Blackdog (65 page)

“My lord said you were to sleep.” She hadn't heard the
noekar
move, and here she was bent whispering over the bed. “Be a good girl, Your Holiness. Drink your medicine. My lord knows what's best for you.” A hand was thrust under her neck, raising her head, a cup tilted to her lips. She clenched her teeth. The
noekar
hissed. “Hey, some help here?”

The other woman came from the window. The second
noekar
muttered a perfunctory, “Forgive us, Your Holiness,” and pinched Pakdhala's nose. Her body took over and opened her mouth to breathe, and the woman caught her jaw and held it, as if they were dosing some recalcitrant beast, while the other tipped the cup, a little at a time. The beer was bitter beneath the sweetness of the honey. She gulped and swallowed, not to choke, and coughed and choked anyway. It burned going down. They poured it all into her, in the end, and wiped her face and sticky neck afterwards, with unfelt apologies. Whether they believed her a goddess or not, they obviously feared their lord too much to show disrespect to his declared bride. If she could somehow gain control of her limbs—they wouldn't dare hurt her and she could outrun them on the roofs, of that she was certain…And that was the last thought she had.

The little dog that slept on the foot of Shevehan's bed barked, a warning yap. Attavaia woke to hear the scratching at the door below repeated. Shevehan's wife Ellethan shushed the dog. In their curtained end of the loft, the smith's two daughters lay tense and listening. Attavaia rolled from their bed, silent on bare feet, picked up her shoes, and tiptoed out, limping. Her bad leg always stiffened on her in the night, strained muscles knotting. Shevehan was already heading down the ladder to the main floor of the house. Her practised fingers found the notch in the board under the sloping ceiling and lifted it. Attavaia squirmed through and doubled up on herself to replace the board, all in silence. Probably nothing, but they took no chances. She had even slept here when the girls were too young for secrets. The hidden room under the eaves was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to lie side by side, too low to even sit up unless she hunched. She pressed her ear to the low wall separating the coffin-like space from the loft.

“But didn't she come here?” That was Tsuzas, his voice sounding frayed. “I was sure…she doesn't know anything about the lowlands, I was sure she'd come to ‘Vaia first.”

“She'd better not have known ‘Vaia was here,” Shevehan grumbled. “Keep your voice down, man, and come over into the smithy.”

Attavaia squirmed out again, rat from a hole, and pulled on her shoes.

“Trouble?” murmured Ellethan.

“Sounds like it.”

“Take care. You know what they were whispering in the market today:
noekar
acting strange, Tamghat coming back from wherever he's been, no one allowed on or off the temple isle. Something has them stirred up. Don't let Shevehan do anything foolish.”

“He does what he thinks he has to, Ell.” She squeezed the woman's hand in passing. “Attalissa bless. Go back to sleep.”

They kept their plotting and planning in the smithy, for what safety ignorance of details gave Shevehan's family. Little enough, if they were caught.

With the door of the back passage that joined the two stone buildings closed and the broad front door of the smithy tightly shut as well, no gleam of light could betray them. Shevehan had made certain of that long ago. Now he was raking the coals for an ember to light the lamp. That was enough to show Tsu's face haggard and ill, the aftermath of Narva's possession. Attavaia reached for him. Shevehan busied himself trimming the wick of the lamp when Tsuzas leaned on her, face buried against her shoulder. The smith coughed before straightening up, not to see what was improper in the Old Lady of the free temple. They all settled down on the edge of the hearth.

“What's happened?” Attavaia asked. She left fussing over Tsuzas—he should not have been travelling in such a state—to his other womenfolk. In the shadows, where the smith didn't need to look, Tsuzas captured her hand, almost clung to it.

“Elsinna's gone. She took—” he glanced at Shevehan. “She took the stone.”

“The—?
That
stone?”

“Yes.”

“Gone where? Why? You said the lowlands?”

“Narva took her,” he said flatly. “So Teral said. Told her to take…the stone…home, it was time. I was up the mountain, far up. And then Narva, a nightmare, I'm still sorting out what he meant, most of it was nightmare, truly, fragments of dream, nothing to remember, no words…” His voice was rising again. “Something's coming. The mountain shook. I came down. Met Teral. I came here.” Ill and not stopping to rest much on the way, she guessed. “I thought she'd come to you first.”

“She wouldn't know to come here, Tsu,” Attavaia said gently. He had to have things explained to him carefully, even simple things, obvious things, when Narva left him in tatters.

