Part 18 (1/2)
And then Solomon. Here she knew more. Here she knew too much. Her throat was tight by the time she finished, her words choked with sorrow.
Dindrane had sat down on the gra.s.s well before Kyria had finished, and now her face was pressed into her hands, her sobs long and deep. ”And such ... are my Deities.”
”Such,” said Kyria softly. ”And more. You felt the presence of your G.o.ds when you celebrated the Great Rite. Can you say that was nothing? And such as your deities made such as Marrha and Karthin, and Pellam and Baares and yourself. People-you, me, even Alouzon-are like the surfaces of still ponds. They mirror what lies above, and they mask what lies beneath. Can you denigrate them because they are only what they must be?”
A long pause. The moon, smiling, drifted closer to the mountains. ”I cannot.”
”Well then.”
The priestess lifted her head. ” 'Tis certain the corn must be reaped for there to be bread on the table. And trees must be stripped of their fruit before apples can come to be in bowls and pears in puddings. Our brothers and sisters of four feet and of wings kill and eat one another so that they might continue to live.”
”Sometimes it is necessary.”
” 'Tis so. I have learned that thing.” Dindrane fingered the ceremonial knife that hung from her belt. No other woman of Vaylle carried or even handled such a weapon. ”So I have lost my easy confidence in my G.o.ds, and have come instead ... to an understanding.” She let the knife fall back against her thigh. ”Tell me what you propose.”
Kyria did not look at the priestess. ”I believe that the apparition by Lake Innael was a door, a door that leads into another world. Alouzon's world.”
Dindrane was impa.s.sive.
”Alouzon is there. Wykla and Manda are there also. Tonight I intend, with your help, to find out for certain. If I am right, then there is hope for Gryylth and Vaylle.”
”And what help is it that you want of me?”
Kyria's mouth tightened with the brazen audacity of what she was about to ask: the turning of sacred concerns to utilitarian necessities. ”In the temple in Broceliande,” she said, ”you called upon the G.o.ddess to enter into your body. She did.”
Dindrane nodded. ”One with Alouzon I was for a moment. I saw through her eyes.”
”Had you ever done that before?”
”I had not. ”I was the urgency of the circ.u.mstances that made me so impertinent as to request such a thing-of Her.”
A long pause. Kyria leaned towards Dindrane, her eyes eager. ”Would you do that again?” It was not a rhetorical question. ”Would you do it now?”
Dindrane took the request calmly. For a time, she considered, then, standing, she grounded her staff, and her voice rang through the night air, echoed from the ma.s.sive, encircling stones: ”O, most gracious G.o.ddess Alouzon, descend, I pray you, into the body of your priestess . . .”
The young moon had just set when Relys awoke from nightmare, her groin aching and her teeth clenched against her screams. For a moment, she was afraid that she was back in the barracks, that her hands were still shackled, that the men of the King's Guard would return ...
She sat up, clutching her arms about herself. Her hands were free. She smelled the odors of dinner and the sea, heard the distant lap of waves. She was in Quay, in the loft of Hahle's house, as safe as she could be anywhere in Gryylth; and in the warm darkness, she waited for her heart to slow.
Beside her, Timbrin tossed and turned, a prisoner of her own frightful dreams. With a small cry, she came awake. ”Relys.” Small hands clutching frantically, she felt through the darkness for her friend.
”Here, child,” said Relys. With her good hand, she pulled Timbrin to her side and held her while she cried. ”You are safe here. Nothing will hurt you.”
Timbrin m.u.f.fled her sobs in Relys's shoulder so as not to awaken Hahle and his wife, who lay downstairs near the hearth, ”I ... I ...”
”Easy, dear lady. Did you drink that infusion the midwife brought?''
”I did not finish it.”
Relys felt for the cup. ”Finish it now. It will help your dreams, she said.” She handed it to Timbrin. The midwife. The midwife said this. The midwife said that. Disdainful of her body and its ways, Relys had eschewed any contact with the women of that profession, but now how easily and how comfortingly that word came to her lips!
