Flesh (19 page)

They went back by the path on which they had come. They trotted a hundred steps, walked a hundred, trotted a hundred, walked a hundred.

They came to the Delaware and crossed on the same shallow ford. Mary asked for rest, but Stagg said they’d have to push on.

“When the town wakes up and finds all those headless corpses, they’ll be hot on our trail. They won’t stop till they find us, unless we can reach Deecee territory before they do. And then we’ll have to watch out for the Deecee, too. We’re going to try to get to Caseyland.”

The time came when they had to slow down to a walk; Mary couldn’t keep up the pace. By nine in the morning, she sat down.

“I can’t go another step unless I get some sleep first.”

They found a hollow about a hundred meters from the path. Here Mary fell asleep at once. Stagg ate and drank first and then he lay down to sleep also. He would have liked to stay on guard, but he knew that he had to have rest to continue in a few hours. He needed his strength because he might have to carry Mary.

He woke before Mary did, and he ate again.

When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, she saw Stagg bending over her.

“What are you doing?”

He said, “Shut up. I’m trying to get your chastity belt off.”

12

The face of Nephi Sarvant was an index to his character. It looked in profile like a nutcracker or the curved jaws of a pair of pliers. He was faithful to his face; once he fastened down upon something, he would not let go.

Having left Whitrow’s house, he swore that he would never set foot in a place where such iniquity thrived. He swore also to dedicate his life, if need be, to bringing the Truth to the idolatrous heathen.

He walked the five kilometers to the House of Lost Souls and spent a night of uneasy sleep there. Shortly after dawn, he left the house. Though it was so early, the street was alive with wagons piled with freight, sailors, merchantmen, children, women marketing. He looked into several restaurants, found them too dirty, and decided to make his breakfast on fruit from a street stand. He talked with the fruit-merchant about his chances for getting a job and was told that there was an opening for a janitor at the temple of the goddess Gotew. The merchant knew this because his brother-in-law had been fired from the job the previous evening.

“It doesn’t pay much but you get your board and room. And there are other compensations, provided you are a man who has fathered many children,” the merchant said. He winked at Sarvant. “My brother-in-law was fired because he neglected his sweeping and scrubbing for the other advantages.”

Sarvant didn’t ask what he meant. He got directions for getting to the temple and left.

This job, if he secured it, would be an excellent post for observation of the Deecee religion. And it would afford a first-rate battleground for proselytizing. Oh, it would be dangerous, but what missionary worthy of his faith ever considered that a drawback?

The directions were complicated; Sarvant lost his way. He found himself far into a wealthy residential district, with no one to ask directions from except a few people who rode by in carriages or on deerback. These did not look as if they would stop to talk to a pedestrian, a man of the lower classes.

He decided to go back to the dock area and start over. He had not gone a block before he saw a woman who had just left a large house. She was dressed strangely, covered from head to foot with a hooded robe. At first, he thought she must be a servant; he knew now that an aristocrat never walked when she could ride. On approaching her, he saw that the robe was of too fine a material to belong to one of the lower class.

He followed her for several blocks before he took a chance of offending her by speaking to her. Finally, he called to her, “Lady, may I humbly ask a question?”

She turned and looked haughtily at him. She was a tall woman of about twenty-two with a face that would have been beautiful if it had been less sharp. Her large eyes were a deep blue, and her hair, where it was not hidden by the hood, was rich yellow.

Sarvant repeated his question, and she nodded her head. He then asked her directions to the Temple of Gotew.

She looked angry and said, “Are you making fun of me?”

“No, no,” Sarvant said. “Why would I do that? I don’t understand.”

“Perhaps you don’t,” she said. “You sound like a foreigner. Certainly, you’ve no reason to deliberately insult me. My people would kill you—even if I am not worthy of the insult.”

“Believe me, I had no such intention. If I have offended, I apologize.”

She smiled slightly and said, “Accepted, stranger. And now, tell me, why do you want to go to the Temple of Gotew? Do you have a wife who is as wretched and cursed as I am?”

“She has been long dead,” Sarvant said. “And I do not know what you mean by saying you are wretched and cursed. No, I am looking for a job as janitor in the temple. You see, I am one of those who came down to Earth...” and he launched into his story, though he told it in the briefest outline.

She said, “Then you may talk to me as an equal, I suppose, though it is hard to think of a
diradah
sweeping floors. A true
diradah
would starve to death first. And I see you’re not wearing a totem symbol. If you belonged to one of the great totems, you could find a job worthy of you. Or do you lack a sponsor?”

“Totems are superstitious idolatry!” he said. “I would never join one.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You
are
a queer one! I don’t know how to classify you. As a brother of the Sunhero, you are a
diradah.
But you certainly don’t look or act like one. My advice to you is to behave like one so we may know how to behave toward you.”

“I thank you,” he said. “But I must be what I am. Now, could you please tell me how to get to the temple.”

“Just follow me,” she said, and she began walking.

Perplexed, he trailed her by a few steps. He would have liked to have clarified some of the statements she made, but there was something about her attitude that discouraged questions.

