Past Imperative

by Dave Duncan

  They were married and did it because they wanted to and must like it. What happened in the temple of Ois was different. It involved money, and was supposed to be a sacrifice to the goddess, but no other god or goddess that Eleal knew of demanded that. She often wondered how the priestesses felt about it. She’d even asked Uthiam once if that was what the men did on their annual visit. Uthiam had become indignant and said of course not, Trong Impresario would never allow them to, not even the bachelors.

  “You mean it’s wrong?” Eleal had asked, very sweetly.

  “Certainly not!” Uthiam had declared, one must not presume to judge what the gods decree. She had turned very pink and changed the subject.

  Up front, Trong and Ambria had rounded the corner. They would stop at the temple door for everyone else to catch up, and then Ambria would order Eleal to wait outside. Well, Eleal saw no reason why she should walk all that way and then back again with this heavy pack. She was not going to wait outside and freeze to death—she had other plans!

  Checking that Uthiam and Dolm were still talking and paying no attention to her, she ducked into a doorway and made herself as flat as paint.

  She felt breathless and her heart was thumping faster than usual. She had eaten no breakfast, yet there was a tight feeling in her insides. The annual mammoth ride over Rilepass always affected her like this. The summit was very scary, with huge masses of ice and snow liable to break off and crash down. Sometimes even a surefooted mammoth could slip and fall miles down, into a gorge. It was very exciting.

  Everyone sacrificed to Ois before crossing Rilepass. On the other hand, the goddess was not likely to worry very much about one twelve-year-old girl, and even the goddess couldn’t drop an avalanche on her without also dropping it on all the other people riding in the same howdah. Eleal was going to go and pray to Tion instead. She had some very special prayers to make.

  She risked a glance around the corner, but Dolm and Uthiam were still in sight, and a few of the others also. She pulled back into her hiding place, grateful to be out of the wind, puffing on the tip of her nose to warm it.

  Some big cities boasted several temples, but even towns like Narsh that had only one temple would also have at least one shrine to each member of the Pentatheon, either in person or to an aspect. Ois was an aspect of Eltiana, the Lady in her role as custodian of passes. Narsh also had a shrine to Kirb’l, the Joker, and the Joker was an aspect of Tion, the Youth.

  It was very curious that the dour Narshians should have chosen that particular Tion persona to be his local representative. Narshians had less humor than any people she knew. Whereas most people never left the land they were born in, Eleal was very well traveled. The troupe visited seven of the Vales on their annual circuit. This year they had spent half a fortnight in Narsh. They had staged the comedy three times and the tragedy four times, without taking in enough to pay for the groceries, so Ambria said. Mill owners and ranchers, she grumbled—the meanest people in the world. They certainly had no sense of humor, so why should they honor the Joker so?

  Piol Poet said that humor was the highest form of art, because it made people rejoice. He was joking when he said so.

  Another glance showed Eleal that the coast was now clear. She left the alcove and hurried back the way she had come, her mismatched boots going clip, clop, clip, clop. Some of the locals were emerging now, as dawn approached, all bundled up in their smelly fleeces and furs. Miserable troglodytes! Trong Impresario had been stupendous as Trastos, especially when he was dying, but Narsh had just sat on its hands.

  Piol had written speaking parts for Eleal into both plays this year, small ones. She played a gods’ messenger in the tragedy—she sang offstage, of course—and a young herald in the comedy, where she could use the staff to hide her limp. So she had played Narsh for the first time in her life, being received with wild indifference. Her curtain calls and standing ovations had totaled zero, exactly. In Lappin her acting had won applause one night; her singing in the masque always did. Tonight she would play in Sussland. Sussvale was a warmer, nicer place and did not stink of coal smoke. The Sussians would clap for her.

  She turned a corner. Fortunately, there seemed to be a law everywhere that holy places must bunch together. The shrines in Narsh all adjoined the back wall of the Lady’s temple, like chicks huddled under a hen’s wing. There was one for Visek the Parent, one for Karzon the Man, one for Astina the Maiden, and the Youth’s was at the far end of the street. What all the other buildings were, she did not know. Priests’ houses, perhaps.

