His whole being seemed concentrated into his eyes; his eyes, and the burning tip of him that pressed the ground. He saw the shrine, unreachable; he saw her fingers go to it, and press; he saw her body arch, the vivid grass. Then sun and leaves rushed inward on him as a centre, the hillside flickered out; and he lay panting, fingers wet, hearing the echo of a cry that seemed as piercing as the long cry of a bird. After which he collected himself, ran with terror as he had run before, jerkin flapping, to the valley and trees and the safe, crunching sheep. Later he sobbed, for the empty nights and days. His neck burned, and his cheeks; he begged her forgiveness, she who could not hear, Dareen whose father was rich, owning fifty goats and twice that number of sheep; Dareen whose eyes he never more could meet, never, in the village street.
The dream disturbed him. He moved uneasily, wanting it to end; and in time it seemed his wish was answered. A fume of acrid smoke seared his lungs; voices babbled; hands were on him, pressing down. It seemed he had descended to one of the Hells, where all is din and lurid light. He fought against the hands, bearing up with all his strength; and a bowl was thrust before his face. In it coals burned; their fiery breath scorched his throat. He writhed again, trying to pull back his head; but his hair was caught. The coals loomed close then seemed to recede, till they looked like a whole town burning far off in the night. After which the hard floor no longer pressed his knees. It seemed he was a bird, flying effortlessly upward into regions of greater and greater light. Then he knew he was no bird, but a God. And Dareen came to him, after all the years; he sank into her, rejoicing at last, and was content.
He was conscious at first of cool air on his skin. He rolled over, mumbling. The dream-time, though splendid, was finished; soon he must rise and dress, start his morning chores. The soup-pots must be skimmed, the fire stoked; billets waited to be split, the two lean cows must be milked. He wondered that he did not hear his father’s snores from the corner of the hut. A cock crowed, somewhere close; and he opened his eyes.
At first the dim shapes round him made no sense; then, it seemed on the instant, all memory returned. He leaped, trembling in every limb, to the farthest corner of the bracken bed. The movement woke the woman lying at his side.
Her body was brown; as brown as the remembered body of Dareen, and crusted on arms and legs with bands of gold. Save the rings she wore nothing but a mask of kingfisher-blue, through which her dark eyes glittered with terror in their gaze; but her voice when she spoke was musical and soft. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said. ‘Don’t be afraid, my lord. No one will hurt you here.’ She stretched an arm to him; he shrank farther into the angle of the wall, pushing shoulder-blades into the rough wattle at his back. She chuckled at that and said again, ‘My Lord ...’ She pulled at the shawl he held gripped. He resisted, knuckles whitening; and it seemed behind the mask she might have smiled. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘you are proud and shy, which is as it should be. But the God has already entered you once, and that most wonderfully.’ She fell to stroking his calf and thigh, moving her fingers in cool little sweeps; and after a while the trembling of his body eased. ‘Lie down,’ she said, ‘and let me hold you; for you are very beautiful.’
Truly it seemed the effects of the Magic Smoke had not yet left him; for despite his fear he felt his eyelids droop. She drew his face to her breasts, crooning and rocking; and lying with her was like lying with a great rustling bird.
The sun was high when next he opened his eyes, and the chamber empty. He sat up seeing the light stream through the chinks of the wattle screens. He rose shakily, staring down at the gold that ringed his own body, the great pectoral on his breast. This last on impulse he slipped from his neck, holding the shining metal close up to his eyes. The face of a stranger or a girl watched back. He laid the thing aside, frowning deeply, walked a pace at a time to the hut door. He cringed back then, terror rising afresh; for he knew the manner of place to which he had come. After which he needed to piss; this he did, trembling, against the wattle wall. An earthenware water jug stood beside the bed; he drank deeply, slaking his thirst. Then he wrapped the shawl round him and sat head in hands on the edge of the bed, and tried to think what he could do.
She came to him at midday, bringing food and drink. She helped him dress, washing him with scented oil, tucking his glory into a cloth of soft white wool. Although he cringed at first her hands were gentle; so that he all but overcame his fear of her. The fruit and bread he ate hungrily enough; the drink he spat out, expecting the taste of beer, and she laughed and told him it was Midsea wine. His head spun again at that for none of the village had ever tasted such a thing, not even T’Sagro who was the father of Dareen and who owned fifty goats. He drank again, and the second sip was better; so that he drained the cup and poured himself more, after which his head spun as it had spun when he sniffed the Magic Smoke. Also the wine made him bolder so that he said, ‘Why am I here?’ These were the first words he had spoken.
