The Three Lands Omnibus Part 46

The priest, speaking for the G.o.d, spoke the word of the G.o.d's decision. The dagger plunged down, the goat screamed in pain and fear, and then the priest raised the b.l.o.o.d.y blade toward the mask to show the G.o.d that the celebrant had honored his priestly vow and made the sacrifice that the G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d-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.

"G.o.d 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 n.o.blemen. I knew that you would find me."

I pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d and the dark, dispa.s.sionate 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 G.o.d 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 a this strange, cold man a as the blood brother to whom he had pledged himself as a child.

Too grateful to John to know what to say, I remarked lightly, "I didn't know that the priests at this house were allowed to travel."

"They aren't a but I'm not a priest. I'm a trader."

"A trader?"

My voice lost its customary evenness, and John laughed, breaking the tension. "You needn't act so surprised," he said. "I'm not the first boy to entertain himself with lofty ambitions of becoming a voice for the G.o.d, only to spend his days as a man arguing whether two geese are a fair bargain for three hens. I enjoy being able to travel, and it gives me the opportunity to meet new people. But sometimes I feel the need to come back here and offer up prayer and sacrifice to the G.o.d."

"Which G.o.d do you pray to?" I asked curiously. My hand was touching something on the table, and I looked down to see what it was. A book lay among several that John must have brought with him, and it was open to a picture of the seven G.o.d-masks.

John waited until I had looked up again before saying, "Any G.o.d who will speak to me. When the G.o.d sends his peace, it doesn't matter to me which mask he wears."

The sound of the men's voices had long since faded, to be replaced by something deeper and more solid: a silence as naked and precise as an unsheathed sword. As a boy I had thought of the silence here as a mere absence of sound and had scorned its comfort. Now I saw that the G.o.d's peace was gentle and soothing only in the same way that John himself was: underneath the tranquility was something firm and distinctly delineated. I breathed in and felt the sound of my breath break the silence like the warm moisture of breath breaking the crisp coldness of winter.

I said, "You're fortunate to have such security to turn toward. I wish that the Jackal had been able to help me during my early years in Emor. Are you here now to seek the G.o.d's help with any trouble in your life?"

John swung away, and for a moment I thought I had offended him with the directness of my question. Then he walked over to the mask. He placed his left hand upon the stiff black cloth, touched the mask briefly like a man touching his beloved on the cheek. As he let his hand fall, he said, "I suppose that the G.o.ds always bring peace to those who pray to them, but their ways are mysterious to men and often seem senseless. I hope there's meaning to what they do, for I came here to pray, not for my own peace, but Koretia's. Things are very bad here." He turned back.

"I know," I said quietly. "That is why my master and the other lords have come to Koretia. Though you may not believe it, we Emorians are seeking peace as well."

I had phrased my last sentence deliberately, to gauge his reaction. He replied with ease, "I believe it. On my visit to Emor, I visited some of the borderland villages, and I heard what the Koretians had done to the villagers there at the beginning of the Border Wars. It seemed to me then that the Chara had shown mercy by enslaving us rather than destroying us for our deeds. But that was long ago, and people here are growing restless in their bonds. It is as though they are just waiting for a sign before they rise up against the Emorians."

"A sign from the Jackal?" My eye caught sight of the mask once more; the painted curves danced in the candlelight. "My master tells me the thieves have been busy."

John shook his head and sank to his knees beside his pack. "I don't know what the spark will be. But if the city goes up in flames again, whether it be months from now or days from now, neither the Jackal nor any other G.o.d will be able to bring this land its peace. After fifteen years in captivity, the people here are becoming set in their opinions as to whether the Emorian rule is a good thing. Everyone has been forced to take sides, and this has caused brother to turn against brother."

I said nothing for a minute, watching him pull from the pack some clothes, a few items of food, and the type of satchel in which traders carry their doc.u.ments. I said, "I think I know, without asking, which side my blood brother has taken."

John smiled again. "I'm on the side of peace. I don't see any way to have peace without gaining our freedom, but while it's easier to kill an Emorian than to talk with him, I think it's less likely to bring peace in the end."

"We wanted to become the Jackal's thieves at one time."

"You wanted it. I wasn't sure whether it was right to kill a man. I'm still not sure."

He began to open the satchel, and then closed it again and rested his hand on the worn leather, not looking my way. I said softly, "You were there with a dagger when I needed you. You are a peacemaker, but you are not a coward."

