The Godspeaker Trilogy (11 page)

“True,” admitted Hano. “But if the promised wife knows he thinks of fucking the whore and says nothing to him of her knowing, does she not give that godpromised husband her blessing to dally outside their oath?”

A sharp question. “A man may suspect another man’s thoughts, Hano, but only the god can know his heart. Only its godspeakers can point and say, this man is for stoning, he breaks the god’s law. Smiting is of the god, not man.”

“You could discourage the whore, Raklion. No-one can question Bajadek’s intent.”

Raklion shook his head. “Bajadek has committed no sin. It is not sinful to ride invited through the lands of another warlord. He has made me no godpromise, Nogolor’s word to me is nothing to him. He cares only for his own portion, all warlords are alike in this.”

“Raklion . . .” Hano’s frustration knotted his voice. “Bajadek warlord tempts Nogolor to oathbreaking. He must not go unpunished for that. You must—”

“I must do what is best for Et-Raklion! Is bloodshed best? A broken treaty? Abandoned trade, unsettled borders, disrupted days like a string of beads, are these things best for my city’s people, for the people of my Et-Raklion lands?”

Hano looked at him. “A healthy son is best for Et-Raklion. And for that you must fuck a wife of warlord bloodlines.”

Words like a spear-point, piercing him to death. Raklion pushed away from his horsehide cushions, out of his chair to the length of the balcony.

“I know that, Hano,” he said, and looked at his clenched fist. Ripe fig dripped between his fingers, the clean Pinnacle air was sweetened with fig juice. He made a face and smeared his hand along the stone balustrade. “And I know it is likely we will soon be at war, if Nogolor warlord stops thinking and acts, if he breaks his godpromise to me and gives the Daughter to Bajadek instead. That is why I summoned you, warleader. Nagarak in the godhouse awaits the god’s omen. Should it come, the warhost must be ready to ride.”

“It is ready,” said Hano. He sounded pleased. Relieved. “Come see for yourself. Leave your palace, come to the barracks and mingle with your warriors. Dance some time on the training field with them. You have godspeakers to manage Et-Raklion, they can manage it without you for a time. But only you can manage the warhost. How long is it since you set foot in the barracks?”

He had to think. “Two godmoons, twelve highsuns. You are right, warleader. Nagarak’s godspeakers do not need my help in counting taxes and smiting sinners. My place is in the barracks, not this palace.” He released a soft and sorrowful sigh. “It will hurt my heart to see my warriors, Hano. Knowing an omen will send them to war.”

“Warriors fight, warlord,” said Hano, brusquely. “Warriors live and die with the spear, the arrow, the sword, the knife. The god gives them fierceness, it drinks their blood. War is their purpose, it is their pleasure. Can you love them and deny them that?”

Raklion turned. “I do not shrink from bloodshed, Hano. I shrink from waste. From death without purpose.”

“Which is why your warriors love you,” said Hano. “And why they are eager to ride against Bajadek, the usurping sinner, and against Nogolor too if he proves a false friend. Now enough talking. Come . Ease your tired mind with sweat. Rest yourself in honest striving.”

Raklion smiled, he could not help it. “Very well, Hano. If you promise to cease your nagging.”

Hano stood and pressed a fist to his breast, his unspoken word. “Dress yourself in your finest training tunic, warlord, as I send a slave to summon your chariot. Your warriors are waiting, they will shout to see you.”

Hanochek was the finest charioteer in all Et-Raklion, he knew the horses’ minds as though they were his own, his touch on the reins was light and sure. The chariot horses loved him. Sheathed in thinly beaten gold, the warlord’s chariot was the most beautiful in the warhost, it made a man beautiful to ride within it. Two snake-bound godposts topped with crimson scorpions guarded the chariot’s occupants. Sunlight glittered on rubies and emeralds, on lapis lazuli and flaming firestone. Silver godbells sang and rang on the black horses’ crimson harness, from the lip and rim of the golden chariot. Sunlight sparked on their myriad amulets.

Raklion felt the fresh breeze in his face and laughed aloud. “This is good, Hano. Do not let me stay so long in my palace again.”

“I won’t, I promise,” said Hano, grinning. “A man cannot breathe within stone walls. Beneath the sky a man can breathe. He can breathe and he can see. Beneath the sky a man can think. He can run and throw a spear, he can sweat, he can sing.”

