If the soldiers had known something about keeping cats, thought Clement angrily as she pored over the duty rosters, maybe the illness wouldn’t have reduced their force by another three hundred irreplaceable fighters. Maybe it was time they learned.
Chapter Four
That year’s spring mud was a tortuous season: rain fell and stopped, the roads firmed up, then rain fell again. Many a farmer, thinking the rain had ended, went out to sow the fields, only to watch the precious seeds wash away. Many a wanderer thought it was time to travel, only to be stranded by renewed flooding and boggy roads.
Norina had been spared such frustrations, for though only a water witch could control the weather, an earth witch like Karis could at least predict it. Norina was able to sandwich her journey neatly between rainstorms, and arrived dry and cheerful at her destination. The same could not be said about Councilor Mabin, who arrived on horseback several days later, muddy and wet, taunted by the sunshine that after four days of rain once again rent through the storm clouds and set the sodden fields to sparkling.
Norina had last seen Mabin the year Leeba was born. Since then, the councilor’s hair had gone to white, and her vigorous frame had begun to shrink. Her face, however, was no more or less hard and embittered than it had ever been.
The councilor was escorted by a half-dozen black-dressed, gold-earringed Paladins—a rare sight these days, for most of the surviving true Paladins had put on plain clothing and were commanding companies of Paladin irregulars, as Emil had done for fifteen years.
Some of these who served Mabin were Emil’s age, and they seemed to know of Norina’s connection to him, for their inquiring glances asked questions about him: What has become of our brother Paladin? Why will he not explain his sudden retirement? These sharp looks were puzzled, impatient, but not condemnatory. Just as a Truthken’s duty was to judge, a Paladin’s was to suspend judgment. With Mabin avoiding putting herself in a position where she would have to answer questions, and with Emil maintaining a bland silence, the Paladins apparently had simply suspended judgment of him, and of Mabin, for five years now.
It was a remarkable exercise of philosophy, Norina thought, and wondered briefly how this paralysis of silence might finally come to an end. Mabin was both an air blood and a Paladin, a rare combination that condemned her to a lifelong duel between flexible ethics and rigid principles. The principles won, of course, for one’s natural elemental logic would always prevail, and as a result Mabin was often in the exceptionally awkward position of having to ethically justify acts that were grounded in unexamined prejudice. The Paladins in her command certainly would not overlook such intellectual sloppiness. The pain of a steel spike in her heart—that Mabin could bear with equanimity. But the inability to explain how and why it had happened, that must have been almost beyond endurance.
Norina had stood silently without greeting Mabin for some time, and Mabin had neither spoken nor dismounted. The exercise of politeness was an expression of status, after all, and Norina wanted to establish that she was not under Mabin’s command as badly as Mabin wished to establish that she was. Norina was about to turn her back and walk away, which certainly would force Mabin to accede, when Mabin said nastily, “Well, Norina, everyone in the region could tell me where to find you. Though I suppose if I had asked the Sainnites in their garrison, they would have been surprised to learn that their region is ruled by a Truthken.”
“Oh, no,” Norina said. “The Sainnites have put a price upon my head, which goes up every year, much to everyone’s amusement.”
Mabin dismounted stiffly. The farmers, who had gathered around with their tools in their hands, curtsied unnoticed. Their work-dirty children stared; only the chickens took no interest in the living legend that had trampled through their muddy farmyard. The family elders invited Mabin into the tea room.
Mabin greeted them, though Norina could see behind the gracious mask to the councilor’s resentment at having to waste her time and energy on people she had no use for. Mabin was too canny a campaigner to forget that when the Sainnites left the Paladins devastated, it had been the farmers who had taken up arms and given her an army to command. But when she was finished with courtesy, she muttered, “Little do the farmers suspect that you should be as much an outlaw to them as you are to the Sainnites!”
