The Godspeaker Trilogy (12 page)

She wondered if Nagarak knew of her. If the god had told him of its plans for her. She sometimes wanted to know them so badly her head ached and her belly twisted.

The god will tell you, chosen Hekat. It will tell you in its time.

She traveled in the cook’s wagon because she wasn’t yet a knife-dancer, no word of omens had come from Zapotar. She was losing patience, she suspected Zapotar of interference, of dawdling in the hope she would be forgotten.

I will not be forgotten. I am here for the god.

She would wait until they returned to Et-Raklion, then she would go to the godhouse herself. She would pay a bronze coin to the godspeakers and the god would tell her it was time. So much for Zapotar, he would be beaten or worse for daring to thwart the god’s desire.

At lowsun, after the march towards Et-Nogolor stopped and the warhost made its camp and attended sacrifice, she ran up and down the lines with bowls of salted goat and cornmush. She loved the warriors, they were tall and proud, they oiled their muscles and sharpened their snakeblades, they smiled at her when she handed them dinner, they knew who she was. Word had spread swiftly of the barracks brat who’d caught the warlord’s eye, who was soon to be a knife-dancer. She was young, she was ugly, her face was full of scars. They were not threatened, they found her amusing.

They would not always, but that could wait.

Raklion warlord was one she did not serve. He had his own body slaves to attend him, he sat with Hanochek warleader and together they made warlord plans. She did not serve the high godspeaker, either, but she was not sorry. He made her skin crawl. He ate with the godspeakers riding with them, they kept to themselves, just like the godspeakers in the caravan from Et-Nogolor.

She finished running bowls of food up and down the lines of warriors and returned to the cooks’ camp where it was her duty now to clean the pots and pans and make everything ready for breakfast at newsun. This was just like being on the road with Abajai and Yagji, except for the complaining.

She wondered about the Traders, sometimes. Had they ever tried to look for her? Had they given her up as dead? Had they beaten that stupid slave Retoth, as he deserved?

It didn’t matter. That was her dead life, like the village in the north. She would be a warrior soon. That was her next life. She was eager for it like the barracks dogs slavered for blood and chicken gizzards.

When her camp work was done she took a lit torch and the sharpened stick she’d brought with her from Et-Raklion; she crouched on a patch of smoothed dirt and practiced her letters. Reading and writing were important, if they weren’t Abajai would never have spent coin on them. She would not lose her reading and writing. They made her different, they made her special.

I will serve the god better if I read and write.

Serving the god was her purpose in the world.

At the border godpost between Et-Raklion and Et-Nogolor, Nagarak made sacrifice for the journey’s good outcome. Raklion warlord drank the hot bull-calf blood, he cut his breast with the sacrificial knife and let his own blood drip into the sacrifice bowl. Hekat was impressed. That was a true sacrifice, to give the god his own blood. Raklion was strong, he was proud, he was a man who loved the god. She would serve him as his warrior and what must come, would come.

They reached Et-Nogolor city ten highsuns after crossing the border. In that traveling time they saw no other warriors, from Et-Nogolor or Et-Bajadek. They saw workers in the fields of wheat and corn, cattle and horses grazing the dry plain, they saw carts in the distance rolling to and from the villages of Nogolor warlord. That was all. Even when they rode past Et-Nogolor’s barracks, squatting so close to the city, no warriors spilled out to offer them war.

Raklion warlord was clever, he timed their arrival for two fingers past newsun, when Et-Nogolor city was stirring at first light. The warlord and his thousand chosen warriors did not try to pass through the city gates. To enter uninvited would be an act of war, Hekat had learned that much from listening to Raklion’s warriors. Raklion warlord’s purpose was not war, not yet. Not unless he was refused his godpromised wife, the Daughter of Et-Nogolor.

As the warhost halted outside the gates, Hekat looked at the city with contempt. After Et-Raklion, Et-Nogolor was nothing, a hillock. She remembered herself as she was the last time she’d been here, small and slaved and owned by Abajai. Ignorant of her place in the god’s eye.

She does not matter. That child is dead.

Raklion warlord and Nagarak high godspeaker rode to meet Et-Nogolor’s Gatekeeper. Behind them the warhost sat on their striped and spotted and solid brown and red horses, they held their spears at rest beside them and told rude jokes. A rising breeze tossed the horses’ manes and tails, tossed the warriors’ godbraids and shivered the air with the songs of silver godbells. Hekat sat in the cook’s wagon with Nadik and longed to be one of the thousand, with a horse and a spear to fill Et-Nogolor’s warriors with fear.

