Godess of the Ice Realm loti-5

by David Drake

Cashel grinned. "Chance?" he said. "You mean luck? Then I guess Garric and me and everybody else in the Isles who wants to live a normal life without wizards smashing things is awfully lucky, seeings as you just happened to appear right where we needed you to keep everything from flying apart again."

  Tenoctris laughed as she ran her fingers over the moss-covered carvings on the top of the bench. "Cashel, just as you have faith in the Great Gods," she said, "I have faith in the blind machinery of the cosmos. Sometimes, I'll admit-"

  She turned to meet his eyes, laughing with a serious undertone.

  "-I have to stretch farther to justify my beliefs than I would yours."

  Cashel smiled, holding his quarterstaff out at arm's length just for exercise. He wasn't bragging, though he knew there weren't many men who could grip the end of the thick staff in one hand and keep it straight. Cashel didn't have to brag about his strength; it was there for all to see, as surely as Sharina's beauty.

  Tenoctris was giving her full attention to the bench, now. "Cashel," she said, "this is very old. It was part of an altarstone, originally."

  "Brought here from an old temple, you mean?" he said. He looked more closely at the bench, but that was just politeness. The marks on the stone wouldn't have meant anything to him if they'd been clear. Now, worn by time and under a fur of moss, he'd have had as much luck trying to read words in the wave-tops.

  "I'm not sure," said Tenoctris, eyeing the rest of the garden from where she knelt. "Those seats there-"

  She nodded toward chairs made by cutting down sections of a fluted pillar; her fingertips continued to touch indentations in the top of the bench.

  "-are made out of column barrels, and there on the wall-"

  Nodding again, this time toward the partition between this garden and its twin in the east wing. Blocks of sandstone formed the foundation, though the rest was old brick.

  "-are parts of a frieze. See the triglyphs?"

  Cashel wouldn't have known a triglyph if it bit him, but he supposed some part of what he was looking at was a triglyph. Maybe even a family of them.

  "I think there was a temple here before the palace was built," Tenoctris continued. She rose, frowning. "I think the inscription's to the Lady, though I'm more guessing than reading."

  Cashel cleared his throat. He had the staff in both hands, now. He could hear the concern in Tenoctris' voice. He didn't understand what was causing it, but he was ready for anything that appeared.

  "Sharina'll be back soon, I think," he said as his companion continued to ponder the bench. "Can she help you read, do you think, Tenoctris?"

  Sharina'd gone off to the temple of the Lady to pray as soon as the formalities of greeting the locals were over. She hadn't asked Cashel to let her go without his company, but they knew each other pretty well by now. Her friend Nonnus had worshipped the Lady, and Cashel figured this visit had something to do with him. That was Sharina's private business.

  Tenoctris laughed and put her hand over Cashel's where it gripped his quarterstaff. "I didn't mean to disturb you," she said with a hint of embarrassment. "There's nothing wrong, nothingevil, about there being a temple here. It's just that places where people worship tend to focus the forces that turn the cosmos. Reusing the sites for other purposes is, well, dangerous."

  She pursed her lips in sour expression though her eyes continued to smile. "As are quite a lot of other things, I know," she went on, "including worrying myself into a tizzy because everybody else doesn't feel the same way I do about what I think is important. And-"

  She turned again to survey their surroundings, her hands on her hips.

  "-when I let myself think about it instead of just reacting on instinct, there're few more innocent uses for the site than as a quiet garden. Forgive me for being silly, Cashel."

  "I don't think you're silly, Tenoctris," Cashel said. His voice was a trifle huskier than it'd have been if he was completely settled, and though he held the staff at his side again, he hadn't forgotten about it.

  A shepherd learns that instinct can warn him about a lot of things that his conscious mind could never explain to other people. And Cashel knew Tenoctris well enough by now to trust her instincts just as far as he did his own.

  ***

  There were probably other temples to the Lady in Carcosa, but the nomenclator Sharina had asked sent her to that of the Lady of the Sunset. It stood on a knoll near the northern wall of the city. She hadn't been able to see the temple itself from the harbor, but the gilded bronze statuary on its roof blazed above all the surrounding buildings.