Norina found this comment no less entertaining for the fact that Mabin apparently believed it true. However, Mabin’s truths were extraordinarily difficult to read, for the disguises she cast over her secret motivations were several layers deep. So now, to keep testing her own judgment, Norina said, “Shall we tell these farmers what happened four-and-a-half years ago, and let them judge between us? I will admit that I violated a councilor’s edict—never mind that a Truthken isn’t much use if she can’t challenge and refuse an unlawful command. But you must admit in turn that you tried to murder the vested G’deon.”
“I acted for Shaftal’s sake,” said Mabin.
“You nearly killed Shaftal.”
They were about to step through the commonhouse door. Mabin paused and looked at Norina—a deliberate look, deliberately revealing, and no less surprising for all that. “I tried to murder the vested G’deon,” she said. She spoke as a repentant criminal, as sincerely as possible, considering that she was not actually convinced of the wrongfulness of her actions.
Norina said, “Councilor, you cannot be hoping to deceive me. But you certainly are surprising me.”
An anxious child helped Mabin remove her boots and coat, and Norina showed the way to the tea room, which the family had spent two days cleaning. Now, the new-painted walls glared with reflected sunlight, the rare old Ashawala’i rug’s bright colors and ornate pattern had been released from a prison of dust, and the heat of a brisk fire in the scoured fireplace competed with a cool breeze coming in the open window. The sideboard was spread with an extravagant array of morsels: savory dumplings, dried fruit compote, sausage rolls, a steaming loaf of bread and golden pat of butter, a half dozen bowls of jam. But Mabin, noticing none of this, stopped short in the doorway and said sharply, “Where is Karis?”
“Shut the door,” said Norina. When Mabm had complied, Norina leaned out the open window. “Raven!”
The raven, who had been lingering at the top of a nearby tree, flew down and landed on the windowsill. “The councilor wants to know where Karis is,” Norina said to him.
The raven said, “She is with Zanja and J’han, in the Juras grasslands.”
Pretending she had not noticed Mabin’s rigid surprise at being confronted with a talking raven, Norina said, “Tell the councilor why she is there.”
“Karis has been eradicating a plague, town by town. And now she is fighting the illness among the Juras people.”
Norina turned to Mabin. “My husband believes that some half of the people in Shaftal would have been dead by summer’s end if Karis hadn’t acted so quickly. No one knows to thank her, either, not even the healers, who are winning the battle because J’han has written to all of them to tell them how. So,” Norina added, “there’s your lesson, Councilor, should you choose to learn it. Do you care to take some tea?”
The silence lingered as Norina poured, offered a cup to Mabin, who appeared not to notice, and sat down at the table with a filled plate. She gave the raven, a big, unlovely bird, a meat dumpling to eat.
Mabin finally said, rather unsteadily, “What is that bird?”
“The raven is Karis,” said Norina. “He is her eyes, her ears, her thoughts.”
The raven took a pause from gorging itself to ask, “Why did Mabin want this meeting?”
“To berate you,” Norina said.
“No, I’m here to be berated, apparently,” said Mabin.
“I’ve always admired your ability to recover from surprise,” said Norina politely. “Are you certain you don’t want some tea? These dumplings are really quite good.”
The councilor came to the table, picked up the teacup Norina had poured, tasted it, then
added a half spoonful of sugar. Stirring the cup, she said to the raven, “Tell Karis that what I have to say to her deserves to be said in person. But of course I admire what she is doing, and I don’t doubt that it’s more important.”
“Half true,” murmured Norina. “At best.”
Mabin said coolly, “Will you be satisfied for once, Madam Truthken? Half truths are all you ever get from anyone.” She tasted her tea again and appeared to be considering more sugar. “Karis is acting like a G’deon,” she commented.
“Karis is doing what she cannot help but do. She is acting like herself.”
There was a silence. Mabin said again, “In acting like herself, she acts like a G’deon. Why does she not call herself what she is?”
