The Godspeaker Trilogy (38 page)

He sounded breathless. Subdued. His eyes were empty. His godbells were silent.

“Come, Hekat,” said Raklion, and they left Nagarak behind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

M
uch, much later, in the coldest darkness of the night, Hekat woke in the palace, curled up beside Raklion in his bed. Hidden in the god’s eye she dressed in her tunic and left him sleeping, gliding out of the palace to make her way back to the godhouse, and Vortka.

He slept in the novice-quarters, where she had never been. The god guided her footsteps, she knew where to walk. Godspeakers were waking, the godhouse never slept, but they did not see her, they did not hear her or see her passing. She was air, she was shadow, she wore the night like a second skin.

There were no locks on godspeaker doors. She entered the novices’ sleeping chamber and crouched beside Vortka’s mat. Twenty other novices slept on, unaware. Candles burned along the walls, their dim light showed her Vortka’s face sunk far in dreams. Swiftly, silently, she peeled back his blanket. He was naked beneath it, his skin cruelly welted from his latest tasking. She took his blade in her warm hand and encouraged its attention. His breathing deepened, harshened, he responded eagerly to her touch. The other novices remained oblivious, their senses smothered by the god.

When Vortka’s eyes flew open she pressed her other hand across his mouth and straddled him, holding him tight between her thighs. Then she leaned close to him until her breasts touched his chest.

“When I was in the scorpion pit, the god poured its desires into my heart,” she whispered. “It told me things I did not know. Raklion warlord’s seed is salted, Vortka, the taint is in him . It is not in me. It was not in Et-Nogolor’s Daughter or any other woman he fucked to make a son. Raklion cannot sire a living child. But he is the warlord, a son must be born.”

Vortka plucked at her pressing fingers. She eased her grip slightly, that he might speak. “Hekat, what are you doing? I am not a vessel, I cannot fuck you! The other novices, they will see us!”

“They will see nothing, and you can fuck me if it is the god’s want,” she told him fiercely. “Do you doubt me, Vortka? Do you think I lie? Do you think you dreamed me in the scorpion pit, tested and untouched by the god itself?”

She could feel him hard and ready beneath her. His eyes were clouded as Raklion’s clouded when he feasted his mouth on her nipples. She knew enough of fucking now to know Vortka desired her. It was all she needed of him, the rest of the business she could do herself.

Vortka swallowed a tiny moan. “Hekat, you are sunstruck, we can’t, this is madness . . .”

“What we do, we do for the god,” she said, and shifted upon him until he groaned. “It is not madness, we will not be found out. The god wants this, Vortka. We must obey.”

His fingers closed upon her tunic-covered breasts. She raised her hips, wrapped her hand around him, and guided him deep between her legs. At first she rode him but then instinct took over and his hips were plunging, he thrust hard into her, like Raklion fucking he mewled and sobbed. He was a man, he could not help it. She covered his mouth again to keep him quiet.

When he was finished and panting, his seed spilled inside her, she eased herself off him and lay down for a moment. Her body was sore, Raklion had fucked like a mad thing in his desperation for a son.

“Hekat,” said Vortka, and took her hand. “You are certain that was for the god?”

She nodded, and let his fingers enclose hers. “I am certain.”

“I think I liked it,” he said, sounding wistful. “How many times will it take us to make Raklion his son?”

Her other hand drifted to her belly. She pressed her palm flat there and felt something shift. “It will happen quickly. The god has said so.”

“Oh,” said Vortka, disappointed. “Then you will not come to me again?”

“I will come if the god desires it,” she said, and rolled to her feet. “Go back to sleep, Vortka. Do not think on what has happened. Nagarak will watch me, he hates that the god whispers in my heart. If he sees you seeing me he will read your thoughts, he will see in your face you have feelings for me.” She gave him a brief smile. “You think you hide them but you do not. You are stupid, Vortka.”

He returned her smile, sadly. “Yes. I think I am.”

At least he admitted it now, that was something. She left him in the godhouse and returned to ignorant sleeping Raklion.

Four times more, in the deepest part of night, the god woke her so she might fuck with Vortka. Quick couplings in ragged silence, they spoke no more before or after. What use were words? Words would change nothing.