  "Huh!" snorted one of the Blood Eagles escorting her. "This is what the hicks call a temple, is it?"

  "Shut up, Lires, or you'll be sweeping out stables with your moustache!" snarled the lieutenant commanding the squad. "She's here to worship and you're here to guard her while she's doing it!"

  Sharina pretended not to have been listening, but the soldier's comment angered her on many levels. The temple wasn't large, certainly not by the standards of Valles or ancient Carcosa, but it was perfectly proportioned and had been built by expert craftsmen. The life-sized statues on the roof were winged dancers, probably meant for the four phases of the West Wind; they were modeled as ably as anything Sharina had seen in the capital.

  The temple had six slim columns across the front, two more than normal on a width of 35 feet or so. The design gave the building a look of airiness, and the ceiling-high glass panels-diamond panes set in silvered bronze instead of lead-lighted the interior as well as displaying the cult statue to those sacrificing outside.

  Nothing but Ornifal chauvinism could object to the temple, and Sharina was from Haft. More important, though-shehad come here to worship, just as the officer said.

  Sharina'd been raised to be conventionally religious, since a peasant community doesn't have much scope for complete surrender to the Gods. A farmer who spent all his days praying would starve when winter came, and his neighbors would have as little sympathy for him as they did for his drunken neighbor.

  Her mother Lora mouthed platitudes with the same empty formality as she taught Sharina court etiquette: it was the done thing. Reise said nothing about how he felt regarding the Gods; people in general found it politic to conceal their opinions around Lora unless they wanted to listen to her diatribes on where their beliefs were mistaken. Sharina suspected that her father was as much an unbeliever as Ilna declared herself to be, but he'd paid his share when the priests from Carcosa made their annual Tithe Procession and he'd raised his children to offer a pinch of bread dipped in ale at meals to the shrine on the wall of the inn's common room.

  Nonnus the hermit was the only person Sharina knew to whom the Lady was a real part of life. Perhaps even to Nonnus She was only a hope, the possibility that Someone could forgive the things he had done as a soldier. For Nonnus' sake, Sharina had come here to pray and to sacrifice. No one had a right to sneer at that impulse.

  But she held her tongue-as Nonnus would have done.

  In the plaza fronting the temple were seven altars. The one in the center was ornately carved and surrounded by a waist-high marble screen to separate those sacrificing from the common people. An attendant, one of the priestly thugs, lounged in the enclosure to keep out anybody who might try to use a site meant for his betters.

  An old woman waited by the simple altar on the right end, where a priest was lighting a small fireset. Two other priests sat in a kiosk to the side, talking and keeping a desultory eye on the plaza. The courtyard behind the temple got a good deal of traffic both of priests and laymen, but only the woman was sacrificing at the moment.

  Sharina turned to the officer of her guard. "You'll wait here," she said. "When I've finished, we'll return to the palace."

  "Milady," the man said, "we'll come-"

  "You willnot," Sharina said. The anger-at what had happened to Nonnus, at the chaos that was so much a part of life, at herself for the risk she'd taken with the lives of those she loved best when the whale at
tacked-boiled out in her tone. It shocked her and slapped the soldiers like a gush of fire. "I'm here to worship."

  She turned and strode stiff-backed toward the kiosk. One of the priests waited, standing with his hands tented before him. The other walked briskly into the porticoed compound.

  The Blood Eagles remained where they were. She heard a man-not the officer-snarl, "Lires, you've disgraced the Regiment!"

  "I wish to make an offering," Sharina said to the priest in a clear voice. "I'll need to purchase the incense from you as well. What's the fee for this? Just a basic sacrifice."

  An elaborate sacrifice with animal victims and all the pomp of majesty would've offended Nonnus. To the hermit, the offering and even the prayer were merely symbols of the heart; but symbolsare important.

  "Of course, Princess Sharina," the priest said, bowing low. "If you'll wait here just a moment, Lord Anda will be right out. Please accept my apologies on his behalf for our not being properly prepared to greet you."