He sighed, rubbed his head with his free hand. “No. I suppose I thought Narva might show her. She'll be in Serakallash by now, if she wasn't caught and stopped. She took a pony.”

“Where's your own pony?” Shevehan demanded suddenly, going to the door as if to check his yard.

“Left it with cousins up the valley this evening.” Cousins being trusted folk.

Shevehan sat down again, frowning, picked up a full pot of water and set it in the coals, shaved some tea into it. “What don't I know?” he asked, ignored. “What stone? What about Serakallash?”

“But
why?”
Attavaia asked. “Why now?
What's
coming?” She hardly dared hope. “Tsuzas—?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. It could be.”

“Attalissa?” Shevehan whispered.

“I don't know,” Tsuzas told him. “I'm sorry. Narva is afraid, but I don't understand what he fears. The sky, breaking…devils. She's here, they come for her.”

The pupils of his eyes began to dilate, swallowing the gold. Attavaia seized him by the shoulders, shook him. “Not here, not now. Leave him alone!” she hissed. “This isn't your place, Narva. You have no right!”

Tsuzas flung his head back, trembling, teeth clenched. “His blood is my right,” she thought she heard, and then Tsuzas said,
“Fool,”
and slumped, trembling. She put her arms around him, whatever Shevehan might think. “Centuries he hides from your Attalissa,” he muttered, more coherently, “and then starts shouting under Tamghat's nose. Something scared him.”

“She's here?”
Shevehan repeated.

“Something did stir up the Tamghati,” Attavaia pointed out. “Tamghat went down towards Serakallash almost a week ago, but he rode back into town,
down
from the southwest temple fields, today. He and a company of
noekar.
A cousin was going to see what he could find out about that. We should hear by dawn. If she isn't caught. But—”

“But why hasn't Attalissa come to us?” Shevehan asked. “If she's returned—”

“We don't know she has,” Tsuzas said. “What Narva sees—he doesn't understand it himself, too often. What do we do about Serakallash, ‘Vaia?”

“Nothing we can do, now,” Attavaia said. “If Elsinna made it there safely—Sera is their goddess and their concern. If they rise up, it will at least draw Tamghat's attention away from us for a while. Though they'll just all be slaughtered, if nothing else has changed.”

“Wasted effort,” said Shevehan. “I thought they were going to wait until we gave them the signal Attalissa had returned? And anyhow, I thought their goddess was dead?”

“Sera has gone home,” Tsuzas said. Attavaia gave him a sharp look. He seemed himself, free of Narva, but…no smile, just weary certainty. “Attalissa has come home. It's time.”

“You just said you didn't mean…then where is she?” Shevehan asked, and again, “Why hasn't she come to us?”

Someone tapped at the door of the connecting passage from the house. They all jumped. Then Shevehan shook his head and Attavaia made a face. For the space of a breath, she had believed it could be that simple: Attalissa would be at the door, Otokas at her shoulder, an army trained in secret in some high valley flowing over the bridge. Shevehan opened the door a crack to let his wife's face peer around.

“Your cousin's here, Shev,” Ellehan said. “Why you men can't go torch-fishing at a reasonable time of day—”

“Because there'd be no point in daylight, woman,” Shev retorted. All clear.

“Thanks, Ell. Attalissa bless.” Sannoras the fisherman slipped around the door and Ellehan retreated. “Sister.” He nodded to Attavaia and to Tsuzas, whose name he had never been given. “Very strange story from the temple, Shev.”

“Attalissa?” asked Attavaia.

“You heard!”

“I…had word.” Her heart began to race and she sat down on the edge of the hearth again, took the cup of tea, bitter and milkless, that Shevehan offered. “Tell us.”

“Yes, Sister. You know the Lake-Lord's been gone a week.”

“And come back today.”

“Yes. He brought Attalissa with him. They say it's Attalissa. My cousin has doubts.”

“Ah.”

“They say Tamghat finally found her and
rescued
her from the Blackdog, but that she's terribly ill. They showed her to the sisters and took her away again. He's to wed her in a week or so.”

“Attalissa wouldn't submit to that. She wouldn't submit to being paraded around a captive.”

“Unless he overcame her with some spell.”

“Overcame Attalissa? She wouldn't be a child anymore. She'd have come into her full power by now.”

“But they say he killed the goddess down in the desert,” Sannoras said. “Defeated and destroyed her.”

