I hesitated. We had reached the top of the path and before us spread the stony face of the priests' house. I said rapidly, "If there are such beings as the Koretian gods, I think that they understand why I broke my old vow and made my new one. Loyalty is something which I was taught that the gods understand."
"Oh, yes, I am sure that you were taught about loyalty," said Lord Carle, his gaze now on Peter, who was about to reach the main door to the priests' house. "The Koretian concept of loyalty is a peculiar one, though. The murderers of that oath-breaker no doubt thought that they were being loyal to the gods in doing what they did. They had no law to tell them otherwise – nothing unchanging and concrete, which stays the same from century to century. There is no question of what it means to be loyal to the Chara; if you have any doubts on the matter, you may consult the law book that describes the crime of disobedience to the Chara. But here we are in a land with no native law of its own, whose people have always depended on the whims of passion to decide their loyalties . . . or else have followed the commands of enigmatic and irrational gods. I hope that you do not allow this visit to confuse your carefully acquired Emorian sensibilities as to the proper definition of loyalty."
I did not reply to Lord Carle's abrasive advice. I had slid from my horse and was looking down the mountainside toward a bit of slope that led to a cave. Fifteen summers ago, I had stood at the mouth of that cave, torn between going toward Peter or fleeing with John. Now there was no question of where my loyalties lay, and none of Lord Carle's dark insults would change that. All they could do, and did, was bring back the pain I had felt in making my choice.
"Are you coming?" It was Peter, standing quietly beside me. I saw that the others were now waiting for us beside the door.
Our eyes linked together in their old manner, and I was suddenly glad that I had come on this trip. No doubt I would encounter further pain from my memories here, but I would have felt greater pain in being parted from Peter during these weeks.
"Gladly," I said, and led my horse up to the wooden doors of the priests' house. This time, I placed myself firmly behind Peter and beside the servants whose rank I was assuming. Curtis and Francis moved over to make room for me, but otherwise made no gesture of welcome.
Lord Carle, who was energetic in all tasks he undertook, raised his fist to give the door a knock that would undoubtedly have reverberated through every corner of the building. At that moment, however, the door opened and a priest emerged.
He was wearing the woollen brown robe of his office, and his hood was flung over his head – this, plus the pack over his shoulder, told me that he was on his way out to minister to the sick or the dying. I could not see his face from where I was, but from the way he came to a halt suddenly, it was clear that he was not expecting to meet six Emorian travellers at his doorstep.
He recovered himself quickly, though, and said softly, "I beg that you impart to me your names."
In his best Koretian – which had improved considerably from practice during our trip – the Chara said, "I am Peter, Lord, through the Chara's honor. These men are Lord Carle and Lord Dean of the Great Council of Emor. We and our free-servants were wondering whether you might have room to allow us to stay the night. We would be glad, of course, to give an offering to your gods for this favor."
The priest swung his head around, perhaps trying to assess from our appearances how great an offering he could hope from us. As he did so, his hooded face came into my view. He was dark in complexion – after several weeks back in Koretia, I still had not accustomed myself to being surrounded by dark-skinned people – and his brows were straight and serious, as befitted a man who had dedicated himself to serving the gods. He had a man's short hair and a man's beard, but he was young, about Peter's age. A white scar upon the left side of his face suggested that his entire life had not been dedicated to acts of worship. His eyes were the color of the midnight sky.
I took a step forward, and as he turned to look at me, the hood fell back. I was by the Chara's side now, but barely aware that Peter was also looking at me. I felt fifteen years falling away from me until there was nothing left but a single word that welled up inside me and then slipped out of my mouth in a whisper.
"John."
o—o—o
In the silence that followed, John looked back at me without expression. I had a sudden vision of what I must look like to him: a beardless man in an Emorian tunic, travelling with Emorian noblemen and speaking in an accent which sounded very Koretian to the Emorians but which, I had learned during this trip, sounded equally Emorian to the Koretians. I was dark-skinned, certainly, but so were many Emorians who lived near the border, just as there were light-skinned Koretians. There was nothing about me to show I had ever lived anywhere but Emor.
