VirtualHeaven

by Ann Lawrence

  A cacophony of sound burst around Kered. Men shouted to one another across the table. Samoht pounded his fist. Tol slapped his palm down in response. Kered’s insides heaved. Words flew about him like leaves in a wind. He could not grasp them, sense their portent, good or ill.

  “Hold.” Leoh spoke softly, but the effect was as if he had shouted. “We will put it to the vote.” Slowly, he advanced to where Kered stood. “As I have raised you as my own beloved son, I may not have a say. I had hoped and prayed for this day to come before I went to my grave.” He placed a hand on Kered’s shoulder and then turned and resumed his seat.

  Each man settled in his chair, on edge, agitated. Kered stood aloof and calm throughout, knowing he must appear utterly devoid of nerves. Each man lifted a small book from the side of his chair, wrote upon a page, tore it out, and folded it. A uniformed sentry collected them and gave them to Leoh. He unfolded and read them one by one.

  At the last vote, his hands trembling, Leoh rose and placed both hands on Kered’s shoulders. “One of us must relinquish his seat. Hail, Councilor.”

  He fell in a heap at Kered’s feet.

  Pandemonium swept the chamber. Men tripped over each other to attend to their leader. Kered shoved them aside, lifting his father in his arms, tears running unashamedly down his cheeks.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Maggie’s legs wobbled. She used the furniture for support as she edged around the room to do her chores. Kered’s continued absence and a lingering weakness made her grumpy. No one could see her, so she kicked Kered’s boot.

  She listened carefully. A whisper of cloth was the only harbinger of Einalem’s bedeviling presence. When least expected, Einalem might appear to add more chores to Maggie’s list.

  “Maggie?” Anna called.

  Maggie relaxed and kicked over Kered’s other boot. “What is it, Anna?”

  When would she see him again?

  “Kered’s eight-night death vigil ended this sun-rising. He will be here any moment. We must be ready.” Anna swept up the boots and dashed across the room with them. Maggie sank onto a bench. When Anna returned, Maggie didn’t even pretend to the energy she’d been feigning for the past two days.

  In the secret recesses of her mind, she associated Einalem’s perfume with knotting pain and spasms of nausea. If it didn’t sound absurd, she would have thought Einalem was trying to poison her. Since leaving her bed, she’d eaten with Anna and felt considerably the better for it.

  “We must tend Councilor Kered’s clothing and boots,” Anna said. “They will hold his ring ceremony in three days, and we must be ready. The whole city will attend. Everyone will bring gifts and offerings to him. The celebration would have lasted for days if Councilor Leoh had not died.”

  “I wish I’d met Kered’s father,” Maggie said, then Anna’s words penetrated the fog in her mind. “Tend his clothing? Each day you polish every pair of his boots, press his tunics, shine his swords. How could they possibly need tending?” Just watching Anna scurry about exhausted her.

  “Everything must be perfect. We have no idea what he will wish to wear. His blades must shine, should he wish to draw them.”

  Maggie muttered a few curses and pushed herself up. Wearily, she shuffled after Anna to a cupboard. Anna loaded Maggie’s arms with immaculately tended garments. “Don’t you ever question your work here? This is silly. I know Kered. He probably doesn’t care what he wears. I’ll bet he wears the same boots every day.”

  “Do as you are told,’’ Einalem ordered from the doorway. “A slave does not question her tasks.”

  “Maggie is just tired.” Anna came swiftly to Maggie’s defense.

  “Then perhaps if she can be of no use here, she should retire to the men’s quarters and take her ease there, on her back, performing a task more suited to her energies.” Einalem’s soft voice and honeyed tone did not mask the steel in her words, or the promise of punishment for recalcitrant slaves.

  “Maggie may rest here.” Kered stepped into the room.

  Maggie’s heart thudded uncomfortably in her chest. Her last conscious memory of Kered had been of such intensity, she felt the blood rush to her head. The room spun for a moment, then righted itself. She searched his face, but the man standing before her was cold and controlled. No emotions furrowed his brow. There was no sign of the passion she’d felt in his arms. This was a military leader, from his stiff back to his impassive features.