  "I don't want Lord Anda," Sharina said, her eyes narrowing and her anger rising again. "I'm here to make a sacrifice for the soul of a friend. You can-"

  The high priest came out of the courtyard, his expression supernally placid but his legs moving very quickly indeed under his long robe. With him-actually straggling a pace or two behind-were half a dozen junior priests, men and women both. One had lost her sandal in her hurry, and another appeared to have tugged his robe on back to front.

  An alarm clanged within the compound. The burly thugs at the entryway straightened up in the passage, holding their censers like the clubs they really were. Twenty more of the same sort came boiling out of the courtyard and ran toward Anda and his aides.

  Anda glanced over his shoulder at them with a look of cold fury and gestured them to a halt. Returning his attention to Sharina, he said blandly, "It's better that we not discuss our business here in public, I think you'll agree, Princess. If you'll come-"

  "We have no business!" Sharina said. "I came to burn a pinch of frankincense in memory of a dead friend!"

  Lord Anda put his hand on her arm. In a blast of fiery rage, Sharina's mind turned to the Pewle knife. She'd left it at the palace because she was going to worship.

  Steel rasped. "Hey!" grunted one of the thugs. The aides clustering with their chief started like deer surprised at a spring; Anda looked up with a blank expression.

  Lires stepped between Anda and Sharina. He'd dropped his shield on the way, so he had a hand free to grip the priest's arm and twist it up at an angle.

  A pair of thugs started toward them. "I wouldn't!" said the Blood Eagles' officer, his sword bare in his hand.

  Lord Anda was struggling; the soldier lifted him a little higher so that his toes just touched the ground. Because of the way the priest's arm bent, if it took all his weight either his shoulder or his elbow would be dislocated.

  "Now, let me tell you how it is, master," Lires said. "This is a temple, a place of worship, so I won't shed blood here. But it you'd actuallytouched the princess instead of just looking like you meant to-"

  "But-" another soldier protested.

  "Shut up!" the lieutenant snarled.

  "-then I'd break your arm, and break the other arm; and then I'd break your legs," Lires continued in the tone of a mother chiding her newborn. "After that, well, I'd decide depending on how I was feeling at the time. Do you see?"

  "Princess Sharina…," the priest whispered. Sweat covered his brow. "I sincerely apologize if anything I said was-"

  The soldier jerked him a little higher. "The right answer is yes, priestling. Can you say yes?"

  "Yes, may the Sister take you!" Anda shouted.

  Lires flung him back. Anda stumbled and instinctively tried to put his hand down to catch himself. He screamed and collapsed on the ground.

  "Aye, She may," Lires said, clashing his spearbutt against the cobblestones. "And if She does, then I guess you and I get to meet again."

  "I have no more business here," Sharina said, wondering at how little she felt. She spun on her heel and added, "Lieutenant, we'll return to the palace now."

  "Sorry, your highness," Lires muttered from behind her as the other Blood Eagles fell in on both sides.

  "You have nothing to be sorry for, Trooper Lires," Sharina said. "I was the one who mistook this for a place of worship."

  She caught the officer's eye as she went on, "I hope you'll be a regular member of my escort in the future, Lires."

  If she let herself feel anything, then she'd fly into a screaming fury that wouldn't, that couldn't, change anything for the better. She'd go back to the palace and in a quiet corner scratch an image of the Lady on a stone wall to receive her prayers. It's what Nonnus would've done in the first place.

  Lires bent to pick up his shield. He looked back over his shoulder and said musingly, "The building kinda grows on you, though, don't it? Especially the girls on the roof."

  Sharina coughed, then began to laugh aloud. "Yes," she said. "Yes they do. Now, if we could only find some way to install the statues as priests!"

  ***

  Garric knew he was dreaming, but the scene was as real to him as memories of his life in Barca's Hamlet. The sun beat down on a grassy hillside; there was a grove of oaks on the crest, and the higher slopes in the middle distance were covered in forest.

  "Greetings, Chief Garric," called the eldest of the trio waiting for him. His name was Anda and he owned one of the larger flocks in the community. He was priest of the Lady as his father had been before him. Also as his father had done, Anda lent money on the only security poor men could provide: their bodies. All his herdsmen were bond servants, working off the debts they'd incurred. "We bid you welcome in the name of the Gods whom we serve."

