Gevan had only half-followed the exchange between Dabiel and Elkan. He didn’t fully understand what she intended to do. Was she saying that she expected to directly address a literal personification of the Mother and receive an answer? She even seemed to imply that she’d done so before. He shook his head. Maybe the sane and reasonable attitude these people presented was an illusion, and underneath they were as dangerously deluded as the Purifiers.
Still, if they were willing to cooperate, it didn’t really matter what deceptions they practiced on each other to make their actions acceptable under their religious code. On further consideration, he realized that Dabiel would simply vanish for the three days she spoke of, which seemed to have some symbolic significance to them, and when she re-emerged she would announce that the Law they viewed with such superstitious fervor was no longer in effect. Nothing more than hypocritical showmanship, to be sure, but minor enough compared to many in the annals of history. And it would allow both Tevenar and Ramunna to get what they needed. He suppressed his distaste. “Yes, I can accept that bargain on behalf of the Matriarch.”
“Very good.” Dabiel stood, brushing her hands against her breeches. “Come, let’s join the others in the dining hall. Perhaps we won’t have missed all the entertainment.
Gevan and Elkan rose also. But something nagged at Gevan. He turned to Dabiel. “You mentioned someone named Gurion?”
She nodded. “Gurion Thricebound. First Guildmaster of the Wizards’ Guild. He was one of the wizards of ancient Miarban before he renounced his heritage. He made the bargain with the Mother that led to her granting us familiars, and brought our ancestors here from across the sea.”
Gevan frowned. “There are certain sacred writings that refer to a prophet named Guron. They were written by his son, one of the ancient Oligarchs, Yashonna Erlorre. Jashon Elero in the language of that time. But Guron perished in the destruction of ancient Elath.”
“No, he came here. I’m sure it’s the same man.” Dabiel gave a little laugh. “It’s nice to know he’s not forgotten in his homeland.”
Gevan shook his head, forcing out a strained laugh. “The Purifiers highly revere him. They would be shocked to learn you consider him the first of your kind. They consider your animals demons, bent on conquest and destruction, and you slaves to them. Ridiculous, of course.” It had to be ridiculous. But Gevan found himself eyeing the cat and the hog with trepidation. They looked ordinary enough. But surely it was unnatural for predator and prey to walk so companionably together, as if friends and partners in some great mission.
Elkan snorted. “After all these centuries, that slander remains.” He frowned at Gevan. “These Purifiers won’t try to harm Tobi, will they? I won’t take her into danger.”
“The Matriarch will protect you from them.” Gevan hoped she’d be able to. The great cat could surely defend herself against most dangers. But she’d be as vulnerable to an arrow as any other creature. “They don’t have power in Ramunna yet. And never will, if you succeed in helping the Matriarch bear a daughter.”
Elkan studied Gevan, his eyes narrow. “I’ll want you to tell me everything you know of them. And full details of everything else about Ramunna, its history, its current political and religious situation. If I go there, I’ll need to be prepared.”
“I’ll be happy to,” Gevan promised. The young wizard seemed intelligent enough, and mature beyond his years. He was sure Master Dabiel had a good idea of his skills. Still, he wondered if she was right to choose him to answer the Matriarch’s call. Gevan doubted he’d even reached his thirtieth year. This was a grave and difficult mission to entrust to one so young.
Elkan turned to Dabiel. “Will you take over Josiah’s mastership for me while I’m gone?”
“What, you don’t think he should go with you?” Dabiel’s eyes twinkled.
Elkan laughed. “Josiah? Only if you want him to sink the ship, or start a war, or wreak some other havoc so far-fetched none of us can even begin to imagine it.”
Dabiel laughed in return, then sobered. She glanced at the hanging sculpture. “I was joking, but I wonder. He’s been at the heart of this from the beginning. Maybe he should see the matter to its conclusion.”
Elkan slowly shook his head. “Maybe, if he were a few years older… But not now. There’s too much chance he’ll jump into something too big for him.”
Dabiel nodded, though she still seemed troubled. Suddenly, her grin flashed. “I’ll ask the Mother.”
