The Prisoner of Limnos

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As their boat took its turn at the Limnos dock and the passengers wobbled their way to shore, Nikys wasn’t sure if she was heartsick, homesick, or seasick. Or all of them. The tension in her shoulders made her feel like a plaster statue whose head could crack away at a careless knock. As her feet found the grainy cobblestones, she took a deep breath.

Penric-as-Ruchia captured her hand and gripped it. “Hey,” he murmured. “It will be very well.”

There was no rational reason at all to believe that. Sorcerers, as far as she knew, didn’t possess the powers of seers. But she stretched her neck a little without her head coming off.

Bosha took care to exit the boat apart from them, but it was easy enough to follow the handful of other pilgrims straggling up through the village to the donkey livery. They ducked around the side of the last whitewashed house and handed off their luggage to him, barring one sack containing Mira’s clogs, Pen’s tunic and trousers, and a packed lunch atop not just for concealment.

“Where will you wait for us?” asked Nikys. “I only saw the one tavern.”

“Not there,” said Bosha. “Too many people would notice me. A little way up there’s a path, and some crevices in the rocks. I’ll just evict the adders, and I’ll have a dark, cool place to wait out the sun. I should be able to mark you coming back down.”

“This island has adders?” said Nikys nervously. She might have taken this for more of Bosha’s sly humor, but he was the only one among them wearing boots.

“Not on the road.” He smirked, probably. It was hard to be sure. “Your sorcerer will doubtless protect you. …Animals like him, he tells me.”

Ignoring this edged dig, Pen drew her off.

“But who will protect him?” Nikys worried, glancing back over her shoulder. The man had already disappeared.

“From the adders? They’ll probably welcome him as a cousin. Given the inventory of tainted blades he’s carrying.”

“He drugs his belt-knife?”

“Oh, that one’s clean. But there’s one around his neck, one at his back, one in his boot, and that pouch at his belt is full of nasty little larding-needles.”

Nikys considered this. “Good.”

‘Livery’ was perhaps too grand a name for what proved to be a collection of animals tethered in the shade of some olive trees, together with a few rowdy boys for groom-guides, and an adult couple who collected the coins from the pilgrims and portioned out the mounts. The poorer or more fit travelers simply walked up the winding road, although there was also a cart for the aged or infirm. They endured a short delay while a longer-legged donkey was found for the very tall woman with the weak eyes, but soon both Pen and Nikys clambered aboard sidewise saddles like little wooden seats, arranged their skirts, and lurched off towed by a lad.

The road bent back and forth across the sparse hillside like a shuttle on a loom, covering what might have been two miles in a straight line, and a thousand vertical feet. The view across the strait to the mainland of Cedonia was superb, sky and sea a vibrant clear blue that reminded Nikys of Pen’s eyes, the land aglow with white light. It only seemed forever before they rounded the last turn and approached the hamlet outside the walls of the Daughter’s Order.

She searched for any signs of guards they would somehow have to circumvent, later. A few men in blue tunics of the Order were about, bearing weapons, and under a plane tree four bored soldiers in imperial uniforms played at dice. They paused to look over the latest arrivals to be unloaded, but, after the first flicker of attention, their interest seemed more lewd than suspicious.

Truly, even were he mad enough to do so, it was far too early for Adelis to be arriving with any sort of attack force. Which the sentinels could watch coming up the road long before it arrived.

Except Adelis wouldn’t march up the hill in broad daylight. He’d land his troop on the far side of the island in the dark and infiltrate by surprise. So perhaps the soldiers’ present relaxation was justified.

The long drawbridge lay down across a plunging cleft, cool and green in its shadowy depths. Nikys gripped Pen’s elbow as if assisting her friend while they waited for a blue-clad man to push a cart holding a barrel across, handing it off at the stone archway to a waiting woman. They exchanged brief Daughter’s salutes, a tap to the forehead, as well as the load. Nikys and Pen followed it inside.

