child.”
“I wish it could be you,” he whispered harshly.
“Oh, Reid,” she moaned, then bit off the reply that would have told him how much she wished the same thing. For his safety, she had to make him understand that he could never kiss her, or even be alone with he
r, again. “I am to take my final vows nineteen days from now, when both moons have darkened and become new again. Did you know that? Since first I came to the temple after my parents died, I have been waiting to be bound into my final place in the priesthood, though it will be a lesser place than Tamat wanted for me.” She stopped, choking back a sob, knowing she had failed all the precepts she had been taught.
“Final vows?” Reid exclaimed. “I thought you were already a priestess. And what do you mean, bound? I don’t like the sound of that. Janina, are you absolutely certain you want to become a priestess?”
“I am a scholar-priestess now, bound by primary vows, so I have no choice,” she admitted, knowing she no longer desired what once she had wanted so badly. “It was decided for me on the day I was born.”
“But do you want it?”
“I can’t change what was decided by my parents,” she said. “They are dead and can’t change their plans for me, you see. I have been studying for ten years. Now my period of training is finished, and it is time for the last steps, my final profession of willingness, my tattoo, and the golden rope bracelets that can never be removed.”
“Sidra and Tamat aren’t tattooed,” Reid objected, thinking about the tattoo on Osiyar’s forehead. Janina’s reply made it clear to him that she understood what he was thinking.
“Priests wear their tattoos on their foreheads,” she informed him. “Priestesses wear theirs over their hearts.”
“Can you refuse to take the final vow?” he asked, wincing at the thought of hot needles searing her tender flesh.
“No.” It seemed to Janina that the space between them grew wider at the sound of that one small word. She saw Reid’s expression close, so that she could no longer discern what he was feeling. His mouth became a hard slash.
“We should not be here together,” he said, opening the door.
