Children of Chaos

twenty-five

INGELD NARSDOR

stepped into the adytum, the holy of holies in the temple of Veslih, leaving Sansya to close the heavy door behind them. It was a cramped five-sided chamber with room for only a dozen or so worshipers around the bronze brazier in the center. The fire that lit it and kept it oppressively hot was even more sacred than the one in the tholos on the summit, for it was never extinguished and had been lit eons ago by holy Veslih Herself in the legendary city of Gal. Many layers of rich rugs padded the floor. The walls were very high and glazed in random patterns of cool green and blue tiles, with small openings under the roof for ventilation.

Only Tene, the most junior Daughter, was present, kneeling in vigil before the flames and bare to the waist. Ingeld moved across to join her, although not so near that they would have exactly the same viewing. She knelt, dropped the top of her gown, loosed her hair to fall in red-gold veils over her breasts, and bent her head in silent dedication and appeal for guidance. She sensed Sansya joining them on her other side. The only sound was a faint crackling of the logs.

Sansya had fetched her, claiming that she had seen the babe, a portent that up until now had been revealed only to Ingeld herself. She had first seen it back in the spring, and that was a long time for a vision to be so restricted. Even Tene had not discerned it, and her sight was brilliant—clearer and wider-ranging than Ingeld's had ever been.

When the ripples on her soul had calmed, she raised her eyes to contemplate the coals. A boat, of course, going away. That was Cutrath. She kept trying for a closer vision of him, but all she ever saw was the boat, and often only its sail. Almost instantly an ember shifted and the boat was gone, although he could not be aware of her sight or even of his own desire to block it. She did not try to overrule him. Cutrath had never been willing to share anything, even himself; the more he needed love, the more he rejected it. She was happy just to know that he was alive—and also surprised that he was still relevant to Kosord, for his brothers had disappeared from view long before they died.

Boats approaching, five of them. They could not be far away now. And for days now this little fleet had been linked to an ax; yes, there it was, a double-bladed ceremonial ax of silver with a long handle and shiny crescent edges. Ingeld knew who that was. She pointed.

"What do you see there?"

Tene had been close to trance—it was so easy for her—and she jumped. "My lady!... Where? Oh! A bird, my lady."

"What sort of bird?"

She gave a nervous little laugh. Tene was very beautiful, slender and fair and glowing with youth. Even in daylight she was gorgeous, and one glimpse of those high, rose-tipped breasts caressed by firelight would drive a man clean out of his mind. There was better to come, for in the three sixdays since she had made her final vows to Veslih, her flaxen hair had begun turning bronze and her eyes to gold. "A nighthawk, my lady. It is a white bird we have in the hills. It hunts by night, like an owl."

Ingeld smiled, mostly to herself. "Good omen or bad omen?"

Tene was obviously shocked to hear the light of Veslih speak of omens. "The peasants fear it, my lady."

"I don't blame them. I cannot see your bird, but what I do see is my own warning. How many days until she arrives?"

"Who? Er..." Tene looked back into the coals for a moment. "Four days, my lady. The feast of Ucr."

Ingeld exchanged glances with Sansya. "Incredible, isn't she?"

"I am wrong?" Tene asked, worried.

"No, dear. I mean that we two can't guess within a six-day. But I think you will find that the nighthawk is your own portent of my dear sister-in-law, Saltaja Hragsdor." Ingeld contemplated the boats. Not all evil, though. Whatever news or orders or companions Saltaja was bringing had mixed implications for Kosord. Horold had reacted with predictable horror when warned that his sister was coming.

And there was Benard, striding along an alley with a sour expression on his face. He was in even worse trouble than usual. Ever since spring, when he began showing up in the embers, Ingeld had regarded Benard as a civic matter and had kept him under surveillance, so she knew exactly where he was heading. One of Eriander's hags had her claws in him.

"There?" she asked, pointing.

"The artist," Tene said, just as Sansya said, "Celebre."

Ingeld had never met a Florengian Daughter until she inducted Sansya, and she was fascinated by the way the Veslihan change expressed itself on Florengian coloring. The heavy tresses hung like ropes of reddish metal, but it was the fiery shine of Sansya's skin that most impressed; her aureoles and nipples might have been carved from enormous red garnets, glowing like lanterns in the firelight.

Now for the babe... "Where do you—" No need to ask. Ingeld could see baby, baby, more baby... It had been born, and that was why it had gone from private portent to civic. "Big healthy lad," she muttered. She could not see the mother, or even any hint as to where this brat had been dropped, but a sturdy boy it was, and the flames rejoiced around it. "There?"

"I see it," Sansya muttered. "It is a blessing for the city, my lady."

"But so much blood!" Tene cried. "Surely the mother died!"

Yes! Even in the overpowering heat of the adytum, cold shivers raced over Ingeld's skin and her throat tightened. She rose and backed away, pulling her gown closed. "So it seems. How sad! Watch over it, please. Some of the acolytes ought to be able to see it now. Let me know if Our Lady reveals more."

♦

Puzzled and deeply troubled, Ingeld went back to her room to think on these things. She sent word to Horold to expect Saltaja next fifth-day, and left orders that she was not to be disturbed by anyone except Tene or Sansya. It was almost dark already. Many of her evenings were spent counseling brides-to-be, but at this season the young were too busy bringing in the harvest to have time for romance.

Thoughts of reaping reminded her of a verse in the Arcana ... She put her head out again and told them to let Benard in if he appeared. She was not certain he was coming to visit her, but she needed a serious talk with that unserious young man, for he had been entangled with the rogue Nymph quite long enough and should be rescued before he suffered permanent damage.