"Thank you." John's voice was as faint as though he spoke from a great distance. Without looking up, he said, "I had planned to leave tonight; I have important business in one of the towns. But now you are here, and I confess that I'm also curious to see what Emorian n.o.blemen are like. Do you think that your master would be willing to exchange a few words with me?"

"I've told him about you," I replied. "He will want to exchange more than a few words with my blood brother."

John knelt back on his haunches and tilted his head up. His hair fell over his eyes, shading them like shutters on a window. "If you stayed with your master after he freed you, he must be a good man."

"He is-" My throat closed before I could finish. "He's hard to describe. You'll have to judge him for yourself."

John continued to look at me, as though waiting for me to say more. When I remained silent, he rose to his feet and said, "I must go request permission to stay here one more night; then I'll come by to see you. I have-" There was a pause, during which I drunk in once more the sight of John's still, serene face, sometimes smiling, sometimes serious, but always full of peace. Finally he said softly, "I have very much missed you. If your master will allow you the freedom, I would like us to spend some time together during your visit to Koretia."

"Whether he allows me to or not," I said, "you may be sure that we will."

I returned to the Chara's room and found Lord Carle there, trying on the Jackal's mask.

I stopped just outside the doorway. Around the corner to my left, I could hear Peter protesting mildly, "Carle, if you wish to be blasphemous, please wait until we return home. I don't want for you to be dragged away some night by the Jackal's thieves because you've offended their G.o.d."

"I am being but a loyal Emorian by committing blasphemy to a Koretian G.o.d," said Lord Carle, pulling off the mask. "And there are no Koretians here to take note a unless, of course, Andrew is preparing his report for the Jackal now."

I stepped into the room and said coolly, "I am Emorian."

"That statement was implausible in Emor and is ridiculous here. Have you had your joyous reunion with your Koretian blood brother?" Lord Carle tossed the mask face-down onto the pallet beside him.

"Lord Carle," warned the Chara softly.

He was sitting on the pallet against the wall beside the door, his knee drawn up and his right arm casually slung on top of it. He held Lord Carle's eyes. After a moment, the council lord bowed in acquiescence to him and said to me, "I am corrected. You are Emorian. Now, if the Cha- If Lord Peter will excuse me, I will consult with Lord Dean and discover whether there is a single windowed chamber in this smoke-clogged building."

I stepped back and let him pa.s.s before walking over to pick up the Jackal's mask from where it had been flung.

"Did you find John?" Peter asked as I carefully replaced the mask on the wall.

I nodded as I turned. At Peter's gesture, I came forward and sat next to him, pausing on the way to close and lock the door with the key we had been given by the priests. "It was good to be able to talk with him again."

"I have always appreciated your gift for understatement. Leaving aside Lord Carle's sarcasm, it must indeed have been a joyous reunion a that is, if John is still the friend you remember."

"He is like I remembered him." I leaned my head back against the wall, staring at the G.o.d's mask on the opposite wall. "When I saw him last, fifteen years ago, he was saying that we should make peace with Emor, and today he was saying the same thing."

"Well," said Peter quietly, "then I suppose that you and he have made your peace over the fact that you stayed in Emor."

"Yes." As I closed my eyes, I felt a smile drift over my lips. I heard Peter get up. When I opened my eyes again, he was standing over me with a wine pitcher and two cups. He handed them to me, and then eased himself down beside me.

"Tell me what you think of this," he said. "It is a gift from our hosts, and while my first taste led me to conclude that the priests are in the pay of the Jackal and that they are trying to poison us, I may be wrong."

I poured myself a cup and tasted it. "I'm sorry to inform you, Peter, that this is fine wild-berry wine, and our hosts will be much insulted if you don't finish the pitcher. So you must at least find some ground to empty the wine onto."

Peter sighed as he took the cup back that I offered him. "My father told me when I was young that the Chara must suffer for his people, but I didn't fully understand what he meant until this journey. I am depending on you to help me with this pitcher." He took a sip, made a sour face, and promptly took another sip. "So your friend desires peace. I suppose that it's easy for him to find peace in a house such as this."

"He doesn't live here. He is a trader."

"A trader... ." Peter leaned his chin onto the rim of the cup and left it there for a moment, meditating. "Do you think that your blood brother would be willing to speak to an Emorian lord?"

"He asked me whether my n.o.ble master would be willing to speak to him." I looked sideways over at Peter as he gulped down the last of his wine, shuddered, and poured himself a second cup. "Peter ... What sort of questions do you plan to ask him?"

