The Plains of Kallanash

by Pauline M. Ross

  Hurst wished there was more he could do to offer her solace. Jonnor, too. It was dreadful to see him so consumed by grief. If only they could share the burden, the three of them. A touch here, an embrace there; surely after ten years they could manage that, at such a dreadful moment for all of them? Yet he hesitated to make the first move. Jonnor was still angry about the outcome of the last skirmish. As for Mia… he contented himself with the warmth of her little hand in his, a small consolation for his own sorrow.

  The Karninghold Slave was smiling. “I bring comfort in your grief. The Gods have chosen Most High Tella for a special purpose. She will be esteemed above all others in the Life Beyond Death, for the Nine have marked her.”

  Mia’s stricken face lit up. “Oh! How wonderful,” she whispered. She stepped forward eagerly, releasing his hand, but Hurst followed.

  The Karninghold Slave drew back the shroud for them to see the dead woman’s face, just as lovely in death as in life, but stiller, frozen in a moment of tranquillity.

  Beside him, Mia swayed as if she might fall, and Hurst put out his arm, steadying her.

  “Are you all right? Do you want to sit down?”

  “No. No, it’s just… I’ve never seen her immobile like this. She was always such an active soul, even as a child… Like a blur of motion, never quiet. Now there’s nothing.”

  Hurst gazed down at Tella, his throat tight. He had seen it before, this stillness of death, with not the flicker of an eyelash, not a breath, not the slightest movement of hand or chest or lips. Many good men died in battle, but it was especially tragic in a beautiful young woman. He had to blink back tears.

  “Look,” the Karninghold Slave said softly, bending his head down to catch Mia’s eye. “See the mark of the Gods.” He pushed the shroud further down and pointed.

  There on Tella’s upper arm was the mark, an irregular star shape, deep blue. In the centre was a tiny point of some darker colour.

  “Touch it,” said the Karninghold Slave.

  Obediently Mia put a finger to it.

  “Your whole hand,” he insisted. “Cover it. Take succour from the power of the Nine.”

  So she did, and Hurst followed her lead, although he thought it odd. Tella’s skin was soft and smooth; warm, too, although the air was cool and the sun almost gone. Hurst took a deep breath; such an intimate moment, that touch.

  After them came Jonnor, his face creased with grief, hesitant and uncertain. When he rested his hand on his dead wife’s arm, he crumpled and fell to his knees, crying out “No! No! No!” over and over, tears rolling unheeded down his cheeks. Hurst and Mia had to coax him away, one on either side to support him.

  After that, many others came to gaze at Tella’s pale face and touch the mark in awe. It was a rare thing for a woman to be chosen, and something to be remembered.

  “Such a comfort,” Mia murmured.

  “Is it?” Hurst said, without conviction.

  “Of course! She has been chosen by the Gods. There is some reason for her death, it wasn’t just an accident. And it means she was not alone. If no one else is there, one of the Servants to the Gods will be present, to offer comfort and ensure a glorious and painless death. Those who are chosen never die alone.”

  Hurst said nothing. He had seen men marked by the Gods before, after skirmishes and once after a battle. A man would fall with some trivial injury, and by the time the Slave Healers got to him, he’d be dead, with the mark somewhere on neck or shoulder or arm. Chosen by the Gods, the Slaves said.

  Sometimes the Gods’ choices were puzzling.

  Once they chose one of his most inept Skirmishers, a man without skill or strength, or the wit to improve either. When he wondered aloud why, the Slave Healer had frowned. “Who dares to question the Gods on such a matter? They have their own reasons, and choose who they wish, not always the best or cleverest or most beautiful, but needed by the Gods for some ineffable purpose in the Life Beyond Death.”

  Hurst kept his thoughts to himself after that. Whatever his own doubts, Mia believed it all and drew comfort from it, and he was content with that.

  Eventually, the Karninghold Slave murmured, “It is time.”

  Jonnor was still lost in his grief, so it was Hurst who nodded acknowledgement, and the Silent Guards lifted the bier. The courtyard was in darkness now, the sun lower than the surrounding walls. The narrow funeral gate opened, casting a shaft of golden light across the yard.