The Gatekeeper who left Et-Nogolor’s gate to meet with Raklion and Nagarak was the same one who’d let Abajai and Yagji and the slave train enter his city. He met with Raklion and Nagarak halfway between the gate and the warriors, too far away for their talking to be heard. After a little time the Gatekeeper bowed and walked back to Et-Nogolor’s gate as Raklion warlord and his high godspeaker returned to the warhost.

“Warriors of Et-Raklion!” the warlord said, bold and mighty on his spotted blue stallion. “Word is sent to Nogolor warlord, here is his treaty-brother Raklion come to claim his godpromised wife. Let us play awhile as we wait for her.”

The warhost shouted raucous approval. Beside her in the cook’s wagon, Nadik laughed. “Ah, he’s a wily one, that Raklion warlord. Warriors dancing on his doorstep will give Nogolor warlord fat to chew.”

“Will the warriors of Et-Raklion and Et-Nogolor do battle, Nadik?” she asked him.

He glanced at her. He wasn’t happy she would soon be a warrior, she was the best chicken-killer he had. But he was only a cook, his want did not matter.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Bloodthirsty brat.” He shrugged. “The god will decide. It is not my business, it is not yours yet. Pots and seasoning, that is our business.”

“Yes, Nadik,” she said, and asked no more questions. He was like Retoth, a small nothing person who left no footprints on the world.

Not like Raklion.

Not like me.

Horses bred in the lands of Et-Raklion were wiry and tough, they could dance without rest from newsun to newsun. Hekat sat in the cook-wagon with Nadik and the other cook-brats, smiling she watched Hanochek warleader and Raklion’s warriors as they danced upon the plain with their tough wiry horses. Running, leaping, vaulting in and out of their saddles, flipping from horse to horse and back again, riding in pairs, in fours, in eights, in tens, weaving patterns on the dry grass, tossing knives and spears to each other as they passed knee to knee at a pounding gallop.

Raklion warlord watched them in silence, on his spotted stallion beside his high godspeaker whose clasping stone scorpion flashed black fire in the light.

One finger past highsun the bell in Et-Nogolor’s godhouse sounded. It pealed over the city, over the brown plain, over Raklion warlord’s dancing warriors.

Raklion warlord held up his fist. As one horse, one rider, his warleader and his warhost wheeled to a stop. All eyes looked to the gates of Et-Nogolor.

The godhouse bell rang out again. Et-Nogolor’s Gatekeeper stepped from the shadows, he sounded a booming ram’s horn banded with gold. Raklion warlord with Nagarak beside him rode halfway towards the gatekeep and stopped.

Through the gates of Et-Nogolor rode two tall men, on horses pale as desert sand. Behind them in a snake-spine two horses wide, warriors of Et-Nogolor.

Nadik let out his breath in a hissing stream. “Nogolor warlord!” he whispered, pointing to the man with a headdress full of feathers. His fingers curled round his snake-fang amulet. “The other is his high godspeaker, he wears the scorpion pectoral, see?”

Hekat leaned forward, smiling and fierce, as Et-Nogolor’s warlord and his high godspeaker led his warriors out of the city.

Show me, god. Show me which warlord you favor in your eye.

It would be Raklion, she was sure already. And she also knew that what happened here, what was done in this place, would shape her life for seasons to come.

Show me, god. Hekat is waiting.

R
aklion watched Nogolor warlord ride to greet him, trailing warriors like a snake shedding its skin. First of those were Nogolor’s sons Tebek and Kilik. At Nogolor’s left hand rode his high godspeaker.

Nagarak made a disapproving sound deep in his throat. “Grakilon.” He spat on the grass.

Raklion hid his surprise. What business there was between high godspeakers was no business of his, or any man in the world outside the godhouse. The faces godspeakers showed in public were not the faces they showed each other and the god.

“You do not trust him, Nagarak?”

“We studied the god together as novices. He has an arrogant mind. You will not deal with him, warlord. Grakilon is mine to chastise here.”

Raklion hid his wry smile. A godspeaker was not a godspeaker without an arrogant mind. High godspeakers were the most arrogant of all. He had outlived two with Nagarak his third, they were all the same. “The god’s business here is your business,” he agreed. “You are high godspeaker, it is the god’s desire. Warlords’ business belongs to me. That is my desire.”

