Daughter of Lir (54 page)

In this hour the king was as much alone as a king could be.
He smiled his sudden smile at Rhian’s coming, embraced and kissed her, and set
her beside him on the carved bench. “I’m glad you came,” he said. “It’s been
lonely without you. All went well in the south?”

“Very well,” she said.

She rested for a while in his warmth. Her youngest brother
had curled like a puppy on the floor and gone to sleep: exhausted, she could
well guess, from the rigors of the festival. He was just old enough for the
women to notice him, and a goodly number had. He had the family beauty, after
all, and a sweetness about him that could melt a woman’s heart.

How strange to have found these kin so late, and to be so
perfectly at ease with them. Bran was in Larchwood teaching the smiths there to
forge fittings for chariots. The rest of Long Ford was a fading memory.

She had grown far away from it. She could have been dead and
been closer to it, if her spirit chose to linger where it had been in life.

But she was not here to muse on her own sorrows. “The woman
from the east,” she said. “Will she be in the hall tonight?”

“There’s a great rite in the temple,” he said. “The
priestesses let it be known that she would be attending it with them.”

“Did they?” Rhian said—without expression, she thought.

He saw beneath her pretense of calm. “Should I press the
invitation more strongly?”

“Minas would like to see her dead,” Rhian said.

“So that is the one who traded him for gold. She would have
done better simply to bury him on the steppe.”

“They would all have done better to slaughter her with the
rest of her tribe,” said Rhian. “But since they did not, and since the one
killing they truly shrink from is the killing of a man’s mother, she lives to
plague Lir. Do you think the priestesses see what she is?”

“I think,” said the king, “that they see a woman after their
own hearts.”

“They want to be rid of you and of any man who rules. They
freed themselves from the Mother. Would you like to wager that she’s promised
them full rule of the tribes when they come?”

“Can she give them that?”

The king was not an innocent, to ask such a question. He was
testing her, a little; asking her to judge. “With the man who is king now, no.
But men are mortal, and her will is strong. She’s very dangerous.”

“Yes,” said the king. He frowned, stroking his beard. “I
can’t in law or in justice have her put to death without clear cause. She
killed no one that we know of. The king killed himself. The king’s son, whom
she could have killed, she let live.”

“She doesn’t kill bodies,” Rhian said. “She kills souls.”

“Not mine,” he said, with a growl in it. “We are wise to
her. That may defend us. I’ll send a messenger to the priestesses, to warn
them. It’s not likely they’ll listen, still less be grateful, but for Lir’s
sake I must do it. And maybe,” he said, “they can teach her the ways of the
Goddess, and gentle her so that she’s no danger to Lir—only to the tribes.”

“We can pray for that,” Rhian said. She embraced him and
kissed his cheek. “And thank the Goddess that she blessed Lir with a wise
king.”

o0o

Minas stood in front of the temple gate, looking up at the
elaborate carving of its posts and lintel. He shifted uncomfortably. His
clothes were new, the coat stiff with embroidery. It was a gift from the king,
to make him seem more princely before the priestesses of the city.

He was not the most likely messenger, but the king had
insisted that he was the best choice. “You know her,” he said when he summoned
Minas to him, “and know what she is capable of.”

“I also hate her,” Minas pointed out, “and will slit her
throat if I can get near enough to her. Won’t that make me worthless as a
messenger?”

“Not at all,” the king said. “You’re an honest enemy. If you
speak simply and without deception, they’ll trust what you say.”

Therefore Minas was here, two days after the end of the
festival, with Lir still a little lazy and a little drunken, but returned to
most of its proper self. It was a fair morning, rather cool after a day of
rain, but the sun was warm on his head. Passersby smiled at him, recognizing
him; some gave him greeting with the gentle courtesy of these people.

He straightened the coat one last time, drew a deep and
steadying breath, and walked through the gate. Men, he had been assured, were
not banned here, only in the temple itself. Even so, he was the only man within
sight, though his brothers must be somewhere about.