  “I have been instructing this one in her duties,” Einalem offered.

  “Thank you for your concern. I will see to her instruction now. Your brother wishes to see you concerning the ring ceremony.” He stepped aside as Einalem swept away in a cloud of perfume and a swish of silks. “Go to the kitchens, Anna.”

  Anna took the pile of clothing from Maggie and melted away. Left alone with Kered, Maggie could think of little to say but banalities. “I’m sorry for your father’s death.”

  He shrugged and flung open cupboards, scanning their shelves. “It was not unexpected. Has Einalem had you lending this lot?” he asked.

  “Yes. There isn’t a speck of lint or dab of mud on anything. You could use your dagger blade as a mirror.” She thought she detected a twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth. He closed the cupboard doors and faced her. When he spoke, her heart iced over.

  “I registered you as my slave while you were senseless. You are mine now.”

  She clutched at the edge of the cupboard. “I don’t understand.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell, but he met her eyes squarely.

  “You must understand, Maggie. There was trouble. The attendants wanted to know who you were, as did Einalem. You have no arm rings, and there were those who would be quick to challenge me for you. I had no choice.”

  “So now I have papers, like some pedigreed dog?”

  “I do not know pedigreed.” He came to her side and placed a gentle hand on her head. She shook him off. “You are now my responsibility. No man or woman may command you, except me. You have my protection. If this offends you, then rant and rave.”

  Maggie could barely swallow. The idea that he had made her officially a slave when she had been unable to defend herself was too much for her to grasp. It hurt in a place deep inside.

  “Please, go away.” She turned to the cupboard, fighting down her bitterness. “I have boots to polish,” she said, her back to him.

  “I have other duties in mind for you,” he said. “Follow me.”

  The shop was dark and warm. A hearth glowed in the back. The old man at the counter bickered with a small woman about the price of a ring. Eventually gold coin slipped from one hand to another and the woman left the shop. Maggie held the cloak Kered had given her closed at her throat. With a lift of his brow and jerk of his head, Kered urged her forward.

  “Ah, Councilor Kered, my condolences for your loss…and congratulations on your ascendancy to the council,” the shopkeeper said, eyeing Maggie with open curiosity.

  “Thank you,” Kered said, inclining his head.

  “How may I serve you?” The old man perched on a tall stool and polished his scarred counter with a dirty rag.

  “I have brought you a helper.”

  Maggie and the old man gasped at the same time. Kered continued as if they had stood mute. “This is Maggie. Maggie, this is Mada, Tolemac’s finest silversmith. Maggie is a willing worker and according to her, an able smith. If she lacks talent, train her.”

  Maggie grasped Kered’s arm. “Why are you doing this?”

  He drew her aside. “You were not meant to tend clothing. However, should you wish, you may resume those duties at any time.”

  “Not a chance,” Maggie said, turning to the hearth. She had never worked at an open fire. Her heat had always been controlled, directed by a blowtorch. But she recognized the tools lying on a bench, chisels, hammers, files, dies for stamping patterns in metal. And ingots of silver. Her hands itched to work. She turned to thank him, but Kered was gone.

/>   The old man smiled at her and held out his hands. They trembled. “Kered knows I am not what I used to be, but to bring me a woman… There will be trouble, I dare say.” Then he slapped his knees and cackled with obvious glee.

  Maggie smiled and drifted around the workshop. The windows were dark with soot. A branched silver candelabrum shed the only light on a table of silver buckles, brooches, and rings for sale. She lifted a chased hand mirror and frowned at her image. An idea came to her. She turned to Mada. “May I begin today? There is something I wish to make.”

  Mada spat into the hearth. “I make only to order. Nothing on speculation.”

  Maggie slapped the mirror in her palm. “I would like to make a gift for Councilor Kered to celebrate his ring ceremony.”

  “You would like to make a gift?” he asked, amused.

  “I know this sounds strange—”

  “No more strange than the tales of a woman with black hair. Perhaps there is something here you see that would suit Councilor Kered? A dagger?”

  “Councilor Kered has many daggers. No. I want to make this gift myself.”