  Clip, clop, clip, clop…

  She would not have much time. She had her prayers all planned. First she would ask the god to see her safely to his Festival, of course—just in case Ois took offense. Then she would pray for her friends, that the troupe might win the drama contest, Piol Poet for the play itself, and others for their individual performances. It was a bad year when the Trong Troupe did not collect at least three roses. Especially she must pray for Uthiam, who had been practicing Ironfaib’s Polemic for months and could still bring tears to Eleal’s eyes with it. Uthiam was married now. Next year she would either be the wrong shape or have a baby to look after.

  Not far to go. Clip, clop…She was panting, sweating in her llama fleece coat, despite the icy wind. She slowed down a little. If she were too much out of breath, she would not be able to sing for the god.

  And the last prayer…It was not so very much to ask. The Youth was god of art, and therefore the god most favored by actors. He was also god of beauty, which was why ugly or deformed people could not enter his Festival. And he was god of healing. Every year, at the closing ceremonies, he would grant at least one miracle cure to some fortunate pilgrim. Was it so much to ask that Eleal Singer’s leg be made whole, so that in future years she, too, could enter his festival and sing for his glory?

  The shrine was marked by an archway, painted yellow. Heaving her pack higher on her aching shoulders, Eleal limped inside.

  She had never considered that there might be someone else there.

  The shrine was a smallish, squarish room, lit by the doorway and some high windows. It contained only a low altar for offerings, with two tall candlesticks—which she strongly suspected were not real gold—and a large frog, carved out of yellow stone. She had come here many times. She thought that the god of beauty ought to have arranged for a more esthetic shrine, but she supposed its simplicity was sort of artistic…if you liked sheds. The frog was one of the Youth’s symbols, associated especially with Kirb’l, who was not only the Joker but also the golden moon, the one that did not behave like the other moons. So the frog itself was all right. It was the leer on its face and its skewed eyes that secretly annoyed her.

  The man annoyed her much more. He was tiny and bent, and without his voluminous fur robe he would be tinier still. He was busily sweeping the floor with a scrawny broom, raising clouds of dust for the wind to stir.

  Seeing her shadow, perhaps, he stopped his sweeping and turned around to peer at her. Inside his hood, all that showed was a face with a million wrinkles and eyes that did not look in the same direction. He must be even older than Piol Poet.

  “Blessings upon you, missy!” he slobbered, leering at her cheerfully with toothless gums.

  All she could think of to say was, “I came to pray to the god!” Which was obvious, of course.

  “And make an offering, I hope? My breakfast, I hope?” He rolled one eye in the direction of her pack.

  To her disgust, she saw a hem of dirty yellow protruding from under his furs. This rag doll must be the resident priest. She had never seen him here before, or even wondered who tended the shrine and removed each day’s offerings. So she could not just ask him to leave. She did not want a nosy old priest eavesdropping on her prayers. And the only real offering she might give was a single copper coin, which she had not intended to give.

  Still, she had come and had best
get on with her business so she could run back to the temple door and wait for the others. Or perhaps she could just meet them out at the mammoth pens.

  “I was planning to sing for the god.”

  The old man sighed, although his toothless grin did not fade. “Then I must enjoy your song. It will be a lighter breakfast than yesterday’s, although probably more memorable. That’s the best you can do?” he added wistfully.

  She was nettled, as any true artist would be by such an attitude. He was making fun of her. “Music is my profession!”

  He pursed his lips in wonder and turned to lean the broom in a corner. “May your offering be worthy of the god. What is your name, child?”

  “Eleal Singer.”

  “Who?” The old man spun around with surprising agility. Both his eyes had opened very wide, although only one was looking at her. “You are Eleal? But where is the Daughter?”

  She had been just about to wriggle out of her pack straps. This inexplicable reaction made her pause. “What daughter?”

