The Prisoner of Limnos

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  The music of the waters was the only sound in the hushed court, apart from distant bird-calls. It seemed strange that so glaringly bright a place could feel holy, but it did.

  “How,” muttered Pen through his teeth, “does the water get up here?”

  Another acolyte, attendant and guardian-on-duty of the waters, rose from a porphyry bench under a portico and cordially came forward. “We consider it a miracle of the Lady. Four hundred years ago, this place was nothing but a dry and desolate crag. The spring appeared following an earthquake. The inhabitants of Limnos noticed a new waterfall appearing over the side of the pinnacle, and came to investigate. We have celebrated the blessings of the Daughter of Spring here ever since.” The wave of an inviting hand. “Drink, then, if you come in good faith, and pray with Her cleansing waters on your lips.” Her gesture went on to encompass an array of intricately woven prayer rugs set beyond the well. An older woman, the blue scarf about her neck, was just lumbering up from one, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  Nikys took the ladle that was extended and hesitated. The attendant, eyes twinkling, murmured behind her hand, “After the boats and that climb up the hill, most visitors are very thirsty. It’s permitted to drink your fill.”

  Smiling thanks, she did so. Penric watched her cautiously. Moved by impulse, she dipped her ladle and handed it to him. He received it with a grateful nod, and again when she refilled it.

  They both wiped their mouths, then proceeded to the prayer rugs, because the attendant was watching them in expectation. Penric, after a contemplative moment, went down not just on his knees but prone, arms wide in the attitude of utmost supplication. Nikys went down on her knees facing the bright fountain and held up her hands palm-out, five fingers spread wide.

  For all her anxieties, she had not thought of what to pray. She had nothing.

  With the Daughter’s water still on her lips, it seemed wrong to perform some dissembling dumb-show. One didn’t need to be a virgin to pray here, after all, merely to have once been one. Because the gods are parsimonious.

  And, sometimes, merciful.

  She considered offering the goddess an apology for this sacrilegious invasion. Could they buy dispensation by coming to remove what was certainly a greater insult, using Her shrine for a prison?

  …No. This was the goddess, not Duke Jurgo. Nikys wasn’t here to bargain for something to which she had no native right, trading favors. The court of the sacred well wasn’t a marketplace. There was no way to put a value on what she sought.

  And no need, child.

  Nikys trembled, not sure whose thought that was.

  Lady. I do not sin against You, and no forgiveness is required. I am here to do today exactly what a daughter ought. I lay my actions as an offering at Your feet, because we should give to the gods the very best of what is in us.

  There is no offense to You in me.

  And she knew it to be true.

  Penric sighed, rolled over, and sat up, then looked alarmed. “Why are you crying?” he whispered.

  “Am I?” said Nikys. She wiped at her cheeks to find them wet. Daughter’s waters, given back. Her head, and heart, felt overfull in a very different way than before. “It’s all right.”

  “I can take—”

  She reached out and caught his hand, laid a finger to stop his anxious lips. “No. It’s really all right. We can go, now.” She echoed his own words back to him. “It will be very well.” This time, she stood first, and pulled him up after her.

  XI

  Des was crying, too. Pen was surrounded, inside and out, by crying women. It was appalling.

  His demon’s response at least was familiar from their previous sidewise encounters with something like this. Or Someone like this. Demons were terrified of gods, the one power that could destroy them. Des’s shaking was simple fear. Or maybe not-so-simple fear. Interestingly, she wasn’t curled in as tight a ball within him as usual. If she’d had a body other than his own, he’d have imagined her prone, arms out hugging the floor tiles, face turned away, all abject surrender.

  Nikys… was something else altogether. Whatever it was, it didn’t include a speck of fear. Which was unnerving in its own right.

  She wasn’t gulping or sobbing or shaking, but water still trickled in fine silver rivulets from the corners of her dark eyes. Anxiously, he drew her away to a bench in the shade of a colonnade, as far as they could get from the well and its attendant. The acolyte was watching them with a curious frown, but then her attention was drawn away by the entry of the women with the four daughters, still overexcited from their happy encounter with the dogs.