The Temple of Gotew was on the borderline between the dock area and a wealthy residential district. It was an imposing building of prestressed concrete, shaped like an enormous halfopen oyster shell and painted in scarlet and white stripes. Broad steps of granite slabs ran up to the lower lip of the shell, and the interior was cool and dimly lit. The upper part of the shell was supported by a few slim pillars of stone carved in the likeness of the goddess Gotew, a stately figure with a sad and brooding face and an open hollow where her stomach should have been.

In the hollow sat a large stone reproduction of a hen surrounded by eggs.

At the base of each caryatid of the goddess sat women. Every one wore a robe similar to that of the woman he had followed. Some robes were shabby; some, rich. Wealthy and poor sat together.

The woman walked without hesitation to a group that sat on the cement floor deep within the gloom. There were about twelve around the caryatid, and they must have been expecting the tall thin blonde, since they had a space reserved for her.

Sarvant found a white-faced priest who was standing at the rear by a row of large stone booths. He inquired about the janitor’s job. To his surprise, he found he was talking to the chief official of the temple; he had expected a priestess in charge.

Bishop Andi was curious about Sarvant’s accent and asked him the same sort of questions others had. Sarvant replied truthfully, but he sighed relief when the bishop failed to ask him if he was a worshiper of Columbia. The bishop turned Sarvant over to a lesser priest, who told him what his duties would be, how much he’d be paid, where he would eat and sleep and when. He concluded by asking, “Are you the father of many children?”

“Seven,” replied Sarvant, neglecting to add that they had been dead for eight centuries. It was possible that the priest himself was one of Sarvant’s descendants; indeed, it was conceivable that everyone under the roof could claim him as their grandfather thirty-odd generations removed.

“Seven? Excellent!” the priest said. “In that case, you will have the same privileges as any other man of proven fertility. You will have to undergo a medical examination, however, because we take no man’s word for such a grave responsibility. I warn you, do not abuse the privilege. Your predecessor was discharged for neglecting his push broom.”

Sarvant began sweeping in the rear of the temple. He had just reached the pillar where the blonde was sitting when he noticed a man talking to a woman by the blonde’s side. He could not hear what they were saying, but presently the woman arose and opened her robe. She was wearing nothing under the robe.

The man apparently liked what he saw since he nodded his head. The woman took his hand and led him to one of the booths at the rear. They entered, and the woman closed a curtain over the front of the booth.

Sarvant was speechless. It was minutes before he was able to begin pushing the broom again. By then he saw that the same actions were being repeated everywhere in the temple.

His first impulse was to drop the broom, run out of the temple, and never come back. But he told himself that wherever he went in Deecee he would find evil. He might as well stay here and see if he could do anything in the service of the Truth.

Then he was forced to witness something that almost made him vomit. A big sailor approached the thin blonde and began talking to her. She rose and opened her robe, and in a moment the two had gone into a booth.

Sarvant shook with rage. He had been shocked enough that the others would do this, but that she,
she...
!

He made himself stand still and think.

Why should her actions offend him more than the actions of the others? Because—admit it—he had felt attracted to her. Very much attracted. He had felt about her as he had not felt about a woman since the day he had met his wife.

He picked up his brush, walked to the office of the underling priest, and demanded to be told what was going on.

The priest was astonished. “Are you so new to our religion that you did not know Gotew is the patroness of sterile women?”

“No, I did not,” Sarvant replied, his voice shaking. “What does that have to do with this...” He stopped, because Deecee had no words, as far as he knew, for prostitution or whoring. Then he said, “Why do these women offer themselves to strangers, what does the worship of Gotew have to do with this?”

“Why, everything of course! These are unlucky women, cursed with a sterile womb. They came to us after a year’s endeavor to conceive by their husbands, and we gave them a thorough physical examination. Some women have troubles we can diagnose and rectify, but not these. There is nothing we could do for them.

“So, when science fails, faith must be called upon. These unfortunate women come here every day—except on holy days, when there is a ceremony to attend elsewhere—and they pray that Gotew will send them a man whose seed will quicken their dead wombs. If, after a year’s time, they are not blessed with a child, they usually enter an order where they may dedicate their life to serving their goddess and their people.”

“What about Arva Linkon?” Sarvant said, naming the blonde. “It’s unthinkable that a woman with her beauty and aristocratic family should lie with any man who comes along.”

“Tut, tut, my dear fellow! Not
any
man. Perhaps you didn’t observe that those males who come here went into a side room first. My good brothers examine them there to make sure they are brimming with healthy sperm. Also, any man who is diseased or in any way unfit to be a father is rejected. As for ugliness or handsomeness of the male, we pay no attention to that; here the desideratum is the seed and the womb. Personalities and personal taste do not enter. By the way, why don’t you take the examination too? No reason to selfishly restrict your offspring to one woman. You owe as much a debt to Gotew as to any other aspect of the Great White Mother.”

“I have to get back to my sweeping,” muttered Sarvant, and he left hastily.

He did manage to finish the main floor, but it was only by an extreme effort of will. He could not keep from looking at Arva Linkon from time to time. She left at noon and did not return the rest of the day.