Chapter 3
The clanking of armor and drumming of shod feet against the stone floor was not enough noise to drown out speech, but nobody spoke during the climb from the Matron’s chamber. Minna’s used the silence to figure out what might need to be done to spare her three companions. She could think of no reason to worry about Fint. The tracker was no more than a hired hand, recently acquired. If his personal history held a reason for concern over the Matron’s scrutiny, he never revealed it. But Fint knew Cadlius’s secrets and probably had suspicions about Jeffers, though Jeffers tried to keep the tracker from learning of his dual talents. Though he seemed the sort who wanted only to mind his own business, she wanted him out of town.
Cadlius worried Minna the most.
When she stepped out from behind the statue she was pleased to find him standing calmly, conversing with the same Assistant that had escorted her to Deonta. Jeffers still sat near the door with his book. They both looked up, turning from Minna and her escort to two Guardsmen who had taken positions at the Temple entrance.
Cadlius came to her in a rush, nearly pushing the Assistant aside in his haste. He picked out Trib among Minna’s escort and made a careful measure of the Lieutenant’s armor, weapons, and stance. Eyes locked on the Lieutenant’s, he said to Minna, “I guess there’s a problem.”
“Justice demands Zin’s sacrifice,” Minna answered. “These people intend to see that He gets His pound of human flesh.” She watched Cadlius’s reaction carefully. Her first words slapped Cadlius’s attention away from the Lieutenant. He grew pale and his posture decayed. There were a hundred things Minna wanted to add, but she could say nothing in the company of the Guardsmen that would not endanger the warrior. She forced an expression that she hoped would tell him of her concern.
Cadlius answered, “It’s okay.” He straightened and asked, “Why the guards?”
“I am required to help the Matron prove that Zin is a fitting sacrifice. I refused, of course, but they insist that I stay until the trial, at which point I will either tell the Council what I know or, I suspect, be offered myself as a sacrifice to Justice.”
Jeffers stepped up, having returned his book and quill to his pack, and asked, “We’re not under arrest or anything, are we?”
“We are confined to the city,” Minna answered. “But I understand that within the city walls we will have total freedom.” She added the last while looking at the Lieutenant
Trib nodded agreement. “Until you have violated the laws of K’non, yes.”
Jeffers’s eyes grew wide and snapped around in an attempt to catch a look at everything at once. He wiped his hand on the cover of his saddle-bag, leaving a smear of sweat from his palm. He panicked too easily, and his panic itself worsened his situation. If any of the Guardsmen noticed they would start hunting for the reasons behind it.
Hastily, Minna said, “The Matron Deonta will be talking to both you and Cadlius soon. Once they discover that you have nothing but second-hand knowledge of Zin you’ll be free to do as you choose. Until then, I understand they are preparing a place for us to stay.”
At Trib’s gesture, the Guardsmen started towards the exit. The two Guardsmen at the door joined them as they left the temple, making an escort of seven soldiers.
Outside, Fint waited without the horses. The supplies she and her companions had brought sat heaped on the ground beyond the first step. Cadlius shook his head violently, as if fighting off some unwelcome thought, but he said nothing.
At they approached the bottom, Fint stood holding his hat and bowing in a manner so full of formality — and so contrary to Fint’s nature — that Minna found herself smiling. After a moment of silence Fint said, “I beg your forgiveness, m’lady, but men claiming to be Temple Guardsmen said they had orders to take our mounts to their stables. They were Guardsmen, m’lady. I mean, they weren’t thieves pretending to be Guardsmen. I would have recognized imposters. And they left our supplies.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Minna answered.
With a snap of his fingers Trib picked out four Guardsmen to carry the packs. Jeffers quickly grabbed his pack and added it to the saddlebags already hanging off of his shoulder.
“Magicians can be so touchy about who gets near their stuff,” Minna explained with a smile.
“We’re going to the Welcome Inn,” Trib announced. The soldiers answered with a bow, turned, and started across the dam.
They walked past a pair of log movers waist deep in cold water working to free a jam. The pair paused to bow to Thayne Minna, then returned to their work.
Walk around. Meet the people. You’ll find loving parents and hard-working citizens trying their best to make a better life for themselves and their neighbors. We are far from primitive. Deonta’s words echoed through Minna’s mind. She knew about whole societies made up of kind, hard working primitives.