Nagarak conducted his business in the godhouse, except for sacrifice she did not see him. She was not sorry, let him stay there and rot. Raklion remained in Et-Raklion, he left Hanochek and the warhost on the border to frighten Nogolor warlord and his belligerent son. He kept her with him in their chamber, fucked her with vigor and told himself he was making a son. He would not let her knife-dance in the garden, he said she was too beautiful and precious to risk herself dancing with an unsheathed blade.

She wanted to stab him, but the god would not let her.

Twelve highsuns later she was pronounced pregnant for the second time. She knew it already, the god had told her, but it was safer to let Nagarak say so. It was stated, with certainty, this child was a boy.

She knew that, too. The god withheld her nothing.

Raklion kissed her, and then he wept. Five hundred black bull-calves were slain upon the godhouse’s great altar, five hundred black lambs lost their small lives. Et-Raklion’s godbowls were filled to overflowing, godbells rang until their tongues wore away. She was exiled to the godhouse soon after. She raged, she fought, Raklion would not listen.

“This son will be born safe,” he told her. “In the godhouse no evil can reach you. No demon can strike you or my son. If it is as Nagarak has said, if all my ills come from the ill-will of the other warlords and their high godspeakers, only in the godhouse will you be protected. Hekat, be silent. I will beat you if you cross me on this.”

He could beat her and not hurt the baby, so she held her tongue and did as she was told. She and her slaves were settled in the godhouse where she prayed five times daily, drank too much sacrificial blood, walked sedately in the shrine garden and tried not to go mad. If the warlords knew she was pregnant, no-one told her. If they continued their squabbling, rode to war against each other, made and broke treaties, continued their sinful dances with demons, no-one told her that either. She never saw Vortka, ten highsuns after she was banished to the godhouse he was sent far away to serve on a godhouse breeding farm, where the perfect sacrifice animals were born and raised. She hardly saw Raklion, he trained with his warhost beyond the city, riding the Et-Nogolor and Et-Banotaj borders with Hanochek, cowing the warlords with Et-Raklion’s might.

She begged to be let into the godhouse library, where she could read and forget the forbidden world beyond its walls. Nagarak resisted, whenever he saw a chance to thwart her, he took it. She prayed, then sent word to Raklion so her want might prevail. The god and Raklion defeated Nagarak, she was permitted to spend her time in the library, where she was largely ignored by godspeakers and novices alike. She did not care about that, all she cared for was learning.

To guide my son I must be wise, I must know the things a warlord should know.

The godhouse library’s vast collection of clay tablets saved her from madness, when she wasn’t praying or taking air in the shrine garden she read and read, gorging herself on all the things she never knew. Caravanning through Mijak with Abajai and Yagji, then her journey to knowledge was begun. In Nagarak’s godhouse it was completed, for nearly eight godmoons she put aside Hekat knife-dancer and became Hekat scholar, warrior for learning. She unsheathed her mind, it became her snakeblade.

Nagarak’s godhouse library did not only hold accounts of Et-Raklion’s history, in its cool, dim-lit tablet rooms she learned of all the warlords who ever ruled in Mijak, their treaties and battles, their victories and defeats. She read of high godspeakers who communed with the god, of the demons who tempted them and how those demons were destroyed. Demons were mysterious creatures, no-one ever saw them with their eyes, their presence was marked by the chaos that surrounded them and the sins men committed when fallen victim to their hellish wiles.

Hekat read from newsun to lowsun and far into the night. She would never much like godspeakers, except for Vortka, but it was a good thing the god created them. They wrote excellent histories, they kept meticulous records.

The days passed swiftly enough, her belly grew rounder. Her son grew within it, she talked to him as he slept.

You will be a great warlord, you will fight for the god. You will vanquish demons, you will smite the world.

Her pregnant body felt different, this time, she knew this growing life was not demon-blighted. Whatever sins had tainted Raklion’s seed, she did not know nor did she care. He would never again sire a godforsaken baby. The god would protect her from Raklion’s poisoned seed, her son would have no rivals, no deformed brothers or sisters to raise questions of his fitness to rule.

You will never know whose planted seed sired you. You are my son, that is all you must know. When old age claims Raklion you will be Mijak’s warlord. I will still be your mother, my hand will guide you, my voice will counsel you, you will see the world through my godchosen eyes.