John had been right as a boy, I saw. We had met again, and one of us did not recognize the other.
At that moment, another priest came out and gestured toward John. John looked back at him, but did not speak. Instead, he re-entered the house.
I stood motionless as Peter introduced his party once more to the new priest. The priest, with a minimum of words, welcomed us to the refuge of the gods and asked us to pray for this house's peace during our stay. Then, as other priests came forward to take our horses, he escorted us into the building.
The priests' house was just as I remembered it: windowless, hot, and silent. Hanging on the walls were lighted torches that sent smoke puffing up to linger in the corridor. Amidst the torches hung the painted masks of the gods: the Moon, the Sun, the Raven, the Owl, the Cat, the Jackal, and the Fish. Each mask was the shape of an inverted triangle with convex sides – I remembered my delight when John had revealed after a geography lesson from Lovell that Koretia was the same shape as a god's mask. Each mask contained the eyeholes that had once revealed the eyes of the priests who wore the masks. The eyeholes were empty now.
We were led to an area of the house I had never seen before, and Peter and I were shown into a small priests' cell containing little more than some lighted candles and two thin reed pallets on the floor. Peter placed his bag near the door and went over to look at the mask hanging on the wall. The stiff cloth was painted black but for the features of the face, which stood out starkly: slanted golden eyes surrounding the eyeholes, golden whiskers as thin and sleek as knife blades on edge, and a silver and jagged-toothed mouth that was turned up in something between a grin and a snarl.
"The Jackal," I said. "Not the best start to our visit here, that the priest would place us under that god's protection."
Peter reached out to touch the mask gently. "So he is alive," he said.
I did not bother to ask who he meant. "Yes."
"Did he recognize you?"
"I don't think so."
Peter held his fingers to the mask a moment more, as though communicating with it. Then he turned and said, "Go find him. I'll invite Lord Carle to come and bore me with his opinion of the Koretians. Perhaps that will put him in a pleasant mood."
I smiled faintly, but said nothing more as I left the room.
The narrow corridors were filled with torch-smoke and masks. I could see no priests. None of the wooden doors were labelled or open, and I knew that I would no longer be able to find John where he had once lived, in the orphan boys' dormitory. Finally I sighted a door that was ajar; a chorus of voices and some fragrant smoke whispered through the doorway. Hesitantly, I slipped through the door.
I found myself in the priests' sanctuary, a large, square hall that was filled with brown-robed men. They took no notice of my entrance. Their attention was focused on the central dais, where one of their members stood next to a stone altar; with curved dagger in hand, he was poised to strike a goat that lay bleating and bound in preparation for the sacrifice.
I froze, not daring to move during this sacred moment. The area above the altar was open to the sky in order to let out the fire from the sacrificial flame that would soon be lit. One thin rod lay over the opening, and from this branch dangled a mask, but the sunlight above was so bright that I could not see which god was being prayed to.
Already, I knew, I had missed most of the rite. In the Invocation of the God, the god had been called down. In the Plea to the God, the god's assistance had been sought. In the God's Announcement, the priest, speaking for the god, told what he wished as his sacrifice, and the goat had been lured into the sanctuary – only willing victims could be sacrificed to the god. In the Offering to the God, two priests had given their witness as to why the goat should or shouldn't be sacrificed as a symbol of those present. Now all that remained was the God's Decision.
The priest, speaking for the god, spoke the word of the god's decision. The dagger plunged down, the goat screamed in pain and fear, and then the priest raised the bloody blade toward the mask to show the god that the celebrant had honored his priestly vow and made the sacrifice that the god demanded in exchange for bringing peace to the land.
I had not been a pious child, and had rarely come with John to these ceremonies, but I found myself wondering what sort of blasphemy I was committing, that I should stand here in my Emorian clothes, watching rites made to a Koretian god. If John saw me from where he was standing, I thought, he must be horrified at the presence here of a man who was Emorian, yet not even wholly Emorian. As I felt the dark pain inside me grow, I wished to myself that a god, whether Koretian or Emorian or from some unknown land, would speak to me and tell me what sacrifice I should make in exchange for peace to my heart.
