The Gold Falcon (25 page)

Salamander was seized by the mad impulse to step forward and shout, “but Evandar’s already dead” simply because doing so would have had such a splendid effect on the crowd. He managed to keep his urge toward drama under control, even when the assembled worshipers cheered in anticipated triumph.

“Soon, my well-loved friends,” Rocca said, “soon that day will come on a wave like silver moonlight. But until that day does come, we have a task, a holy burden. What be that task?” She paused only briefly. “To witness unto her power over death. Indeed, it be upon us to witness even with our deaths, for what holier deed could we be about doing but to die with her name upon our lips?”

In unison the assembly shouted, “There be none!”

“True-spoken!” Rocca shouted as well. “Let us give thanks, let us pray.”

Those sitting on benches fell to their knees, even the aged Lady Varigga; those sitting on the floor rose to theirs. Salamander followed Honelg’s example and knelt as well. Apparently her followers believed that Alshandra took great delight in prayers. Rocca droned on and on, the crowd murmured responses, the room grew warmer and stuffier, until Salamander had to fight to stay awake. Since the prayerful kept their gaze on the floor, he could take comfort in knowing that no one would notice him yawning. In fact, he heard once or twice the distinct sound of a snore, hastily cut off, and knew that he was not alone.

At last the prayers, and the service, were over. Everyone left the hidden room and in silence trooped across the ward to gather in the great hall. Honelg’s servants passed out chunks of bread, dipped in honey—whether as refreshment or as part of the ritual, Salamander didn’t know. Everyone chatted pleasantly, until, a few at a time, the farm folk left the broch, slinking through the dark like cats. As they left, Rocca stood at the door and blessed each of them.

In the torchlight of the great hall Salamander finally got a clear look at her. Her long dark hair she wore in a sloppy twist at the nape of her neck, held there by two-pronged bone pins, but a good many short wisps had escaped, framing her face. Her eyes, too, were dark, and her features so delicate that she might have been lovely had she been reasonably clean.

As it was, dirt smeared along her cheekbones and matted her hair; dirt ringed her neck and clotted under her torn fingernails. The tunic she wore over baggy brigga had once been linen-colored, but now appeared dark brown; it hung in stiff crusted folds. Her only adornment, if one could call it that, was a flat band of hammered steel curved around her right wrist. Her feet revealed how much she walked; they were huge, flat, and clublike from calluses and old scars. Salamander thought of Tieryn Cadryc, saying that Zaklof had never worn shoes in his life. Walking such long distances without them must have caused her constant pain, at least until the calluses had formed.

Rocca also reeked of sour sweat and general secretions. Salamander feigned a cough and raised his arm to shelter his nose with his sleeve, a gesture that Honelg caught. The lord elbowed him in the ribs and whispered. “They don’t wash, the Holy Ones. It shows their contempt for the things of this world.”

“I see,” Salamander whispered as well. “But don’t they get sores on their skin?”

“Horrible ones, truly. They call them Alshandra’s jewels.”

Once the last worshiper was out of the door, the priestess accepted a seat at the honor table. Lady Adranna moved down on the bench to allow Rocca to sit at the lord’s right hand, across from Salamander, who was sitting at his left. Young Matto brought her a plate of dry bread and a goblet of plain water, bowed to her, then hurried away again. Rocca said a brief prayer over the food, then picked up a chunk of bread and gestured at Salamander.

“Now who be this?” Rocca said “A stranger, but he does wear the symbol of one who does follow our goddess.”

“He does, Your Holiness,” Honelg said. “His name is Evan, though he goes by Salamander, because he’s a gerthddyn by trade.”

“And he saw Zaklof die.” Adranna leaned forward. “Do tell her, Evan.”

For the third time that day Salamander told his borrowed tale. With such an attentive audience he could no longer resist embroidering every detail. He invented speeches for the guards and sermons for Zaklof. He worked himself up to scattered tears at the appropriate places and let his voice catch with awe at others. Even the warband turned on their benches and listened in dead silence, their mugs of ale forgotten, as Salamander described Zaklof’s last hours in this world.