She stared at him before she answered. Then she said, ‘Because you are a God.’ He frowned at this and asked, ‘Why am I a God?’ and she told him in terms of forthrightness the like of which he had not heard, least of all from a woman. Also she had a trick of speech that seemed to go into his body, hardening it and creating desire. When she had left him he lay on the bed and thought he would sleep; but her words returned to him till he pulled the cloth aside and stared down at himself wondering if he might be as beautiful as she had said. Then he remembered his father and sister and the manner of their deaths, and wept. Toward nightfall he sat at the hut door and saw far off below the great fall of the hill smoke rise from where perhaps the Horsemen burned another village that had refused its dues, and felt lonelier than ever in his life. Then tiredness came on him strongly so that he lay down once more and slept. She returned by moonlight, flitting like a moth; he woke to the cool length of her pressed at his side, her hands working at his cloth. He did as he had done in the dream, entering her strongly, making her cry out with pleasure; till she had taken his strength, and he slept like one of the dead.
Later, when she brought his food, he said to her, ‘What are you called?’ and she said in a low voice, ‘The Reborn.’ The fear returned at that; but night once more brought peace.
The days passed, merging each into the next; and though he dared not wander far from the hut he found himself anticipating her visits more keenly than before. Also no fear is wholly self-sustaining; he slept more soundly, colour returned to his cheeks. She brought him a polished shield, in which to see his reflection; he took to posing secretly before it, admiring the slender strength of his body, the savage painted eyes that stared back into his own. At such times he grew big with thinking of her, and fell to devising new means of pleasuring. Also he wondered greatly at her age; for at some times she seemed old as a hill or the great Gods of the chalk, at others as young and fragile as a child. He thought how easy it would be, one day, to pull the mask away; but always his hand was stayed. He talked now, when she came, with increasing freedom; till one day, greatly daring, he told her his wish that she could always be with him in the hut. She laughed at that, a low, rich sound of joy, and clapped her hands; after which she was constantly at his side, and a green-masked priest would come or a girl to bring their food, scratch the doorpost and wait humbly in the sunlight. She talked at great length, of all manner of things, and he to her; he told her of his life, and how he had herded sheep, and how it was to live in a village and be a peasant’s child.
She said, ‘I know.’ She was sitting in the hut door; it was evening, the grass and tumbled stones of the hill golden in the slanting light. Goats bleated, on the slopes of the great Mound; and the air was very still.
He laid his head in her lap; she stroked him awhile, then pulled back her head. He sat up, meaning finally to speak of the mask; and she rose, stood arms folded staring out across the hill. After a while she spoke, back turned to him. ‘Altrin,’ she said, ‘do you truly love me?’
He nodded, watching up at her and wondering. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I will tell you a story. Once there was a little girl; younger than your sister, when you loved her and used to stroke her hair. She was in love too, with a certain God. He came to her in the night, promising many things; so that in her foolishness she wanted to be his Bride.’
She half turned; he saw the long muscles of her neck move as she swallowed. ‘She came to a certain House,’ she said. ‘She lay in that House, but there was no God. So she ran away. She became rich, and powerful. When she returned it was with gold and money-sticks, and soldiers of her own. Because of her wealth her people loved her; because of their love, she gave them a Sign.’ She nodded at the flanking slope, the sprawling giant with his mighty prick. ‘While the Sign lay on the hill, her people would be safe,’ she said. ‘This the God promised; yet he turned away his face. The Horse Warriors came; the people were killed, the village put to the fire. The servant of the God was killed, there on the hill.’
He stared, swallowing in his turn; and the hut seemed very still.
‘I was that child,’ she said. ‘I am the Reborn.’
She stepped away from him. Her voice sounded distant, and very cold. ‘I lay on the hill,’ she said. ‘The God took me, and was very wonderful. Later, when he grew tired, he returned me to life. It was night, and there were many dead. I was one of them; and yet I crawled away. I crawled for a night and part of a day. I did not know where I was, or what had happened to me. I could not see, and there were many flies. I lay by a stream, and drank its water. Later I ate berries and leaves. I did not know what had happened to me. One day I decided a thing. I crawled to the stream and looked in, over the bank. The sun was high, so I saw myself clearly.’
