Blood Seed: Coin of Rulve Book One (27 page)

“He won’t be a cripple! He’ll be scarred, and might not have full use of his shoulder, but that’s all.”

“I know you meant well, Mariat, but I saw the injuries. Think on what have you done. Who will hire someone like him, afflicted and now maimed? How will he make his way in the world? It would have been better to leave him in the hands of the god.”

“Your god. Not mine.”

He shook his head. She would never understand the great vision. It was beyond her comprehension what he had been trying to do, how he and the council had struggled to take the small but constant steps toward the light, to keep the flame of reason burning in the face of stubborn ignorance. Her god or goddess—whatever—was a small deity. Her Rulve was a god fit only for women, a god concerned with family matters, with individual happiness, with the well-being of girls who confused pity for love. Ul was a different matter altogether.

“Mariat, I’m sorry you can’t grasp what I tried to do. Now you had best be off, before dark.”

Her face hardened into an unbecoming stubbornness. “I would like to stay.”

“We’re short a mattress. I saw you burned one in the yard, rather than clean it.”

She looked at Sheft, then back at him, and her face softened into a more suitable expression for a young unmarried woman. “Tarn, please. I can sleep on the chair. My father has given me permission to stay. It will do no harm, and I can finish making supper. Then in the morning I’ll prepare a hot breakfast.”

Whatever she was cooking smelled quite good. He had lingered too long with Wyla, and in his haste to get home before dark, had missed lunch. If he didn’t allow her to stay, Moro and Etane might not understand. As a council elder already none too popular, he could ill afford to alienate what was left of his friends. “All right, Mariat. As you say, it can do no harm.”

After dinner Mariat served him a glass of wine, which was welcome indeed, and which he savored in front of the fire. Meanwhile she tidied up the kitchen. A good girl, but he must speak to Moro about that streak of impertinence.

He watched her check Sheft’s bandage and feel his forehead, while the boy slept on. The wine made him pleasantly drowsy, and soon after finishing it, he retired. He lay on his cool, plumped up pillow and thought about the spring plowing. It could come as early as next week. Wyla’s two boys would help out. They could bring their own blankets and sleep in the loft. If Sheft wasn’t in any shape to leave by then, he could finish recuperating in the barn. He should get used to that in any case, since he was unlikely to find better lodgings during his journey up north.

A vague unease brushed against him as he remembered his ride through the village that afternoon. The unusually quiet street. Sokol in front of the butcher’s shed, arms crossed over his stained leather apron, watching him. Rom glancing up from the forge, unsmiling, holding his eyes just a little too long.

No matter. The cause of their ire would soon be gone.

The curtain at the partly open window stirred in a damp, intermittent breeze. A storm gathering... When was the roof due to be re-thatched?

#   #   #

The sky over the Riftwood flickered. Far off, thunder muttered. The wind died down and left the tight-budded branches still. Clouds swelled at the edge of the storm and crept with deadly purpose over the stars.

Sweet tension pulsed through Sheft’s dreams, the vivid touch of her hands on his body. They faded, replaced by a distant but growing warning. His back simmering, Sheft stirred in a hot and troubled sleep. It vied with pain and fever and, exhausted, he groped for ice.

Gusts of wind from the coming storm tugged at Parduka’s red robe as she stood in the doorway of the House of Ele. It was the night of Seed’s dark moon. The moon that month after month was never seen, its existence never suspected in the day-lit sky, until the rare occasions when its silent, shocking power emerged to gnaw at the noonday sun. The priestess remembered the eclipse from years ago, when Ele’s black circle swallowed Ul’s insipid face, and made of it a tunnel into the night.

The last man entered, and Parduka pushed the heavy doors shut against the stiffening wind. No need to use the back door any longer, no need to hide. Ele was about to give them her official blessing. After the men shook the raindrops off their waxed wool cloaks, she called them to attention. “Are you ready,” she asked them, “to make your solemn pledge to the goddess?”

Their answers growled in the shadows. “We are.”

She led them through the dim hall and into the Chamber of Ele. Flashes of light from the fire pit leaped over the stone walls, illuminating the charcoal drawings of spiraled moons and big-bellied animals with staring eyes. The men gathered in front of the goddess and looked up at her while shadows jumped in and out of the hollows of their faces.

Towering over their heads, the Red Mother squatted on her pedestal, her arms crossed under pendulous breasts. Her square body, carved from pale red marble, crawled with maroon veins. She stared straight ahead, obsidian stones glittering in her eye-pits. A ladder leaned against the pedestal, ending directly beneath the long, pursed mouth. Above her head, wind rushed over the black smoke-hole in the roof.

Silent, they all knelt before the goddess while Parduka touched the ground with palms and forehead. From the pot beside her, she withdrew a handful of the gritty mixture of holy herbs and incense and threw it onto the fire. The flames leaped, then sent out a cloud of pungent smoke. She did this twice more, until the fire drooped low and a red, twisting haze enveloped them all.

