Children of Chaos tdb-1 Page 18

  "My lord is kind," Heth muttered uncertainly.

  "All those recruits ... eager but inexperienced," the satrap mumbled. He chuckled gleefully. But he couldn't do it here, not at Nardalborg. Not one of themselves. Very bad for morale, that would be. "Tonight you may proceed as requested. I am sure Runtleader Orlad will do very well. Give all the cadets my best wishes. Dismissed."

  "My lord is kind."

  "Oh, and one other thing... When, in due course, Runtleader Orlad is initiated, as I am sure he will be... send him to me, in Tryfors."

  He heard Heth shut the door. The white blur of the Witness remained, cowering as far away from him as she could get. All those splendid young new warriors! Before sending them off to battle, it would be only fair to give them some practice in running down Florengian Werists.

  sixteen

  FRENA WIGSON

  spent another day in a blur of preparations for her dedication banquet. Replies to the invitations came flooding in—not that baked clay tablets could flood, but many of the responses were brought by runners, leggy youngsters capable of reciting astonishingly long messages verbatim. They did not exactly flood either, but they did trickle sweat onto floor tiles, for the rain had stopped and the heat was more insufferable than ever.

  Food was arriving on groaning oxcarts. The beer was brewing, filling the entire residence with heady odors of yeast. Still more decisions had to be squeezed in between dress fittings and the uncountable little crises that ran everywhere like arpeggios on a dulcimer. Horth was nowhere to be seen. Although his days were always devoted to business, when Frena was at home he usually managed to share a meal with her—nibbling barley cakes and sipping ibex milk while she, like as not, gorged on goose in ginger or trout stuffed with oysters. That day she dined alone, while Vignor the storyteller chanted some of his ancient tales to keep her from brooding. She saw Master Pukar just once, in passing. He smiled and bowed. She nodded and swept on by. She would sooner trust a fireasp.

  Still, every day ends. The time came when she could bolt the door on Inga and Lilin and the rest, on her father and his staff, on Pukar and the world. Exhausted, she rolled herself out like dough on her sleeping platform and closed her eyes. At that point the Problem leaped at her like a starving catbear.

  The mother she had loved had belonged to the Old One and she herself had been promised to that goddess. Even without the previous night's vision, it should have been obvious that only divine aid could have brought a tiny baby through the Edgelands alive. For Paola's sake, Frena should honor that promise and make her dedication to Xaran, not the Twelve. But how could she manage it, and with so little time? Obviously her prayer had been heard. She had been shown the past. Tonight she must ask for guidance for the immediate future. Exhausted though she was, she had no trouble staying awake until the household slept.

  Muffled in a dark robe, she felt safely invisible as she crept along the corridor on her pilgrimage. Her father was still at work, a sliver of light showing under his door. When she reached the archway out to the grass, she stopped to listen. Very far away she could hear the inevitable mating cats, yapping dogs, and drunken revelry from the sailors' hostels in Fishgut Alley. The house itself was a tomb. Bad thought! The stars that shone just now above Kyrn—the Wagon, Graben's Sword, Ishrop, and Ishniar—were almost never visible in muggy, canyon-bound Skjar. But nothing stirred nearby, and she had no excuse not to proceed.

  She hurried through the gardens to the grave. She was of two minds about stripping, but in the end it seemed wisest not to dirty her robe, so she removed it and hung it on a branch. The cut on her shoulder had scabbed over, but she found a sharp flake—probably builders' marble—and scratched out a few drops of blood.

  "Mother?" Feeling absurd whispering to earthworms, she was hard to remember how serious this was. There was none of the presence she had felt before. Last night had been mystery and sanctity. Tonight was pure farce. "Mother... Xaran ..." She had never spoken that name aloud before. It sent such a thrill of fear through her that, stubbornly, she repeated it.

  "Most Holy Xaran, I will swear fealty to You at Your holy place if You will guide me. I will swear by blood and birth; death and the cold earth, if only You will show me how."

  Somehow an appeal to Paola Apicella had become a prayer to the Mother of Lies, but there was no perceptible answer. Eventually Frena rose and returned to her room, feeling rather sheepish and reminding herself that the Old One spoke to her children in dreams. There might yet be an answer.