“Defeated, anyway,” Attavaia conceded. Would rumour help or hinder them? If the folk of Lissavakail heard that Sera had returned to Serakallash and the caravan-town was rising in revolt, would they have the nerve to lie quiet and continue awaiting their own goddess, or would they take to the streets and get themselves stupidly killed, disorganized and overmatched before they began? Did she have to ask?

But she and Jerusha had agreed to rise together, when the time came.

Did she trust the dreams of Narva's madness, that was what it came down to. She looked at Tsuzas, sitting withdrawn and still, staring into the glowing coals. Attalissa has come home, he had said.

“Tsuzas—is it true? Has Attalissa returned? Is it time?”

He shook his head. “How do I know, ‘Vaia? What's said is said. If we trust what he sees—”

“What who sees?” the fisherman asked.

Attavaia ignored him. “Do you trust? As a priest?”

“Yes.”

Attavaia took a deep breath. “Then it is time. Dig up your Northron sword, Shevehan.” As if he didn't root the uncanny thing out of his floor once a month at least to check on it. She had heard of cursed swords. She could believe it of the one Shev called the Lady. There was anger in those harsh-cut runes on the blade. But it had an edge, it would serve. She shut her eyes.
Attalissa, wherever you are, Great Gods, be with me now.

“Sannoras. The goddess Sera has gone back to Serakallash and the Serakallashi will be rising. We believe Attalissa has returned. Whether she is this captive woman Tamghat showed the temple, or whether that's some trickery of his, we don't yet know. But we'll find out. I want you to do something for me. I'm going to have to go to the temple to find the truth of this. Attalissa and the Blackdog may find us, or they may not. We'll try to find them. But if I find the goddess, we'll have to raise the valleys against their
noekar-lords
and the mercenaries. I want you to go now, to the cousins on Pine Spur, and warn them to watch for a signal from the town this coming night. If it comes, they're to send their own signals, light the beacons—everything.”

“Signal from the town, send signals, beacons.” Sannoras nodded. “How do I know these cousins?”

Attavaia told him which house to go to and gave him the watchwords. “And I need the name of your cousin in the temple,” she said, seeing him to the door.

“Sister Darshin,” he said. “We meet along the shore on misty mornings and evenings, north of the old water-gate. She really is my cousin, you know. When Shev said I should find someone in the temple I could trust, I went to her.”

Darshin. Old Lady's deputy. Attavaia wouldn't by choice have put faith in anyone who had been so close to Luli in the old days, but Sannoras had been bringing them reliable information out of the temple for years now, and if his cousin had betrayed him, given that he was one of the few who knew where the heart of the free temple lay, Tamghat would have had all their heads on spikes long before this. She laid her hand on the fisherman's expectant head in blessing before he went out into the paleness of dawn.

“Attalissa speed you and keep you safe,” she murmured after him. “And us all.”

“Tonight?” Shevehan asked, eyes gleaming. “She'll be with us tonight?”

“Gods help me.” Attavaia sat down abruptly on the floor, her knees failing. “Tsu, if I'm wrong…Why hasn't she come to us?”

He moved to her and put his arms around her, saying nothing.

“Are you going to the temple tonight?” Shevehan asked. “You shouldn't risk yourself. I could—”

“You couldn't look like a sister if you tried, Shev. You have to be here in town. By dusk, I want all the cousins armed and ready to storm the island. Bridge and boats.”

“When the signal comes.”

“Yes. Tsu—”

“I'm coming with you.”

“You won't make any more convincing a woman than Shevehan.”

“I have to be there.”

“Where?”

“I don't know.”

“Sometimes I understand why your sisters get so exasperated with you.” But she managed a smile and got to her feet again. “You're not going anywhere unless you spend the day sleeping and letting Ellehan feed you.”

He nodded.

“And you, ‘Vaia, need to get out of sight,” Shevehan reminded. “Too many people think little Attavaia died when the temple fell, for neighbours to find you sitting in my smithy.”

Just what she needed. A long, anxious day in hiding with nothing to do but worry about how wrong she was. She had meant to be on her way into the valleys herself by dawn. “Get me bread and water,” she said. “At least if I'm here in the weaponstore I can hear a bit of what's going on.” A smithy was a natural gathering place for tea-drinking and gossip. It drew Tamghati patrols too, but they had good lookouts, and there was usually a core of old men with nothing better to do than tell innocent fish stories. By evening, Shev would have the word out through all his networks and the town would be tinder, waiting for her spark. She hoped.