Elkan grinned back. “If the Mother commands me to take him, I’ll have to obey. But that’s the only way!” He sobered. “I’ll miss him, though. You will take him on, won’t you? There’s no one else who’d be able to teach him as well as you could.”
“Gladly. Even though I’d hoped not to have to deal with another apprentice at my age. You tired me out!” They both laughed, and Dabiel put a hand on Elkan’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about Josiah, Elkan. He has a true wizard’s heart. He just needs time to grow into it.”
“I know. Thank you.”
Gevan followed the two wizards back to the dining hall. He was glad the boy wouldn’t be accompanying them. He seemed nice enough, but if he was as much of a troublemaker as these two seemed to think, he didn’t belong on a mission this sensitive. And Gevan didn’t like the way he’d been eyeing Kevessa. Not that Kevessa had returned his glances, but you could never be too careful with children their age, right on the cusp of adulthood. Better to put the whole width of the ocean between them.
Twenty
N
irel drove her shovel into the sandy soil. She hefted it, shaking the broad scoop as she flipped it over to blend the smelly layer of fertilizer into the underlying sand. She stepped forward and repeated the process, her breath steaming in the damp air. At least the drizzle had let up. When they’d started work this morning, the cold and wet had felt miserable, but the long hours of hard work had heated her. Now she welcomed the chill.
She reached the end of her row and turned back down the next. Perhaps next year they would be able to afford horses and plows, but this year Ozor had decreed they would save their gold and do the work by hand. So the band had spent the last two months laboring in their new fields under Kabos’s supervision. They had reaped a bountiful harvest of the wheat other hands had sown, cutting and threshing it with their predecessors’ tools, storing it in barns whose previous owners had been removed by force.
Nirel wondered if any of the others were haunted as she was by thoughts of the people whose land they’d taken. None of them talked about it, or gave any other sign. They had lived by theft in Tevenar, after all. Nirel had never felt any qualms about participating in exciting nighttime raids of isolated farms or poorly guarded villages. She had loved the thrill, the danger, the flawless exercise of difficult skills, the pride of success. But that had been different. They’d only taken the excess. None of the people they’d robbed had lost everything they had, or been condemned to imprisonment or torture or death.
Elder Semanel had told her that a few of the children from the village had been found several weeks after the raid, wandering the streets of the Dualist Quarter. The Matriarch’s soldiers had put them through the gates in the middle of the night. The Elders had found homes for them with willing families. None of the adults had been seen again. Either they’d perished in the Matriarch’s dungeon or been sent away to labor in mines or fields.
The mercy of the children’s return had surprised Nirel, and she’d said so. The Elder’s normally serene voice had shaken with suppressed anger when he’d explained. The returned children had been those too young to work, but too old to forget their origins. The youngest ones, the babies and toddlers who hadn’t yet begun to learn about the Lord of Justice, would be given to followers of the Mother to raise. They would grow up ignorant of their true identity, irretrievably tainted by false doctrine, lost forever to the Faith.
This wasn’t the first time it had happened, either. Whenever the Matriarch felt the Faithful were growing too numerous within their walls, soldiers would raid by night, snatching children from their cradles or their mothers’ arms. “Rescuing” them, they called it. Such raids had become frequent in recent years. Hardly a Faithful family remained that hadn’t lost at least one son or daughter to the Lady of Mercy.
Nirel forced her attention back to the immediate task. As promised, the Matriarch had sent Ramunnan farmers to teach Ozor’s folk the local practices. The men had shaken their heads at the Tevenarans’ ignorance, but had instructed them how to gather the seaweed that washed ashore, mix it with cattle manure, and spread it over the fields.
Around her, the other members of the band, Ozor among them, worked just as hard as she did. They were almost finished. When this last field was done, they’d have a break from the most arduous labor until planting season.
Ozor planned to use the idle months to take a group on a trading expedition. He’d spent much of his time haunting the markets of Ramunna, learning the needs and wants of its people, buying up bargains, listening to accounts of distant cities where Ramunnan goods were prized and exotic items were cheaply available. He was as happy as Nirel had ever seen him, filled with enthusiasm at the prospect of rich profits.
