"The captain's father and brother promised peace. And I begged you before to try and make a pact first." Adalginza dared question him, hoping she would not incur his wrath. "This was not like you, Benfaaro, to kill the innocent and the unarmed. Not like the gentle brother I knew as a child anyway."
"How dare you insult Benfaaro by accusing him of being weak?" Bruna's tone was threatening.
"Gentleness is not weakness, Bruna," Benfaaro answered sharply. "But then, this a quality you would never understand. And it is no longer part of who I have become. So it matters not."
Benfaaro turned back to Adalginza.
"I realize now that what I did was a mistake. I do have regrets."
"Benfaaro!" Bruna looked furious at the admission.
"It is true. The blood of the captain's family stains me as a man. It was a cowardly act." Benfaaro gestured toward the house. "But it is done and cannot be remedied. Now, let us enter the abode. I am hungry for some of that food from the Welcoming."
As they settled at the table, Benfaaro picked at a clay bowl full of leftovers such as thick granst fruit leaves and dried bits of brush fowl that Bruna had trapped on the grounds just that day.
As they ate, they exchanged more trivial news about inconsequential events such as unseasonable rains at the Place of the Crosses and the latest births and bondings among the villagers. The conversation was comforting, but served only to make Adalginza yearn still more for home.
"Odd taste this," Benfaaro observed as he used his spoon to examine the meat. "I have never had brush fowl that was so tough to chew."
Fresh-cooked meat from the snake would have been a welcome addition to the larder, except that citizens of Crescent Houses would have been revolted by such a meal. To dine on such fare would have looked suspicious.
Benfaaro continued to pick at his food, showing little interest in what was in his bowl. Then he gave Adalginza a look bordering almost on apology.
"Little one, I understand well what it means to sacrifice your innocence to a greater cause. As you know, I myself have committed the darkest of sins. It is for the survival of our people."
"Stop brooding," Bruna snapped. "Eat. And try sounding, for once, like a leader instead of a coward."
These noxious words full of such disrespect caused Adalginza to regard Bruna with a growing feeling of dread. Those closest to Benfaaro well knew that it was she who had led him down the bloody path he had chosen of late.
But there was nothing Adalginza could do about it.
As Benfaaro's sister and even as someone Of the Blood, she was incapable of swaying forces that had been placed in motion at her birth. She, in fact, owed her very existence to her brother.
She had been born with the despised indigo eyes inherited from the enemy soldier who had raped her mother. Even worse, Benfaaro's mother died giving birth to the unwanted baby girl.
She knew Benfaaro had every reason to hate her. As leader Of The Blood, he could have easily ordered her death. But he instead devised a plan that involved carefully grooming his baby sister for his own purposes.
As she grew older, Benfaaro was kind to her. But he constantly reminded Adalginza that her life and her will were not her own. She had a sacred duty to him and to the people of the tribes.
As though reading her thoughts, Benfaaro now watched her speculatively.
"Tell me. What is the custom of bonding between man and woman among the clans of the House of the Ninth Crescent Moon?"
"You refer to marriage?" Adalginza asked blankly.
"If this is what it is called. I know each Crescent Moon House has its own rituals. We need to know more about this. Were you to permanently bond with Captain Kalos, there would be greater trust and more confidences shared."
"It is a good plan." Bruna stood and walked behind Benfaaro, slipping her arms possessively around his waist and leaning against him. "I will make a potion."
"No!" Adalginza shouted. "No more potions! You already poisoned the previous captain, along with the cousin who was wooing me."
"And who was an idiot." Bruna released her grip on Benfaaro and straightened. "You would have learned nothing from him. It was best that they were both removed."
Benfaaro looked up to regard his wife accusingly. "To be replaced with a man who is far more dangerous."
Bruna scoffed. "I hardly think that a man who loves his scrolls more than his sword is much of a threat."
"This is precisely what makes him so much more dangerous."
Adalginza gazed down at her cup of nectar, wondering if it was tainted by Bruna in some way. She pushed it aside. Then she looked beseechingly across the table at Benfaaro.
"Please do not allow Bruna to make a potion influencing the captain to declare his love for me. Even if he is never able to deduce that he was beguiled in such a way, his mother will know. These are very smart people. Please. Let me win him in my own way. In a — natural way."
"We don't have that many seasons, my dear," Bruna replied mockingly.
"You like this man." Benfaaro made the words a statement, not a question.
Adalginza hesitated, before answering. "Yes."
"Then your way might work. He might sense your sincerity. But if it doesn't..." Benfaaro glanced over his shoulder at his wife. "We will take no chances with Captain Kalos. Understood?"
"I can do this," Adalginza insisted.
"Good. Because what we need most is intimate knowledge of the movement of his troops. They often protect the caravans of settlers entering the deeper regions of the frontier. But not always. Once we understand the vulnerabilities, we will set up the appropriate ambushes. The captain must be useful to us. If you cannot gain access to him, he will be eliminated. And we will try again with another."
"Never fear, dear brother. I have already found a way to grow closer to him."