Twenty years ago, almost immediately after being vested with the power of Shaftal, Karis had been forbidden to act as G’deon, a decision that could only be reversed by Mabin herself. Yet Mabin was in no position to prevent Karis from doing what she liked, so her question was not quite so absurd as it at first seemed. Norina said, “Are you demanding that she explain herself? Or are you simply sick of trying to anticipate what she’ll do?” This strategy of listing possibilities and observing the reaction was usually sufficient to get a reluctant witness to reveal her secrets. But Mabin did not particularly react. “Why are you here?” Norina asked. “It’s early spring; the Paladins are sharpening their blades and grinding fresh gunpowder. You have work to do.” Now, at last, a momentary trembling of Mabin’s disguises. Norina said swiftly, “But you can’t do it, can you? No, you can’t, and though you’ve come all this way to ask Karis for her help you can’t bring yourself to ask for it. Councilor, why must you make my business so difficult!”
Mabin drank half her cup of tea in a swallow, and didn’t flinch. “Perhaps you already know this, but I doubt you understand it. The rumor of a Lost G’deon has inspired a new uprising.”
“Are you referring to Willis of South Hill and his little band of fanatics?”
“I’m told he has fifty followers, which means he really has at least two hundred. And most of them are veteran Paladin irregulars, like him, not the kind of people I would lightly dismiss.”
Mabin paused, perhaps expecting that Norina would use this opening to continue to accuse and challenge her. “Do continue, Madam Councilor,” Norina said.
“If Karis were to join these people who call themselves Death-and-Life, their numbers would immediately swell to thousands. An irresistible army. The Sainnites would be defeated.”
Now it was Norina’s turn to use her teacup as a prop to make herself seem unsurprised, and even indifferent. But the raven spoiled the effect by uttering a harsh caw of laughter.
Norina said, “And yet you want to prevent this from happening? I thought you wanted to rid Shaftal of its Sainnite scourge.”
“Has Karis thought of joining them? She must have heard that they believe the Lost G’deon will appear to them.”
“I’ll answer you, if you tell me why it would be so terrible if she did. Because you yourself would be put out of power?”
Mabin said quietly, “Although these people call themselves Death-and-Life, they have no alliance to the old ways. They would dismiss the orders, the law, the code—” She paused. “Madam Truthken, I am an old woman, and sometimes I am very tired. Inevitably—soon—I will be put out of power by someone, or by death. But I do not want to die in a land I loved and could not save from destruction.”
“Truth!” said Norina, amazed.
Mabin gave her a wry look. “How can you waste such talent?”
“It’s no waste to serve Karis, I assure you.”
“Who also wastes her talent.”
“She’s saving the land from being devastated by plague.”
“Saving it for what?”
“This is a fruitless argument,” Norina said.
“Will she join these people who call themselves Death-and-Life? Or not?”
“Of course not. They are warmongers, and war makes her sick.”
But Mabin did not seem relieved. She set down the empty teacup on the table, and took a breath. “I want Karis to know that I regret that she was hurt by the way she was treated in the past. I thought I was acting for the best—”
“I listen to people try to justify themselves all day long,” Norina said. “I wish I might meet one who could do it with brevity.”
“What I did was wrong,” Mabin said. “I wish to ask Karis to come to me, to the Lilterwess Council, and take her rightful place in the G’deon’s chair.”
A long time Norina gazed at her, but, although she was not certain what had caused this amazing reversal, she could see no sign of dissimulation. Even the raven stared at her, speechless. “The last time I saw you,” Norina said, “you declared that Shaftal would never come into the hands of a Sainnite pretender, the smoke-addicted daughter of a whore. Those are your words, exactly as you uttered them.”
“Karis no longer uses smoke. Her mother was of an ancient, respected people. I would wish Karis a non-Sainnite father, but so might she.” Mabin seemed to realize how self-serving these corrections on her past statement might sound, and added, “I’m very sorry for those angry words. I was mistaken. And I was wrong.”
