Griffin's Daughter (34 page)

“
No. One man already who I love gave up everything for me. I will not let another.” The note of finality in her voice stabbed his heart like a knife.

“
Jelena, please…don’t turn away from me,” he begged, grasping her shoulders.

“
I must go,” she sobbed quietly. “Let me go!”

Slowly, he released her. She jumped up and fled.

He sat very still for several heartbeats, his mind frozen in disbelief. Then, in an agony of perception, he threw his head back, face upturned to the cold, uncaring sky.

“
Jelenaaa!”
he cried to the moon.

The Temple Of Eskleipa

Five days after fleeing Amsara, Magnes came upon a tiny monastery just outside of a hamlet called Gariglen. As he guided his horse through the simple wooden palisade, he made a decision.

He sheltered there a day and a night. When, at last, he emerged, Magnes Preseren, son and Heir of Duke Teodorus of Amsara, was no more. A lay brother named Tilo, dressed in a simple brown robe and armed with nothing more than a knife and a stout walking stick, left Gariglen Monastery that bright Uresday morning. A satchel, bulging with salves and remedies, hung across his right shoulder.

The monks of Gariglen would have their new roof this fall and a stone byre to replace their old wooden one, for Magnes had traded them the horse from his father’s stable for the robe, medicines, and the small supply of food that he now carried. The gelding would fetch a handsome price, and a poor herbalist would never have been able to afford a horse in any case. The monks had asked no questions, and they’d accepted the lopsided trade happily.

As Magnes continued to make his way south, guilt haunted his every step. At night, he feared to close his eyes, for the evil dream that plagued him allowed him no rest.  His father would appear before him, face like a thundercloud, his life’s blood gushing in a scarlet stream from his head. He would raise an accusatory finger, aimed at Magnes’s heart.

Why did you murder me, Son? Why?

He would awake, his skin clammy with sweat, fighting for breath.

For a time, he feared he would go insane.

Three weeks of steady travel brought Magnes at last to the city of the Emperors. Darguinia quickly proved itself to be two cities, existing on two very different levels. One was a place of stunning beauty, filled with gardens, fountains, and buildings made of the whitest marble.

The other city was not.

Magnes, as a poor monk with little money, soon found himself in the other Darguinia. He entered a place of narrow, twisting streets and dark alleys, of fetid, open sewers and ramshackle buildings, of crime and disease—a place where hollow-eyed beggars sat in doorways, women and children sold their bodies on the streets to survive, and murder evoked barely an eyeblink.

Magnes had landed squarely in Hell, and he felt that he deserved the place he had made for himself. Even in Hell, though, things cost money, and he was fast running out of what little he had.

