by Dave Duncan
"Blood, of course,” Edward muttered, “but it would be more fitting to have brought something tangible in this case, I think...."
Alice decided that blood sacrifice was out of the question. She could not possibly summon up enough faith ... which was the whole point, presumably. Half a crown in the plate was as far as she would go for a pre-Christian woodland numen.
Mrs. Bodgley sailed back in majestically. “I presume you can deliver an offering from me, on your behalf?” She might have been referring to the church jumble sale.
"Certainly."
"Then take this to your, ah, associate.” She handed Edward a small silver tankard. “Timothy's christening mug. As a token of my gratitude for his helping my son's friend. And this ... I gave you this once, so it is yours, but it still has Timothy's name on the flyleaf and Inspector Leatherdale returned it to me. It has no real value, yet I expect it could be termed significant under the circumstances."
Edward took the book and glanced at the title. Then he blinked several times and swallowed, at a loss for words. Eventually he mumbled, “Thank you very much. It's a wonderful choice."
Alice looked away. Probably they all did, for nobody said any more. The English were never very good at dealing with emotion.
It was indeed a lovely day. Mr. Glossop's bicycle was Jacobean, or even Elizabethan, with a pedal brake and a flint saddle; but it worked. Despite a niggling worry that her skirts would catch in the chain, Alice realized that she was going to enjoy this outing. Three days ago she had believed her cousin dead, and here she was cycling along a country lane with him, under beeches and elms just starting to blush with autumn. Wild roses and chestnut trees were laden with fruit.
In the Grange park, the sheep had been herded aside, and the convalescents were indulging in a strange sort of cricket match. With half the players in bandages or even casts, the rules must have been specially devised. She turned her mind from them; she wanted to forget the war today.
"England!” Edward sighed.
"Are the Vales comparable?"
He pulled a face, as if that was the problem he wanted to forget, but he answered. “Not many. Thargland comes close. The colors! I suppose a blue and purple forest sounds grotesque, but it has its own beauty."
A hill intervened then, and they concentrated on pedaling. As they started downhill, Alice put her doubts into words.
"Edward? This is fun. I am enjoying it, but are you seriously promising to introduce me to a genuine woodland spirit? Human originally but from another world and endowed with magical powers? Centuries old? I must admit—"
"No. Probably not. If we went at night, perhaps, but he's very shy. I don't think he'll appear in ."
That was a relief. “So what are you hoping to achieve? What will you do, actually?"
"Pray,” he said solemnly. “Thank him again for what he did for me three years ago. Leave the offerings, explain that I need to send a message to Head Office. Tell him the message, probably, and just ask him to pass it on. That's all."
Even that sounded weird. With almost anyone else, she would have wondered about sanity; she would have suspected obsessions or just tomfoolery, but Edward had never been a leg-puller. Even as a boy, he had been trustworthy.
"So how will you know if you've been heard?"
"I think I'll know."
And then he would set off to wangle his way into the Army! She did not want to think about that. Why fight for a homeland that wanted to hang you? A hay wagon loomed in the road ahead, rumbling along behind a solitary horse. They pulled out to pass it and started up another slope. On either hand the fields were golden.
"You can't predict strangers,” Edward said. “They don't face early death as we do. Their viewpoint is so different...."
"How many have you met?” she asked. “Just Puck in this world, but how many on Nextdoor?"
"Four or five. That's if you don't count the Service people, of course. Most of them haven't been strangers long enough to lose their humanity. They're communal, too. That helps. The god types are solitary."
"Skulking on their nodes like spiders in a web?"
"Exactly! Well put. Mad as March hares, a lot of ‘em. But charming! They all have charisma, you see, so you can't ever dislike them."
He frowned at some memory or other and fell silent.
She prompted. “Tion and the herder one?"
"Tion and Krobidirkin. Then Prylis—delightful, entertaining, and a thoroughgoing rotter!"
Intrigued, Alice said, “In what way?"