“Breathe in now, all you servants of Ele. Purify yourselves while I call to our goddess.” The smell spiraled into her head and seemed to make the room throb like the inside of a hot, beating heart. “Come, O Ele.” She heard herself pronounce the familiar words, but they seemed to come from some other source. “Red Mother, All-Mother, hear me. We come to do your will. We come to obey your command.”

Ele’s veins pulsed in the light. The obsidian eye-stones seemed to shift their blank gaze and look down at them.

A chill of awe skittered down Parduka’s back. At last. After all this time, at last the goddess heard her. Her voice cut through the incense haze. “We stand ready to pledge our oaths, to restore your sacred Rites. Form us this night into your holy circle.”

Rapt, she raised open hands to her, and it seemed the Red Mother nodded. As if in a dream, Parduka climbed the ladder. The distance between her dry lips and Ele’s tubular mouth lessened, until Parduka found the narrow opening to the will of the Mother. She thrust her tongue deeply inside, and a thrill of power slipped up its length.

Lightning flashed over the smoke-hole, and Ele’s eyes flickered. Parduka drew back, her mouth tasting of ancient stone, and laid both hands on Ele’s planed cheeks. The crack and rumble of thunder almost drowned out her words. 

“Great Goddess, on this sacred night, I pledge myself to your true Rites. I do this for your glory, that your full power might be restored.” Now she must pronounce the rest of the vow, the curse that Ele would throw down upon her if she did not fulfill her promise. A vision of her mother’s last days flashed before her—the paralyzed body, the horrible contortion in the left side of her face, the smoldering eyes completely aware to the end. “I take this vow, Ele, under pain of the numbing stroke.” Her palms sweaty, she turned away and descended.

The figure of Rom rose up in the haze. Like a man in a trance, he climbed to the mouth of Ele. He performed the ritual kiss, and then, in a low but steady voice, he too vowed.

“I pledge myself to the restored Rites, under pain of public disgrace. I do this out of my duty to protect all those who live in At-Wysher Village.” Lightning flashed, and his form leaped into clarity. A roll of thunder followed him, now a faceless shadow, back to his place.

Blinor was next. “May my mill burn to the ground,” he growled, “my entire livelihood destroyed, if I do not lift my hand against abomination and filth.”

His voice catching, young Temo cried out, “Because my father was pulled down by the evil one, I commit myself to perform these Rites. If I do not, may I never engender a son!”

Rain cascaded down. It drummed on the roof and spilled through the smoke-hole as each man climbed up to express the reason for his vow and the curse that would ensure his faithfulness to it. On this holy night, they kissed the mouth of the goddess, while her stone eyes flashed and her great body seemed to shudder with cracks of thunder.

“Under pain of madness,” Sokol the butcher shouted against the noise of the storm, “I pledge myself. No longer will the foreigner paw at our women.”

Olan’s voice shook, and unshed tears stood in his eyes. “I vow to obey you, Ele, and you may take my daughter if I don’t. I beg—oh great goddess, hear me!—that you will help her walk again.”

Delo managed to climb the ladder, but seemed so agitated he almost missed a rung. “I will return to the old ways,” he quavered, “for the good of all the villagers. Or, or let”—Parduka felt a stab of panic at his hesitation—“let my cattle perish, down to the last animal.”

Greak’s neighbors came next, then Gwin as the last. “I call down upon myself the wasting disease,” he cried in a loud voice, “if I don’t expel the foreigner who corrupts innocent children.”

Finally all stood before Ele, vowed and committed. With a mutter of thunder, the storm rolled into the deadlands, and a few drops of water fell from the smoke-hole, hissing as they hit the dying flames.

They quickly elected Rom as Holdman. “Let us go, then,” Parduka said, “and may Ele’s blessing, or Ele’s curse, fall upon us.”

In silence, everyone threw on their black cloaks, processed through the great doors, and slipped into a dripping night. Lightning glittered over the Riftwood, signaling another storm to come. Two wagons, each with its lantern, awaited them. Delo’s son Gede sat at one and Voy at the other. Oiled leather covered several unlit torches, the sacred drum and the pebble-gourd.

Parduka glanced up at Voy. With a grin, he patted the empty pouch at his side. Good. The carved hay-mouse had been set in place. In silence everyone climbed on the boards and pulled up their hoods, and the wagons headed down the Mill Road.

As they disappeared into the darkness, none looked behind them to see the sudden light of a lantern bloom in the house of the Holdman. The figure of Dorik appeared at the door, stared after the retreating wagons, then rushed across the road to Cloor’s house. He was admitted just as the second storm descended upon the empty street.

#   #   #

A loud clap of thunder brought Moro half-awake, and he smiled into his pillow. Ane would surely snuggle close at that one! But then he remembered. Even now rain was muddying her grave in the deadlands.

He rolled over in his empty bed and stared at the ceiling, and the ache of her absence was more than he could bear. When the storm finally passed into the east, he wiped his eyes, got up, and looked out the rain-streaked window. Lights wavered at the end of the lane. What was this? He ran to the door and peered out. Two wagons, filled with hooded figures, were making their way down the overgrown track which was all that remained here of the Mill Road.