Salamander then turned to his own imaginary troubles, a tale of suspicious neighbors, of priests threatening to burn him alive, of a wife who reacted only with fury to his talk of Alshandra. This material held the great hall’s attention equally well, until he at last truly understood that old turn of phrase about storytellers entrancing their audience. He might as well have turned them to stone for all the restlessness or skepticism they showed.

When at last he finished, he wiped tears from his face on one sleeve with a suitably rough and masculine gesture, then allowed his hand to drop into his lap as if he were exhausted. The women at the table, including the priestess, were staring at him moist-eyed.

“How much you did suffer,” Rocca said softly, “so much will our goddess reward you.”

“Never would I claim any reward, Your Holiness,” Salamander said. “The only thing I long for is more knowledge of
her
and her ways.”

“Well, that mayhap I could be giving to you, but there be a need on all of us to learn it slowly. Journeys, there be a need on them to proceed by single steps.”

“Of course,” Salamander said. “Is there novice lore, then?”

“There be such.” Rocca paused for a sip of water. “The council of high priests mapped out our journey to
her
in safe steps.”

“My heart burns to hear everything you deem me worthy of,” Salamander said, “and naught more.”

Rocca smiled and raised her goblet of water as if in salute.

“Unfortunately,” Honelg broke in, “our Holy One can’t stay here more than a single night. It’s too dangerous. Besides, she has other souls in her care.”

“Well, to tell the truth, like, at my leaving here, I’ll be traveling straight back to our new dun, Zakh Gral. That be its name.” Rocca turned in Honelg’s direction. “We do build a shrine there, of course, and there be a need on me to be there for the consecration.”

Salamander had to draw upon every bit of will that he possessed to keep his voice steady. “That’s a pity,” he said. “But perhaps, next time you come this way, would you tell me the lore then?”

“A better idea, and methinks our goddess did send it to me.” Her eyes bright, she leaned forward. “Evan, truly, there be a need on you to come with me. You talk so well, you’d be a boon to the faith and the faithful. If the—well, the higher order of priests—if they do agree, it might even be allowed that you travel to the holiest of temples in our city off in the far west.”

“Oh, I’d never be worthy of that.” Salamander looked down at the floor and softened his voice to modesty. “My gifts are far too poor. But I’d love to see the shrine, a holy place dedicated to
her
.”

“Then you shall!” Rocca smiled, suddenly merry. “It be a long way off, but while we go a-traveling, I may teach you the novice’s lore, and you may teach me how to speak like you do.”

“Your Holiness, you speak from the heart, and that makes your words far more moving than any a gerthddyn could say.”

“How kind you be! But still, there be other wandering priests and priestesses, and as much as they do love our goddess, they do lack the words to make others see the truth and come to her. There be a need for such as you to help to us. Please—do come with me?”

“Do you truly think I’m worthy?”

“If I had not so thought, would I be inviting you?” She sounded on the edge of laughing. “Now, whether it be possible for you to someday see the temple in Taenalapan, I mayn’t say. The deciding of that be for the holy council. But the shrine—certainly it does lie within my rights to take you there.”

“If you command, then I can but obey.”

Rocca smiled, Honelg and his womenfolk all smiled, and Salamander pledged them with his goblet of mead. Rocca got up, her smile disappearing into a yawn.

“I be fair tired,” she remarked. “There be a need on me for sleep.”

“Now, Your Holiness,” Adranna said, “are you sure I can’t give you a proper bed in the broch?”

“Very sure. Straw in the stables be good enough for me in this world. We shall all have so much better one fine day.”

When she left, Salamander said his good nights as well and went upstairs to the spare little chamber he’d been given. Rocca’s easy faith in his lies had made his guilt return in a breaking wave of shame. It receded, however, once he was safely alone and could do some hard thinking. He’d have wagered a fortune, had he had one, that Taenalapan, that city in the far west, must have once been called Tanbalapalim, an elven city destroyed by Horsekin over a thousand years before. The ancient lore stated that a vile plague had then conquered the conquerors, but Salamander knew that the ancient lore had already been proven wrong about one group of Horsekin, the civilized Gel da’Thae of Braemel. It could well be wrong a second time, as he remarked to Dallandra once he’d contacted her.