The forecourt was sunny, paved with interlaced tiles in blue, white, and yellow. On the other side stood a podium womaned by an acolyte wearing a blue scarf, smiling welcome at the visitors and waiting to assist them in signing the guest book, a large ledger. The only hazard was the startling pack of perhaps a dozen guard dogs.

Nikys had vaguely expected something like the Xarre mastiffs, huge and threatening. Instead, these were small beasts, their long coats beautifully brushed, with bright black eyes and pink tongues. It was like being swarmed by a throng of white silk floor mops.

Pen made a faint urk sound, and acquired a look of concentration. The dogs’ suspicion turned to joy as they rioted around him, snuffling and panting. A couple of them darted in to lick his ankles. Producing a credible feminine eep, not wholly feigned, Pen shook his skirts and attempted to gently shove them away with a long sandaled foot. Which would have been all right had their pink tongues not come away with a distinct brown tint. Nikys swallowed horror and bent to them, waving her arms and hissing, “Shoo. Shoo!” They tried to lick her fingers.

To Nikys’s intense relief, a woman came in behind them shepherding four young girls, who squealed at their canine reception. Girls and dogs fell upon each other with equal delight, exchanging petting and cooing for licks and wriggles, and Pen escaped.

As planned, Nikys signed in for the both of them, her false name and his, so that there would be no discrepancy in handwriting when it came time to sign out. Assuming anyone actually compared such things. They will later on, when they discover Mother missing.

“And what do you pray to our Lady for today?” the acolyte asked cheerfully.

“Oh, nothing for myself. My friend Ruchia is praying for aid for her weak eyes. I’m just here to help her.”

Pen nodded amiably, and, by whatever restraint—maybe Des—managed not to add any rambling comments. He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and pressed it to his nose just in time to dam the beginning trickle of blood.

“Oh dear, are you all right?” said the acolyte. “Do you need to go sit down?”

Pen shook his head, emitting a muffled negative noise. “S’tops in a mom’nt.”

Reluctantly, the acolyte released them to the first stage of the pilgrims’ tour, pointing out the entry to the tapestry gallery. Nikys fished out her coin purse and withdrew an offering for the box set up next to the podium, turning her hand to make sure the acolyte caught the heavy gold glint. The acolyte was all smiles as she sent them on their way, though she added a recommendation to the tall girl to return if she felt unwell and someone would guide her to the infirmary.

The famous tapestry was arranged on a long wall, with a series of arched windows opposite that illuminated without allowing direct sunlight to fade it. Penric actually took the time to look at it all, strolling slowly through thirty feet of closely embroidered narrative, murmuring interpretations under his breath. Nikys wasn’t sure if he was just doing an excellent job of playing a pilgrim, or if he was overcome with scholarly distraction, again.

One could make out views of the soldiers landing in the fishing cove below, ravaging through something very like the present village. Scaling ladders and smoke. Women screaming, captured by the hair by what appeared to be brutal ogres. A picture of the sacred well, with the goddess looming over it crying in dismay. Her face was portrayed so vaguely as to be a near-blank, because the Nominalist Controversy had taken some vicious turns in Cedonia, but what could be seen of Her posture somehow conveyed profound emotion. Toward the end, many detailed little ogre figures writhed in visible agony and vomited red threads. Lots of red threads.

“I didn’t know needlework could be so hostile,” murmured Pen, bending to examine these. “Definitely a sermon, there.” His licked his lips a touch nervously.

The last image was of the goddess smiling benignly, presiding over billowing smoke from pyres and the restoration of Her refuge. Pen contemplated this and signed himself, hand passing over his forehead for the Daughter, lips for the Bastard, navel for the Mother, groin for the Father, and heart for the Son, bowing slightly and giving his forehead an extra tap.

Then twice with the back of his thumb on his lips for the luck of his own god, however ambiguous. Because Penric never seemed to forget, though others did, that his powers were lent ultimately by the white god, to Whom he must someday render up an account.