“All that is true,” said Raklion. “But alas, there is more to a warlord than sweating and singing.”

Hano glanced at him. “Yes. There is worry. There are treaties. Godspeakers with questions and tally-tablets and city problems you must solve.” He pulled a face. “There is Nagarak high godspeaker, who wills you to war. I confess that is curious, Raklion. War is the warlord’s business, Nagarak should feed his scorpions and leave it to you.”

They were alone on the road between the palace and the warriors’ barracks, but Raklion thumped Hano’s shoulder anyway. “Say that in company and he will feed his scorpions—with your stoned dead flesh.”

“You do not think his warlike advice strange?”

Raklion shrugged. “Where Nagarak is concerned I do not think at all.” Which was a lie, but he would not talk of high godspeakers to Hano. On some matters did a warlord hide his thoughts from all save the god. Hano was a good man but he had a warrior’s heart. Straight and true like an arrow in flight, it was not made for twisting shadows.

The chariot traveled swiftly, as they drew close to the warriors’ barracks. The main gates stood open, the warrior on gatekeep duty heard the chariot’s wheels upon the road, heard the horses’ drumming hooves and their godbells loudly singing, and came out to see who approached. She saw her warlord and waved her snakeblade in the air.

“Behold the god’s chosen!” she shouted, her voice carrying clearly from the gatekeep. She rang the gate’s godbell, still shouting. “Behold our warlord, Raklion warlord! The god see you, warlord, the god see you in its smiting eye!”

“Minka,” said Hano softly, as he eased the chariot horses back to a walk, that they might pass the barracks godpost sedately. “Daughter of Yolen. He lost a leg in—”

“I remember Yolen,” said Raklion. “When did he give a daughter to the barracks?”

“Last thin godmoon.”

“Do you know her? Does Yolen breed true?”

Hano grinned. “True enough. She’s sent four warriors to the healer’s tent since she started her training. I have seen far worse in my time.”

“Your warlord sees you, Minka,” Raklion said as they passed between the barracks’ open gates. “Does service in his warhost please you?”

Minka’s nose had been broken already. It skewed sideways on her narrow face, left her snuffling for air. With her snakeblade safely sheathed she punched her fist against her breast. Her eyes glowed, to be noticed by her warlord was an honor. “I like it well, Raklion warlord. I will serve you to my last red drop of blood.”

“A warrior’s oath,” he said, and nodded his pleasure as the chariot passed her by. The weight of her smile between his shoulder-blades was heavy as godsmite.

At the barracks godpost he pulled his solid gold snake-eye amulet from around his neck and dropped it in the godbowl, where it outshone the iron, the bronze, the clumsily carved carnelian. But the warriors liked to see his gold there, and so did the godspeakers sent to retrieve the warriors’ offerings. The godhouse always liked to see gifts of gold.

Hano nudged him with an elbow. “Did I not tell you the warlord is missed?” he murmured.

Raklion looked up. Gathering on either side of the main road through the barracks, his beautiful warriors in their tunics and godbraids. Some had emptied their shields from leather shield-bags, they held them high and tapped their spear-butts and knife-hilts hard against them, a joyful fierce tattoo of welcome. Every mouth shouted, over and over:

“ Raklion! Raklion! Raklion !”

Bare feet drummed against the ground, pipes whistled, while behind them Minka, daughter of Yolen, loudly sounded the barrack’s godbell.

“ Raklion! Raklion! Raklion !”

In the palace there was a brideroom, empty. A child’s cot, empty. In the palace were slaves and servants and empty rooms.

“ Raklion! Raklion! Raklion !”

Hano stopped the chariot and Raklion climbed down, he put his bare feet on the soil and walked with laughter among his warriors. His burdened heart lightened. Sunshine and shouting chased away the shadows. His warriors crowded round him, they reached out their hands, they touched his godbraids and the hem of his tunic, they welcomed him home like a long-lost brother.

“ Raklion! Raklion! Raklion !”

F
irst of all he sparred with his spear-carriers, then watched his archers and slingshot throwers hone their skills among a herd of meat-goats. A good strike with a shot-stone would drop a goat dead with its skull crushed. No differently a man. And an arrow to the heart killed any living thing. It took much meat to feed his warhost, they practiced often in the slaughter pit and cook-slaves dragged the carcasses away.