  The old man studied her. “How would you pay for the silver? A slave has naught but what her master gives her.”

  “I have this.” Maggie draped the silver chain from her necklace across the counter, pocketing the pendant in the soft purse suspended from her belt. The chain’s interlocking links gleamed in the candle’s glow, and the old man’s hands reached out and stroked it.

  “I have never seen the like,” he whispered. “Who made it?”

  “I did. With Councilor Kered’s permission, of course,” she hastened to add. “It is valuable and will amply compensate you for the small amount of silver I will need. If you don’t believe I made it, you will soon discover I am telling the truth when you see me work.”

  “My dear, if you would teach me to make links this fine and solders this invisible, I would give you the silver for naught!”

  “Then we have a bargain?”

  “Aye.” They shook hands, as generations have done, sealing the deal.

  Maggie set to work immediately. Mada gave her free rein the moment he saw her heft the hammer. They became quick friends, joined in their common love of their craft.

  “We need more borax,” she said, wiping the sweat from her brow. The small furnace licked her face with heat. “And I’m ready for the glass.”

  Mada laid a cloth on the counter and unwrapped several roundels of glass. “I wish you would tell me what you are making. I hope the priests do not miss this glass.” He turned away from the heat and watched Maggie clean the delicate strip of silver. She applied a fine stone powder to polish it.

  Her quick, deft motions as she bent the metal and made nearly invisible piercings were practiced.

  “You have done this often,” he said. “I am sorry I doubted you.”

  Maggie grinned. “The men of Tolemac do not often give credence to a woman’s talent. Did you steal that glass?”

  “Hm, borrowed, my dear,” the old man murmured, leaning closer as she warmed beeswax and fused it onto the base of a strip of metal to aid her sawing.

  Satisfied, she sat back. “Let me see the glass,” she said. He watched her hold the clear roundels to the light, then lay them on her drawings, dragging them back and forth over the lines, raising and lowering them. Finally, she selected one. “This will do nicely. I hope there is enough of the flux.”

  She worked quickly, setting the roundel in the channels she’d bent in the silver and adding details with painstaking care. At last she sat back and smiled up at the old man. “What do you think?”

  Mada lifted the clear glass that formed the body of an animal. Its legs and head were intricately stamped with designs of curves within curves. “By the gods! Every­thing is bigger!” Mada said excitedly, raising and lowering the gift to inspect the gouges in his counter. “What manner of animal is this?”

  “I call it a turtle. This turtle will crawl across Councilor Kered’s maps and help him read the small print. I hope to ease the problem he has when reading so many documents.”

  The old man picked up a chamois cloth and began to give the turtle a final polish. He cleared his throat. “I would not let others know of his weakness, Maggie. Some might use it to say he is unfit.”

  “How stupid.”

  “Stupid, aye. But an unfortunate truth.” He offer her the silver and glass turtle. “It has been an honor watch you work.”

  Maggie busied herself cleaning up the work area, not meeting his eyes. Kered would soon take her to Nilrem’s mountain. She would miss these daily visits with Mada.

  “I cannot keep the chain,” he said.

  “It was to pay for all this silver and…borrowed glass.”

  “Yet ‘tis a masterpiece of work. You should keep it forever. I now believe that you are the artisan who made it.”

  “I want to use it to pay my expenses. I can make another.”

  He brightened. “You could? I may truly keep it?”

  Maggie looked about the shop and noted the man’s worn robes. He needed every coin he earned. “I want you to have it.”

  “Bless you,” Mada said, kissing her on the cheek. He wrapped Kered’s gift in a soft cloth, and she tucked it into her belt purse.

  Anna dragged Maggie out early, just as the sun was rising, to avoid the multitude who would gather for Kered’s ring ceremony. They found places near the aisle of the Sacred Temple and sat on the floor to wait.

  Maggie fidgeted as the morning wore on, impatient to see him. The temple became hot and stuffy as crowds gathered. She nodded off now and then. At last, horns heralded the procession, and she turned an eager eye to the temple doors. With such a tall populace, she could not see and had to jump up and down.