Edward pedaled in sulky silence for a while. “I suppose I shouldn't judge him,” he said—but so reluctantly that he obviously did. “He was just playing the Great Game as he thought it should be played, and he did save my life because of it. A real Zath hater."
More silence.
"Tell me about him."
"Prylis? He's one of Tion's minions, god of learning. Originally he was from somewhere in Macedonia, I think. Don't know exactly when. His ideas of history and geography never seemed to match mine. He was delighted to have a visitor from his old world, more or less. The last one had brought him up to date with current affairs at the time of Charlemagne. We talked in a wild mixture of Greek and Thargian and Joalian, but his Joalian was centuries old, and whenever he got excited his Macedonian and Thargian accents combined to make him completely incomprehensible. He had more books than the British Museum."
It was not like Edward to hold a grudge, and he was not explaining this one.
"He sounds no worse than eccentric."
"Oh, he was personable enough—and knowledgeable, as you'd expect in a god of learning. He showed me maps of the Vales, he talked of the lands outside—deserts to the southeast and Fashranpil, the Great Ice, to the north. There are jungles west and south, with travelers bringing back tantalizing hints of salt water beyond, but even Prylis can't tell if it's an ocean or a closed sea. There's a trickle of trade goods coming across the desert: sapphires and spices, carved onyx and amber, but nobody knows who or where they come from.
"He spilled out centuries of history for me, biographies of gods, legends and beliefs, great poets and great art, politics and customs. I learned more about the Vales in those two days than I had in the previous year. Just about anything I wanted to know he could tell me ... except where Olympus was, oddly enough. The Service wasn't in his books and didn't interest him. Reforms had been tried before, he said, and he quoted some examples, but whenever they became a serious nuisance the Five just took them over or stamped them out. But the quirks of the Vales and the vagaries of its peoples ... anything I wanted to ask he would answer. Thargvale wasn't such a crazy place to put a temple of learning as it seemed. Thargians are Philistines who care about little except war, but they're usually strong enough to keep the war in other people's vales. Prylis had been left undisturbed for centuries. By arriving with an army, I'd earned a spot in the history books already, just out of ignorance. Lovers of learning shouldn't mind the pilgrimage to his digs anyway, he said, which was true enough. He did have humor! We sat up all the first night, talked all day, two days. He charmed me, beguiled me."
Edward scowled darkly. “He kept me from my duty."
Ah! That was the crime he could not forgive.
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43
BEING TOUGH HAD ITS LIMITS AND DOSH HAD REACHED THEM. HE HAD reached them once or twice before in his life, but never so convincingly. Dibber Troopleader and his sadists had enjoyed themselves very expertly under the guise of questioning him, and then the ride on the moa had completed the job. He remembered bringing D'ward to the temple, but that fulfillment had released the compulsion the god had put on him. After that, not much registered for a while.
He could recall being carried somewhere and laid on a bed. A wizened old man who must have been the house leech had tended him, strapping up his broken ribs, poulticing his well-kicked knees, salving his abrasions, dosing him with sour-tasting potions to ease the agony in his belly
. Mercifully, he had slept after that.
He had awakened in confusion and a great deal of pain. Sunlight trickling through a high grating had revealed rough stone walls, bare floor, and a few dry sticks of furniture. For a long time Dosh had just lain on the boardlike bed, not daring to move a single tortured muscle and unable to hazard a guess as to where he was. Then the old man had come back and insisted on fussing with bandages; but after that he had spooned warm broth into the patient, which had been welcome. The man's yellow robe had reminded Dosh of where he was, but he had asked no questions. He was too weak to do anything about the answers.
He had slept again, wakened in darkness, slept more.
The next time he was conscious, a boy was standing over him, frowning. Good-looking lad, er, lass. It was Ysian in a skimpy tunic, standard male attire in Thargland. Women wore long skirts, which in Ysian's case would be a shame.
"Good morning,” he muttered. His lips hurt. Everything hurt. He was afraid if he moved a finger he would start having cramps, and that would be disaster.
"It's afternoon."
"How long have we been here?"