“That’s certainly true.” The thought-image of her face turned grave. “I don’t know exactly where Tanbalapalim was, but I’ll wager Meranaldar does.”

“Dar’s scribe? No doubt! He’s a great man for lore, Meranaldar. Endlessly and perennially great.”

“Now he can’t help being a bit tedious.”

“He could too help it if only he wanted to, but no matter, O mistress of mighty magicks. What counts is this new dun that Rocca spoke of.”

“Well, yes. I’ve been searching for that spirit you saw, by the way, the white womanlike creature. I’ve found no trace of her. She may have just been curious about Branna, not vengeful or the like.”

“Let us hope so.”

Salamander may have considered Meranaldar tedious, but he soon realized that he’d never known how tedious tedium could be. In the morning, when he and Rocca set off for the west, Salamander urged her to take his horse and ride, but she insisted on walking. She did at least allow him to tie her rough cloth sack, containing her few possessions, onto the packsaddle of the second horse. They left the dun and followed a leveled dirt road through farmland. Rocca strode along at Salamander’s stirrup, talking all the while. Her harsh life, spent mostly out of doors, had given her a splendid pair of lungs.

“Numbers be the key,” she began. “All the novice lore it does circle around numbers like ducks around a pond. The most important numbers be seven, thirteen, and fifty-two.”

“Seven, thirteen, and fifty-two. Very well, I’ll remember those,” Salamander said. “You know, I could shift some of the packhorse’s load so that we could both ride.”

“I want not to ride.” She sounded near laughter. “Our goddess did give me the power to walk where I will, and I’d ask for naught more. Now. We start with seven. There be fifty-two lists of seven sacred things each, and there be a need on you to remember them in the correct order. First, the planets.”

Salamander allowed himself a brief surge of optimism. He knew the names of the seven planets already, and perhaps the rest of the lore would be equally easy to learn. Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that Alshandra’s priests would never name any sacred thing in either Deverrian or Elvish.

“Azgarn and Rebisov be what we call the sun and the moon,” Rocca said. “Then there be Jalmat, Ringonnin, Saddet, Fomthir, and Honexel. Repeat those back.”

Salamander did manage to repeat that first lot, but as the morning wore on, and the lists kept coming, he felt his heart turn as heavy as sgarkan, one of the seven sacred metals, otherwise known as lead. He had hated the early teachings of the dweomer for just this same emphasis on memory, the lists of names, the formulae of rituals. Now he was starting over in yet another system, learning a vast bundle of minutiae, all of which would doubtless prove to be of crucial importance at some point, just as the dweomerlore had proved to be.

“Sooner or later,” Rocca said cheerfully, “there’ll be a need on you to learn the sacred language. That be where all these names do come from.”

“No doubt,” Salamander said. “It’s the language of the Horsekin, isn’t it?”

With a little gasp she stopped walking. He reined in his horse and turned in the saddle to look at her, watching him wide-eyed and frightened as she stood in the road.

“Rocca, everyone here in the north knows about the Horsekin,” Salamander said. “Why do you keep trying to pretend they don’t exist?”

“Well, I—” She let her voice trail away.

Salamander dismounted so they could talk face-to-face, but she refused to look at him, even when he walked up close to her.

“I’ve noticed a couple of times now how you nearly say some word and then shy away from it. That word’s Horsekin, isn’t it? Your Horsekin masters?”

“True enough. It does frighten people, Evan. They think the Horsekin be evil, horrible slavers who live to conquer the whole world.”

“Aren’t they?”

“Of course not!” She tossed her head and looked up at last. “They merely be wanting to spread the word of Alshandra and salvation. But Deverry folk understand this not, and they attack us.”

“From what I’ve seen, I’d say that the attacks generally come from the Horsekin.”

“Well, at times there be a need on us to protect ourselves by striking first.” Rocca hesitated for a long moment. “Truly, once you meet the high priestess, then the understanding will come upon you, truly it will.”

Salamander felt a ripple of dweomer cold run down his spine. No doubt he’d understand danger, though not a danger of the spirit, once he reached the new fort, but he’d expected nothing else. She took a step toward him and held out a hand.