Nymphs undoubtedly performed a valuable service—without them, single men would be a public nuisance, constantly bugling like wapiti. Most Nymphs were true to holy Eriander's ideal of love freely exchanged, but some became greedy or even sadistic as they aged, and this one had offended Ingeld before. A few days before he left town, Cutrath had been caught smuggling gold plate out of the palace. In that case Horold had sent a stern warning, and the snake had released her victim, but she did not deserve another chance. It was time to draw her fangs.

The big room was still hot, although mornings were cool now. Soon it would be time to have the winter doors brought back and hung. Ingeld wondered if she should order a fire laid. Short of another public pyromancy, the only way she might gain insight into the portents was by trance, and she had not risked that for several years. Patience! If the baby had been born in Kosord, then she would certainly recognize it when it was brought to the temple next sixth-day for Veslih's blessing.

And if Benard did show up tonight, then a serious talk with him might reveal more than the state of his loins. She wondered with a flash of amusement if it were possible to wander into auguries by accident. If anyone could, it would be Bena!

As she tipped water from the ewer to the basin, intending to sponge away the heat of the day, something fell on the grass outside with a muffled thump. Then another. Benard? He would not come that way without leave, and if he did, it would be through the gate, quiet as starlight She strode over to the arches in time to see a dark shape come down, but this one fell in silence and flopped shapelessly on the ground.

For a moment she was rooted to the spot by sheer disbelief, refusing to admit that the first two had been boots and the third a pall. Then their owner came over the wall also, landing on all fours, a huge white-furred beast in the twilight. She turned and fled. He was not in battleform, but he did not need to be. She was not even close to the door when arms like tree boughs closed around her.

"I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to," he growled in her ear. "Don't bother struggling."

She gagged at the porcine stench of him, although it was mixed with scent, so he had at least tried. He had been drinking, too. She gasped several deep breaths in and out before she could speak.

"So it was yours!"

He grunted. "Been spying on me?"

"You spy on me with your seers!" She tried to pry herself loose and merely confirmed her helplessness. Her head barely reached the middle of his chest. She tried her nails on a hairy thigh, but his hide was tough as pigskin.

"They tell me you still bleed," he said. "You're still fertile. And, as of today, I know I am, too." Still clutching her tightly, he ripped the front of her gown open to the waist and began fondling her breasts. His paw was rough as earthenware. "It has teeth, but it's quite human."

She shuddered. "You are not serious!" Of course he was serious. "The mother died!"

"It was big for a newborn." He had been drinking a lot. "Women die in childbirth all the time."

"I am going to scream!"

"Go ahead. I won't mind an audience." He had both might and right on his side; she was as powerless in his grasp as that newborn baby. "Veslih will help, because this is Her business. You swore to the goddess. And you swore to me, too." He slid his hand lower.

It was true that a dynast owed her city a daughter to succeed her. On the night Stralg took over Kosord, Ingeld had negotiated the terms of her rape, standing between Ardial, her lawful husband, and the Guthlag beast, who had been quietly bleeding to death. She had agreed to bear two sons for that astonishingly handsome Werist at Stralg's side. But her promise to the goddess had come first, and he knew that as well as she did.

"One daughter and two sons, you promised," Horold said, methodically stripping away her clothes without even seeming to notice her struggles. When he had her as naked as he was, he carried her over to the platform. "Cutrath you agreed to later. Doesn't change the daughter. My daughter, to be dynast after you."

He turned her to face him. "So we have unfinished business. You're fertile, I'm fertile, and we're going to settle the matter now. I'm ready; you'll never be. Will you submit or do I force you?"

She gagged at his stench. "Get it over with, then." She lay down and closed her eyes.

♦

It probably did not last as long as it seemed, but it was terrible while it did. When he rolled off her, she lay and sobbed. The humiliation was worse than the pain and the pain had been bad. The worst part was knowing that he was right. She was old for bearing, but not impossibly so, and the goddess would hold her to her oath.

Horold stopped panting. He heaved himself along the platform until they were face-to-face again—face-to-snout. Fortunately it was too dark to see any details, but she could imagine his sneer of triumph.

"I know you have ways, wife. You don't need to hunt out some sleazy old chthonian behind the bazaar or poke around with sticks, but you will only delay the inevitable. You are going to bear me another child. The seers will tell me whose it is, and if it's any other man's, I'll kill it and start over."

She turned her head away. The timbers creaked as he left the platform. She saw his outline against the brighter garden when he went to find his pall and boots. She was still shaking, still close to throwing up, but she must make her prayer soon if she wanted to shed his seed.

Sudden terror drove away the pain: Benard wouldn't come through the garden, would he? But he might be dallying out in the public part of the women's quarters. If Horold ran into him now, in his present drunken state, there would be murder done.

He came back in, dressed. "You're bleeding." He could see in the dark better than any cat.

"What did you expect? When you go out, tell them to send for a surgeon. I need stitches."

"Rubbish. You'll get used to it. The girl did." He stalked across the room to the door. "Tomorrow at the same time." He slid the bolt, then turned again. "And every night until it's done, understand? That's what you tell the brides, isn't it? They owe this to their husbands?"

If their husbands were human. "I tell the men they owe their wives respect."

"If I find this door locked, I'll rip it down." He went out and the anteroom erupted in startled screams. Soon the whole palace would know that the satrap was bedding his wife again.