“Mim,” said Hef. “Lord Kurt, what has happened? Where is Mim?”
“Not—not here?”
“No. We thought at least—whatever had happened—you were together.”
Kurt caught his breath with a choking swallow of air and pushed himself square on his feet. “Call Kta.”
“He is out with Ian t’Ilev and Val t’Ran, searching for you both.
Ai,
my lord, what can we do? I will call Nym—”
“Tell Nym—tell Nym I have gone to get the Methi’s help. Give me a weapon,—anything—”
“I cannot, my lord, I cannot. My orders forbid—”
Kurt swore and jerked the door open again, ran for the street and the Afen gate.
When he reached the Afen wall, the great gates were closed and the wall-street that led to the temple compound was crowded with Sufaki—drunken, most of them. Kurt leaned on the bars and shouted for the guards to hear him and open them, but his voice was lost in the noise of the crowds, with all Sufak Nephane gathered into that square down the street and spilling over into the wall-street. Some, drunker than the rest, began also to shake at the bars of the gates to try to raise the guards. If there were any on duty to hear, they ignored the uproar.
Kurt caught his breath, exhausted, far from help of Kta or Djan. Then he remembered the other gate, the sally port in the far end of the wall where it touched Haichema-tleke, and opened onto the temple square. That would be the one for them to guard, that nearest the temple. They might hear him there, and open.
He raced along the wall, jostling Sufaki in his exhausted weaving and stumbling. A few drunk ones laughed and caught at his clothing. Others cursed him, trying to bar his way.
A cry began to go up, resentment for his presence.
Jafikn
-wearing Sufaki barred his path, turned him. Someone struck him from the side, nearly throwing him to the pavement.
He ran, but they would not let him escape the square, blocking his way out,—t’Tefur’s men, armed with blades.
Authority, he thought, sensible authority would not let this happen. He broke to one side, racing for the temple steps, sending shrieking women and cursing men crowding out of his way.
Hands reached to stop him. He tore past them almost all the way to the very top of the long temple steps before enough of them seized him to hold him.
“Elas’ doing!” a hysterical voice shrieked from below. “Kill the human!”
Kurt struggled around to see who had shouted, looked down on a sea of alien faces in the torchlight and the haze of thin mist. “Where is Shan t’Tefur?” Kurt screamed back at them. “Where has he taken my wife?”
The babble of voices almost hushed for a moment: the nemet held their women in great esteem. Kurt drew a great gasp of air and shouted across the gathering. “Shan t’Tefur! If you are here, come out and face me. Where is my wife? What have you done with her?”
There was a moment of shocked silence and then a rising murmur like thunder as an aged priest came from the upper steps through the men gathered there. He cleared the way with the emblem of his office, a vine-wreathed staff. The staff extended till it was almost touching Kurt, and the priest spat some unintelligible words at him.
There was utter silence now, drunken laughter coming distantly from the wall-street. In this gathering no one so much as stirred. Even Kurt was struck to silence,—the staff extended a degree further and with unreasoning loathing he shrank from it, not wanting to be touched by this mouthing priest with his drunken gods of earth. They held him, and the rough wood of the staff’s tip trembled against his cheek.
“Blasphemer,” said the priest, “sent by Elas to profane the rites. Liar. Cursed from the earth you will be, by the old gods, the ancient gods, the life-giving sons of Thael. Son of Yr to Phan united, Aem-descended, to the gods of ancient Chteftik,—cursed!”
“A curse on the lot of you,” Kurt shouted in his face, “if you have any part in t’Tefur’s plot! My wife Mim never harmed any of you, never harmed anyone. Where is she? You people,—you! that were in the market today—that walked away—Are you all in this? What did they do with her? Where did they take her?—Is she alive? By your own gods you can tell me that at least. Is she alive?”
“No one knows anything of the woman, human,” said the aged priest. “And you were ill-advised to come here with your drunken ravings. Who would harm Mim h’Elas, a daughter of Sufak herself? You come here and profane the mysteries—taught no reverence in Elas, it is clear. Cursed be you, human, and if you do not leave now, we will wash the pollution of your feet from these stones with your blood.—Let him go, let go the human, and give him the chance to leave.”