She leaned forward to explain about the captain's original motive for seeking a commission in the Crescent Knights. She told Benfaaro that Kalos wanted to be sent to the frontier, where he could gain more knowledge about the mysterious disappearance of the House of the Seventh Crescent Moon.
"This quest of his represents his true passion," Adalginza said. "So I told him about the cave near the Place of the Circles, where there are drawings. And I also mentioned artifacts."
"Very clever of you," Benfaaro said. "You must have remembered the relics from the Seventh House that Medosa kept hidden in his abode. He was very secretive about them. I never understood why he felt compelled to give them to you."
"I can only hope that you still have them."
"I do. They can be easily placed. I suppose you had in mind the Tunnel Cave, where the children like to swim in the nearby pools?"
Adalginza nodded. "Yes. And there are actual cave wall drawings there as well. One, in fact, does seem to crudely depict what could be interpreted as the symbol of the Seventh House."
"It is only a moon, like any other of the crescent moons," Bruna interrupted derisively. "Why would it be seen as representing the Seventh House?"
"It doesn't matter, Benfaaro said. "The artifacts should be enough to convince the captain. I will place them behind the rock pile, where the ferns grow near the waterfall."
"It must be convincing," Adalginza warned. "Remember. These people are scholars."
"Then tell the captain that children who play in the area sometimes handled the artifacts. They never removed them, because they feared the moon gods would curse them."
Bruna then slid down onto the bench directly beside her husband, and assumed a sultry expression that could mean only one thing.
"We have talked far too long. Daylight will dawn soon. So let me make you some tea to calm you. And then we will sleep."
"It has been a long time since we've been together."
Benfaaro said this in a tone that sounded more like surrender than anticipation. He turned back to Adalginza.
"I must leave at first light." He scanned her face. "Remember one thing. What you do must be with yo
ur mind and not your heart. Do you understand?"
Adalginza gave him a puzzled look.
"You cannot allow yourself to love this man."
"But how could I love him?" Adalginza asked. "I don't even know him."
"But you will know him," Benfaaro said. "You will know him well. And you must always remind yourself of where your loyalties lie."
"If she forgets, even for a moment, I'll be there to remind her." Bruna laughed nastily. "It would be my pleasure to kill a second captain of the knights."
"You do not forgive easily, do you, my beloved?" Benfaaro asked.
"Go ready yourself for bed," Bruna said. "I will be there shortly with your tea. I have something I need to show to Adalginza first."
After Benfaaro left, Adalginza watched apprehensively as Bruna made her way to the refuse bin woven with straw.
She reached inside, then straightened. In her outstretched hand and in full view was a handful of rainbow feathers.
"Did you enjoy your little meal of brush fowl? I hope so. And remember that I warned you against using mindspeak while here in Sola Re."
Starla!
Adalginza immediately rushed outside and retched, emptying the contents of her stomach directly into some nearby dry, brushy weeds. Then she numbly stood there, watching as the interior lamp lights were extinguished one-by-one.
Her body quivered with nausea and revulsion, as the household went completely dark.
She had never felt more alone.
5
Before he left the abode the following morning, Benfaaro privately gave his sister stern counsel about the ways of men.
Ignore Bruna's impatience, he advised. Keep your distance from Kalos for a time. Instead, befriend his mother and his nephew to maintain a connection.
"The captain must learn for himself how lonely it can be in the frontier, where there are so few available women of the Crescent Houses."
And those were his parting words.
In the quarter season that followed, Adalginza followed that advice. But events happened in an ordinary way, and not through any contrivance of hers.
While Kalos went about the business of securing the defenses of Sola Re, she offered and Zartos enthusiastically accepted her invitation to keep the sturmons in her stables groomed and exercised.
During these frequent visits, Lady Redolo often accompanied the boy.
In her blunt way, she declared that she found Adalginza fascinating. And being the scholar that she was, Lady Redolo wanted to know every detail about the young woman's unconventional life in the frontier.
Redolo used her quill pen and parchment to take copious notes during these sessions, at the same time that Zartos indulged his fascination with the sturmons.
To deflect this seemingly insatiable curiosity and keep her true identity safe, Adalginza soon learned to direct the conversations she had with Lady Redolo to the many true stories she was able to relate about the life of the gnostic, Medosa.
As always, Bruna hovered in the background like a dark storm cloud. And Adalginza always made sure it was she, not Bruna, who prepared and served the refreshments.
"A gnostic is a mystic and symbol of awe among all the other Crescent Houses." Redolo explained this while they were sipping tea in Adalginza's courtyard. "That a holy man would choose to devote his life to teaching savages is a curiosity. The writings I will create about him will be widely circulated."
"Will it bring you prestige?" Adalginza asked.
Redolo frowned, considering the question.
"This I do not know. The citizens of the Crescent Houses might abhor Medosa's love for the savages, and his devotion to their ways. The manuscript, in fact, may be rejected for publication. Even if circulated, it may be censured by the Councils of the Crescent Houses. But, above all, it will generate controversy. And thought."
Adalginza felt the stirrings of deep resentment as she considered the attitudes she frequently encountered from settlers newly arrived from the Prime Continent.