The king had told him where to go: toward one of the houses
near the temple, not the highest or most ornately carved, but distinguished by
a frieze of birds above the door. There were birds everywhere, both living and
carved in wood, but the house he had been sent to was difficult to mistake. A
whole flock of birds flew above its door, a long winding skein of doves, white
and grey and brown. Not all of them were the work of hands: many lived and
breathed and cooed softly to one another, fluttering amid the images of their
kin.

Priestesses were coming and going. They eyed him curiously,
but maybe took him for one of his brothers; one rangy redheaded tribesman was
very like another. No one was openly hostile, though not all glances were
friendly, either.

He knocked at the door of the house as the king had
instructed him. It took its time in opening, but he had been instructed to be
patient. The woman who peered out at him was naked but for a thickly
embroidered apron, and distinctly with child.

That, he had not been taught to expect. It was a long moment
before he could master himself to speak, and longer still before he could
remember the words in the language of this place. “I—I would speak with the
Voice of the Goddess,” he said.

“The Voice is occupied,” said the priestess.

Minas suppressed a sigh. Of this too he had been warned, and
told how to respond. “I will wait for her,” Minas said, “in your courtyard, by
your grace and leave.”

The priestess looked him up and down. Her eyes sharpened.
“You’re not one of hers. They don’t speak proper language, or show proper
manners, either. Who sent you?”

“The king,” Minas answered. “Lady.”

“So,” the priestess said as if to herself. “You’re that one.
Come in, then. What are you gaping for? Come into the house!”

Minas obeyed as meekly as he was capable of. Now that she
recognized him, she was—not more friendly, no. But less stiffly suspicious.

That was interesting. The priestesses were not all of one
mind, then, and maybe less so since Etena came than before.

The priestess led him to a lovely court, a green space thick
with flowers, and gave him a cup that proved to be full of clear water, and
left him to wait in the scented shade. He sipped the water because a good guest
did such a thing, then put the cup aside and wandered a bit. From here he could
come up close to the wall of the house and see exactly how it was made. It was
masterful work, even without the carving and painting that made it remarkable.

He took no notice of the passing of time, with so much to
look at and decipher. When at last he turned and found himself watched, the sun
was notably closer to its zenith.

This watcher was older than the woman who had let him in, perhaps
by a great deal, and somewhat nearer to being clothed: her heavy sagging
breasts were bare, but she wore a skirt of many overlapping panels, that fell
to her sturdy ankles. She was amused as people often were, by Minas’
fascination with the way things were made. It was only when he approached to
speak to her that he realized she must be blind, or nearly so. She seemed to
see, even with those clouded eyes.

“Good morning, maker of chariots,” she said. Her voice was
deep for a woman’s, and a little harsh, and yet it had a smoky sweetness. It
was quite beautiful in its way.

“Good morning, lady of the temple,” Minas said in return.
“Would you be the Goddess’ Voice, then?”

She inclined her head. “I am the Goddess’ Voice in Lir. You
I remember: you were with the mare’s servant when she first came to the city.”

“I remember you,” he admitted, “lady. But not—no one told me
who was who. And I didn’t understand your language so well then.”

“You speak it very well,” said the Voice. “Indeed you look,
and sound, quite civilized.”

He bridled at that, but kept his temper. “Why, lady, have no
doubt, I’m still a wild beast of the plains. But even a beast may stand on its
hindlegs on occasion and speak like a man.”

“Particularly if that beast is a shaman?”

Minas started as if she had struck him. “I am not—”

She laughed, rich and warm. “No. You never had the training.
But the power is there. It shimmers in you.” She took him by the hand, with no
more shyness than if he had been one of her kin, and led him to a chair that
was set in the shade, and made him sit in it. She squatted on a stool in front
of him, like a servant, and smiled up at him. She still had his hand in hers.
“Child, you are as beautiful as a red-gold stallion, and well you know it, too.
Now tell me what brings you here.”

She had meant to take him off guard, and indeed she had. But
he was quick-witted. He answered her bluntly. “The king sent me. I’m to warn
you—your new guest: she’s deadly dangerous.”