"Nothing that I couldn't learn from any other Koretian; I'm not planning to wring secrets from him. But if he's a trader, he'll know what the people throughout this land think of the Chara and his rule, and that is the sort of information that I've found it difficult to obtain through my spies." He put down his cup and stared at it. "If you want me to tell him who I am, I will. I can't ask you to keep secrets from your blood brother."

"Thank you," I said, "but it has been many years since I saw him, and while I know that he wishes you no harm, I don't know whether he's the type of man who can keep a secret. I don't want to put you in danger, even if it means hiding something from him."

He was silent for a minute. Then he handed me his cup and said, "Will you finish this for me? I promise you, I will try it again later, until I love it as much as any Koretian, but I think that my Emorian body cannot stand any more of a shock than it has already undergone during this journey."

I laughed before sipping from the cup. "Peter, it's your own fault. I am Emorian, you know that, but even so, I think you're a fool to have us wear these woolen Emorian tunics in the middle of a Koretian summer. Wouldn't it be possible for you to demonstrate your love for Koretia by having us adopt the native dress during our visit?"

Peter smiled at me. "That is advice worth considering. I knew that I brought you on this trip for some reason other than friendship. Would you consider becoming one of my council lords?"

"Lord Carle might have some objection."

"Well," said Peter, "I wouldn't want to hurt Lord Carle's feelings, as I'm feeling friendly toward him at the moment. We had a pleasant conversation just now."

"On military matters or on Koretian barbarities?"

"Both. He told me that a priest who visits the city regularly told him that the Jackal and his thieves have been unusually quiet during the past few days. On most occasions, I would have continued to keep the conversation steered away from his views on Koretia. Instead, I found myself explaining to him that Koretia is the most barbaric, fly-infested land I've ever visited." He smiled at me.

John said coolly, "If you wish to avoid Koretia's blood-flies, it is best to come during the winter."

Peter's smile faded as he turned to look back at the doorway where John stood in his priestly robe. The door had been closed and locked a moment before; I wondered how he had managed to make his way in.

The Chara said quietly, "I ought not to have been making such remarks while being hosted by Koretians. I apologize for causing offense." Then he gestured in the manner that I had seen him do only once before, touching his breast and forehead.

John continued to stand at the doorway, and for a moment it seemed that he would make no reply, either in word or gesture. Finally he said, "No, you spoke truly. Koretia is undoubtedly fly-infested, and it is also barbaric in certain ways. In any case, it is hard to become used to life in a different land." He returned Peter's greeting with a smooth motion of the hand. Then, apparently taking this exchange as permission enough, he closed the door and sat down cross-legged in front of us without another word. I handed him the cup of wine from which I had been sipping.

Peter gestured away the second cup that I filled and offered to him. "It is a pleasure to meet Andrew's blood brother at last. Andrew is not very talkative about his past a it is unwise to be talkative in the Chara's palace, where we live a but he has told me enough about you to intrigue me."

John stared back at Peter, his dark eyes unreadable. Finally he said simply, "It is a pleasure to meet you as well."

The quirk of a smile began to quiver at the edge of the Chara's face. He controlled himself and said, "I hear that you are a trader."

Once again John was silent, his gaze focussed on Peter. I leaned back against the wall, watching the two men fight some private dagger-duel through the eyes. John's voice, when he replied, was low. "I do not suppose that, as an Emorian, you are familiar with the life of a Koretian trader. We travel the country, carrying no goods with us, but instead arrange for barters between merchants who will later deliver the goods themselves. Because we carry no goods, we can travel quickly, and because we travel widely, we are generally the first to hear rumors and to learn what is happening throughout the land. We are the first, besides the governor's soldiers, to know when a Koretian has been arrested; we are the first, besides the Jackal's thieves, to know when an Emorian has been murdered. Unless he consulted the Chara's spies, it is unlikely that an Emorian would be able to find anyone who could tell him as much about the Koretian people as a trader."

Peter looked at John for a moment more before turning his head toward me. "Andrew, I believe that I'll have that cup of wine after all. I think that I'll need strong medicine in order to deal with your blood brother."

For the first time since he entered the room, John smiled. "I am just as interested in Emor as you are in Koretia," he said. "I work as a trader, so I will offer you an exchange: I will tell you what the Koretians think of the Chara's rule if you will tell me what the Chara thinks of the Koretians."

