In the Earth Abides the Flame (64 page)

Mahnum shook his head. 'But why me? Why us? Surely there were people in Instruere who could have kindled the fire?'

'Perhaps not,' said Indrett. 'Perhaps our hearts were the most open. Perhaps we were the best the Most High could find. And look! Our Company was gathered from many places, not just Loulea. Why do you think that is? Could it not be that the Most High wants them to take the fire back to their own lands?'

'But what of Hal and Leith and the others? What about the quest for the Jugom Ark?'

'That's just the symbol. You've heard the prophecies about the Arrow; it signifies the direction that the man of god will take us in. We have the reality here. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Arkhimm return to Instruere with representatives of the southern kingdoms. It would fit the pattern. Then, after they catch the fire, the Most High can send them back to their own lands.'

'Do you prophesy?' asked Mahnum, intrigued. He had never seen her like this before.

'Call it a prophecy if you like,' she said.

'You've changed. I'm not sure I like it.'

'You need to change,' she retorted, 'and you're rejecting the one thing that can help you do it.'

'I'm not so sure. I think maybe our one hope has gone south with our sons. I wish my father were alive, he always saw true. He would know what to do.'

'Sit down, Stella,' said Indrett kindly. 'Tell me what troubles you.'

'Indrett, I don't know what to do,' the young woman gushed. 'My friend Tanghin has come to me with a proposal of marriage.'

'Marriage?' Indrett exclaimed, bewildered. She knew Tanghin, of course. Everyone in the Ecclesia had seen this well-spoken, forceful stranger. But he and Stella? How had this happened? She is not ready for life yet!

'I'm so excited I can hardly keep still,' Stella was saying. 'Yet something worries me.

Something burns in the pit of my stomach, a feeling of unease. It's there all the time, whenever I'm with him. Oh, Indrett! I'm afraid the feeling will never go away, and I will never be happy with him. What should I do?'

Stella raised her eyes to those of the older woman, and noticed the paleness of her face.

Belatedly she considered the older woman might be tired - too tired, probably, to talk about Tanghin this late at night. 'I'm sorry, Indrett,' she murmured. 'I can see by your face you are weary. Perhaps we can talk another time.'

'I am weary.' Indrett sighed. 'You may think that is why I am drawn of face, if you wish; but there is another reason. Stella, would you hear the truth?'

'I would,' came the reply. 'But aren't you going to congratulate me about my news?'

'No, I won't,' said the older woman, and Stella gasped with surprise.

'But he's so handsome! Well favoured in mind and body, with power and possessions to offer security to any woman he chooses. He could choose any, and yet he has chosen me! And,' she added, as though an afterthought, 'he is one of the Blessed now. I could not imagine a more different man to Druin back home. If I had to pick between them, I know who I'd choose!'

'But you do not have to choose,' said Indrett urgently. 'Listen, now. I have a story you need to hear. Will you listen? Will you hear the truth?'

'I have already said I will,' she said, snapping the words a little. How can she not wish me well? I have made a match far above my station. Could it be she is jealous?

'I was young once, and I can still remember what it is like, though you might not think so. My father was one of the many servants who lived and worked at the court of the Firanese king at Rammr. All his life he never became more than a footman to the Duke of Nordviken. He was fortunate compared with his relations and school fellows, some of whom were reduced to begging on the streets for a living, but in his ambition he did not see it so. We were not rich, but we always had food on the table. After my mother died my father went to pieces, and would have lost his place at court altogether if my older brothers had not already begun work there for the duke. He made life very hard for all of us, and when I reached an age where I might have expected to attract promises of marriage, my father drove them away.

'His frustrated ambition was more than he could bear. By day he had to serve at the court among those he sought to emulate, and when he came home at night he - he .. . did things to his children. Wrong things.' Indrett faltered. 'He sought to exercise a different kind of power over us. We became part of his fantasy world, his unwilling subjects. We were the only ones he could bend to his will. It drove my oldest brother mad.'

Indrett's beautiful face stared straight ahead, and her features were drawn and gaunt. It was the one thing she did not want to talk about, but knew she must, and compelled herself to continue.