“Indeed she is,” said the Voice with no sign of surprise.
“Particularly to men who can fall prey to her power.”

“Women, too,” he said. “Maybe, here, especially
women—because they don’t expect that anyone can be stronger or more devious
than they. She’s a witch, lady, of an old and terrible line. Blackroot shamans,
we call them—born and bred to serve the gods below. We killed them all and
broke their power, but my father took the daughter of the clan to be his
concubine. She was young and beautiful, and he was strong. He thought that he
could master her. She mastered him instead. In the end she destroyed him. His
own hand wrought his death—that I was told, and I do believe it. But it was her
doing that he died.”

“Wasn’t it fair, after all? He slaughtered all her kin, and
left only her alive. Can you blame her for taking vengeance?”

“No,” he said. “In truth I don’t. I don’t even greatly blame
her for the manner of it—it was all she knew. But I hate her no less for that.
Do your people know evil, lady? Do you know the dark behind the light?”

“We do know it,” the Voice said.

“And yet you took her into your temple. You can’t cure her,
or redeem her—any more than you can stop a lioness from being what she is. She
will twist you if you let her, and shape you to her ends. She is not able to
do, or be, anything else.”

“Is the king afraid that we will name her Mother?” the Voice
asked. “Tell him to have no fear of that.”

“Even if she bears in her womb the Mother’s grandchild?”

“Through a son,” said the Voice. “And if it is a son, there
is no danger at all.”

“But if it is a daughter?”

“If it is a daughter, we will take the omens; then we will
do as we judge best. We are not men of the tribes who see no strength in a
woman. We know what a woman can be. All of it. For good or ill.”

“It is true,” Minas said. “Even your Mother’s child, when
the omens were bad—you cast her out. Has it struck you that she wasn’t the
cause of any of this? That you caused it by your actions then?”

“Often,” said the Voice. “Some of us are without doubts, but
most wonder, always, whether we chose rightly.”

“I pray you remember that, lady,” he said, “when you face
the Blackroot witch.”

“Tell your king,” said the Voice, “that we will take his
warning to heart; and we are grateful for the spirit in which he sent it.”

That was a dismissal. Minas bristled a little at it—he was
not accustomed even yet to bowing to the will of a woman—but he was learning,
slowly. He bowed to her and let himself be sent back to the world of men and
war and horses.

o0o

Etena delivered a daughter in the mellow gold of autumn, a
dark-haired, dark-eyed child who was, Rhian heard, the living image of the
Mother who was dead. That the priestesses fostered this rumor, she could well
believe; but she found it interesting that nothing was said of the omens that
had attended the child’s birth.

“There were none,” her brother Gerent said.

They were out with chariots, Rhian and Minas, Gerent and his
friend Bronwy, trying a new team in company with Minas’ seasoned duns. A long
race by the riverbank had ended in a victory for the young bays, who had Minas’
skilled hand to guide them, and a near-plunge into the river for the duns.
Rhian had taken them in hand then, exiling the very contrite Bronwy to Minas’
chariot, and walked the duns till they were dry and calm.

They paused in the heat of noon, drew off the road and let
the horses graze by the river. Rhian had brought honey mead and brown bread and
cheese and a sackful of apples. They all ate hungrily, calling greetings to
passersby on the road, talking lazily of this and that.

Of course the boys spoke of the child in the temple: the
city was buzzing with it. “There were no omens,” Gerent said, “or none that
meant anything. As far as anyone could tell, this is a perfectly ordinary child
who will live a perfectly ordinary life.”

“Or,” said Bronwy, “she won’t live long at all. She’ll die
in war, and no one will know if she would have grown up to be Mother.”

“I think I prefer the other,” Minas said. He was lying in
the grass, fingers laced behind his head, watching the play of sun and cloud
above them. “To have borne a child without distinction—there could be no
greater horror. She means to be mother to the Mother of Lir.”

“She has no milk,” Bronwy said. “My sister in the temple
told me they had to find a priestess to nurse the baby, because the mother
can’t. That’s great grief to her.”