Next he cheered a chariot race. His warhost boasted five hundred chariots, too many for racing. His charioteers drew lots, the disappointed losers gathered with him and Hano in the stands around the chariot arena and watched the chosen twenty drivers race each other with pride as the prize.

He gave the victorious charioteer Saraket a gold and onyx ring from his finger and paid fulsome compliment to Bodrik Chariot-leader, then lastly went to watch his knife-dancers. Often in battle the last desperate moments were reduced to this, to another warrior’s killing eyes, the knife-blade glinting in his hand. Dirt churned to bloody mud, slippery and treacherous. Who was fastest, strongest, most determined to survive. A knife-dancer who forgot the steps was a dead man dancing on a grain of sand.

Raklion smiled to see his warriors weave and glide and leap through the set knife-dance patterns, the hotas , passed down from warrior to warrior from the world’s first newsun. He sat on a stuffed calf-hide with Hano on another beside him and lost himself in the measured thumping of the knife-dance drum, the slow-motion sweeping of the sinuous snakeblades. Ten shells of warriors danced before him, thirty in each. The trod ground hummed beneath their feet, silver godbells sang in their swaying godbraids, they danced as one warrior beneath the sun.

Hano chuckled and nudged him, pointing through a gap in the crowd of watching warriors. “Look there, warlord. See?”

He looked. A skinny stripling child dressed in a ragged dirty tunic watched alone at the edge of the knife-dance field. Its godbraids were short and stubby, each end glued together with pitch. It stared at the knife-dancers and mirrored their sure movements through each complicated hota , showing promise, though its form was crude and riddled with error. It held a stick instead of a blade, but with the same amount of reverence as the warriors it echoed. The child’s thin back was to him, he couldn’t see its face.

Amused, Raklion watched the brat dance its way through the hotas . Obviously it knew them well, it did not hesitate when one shifted to another, then another, cycling through the ordered routine. After a time he stood, motioning Hano to stay seated, lifting a finger to Zapotar Knife-dance leader as he saw the mimicking ragtag child and took a scowling step towards it.

Zapotar lowered his head and stepped back, perfectly obedient. Hano looked up at him, still smiling. “You think you have found another warrior?”

“I think to satisfy my curiosity,” Raklion replied.

He threaded his way through the crowd of warriors and stopped three paces from the child. It ignored him, or was oblivious to his presence. As he watched, it attempted the supremely difficult falcon-dancing-over-the-meadow hota . One bare foot brushed against the other as it spun, the rhythm was ruined, the child fumbled the stick-knife and dropped it on the ground.

“ Tchut tchut tchut !” it scolded, and bent to retrieve its pretend snakeblade. As he laughed at its crossness, the child straightened and turned.

Raklion felt the world stand still.

The child was female, a ruined beauty. Her brows were delicate, arching over deep-set eyes of clearest blue. Her lashes were long enough to cast a shadow, and extravagantly curved. Her nose was straight, thin nostrils flaring, her lips were full and blushed pale pink. Her small ears lay flat against her head, her cheekbones jutted high and haughty. Her rich dark skin shone with sweat from dancing. Laid upon that fine-boned face, a spiderweb of livid knotted scars.

His heart broke in his breast to see them.

“You like my knife-dancers, little girl?” he asked her, though she was not so little or such a girl, there were breasts beneath her dirty tunic, and hips, and long shapely legs. His loins were hot and heavy before her.

She looked him up and down. All her hair was black, no scarlet slave-braid. She was freeborn, a citizen of Mijak. “Yours?”

He laughed. “Yes. Mine.” He flicked one hand, to take in the warriors and their training fields and the distant barracks wall. “All of this is mine. I am Raklion warlord.”

Her glorious eyes widened in her spoiled face. “You are the warlord of Et-Raklion?”

“I have said so. And who are you?”

“I am Hekat of Et-Raklion.”

“Which means you also belong to me.”

Her scarred chin lifted. “Hekat belongs to the god with no name. She is its creature, born to its will.”

“All the creatures beneath the sun belongs to the god,” he said, amused by her vehemence and her quaint turn of phrase. She had an unusual accent, not one he’d heard before. “And all creatures in Et-Raklion belong to me after the god. You wish to be a knife-dancer, Hekat of Et-Raklion?”