  ♦

  Paola Apicella wore the chill of the night like a cloak of ice, but that was mostly because she was still so weak. She could not lift a full spadeful of dirt, only spoonfuls, and she could not have dug at all had the soil not been so loose. She shivered in the wind. The spade made tiny shuff... shuff... noises. She had come all alone, because the others would not have let her come at all, and they would not have known the right place to dig. She had let the Mother guide her, so she was sure.

  Shuff ... shuff ... the air smelled of decay and death.

  She had gone into labor just as the ice devils started driving off the herds and the men ran out to stop them. By the time her water broke, the men were all dead. By the time the long labor was over, the women and boys had finished burying them ... here, in a mass grave.

  Shuff... shuff... They had told her the babe would not live, she should not name him. But she had named him after his father. She wanted him so much, and she had tried so hard. He had struggled, been a fighter, but it had done no good. The Mother had taken him back. Praise the Mother.

  Shuff... The spade struck something soft, not a rock. Stavan's arm, perhaps. The hole was not very deep, but it would have to do. She paused to catch her breath, wipe her forehead. She was cold and yet sweating. She must finish this quickly.

  She took up the little bundle, little Stav, unwrapped him enough for a last kiss, and then she knelt and laid him in his father's arms. She spoke a prayer to the Old One that She might care for them both. Then Paola filled in the hole and went back across the field to the village.

  ♦

  The cottage was cold. She was hungry, for the outlanders had stripped the village of everything edible, even the dogs. She curled up on the that in the blanket that still bore Stavan's familiar scent. Her breasts ached with milk. No food in the village, no men, but that was not her concern. She was beyond caring.

  She must have slept then, because she was awakened by deep male voices shouting in some unknown tongue. So the ice devils must have returned. They could not be looking for food this time.

  Screaming, then more shouting, then the door of the hut being kicked open, flaming torches streaming fire in the dark... She cowered back in the far corner of her bedding, not afraid, just too hungry to care, too bereft. They yelled at her in their guttural tongue, then a smaller man spoke at her in Florengian with a twisted accent, talking about babies, about food.

  ♦

  It had been a rich man's house, for it had stone walls, tiled floors, and solid furniture, but now it reeked of the ice devils, that repellent stink, half animal, half unwashed man. They put Paola in a room to wait, but there was a fire for light and warmth—hunger had made her so cold!—and one of them came back and thrust a bowl of gruel at her. She scooped it up with fingers and gulped it down, almost choking; it was lifesaving.

  Then a woman screamed, angry male voices rumbled, more torches with oily flames poured into the room. Behind them came a man half naked, carrying a small package. He thrust it at Paola, almost threw it at her. Its shrill wails brought back the pain in her breasts. She pulled up her smock at once and put the babe to suck. The crying stopped and ripples of joy flowed through her. Not little Stav, but someone to love, to live for, to take her milk. Boy or girl? She had not thought to look.

  She looked up and saw the woman in the doorway, staring. She was a Florengian, with milk-swollen breasts visible through a badly ripped dress. One side of her face was red and puffed; eye swelling, li
ps bruised, hair torn. The man barked something impatiently. He had bloody scratches near his eyes. She started forward, he caught her arm. Was she the mother or just another wet nurse now wanted for other duties?

  The girl lifted her smock to let the woman see the babe sucking, and smiled to say that she would love and cherish it, be it boy or girl. For a moment they stared at each other, and then the woman's spirit seemed to crumble. She nodded resignedly. The man snarled and thrust her out the door ahead of him, impatient to do what he wanted; she went in silence, resisting no more. All that mattered was that the ice devils had given Paola a child to feed, so they would have to feed her also.

  Praise the Old One, who had answered her prayer!

  seventeen

  BENARD CELEBRE

  was already hammering marble when the priests began their morning psalms. That was the last possible moment he could leave if he was to reach the palace at sunrise; keeping a Werist waiting was a sure road to unhappiness. Reluctantly he tossed maul and chisel into the shed, exchanged his smock for the new secondhand loincloth he had purchased with the copper Ingeld had given him, absentmindedly wiped his hands on it, weighted down the drape with the chunks of rock he used for that purpose, and set off at a trot.