At the far side of the dam, two young men and a young woman worked to change the course of the water through the aqueducts. They distracted themselves with a water fight that ended only as the Guardsmen came within range of their splashing. They barely managed to contain their mirth through their bow, and they were back to drowning each other before the last guard had moved a half dozen paces away.
The first house beyond the dam was the large wooden structure Minna had thought was Sir Terrion’s place. She did not expect the lead guards to walk directly up to its door. Only then did she see the bowl and bed pictograph that identified the building as a tavern and inn.
Just inside the door there was an entry large enough for all of them to stand in without crowding. A drop of three steps separated it from the common room, which was empty except for a boy polishing woodwork near the bar.
The luxury of the Welcome Inn challenged that of the best places within the Earl’s city of Malikii. The room’s walls, covered with plants hanging out of built-in planters, rose up through all three stories. The support beams were fully exposed but well worked so that nothing in the architecture appeared rustic. Doors to the second and third floor rooms hid behind vine-covered railings. Judging from the spacing between the doors, the rooms were as large as common houses. An array of glass-filled windows filled the wall with the entrance, and through them light from the setting sun gave the room a bright glow.
“We have guests,” Trib said to the boy polishing wood. The boy had already sat his rags and oils away and was wiping his hands. Trib laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, “The lady here is Varlet Minna. You will see that she and her companions are well cared for, compliments of the Council.”
The bar keep’s eyes snapped to the Lieutenant for confirmation, then he sank to a knee and cast his eyes to the floor.
Climbing down the steps, Minna said, “You may rise and bring us some ale.”
“I’m sorry,” said Trib, “but our laws prohibit the use of town funds to purchase alcohol.”
“Okay,” Minna answered, pulling a coin from her pocket. “If we truly are guests of the city of K’non, then I won’t have much need for this.” She took the boy’s hand and laid a gold coin on his palm. His eyes widened and he flinched away, as if the coin were some dangerous insect about to poison him. But Minna forced his fingers around the coin and said, “Bring us our ale.”
As the boy rounded the end of the bar, he stopped and placed the coin on the scales mounted there. Though he used the greatest care, the weight of the coin sent the pan falling against the stop with a heavy thud.
“I am certain that the Varlet has not diluted the value of the Emperor’s coinage,” Trib said.
Hesitantly, the bar keep took the coin and placed in a box behind the bar.
“Probably is going to weigh it later,” Cadlius whispered to Minna. He took Minna gently by the sleeve and lead her to long table on a raised platform against the back wall. It looked like a table meant for visiting dignitaries, More importantly, it was the furthest table from the guards.
Trib shouted to make himself heard across the room, “You’re probably hungry after your journey. Your meals are, of course, courtesy of the Council.”
“I would prefer a bath first,” said Minna.
“Then allow me to see to your rooms, m’lady.” Trib turned to the boy and asked, “Where is Terrence?”
The boy shrugged. “She hasn’t been around this afternoon. Ben is in the back room with the cook.”
Trib left in the direction the boy indicated.
“So, what is going on?” Cadlius asked in a whisper, moving around the table and sitting where he could watch the room.
Minna waited for Fint and Jeffers to climb up to the table and for Jeffers to sit down the bundles he had brought with him.
“Like I said, Zin is charged with crimes against Sif. These people accept the myth of Justice and Will, and they believe Justice demands the sacrifice of anybody who willfully challenges Sif. The Matron fears that the Advocacy here will argue that he was charmed, possessed, or insane, and she thinks that I can prove he had the capacity to draw upon Will’s Power.”
“Excuse me, m’lady,” said Fint. “I’ve done what I was paid for in bringing you here, and I wager you can make it back on the roads without my help. Much as I like a good ale, it’s not enough to keep me around what you politely call `civilization.’”
“I’m afraid none of us can leave, yet. Once the Matron questions you to learn if you know something useful about Zin and learns that you do not, then you will be free to go.”
Fint staggered. “This can’t be, m’lady. I’ve learned in our weeks together how much you like this kind of fun. It’s a joke, isn’t it? Something to make me sweat a while before you send me on my way.”
She faced the tracker and forced a long silence that showed her seriousness. “Zin is charged with assaulting a Lady of the Temple before so many witnesses that his only chance at survival lies in the Advocacy showing that he lacked access to Will’s Power. We are required to stay and testify that his ability was not seriously impaired. I have refused, and so I am under guard. Each of you can decide for yourself what you will do.”
Fint sat with a heavy thud.