  He extended his arm around Nikys’s shoulders, hovering tentatively, offering consolation if she wished it. She must have wished something, because she dove into his embrace, her hands going out to grip his draperies. It was not so much a gesture of affection as of drowning. “Whatever did you pray to the goddess to grant?” Pen whispered.

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “I made an offering. I suppose.”

  The five functions of prayer, Pen had been taught, were service, supplication, gratitude, divination, and atonement, of which supplication and divination were the most begged and the least answered. Atonement grew in importance as one moved through life. So what song of service or gratitude was this?

  “What did you feel?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Too difficult? Or too private?”

  “Both.” She looked away. “I can’t make claims. Putting myself forward. It might have just been heatstroke.”

  Pen felt her forehead, then his own. Each were equally warm in this bright day, and he spared a hope that Bosha had found a nice deep crevice. “As I once said to a man who’d had a similar experience: Do not deny the gods. And they will not deny you.”

  She raised her face, lips parting in surprise. “You believe me?”

  “I don’t have to believe. I know. Or rather, Des saw. She’s almost spasming inside me right now. She’ll recover in a while. She does that.”

  Gazing at him in consternation, she said, “You’ve encountered something like this before?”

  “Three times. One does not forget.”

  She mumbled into his bodice, “It was surely no more than the brush of the hem of Her cloak.”

  “Mm, but it’s a very great cloak. It covers the width of the world.” He sighed. “Or so I imagine. The most I will ever get is a waft from the flutter of the hem in passing.” As now?

  Her look grew a trifle wild-eyed. “You understand this?”

  “Understand?” He snorted. “As much as I might drink the sea.” Envy? …maybe.

  She swallowed, and got out, “What did you pray for?”

  “It was groveling. Mostly. Lots and lots of groveling. That tapestry is downright menacing.”

  She tried to choke down her laugh and ended up snorting it through her nose. “You shouldn’t… I shouldn’t…”

  “Yes, you should. Joy is a mark of Them, you see. It will likely keep leaking out of you for some while.”

  “Oh…” She took a breath, sat up, reordered herself. “And you deal with this sort of thing all the time?”

  “Not all the time, white god forfend. Very rarely. I would not survive the overload.”

  “Why are you still sane?” Her lips pursed, then sneaked up. “Oh. Maybe I answered my own question.”

  “Now, now. Be nice.” He couldn’t help it; her grin was infectious. He reached out and lightly brushed the last of the silver from her soft cheeks with the backs of his knuckles. He did not blot the cool away. He tried not to feel like a greedy child snitching a treat from his sister’s plate.

  Maybe not greedy. Maybe just hungry.

  The both gazed out at the court. The four girls had been dissuaded from trying to swim around the annular basin like the line of dolphins that decorated it, but were being permitted to wade and splash in the trough, skirts hiked up, shrieking. There wouldn’t be a dry stitch on them, presently.
Sandals were strewn everywhere. The acolyte and their mother looked on laughing.

  “You know,” said Nikys, “I had worked out an elaborate ruse about asking the way to the garderobe, but I don’t think it will be needed. Let’s just go.”

  “Aye.”

  She seemed to find it very natural to twine her arm through that of her tall friend as they quietly moved into the shadowy interior of the next building.

  “Where should we look first?” said Pen.

  “You’re asking me? The goddess didn’t exactly give me a map.”

  “Ah, They never do,” sighed Pen. “It’s practically another mark.”

  She finally dared to say it out loud, if very quietly: “…I think She gave me a blessing.”

  His lips curved up. “Even better.”

  She seemed to take this in, all the way, for after a breath she nodded. Then said, “So did you have a plan?”

  He wrinkled his nose in doubt as they stopped and looked around the next small courtyard. “Bosha thought they’d keep your mother on the side toward the sea, where the drop is most difficult. The top four or five floors have balconies, giving potential access. Or egress. So less likely those. I’d say start on the bottom floor on the east side. Poke around, see what we find.”