Norina turned to the raven in astonishment. “Did Karis think she’d live to see this day? How shall I reply? Does she want to know why Mabin has changed her mind? Or does it even matter?”
The raven said, “Give her the note.”
Norina found herself reluctant. “The councilor has made a sincere apology.”
“Give her the note.”
Karis had written the note many weeks ago, shortly before she, Zanja, and J’han stepped into the snowstorm. She had not asked for Emil’s advice on how to deal with Mabin’s request. She had simply written three words on a piece of paper, which Norina took out of a pocket now and handed to Mabin. “Leave me alone,” Karis had written.
Mabin read the note and then crossed the room, threw it into the fire, and watched it burn. When she turned back, though, she seemed calm enough. She said to the raven, “Haven’t I already left her alone, these four years? And not because I feared this.” Her hand briefly touched her breast, where Karis’s steel pierced her heart. “She’ll regret making this choice. What is happening in Shaftal is worse than a plague.”
“There is no choice,” the raven said.
Mabin turned to Norina, who read in her face an honest desperation. “Will she give up Shaftal to Willis, rather than give up her anger against me? Will you knowingly allow her to do so? And will even Emil fail to intervene? Does every one of Karis’s followers think loyalty must be blind?”
“We are not her followers, and we argue with her and with each other incessantly. I don’t know how Emil would advise Karis, but he certainly would disagree with you about the way you have conceived these choices. We air bloods are always drawing neat lines through everything, as though dividing good from bad and right from wrong were a simple business. When I first began to live with three fire bloods, I feared their chaos of possibilities would drive me insane! My companions live courageously, in doubt and loss and desperate uncertainty, and I’ve come to tolerate their thinking and even to admire it sometimes. But your way, Councilor, is too simple. If Karis refuses to restore the old order, and also refuses to embrace the warmongers, why does that mean she has no other options?”
There was a silence. Mabin said, “I used to have arguments just like this with Harald. Might as well argue with a wall. Shout all I want, the wall is unmoved.” She turned away as though to leave the room, and then turned back. “Karis is the hope of Shaftal. How can she refuse?”
Norina said wearily, “When I was young and knew no better, I delivered Karis to you, and betrayed her without knowing it by pressuring her into obedience. I am fortunate that she forgave me for it. But she is in her full power now, and even I don’t know exactly what that means. Only a fool would trifle with her—and I am not a fool anymore.”
“I will remind her, Mabin, though a reminder will not be necessary.”
When Councilor Mabin had left the room, taken her leave of the farmers, and ridden off with her attendants down the muddy road, Norina said to the raven, “I had to promise Mabin something or I would not have gotten rid of her. Are you still hungry, raven?”
The raven flew away with a sausage roll in its beak. Norina tossed her cold tea out the window and poured a fresh cup, but then sat without drinking it. She was expected in a nearby town to judge an accused murderer—and, if necessary, to execute him. But she was considering what a relief it would have been to her had Karis simply accepted Mabin’s offer. And then she considered how little she would admire Karis had she accepted.
Chapter Five
Zanja’s clan brother, Ransel, had been dead for years, yet every day she missed him. They had been born in the same lodge within a month of each other, and as infants they had nursed at the same breasts and slept in the same cradle. Inseparable as children, they had remained scandalously close into adulthood, and the gossips were always examining Zanja’s shape, hoping to be the first to discover that she was concealing an incestuous pregnancy. The fire clan of Tarwein was mostly known for its skilled, artistic rug weavers. Only occasionally did the clan produce a person like Zanja whose elemental talent, and the confirmation of the owl god Salos’a, destined her to be a crosser of boundaries. But Ransel also had become a katrim,and served the raven god—Raven in his trickster aspect—for Ransel’s relentlessly lighthearted delight in the world had seemed inextinguishable. Nearly six years after the Sainnites killed Ransel, what Zanja remembered most vividly was his wide grin and his loud laugh—both rather shocking among a people of such emotional restraint.
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