Destiny's Lovers (17 page)

Janina saw her lover slump a little as Sidra
relinquished her control over him. He straightened at once, then
stood flexing his hands as though they hurt.

“You have broken our laws, Reid,” Tamat told
him. “You knew the grove was forbidden, yet you went there. The
first time you set your feet in that sacred place was a mistake. At
that time, you were a stranger and knew not our laws. You were
forgiven because of your ignorance. But the second time you entered
there, you went with knowledge of what you were doing. You
deliberately broke our law. And for what? To meet a woman
untouchable by men. You have therefore erred doubly. And she, who
is sworn to death rather than break her vow of perpetual virginity,
knows what the punishment is.”

“It was entirely my fault,” Reid interrupted.
“I seduced her. Don’t punish her for my error, Tamat.”

“Punishment is not mine to give or withhold,
Reid,” said Tamat. “Janina, proclaim your own punishment, and
his.”

Janina’s mouth was dry, her tongue immovable.
She tried to swallow but could not.

“Say it, Janina.” Osiyar spoke with the sad
dignity befitting the occasion.

“Say it!” Sidra’s voice was full of
triumph.

“Adrift,” Janina whispered.

“Louder,” Sidra demanded. “Let all of Ruthlen
hear your own admission of guilt.”

“I shall be set adrift.” Janina had found her
voice again. She said the awful words of the Ultimate Verdict in
hot defiance of Sidra, who had never loved her, who felt no sorrow
at this terrible ending, who would not pity Tamat’s grief at what
had been done this morning. “Forbidden to return to Ruthlen under
any circumstances, without food or water or clothing, without sail
or oars or rudder, I shall be cast adrift to face the elements and
the monsters of the deep, until I die.”

There was a soft murmur of respect from the
villagers for one who could so bravely accept that most dreadful of
all fates, who could speak the proscribed words without weeping or
pleading for mercy. The murmuring stopped abruptly when Janina fell
to her bare knees before Tamat.

“I beg your pardon for my crime,” Janina
cried, “and I ask one last favor, Tamat, from you who have always
been so kind to me.”

“Have you no pride or shame?” asked Sidra in
great indignation. “There is no forgiveness for what you have
done.”

“Set Reid free.” Janina would not be stopped
by Sidra’s protests. There was only one thing that mattered to her
now. She boldly spoke what was in her heart, addressing Tamat and
Tamat alone. In the High Priestess lay her only hope for the man
she loved. “He is still unfamiliar with our ways and should not be
killed for not adhering to them. I lured him on because I wanted
him. The fault in this is mine. I accept my fate, but let Reid
go.”

“I cannot do that, child.” Tamat looked
straight ahead, not at Janina. “You will die together.”

“Tamat,” Reid said suddenly, “enter my
thoughts.”

“What nonsense is this?” Sidra cried angrily.
“This day is dreadful enough for Tamat. She does not need the added
strain of enduring your barbarian terrors over a just punishment.
Tamat, pay him no heed.”

“I grant you permission,” Reid said to Tamat.
“I give you free access to my mind. Learn from me before it is too
late.”

“No.” Sidra spoke angrily, fearfully. “Not
before all the villagers. Tamat, this man is mad with fear.”

“I am not mad,” Reid declared loudly enough
for everyone in the crowd to hear. “There is much you can learn
from me, Tamat. For example, I did not couple with either Senastria
or Anniellia. Instead, I gave each of them too much batreen to
drink, until sleep overcame their desire. That is why they did not
conceive, and all their talk about my wonderful lovemaking was
imagination, because I will lie down with no one but Janina. There
is more information in my mind, Tamat. Take it while you can.”

“Tamat!” Sidra’s voice rang clear in the
astonished silence of villagers and temple folk alike. “Tamat, I
beg you, do not exhaust yourself over this barbarian outcast. He
can tell you nothing of value or interest.”

But Sidra spoke to a woman concentrating on
someone other than herself. Tamat’s eyes held Reid’s. Sidra gave
one tiny whimper of fear before she recovered herself. Janina saw
Osiyar look anxiously at Sidra, then at Tamat and Reid. A moment
later, Tamat relaxed and Reid turned his head to look at Janina.
From somewhere inside her shocked, terrified being she found the
strength to smile at him. It was the only way she could thank him
for his public admission about the village women and about his
feelings toward her.