  “What if we’re stopped?”

  The place was far from unpeopled, although the women they glimpsed all seemed to be hurrying about their business, with scant attention given to the pair of pilgrims not yet too far out of place. “Keep that garderobe story in reserve. It may not be a waste of invention after all.”

  When they came to the dimmer interior corridors, Pen shoved the green spectacles up on his head under the fold of his drapery. “I shall be glad to be rid of these. Give them back to Bosha if you can. Though not before you reach the boat.”

  “Of course. I hope he’s all right.”

  After two false casts, they came to a promising stairway. Pen knew they were going the right way when the descent through fine masonry changed to one carved through solid rock. At the very bottom, the stairs turned out onto a long corridor.

  On its right side, a few niches reflected an aqueous blue daylight into the corridor. A gallery of near-identical doors lay along it. The left was lined with windowless cells, some with doors across, some open, all apparently used for storage. A scattering of wall sconces were frugally unlit.

  “How do we find the right door?” whispered Nikys.

  “Hers will be locked, with one person behind it, most likely. If it’s unlocked or no one is home, then not.” Or so he hoped. Des, I need you. Rise and shine, love.

  Reluctantly, his demon unfolded within him, still surly from her fright. Cajoler, she muttered, but lent him her powers. The first door on their right was both locked and unpeopled, so he opened it to scout the terrain.

  As he’d guessed, it was a dormitory cell for lay dedicats. Two narrow beds, simple furnishings, an upright loom against one wall with a colorful prayer rug in progress. A small window through two feet of solid rock gave a fine sea view, and a draught of pure air. Cool, serene. Less delightful in the winter, no doubt. Significantly, no area for the preparation of food.

  “The dedicats must take their meals in a common refectory somewhere,” he whispered to Nikys. “Suggests your mother’s may be brought to her.”

  He locked up after them, then ran a survey of the rest of the doors, which numbered fifteen.

  “There are three doors both locked and with someone inside,” he muttered to Nikys. He pointed them out. “Could be dedicats ill, or resting up for night duties. You pick.”

  “Me!”

  “Yes.”

  She huffed in doubt, walked up to one, hesitated, then moved to the next. “Try here.”

  He didn’t insult her by asking Are you sure? She had as good a chance at guessing as he did, and maybe better. But as he unlocked the door, swung it open, and shepherded her in ahead of him, he braced for a cry of Oh, dear, this isn’t the garderobe, sorry! and a quick retreat.

  It only got as far as “Oh—!” before she broke from him and sprinted forward.

  Pen came after and eased the door closed. “Keep your voices down,” he warned.

  A woman lying on a cot turned toward them. Her face was first weary, then wild, as she rolled to her feet and held out her arms in time to receive the pelting Nikys.

  “Oh, gods, Nikys! Did they take you, too? I thought you were safely in Orbas! Oh, gods, no…” The mutual embraces held power beyond the mere grip of them, and Pen stood witness in shy silence. No such reunion would ever be his again, his own mother being three years in the cold ground of a country that scarcely still seemed home. Tears started in Nikys’s eyes, if not the same as before. Or maybe more closely related than Pen thought.

  “No, no, I’m not a prisoner,” Nikys gasped into her mother’s ear, both women’s sets of hands frantically feeling up and down as if to assure their owners of the other’s life, health, hope. “We’ve come to get you out of here.”

  “What?” Idrene stood back, though not letting go of her daughter’s shoulders.

  Penric smiled and advanced, feeling dimly that the first thing a man said to his intended’s respected mother probably shouldn’t be Quick, take your clothes off! “I am so pleased to meet you, Madame Gardiki. I’m”—he hastily dumped every confusing and irrelevant honorific—“Nikys’s friend Penric.”

  Nikys looked at him. “Yes,” she said. “You are.”

