Part 4 (2/2)

”They live wild in the mountains. Once in a while, when they get hungry, they come in. They wors.h.i.+p the sun, and any man they can manage to capture they sacrifice. They believe that they alone keep Old Sun alive.” Halk laughed. ”Look at the greedy beasts! They'd like to have all of us.”

Arms like gnarled branches reached and clawed.

”They will die, little sisters,” said Mordach. ”They will all feed Old Sun, and you shall watch and sing the Hymn of Life.”

Gently he urged them back, and reluctantly they returned to the crowd. All at once Stark heard a shouting and a turmoil about the doors of one of the buildings overlooking the square, and a procession moved out from it with the green Wandsmen leading and a fringe of Farers flapping at the sides and rear. At the center, Stark made out a dozen or so men and women in sober gowns, with chains of office round their necks. They walked in an odd manner, and as they came closer he could see that they were bound in such a way as forced them to bend forward and shuffle like penitents.

A low deep groan came from the people of Irnan, and Yarrod said between his teeth, ”Our chiefs and elders.”

Stark thought he saw the beginning of movement among the Irnanese, and he hoped they would rush the crowd and rescue their leaders by force, starting a general revolt. The movement rippled and died. The procession came to the steps and climbed haltingly while the mob jeered. The elders were herded onto the platform and made to stand, and Mordach pointed his staff at them in a gesture of wrath and accusation.

”You have done wickedness,” he cried, in a voice that rang across the square. ”Now you shall do penance!”

The crowd screamed. They threw things. The citizens of Irnan stirred uneasily. They muttered, but still they did not move.

”They're afraid,” Yarrod said. ”The Wandsmen have packed the town with Farers, as you see. One word, and they'll start tearing Irnan apart stone by stone.”

”Still, the Irnanese outnumber them.”

”Our party does not. And the Wandsmen have hostages.” He nodded his red head at the men and women standing bent in the sun.

There was a smell in the air now. The hot, close, frightening smell of mob; mob excited, hungry, dreaming blood and death. The primitive in Stark knew that sweaty acridity all too well. The ropes cut him; the post was hard against his back. The ginger star burned him with bra.s.sy light and his own sweat ran down.

Someone shouted, ”Where is the wise woman?”

Other voices took up the cry, howled it back and forth between the gray walls.

”Where is the wise woman? Where is Gerrith?”

Mordach calmed them. ”She has been sent for. She will be with us soon.”

Yarrod cursed Mordach. ”Do you plan to murder her as you did her mother?”

Mordach only smiled and said, ”Wait.”

They waited. The crowd became increasingly restless. Roving bands began looting the market stalls, scattering food and produce, smas.h.i.+ng the stalls themselves to make clubs. Wine and drugs pa.s.sed freely. Stark wondered how much longer Mordach could hold them.

Then the cry went up from the gate. ”The wise woman! Gerrith is coming!”

An expectant quiet settled over the square. The hundreds of heads turned, and it seemed as though the Irnanese all drew one deep breath and held it.

Men-at-arms appeared, clearing a way through the press. Behind them came a cart, a farm cart soiled and reeking with the work of the fields, and after that more men-at-arms bringing up the rear.

Inside the cart were two Wandsmen, each one clinging with one hand to the jolting stakes and holding with the other the tall figure of a woman who stood between them.

8.

She was dressed all in black, in a great veil that enveloped her from head to heels, a single shroud-like garment that concealed her face and all else beside her height. Set upon her head and circling the veil was a diadem the color of old ivory.

”The Robe and Crown of Fate,” said Yarrod, and the folk of Irnan let out that held breath in a savage wail of protest.

The mob drowned it in their own blood-cry.

Men-at-arms and farm cart crossed the square, halted at the platform steps. The woman was made to leave the cart and climb. The diadem appeared first above the level of the floor. It looked very frail and old, and its ornament was a circle of little grinning skulls. Then there was the sway of dark draperies, and Gerrith, the wise woman of Irnan, stood before Mordach with the Wandsmen on either side.

Because of the veil Stark could not be sure, but he thought that Gerrith was looking past Mordach, straight at him.

Yet she spoke to Mordach, and her voice was clear and sweet and ringing, without a hint of fear.

”This was not well done, Mordach.”

”No?” he said. ”Let us see.” He turned from her, speaking over the heads of his Farers to the people of Irnan. His voice carried to the walls. ”You of Irnan! Watch now, and learn!”

He turned again to Gerrith and pointed his wand at Stark. ”What do you see there, daughter of Gerrith?”

”I see the Dark Man.”

”The Dark Man of your mother's prophecy?”

”Yes.”

Well, thought Stark, and what else could she say?

”The Dark Man, bound and helpless, waiting for death.” Mordach laughed. He laughed often, as though he found these human lapses from reason genuinely amusing. ”He will destroy nothing. Do you recant, woman? Do you admit the lie?”

”No.”

”Then you are no wiser than your mother, and your sight is no more true. Do you hear out there, you of Irnan?” Again his words carried far, and where they did not reach other tongues took them up and pa.s.sed them on, whispering like surf against the walls, up to the windows and the rooftops. ”Your prophecy is false, your wise woman a liar, your Dark Man a sham!”

In one swift motion he ripped crown and veil from Gerrith.

Astonishment, surprise, shock, outrage! Stark could hear the sounds beyond the delighted screaming of the mob. Halk, Yarrod, and the other Irnanese on the platform made instinctive, futile movements toward the killing of Mordach.

Only Gerrith stood tall and calm, as though she had expected this. As indeed she must have done, thought Stark, unless the wise women of Irnan habitually went naked beneath the ceremonial veil. And naked she was, all warm bronze with the sunlight on her and a thick braid of bronzy hair hanging down her back. Her body was strong and straight and proud, not flinching before the lewdness of the crowd. Nudity was commonplace on Skaith and hardly to be noticed, but this was different. This act was a stripping of more than the mere body. Mordach was attempting to strip her soul.

He tossed the black veil out to the mob and let them tear it. The diadem he smashed beneath his feet and kicked the old yellowed fragments contemptuously away.

”There are your robe and crown,” he said. ”We will have no more wise women at Irnan.”

This, too, she had expected. But her eyes held a cold and terrible light.

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