'By that time I had become a lady-in-waiting to the queen herself, and they all said I was a beauty; yet the years slipped by and still I had no lover but my father. There were those who sought to take my love without first taking my hand in marriage, but in horror I refused them all. I continued to rise in the favour of the queen, surpassing all the other ladies, even the duchesses themselves, and those who visited the court often mistook me for one of the princesses. Yet my father was never satisfied. We were servants still, with no titles or lands, and no honour, or so he thought; yet we had less honour because of his grumbling, and eventually he was forced out of his job.

'At that time the eldest son of King Clymanaea came of age, and with the consent of his father he began courting me. Such a thing was unheard of, that a prince might marry a commoner, but the king and queen ignored the gossip. I was flattered. Who would not be? So I welcomed the prince's interest. My father was beside himself with excitement, seeing in this his chance to gain in a single stroke what he had missed out on all his life.

'Oh, Stella! For a while I seriously contemplated marrying the prince. Had I done so, there is every chance I would be the ruler of Firanes at this moment; for the prince became King Prosala I, and died young. But down through the dark years of my childhood I had grown to know myself, my likes and dislikes, my strengths and weaknesses; and I knew that I could not live in a palace forever. I did not want my every move subject to public scrutiny. I did not want to be known as the "commoner princess". Oh, the prince was nice enough. Handsome, cunning, if a little slow. At times I even enjoyed his company. But because I knew myself, in the end I came to realise I did not want to marry him.

'My father was furious, and beat me until my brothers had to haul him off me. See here?' She indicated a small white scar under her chin. A legacy of his wrath. There are others. I suppose that decided me in the end. I did not want to be defined by him or anyone else. The footman's biddable daughter. The prince's wife. I needed no husband to give me worth! I would not be forced into marriage by a father who saw me as a means to an end! Who used me as a means of self-gratification!'

The young woman watched uncomfortably as the older woman sobbed quietly.

'Stella, I know you understand me. You are part of a family that doesn't work properly. You had to put up with your brother and his drinking, your parents and the slow death of their relationship. Like me, your deepest desires spring from this. You want to be as far away from your family as possible. So did I! But to give in to this desire, this fear, is only another kind of victory for them. I was determined my father would not shape my life in that fashion. I would not marry, I decided, but neither would 1 run.

'Then one day a man from the north - a great Trader, the most famous of his day - came to court with his son to celebrate midwinter. Modahl the Trader! Everyone had heard his fame, everyone knew the stories told of his exploits. Yet I had eyes only for his son, Mahnum.

Stella, he was everything I wanted. Not security: I already had that. But he was excitement, and comfort, and a sharp mind, and courtesy, and honesty, and companionship; and he returned my love. He had nothing to offer me but a woodsman's hut in the cold and primitive north, but I wanted him, not some position or fulfilment. So we married, and went to live in Loulea.'

Stella drew a deep breath. 'Have you been happy?' she asked.

'Yes - and no,' came the slow answer. 'He is all I could ever have wanted in a friend and a lover, but there have been many times, especially lately when he has travelled far away, when I have felt a certain lack. I wonder now whether any one person can be everything to you. I don't know; I think perhaps all this commotion about the Most High is part of the answer. To be pleasing to the Most High - now that would be something to satisfy the heart.'

'So you found the right man for you. What if Tanghin is the right man for me?'

'Stella, something about that man troubles me. He is well mannered and intelligent, and there is no denying that he is rich and powerful. But he is a manipulator. He says exactly the right things. He is too calculating, as though he knows exactly how to get what he wants. In fact, he is a lot like you, only much more cunning.'

'Like me? I thought we were completely different.' Stella did not enjoy the turn of the conversation.

'You show all the signs of a trapped woman, one without power. I saw them at the Firanese court. Having no position of their own,

and being controlled by men of power, they learned how to demand things by not asking. The suggestion that something was amiss, the merest hint as to what it was, the sulking and tears if it was not granted. I have seen powerful men completely tamed by such measures.'

