The Shadow of the Sun (The Way of the Gods)

by Barbara Friend Ish

  Even had I wanted to attend, keeping my vow might very well mean missing the Moot, now. Everyone of consequence must already be there.

  I wondered what Coran was doing tonight: what party or reception he had hosted or decided to attend; what I would have been doing this evening, had things gone as planned and everyone’s understanding of my birth chart been true. What things would be if I had never left Tellan for Aballo. If I had never left Aballo for Tellan.

  So many roads not taken. There was no stepping back onto any of them. The gap between destiny and its fulfillment had swallowed me.

  “Hey.”

  I snapped back into reality with a start. The mummer who played the Hero, a lithe redhead, stood over me: mischief in his face. I gave him an inquiring look.

  “Where’s your Da?” he said. “We’ve got somethin’ he should—”

  “He’s not—” I began, then sighed. The less information volunteered, the better. “Out to visit a shrine. Back by dinner.”

  The redhead grinned and nodded. “We’ll catch ’im then. Don’t spoil the surprise.”

  I shook my head; I didn’t even want to imagine what they had planned. When mummers get that look, it never ends well.

  A fresh mug of beer landed in front of me with a thud; I looked up at the mummer attired in motley and made up as the Fool, the left side of his face black and the other smeared in white. He settled across the table from me, meeting my eyes with a performer’s smile and an appraising look.

  “Thank you?” I said. Free beer is never free.

  “My pleasure,” the mummer answered, and extended a hand in the easy style of the Ruillin. “Loeg,” he said by way of introduction.

  Back at Nemetona, we’d agreed on a cover story but hadn’t invented names to go with it. If I were here alone, I could pick one and remember it; but I knew I’d never get the word to everyone in time for the deception to go unrevealed. Mine isn’t a common personal name, but I knew there must be other Ellions, somewhere in the human realms.

  “Ellion,” I said, and clasped his outstretched hand.

  He grinned and reached for his beer again. “Tell me a story, and I’ll tell you one of my own.”

  I smiled. “Does mine have to be true?”

  Loeg laughed. “Caisin’s got a harpist coming in an hour. He’ll tell pretty stories. Let’s tell true ones.”

  I nodded. I probably wouldn’t know the man who sat on the platform across the room. There are many gorsedd harpists in the human realms, and I had fewer acquaintances among the rank-and-file than among the lords of the gorsedd. Dromineer is of little consequence to the gorsedd’s Ilnemedon-based politics. And there are plenty of harpists working the Ruillin who are not associated with the gorsedd. I could only hope tonight’s harpist, whoever he turned out to be, wouldn’t recognize me, either.

  “You first,” I said.

  Loeg nodded and fixed me with a quizzical look. One painted eyelid drooped a little, as if in concentration. “Here’s a good one—fresh out of Goibniu on today’s tide. Seems a group of Tanaan defended the Lady’s Well outside Goibniu from an attack by the Avengers of Esus.” He paused, watching me; I kept my face still.

  “Avengers of Esus?” I said in the coolest voice I could muster.

  “Sweet Lady o’ the river, you have been in the Tanaan realms, haven’t you? For a long time, I’d guess.” He fixed me with another penetrating stare. “The Avengers…” He shook his head: suddenly, deadly serious. “Some things even we don’t joke—” He shook his head again.

  “Then from out of the depths of hell

  The hero met the riders fell.”

  I felt myself stiffen, saw his eyes shift into something far too knowing for a mummer. I recognized the verse, of course: the appearance of the Básghilae in the ballad Armoan, the stirring history of the great Essuvian hero Armoan Lanas, Rohini’s great-to-the-I-wasn’t-certain grandfather, and the role he played in the defeat of the renegade Nechton. That song and the Ballad of Carina encapsulate most men’s understanding of the history of Nechton’s War. No song more clearly portrays the Básghilae.