First, I need to find shelter,
he thought.
Then, I’ve got to figure out what sort of living I can make.
Hitching his satchel a little higher on his shoulder, he looked around, picked a street at random, and plunged into the crowd.

~~~

The whore lifted her skirts and straddled Magnes where he sat on the shabby room’s only chair. Settling her bare rump firmly on his knees, she slid forward and pushed herself onto him. He sighed and shuddered a little. With professional efficiency, she began pumping her hips. Magnes shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at her face and gripped the sides of the chair, riding each successive wave of sensation, higher and higher, to a final spasm of release.

It was all quite impersonal and unsurprisingly brief.

“
There, told you so, sweet’eart,” the woman said. She stood up and carefully pulled herself free, casually wiping between her legs with a corner of her skirt. “Told you I was ten times better ‘n that tired old cunt Lorola. Worth th’ extra three coppers, right, luv?”

Magnes glanced up, then away. All of the whores in this dangerous neighborhood of tenements and warehouses were well past their primes, but this one, with her cheap red dye-job and heavy make-up, had looked a little fresher than the rest. Still…

“
I’m not your love,” he said roughly, tucking himself back into his breeches and standing. Almost immediately, he felt a stab of guilt at his harsh tone. He could in no way blame the mess of his life on this woman. “Please,” he amended more gently. “Don’t call me that.” The whore simply shrugged.

His thoughts turned to Livie. The memory of their last time together, of how they had made love and then had clung to each other as if their final night on earth had come, set up such an ache in his heart that he thought he might choke on his despair.

“
You have your money,” he said quietly. She had insisted on her half-sol fee before coming up to his room. “You need to leave now.”

“
When you need another ride, you know where t’find me, luv…oops, sorry!” She smirked and left without another word.

Magnes sat down on the edge of the narrow, musty cot and rested his head in his hands. A single tear slid from the corner of his eye, and slowly, he wiped it away with a forefinger. He chided himself, again, for wasting what little money he had left on something so tawdry, but the pain of his loneliness had been so great that the prospect of the touch of another person,
any
person, had proved to be impossible to resist. When this particular whore had propositioned him for the third time, he’d given in.  

He then thought of his father.

The image of Duke Teodorus’s death-pale face, a constant, lurking presence in his mind’s eye, seemed always ready to glide into full view at any unguarded moment. He could still see the crimson of his father’s blood, leaking onto the stones from his shattered skull. The memory had lost none of its vivid horror. Magnes moaned aloud and lay down, covering his face with his hands. The little candle on the shelf by the door, the room’s only source of light, guttered and went out. He lay, sleepless and unmoving, until sunrise.

Magnes rose at first light and donned his monk’s robe. He gathered up his meager possessions—knife, satchel, a waterskin, his walking stick—and left his small room, as he had each morning since arriving in the city four days ago.  This morning, though, he had a feeling he would not be returning.

Magnes had found that the brown homespun garment of a holy brother and healer afforded him a small bit of protection when he walked abroad in the squalid streets of Darguinia’s slums. Thieves and cutthroats were less likely to come after him, unless, of course, they needed a remedy; he kept several common ones on him at all times for such eventualities. Not that he really needed protection. He still carried his knife, and his training at arms would serve him well in any fight.

He took one last look around, then headed out into the street, intending to make his way to the temple district. Once there, he would inquire at as many establishments as it took for him to find one that would take him in as a novice.

The morning air already shimmered with heat. The coarse fabric of his robe chafed at neck and chest. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled in little rivulets from his underarms and down his back. His stomach rumbled. He thought of the half-sol he had spent on the red-dyed whore last night and winced in regret. A half-sol could have bought him a decent breakfast and a tankard of mead in one of the many alehouses that operated in the neighborhood.

He walked steadily, taking an occasional swig from the tepid contents of his waterskin. After a while, the dirt beneath his sandals became cobbles. The buildings transformed from shabby mud brick to sturdy wood, then stone. Another few blocks and he turned a corner and entered the temple district.

A plan had crystallized in Magnes’s mind. He would continue to call himself Tilo and try to get work as an herbalist in one of the temples dedicated to healing, or failing that, he would seek employment as a gardener. It didn’t matter, so long as he could work with growing things.

The Green Brothers were not accepting novices at this time, nor was the Temple of Balnath. The elderly priest who came to the door to politely turn him away suggested that he try the Temple of Eskleipa, over at the east end of the district near the Grand Arena. Magnes sat awhile in the shade of the temple porch, mustering his energy for the hot trudge to come. His mouth ached for a drink of something other than warm water; he thought about retreating from the day’s heat into a nearby tavern, but then he reminded himself of his dwindling finances.

With a weary sigh, he rose to his feet and set off.

Eskleipa was a foreign god, brought up from the far south of the Empire by a wave of immigration from the conquered lands of the Eenui people. His clergy had proven themselves to be skilled healers; worship of the god had become quite popular, especially among poor immigrants and slaves.

The Temple of Eskleipa looked far less grand than the gleaming marble house of Balnath. Magnes walked up to the plain wooden door of the modest brick building and pulled on a rope dangling from the doorjamb. Somewhere within, he heard the tinkling of a bell.

Time passed, and the door remained firmly shut. Magnes hauled on the bell rope a second time and followed that up with a firm rap with the end of his walking stick. A third and fourth try were equally fruitless, and Magnes had decided to give up when, just as he was turning to leave, the door swung open, and a man poked his head out.

“
Yes?”

Magnes blinked in surprise.

He had never before seen a man so old.

“
Are you in need of healing, my son? Well, speak up! I’m hard of hearing!” The old man cupped his hand to his ear and peered up at Magnes owlishly.

“
No, I don’t need healing, Father,” Magnes finally managed to answer. “I’m looking for a position as an herbalist. I was told over at the Temple of Balnath that you might accept me as a novice.”

“
Balnath! Balnath, bah! No Balls-nath, more like. Those quacks wouldn’t know their ears from their arseholes. They think tree lizard dung is a cure for warts! Hah!” The old man cackled with derision. “Well, then, young sir, I guess you’d better come in.”

His skin was as brown as old wood, and it had been many years since his scalp had last sprouted hair, but the old man’s back remained unbent, and the hand that held the door looked untouched by the joint ill. He stood at least a head shorter than Magnes, a twig of a man attired in a gauzy grey garment he had wrapped partly around his waist and draped the rest over his left shoulder. An enormous beak of a nose dominated his oval face.

“
I am Brother Wambo,” the old cleric said as he led the way into the temple.

“
I am Tilo,” Magnes replied, following his host through a receiving chamber and out another door into a courtyard.

The courtyard was an inviting oasis of shade trees and flowering shrubs. A tiled fountain stood at its center, the cheerfully splashing water throwing off myriads of bright reflections. The air, so much cooler here than out on the street, hung thick with the perfume of growing things.

Magnes looked about him and sighed. Already, he could feel the peace of the place begin to seep into his body, relaxing it.

“
Why d’you want to join with us, eh? Wait! I know! ‘Cause the Temple of
Bal
nath turned you away!” The old cleric had abruptly rounded on Magnes and now stood wagging a finger at the tip of the younger man’s nose. Magnes stifled a laugh. Brother Wambo looked very much like a cranky old heron.

“
We’re not nearly so grand as Balnath’s temple, no marble pillars and gold leaf here, oh no. You won’t see any of the high and mighty here, either, young man, none of
your
sort. Oh don’t look so surprised! Did you really think you could hide those fine manners of yours?”

“
I…I…” Magnes stammered, then quickly regained his composure. Clearly, his cover story was not going to work, so he decided to take a calculated risk and tell Brother Wambo the truth, or at least part of it.

“
Please, Brother, I need a place. I’m a long way from home and just about out of money. I swear to you that I’ll work hard, and I’ll bring no trouble.”

“
What about trouble finding you, eh?” Wambo cocked his head to one side and regarded Magnes with hard brown eyes.

“
I promise it’s all left very far behind me.”

“
Hmm, well.” Wambo’s expression softened. “We’ve never had a Soldaran nobleman petition to join our ranks before, but there’s a first time for everything. An herbalist, you say?”

“
Yes, I know a lot about plants, both medicinal and food. I can help tend the gardens as well.” For the first time in many days, Magnes could feel himself letting go of some of the terrible burden of sadness he had been carrying since leaving Amsara.

“
Welcome to our order, Tilo,” Wambo said.

“
We’re a small group here, as you will see. So many needy people! We are stretched very thin at times,” said Wambo as he led Magnes to the refectory.

After his arrival earlier, Wambo had shown Magnes to a small chamber furnished with only a woven rope cot and a single chair. A small window looked out onto the courtyard. Wambo had promised that he would have the room all to himself, a small luxury that had pleased Magnes greatly. He had been allowed to rest until sunset, when the evening meal would be served.