  "Greetings," echoed Mistress Estanel, the butcher's wife and the priestess of the Shepherd. She looked a jolly woman, but everybody in the borough felt the rough side of her tongue on a regular basis. Her husband's business required him to make a progress of the surrounding communities. Folk believed he spent as little time at home as he could manage, a plan which all applauded. "The Gods have blessed us already with the weather they've sent for the midsummer sacrifice."

  The kid sprawling across Garric's shoulders twisted. Its fore and hind legs were tied; Garric held the hooves to keep it from kicking. Though the kid's jaws hadn't been strapped, the only sound it made was to pant through distended nostrils.

  "Greetings, Chief Garric," said Short Horan, the priest of the Sister. He had a field of barley and a nut grove, as well as being the community's thatcher. Horan roofed new-built huts and sheds and also beat old roofs firm in Spring so that they continued to shed the rains. "We're prepared for the sacrifice. Do you come with clean hands?"

  "I come with clean hands," Garric said, echoing the ritual phrase. "I bring this kid to the Gods in the name of the communities of Wastervale."

  Garric lifted the sacrifice over his head and laid it on the turf altar, then stepped back. It began to bleat. Estanel felt for a point at the back of its jaw, and pinched. The animal fell immediately silent, though its eyes spun in abject terror.

  Several hundred people stood near Garric on the hillside; some had come from more than a day's hike away. Not only was the sacrifice important for the health of crops and cattle, there would be a fair in the afternoon with mummers and peddlers from other islands. Some of those visitors watched at a little distance from the locals, remarkable for bright, outlandish clothing.

  Because this was a peaceful sacrifice, Garric carried neither his shield of seawolf hide nor his heavy, bronze-bladed spear; the knife thrust through his sash was simply a piece of male attire. His tunic had an embroidered border and his short wool cape had originally been red; it had faded to a rusty color. Because of the ceremony he wore a headdress made from tail feathers of the black sea eagle instead of his usual broad-brimmed leather hat.

  "May the Lady accept the sacrifice of our community!" Anda said. All the priests wore a fillet and sa
sh; his were yellow, the color of the Lady, made of wool dyed with the pollen washed from beehives in the Fall. Turning, he took an obsidian-bladed knife from the servant who was assisting him. The stone had a greenish cast and was almost transparent.

  "May the Shepherd bless the flocks of our community!" said Estanel, taking the kid by the muzzle. Her fillet and sash were black linen. She wore gold combs and rings set with garnets and sardonyx. The jewelry had nothing to do with the sacrifice save that it gave her an excuse to display her wealth.

  "May the Sister make the way of our community easy in the coming year!" said Short Horan, stumbling a little over the formula. He'd been chosen for the priesthood this Spring when Voder died. Usually priests were the wealthiest members of the community, but after a day of arguing by supporters of two rival landowners the assembly had finally picked Horan. Everybody liked him personally, and he was known to be devout. That was more the exception than the rule among priests, but Garric was among those who thought it was a good thing.

  Horan gripped the kid's hind legs and stretched them back. His white fillet was coming loose and he'd smudged his sash by unconsciously wiping his sweaty hands on it.

  "In the name of the community!" Anda said and expertly cut the kid's throat. Its blood fountained for a moment, soaking into the sods of the altar as part of the ritual. When the animal had bled out, two of Anda's servants carried the carcase aside to be cleaned. A pot was already heating to seethe it for the feast.

  "We give this gift to the Gods that they may look kindly on us!" Garric said. "Bless us, Lady! Bless us, Shepherd! Bless us, Sister!"

  "May the Gods bless us all for our gift!" the assembly cried, the voices echoing from the other side of the valley.

  As Anda lit the fire with a coal from the hollow gourd a servant carried, Garric felt the scene tremble away like reflections in the water when the wind rises. Sunlight slanted through shutters onto the bed. He'd been napping…

  Garric sat up abruptly. "I didn't mean to fall asleep," he muttered, angry with himself. There was so much to do, especially on the first day on another island.