"The people of the Crescent Houses do not wish to see savages as fully human. Otherwise, what is happening here in the frontier might be viewed as exploitation."
"You are right." Lady Redolo appeared thoughtful. "The citizens of the Crescent Houses might view these writings about Medosa's philosophies as a personal attack against them and their policies. Well. This cannot be helped. Even if I cannot have prestige, then perhaps I will settle for notoriety."
"The notorious Lady Redolo," Adalginza teased gently. "I, too, like the sound of this."
"Then know, too, that I must go to the Place of the Circles with you. I must see where Medosa once dwelled among the savages. You must help me convince Kalos."
Insistent as Lady Redolo was in her efforts to be included in the plans Adalginza and Kalos had made for the journey, she ultimately was overruled.
Kalos declared that safety was too much of an issue. Over their bitter protests, Redolo and Zartos were left behind in Sola Re when the expedition at last embarked in late summer.
***
On the eleventh morn after their departure, Kalos flicked the reins he held. He was urging the team of four harnessed sturmons to pull the wagon faster to catch up with the mounted knights ahead of them.
The wooden seat Adalginza occupied as his passenger jostled her shoulder-to-shoulder with the captain, who she politely ignored.
Knowing they would be together without his mother as chaperone, she also had dressed not in the usual revealing skirt and sash — but in modest leather leggings and a woven tunic knotted around her middle.
It wasn't an act or a ploy. She genuinely needed this time to herself to brood, for the journey home had stirred far too many sad, uncomfortable feelings.
In fact, as they approached a familiar bend in the well-worn trail ahead, she became almost paralyzed with nostalgia and unbearable grief.
The sturmons' magnificent muscles bulged and their heads bobbed with the strain of heaving the heavy supply wagon up and around the steep crest of a sandy hill.
On the other side, the hill's slopes were splashed with vivid yellow, desert flowers that emitted a honeyed scent.
As anticipated, Adalginza soon spied the chiseled marble statue depicting an elongated bird with a feathered crest atop its head. It was frozen in a pose of alertness, one leg bent up as though prepared to dash away to safety.
The statue towered, even above the height of the tallest man among the knights. A shaft of sunlight gave the illusion of fire crackling from eyes made of translucent, orange crystal found in abundance near the Place of the Circles.
Adalginza was well acquainted with the artist.
Her "mother," Lady Donzala, may have been mad. But the outlet for her delusions often was creative obsession, which would cast a spell over the wild-eyed woman sometimes for many passings of the sun.
This was Lady Donzala's own carefully crafted replica of the brown speckled tuala bird that had been a familiar sight at this remote settlement until its death from old age. The bird, Kali, had been immortalized forever in the figurine that was far larger than its actual size.
The swift, ground running bird had been Adalginza's childhood pet. She had been closely mindlinked with Kali, along with several others of the wild animals that once roamed free near their abode.
She deeply missed that old life.
A discreet tear slid down Adalginza's cheek, and she turned her head to the side so that Kalos could not see.
As the caravan passed by the statue, all helmeted heads among the leading escort of about a dozen mounted Crescent knights turned and gazed in awe at this strange apparition.
Kalos, too, stared long at Lady Donzala's creation as the wagon brought up the rear of the dusty entourage.
"Your mother's work?" he asked.
"Yes."
"It speaks of strong emotion."
"Yes."
A silence passed for several moments while Kalos waited futilely for elaboration.
"You have
had few words for me since we first met. Do you have something against good conversation? Or is it just me you no longer have use for?"
"It is not you." Adalginza paused, struggling to find proper words of explanation. "I have been taking refuge within the solitude of my thoughts. There are far too many painful memories attached to this journey."
"And what about before our journey began?"
Adalginza fell silent again.
"You are a complex woman. Did you know that?"
She remained quiet.
She certainly could not say the truth — that she had retreated to a dark place of despair after meeting with Benfaaro on the night of Welcoming. And now she saw herself as far more toxic to the captain and his family than even one of Bruna's potions.
Kalos pointed to the small, rounded dome made of now crumbling sticks and mud that made a curious landmark.
"My mother would find much to explore here. This must have been the dwelling of Medosa."
"It was." Adalginza raised an eyebrow at him. "How could you know this?"
"Gnostics always live in dome-shaped dwellings. They consider it a means of gathering unseen energy, focused through the top and then spread in equal balance to the inhabitant. Magic reserved only for one with the ranking of gnostic, of course."
"Your tone says you are a skeptic."
Zartos idly dropped his hands holding the guiding reins to gently slap the rumps of the team of sturmons, urging them into a still faster pace.
"Let us just say that I am less of a believer in spiritual happenings than some. I require evidence that I can hold in my hands. Evidence that I can hear, see, and smell."
"Perhaps this is why the story of the House of the Seventh Crescent Moon disturbs you so much?"
"It does intrigue." Kalos gave her a crooked grin. "All right, then. Yes. It also maddens me greatly. I don't like the idea of supernatural events that appear to defy all known physical laws. Gravity, for one. How can an entire group of people be lifted into the sky, seemingly by nothing?"
Ten Crescent Moons (Moonquest) Page 8