The bar keeper interrupted them with a deliver of ale. A thirst that Minna had built up in the wilderness drove her to drain half of her mug at once; Fint drained his completely and demanded more. Cadlius sat his mug down without a sip.
Still holding onto the last mug, the bar keep said to Jeffers, “I’m not really sure if this is what you wanted, m’lord.”
“Sure,” said Jeffers, taking the mug. “But don’t worry, I’ve no intention of sacrificing the honor of serving Sif.” Instead of drinking from the mug, Jeffers began stirring it with his finger, at the same time mumbling a prayer in the ancient language. When the prayer ended, the liquid in the mug was as transparent as the glass that held it.
“Why did you not just order water?” Fint asked.
“Germs,” said Jeffers. “Alcohol kills germs.”
“Yes, those animals you keep talking about that are too small to see but which cause all matters of illness. I’ve been meaning to ask you, how can you be so sure these little animals of yours exist if you can’t see them?”
“You think illness is caused by bad air. Tell me how you know that ‘bad air’ exists when you can’t see it.”
“‘Cause I can smell it,” Fint said, his frustration raising the volume of his voice. “You ever been in a swamp, son? That’s where bad air settles, and that’s where you’re most likely to catch your death of some illness or another.”
“Cum hoc ergo proctor hoc,” said Jeffers. “Two things occur together, you imply that one causes the other. People get diseases from swamps because swamps contain mosquitoes, which carry germs—particularly, the germs that cause malaria. You get bad air from swamps because swamps are filled decaying things and these things produce methane, a type of air with a smell that humans tend to find offensive. The two just happen to go together. They are not cause and effect.”
“I never heard such nonsense. How can germs cause bad air?” grumbled Fint.
Minna let Jeffers try to explain while the bar keep brought a bowl of whipped butter and a loaf of bread. Steam floated from inside the loaf as Jeffers tore it open. He took a large portion and covered it in butter. Cadlius picked at the bread, while both Minna and Fint left it completely alone.
Trib’s voice and the clap of his hands announced his return. “Your rooms are ready. I did forget to ask, Varlet, whether either of these men are your chosen. I asked for four rooms, but if you will be sharing your bed it would save the city an expense.”
Looking around the table, Minna caught Fint’s inviting leer and noticed the effort Cadlius put into looking anywhere but in her direction. Jeffers’s service to Sif prevented him from being her chosen; Sif allowed only those who gave up sex to channel Her divine powers. Fint lacked all of the gentler emotions Minna found appealing. Because Cadlius had been gentiled, he no longer had much of an interest in sex, and what interest he had was sparked by qualities she knew herself to be lacking. She wished he would look at her so they could both smile and share in their private joke, but he fixed his eyes on his hands instead.
“Four rooms, Lieutenant. We will each be sleeping alone.”
Fint’s brief smile faded into an even deeper gloom.
“I will have by bath in my room as soon as it can be arranged,” Minna added, downing the last of her ale in another quick gulp as she stood.
“Ben has ordered that water be heated, but that will take a little time.” With a gesture, Trib guided their attention to a very tall, elderly man standing in the middle of the main floor. His face appeared to have been ravaged more than once by pox or some similar affliction.
Bowing as deeply as his aged body would allow, the elderly man said, “I am at your service, m’lady.”
“I want to see the prison cell that these people have picked out for me. I am assured that it is quite nice; though no amount of comfort can prevent it from being a prison cell nonetheless.” She glanced at Trib and saw a faint suggestion of a smile.
Ben summoned the serving boy. “Stue, please take Minna and her companions to top-floor suites 1 through 4 and make sure that Varlet Minna gets room 2. Varlet, suites 2 and 3 have a connecting door. Feel free to assign the connecting room as pleases you.”
Minna looked over her shoulder and said, “Cadlius.” Then she motioned for the serving boy to lead the way up the stairs. Jeffers lifted his gear from the table and the Guardsmen brought the packs they had left on the entry.
Stue went to Minna’s room first. It was as good as any room she had enjoyed in Earl Noreon’s castle. Her packs sank deep into the bed’s feather mattress. Across the room, a door opened out onto a balcony that, alone, was large enough to serve as a comfortable sleeping chamber. It offered a view of to the east, over the top of the lower town and an ocean of trees reaching the horizon. Peering over the railing, she saw the slope that bisected the town become a cliff where it met the Inn’s wall below. Combined with the height of the wall, the cliff put her over a hundred paces above flat ground.