“I thank you, Reid,” Tamat said softly. “You
have been helpful. I know now what must be done. I regret I cannot
alleviate your sentence.”

“I understand,” Reid replied calmly.

Without another word, Tamat began to walk
toward the village. The crowd parted for her, then moved even
farther away, as if unwilling to press too close to the condemned
pair who would follow the High Priestess to the place where their
sentence would be carried out.

In accordance with temple rules, Janina had
fasted for three days before her planned initiation. Now she felt
light-headed, as though she might faint. Determined that at least
in these final few moments of her life she would do nothing to
shame Tamat any more than she had already done, she made herself
keep walking while she tried to ignore the ringing in her ears and
the black veil threatening to cloud her sight. The pain in her
feet, which were cut and bruised after her long walk on the hard
stone road, helped her to focus her thoughts on taking one step
after another. When she took a deep gulp of air and her sight
cleared for an instant, she saw Reid glaring about as if he wanted
to attack everyone surrounding them. She hoped he would restrain
himself and go to his death bravely. It would be an unbearable
humiliation if he had to be tied with rope before meeting his fate.
She had accepted their just punishment; she wanted him to accept
it, too.

To her relief, Reid did not try to fight what
was happening. Led by Tamat, Sidra, and Osiyar, escorted by all the
other priests and priestesses and the villagers, he and Janina
retraced their steps along the road until they came to the
wharf.

“The tide is exceptionally low today,” Sidra
remarked. “Tamat, perhaps it would be best if you wait here instead
of trying to walk all the way to the end of the wharf to reach the
water.”

Tamat, ignoring her assistant’s advice, did
not stop until she had traversed the length of the wharf. There,
where the sea usually rocked the largest of the fishing boats of
Ruthlen, shallow puddles had formed amid the depressions in the
sticky mud.

“I have never seen the tide like this,” said
Osiyar, looking down at stranded shellfish and rapidly drying
seaweed.

“Never mind,” Sidra told him. “It won’t stop
the punishment. See, the men are bringing planks.” Behind Tamat’s
rigidly held, frail back, Sidra flashed a glance of gloating
triumph in Janina’s direction, a look that clearly conveyed all the
ill-willed pleasure she must have felt at this total ruin of the
young woman she had for so long considered her chief enemy in the
contest for Tamat’s regard.

Turning from Sidra’s exultant beauty, Janina
watched Tamat instead, seeing the grey weariness in that dear face
and knowing she had caused it, knowing Tamat would not live long
with the grief of this terrible day weighing upon her heart. The
aged blue eyes met hers for one last moment, then looked away.

“Let the sentence be carried out,” Tamat
said, her voice unwavering. “Let all who witness this punishment
know that the laws governing Ruthlen and its temple may not be
broken without swift retribution.”

Planks were hastily laid to extend from the
wharf to the edge of the water. Speaking in solemn, measured tones
that revealed no emotion at all, Osiyar commanded Janina and Reid
to descend a ladder at the end of the wharf. Then, with Senastria
and a fisherman leading them, they were taken along the planks to
one of the few fishing boats still afloat. The tiny boat in which
they were to be set adrift was brought and tied to the stern of the
fishing boat. The condemned pair were ordered into it and told to
sit down. Senastria and her friend got into the larger boat, raised
the anchor, and headed for deeper water.

Janina sat huddled on one of the wooden seats
in the tiny craft, looking backward toward shore. She could still
see Tamat standing at the end of the wharf. She knew the High
Priestess would stay there until Senastria and her friend had
returned after making certain that Reid and Janina were well
adrift.

“How far out will you tow us?” Reid called to
the man who sat holding the tiller at the stern of Senastria’s
boat.

“Just a little farther, until we are well
into the swift current,” the man replied, eyeing Reid with
surprise. “Why aren’t you pleading for your life? Or for a quick,
painless death?”

“Would you grant me either?” Reid asked.

“And put myself in peril of the same
punishment as yours?” the man responded, laughing. “No, never.”

“Then I will never plead,” Reid replied,
eliciting another look of surprise from the man, this one mixed
with more than a little respect.