She shuddered, and her hand went to the mask. ‘I knew then I must die again,’ she said. ‘I had a little knife; but I lacked the strength to put it into myself. I got into the water, thinking I would drown; but the pain of that was too great also. I lay a day and night trying to starve; then I thought my heart might stop for wishing it. But the God refused my life, holding me strongly to the earth. I ate berries and fruit; and my strength returned.’
The boy frowned, toying with a necklace she had given him; golden bees, joined by little blue beads. He reached forward, trying to trap her ankle; but she moved aside. ‘Can you think what it was like?’ she said bitterly. ‘I had been beautiful; now the Gods had taken my face away.’
He flinched a little; then went back to playing with the necklace, frowning up under his brows.
‘I thought then, how I could get revenge on men,’ she said. ‘For men it was who had brought me to this pass. Then one day the God came to me, stirring me just a little. I had forgotten my body, which was as beautiful as ever. Also I couldn’t find it in me to hate Him, who is yet the mightiest of Men. I clapped my hands; and he sent another Sign. A fishing bird flew past, dropping a feather on the water. I took it in my hand, seeing how it shone. I knew I could be beautiful again.’
She twined her fingers, still staring at the great hill figure. ‘I made a mask, of grasses the sun had dried,’ she said, ‘and a crown of flowers for my hair. I bathed myself in the stream, and washed my clothes. I walked to where there had been huts and fields; but they were burned. So I walked to where there were other towns that the Horsemen had not destroyed. Near one of them I saw a girl-child herding geese. “Leave your flock,” I said, “and come with me. I am the Reborn, and the God is at my side.”
Truly, he was with me; for she came. We lay together, and she pleasured me. Her fingers were shy, like flowers. In the morning she brought me food. I saw a young man sowing winter wheat. “I am the Reborn,” I said. “Come with me, for the God is at my side.”
‘So we came to where a village had stood, in a chalk pass by the sea. The Horse Warriors burned it; but being simple folk they had not dared my Hall. Nearby they had camped; for as yet they built no towns. I went to them. Thunder followed me, and fire-drakes in the sky. “Put down your weapons,” I said. “I am the Reborn, and the God is at my side.” The gold they had stolen I took from them, and cloth from the Yellow Lands to dress my priests. So I came home; in a litter, as of old, with Hornmen before me and my own folk round about. Yet there were none to welcome me. Instead were many ghosts; Cha’Acta, whom I killed, and Magan, whom I killed, and many more. They would not let me be.
‘The Horsemen came, asking what tribute the God desired. I made them fetch me skins of fishing birds. The sower of wheat came to me. I asked how he was called. “Ensil,” he said, “if it please my Lady.” “Then you are Cha’Ensil,” I said, “and a mighty priest. Be faithful, and you shall be mightier.”
‘Yet my Hall was empty; he whom once I knew had fled. The wheat sprang green and tall; naught sprang from me but tears. The Horsemen brought me tribute; yet I grieved. Then one day Cha’Ensil came to me again. He told me how he had found the God. I did not believe. He brought me to his house; and there he lay, young and beautiful, with no cloth to cover him.’ She turned suddenly with something like a sob, fell to her knees and pressed her face against his thighs. Never leave me,’ she said. ‘Never go away.’
He stroked her lustrous hair, frowning through the doorway of the hut, his eyes remote.
The long summer was passing; mornings were misty and blue, a cold chill crept into the God House of nights. Faggots were brought and stacked, a great fire lit on the hard earth floor of the hut. Some days now she would barely let him rise from the couch. Many times when he was tired she roused him, showing a Magic Thing her body could do; when all else failed there was the seed-smoke, and the yellow wine. She bathed him, stroking and combing his hair; wild it was and long, brushing his shoulders like silk. Finally these things palled. Winter was on the land; the fields lay sere and brown, cold winds droned through the God House finding every chink in the wattle walls. He brooded, shivering a little beside the fire; and his decision was reached. Custom had taught him her ways; he broached the subject delicately, as befitted his station.