Her blue gaze shifted to his knife-dancers and their hota . “I wish to be a knife-dancer,” she answered him. “I wish to be a charioteer. I wish to shoot an arrow, sling a shot-stone, bury my spear-point in an enemy’s throat. I wish to be a warrior, warlord.”

The calm declaration moved him. “And what are you now, Hekat of Et-Raklion?”

Her lips pursed in disgust. “I am a killer of chickens, I slaughter sheep.”

He looked at her ragged tunic and saw the old bloodstains there. “What happened to your face?”

“My face?” She raised a hand, traced a fingertip along its raw red lines, the ridges of imperfectly healed flesh. “My face was a curse, Raklion warlord. My beauty was a burden. It was cut away, by the will of the god.”

“The god sees you in its eye, Hekat, that you could be so cut upon and yet not die.”

“The god sees me in its eye always, warlord,” she said. Her frank gaze glittered strangely. “And my scars see the god.”

“Who cut you, Hekat?”

She shrugged. “Some woman, she is not important. I forget her name, I cannot say it.”

Was that a lie? He could not tell. It did not matter. She was scarred, her beauty destroyed. That did not matter either, though he mourned its loss. Warriors had no need for beauty in the face, a warrior’s beauty was speed and strength, a lust for blood, the knack of survival.

“Why should I grant your bold request, Hekat? Why should I make you a warrior of Et-Raklion?”

She looked at him with those clear blue eyes, in their depths burned a fervent flame. “Because it is the will of the god, warlord. Hear it whisper in your heart. It whispers to you: make Hekat a warrior .”

So much certainty in so small a body. Did the god whisper, or was that heat his stirred blood calling? Better to err on the side of caution. Any warlord who ignored the god invited disaster, triple-fold.

He looked where Zapotar Knife-dance leader waited with Hanochek, pretending not to be puzzled by his warlord talking to a bratty child. Zapotar answered his beckoning call, like a falcon to the wrist.

“Warlord?”

“This is Hekat of Et-Raklion. She wishes to be my warrior.”

Zapotar frowned. “Many wish to be your warrior, warlord.”

“I wish her to be my warrior also, Zapotar. I wish for her to train first with you. Seek out a godspeaker, pay for sacrifice and the proper omen-reading.”

Zapotar wore battle scars the way other men wore amulets. Unlike Hekat, he’d had no beauty to ruin. His scars twitched in his cheeks as he nodded. “Warlord.”

“I cannot be a knife-dancer now?” the child Hekat demanded. She sounded displeased. Bold child. Fearless child. What a warrior she would make!

“No. Not now. The timing is a matter of omen,” said Raklion. “Kill me more chickens, Hekat. Slaughter me some sheep. That is service to your warlord. Zapotar will send to the cook-tents when your Knife-dance days can begin.”

After a moment’s thinking, she nodded. “Hekat obeys you, warlord. When I have learned the knife-dance hotas will you make me a charioteer? Will you give me a bow, a slingshot, a spear to thrust into your enemies’ throats?”

“You have a fierce thirst for blood, child,” he said, almost laughing.

There was no laughter in her face, her eyes were not the eyes of a child. “I thirst for the glory of Et-Raklion, warlord. I thirst for the glory of Mijak and the god.”

He could see that. He left her watching the last of the hotas and returned to Hano.

“Is your curiosity satisfied, warlord?”

Raklion smiled, briefly. “My warhost stands at ten thousand and one.”

“You take her as a warrior, Raklion?” said Hano, eyes narrowing. “What are her bloodlines? Who is her sire? What woman birthed her? Where is she from?”

Hano was displeased, as warleader it was his right, his duty, to approve new warriors admitted to the warhost. “Tcha,” said Raklion, gently reproving. “Do you doubt my instincts, Hanochek warleader? Am I an old man now, blind and infirm?”

“You were the one complaining about old bones,” Hano muttered. “Warlord—”

“Enough,” he said. “She is chosen. I am the warlord, do you presume to chide?”

“No,” said Hano, and lowered his hot gaze. “Forgive me, warlord. I was surprised.”

Not as surprised as I am, Hano.

But he did not say that. For all they were best friends and as close as brothers, there was a distance between them. There was a distance between the warlord and every man, woman and child he protected. More and more frequently, he found it oppressive.