"I think," said Peter slowly, "that you have must be very skilled at your work. It is a fair bargain. What would you like to know about the Chara?"

"Ask me your questions first."

Peter reached up to wipe his neck free from sweat. The air around us was musty and hot, and more heat drifted down to us from the wall-perched candles in the cell, whose flames were steady in the breezeless room. I reached up to wipe the dampness from my face with the back of my hand, but John, motionless and expressionless, had no moisture on his face.

"I am interested in the Jackal," said Peter, gesturing with his head toward the mask on the wall behind John. "I would like to know what sort of man he is and what it is that he wants. Is it the Koretian throne that he is fighting for?"

John was slow in replying. "That is hard to say. The G.o.d does not often speak to the Koretians, and his ways are mysterious. But certainly the Jackal has never been heard to make any claim for the throne. In any case, the matter cannot be decided by the Jackal alone. In order to become King, a Koretian would need the consent of his people."

Peter frowned and absentmindedly sipped from the cup I had handed him, too absorbed in his thoughts to notice what he was drinking. "I don't understand," he said. "You make the Koretian throne sound like some barbarian chief's t.i.tle, in which the chief becomes master through wrestling with all of his warriors."

John drew his left knee up and rested his elbow on it, placing the back of his hand under his bearded chin in a reflective fashion. "There are worse ways to select a leader. However, I am surprised, Lord Peter, that after all these years of governing this dominion, an Emorian council lord should remain so ignorant of Koretian customs. In the old days, it was the High Priest who gave his consent to the enthronement of the heir presumptive, and he did not do so until the Koretian people had indicated, through the King's Council and their local councils, that they wished to be ruled by the heir. This is not Emor, where a master may bond men into unwilling servitude."

Peter put down his cup abruptly, placing it deliberately near me. As I picked up his cup and sipped from it, Peter said, "As I recall, it was the Chara Nicholas who persuaded the Great Council to end slavery in this land, and he did so because it took the most barbaric form possible: the slaves were stripped of their names, deprived of their voices, forced to wear masks, and treated as though they were living corpses. Emor, for all its reputation of harshness, has never done anything to match that; nor has it had blood feuds or demon-stonings or any of the other religious barbarities that Emorian law eliminated from this land."

John paused again before replying in a soft voice, "If you look carefully at the old rules concerning those inst.i.tutions you will find that even they required consent. No man was ever bonded into Koretian slavery who did not accept the G.o.ds' law. But I will not defend those inst.i.tutions to you. They were indeed barbarities, twistings of the G.o.ds' law to serve the baser pa.s.sions of men."

"Then you understand why we Emorians believe that we have brought good to this land by replacing the G.o.ds' law with the Chara's law."

m.u.f.fled through the roof, the bell of the priests' house tolled the hour, while in the corridor, footsteps went by. John waited until the pa.s.sersby were gone before saying, "Lord Peter, I am sure that you have witnessed the Chara in judgment. Did you ever attend a trial in which the Chara would have been creating an injustice if he were to have followed the law strictly?"

Peter's gaze drifted over toward me, silently sitting beside him, sipping from the wine that had turned warm in the heat. "Yes, I know of such a case."

"And did the Chara then decide to destroy Emorian law altogether? Or did he exploit it in such a way as to correct the injustice?"

Peter accepted the cup from my hand as I offered it back to him. "I take your meaning. You are saying that the G.o.ds' law could have been reformed rather than eliminated. But the Chara has not forbidden religion in this land. The Koretians are free to worship the G.o.ds, in the same way as many Arpeshians and Marcadians continue to do."

"The Chara has forbidden the use of religion in deciding matters of the law. I am not against the Emorian court system; I think that it corrects an imbalance in the G.o.ds' law, a tendency to interpret the G.o.ds' wishes in a manner that best suits the priests. But I think that the Chara's law is also lacking in balance, in an ability to take fully into account a prisoner's character when pa.s.sing a judgment. That can be done under Emorian law, but not to the same extent as the G.o.ds' law allows it, for in Koretia the G.o.ds judge men for all the deeds of their lives, not only for the deeds of a single moment."

"Well," said Peter, leaning back against the wall, "I doubt that we will come to an agreement about this."

"That is exactly my point," said John. "We will never agree about this, any more than the Koretians will ever agree with the Emorians about how to run this land. That is why they are seeking release from the bonds of the Chara's tyranny."