  “Here, Maggie, here,” called a small boy who carried water buckets for Anna. He beckoned her to a stool he’d dragged along. “I will sit upon your shoulders and we both may see.”

  Maggie grinned and let the child climb to sit with his legs about her neck. When she mounted the low stool, her view was perfect.

  The tall doors opened and the priests entered, swinging incense pomanders. Maggie now knew their purpose, for the stink of the crowd was enormous. Flowery perfumes vied with perspiration, surely offensive to the High Priest’s nose. The High Priest in fantastic gold robes came next.

  “Look, ‘tis Einalem,” Anna cried, pointing.

  Einalem, garbed in an ivory gown encrusted with silver beads, walked regally down the aisle as if she were a bride. “Why is she in the procession?” Maggie hissed.

  “‘Twas decided a woman should carry the cup to the altar. Councilor Samoht chose her.”

  Maggie suppressed a bitter jealousy, turning back to stare daggers at Einalem’s figure. As if it were a bouquet, Einalem held the cup reverently before her. The long train of her ivory gown swept the ground as she passed by the spot where Maggie and Anna stood. Her hair fell in a loose silver cascade down her back, below her hips. Maggie’s hand crept to her own hair, concealed beneath a kerchief of wool. There had been nothing she could do about her black brows, but she’d hidden her hair to forestall staring and comments.

  Twenty-three councilors paced behind Einalem. Each man wore a long purple robe, belted with a gold and black sash. Samoht led them, holding the sacred sword aloft. Eight warriors followed, Vad one of them, a white pillow in his hands. Nestled on the pillow were two open-sided gold arm rings. Lastly, two youths bore eight-branched candlesticks with thick, dripping tapers.

  Maggie knew when Kered stood in the entrance, for the crowd fell silent. His tall figure took Maggie’s breath away. He was garbed in a white brocaded tunic that left his arms bare for the ring ceremony. She knew the strength of those arms—and their gentleness. He looked vital and alive. No unreal game figure was this who walked so proudly to the altar and knelt at the High Priest’s feet.

  She did not belong here, was not really a part of his life. Her eyes burned with tears as the realiz
ation took hold.

  Endless prayers followed as Kered remained on his knees, his head bent, his face concealed from her by the fall of his sun-streaked hair. Maggie only took her eyes from him to watch Einalem, whose greedy gaze never left Kered. Finally, Vad stepped forward from the warriors’ place and presented the arm rings. The High Priest pulled the arm rings open and clasped them to Kered’s biceps, then squeezed them closed and nodded.

  A brazier smoked at the altar’s side and Maggie gasped, gripping Anna’s arm as Samoht stepped forward and lifted an iron brand from the coals. “He’ll be burned,” she said.

  “If he is, a warrior such as he will not flinch. Let go.” Anna shook her off.

  Maggie knew that the small piece of leather the bishop slipped under the arm ring would do little to prevent a nasty burn if Samoht held the brand on too long, or if Kered moved. She ran through her childhood prayers quickly and breathlessly.

  The High Priest touched his hand to Kered’s head, then made a sign. Samoht laid the brand upon first one und then the other ring. The crowd moaned collectively, anticipating the searing of flesh.

  Samoht stepped back and thrust the brand into the coals, and Kered rose to his feet. His fluid movement belied the fact that he’d been kneeling all night and now for another hour at least.

  The crowd, roaring its approval as Kered made his way down the aisle, shoved and pushed past Maggie to surge through the open door to greet their new councilor.

  “Come this way, Maggie,” Anna cried, tugging Maggie along. Maggie stopped long enough to let the bucket boy gain his feet, then followed Anna.

  “Where are we going?” Maggie asked.

  “Town. The ale and wine will flow in celebration. We may meet some warrior who will eat with us.”

  Maggie pulled away from Anna. “I am going back to Kered’s quarters.”

  “No one will be there. He will not return tonight! The revelry will last until sunrise.”

  “I do not care. Enjoy yourself,” Maggie said, then plunged into the crowd, feeling like a salmon swimming upstream as she made her way to the palace. The townspeople filled the streets, and she kept her head down to avoid their eyes.