"All yesterday."
"What's Ksargirk Captain doing?” A good commander always thinks of his men, especially Progyurg Lancer.
"They've all gone. The abbot sent them away."
"What right does he have?"
"He said the god told him to."
"Oh. Where's D'ward?"
"I don't know! He went through that door and disappeared. The abbot says he is with the god and not to worry."
Obviously she was worrying, though. The army would be a long way off by now, and the moas gone. Didn't matter about the army, Dosh thought. Much safer away from the army. His job was to keep watch on the Liberator, not the army.
In a startling flash, he remembered that his job was over. He was no longer bound to report to Tion, that unspeakable ... Words failed him, thoughts failed him, hatred choked him when he tried to think of Tion. Prylis had removed Tion's binding. So Dosh was a free man again, for as long as he could stay out of the god's clutches. He had never been a free man before. Was he free now, for the first time in his life? The Liberator...
"What's wrong?” Ysian demanded.
"Not much, except I'm one big bruise. I have to get up. Don't be alarmed if I scream."
"I'll help you."
"I'd rather do it at my own speed.” He flexed an arm. Ouch! “So are you having fun?"
"What does that mean?” she snapped.
"You're the only woman in the place, aren't you?"
"Sh! I told them my name was Tysian. They think I'm a boy."
He tried the other arm. Worse. “Do they? Do they really?” Could even monks be in doubt about those legs?
"Well, I think one or two suspect, but they're very kind."
"Mm? Found any good-looking young novices?"
Ysian said, “Oh, you're horrible! Don't you ever think of anything else?"
"Not unless I have to. Have you even looked?"
Without a word, she spun around and left. She slammed the door behind her.
Pity. He had been going to ask her to send them his way.
Ironically, the young novice who came to feed the invalid shortly thereafter was a very good-looking youth indeed, which was not unexpected in a devotee of Tion's. He showed no personal interest in Dosh, and while teasing Ysian was possible, Dosh in his present condition dared not venture advances that might be taken seriously. He felt quite disappointed in himself. He dozed off the moment he finished the meal.
The ensuing night was long, broken by sleepy thinking-times into several nights, end to end. He thought a lot about this strange notion of freedom and what it might be good for. He had had many masters before Tion—mortals all, but masters—plus a very few mistresses. He must have been about ten or so when his father sold him to Kramthin Clockmaker. He could still recall his joy when he learned that he would be able to stay in Kramthin's warm, comfortable house, eating fine food, never being hungry. What Kramthin had required of him in return had been much less unpleasant than his father's drunken beatings. Kramthin had been the first. Dosh had been traded a few times and then decided to handle his own affairs thereafter. Whenever he had tired of one master, he had just run away and found another. They had not owned him in law, for only Thargia of all the lands in the Vales permitted slavery, and he had stayed away from Thargland until now. They had not bound him as Tion had. He had bound himself to them voluntarily, for food and shelter and affection.
The last of his masters, Prithose Connoisseur, had gone visiting Suss to enjoy the artistic offerings at Tion's Festival. He had entered Dosh in the contest for the gold rose, much as a breeder might enter livestock in a show. Dosh had been seventeen. He had won the prize easily and apparently that prize had made him Tion's own prize. Three years missing ... What had he been during those three years? Servant? Plaything? Wallpaper?
Prylis had broken Tion's spell. Would he impose one of his own, and turn Dosh into a monk, copying manuscripts to the end of his days? Would he return him to Tion? Or was Dosh now a free man for the first time in his life? Could he survive without a master?
At some later point in the night, his mind returned to the problem. All men but kings served other men, for that was the way of the world. The talent that had supported him until had become a doubtful commodity when Tarion ripped up his face. Copy manuscripts? Dig and reap?
Chastity or monogamy? Fun though lechery undoubtedly was, it had brought him more than his share of grief. D'ward seemed to get by without it at all. That was going too far in the opposite direction, much too far, but perhaps Dosh ought to introduce a little moderation into his life.