'You have just described my mother,' said Stella sadly.

'And I have just described you.'

'But I don't want to be like my mother!' she said vehemently.

'See? Again you define yourself by a negative, by comparison with someone else. Who do you want to be like? Who amongst your friends and acquaintances is most like who you want to be in the future?'

Stella flushed a little. 'You,' she said finally. 'Well, you did ask.'

It was Indrett's turn to be nonplussed. 'Then listen to me,' she said eventually.

'I'm listening,' said Stella, 'though I'm not enjoying what I'm hearing.'

'Oh, Stella; you can't marry Tanghin. Not now, not when you still have so much growing up to do. It would be a constant battle between the two of you, each trying to get the other to do what he or she wanted. Eventually one of you would win - probably him, because you have been used to a life of submission, and he a life of power. Then you would be lost forever.'

'Then who? Who do I marry?'

'No one. Don't marry anyone. Don't marry Tanghin, don't marry a Vinkullen woodsman, don't marry a Loulean peasant. Love someone first, then if you want to love him for the rest of your life, marry him. But don't get married for the sake of marriage, for the fear of being alone.'

'But I want to do something! I want to be someone!' Stella cried. 'At least Tanghin is someone!'

'And we are not? You silly little girl,' Indrett replied, and again Stella sensed that Indrett spoke more to herself. 'Don't you realise those things don't matter? At the end of your life the measure of success is whether or not you've done well in the little things, the mundane things.

Things like these: did you obey those who needed obeying? Were you merciful and just with those under your care? Was your conduct honourable? Did you truly love - not the feeling, but the act? Did you give yourself to things like passion, ambition and success, or did you give your life to people? Stella, whoever is cherished by another, that person is someone.'

The young woman nodded.

'I watched my father die. After the life I endured because of that dreadful man, after all he put me through, I still cried that night. Mostly because of the terrible waste. He spent his whole life trying to be someone, and failed at the more important things. I saw him die in the knowledge that he was alone, he had won no earthly friends; and when his eyes closed that last time he knew they would not open on the other side to look on the Most High. He had lost his last chance at loving, and being loved, and only darkness awaited him. He had lost everything, Stella; everything worth keeping. Do you understand? It doesn't matter whether the people you are supposed to love live in a village or a palace, the job of loving them is just the same. It is not where you are, but who you are that counts.'

Slow tears rolled down Stella's cheeks. 'Is there no easy way to live?' she said, half-pleadingly.

'Not if you really want to live,' Indrett replied hesitantly, as if she herself unwrapped this truth for the first time. 'We who have endured capture and pursuit, hunger and thirst, and have watched companions die, should not deny the truth of this. Here we are, in Instruere. Would you rather all this had not happened, and that we remained in Loulea?'

'No!' said Stella passionately. 'I've been waiting for this all my life.'

Indrett nodded. 'In a strange way, so have I,' she said quietly.

Then talk ceased, as they sat together, holding hands, thinking about what had passed and what might still be to come.

The two men walked quietly, even furtively, down one of the many corridors associated with the Hall of Lore. They were Council members, the Arkhoi of Vertensia and Piskasia; and they walked quietly because of the propensity of their new master, Deorc, the Keeper of Andratan, to appear anywhere without warning.

'I hear he's found a girl amongst them,' said Vertensia. 'That's what is keeping him away.'

'Whatever the cause, 1 can't thank it enough,' Piskasia replied fervently. 'The man is an abomination.'

'Keep your treason to yourself,' came the half-hearted rebuke. 'You know what he does to those who stand in his way. You mustn't do anything to prejudice your recent conversion from the loyalists.'

The Arkhos of Piskasia shuddered. Along with the other Council members he had been forced to watch the execution of the remaining loyalists, and found it extremely distasteful, even though his chest burned with relief that he escaped the flames that had licked the limbs of his former friends. Deruys, Redana'a and Sna Vaztha died nobly, and Redana'a had fixed Favony, a distant kinsman, with a gaze at once pitying and convicting. He had turned guiltily from that stare.