  The Karninghold Slave took a torch from one of his acolytes and led the way through the gate. The bier followed, then Tella’s three Companions, clinging to each other, and another Slave with a torch. A sad procession they made, Hurst thought, the Slaves in their grey robes, the Silent Guards in gold, and Tella and her three Companions in the white robes of death. The gate clanged shut behind them, shrouding the yard in gloom again.

  Hurst, Mia, Jonnor and their Companions climbed a narrow stair set into the wall beside the gate, emerging onto a covered balcony overlooking the meadow and fields beyond it. At first the low sun set the Silent Guards’ armour aflame and the group was easy to follow, but then they passed into shadow. Soon only the flickering torches were visible, passing into the funeral tower on its small knoll, and climbing the stairs inside.

  When the torches reached the top of the funeral tower, the blue lights were lit inside, strange ethereal shimmers in the darkness, bright enough to see shadows moving here and there behind. There was such finality in those blue lights.

  The family was expected to stand vigil for a while, and braziers had been lit, cloaks and blankets brought, and food and wine provided. Jonnor sat on a stone bench, head down, wrapped in his own arms. Mia brought a cushion to sit on, watching the blue lamps in the distance. Hurst poured wine for them all, and silently stood beside her.

  He ached to take her in his arms, to let her weep on his shoulder, to cry himself – for Tella and for all of them. Yet he dared not. Mia would be Jonnor’s now, and that was the end of it. Unless… but it was better not to think about that, not to create any impossible hope in his mind. So he stood beside her, so close he could smell the herbal scent of the soap she used.

  The Karninghold Slave returned from the funeral tower, and acolytes lit incense sticks around the balcony, chanting. Mia joined in at the appropriate points, sitting passively, her hands still. Even Jonnor drank some wine and asked for a little fruit. Then all the Slaves withdrew, and one by one the Companions left too, until only the three of them were left on the chill stone balcony. Together they sat, looking out into the darkness at the otherworldly blue lights hovering.

  Mia stared mesmerised at those glowing lamps. Hurst left her to the cushions and withdrew to the bench with his wine. How grieved was she? Tella was her sister, but they had never been close. In the early days of the marriage, it was clear they knew very little about each other, and Tella had never made much effort to change that, focusing on Jonnor. When she tired of him, she grew restless and unsettled, disappearing for days at a time.

  In some ways, they would all miss Tella’s Companions more than Tella herself. Well, not Jonnor perhaps, but the rest of them. They were friends for Mia and her own Companions, and to the men, something more than friends. Unlike Tella, they had always been around the Karninghold, working with Mia and her own Companions, dealing with the domestic matters, helping with the children.

  Gods, the children! That was a bad business. Of the nine children, seven would lose their mothers with the dawn and the flames in the funeral tower.

  “It’s getting late,” Hurst whispered in Mia’s ear. “You will be exhausted. Why not go to bed for a while? We will be awakened well before dawn.”

  “If Jonnor will go, then I will too,” she said, moving to the bench and sitting next to him.

  “She was my wife,” Jonnor said tearfully. “My beloved wife. I’ll not leave her. I’ll stay here and watch over her. I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

  Mia put an arm round his shoulders, and he sat, hunched in misery, bes
ide her. “I’ll wait with him,” Mia whispered. “But there’s no need for all of us to stay. You go and get some sleep, Hurst. You were so late back last night, you must be tired.”

  “I’ll keep you company if you wish.”

  She shook her head. “There’s no need. I can look after Jonnor.”

  It was true, he realised in sudden anguish. That was her role now, to take care of Jonnor, to be the wife he needed, even if he didn’t appreciate his good fortune. There was no place for Hurst in this new arrangement, and if he hovered round the two of them, it would only confuse things.