  “Ah,” the mummer said, eyes still on mine. “Y’know—And I’m telling the tale, understand, not writing it—More than one person thought it interesting that the Avengers never felled anyone at Goibniu, not until a party o’ Tanaan turned up in the company of a couple of Ilesians…”

  The breath had stopped in my chest. I was thoroughly out of my depth: he definitely had access to pieces of the backstory I lacked. I could fill in some of it: the Bard’s Wizard was using Básghilae for far more than his mission against Letitia. They were common knowledge now, and my all-but-tasteless joke at Dianann had been uncomfortably close to the mark: the crimes and conquests the Bard of Arcadia committed were done in the name of the old god Esus. And the Básghilae—the Avengers of Esus—were understood to carry out the agendas of the Bard of Arcadia: which meant most or all of their offensives were against loyalist targets.

  Which, I now understood, Goibniu was not. I was developing doubts about Dromineer as well.

  “Well, what reason would they have?” I hazarded.

  Loeg nodded. “Just so.” He had another mouthful of beer. “So what do you think?”

  I shook my head. “I think I missed a lot while I was away.”

  “Maybe so,” Loeg allowed, and then a look of the sort I’d expect from a mummer came over him: speculative, mischievous, ready for the sort of play that ends in metaphorical, rather than literal, blood.

  “Though I wot you’ve seen some things few men ever do,” he said, looking down the table we shared with the Tanaan. All the mummers had gathered around the Tana, who entertained their practiced overtures with more warmth than politeness required. Letitia was actually talking to them. The Tans, meanwhile, had all adopted eerily similar expressions of neutrality.

  Another flash of insight descended on me: expectations of sexual fidelity might exist, but the rules of it still eluded me; and their codes of gracious conduct forbid Tans from the time-honored methods of pummeling one another for stepping over the invisible lines, in fact require them to behave as if whatever the Tana in question might choose to do is her business entirely.

  “What sent you all the way out to the other side o’ the mountains?” Loeg pursued.

  “Well—” I raised my eyebrows. As with any lie, the trick to making a cover story work is not giving it all away at once. “I’d never been there.”

  Loeg chuckled. “Who has? Y’know, when Sainrith wondered why a man would travel all the way out there, that’s exactly what I said: You ever been there? A man’s gotta see something new now and then. And then, o’ course, there are the Tana…”

  He cast me a speculative look; I shrugged.

  “But then I got to thinking: a young man like yourself, he wouldn’t take the longest booty-trip ever in the company of an old man. So…?”

  “This would be my story?” I said, feigning resignation.

  Loeg nodded. “It would.”

  “Well,” I said, then manufactured a look of insight. “You’ll know how it is. Being a mummer? I know you fellows have no problems with the ladies.”

  Loeg laughed and glanced down the table; I smiled.

  “Eventually,” I said thoughtfully, “a man has seen all there is to see of human women. So I thought I’d find myself a Tana.”

  Loeg chuckled. “You seem to have more than one. That seems selfish.”

  I shook my head. “No, two of them are knights.”

  Loeg goggled, eyes suddenly, comically wide in his black-and-white face; I grinned.

  “It’s true. I’d put them up against any man.”

  “So the Tans are—” Loeg looked speculative. “Free-lancers, as well?”

  “I knew you’d get it,” I said, with a look of surprised approval. “Most of them. Her brother…”

  “That’s the blond?” Loeg said, with another glance down the table.

  “They’re all blond,” I pointed ou
t.

  He waved dismissively. “The lady in question is the one with the scarf, and the one who’s glued to her is her brother.”

  I shrugged.

  “He doesn’t much like you.”

  I shrugged again. “His problem. I’m a likable fellow.”

  Loeg gave me a long, thoughtful look. “So who is this lady who travels under guard, with a couple of Ilesians?”

  “I’m not—” I swallowed the protest. A man of Nagnata who didn’t want people to place him wouldn’t claim that nation, not on purpose.

  “She’s of good family, from Gorias,” I said.

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Loeg said. “And she agreed to marry you. Because you are…?”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I have a certain amount of charm.”

  “And yet she’s sitting all the way at that end of the table,” the mummer observed.

  “I got here late. All the good seats were taken.”