  The priest took a step toward her, anxiously rubbing his hands. His fingers were twisted, white with cold. “The Daughter of Irepit, of course! Don’t you know about the prophecy? Don’t you realize that you are in terrible danger? There is a reaper in town! You are so much younger than I expected!” Still babbling, he followed Eleal as she backed away. His wrinkles writhed in anguish. “Surely death will seek you out to break the chain! Who is looking after you, child? Your father? Parents?”

  She had no parents, but she was not about to explain that to this crazy old man with his ravings of reapers and danger and chains and daughters of Irepit, whoever she might be. He was more than a few seats short of a full house. Someone had shuffled his script.

  “Thank you for the warning,” she said. Her retreat had brought her to the door. “I’ll go and look after that right away!”

  She turned and ran, pack and all. Clipclopclipclopclip…

  6

  THE BIG CAR PURRED IN THROUGH THE GATES OF FALLOW. Leatherdale peered out sourly at the ivy-shrouded Gothic buildings, the shady elms, the central lawn basking in the sunshine. He’d played billiards on worse. The Gothic was of the Railway Nabob variety, but pleasantly aged now—best part of a century, at a guess. Pretty soon it would class as old, even by English standards. He wondered what it cost a man to send his son to a place like this, even as a day boy. If you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it.

  Had Elsie given him a son, the boy would have followed his father’s footsteps through Parish Boys’ School in Greyfriars. He’d have learned the Three R’s and been gone at fourteen, most likely. Not for him the inside track of a public school—classical education, university entrance, front of the queue when the posh jobs were handed out. This was where the bosses came from, the officers, the cabinet ministers, the men who ran the Empire. The Old Boys’ Network began here, at the snob factory.

  The car glided to a stop in front of an imposing doorway, flanked by steps. There was no drawbridge or portcullis, but the architecture implied that there should be. The morning was magically peaceful, with doves cooing somewhere and a few faint clicks and puffings from the engine.

  “Tudor House, sir,” said the chauffeur, opening the door. He must know, having driven the Young Master here often enough.

  Leatherdale stepped down. “Shan’t be more than twenty minutes, I expect, but you’ve got time to go find a cuppa round the back if you want.”

  A respectful smile thawed the man’s professional inscrutability. “Why, I’d trust ’em with my life, sir! But I’ll stay here.”

  Eight boys had condensed out of the summer morning to examine the car. They ranged in height from not much over four feet to not much less than six. They wore toppers and tails and not one hand was in a pocket. They were standing back, carefully not crowding close enough to the machine to provoke its guardian, murmuring technical details without raising their voices: “Guff! She’ll do more’n that…” “Bags more’n thirty horsepower!”

  These unfortunates must be boarders with no homes to go to, residing at Fallow over the summer holidays. Lordie, what would it cost even to clothe a boy here? On a Sunday morning, Leatherdale would have expected them to be marched off to church parade. Then he realized that the tallest boy was Oriental and three of the others various shades of brown. Perhaps none of them were Christians. Rather startled by that possibility, he set off up the steps.

  “Inspector Leatherdale?” The speaker was standing in the doorway, a bearded, paunchy man with a marked resemblance to the late King Edward.

  Who else would it be, coming to ruin a perfect summer Sunday?

  “Mr. Jones?”

  Jones was staring past his visitor at the thousand-guinea motor. Perhaps his query had not been totally inane. Policemen did not normally travel in quite such style.

  The hallway was dim and baronial, so full of silence that it seemed to echo with it, smelling of polish and chalk, exercise books and blotting paper. Marble stairs flanked by iron railings led up to mysterious heights. The room to which the visitor was led was equally institutional, furnished with aging armchairs and an ingrained reek of pipe smoke. Despite the windows open at the top, the air was stuffy and dead. Stern portraits of elderly gentlemen peered down disapprovingly between bookshelves, and the linoleum by the door was dangerously worn.