  Brushing the tips of his fingers gently across her arm, he crept away.

  ~~~

  With the first faint hint of dawn, Hurst returned. Jonnor had fallen into a restless sleep, but Mia stood, gazing towards the funeral tower.

  “How are you?” Hurst asked, placing a hand in the small of her back. “Have you had any rest at all?”

  She stood unmoving under his touch. “Do they come themselves? The Gods – do they come for the dead?”

  Strange question. What had been going through her mind while she stood vigil through the long, dark hours?

  “I don’t think so. I never heard of anything like that. The Gods are never seen, they never intervene, that’s why they have their Servants, and the Voices of the Servants and their Slaves, to carry out their wishes.”

  “That’s what I thought too. But…” She hesitated. “You’ll think me insane, I daresay.”

  “Try me.”

  “I saw… something. People. At the top of the tower, not long ago. Several of them, moving about.”

  “That would be the Companions, I expect. They… the Slaves give them poison, you know, so they don’t need to be awake for the flames, but they don’t have to take it.”

  “Five of them. I saw five.”

  “That’s… Mia, that’s not possible. There couldn’t be more than three, just the Companions. No one else is there.”

  “Could anyone get in?”

  “No, the doors are locked and the Silent Guards stand vigil around the outside of the tower. No one could get in. Besides, you can’t see anything for certain from here. In this half-light, it’s easy for the eyes to be tricked.”

  “I expect you’re right,” she said, her voice tired and dull.

  The sky was soon a blaze of angry reds and golds and washed out blues. The funeral tower stood out stark and clear, rising like a slender finger from the morning mist below. In the room at the top, the blue lamps were dim against the strength of the rising sun.

  The Companions returned one by one to the stone balcony, and then the Slaves, the acolytes lighting scented oil burners and positioning the great brass gong. The Karninghold Slave began to chant, but almost at once a bulky acolyte swung his hammer against the gong. The sound echoed through their heads and reverberated off the walls, making them all jump.

  Across the meadow, the upper floor of the funeral tower was engulfed by vivid blue flames, so that for an instant a brilliant pulsing globe sat atop a thin stone pillar.

  Then the blaze was gone, and Tella and her Companions with it.

  3: Mourning (Mia)

  An acolyte ignited the ornate brass brazier with a torch lit from the temple fire. Thick stone walls and high south-facing windows kept the temple’s side-chamber cool despite the summer warmth outside. A gong tolled, and Mia took her place on one of the cushions around the brazier. Jonnor, grey-faced, sat to one side of her with Hurst on the other, and she reached to clasp their hands. Just three of them, now, and a little further for their arms to stretch to circle the fire. Their first family communion since the funeral burning, and it didn’t even feel strange, since Tella had been away so often lately. It was almost normal, a return to the comforting daily rituals of the Karninghold.

  Mia always liked family communion, with the joined hands, the fire, the incense, the chanting of the Slaves. Around them, the Companions stood in a ring with the children. One held the baby asleep in her arms, tufts of white hair peeking out from her shawl. The two oldest boys stood together solemn-faced, their dark curls mingling, heads bowed, eyes closed. Two of the girls quietly held hands, but the younger ones were restless. Nine children in the family, and seven of them had lost their mothers in the funeral burning, she thought with a tremor; Tella’s three, and her Companions’ four. The children would barely notice Tella’s absence, perhaps, but her Companions had helped to take care of all the little ones, not just their own. Already Tersia’s eldest was asking where she was. Now Mia and her own Companions would have to be enough for them.

  She bowed her head, breathing deeply to inhale the fragrant smoke of the brazier and the heady musk of the incense. Then she allowed her mind to float free.

  It was Jonnor who filled her thoughts. Not today’s Jonnor, a silent ghost of himself, creeping about in the shadows, wild-eyed, or masking his despair with wine. She remembered the month of discovery, that time when they got to know each other before they married, the mornings riding out together, all four of them, the long walks through her mother’s perfumed gardens, the evenings of laughter and promise. For a very short time, Jonnor had been hers, had looked at her in a way that made her warm inside, a time when he had brought her the prettiest flower, or the choicest sweetmeat. Hurst and Tella were to be lead husband and wife, and she and Jonnor were to be a couple, too. But then Jonnor’s father had intervened, and turned everything upside down. Her own father had agreed to the change, and Hurst’s too, so there must have been good reason for it, but she didn’t know what. So Tella got Jonnor, and she and Hurst got nothing.

  The final gong jolted her back to awareness. Jonnor leapt up and strode off. Everyone else began to drift away to their morning duties. Mia took a deep breath, trying to focus her mind again.

  “Shall we check the accounting,” Hurst said gently, as he appeared at her side, “or would you rather start on some letters?”

  She sighed. “One day. That’s all the time we’ve had to grieve.”

  “It’s probably better to be busy. Less time to think.”

  She bowed her head in acceptance, too weary to argue. “Accounting, then.”

  They moved from the side-chamber into the temple. The line of Slaves passed by on one of their circuits, one in front jingling the bells, another at the rear waving the censer, and the third in the centre holding the book of hours, reciting the familiar lines. It was Gaminor just now, the seventh day and the third hour. Mia murmured the words under her breath as they walked towards the exit.

  Hurst stopped beside the great wooden doors, which stood open to the warmth outside. Turning to face her, he wrapped one of her hands in both of his. “This is hard for you, I know,” he said. “Would you like to stay here for a while? I’ll deal with the accounting.”

  So tempting, to lose herself in the words of the Nine. The temple soothed her spirits, with its constant incantations and tinkling bells, incense heavy in the air, and the Silent Guards in their protective circle around the perimeter. But she couldn’t give way to her grief. It was bad enough to have Jonnor distraught; she had to be brave for his sake, for the children, for the Karning. She took a deep breath. “No, you’re right, as usual. Better to have plenty to do than to brood. Let’s go.”