  Loeg nodded. “That’s a pretty tale,” he said, with an inflection that all but called me a liar.

  I shrugged. A cover-story doesn’t have to be believed to be effective: it only has to distract the listener from the questions he should have asked.

  “What can I say? My life’s an adventure.”

  Yet another stranger arrived at our table and stood looking down at me. I glanced up at him, seeing the dark-blond hair shared by half the northern Ruillin and the sort of hard, habitual dishonesty one usually sees in back-rooms charms dealers. I restrained a groan: this place was just like a river ferry, except that the boat wouldn’t dock anytime soon.

  “Hello,” I said, mostly because I wanted the man to go away.

  “Hey… Ya wanna buy a flasher?” he said.

  I glanced at the bag slung over his shoulder. I could guess at its contents: illicit flash-weapons, probably one-offs—or pieces spent, abandoned, and halfway-recharged at some old sun-circle. Not that any nobleman, or any man of honor for that matter, would be caught dead holding such a thing. A flasher is a coward’s weapon, designed to use borrowed arcane power from a safe distance to do things better handled by an honest blade.

  “You wanna wind up in the river?” I said darkly, and met his snake’s eyes with a cold stare.

  The man’s mouth twisted; he strolled towards the other end of the table, and I caught his gaze again.

  In how many pieces? I mouthed soundlessly, forming the words so they were easy to read on my lips.

  He grimaced again and moved away.

  “So,” Loeg said, as if nothing had happened. “Tell me true: the stories are real?” He glanced again at the Tana.

  “Depends which stories you mean,” I answered. “No Tana ever enchanted me—but while I was on the other side of the mountains, I met people who remember Armoan’s day.”

  “Damn,” the mummer said softly.

  I nodded.

  “But the Tana?” the mummer pursued.

  I gave him a rueful smile. “No easier to come by than human women. And they’re in charge.”

  But myths like that don’t die easily. It was easy to see in his eyes, the only part of him that still showed truth behind all the paint: the fault lay with me, though what defect I might carry wasn’t easy to see. That was true enough, in its own way; but he thought it meant he would succeed where I had failed.

  And who was to say about that, after all. I possessed no great understanding of the Tanaan: that became more evident every day.

  Whatever his personal flaws might be, the mummer was too polite to share his thoughts aloud.

  “In charge?” he echoed. “Of what?”

  I thought about the answer, then surprised myself with a laugh. “Of everything.”

  He smiled. A man who doesn’t fear a woman with a sword would only see it as spice, an added challenge to conquer. I was almost nostalgic for his uncomplicated view.

  “Will you introduce me and my friends?”

  I raised my eyebrows; Loeg held up both hands. “Only respect to your lady, of course.”

  I smiled a little. “Do yourself a favor and remember they’re armed.”

  He laughed and rose, so I climbed to my feet, too. At the other end of the table, we had introductions all around: I met Suros, the mischievous redhead costumed as the Hero who waited to accost Amien with some joke or sketch he expected to torque the old man; Tindell, the Rogue or Lord, who had danced with Tru this afternoon on the ferry; and Sainrith, Donnall, and Corro, the Damsel, the Farmer, and the Druid, this afternoon’s drum-and-pipe dance-band. Amien returned and had to be introduced all around as well, using the name Rinnal Ruthin.

  “Hey,” Suros said to Amien. “Mug of beer?”

  Amien cast the redhead a speculative look. “Thank you?”

  Suros grinned and scampered to the bar. The rest of the mummers slipped free of their conversations, as if some signal had passed among them, and withdrew behind the little curtain they had erected at the back of the platform. Suros returned, handed Amien his beer, and grinned again.

  “Sit right down, now,” the mummer said, radiating mischief from boots to hair. “We think you’ll like this one!”

  I restrained a groan. Amien watched the mummer hurry across the room to join his fellows behind the curtain; the Tanaan settled at the table again, expectant. After a short time, Suros, Sainrith, and Corro re-emerged: the Hero, the Damsel, and the Druid would play this scene.