Cadlius opened door that connected her room to his and carried his packs through. Jeffers took the neighboring room in the other direction, a corner room with views both to the east and south but having no balcony.
As soon as Fint had access to his room, Minna dismissed Stue and the guards and called her companions into her chamber. Unpacking could wait.
Jeffers made himself comfortable at the desk, his book open and quill out by the time Minna shut the door. Fint leaned against the threshold to the balcony, his back to the room, staring at the long shadows that the setting sun cast. Cadlius stayed by the door, his arms crossed, his feet slightly spread for balance, and his head cocked to one side as he split his attention between Minna and whatever he managed to hear in the hallway. Minna climbed onto the bed and sank. She pushed the packs onto a pile and added the pillows as a backrest.
“I don’t think any of you really have anything to fear,” she said, looking at each man in turn. “From what I know of Justice, He demands that the evidence for being an appropriate sacrifice — ‘having guilt,’ they call it — be more reliable than second-hand knowledge allows. If these people don’t know how unreliable second-hand information is, it’s easy to show. Whisper something in one person’s ear, have him tell another, and that person tell a third, and then have the last person reveal what he thought he heard. It’s never what the first person said. And that’s with a single phrase uttered immediately after being heard. Show them that, and they’ll have to admit they have no use for the three of you.”
“And what about you?” Cadlius asked.
“And what about me? Right now it seems I can look forward to being arrested in a couple of weeks for failing to serve”
“What are our chances of getting out of here?” Jeffers asked.
“Little,” said Cadlius. He turned and opened the door, showing everybody the pair of Guardsmen standing just beyond the threshold.
With the door shut again, Jeffers said, “We shouldn’t have that much trouble with two Guardsmen.”
Cadlius shuffled his feet and sighed, “I am uncomfortable with the idea of fighting these people. I know Guardsmen. I was one myself, once. I can picture them playing their favorite dreams through in their minds as they stand there; capturing the attention of some girl, playing with their child, building what they hope would be some great work of art. They’re probably people I could have befriended under different circumstances. I would not find it easy to lay them out, cut and bleeding or possibly dead. And we also have to consider the pain their suffering or loss would bring to their families and friends.” He looked at Minna shyly and added, “I’m sorry.”
The words brought Minna a warm feeling of pride. When Thane Tiempko’s War broke out, Cadlius was young and anxious to join the forces marching to do battle against Phal Thrakutter’s invaders. A season of fighting made him accustomed to violence. After the war ended, he too often drew fists or daggers when his own hopes became frustrated. The Church was too slow to recognize the magnitude of the threat he posed; two months after he got back from the war he came to her ward as a prisoner with blood on his hands. He was filled with rage and a belief in the right of destroying anybody who stood between him and whatever he wanted.
Fint knew about Cadlius’s situation. Cadlius was required to report his history to those he dealt with in order that they may decide for themselves the risks of dealing with him. Though Fint seemed to accept Cadlius’s reformed pacivity, the tracker’s loyalties had never been tested.
“You’re absolutely right,” Minna said to Cadlius. “We have no justification for doing anything violent.” Then she turned to Fint and added, “You were right, too. You’ve done your duty. I think you could petition the Matron that you have business to attend to and can not afford to delay your departure.”
“Yes, m’lady,” the tracker answered with a smile. As he walked to the door he added, “I wish all of you luck, and if anybody asks after my reputation, remember, I did get you here safely. I can get you anywhere you want to go, but it’s not my fault if somebody discovers that they don’t like what they find when they get there.”
“One thing, Fint,” Minna said.
The tracker stopped.
“If the Matron accepts your petition, I want you to go to Malikii and report what is going on here to the Earl.”
“To the city, m’lady?” His face grew pale, even under his dark beard and tanned skin.
“To the city. I’ll prepare a message. On the message I will instruct the Treasury to pay you five thousand xearmarx upon delivery.”
Fint started to protest, then shrugged. “If you insist, m’lady.”
“I insist.”
His shoulders again slumping heavily, he left the room. Cadlius closed the door behind him.
“And now, you two have some choices to make. You both have a road out of here that should be no harder than Fint’s, and you both have reason to take it. Jeffers, I expect you to get out. If they find your technology they will come to think that you have joined forces with demons. There is nothing that’s going to happen to me that is worth the risk of having you purified by flame at a stake.”
Jeffers answered with a smile, “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got some friends in pretty high places and powers the people here have no reason to suspect. I can take care of myself.”