If only my blood brother had not died. If only I were a plain, simple man.

The hotas ended. Hanochek stood. “Will you join us in feasting, Raklion warlord?” he said, strictly formal. “Your warhost would be honored.”

Raklion frowned. “I should go to the godhouse.”

“The godhouse isn’t going anywhere,” said Hano, his formality softened, his moment of displeasure passing. “Stay. We have missed you. I have missed you. Feast with your warriors, who will soon ride to war.”

Nagarak would send word if the god spoke in omens tonight. He could eat here, or in the palace. Alone, or with good company, among his beloved warriors.

“I will stay,” he decided, and was warmed by Hano’s smothered delight. As he walked from the knife-dance field at Hano’s side he flicked a last glance over his shoulder but the child Hekat was gone now, returned to her cook-tent and the animal killing that awaited her there. He felt a twinge of disappointment and scoffed at himself. Foolish old man, she is just a brat like countless others. She will be swallowed by your warhost, you will forget her between now and the next fat godmoon .

His loins, remembering, told him he lied.

Hano said something, and he abandoned uncomfortable thought to pay attention.

Highsuns passed, with no word of war omens from the godhouse. The godmoon waned thin, waxed fat, waned thin again. Raklion waited, he resisted the urge to send word to Nogolor, to sweetly inquire how the Daughter prospered, if there came any sign that her blood-time was on her. He ceased his haunting of the palace, he trained with his warriors, conducted city business, attended sacrifice, he winnowed more kernels of passed-on information, he bided and bided and bided his time.

Five godmoons and eight highsuns after receiving report from Trader Abajai, Nagarak summoned him to his presence.

Only a high godspeaker might send for a warlord as though he were an ordinary man. Raklion obeyed the summons, they met in private, in Nagarak’s austere audience chamber at the top of the four-storey godhouse.

“The Daughter is blooded,” said Nagarak abruptly. He was never one for easing into conversation. “The god has told me in the godpool. Take your warriors, warlord, and ride to claim her.”

Only a warlord did not kneel in audience with the high godspeaker. Not unless it was a tasking. Raklion looked at the chamber’s bare stone walls, its bare stone floor, the altar at the window, the stone desk piled high with tablets. At Nagarak on his stone chair, bathed in warm light. A bleak room. A stark room. A room with no comfort, no concession to flesh. So many times had he been here, yet each visit came as an unpleasant shock.

Here is Nagarak’s godspark, revealed. No need for anything but the god.

“I will not ride yet,” he said, content to stand. Which was convenient, since Nagarak provided no other seat. “Let Nogolor have his chance to inform me. Let him honor his godpromise, and send the Daughter here. That was the oath we made. He knows it is my expectation.”

“And we know he has no intention of meeting it.”

Raklion shrugged. “Do we? I know nothing, Nagarak. I have only suspicion. I will give him twenty highsuns. That is enough time for godhouse rites, and for the Daughter to be escorted to my palace.”

Nagarak was unhappy, but this was warlord business. “Twenty highsuns,” he said, his expression grudging. “But not one finger longer, Raklion. After twenty highsuns this becomes a godhouse matter. If the Daughter does not come I will ride with you to Et-Nogolor, that the god might show Nogolor and his high godspeaker the error of their ways.”

Suppressing a shudder, Raklion nodded. “We are agreed then, Nagarak high godspeaker. We wait twenty highsuns before we ride.”

Twenty highsuns passed, Et-Nogolor’s Daughter did not come. At newsun on the twenty-first day, after sacrifice and solemn anointing, Raklion led a warhost of one thousand warriors to Et-Nogolor, to claim from its warlord his godpromised wife.

Hekat traveled with Nadik and ten other cook-brats in the cook’s wagon at the rear of the warhost. At its head, Raklion warlord rode a splendid blue spotted stallion. He was not a young man, threads of silver glittered in his godbraids. His body was strong, though, his spine sat straight above his hips, he walked with the loose gait of a fighting man.

At his right hand rode the warleader Hanochek, at his left Et-Raklion’s high godspeaker Nagarak. She’d only caught a glimpse of Nagarak, she knew he wore a giant stone scorpion strapped to his scrawny chest, and had heard enough among the chattering warriors to know he was feared above all men. Above all godspeakers, more than any high godspeaker in living memory.