  Sainrith now sported a filmy blue scarf—and a shocking-red wig, which rested askew atop his long dark-blond hair, transforming the Damsel into a deliberately-failed rendition of a night butterfly. Corro had put on a cheap torc of tarnished brass and a grey wig that had clearly seen better days. I shut my eyes against the impulse to rise and interrupt their play; already I could see what they were about. They meant to perform the Night Butterfly and the Druid, and tonight the Druid was Amien.

  I’d seen several versions of this skit before. Mummers’ humor sometimes gets lower, but it’s rarely more deliberately offensive. Whatever the conceit of the sketch’s opening, in the end it boils down to a contest between the night butterfly and the Druid over the man with whom they share the stage. Sometimes their pawn is the Hero, sometimes the Farmer, occasionally the Fool. The Druid campaigns to keep the pawn engaged in a holiday ceremony so dull the poor man keeps falling asleep; the night butterfly endeavors to corrupt him. The punchline delivered by the night butterfly is always the same: Give him an hour with me, and he won’t just believe in the goddess, he’ll worship Her too!

  Sainrith’s bright red wig and blue scarf made my encounter with the night butterfly at Goibniu unfold in my head: the power of the river rushing into me when I began to relax in her presence; the half-second’s tangling of the woman and the goddess in my mind. My first encounter with Laverna, out on the flats, had been no more than six hours old, and already I found it difficult to hold myself separate. Finally I understood why men up and down the Ruillin still worship Her; She is far more present here than Lady Tella. Give him an hour with me… My throat felt unaccountably tight.

  Affront gathered predictably in Amien’s face as the little skit progressed; I realized he’d never seen it before. How long had it been since anyone dared disrespect him? Centuries, I supposed. And there isn’t much call for humor that dresses down the true religion at Aballo or any royal court: the Night Butterfly and the Druid is the stuff of the low rooms and lawless ferries of the Ruillin. And tonight I saw new layers in it, myself: not until this evening had I realized how little the true gods are loved by the common folk of the Ruillin. Tonight the Night Butterfly seemed not only the Ruillin’s totem but her champion. Suros’s arrow had flown true.

  Watching Corro as they neared the climax of the skit, I realized how closely he mimicked Amien: not only the torc and wig marked him out; Corro had perfectly reproduced Amien’s proud bearing and gravelly voice. How closely had the mummers been watching him? Corro was a talented player, to be sure; but to have absorbed that much in a minute or two would be nothing short of
miraculous. Seems a group of Tanaan defended the Lady’s Well outside Goibniu from an attack by the Avengers of Esus. Had the story that accompanied us out of Goibniu included the detail of a wizard participating in the battle?

  It would be naïve to hope that it had not.

  Had the mummers connected Amien with the tale of a wizard in the company of Tanaan? Had they, like this morning’s windcaller, seen the torc and deduced what it meant? Was I, then, also to interpret the poorly-rendered night butterfly as a commentary on Letitia and our attempt at concealing her? I glanced away from the platform, to the place in which Loeg sat: seeing his eyes on me and Amien, a classic Fool’s mask on his features but a predator’s assessing patience in his gaze. Meanwhile Amien’s ire condensed into a palpable cloud around us.

  I manufactured a grin, leaned in close to the wizard’s ear.

  “This is funny,” I whispered. “This is the funniest thing you’ve seen all month.”

  The wizard shot me a look. “They’re doing me!” he whispered.

  “And you are not a member of the initiate,” I hissed back. “So this is funny.”

  The wizard moved restlessly, then suddenly stilled; understanding swept over his face, followed by a feral grin. “There’s nothing in the Code that prohibits turning mummers into mules.”

  “Give him an hour with me…” Sainrith said, up on the platform; the half-empty room rang with laughter, and we joined the crowd.

  Tonight’s dinner consisted of pie made from some old, tough game-bird, potatoes, and bitter winter greens. It made me oddly nostalgic for Ilnemedon, where the first, tiny spring greens must be available by now. As we finished eating, three harpists arrived: none of whom I recognized, to my relief. None of them seemed to notice me at all, though they stared predictably at the Tana.