The rest of the band seemed content as well. It was good to have a home again, without fear of wizards discovering and capturing them. Sometimes Tereid, along with a few others who had been part of his band of thieves long before Ozor joined them, chafed at the hard work and boredom, but for the most part they were willing to defer to Ozor’s insistence that this was the perfect situation for the group.
At the end of the row, Nirel leaned on her shovel and closed her eyes. She was worn out from the long day of labor. She’d like nothing better than to crawl into bed as soon as the sun set. But she couldn’t. Tonight was far more important than that.
“Hey, Nirel!”
Nirel opened her eyes to see Gan hurrying toward her, swinging his shovel at his side. Inwardly she groaned, even as she arranged her features into a pleasant, but not too eager, welcome. “Hey, Gan.”
He stopped beside her and drove his shovel into the soft ground. He shifted from foot to foot, fixing her with big, eager eyes. “A few of us were talking, and we thought we should do something to celebrate finishing the farm work for the year. So we thought we’d go into the city. Tifla knows a tavern with good ale and music. She’s been going there with one of the courtiers she met in the palace.” He blushed and glanced away. “So anyway, Dayrine is going, too, and we wondered if you’d like to go with us?”
Nirel suppressed a sigh. Gan was so transparent. Maybe it had been the way the men and women had been treated so differently while they stayed at the palace, or maybe it was the Ramunnan clothes that emphasized the anatomical differences between them, but Gan had recently become acutely aware that she was female. The relaxed companionship he’d shared with her in Tevenar and aboard the ship was gone, replaced by a fawning mix of eagerness and embarrassment. He was constantly hanging around her, trying to draw her into conversation, then stammering and rambling and falling silent when she consented to talk with him. Even if she’d returned his interest, his ineptness would have put her off.
And she didn’t. He’d always been a good friend, but she had no romantic feelings toward him. Which was just as well, because Father was determined to find her a suitable match among the Faithful as soon as he could arrange it. Nirel had mixed feelings about that, but not because of Gan. She didn’t mind at all when Kabos glowered at him and sent him scurrying away.
She looked around, but Kabos was far across the field, driving his shovel into the soil with as much fierce intensity as when they’d started that morning. She turned back to Gan, working to keep her tone of voice and her words balanced in the narrow space between so friendly they’d encourage him, and so curt they’d be rude. “I’m sorry, Gan. Father and I have arranged to visit the tailor for my final fitting tonight. The ball’s only a few days away.”
The excuse had the advantage of being true. That wasn’t all they’d be doing in the city tonight, but Gan didn’t need to know that.
His face fell. “You can’t do it some other time? Or maybe come join us afterwards?”
“You know my father doesn’t like me to be alone in the city. And I’m sure you and the others don’t want him along!” She laughed, and Gan joined her with a few wan chuckles. “The rest of you have fun and don’t worry about me. I’m so tired I’d probably fall asleep over my cup, anyway.”
She smiled blandly at Gan until he picked up his shovel with a sigh and dragged off toward the last bit of unworked field. She followed, but was careful to take up a position well away from him.
Less than an hour later, they finished. She looked up from her last shovelful of dirt to see everyone else standing around, shovels over their shoulders or loose beside them, chatting and starting to drift off in ones and twos toward the village.
Ozor called out, “Good work, everyone! Well done!” as he passed. He’d probably be the first to claim a turn in the communal bathhouse. Nirel didn’t mind. He’d worked as hard as everyone else. And above the shrouding grey overcast the sun was still high. She’d have plenty of time to get her turn at the bath before it was time to leave.
Kabos’s arm went around her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re ready?” he murmured in her ear.
“I’m ready, Father,” she assured him brightly, though softly. “Don’t worry.”
She wasn’t worried. There wasn’t any reason to be. Elder Semanel had assured her she was thoroughly prepared and should have no trouble. But still, her stomach churned and her heart raced at the reminder of what was coming.
Tonight she faced the Trials.
Her preparation had been quicker and easier than she’d expected. Memorizing the Ordinances was simple enough, once she put her mind to it. She’d met with Elder Semanel many times over the past two months, soaking in everything he told her about the history of the Faithful and the duties and privileges she would have as a full adult in the community.