That wasn’t right. Nothing lay in that direction except Tarn’s house and—he realized with a drop of his heart—Mariat was spending the night there.

He threw on some clothes and ran to the barn for Surilla. The plow-horse was old, but big, and Moro thought he might need something that looked more intimidating than his small Skaileg pony. Without stopping to saddle her, he rode the mare out of the barn, tightly clutching her mane. “Ista!” He urged her forward, and the big horse plodded down the lane. “As!” he directed, and they turned right, down the dark road as fast as Surilla could move. Half-way toward his destination he realized he had forgotten a torch, and that this very night was the dark moon of Seed.

#   #   #

Sometime during the night, Mariat abandoned the nodding chair and lay on a blanket next to Sheft. Without a mattress, the floor was uncomfortable, but she was too tired to be more than dimly aware of a passing thunderstorm.

A groan, and Sheft moving beside her, brought her awake. Was he in pain? She lifted her head. A sudden banging on the door stopped her heart, and then set it pounding. Oh God, the beetle-man!

“Open!” a loud but human voice called out. “Tarn, open!”

Fear washed over her momentary relief. What was happening? She jumped to her feet as Tarn stumbled past her in the dark. The panels thudded again, and Sheft, with a sharp in-breath of pain, reached for his boots.

“What in Ele’s name is this?” Tarn shouted.

“Council business. Unbar the door!”

Mariat recognized Rom’s voice, but it was strained and hoarse.

Sheft climbed to his feet and looked at her over his shoulder. “Get up in the loft! Quick!”

But it was too late. Tarn was already lifting the bar as she darted into the shadows at the back of the house. A crowd of black-cloaked figures surged into the kitchen, bringing in a damp breeze and the glare of several torches. Parduka stood in their midst. Her gaze fastened on Sheft, and a triumphant gleam lit up her eyes. She flung aside her cloak, to reveal the ceremonial red robe.

Sheft’s eyes must have been reflecting the light, because the crowd around her hesitated.

“What’s the matter with all of you?” Parduka pushed forward, raised her torch to better illuminate him, then threw back her head and laughed. “Ele has delivered him up to us! See that bandage? See those feverish eyes? There’ll be no sorcery out of him tonight.”

“What nonsense is this?” Tarn demanded. “Who’s in charge here?”

“Never you mind,” a voice growled, and two men grabbed his arms.

“A demon has clawed him!” The figure next to Parduka sounded close to hysteria. “The foreigner’s own demon turned on him, and now—now it’s loose.” He looked wildly around the room, which was alive with jumping shadows from the torches. “Loose in this house!” 

“Don’t be a fool.” the priestess said. “He had some kind of accident at the field-burn.”

“Yes!” Mariat screamed. “He saved—” Her voice ended in a gurgle as someone from behind clapped a hand over her mouth.

Amidst the clamor in the kitchen, the man dragged her backward, further into the shadows. She felt his lips moving close to her ear. “Be quiet! Don’t say another word.”

She tried to pull away from him, but his strong fingers dug into her upper arm.

Sheft had moved slightly to the side, and she knew he was trying to block the crowd’s view of her. Everyone else seemed too intent to notice her in the shadows. One of the figures pointed a quavering finger at Sheft’s toltyr. “Priestess! What’s that around his neck?”

Parduka approached cautiously and peered at the pendant. “By all the gods,” she hissed. “It’s a sorcerer’s amulet.”

“No,” Sheft cried. “It’s nothing like that!”

She didn’t even look at him, but called to someone in the crowd behind her. “Cut it off him!”

A man—Mariat recognized the burly form of the butcher Sokol—shouldered forward. He pulled out a large knife and held it in front of Sheft. With a sudden movement, he jabbed the blade toward his face. Sheft flinched and the butcher laughed. “Not so brave now, are you? Now that you’re dealing with men, and not my helpless daughter.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to your daughter.”

Sokol grabbed the cord and pulled Sheft close to his face. “We don’t need to hear your lies,” he grated. In one rough move, he cut the braided leather and pushed Sheft away from him. The toltyr clattered to the floor and Sokol kicked it toward the hearth. Sheft’s head turned to follow it.

“He’s powerless now,” the priestess pronounced. “Take him outside!”

A chill raced down Mariat’s arms. Was that true? Did he have no way now to use ice in his defense? And even with it, what could he do against so many? There must be close to a dozen people in the room.

“Stop!” Tarn shouted, struggling against the men that held him. “I demand you—” 

His words were drowned out as the others shoved the table and benches aside and rushed forward. They surged around Sheft, pale-haired and bandaged in the midst of the swirling black cloaks, and dragged him out the door.

One arm was held behind her, but with the other she clawed at the hand clamped over her mouth. The man pulled her into the darkness of Tarn’s empty bedroom, where he jerked her around to face him.

It was Gwin. “Why in Ele’s name are you here?” he asked.

“I came to help Sheft,” she retorted, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “He was wounded. He saved—”

“Forget him! After tonight you’ll never see him again.” He threw back his hood and grasped her upper arms. “Our village needs you, Mariat. It needs the healer you are.
I
need you!”