They released him, and Kurt swayed on the steps above the crowd, scanning the faces for one that was familiar. Of Osanef, of any friend, there was no sign. He looked back at the priest.
“She is lost in the city, hurt or dead,” Kurt pleaded. “You are a religious man.—Do something!”
For a moment pity or conscience almost touched the stern old face. The cracked lips quavered on some answer. There was a hush over the crowd.
“It is Indras’ doing!” a male voice shouted. “Elas is looking for some offense against the Sufaki—and now they try to create one! The human is Elas’ creature!”
Kurt whirled about, saw a familiar face for the first time.
“He is one of them!” Kurt shouted. “That is one of the men who was in the market when my wife was taken. They tried to kill me and they have my wife—”
“Liar,” shouted another man. “Ver has been at the temple since the ringing of the
Inta.
I saw him myself. The human is trying to accuse an innocent man.”
“Kill him!” someone else shouted, and others throughout the crowd took up the cry, surging forward, young men, wearing the Robes of Color. T’Tefur’s men.
“No,” cried the old priest, pounding his staff for attention. “No, take him out of here, take him far from the temple precincts.”
Kurt backed away as men swarmed about him, nearly crushed in the press, jerked bodily off his feet, limbs strained as they passed him off the steps and down into the crowd.
He fought, gasping for breath and trying to free hands or even a foot to defend himself as he was borne across the courtyard toward the wall-street.
And the gate was open, and men of the Methi’s guard were there, dimly outlined in the mist and the flaring torches, but about them was the flash of metal, and bronze helmets glittered under the murky firelight, ominous and warlike.
“Give him to us,” said their leader.
“Traitors,” cried one to the young men.
“Give him to us,” the officer repeated. It was t’Senife.
In anger they flung Kurt at the guardsmen, threw him sprawling on the stones, and the guards in their haste were no more gentle, snatching him up again, half dragging him through the sally port into the Afen grounds.
Hysterical outcries came from the crowd as they closed the door, barring the multitude outside. Something heavy struck the door, a barrage of missiles like the patter of hail for a moment. The shrieking rose and died away.
The Methi’s guard gathered him up, hauling his bruised arms, pulling him along with them until they were sure that he would walk as rapidly as they.
They took him by the back stairs and up.
13
“Sit down,” Djan snapped.
Kurt let himself into the nearest chair, although Djan continued to stand. She looked over his head toward the guards who waited.
“Are things under control?”
“They would not enter the Afen grounds.”
“Wake the day guard. Double watch on every post, especially the sally port. T’Lised, bring h’Elas here.”
Kurt glanced up. “Mim—”
“Yes, Mim.” Djan dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand and swept her silk and brocade skirts aside to take a chair. No flicker of sympathy touched her face as Kurt lifted a shaking hand to wipe his face and tried to collect his shattered nerves.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“She will mend. Nym reported you missing when you failed to return; my men found her wandering the dock. I couldn’t get sense out of her; she kept demanding to go to Elas, until I finally got through to her the fact that you were missing too. Then Kta came here saying you’d come back to Elas and then left again to find me; he was able to pass the gate in company with some of my men or I doubt he’d have made it through, given the mood of the people out there. So I sent Kta home again under guard and told him to wait there,—and I hope he did. After the riot you created in the temple square, finding you was simple.”
Kurt bowed his head, glad enough to know Mim was safe, too tired to argue.
“Do you even remotely realize what trouble you caused? My men are in danger of being killed out there because of you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened to you?”
“T’Tefur’s men hauled me out of the market, held me in some warehouse until dark and took me out—I suppose to dispose of me in the harbor. I escaped. I—may have killed one or two of them.”
Djan swore under her breath. “What else?”
“Those who were taking me from the temple, if your men recognized them—one was in the market. T’Tefur’s men. One was a man I told you used to watch Elas—”
“Shall I call Shan here? If you repeat those things to his face—”
“I’ll kill him.”