It was an unexpected insight, and Nikys eyed him sideways. She had met him first as physician, then as sorcerer, but he was equally, it seemed, a learned divine. Maybe she hadn’t given enough credence to this third pillar of his character.

The gallery let them out down some bluish granite steps into the court of the sacred well, recognizable from the tapestry. But so much more stunning in reality. She and Pen both stopped short and gawped.

From the middle of a white marble circle some eight feet in diameter bubbled up clear, bright waters. Welling indeed. Through five ports, it spilled over into an encircling basin. From there, channels led away variously into the surrounding precincts, doubtless including baths and laundries. One spout emptied into a sink with silver ladles hung around it. From there it trickled into something resembling a marble laundry trough, beautifully carved with emblems of the goddess, in which a pilgrim seeking more complete consolation could immerse her whole body.

The music of the waters was the only sound in the hushed court, apart from distant bird-calls. It seemed strange that so glaringly bright a place could feel holy, but it did.

“How,” muttered Pen through his teeth, “does the water get up here?”

Another acolyte, attendant and guardian-on-duty of the waters, rose from a porphyry bench under a portico and cordially came forward. “We consider it a miracle of the Lady. Four hundred years ago, this place was nothing but a dry and desolate crag. The spring appeared following an earthquake. The inhabitants of Limnos noticed a new waterfall appearing over the side of the pinnacle, and came to investigate. We have celebrated the blessings of the Daughter of Spring here ever since.” The wave of an inviting hand. “Drink, then, if you come in good faith, and pray with Her cleansing waters on your lips.” Her gesture went on to encompass an array of intricately woven prayer rugs set beyond the well. An older woman, the blue scarf about her neck, was just lumbering up from one, a thoughtful expression on her face.

Nikys took the ladle that was extended and hesitated. The attendant, eyes twinkling, murmured behind her hand, “After the boats and that climb up the hill, most visitors are very thirsty. It’s permitted to drink your fill.”

Smiling thanks, she did so. Penric watched her cautiously. Moved by impulse, she dipped her ladle and handed it to him. He received it with a grateful nod, and again when she refilled it.

They both wiped their mouths, then proceeded to the prayer rugs, because the attendant was watching them in expectation. Penric, after a contemplative moment, went down not just on his knees but prone, arms wide in the attitude of utmost supplication. Nikys went down on her knees facing the bright fountain and held up her hands palm-out, five fingers spread wide.

For all her anxieties, she had not thought of what to pray. She had nothing.

With the Daughter’s water still on her lips, it seemed wrong to perform some dissembling dumb-show. One didn’t need to be a virgin to pray here, after all, merely to have once been one. Because the gods are parsimonious.

And, sometimes, merciful.

She considered offering the goddess an apology for this sacrilegious invasion. Could they buy dispensation by coming to remove what was certainly a greater insult, using Her shrine for a prison?

…No. This was the goddess, not Duke Jurgo. Nikys wasn’t here to bargain for something to which she had no native right, trading favors. The court of the sacred well wasn’t a marketplace. There was no way to put a value on what she sought.

And no need, child.

Nikys trembled, not sure whose thought that was.

Lady. I do not sin against You, and no forgiveness is required. I am here to do today exactly what a daughter ought. I lay my actions as an offering at Your feet, because we should give to the gods the very best of what is in us.

There is no offense to You in me.

And she knew it to be true.

Penric sighed, rolled over, and sat up, then looked alarmed. “Why are you crying?” he whispered.

“Am I?” said Nikys. She wiped at her cheeks to find them wet. Daughter’s waters, given back. Her head, and heart, felt overfull in a very different way than before. “It’s all right.”

“I can take—”

She reached out and caught his hand, laid a finger to stop his anxious lips. “No. It’s really all right. We can go, now.” She echoed his own words back to him. “It will be very well.” This time, she stood first, and pulled him up after her.