Who—him? Honest labor? Nothing like a few aches to bring on repentance, he decided. In a day or two he would be his old self. He went back to sleep.
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44
THE NEXT TIME HE AWOKE THERE WAS LIGHT BEHIND THE GRATING and birds were creating a damnable racket outside. Dawn. What morning? It had been Heelday when he first came to the monastery. Had it been Ankleday when Ysian came? This must be Shinday at the least. The army was either well out of Thargland by now or all dead. If the gods dispensed justice, though, ex-troopleader Dibber and his bullyboys were just settling in to a long, hard lifetime in the silver mines.
Dosh stretched. He sat up with a jerk. He fingered his ribs and detected only a trace of soreness under the bandages. He pulled down the blanket and looked at his knees. Not a mark. Not one bruise on him. His fingertips went to his face. It was smooth.
He leaned his chin on his arms and pondered. In among the litter of forgotten dreams, he found vague memories of voices in the night. Two men? He was able to raise no details, but he knew who one of them must have been, and could guess at the other. Well! So what about breakfast?
He swung his feet to the floor and saw that someone had been leaving him presents: on the solitary chair lay a brown Thargian tunic, a sword, sandals, a belt pouch with an intriguing jingle. The sword annoyed him, but he knew that Thargian law required freemen to go armed. He had no skill or experience with a sword. His weapon of choice was the concealed knife. He was quite good with that.
He had just finished counting the money—sixteen silver marks—when the door creaked open and a Thargian stalked in. No, it was D'ward, with his face clean shaven and his hair cut short, wearing a tunic and a sword. He even had the mean Thargian scowl—or at least an icy glitter in his eyes. When he saw that Dosh was awake, it thawed a little.
"Sleep well? Feeling better?"
"Did you come calling in the night?"
"Yes."
"With a friend?"
The angry glint returned. “You could call him that. I ... He paid you for services rendered."
"I'd better go and thank him, I suppose."
"I suppose so too, but don't make an epic of it. Some merchant's just donated a very rare book to the temple, so the god is undoubtedly too engrosse
d to hear you. We're not wanted in the refectory for the same reason—the abbot's entertaining the wealthy gent, trying to squeeze an endowment out of him to enlarge the scriptorium. There's grub in the kitchens, cold water in the washhouse. You'd better shave off your beard if you want to pass as a local. Prylis removed your scars. I expect you'll want to thank him for that, too.” He turned to the door.
Too much too soon! “Wait a minute!” Dosh caught his breath. It sounded as if D'ward was extremely knowledgeable about the workings of the monastery and the habits of the resident deity. What had been happening? “Where are we going?"
D'ward drummed fingers on the door before he looked around. “I know where I'm going. You can please your own sweet self, as far as I care. Pick a direction and start walking. If you want to come with me, we can chat on the way, but I won't loiter. I plan to eat on the hoof."
Dosh bit back a snappy retort and asked, “Any news of the army?"
"Yes."
"Well?” What was gnawing at the Liberator? Dosh had never known him to be crabby before.
"They're safe."
"Safe!?"
"I'll tell you later. Jump to it!” D'ward pulled the door open.
"Wait!"
He looked back with a glare. “Now what?"
Dosh smiled cherubically. “Has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful legs?"
D'ward could slam a door even louder than Ysian.
Chewing on hard bread and hunks of cheese, three wayfarers strode along the track in the dewy dawn. D'ward was in the middle, setting a murderous pace with his (beautiful) long legs. Despite his considerable handicap in height, Dosh was prepared to take him on at distance sprinting any day, but Ysian was struggling to keep up. To look at, they were a trio of young men, with no packs, one long dagger, two swords, three money pouches. Dosh still had his favorite knife, which didn't show. All in all, Holy Prylis had done them proud.
Apparently the war was over, at least so far as they were concerned. The future shone much brighter without a massacre in it. There seemed no obvious explanation for D'ward's vile mood, unless he was concerned about getting safely out of Thargvale, which certainly might pose problems. By law, strangers were spies unless they could prove otherwise.