  Madame Gardiki gave him an utterly baffled smile, reminding him of the false cordiality they’d offered to the Xarre mastiffs, as he laid the spectacles on the washstand, tossed his sack on the bed, shrugged down his draperies, and undid the blue scarf around his neck.

  “Plan is you are to exchange clothes with me. You go with Nikys. Two pilgrims enter, two pilgrims leave. I stay in your cell and pretend to be you for as long as I can.”

  “But how do you get out?”

  “I have a scheme.”

  No, you don’t, scoffed Des. It’s all improvisation from here.

  “He’ll manage, Mother,” said Nikys. He hoped that heartening confidence wasn’t feigned.

  “He? …Oh.” She stepped back a pace as he continued to disrobe, pulling off his belt and shucking the dress up over his head. With Ruchia’s loose, demure clothing, they hadn’t bothered with stuffing a breast-band. He was down to his trews when he realized what a bizarre figure he must present. Sky-blue eyes glittering out of a ruddy face, black bun on his nape, chest hair a smattering of gold, piebald with richly colored arms and shins but thighs and torso milk-white.

  Nikys, thankfully, took over the task of coaxing Idrene out of her own clothes. “It’s all right, Mother, Pen’s a physician.”

  “Yes, and I’m an army wife, but I’ve never seen anything like that.” She seemed to have grasped the escape scheme at once; her distraction was all for Pen. “A physician, really? He seems too young.”

  “I’m almost thirty-one,” Pen told her, waiting to pass along his garments. His torso was narrower than hers, and longer, but Cedonian styles were forgiving. Nikys excavated down to her mother’s shift and tossed her dress his way, taking Ruchia’s in trade.

  Given Idrene Gardiki’s still-handsome appearance at fifty, she must have been stunning at twenty. No wonder the old general had been beguiled. Not to mention young officer Rodoa before him. Her loose black hair had a mere smattering of gray in it, and Pen had kept his draperies over his head throughout, so that substitution shouldn’t be a problem. It would only take a moment to wind a similar bun. At least they’d matched her skin. Her features were sharper than Nikys’s, if not much like Pen’s, but the green spectacles would hide a lot. The bodice of Ruchia’s dress would be better-filled, but not unduly so. The clogs would still leave her wanting an inch or two of height, but if they avoided the two welcoming acolytes on the way out, and chanced a different donkey-lad for the trip down, she should pass. Pen had made sure to speak as little as possible. Check, check, chec
k…

  “Tell me what your daily routine has been in here, Madame Gardiki. I must know what to expect.”

  “Fear and boredom, mostly. I’ve been here three weeks—I’ve been scratching the days on the wall down out of sight behind the bed. Five gods, dear Nikys, how did you get here so fast?”

  “We had help. You’ll meet some of it in a bit. I’ll tell you all the rest later.”

  “Do they carry in your meals on a tray?” asked Pen. “Who brings it?”

  Idrene nodded. “Yes, three times a day. They haven’t been starving me, except of news. I’d only just heard, at home, that Adelis had been arrested in Patos, and—dear Mother’s mercy, was he really blinded? Because the men who came to arrest me said he’d fled to Orbas, and there was no word of you at all, and nothing made sense.” Nikys guided Ruchia’s dress over her head. “Darling, I’m going to trip on this hem.”

  “No, we brought shoes. Keep going.”

  She shoved her arms through the wide sleeves, and went on, “A dedicat brings the tray, but there are always these two large women with her who aren’t of the Order. None of them talk to me, though I think the dedicat is curious.”

  “Always the same women?” said Pen.

  “Usually.”

  “So they’d recognize I wasn’t you if they saw me closely?”

  “Yes, probably…” She eyed him as he adjusted her belt around his waist. “Yes. Although you make a convincing woman in general.”

  “I’ve had practice.” Pen grimaced. “How soon are they due back?”

  “Sunset.”

  “You two should be almost back to Guza by then. I might be able to fake my way through one meal. Maybe more.”