As the priests began to stir, their most sacred moment complete, I slipped out of the door and began retracing my path to the Chara's cell.
CHAPTER TEN
In my haste to find John, I had forgotten one important fact about the priests' house: every room inside that building looked the same. Every windowless corridor was dark with torch-smoke; every featureless door was made of the same iron-bound oak planks. I wandered up and down the labyrinthine house without direction, unwilling to knock on any doors and ask directions. Once I passed a priest, but his head was bowed and his face hidden in the shadow of his hood, and I could not be sure whether he was absorbed in prayer or merely trying to ignore the foreign intruder near him. So I remained silent until, with much relief, I saw an open door. Composing in my mind an excuse to Peter for my quick return, I entered the cell and found myself facing John.
He was just rising from beside his pack, which lay on a pallet to the right of the door. The room was nearly identical to the one I shared with Peter; even the god-mask was the same. John's hood was tossed back, and he stared silently at me for a moment. I supposed that he was waiting for me to explain my entrance. Then he moved forward a few steps, stretched out his arm, and pulled back his sleeve to show the white scar that ran down his dark skin.
I raised my own arm, and for a moment our wrists hovered next to each other, the two scars from one dagger joined once more. Then one of us moved, I am not sure which, and we embraced.
I had shown no emotion when I was beaten, nor even when the men came to geld me, but now I wept.
We might have stayed in that embrace all day except that the sound of men's voices in the corridor interrupted us. Pulling away, John shut the door; then he turned to me, his face shining with joy and contentment.
"God of Mercy, you've scarcely changed!" he said with a laugh. "It's something about your lack of a beard; it makes you look like a boy still." Then, before I could think how to answer this observation, he handed me the face-cloth in his hand. "I was taking that cloth out for myself. I waited for you here because I didn't want to cry like a babe in front of noblemen. I knew that you would find me."
I passed the cloth over my face and took a deep, shuddering breath in an attempt to steady myself. "I would have come looking for you long ago if I had known that you were here. I thought that you had been killed."
He touched the scar on his face briefly. "I was lucky. I arose to my senses before the fire reached me and was able to find refuge in this house during what followed." He hesitated, as though picking his next words carefully. "I knew somehow that you hadn't been killed. I thought perhaps that you must have been enslaved."
"I was." I crumpled the cloth in my hand, waiting for the next question.
John said slowly, "And are you still a slave?"
Like the reverberating jolt of a prison door slamming shut, the mask I had worn for the past fifteen years returned to my face. I knew this, not only because I could feel it, but because I could see the shock on John's face as he witnessed the disappearance of the only face he had seen me wear in the time that he had known me. To him, it must have seemed as though I had been suddenly killed, and a stranger had usurped my place.
I knew then what I had tried to hide from myself during the trip: that the boy I had once been was gone forever. Whatever John had been expecting to find, I could no longer give him.
John had hidden his shock immediately; he was now waiting quietly for my reply. Beyond him, I could see the slanted eyes of the Jackal staring at me. I took a step backwards, which brought me up against the table behind me. Placing my hands behind me as though they were bound, I said in the cool, hard voice that John had never heard, "My master freed me many years ago. I stayed with him as his free-servant. My mother was dead and I thought you were dead and . . . I had certain ties in Emor. So I became an Emorian. And I broke the blood vow I made to you and the Jackal."
Two pairs of eyes looked upon me: the golden hunting eyes of the thief god and the dark, dispassionate eyes of John. I could see reflected in John's eyes the golden flame of a candle as he stared at me without blinking. Finally he said, "Some vows are the type that the god would not want us to keep. I have visited Emor; it is a beautiful land, with people who are capable of great honor and sacrifice. I can see why you grew to love your new home, and I do not believe that you have broken your vow to me in any way."
The relief that flooded over me was like fresh water on a dry day. It was not simply his words that were merciful. It was the fact that he had bothered to say them. Unspoken was his second message: he was willing to accept me – this strange, cold man – as the blood brother to whom he had pledged himself as a child.