  ~~~

  Jonnor’s father was the first of the official mourners to arrive, for his Karning was no more than a few days away. He was only forty-four, since Jonnor had been born when he was just sixteen. If anything he was even more handsome than his son, tall and fit, with a full head of dark hair. He had a certain charm which reminded Mia of thieves and rogues in the old stories who managed to talk themselves out of every difficulty.

  “How you must miss dear Tella!” he said. “Such a wonderful woman she was. And such a fine horsewoman. I remember a particularly spirited grey she had at one time, and she rode with such style! I could barely keep up with her. There was one occasion when we went east, and…”

  Mia recalled that he had alwa
ys got on well with Tella, although they met rarely. They had certainly had a rapport, both of them being lively, physical people. Since he was a strong horseman, they had often ridden out together when he visited the Karning. Such memories were too much for Jonnor, who leapt up and dashed out of the room.

  “He was fond of her, then?” his father remarked, one eyebrow raised. “But then she was so captivating, everyone must have loved her.”

  Jonnor’s mother was very different, plain-faced and as thin as a stick, who sat in pinched silence during the mourners’ official ceremonies. Mia was surprised when she asked to walk round the ladies’ garden.

  “Now, my dear,” she said, wrapping Mia’s hand around her bony arm. “We must have a chat, for you will be lead wife now, you know.”

  “Oh. Yes, I suppose I will be.” Of course she had thought about it. How could she not? At last she would move upstairs, and perhaps Jonnor… She was annoyed with herself for blushing.

  “Why, my dear, you look…! Surely you have…? You mean you are still not active? Well! How old are you now? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?”

  “I’m twenty-five.”

  “My dear! But you know, it was only supposed to be three years that you were downstairs. Such a child you were then, everyone thought it was for the best. But we never intended… We’re not living under the Petty Kings, you know, there’s no need to lock yourself away from men altogether. Oh, such pretty leaves, such an unusual colour!” She stopped, fingering a small bush beside the path. Mia stood in silence until she moved on.

  “I suppose none of the Companions appealed to you? No? Well, perhaps you’re right. These Skirmishers, they’re built like trees and with brains to match, most of them.”

  Mia tried to keep her expression blank, but it was hard not to be insulted. She was a Karningholder and a Higher, her role to be a wife to her two husbands, not to amuse herself with the Lower-born Companions. It was permitted, for they were a part of the marriage too, but such dalliances held no attraction for her.