Timbrin drank, set the empty cup aside. ”I am sorry, Relys.”
Relys wrapped an arm about her. ”There is nothing to be sorry about,” she said. ”You did your duty to the best of your ability, and you were wounded in so doing. Do you think the less of me because I hobble about?”
She felt Timbrin shake her head, the dark curls rustling against her bare skin. ”Nay. I think well of you.”
”And I of you.”
Relys wanted to tell Timbrin that all the women of the First Wartroop were valiant still, that her sacrifice had been a brave one; but such talk had come to frighten Timbrin, and so Relys only rubbed her back and stroked her head until the infusion took effect.
Timbrin slept. For Relys, though, sleep had fled. For a time she listened to Timbrin's even breathing, like a mother watching over her child. Then, when she was sure that her friend's nightmares had been banished, she donned a gown, climbed silently down from the loft, opened the door to the street, and slipped out.
Not wis.h.i.+ng to leave the door unbarred and unguarded while her friends slept, she went no farther than the bench before the front wall. Here, she sat down and, hugging her knees to her chest, watched the stars rise into the sky above the mountains.
What now? She and Timbrin were safe-for the time-but Gryylth lay like a dying thing, its bare fields parching slowly under the summer sun. In the last few days, Hahle and a few of his men, scouting across the mountain pa.s.ses, had found that Helwych's forces appeared to achieve no more than a scant balance of attrition with their enemies. Nothing was ever gained, nothing was ever really lost. Hills that were occupied one day were overrun the next, retaken on the morrow; and the sorcerer and his unknown adversary used their incredible forces like rushlights on a stormy night: easily squandered, easily renewed.
Only the land suffered.
In the faint light Relys lifted her right hand and examined the bandages. ”And what can such as I do?” she said. ”My warrior days are over.”
”And is war everything?” said a voice from the half-closed door.
Rely started and instinctively looked for a weapon, but there was none near her, and in any case she had no hand with which to grasp it. ”Hahle?” she said, hating the timidity that had crept into her voice.
The councilman slipped out and shut the door behind him. ”I heard you go out,” he said. ”Fear not: the guards at the perimeter keep out intruders, and, as for me . . .”He shrugged. ”I am but an old man.”
”I heard you say that once,” said Relys. ”Just before you beat a hound senseless with your stick.''
”This old dog has a few teeth left, true,” Hahle admitted. ”But I speak to rea.s.sure you, for I doubt that you are comforted much by the presence of a man.”
She fought down a shudder. ”You are a friend, Hahle. You saved our lives.”
”And you, mine,” he said. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. From the distant sh.o.r.e came the lap of waves. ”You are a lot like Marrget,” he said after a time. ”Always thinking of weapons and battles. If he . . .” He mumbled at himself for his error. ”If she had found herself unable to swing a sword, I do believe she would have pined away.”
Relys let her hand fall into her lap. ”Am I that obvious? ''
Hahle's voice-factual, sad-told her his expression. ”I know, Relys. I see and I know. Years have made me see a little deeper, that is all.”
Relys was silent for a time. Then: ”Counsel me, my friend. What shall I do with myself?”
”You are wise in your own way, Relys. You have seen much. You have led battles and slain men. And yet you care for Timbrin as though she were your daughter.”
Was that it? Was Hahle telling her now that she was good for nothing save children? Should she find a man to take her-battered and abused as she was-and get babies on her?
She turned from the thought with loathing, but another suddenly struck her, one that, because of her wounds, illness, and disdain for her s.e.x, had not surfaced before: she did not recall having bled this last month from anything save the rape.
”I myself can no longer join in the press of a battle,” the councilman was saying. ”But I can counsel others so that they might fight and live. I can rea.s.sure the wounded. I can comfort the dying.”
Relys hardly heard. She was busy calculating, counting silently on her fingers. One week, two . . . five, six . . . eight. Eight weeks and no flow. Her disdain had never affected her womanly cycles: she had been as regular as the phases of the moon since her transformation. Now, though . . .