At long last Raklion and his warhost returned from skirmishing on the borders. He did not clean the dirt of travel from his body but came straight to the godhouse weary and stinking.

“Aieee, Hekat, you are ripe enough to burst!” he marveled, pawing at her enormous belly in the godhouse shrine garden, where she sat in the shade feeling grossly misused.

She struck his hand away, irritable. “Do you think I don’t know that, warlord? I waddle like a camel, I pish ten times a finger.”

“I know, I know,” he told her, kindly. “You are near your time, it is expected.”

“ Tcha ! You are a man, what do you know of such things? Talk to me of what you do know. Raklion. Tell me of the warlords and their skirmishing ways.”

He sat beside her on the carved stone bench, took her hand with its swollen fingers gently in his, and kissed her tenderly on the brow. “My fierce Hekat. You have not changed.”

“You desire me to birth a fierce warlord for Mijak, it would be a sad thing if I turned soft like milk!” she retorted. She wanted to pull away from his touch but that would offend him. She must not do that. “The skirmishing , Raklion. How fared the warhost? Did you meet in battle with Nogolor or Banotaj, or any other warlord daring to challenge Et-Raklion’s might?”

He shook his head. “No. Nogolor still breathes in his palace, Tebek dares not disobey him and send warriors to break our treaty. We did see riders from Et-Banotaj, we glimpsed warriors from Et-Zyden and Et-Takona riding with them. It seems their fragile alliance still holds. I think they desire to raid again in our lands, if we did not show them our snakeblades they would have crossed our border. It was good we were there, Hekat.”

Aieee, I wish I had been there . She pressed a fist into her aching back. “The god will break that alliance, warlord. When it says the time is come for you to rule over Mijak they will be at each other’s throats, not standing shoulder to shoulder against you.”

“I wish it would say so soon, Hekat,” he whispered. “I am not a young man, I grow old in my bones.”

It will say so soon enough. First my son must be grown out of his cot, and I must know more of what it means to be a warlord.

“Et-Raklion’s warhost is not big enough yet,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. He liked such gestures from her, they soothed his mood. “The other warlords are still too strong. Let the god further diminish them, Raklion. Let them sin, and grow weak. The god will tell us when to strike.”

“How will it tell us? What sign will it send?”

She did not know, she would never say so. He must never suspect she could not summon the god. She groaned, and flattened her palms to her belly. “Aieee, Raklion. I am so tired, I must lie down.”

Raklion was distracted, she knew he would be. Tenderly he helped her onto her feet, and walked with her into the shadowed godhouse, to the chamber where for so long she had slept alone.

He sat beside her till she drifted to sleep.

Six highsuns after his return, as newsun made the Pinnacle’s godpost shine, she felt the first birth pains, faint griping spasms that promised more to come. Her godspeaker attendant sent for Nagarak, Raklion and the godhouse’s senior healer. Nagarak came, with the healer he helped her to a different chamber, one with an altar in it and waiting godspeakers with sharp sacrifice knives.

Raklion came soon after, he brought Hanochek with him. In between the deepening contractions she swore at him for doing so. She did not want the warleader there.

“He is my best friend, he leads the warhost after me,” said Raklion. “He and I will make my son a warrior, I desire him here. Hanochek will stay.”

Sweat poured down her straining body, it soaked her godbraids and stung her eyes. “ I will make my son a warrior, I am Hekat knife-dancer, I am Bajadek’s doom!”

“He is a witness, approved by the god,” said Nagarak, standing with the healer beside her bed. “Hanochek will stay to see the warlord’s son born.”

He only said so to thwart her, she could see the mean pleasure in his face. She was defeated, at least for the moment. She said nothing more against Hanochek’s presence, or the warlord’s claim of his part in her life. Let Raklion and his dear friend think they would guide her son. She and the god had a different plan.

Soon enough she did not care Hanochek was present, soon enough she forgot he was there. All she could think of was the tearing pain, her body was being pulled apart, torn open, ripped wide. As the godspeakers sacrificed an endless stream of lambs and doves upon the altar, as they burned the sacred blood to stinking smoke, a deterrent for demons, she clung to the birthing stool and pushed and pushed her son from her body. She kept her teeth gritted, she did not scream. She was a warrior, she had her pride. Time lost its meaning, she hardly knew where she was.