  In Benard's absence, Thod was supposed to help Sugthar the potter, which meant he would mostly ogle his adored Thilia.

  Satrap Horold's orders that Benard visit the Whiterim quarry had seemed like deliverance from certain death at the time, but there had been no signs of Cutrath since then, so the matter no longer felt urgent. In fact, the trip was unnecessary. He could tell the priests what he needed and they would send word to the quarry master to cut the block and deliver it on the next spring flood.

  Furthermore, Benard had started work on the third block of marble. If it could not be holy Weru, it must serve for another god. No sooner thought than realized—he had hardly begun to consider the matter when holy Anziel flooded him with inspiration. Never had he felt Her divine fire so strongly, as if the stone had become transparent and he saw the goddess Herself standing inside it, looking just as he had seen Hiddi that night at the temple. Without models or sketches or even guidelines on the block, he started cutting away everything that was not Hiddi to expose his statue of Anziel. Already he had the rough shape outlined. To leave it like that was agony; he was going to be thoroughly miserable every minute he was away from his work.

  ♦

  Having gone around the long way rather than cut through the palace, he arrived breathless at the stable yard. Even there he kept a wary eye open for Werists, for they would not consider mere toe-tramping or sucker-punching covered by Horold's edict against violence.

  A car and team stood ready, with the onagers being comforted by a young Nastrarian; their eyes were closed and the long ears drooped in bliss. The standard, workaday chariot was merely a battered wicker box on two wheels, lacking the fancy trimmings and webbed floor of vehicles driven by people like Ingeld. Benard had been taken on four chariot trips in his life and been sick to his stomach on all of them. The inside was already crowded with somebody's personal bindle and two plump wineskins. Wine could only mean that his driver and custodian was to be Flankleader Guthlagson, who seemed an odd choice, but would be more pleasant company than any other Werist. Being no admirer of the satrap's son, he had practically congratulated Benard on humiliating the lout so epochally.

  Benard climbed in and sat on the bindle to think about Hiddi—Hiddi the statue, not the flesh-and-blood one, whom he had not seen since their first meeting. He had decided to show her with her chin a little higher than she had held it when she posed for him at the temple. This would produce minor changes in her neck, and...

  Old Guthlag came hobbling across the yard, his pall already rumpled. Beside him trudged a hulking Werist cadet carrying a leather bag. Benard stood up. The hunk said "Here!" and swung the bag up to him, but the artist's eye had noted how far the titan had been tilted as he walked and how much effort was needed to lob that load. Benard caught it with both hands and against his thighs instead of where it had been aimed, so he did not drop it and it did not disable him. The chariot rocked, provoking snorts of protests from both onagers and Nastrarian. The Werist had the grace to look impressed as well as disappointed.

  Benard lowered the bag to the floor. It chinked. What in the world did they need so much gold for?

  Guthlag said, "Ready?"

  "Ready, lord."

  "No baggage?"

  Benard just shook his head. He gave the old man a surreptitious hand up, gripping his wrist and not his arthritic fingers. He was surprised to find himself on the left side.

  "You expect me to drive? Lady Ingeld used to say it would be easier to teach onagers to paint. The only time she ever let me try by myself, I nearly tipped the car over. Wow! You 're going to let me drive?"

  "Boy, it's time you grew up!" The growl came in a gale of beer fumes. Beer was the old man's usual tipple, but beer could not be transported in chariots. Neither the beer itself nor the crocks would stand the bouncing. It was a surprise that Guthlag thought he could.

  "Yes, lord. Right away." Benard unwound the reins, remembered to check that the brake was up (handle down, remember!), took a firm grip on the rail, and yelled "Ready!" at the Nastrarian. Reluctantly the youth returned to the world of people and stepped aside, withdrawing both himself and his god's blessing. The long ears shot up. With angry brays, the brutes lurched forward against the neck straps. The chariot hurtled along the yard, heading straight for the far wall, where each brainless ass would inevitably try to turn outward and create complete disaster. A pull on the right-hand onager's reins—a stronger pull—brought the car around in a death-defying U-turn. As it settled back on both wheels, Benard aimed the team at the gate and resisted an urge to close his eyes.