  “Masters’ common room,” Jones explained quite needlessly. “May I offer you some tea, Inspector?”

  Leatherdale declined the tea and accepted a chair with his back to the windows. It was more comfortable than it looked, and much too comfortable for a man who had been granted only two hours’ sleep.

  Jones took a chair opposite, first removing a copy of the Times, which he brandished to demonstrate indignation. “Seen this morning’s news? The Prussian rogues have invaded Luxembourg! And declared war on Russia. Belgium, Holland, Sweden—all mobilizing. Bounders!”

  “Bad business,” Leatherdale agreed.

  “The Kaiser’s a maniac! Doesn’t he realize that we mean what we say? England’s made it perfectly plain, hasn’t it, for years, that if Luxembourg or Belgium is invaded, then we’ll have to fight? Don’t the blighters understand that our word is our bond? That they’re going to bring the British Empire in against them?” He slapped the paper down angrily. “May as well get it over with, I suppose. The Hun has made it pretty clear that he plans to smash France and Russia first and then deal with us later.”

  Leatherdale made sounds of assent. Jones’s resemblance to the late king was astonishing, except that he wore pince-nez, which flashed in the light from the window. From lifetime habit Leatherdale quantified his estimates—middle fifties, five-foot-eight or-nine, weight close to fourteen stone, well dressed, hair brown turning gray at the temples, full beard likewise.

  “I mean we have no choice, have we?” Jones persisted. “When a chap already has the world’s biggest army and keeps adding to it, and then his neighbors justifiably start to get alarmed and add a few guns of their own and the Germans scream that they’re being encircled…” Having apparently lost the thread of his sentence, he scowled into silence and leaned back to regard his visitor. “Madmen!” he added. “Huns!”

  His accent was pure Oxbridge, a long way from the mining valleys of his ancestors, the sort of drawl that always carried hints of arrogance, whether intentional or not. He wore a brown suit of good Harris tweed and a pair of stout brogues—and also an entirely inappropriate old boy tie. Leatherdale decided he resented that tie. Whatever school or university or regiment it represented, it was around that shiny white collar at the moment only to impress him.

  “I shan’t keep you from your ramble any longer than I have to, Mr. Jones.” He pulled out his notebook. “I need some background information. To be specific, I need to see the personal files on two of your boys. Technically old boys, now, I believe.”

  “I’m frightfully s
orry, Inspector, but that will not be possible.” Jones blinked solemnly. Was he enjoying himself baiting the rustic policeman? Or was he merely the chicken left in charge of the farm, scared to do anything at all while the watchdogs took their holidays at the seaside?

  “This is not a matter of cribbing apples, Mr. Jones.” Did he think Leatherdale had nothing better to do on summer Sundays?

  The master tapped his beard with the tips of his steepled fingers. “I do not doubt that the matter is important. I should be happy to assist you in any way I can, but the filing cabinets are locked and I have no keys.”

  Without question, his first priority would be to protect the school’s reputation. He could have been picked out as a schoolmaster a furlong off. He had the diffident, mannered speech, the air of tight control, and even the curious blunting of masculinity that sometimes showed in men who must constantly guard their tongues. Clergymen had it also. He was a book whose pages were becoming yellow and dog-eared, the binding threadbare and gilt lettering worn. It would open to predictable pages.

  Now he reached for the arms of his chair, as if to pull himself out of it and end the interview. “I do wish you had mentioned documents when you telephoned, Inspector. I could have saved you the journey. You only said you wanted information, and you will recall that I did explain that the Head will not be back until Thursday at the earliest, and any statements really ought to come from him. I am just in loco magistri, you might say, not authorized to comment at all.” The pince-nez glinted.

  He was not a material witness, who must be played like a ten-pound salmon on a five-pound line. Far from it—he was just a watchdog that could be brought to heel. Yet the man could help, if he would. Juries hated to convict without being shown a motive. Jones could clarify the motive in this case. Which one was the pouncer—the killer or the victim? Or both?