His sentiment was touching, but Minna only had to imagine the flames growing through the wood bundled at his feet, consuming his flesh, “Your status as a prophet, if anything, will only make things worse for you. They can not afford the scandal of showing kindness to a prophet that they think is associating with demons.”
“It’s not my status as prophet that I was talking about. It was Thane Tiempko himself who got me out of Malikii.”
“Thane Tiempko is of no more use to you than the Earl is to me right now.”
“He’s not the only friend I found in the war.”
“Your friends are a long ways away from here, Jeffers.”
“True,” Jeffers said; his silence suggested he could not see any problem with that.
It’s not worth the risk, Jeffers. By my authority as Varlet I order you to leave.”
“Sorry, I do not recognize you as having a superior authority.”
For a moment Minna stared, but a moment’s thought told her that she should have expected as much. She was accustomed to dealing with people who accepted the Noble Order without question. Even those who questioned certain aspects conformed to its dictates out of habit where belief in its principles failed. But Jeffers was from an alien culture, with alien habits.
“I’m staying,” Jeffers repeated.
Minna thought about bluffing and announcing that she could have him arrested for disobedience. But here, arrest meant punishment. Her bluff would be too obvious.
She turned her attention to Cadlius. “If these people discover your past they will undoubtedly conclude that you have escaped Justice. If they decide that you should face Him, they will conclude that Justice demands your life. Even if the officials here agree that they have no right to prosecute a case that did not happen here, some private citizen might decide to sacrifice you to Justice on his own. I would like you to stay with me, but I can understand if you want to get out.”
“My duty is to protect you,” Cadlius answered with a bow. He paused. “Which brings me back to my original question; what about you?”
When Minna did not answer right away, Jeffers spoke up. “I think our duty is quite clear, Cadlius. We need to get her out of here.”
“This isn’t about me, Jeffers,” Minna protested. “It’s about Zin Kussad. They’re threatening to kill him.”
“There seems little that we can do about Zin,” said Jeffers. “It would take an army to break him out of the temple. It seems the Advocacy will try to claim that he is insane, and their chances are best if we are not here.”
“Their chances are nil. I know something about this doctrine of Justice and Will; Zin needs to prove himself crazy, the council doesn’t have to prove him sane. Lack of evidence works as much against him as my testimony.”
“And what do you suggest we do about that, Varlet?” Jeffers asked. “If you come up with a plan for freeing him, I want to hear it, but the fact that we would like to save Zin does not mean it is within our power to do so. The best we can hope for is to get ourselves out of here.”
Cadlius shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“As well you shouldn’t. Neither do I. But the real question is whether we should like any of the alternatives better.”
For a long moment Cadlius stared at Minna.
“You have permission to speak freely,” Minna said with a sigh.
“My pardons, m’lady, but I find the idea of you spending some time in the dungeons of K’non easier to accept than that of a Guardsmen slowly dying with his intestines laying about on the ground; to suggest only one of the possibilities of us trying to flee. The attempt might not go too well for us either.”
Out of reflex, Minna’s hand returned to the scar just below her ribs on the left side. As a Varlet she had been able to get her wounds cared for by the Church. But the Church’s resources were limited; and they commanded a high price. There were too many sick and wounded to give similar aid to a Guardsman, and if aid was given it was because somebody considered less worthy was allowed to die.
“You’re assuming we will fight our way out,” Jeffers said. “I’m talking about stealth. If it fails, we can surrender. We can make our decision in advance never to raise a weapon against anybody.”
Minna looked at Cadlius to see his reaction to the idea, which she herself liked until she realized the consequences of Jeffers’s words. She turned back to Jeffers. “You’ll be burned alive if you’re captured. There’s no way your dual talents will remain a secret if you’re arrested.”
“Then I ask that we try to come up with a plan that minimizes the chance of my getting arrested; subject to the condition that we will do no harm to others.”
Cadlius said, “With them expecting us to do just that and watching us every moment.”
“It wouldn’t be any fun if it wasn’t challenging,” said Jeffers.
“I have no idea how we would accomplish such a thing, not with Guardsmen standing outside the door. But if we should find a way . . . .”
“Finding something is easiest if we look for it,” Minna said. “Cadlius, I think you are best able to find what is to be found.”
Having decided their course brought the return of Minna’s appetite. It also reinforced her need to remove the grime of the trail. She drove the two men out to their own rooms, then ordered the Guardsman outside her door to see what was taking them so long with her bath.