  Out in the alley, he could do little more than hang on as they careered down the long, winding slope to the river, through crowds, carts, wagons, and carrying chairs. Guthlag blew long warning yodels on the bull's horn. Pedestrians and livestock leaped aside, howling curses and choking in the roiling clouds of red dust.

  "Which way?" Benard yelled.

  Guthlag stopped bugling long enough to snap, "Left!"

  Left it was. They veered madly around an oxcart, and after that life became a little simpler. True, it was there, where land and water met, that the main business of the city was conducted. Being both quay and road, the levee teemed with people buying and selling, loading and unloading, coming and going. Porters toiled like ants under seemingly impossible burdens; wagons rumbled between high piles of wares and gaudy market stalls. The wealthy rode by in carrying chairs or chariots, whose drivers screamed and cracked whips at the mob, yet went no faster because of it. But at least there was space enough to dodge and no wall for an incompetent driver to butter bystanders against.

  "There!" Guthlag said as they swept out of town. "That wasn't hard, was it?"

  "I'd rather chisel marble," Benard muttered under his breath, but he did feel pleased with himself. Heading upstream with the wind in his hair and the sun in his eyes, he even began to enjoy life. The traffic was light, just the occasional wagon or chariot, and his onagers had lost their first furious speed. On the rutted track the car bounced. And bounced. And bounced. It also swayed, pitched, and rocked. The trick was to keep one's knees slightly bent, so they said.

  Hard as it was on him, it was much harder on Guthlag. The rheumatic old warrior clutched the rail with hands all knobbly and twisted. His brass collar bounced up and down his scraggly neck, his face repeatedly twisted with pain.

  Benard eased back on the reins, and the winded onagers condescended to slow to a trot. "How far to Whiterim?"

  " 'Bout a menzil."

  A chariot should get there before noon. "Do we go through any interesting places?"

  The Werist opened his eyes, the better to scowl with. "Only place on the plain that's interesting is Kosord—an' even that's half a finger from boredom."

&n
bsp; "How about Umthord? Isn't that where holy Sinura's sanctuary is?"

  "What if it is?" the old man snarled. "Heroes have no truck with Healers, nor them with us. Stop. Need a drink."

  Discard first theory—despite his grotesquely swollen joints, Guthlag had not been sent along on this expedition so he could seek a healing in the famous sanctuary. So why so much gold?

  The onagers did stop on Benard's signal, much to his surprise. Giving the old man the reins to hold, he knelt to untie a wineskin. Guthlag took a very long drink.

  The sun was brutal already, the long baking of summer that ripened crops. The clouds impressed Benard—innumerable little puffy clouds scattered like grain on a slate and extending forever. Landscape was soon obstructed by hedges or houses or something, but that heavenly ceiling stretched on in all directions until it was lost in the haze of the wall of the world. To his right flowed the river, which was another and far greater highway, coils of ochre-colored oil peppered with three-cornered sails in red-browns. In the other direction lay endless green spreads of growing grain mottled with silver ponds.

  "What'ch waitin' for, boy? Drive on, an' stop daydreaming."

  "Yes, lord. Giddyup!" Benard slapped the onagers with the reins.

  "You got the brake down."

  Ah, yes...

  ♦

  After a long period of bouncing, Benard said, "Any word of Cutrath?"

  Guthlag cackled. "Pimple's still in the sweatbox. You miss him?"

  "No. Who does?"

  "No one I know of."

  "So you don't think I'm in any danger?"

  "Arr! Didn't say that. You're in plenty danger."

  "Even after what the satrap said?"

  "Hope so," the old man said grumpily. "Honor of the host's at stake. Course, it'll take some planning. Anything happens to you, then Horold'll have to ask a seer who dun't, right? Means the pimple wouldn't dare do anything himself, 'cause he knows his daddy'll beat him bloody for disobeying. No local Hero will, for same reason. But a twist of copper in a beer house can buy all the thugs you want, and there's Heroes coming through town all the time, heading for the Edge. Uphold the honor of the cult, see? By morning the culprits are long gone and you're feeding the eels."