“You ought to be pleading in terror.”
Senastria turned from trimming the sails to stare at Reid for a
moment. “You lied to me, Reid. You let me think you had put a child
in me, you let me believe I would be honored for bearing new blood
and bone to this community. You made a joke of me. I hope a sea
monster eats you slowly, part by part.”

At the mention of a sea monster, Janina
moaned in terror, then clamped her mouth tightly shut, grimly
repressing the fear now threatening to crack the thin veneer of
composure she had so far maintained. She did not want Senastria to
carry tales of her cowardice back to Tamat, or to Sidra and the
other villagers.

“This is far enough,” Senastria said,
unfastening the line holding the smaller boat to hers and tossing
the free end of the line to Reid. She looked out to sea with a
concerned expression. “The mist is rolling in fast, and I think the
tide is still ebbing. It’s unnatural for it to be so low. Who knows
what’s waiting out there in the deep water? I want to get back to
shore before the wind dies completely and we have to row.” She and
the man brought the fishing boat around and headed for land.

The smaller craft in which Reid and Janina
sat was indeed well into the current. It spun around twice before,
with sudden surprising speed, it began to move parallel to the
coastline. Within moments, the mist had enveloped them. Senastria
and her friend, along with the village and all the rocky coastline,
disappeared from sight.

* * * * *

“Tamat, there is no need for you to wait
until Senastria’s boat returns,” Osiyar said. “Come back to the
temple now.”

“The fog will help,” Tamat said, as though
speaking to herself. “No one will see them.”

“Come with me, Tamat dear,” Sidra urged. “I
will have Adana brew hot dhia for you, to drive away the
chill.”

“Nothing will ever remove the chill cast by
this day,” Tamat answered.

“You must not grieve for Janina,” Osiyar told
her. “‘Those who wickedly betray our trust rightly deserve whatever
punishment is decreed for them.’ So says the Law of Ruthlen.”

“Osiyar, have you never loved?” asked
Tamat.

“Never,” the priest replied proudly.

“Love,” said Tamat, “is a force even I cannot
command or control. I felt it once, long ago, but turned from it
because I was a priestess born. Others are not so fortunate as I
have been. I pity you, Osiyar.”

Osiyar did not answer. Tamat watched
Senastria drop the anchor of her boat. When the fisherwoman and her
friend reached the wharf, treading on the planks laid down earlier,
Tamat thanked them for their help before she sent all the villagers
home.

“I want you and Osiyar to return to the
temple,” Tamat then said to Sidra. “Leave the young ones with me. I
have a final lesson to teach them.”

“Final?” Sidra looked at Osiyar, and Tamat
did not need telepathy to know what her assistant was thinking.
Sidra imagined Tamat’s heart had been broken by the events of that
day, and she believed Tamat would soon die, leaving Sidra to rule.
Sidra feared Tamat’s death would come too soon, before the Sacred
Mind-Linking had been performed, yet she dared not betray her
concern that she might be deprived of that anticipated additional
power.

With her usual lovely grace, Sidra bowed to
Tamat before obeying the High Priestess’s command. Turning, she
walked along the wharf, back toward the shore, her pale blue robe
floating out around her. Tamat watched until she saw Sidra and
Osiyar on the road out of the village. Then she faced the four
young people who stood awaiting her orders.

“Philian,” Tamat said, “you are to be the
leader of this party. Take Adana and these two young
scholar-priests and go into the ravine. Avoid the sacred grove.
Instead, climb down by the secret stairs I told you of the last
time you went to gather medicinal plants. Do you remember the
way?”

“Yes, Tamat, but I don’t want to leave you
alone.”

“How could I be alone with Sidra and Osiyar
to guard me? Now, when you have reached the ravine, this is what I
want you to do.” Tamat gave them directions that would send them to
the far southern area of the ravine. “Stay there until I send for
you. It may be a very long time. Go at once, without returning to
the temple, and guard your thoughts well against any intrusion.
Your lives depend on that.”

“Yes, Tamat.” They were accustomed to obeying
her. They did not question her orders. One by one they knelt to
her, there upon the stone wharf, with the mist closing in. She
looked down at them fondly.