“You will do nothing of the sort,” Djan shouted, suddenly at the end of her patience. “You caused me trouble enough, you and your precious little native wife. I know well enough your stubbornness, but I promise you this: if you cause me any more trouble, I’ll hold you and all Elas directly responsible.”
“What am I supposed to do, wait for the next time? Is my wife going to have to go into hiding for fear of them and I not be able to do anything or lay a hand on the men I know are responsible?”
“You chose to live here, you begged me for the privilege, and you chose all the problems of living in a nemet house and having a nemet wife. Now enjoy it.”
“I’m asking you to do something.”
“And I’m telling you I’ve had enough problems from you. You’re becoming a liability to me.”
The door opened cautiously and Mim entered the room, stood transfixed as Kurt rose to his feet. Her face dissolved in tears and for a moment she did not move. Then she cast herself to her knees and fell upon her face before Djan.
Kurt went to her and drew her into his arms, smoothing her disordered hair, and she turned her face against him and wept. Her dress was torn open, buttons ripped to the waist, the
pelan
soiled with mud from the streets and with blood.
“You’d better do something,” Kurt said, looking across at Djan. “Because if I meet any of them after this I’ll kill them.”
“If you doubt I’ll do what I said, you’re mistaken.”
“What kind of place is this when this can happen to her? What do I owe your law when this can happen and they can get away with it?”
“H’Elas,” said Djan, ignoring him, “have you remembered who did this to you?”
“Please,” said Mim, “do not shame my husband.”
“Your husband has eyes to see what happened to you. He is threatening to take matters into his own hands, which will be unfortunate for Elas if he does, and for him too. So you had better find it convenient to remember, h’Elas.”
“Methi,—I—only remember what I told you. They kept me wrapped in—in someone’s cloak, I think, and I could hardly breathe. I saw no faces—and I remember—I remember being moved, and I tried to escape, but they—hit me—they—”
“Let be,” Kurt said, holding her. “Let be, Djan.”
“How long have you lived in Nephane, h’Elas?”
“F-four years, Methi.”
“And never heard those voices, never saw a face you knew, even at the beginning?”
“No, Methi. Perhaps—perhaps they were from the country.”
“Where were you held?”
“I do not know, Methi. I cannot remember clearly. It was dark,—a building, dark,—and I could not see. I do not know.”
“They were t’Tefur’s men,” said Kurt. “Let her alone.”
“There are more radical men than Shan t’Tefur, those who aim at creating complete havoc here—and you just gave them all the ammunition they need, killing two of them, defiling the temple.”
“Let them come out into the open and accuse me. I don’t think they’re the kind. Or if they try me again,—”
“I’ve warned you, Kurt, in as plain words as I can use. Do
nothing.
”
“I’ll do what’s necessary to protect my wife.”
“Don’t try me. Don’t think your life or hers means more to me than this city.”
“Next time,” said Kurt, holding Mim tightly to his side, “I’m going to be armed. If you don’t intend to afford me the protection of the law, then I’ll take care of the matter, public or private, fair or foul.”
“My lord,” pleaded Mim, “please, please, do not quarrel with her.”
“You’d better listen to her,” said Djan. “Women have survived the like for thousands of years. She will. Honor’s cold comfort for being dead, as the practicalities of the Tamur surely taught—”
“She understands!” Kurt cried, hugging Mim to him, and Djan silenced herself quickly. Mim trembled. Her hands were cold in his.
“You have leave to go, h’Elas,” said Djan.
“I’ll see her home,” said Kurt.
“
You’re
going nowhere tonight,” Djan said, and shouted in Nechai for the guard, who appeared almost instantly, expecting orders.
“I’ll take her home,” Kurt repeated, “and I’ll come back if you insist on it.”
“No,” said Djan. “I made a mistake ever putting you in Elas, and I warned you. As of this moment you’re staying in the Afen, and it’s going to take more than Kta’s persuasions to change my mind on that. You’ve created a division in this city that words won’t settle, and my patience is over, Kurt.—T’Udein, see h’Elas home.”
“You’ll have to use more than an order to keep me here,” said Kurt.