A Time of Justice. Katharine Kerr
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she does.’
‘I suppose.’ Jill thought for a while, staring moodily into the flames of their campfire. ‘Now, from the way she was described to us, I can’t believe she’d have any luck disguising herself as a man, not during broad daylight.’
‘I’ve been wondering about that myself.’
‘And she’s never been more than thirty miles from her home in her life. You’d think she’d get lost or suchlike.’
‘So you’d think.’
They shared a sigh of frustration and contemplated the fire.
‘I wonder if she’s dead,’ Jill said abruptly. ‘Maybe she killed herself somewhere, or ran into a pack of young men who raped and murdered her.’
‘It would be a fitting end, so fitting that I doubt the gods would be so kind to us. Well, here, should we go all the way to Cerrmor? If she does end up there, probably she’ll be arrested. Coryc made those messages pretty urgent.’
‘True spoken, but if we don’t find her first, we don’t get the bounty.’
Although it was true, it was also so cold-blooded that Rhodry didn’t even know what to say to it.
‘Let’s ride south for a bit longer,’ Jill went on. ‘There’s a town not far from here, Muir it’s called, and there’s a temple of the goddess there.’
Rhodry swore under his breath.
‘I should have thought of that,’ he said. ‘Sanctuary. Do you think she’d have the gall to seek it?’
‘Why not? Gall seems to be the one thing she’s never lacked.’
If Mallona had indeed sought refuge with the Holy Ladies, they were going to have a fine time trying to get her out again. Gwerbret Coryc would have to confer with the gwerbret of this rhan, and if that worthy agreed, they would have to set up a judicial council that would meet outside the temple gates and present evidence to the high priestess and the temple council. Only if the high priestess agreed that Mallona was guilty would the Holy Ladies surrender her. Since every gwerbret in the kingdom grumbled that the priestess always sided with the woman in the case, no matter what, it was quite possible that Mallona would convince them with her lies and end up spending the rest of her life in the penitential rites of the temple. Penance was not going to be satisfying. Rhodry wanted to see her dead.
The sun was low and golden in the sky when they reached the rich farms of the temple’s lands, worked by free farmers who owed fealty to the high priestess, not a lord. The temple itself rose on a hill behind high stone walls, an enormous complex for the time, spilling half down the hillside and guarded by iron-bound gates trimmed with silver interlace and the holy symbols of the Moon. Above the walls, among the towers of the various brochs inside, Rhodry could see trees growing, the dark green bushy cedars brought all the way from Bardek and coddled to keep them alive in this colder land. Although the gates stood open, Rhodry stopped his horse and dismounted the ritual hundred feet away. Jill would have to go on alone to this place that no man could enter or approach.
Beside the road was a stand of poplars, a water-trough, a rail for tying horses and a pleasantly carved wooden bench.
‘At least you’ll be provided for, my love,’ Jill said. ‘It shouldn’t take me long, truly, to ask a few questions of the priestesses. By law they have to tell anyone who asks if Mallona’s in there. Oh, wait! That silver chain you found? It’s in my saddlebags, isn’t it, not yours?’
‘I saw you put it there. Why?’
‘I want to show it to the Holy Ladies, of course. They’ll know what it means.’
Rhodry watched as Jill rode the last hundred feet and dismounted at the gates. A small flock of priestesses ran to greet her. He heard one woman shriek; then everyone began to laugh, their high pure voices drifting down the hill. They’d probably thought Jill was a lad, he figured, and he smiled at the jest himself. Surrounded by the priestesses, Jill led her horse inside, and the gates closed behind her.
Rhodry watered his horse, tied it up, then sat down on the bench with a chunk of bread. It was pleasant in the warm shade, silent except for the buzz of a drowsy fly. Rhodry stretched his legs out in front of him and enjoyed the soldier’s luxury of merely sitting still in a safe place.
Like most Deverry men, Rhodry knew very little about the Old Lore, that worship of an ancient goddess which had come with the people of Bel from the Homeland, where it had seemed as dark and primitive then as it did now to the modern Deverrian mind. Aranrhodda was her name, and she had a magical cauldron, which was always full, which would give every man his favourite meat and drink no matter how many kinds were called out of a single batch, and which would also poison those who had displeased the goddess or one of her worshippers.
One old story stuck in his mind. Aranrhodda had tricked the gods into giving her cauldron its dweomer in this wise: she made a magical golden piglet and tethered it in a thorny thicket. One at a time, Bel, Lug, Nudd, and Dwn tried to free the piglet and claim the prize, but every time the thorns drove them back. Only Epona and the Goddess of the Moon refused to try, because they knew their sister too well. Whenever the gods pricked themselves on the thorns and bled, Aranrhodda caught the drops in her cauldron. Finally, when they went away, cursing her soundly for the ruse, she killed the piglet and made the first stew in the cauldron using the divine blood for soup.
Just thinking about the story made Rhodry shudder. Drinking the blood of a god was one of the most impious things he could think of. Of course, the gods themselves did what they willed and lived by their own laws, ones that humanity could only shake their heads and wonder over. But it was no wonder that Aranrhodda’s followers were reputed to do so grisly things: use the fetuses they’d aborted in strange spells, for one, and make up poisons to order for another, along with the usual curses and love charms. He sincerely hoped that the wretched Mallona wasn’t up to her neck in this magical muck, because at heart, he was afraid to pull her out of it. Rhodry got up and began pacing beside the road.
It was sunset before Jill came back, leading her horse down the hill from the temple, all cheerful efficiency.
‘Sorry I lingered so long, my love, but I heard many an interesting thing from the Holy Ladies. Mallona’s not there, but the high priestess knows about the Old Lore. What I learned might come in awfully handy. Just for starters, that chain with the feather? It’s a thing you make to give to someone in your service.’
‘Too bad Bavydd took it off, huh? It might have brought him better luck. Here, is there a village nearby, or can we camp on the temple’s roads?’
‘There’s a village with a tavern not far to the west. The tavernman’s used to sheltering the men who escort their wives here, so we can find good lodging, or so Her Holiness told me.’
‘Good. I wouldn’t mind sleeping on a decent mattress for a change. I don’t suppose Her Holiness had any idea of where we might look for Mallona.’
‘West, near Lughcarn. I swear it, the priestesses hear everything worth hearing in their part of the country. This is only a hint, mind, and it might well turn out to be a false trail.’
‘Better than no trail at all. Well and good, then. Let’s ride.’
In the fine dusting of soot on the windowsill, Sevinna idly printed her name, then flicked the soot away with the side of her hand. No matter how often the servants cleaned, there was always soot on everything in Lughcarn. She looked out the window to the ward of the gwerbretal dun, a small village within the city, with its barracks, stables, round huts, and even some little houses for the privileged servants, all of them topped with dirty grey thatch. The sky beyond glowed hazy and golden from the smoke of the thousands of charcoal fires burning in the iron smelters at the edge of town. Most of the iron ore that came downriver from the northern mines passed to be smelted down into ingots before being traded further, because by the king’s own charter, Lughcarn held a virtual monopoly on rough smelting in the northern kingdom. The monopoly, of course, made the gwerbretrhyn rich, less so only than Cerrmor