Nagarak grunted. His fingers were loose upon the reins, he sat softly in his saddle, but tension rose from his skin like heat from a sunbaked rock. Raklion considered him from the corner of his eye. Was this personal, then, between Nagarak and Grakilon? If it was personal Nagarak should have said so before they left Et-Raklion. Nagarak had no business keeping secrets from his warlord. Not secrets that did not belong to the god. He had trouble enough without the godspeakers of Mijak raising spears to each other.

“Nagarak,” he said sharply. “This is not a battle for the god.”

Again, a grunt from Nagarak. “All battles are for the god, warlord.”

Aieee. There was no arguing with a godspeaker. “Nogolor warlord is upon us. Use silence as a weapon.”

As Nogolor approached, Raklion stared intently at his brother-warlord’s face. He had always been a good reader of men, he read them better than he read any clay tablet handed to him by a scribe.

Nogolor’s face told of fear and uncertainty, of advice followed that he now regretted. Nogolor was ageing for a warlord, fifty-seven seasons on his head. The treaty between their two cities had been signed by their fathers, in those great men’s green days. Were Nogolor’s wits shriveling under the sun, that he would risk their long and profitable alliance? Who whispered the advice he now regretted? Grakilon, mistrusted by Nagarak? Or Bajadek warlord, with ambitions of his own?

It does not matter. All whispers of treachery betray me. I must whisper louder. I must shout down the voice who would break our treaty.

Grakilon high godspeaker was seasons older than Nagarak. His godbraids were bleached as bone, the weight of his blue scorpion pectoral looked enough to kill him. Their burning eyes were the same, though, eyes that feasted on the god and devoured men like mice. He rode beside Nogolor as a vulture shadows a dying beast.

Nogolor’s warriors were young and proud, as his own were young and proud. They looked eager, as his own were eager, to test their mettle in a dancing of knives. Nogolor’s sons looked the keenest of all. Raklion hoped it would not come to that, he knew too well the pain of dead sons. He had no desire to spill their blood for a broken treaty.

If it is broken. In this moment the god gives me a chance to save it. For the sake of my warriors and my unborn son, I must succeed.

Nogolor rode a silver-sheened horse of Et-Raklion breeding. He halted it three paces distant and said, “Brother Raklion. You come upon us unannounced.”

Raklion smiled. “I did not know a brother needed to announce his visit.”

“It is held polite to do so,” said Nogolor. He did not smile in return, his eyes were shadowed pits of fear. “And polite to come alone.”

“A warlord without escort is a warlord without honor.”

“Your escort dances on my doorstep, Raklion. It taunts and it teases, it flaunts and flirts with knives,” retorted Nogolor. “ Is it an escort? Or do you challenge me before my people?”

“Challenge?” said Raklion. “What challenge can there be between brothers, Nogolor? We are bloodbound by treaty. I am godpromised the Daughter to wife. These are sour words, warlord. Who perches on your shoulder dripping poison in your ear?”

Nogolor’s fading brown eyes flicked sideways, once. “You are not polite to ask that question.”

“Again you call me impolite,” said Raklion, and let a little of his displeasure show. “How have I offended, Nogolor? I am told the Daughter is blooded. Do you tell me this is untrue?”

Nogolor looked shaken. Uncertain. “Who told you this?”

“Nagarak high godspeaker. The god told him, in the godhouse godpool.”

“Nagarak speaks truly,” said Nogolor, after a moment. The muscles round his mouth were tight. “She is blooded. She is ripe for a son.”

Raklion nodded. “I am pleased to hear it. I will take her home, as was agreed between us in Et-Raklion’s godhouse, in the god’s seeing eye and witnessed by Nagarak, who you surely remember. Your giving of her was an invitation, here is my answer, I answer politely. Thank you for your girl-child, Nogolor. Bring her to me, I will take her now.”

“It is not for Raklion warlord to say who takes Et-Nogolor’s Daughter,” said Grakilon high godspeaker. His godbraids were threaded with blue and green feathers, they shivered in the breeze. “She is given by the god to such as the god desires.”

“Given to me,” said Raklion, as Nagarak drew scorching breath. “Before the altar in my own godhouse. What mischief is this, Nogolor? Do you seek to overturn the god’s desire?”

Nogolor’s lips thinned. “I sit beneath the god’s desire, Raklion, the god sees me sit beneath it in its eye. My high godspeaker tells me the god’s want and I obey, the god is god and it speaks to me with its high godspeaker’s tongue.”

So Grakilon was the one whispering poison. Raklion looked deep in the old man’s burning eyes. Beware the high godspeakers , his father told him on his deathbed. They are not like other men. They eat and sleep and breathe the god, but they are not immune to human corruption. High godspeakers can be demonstruck. They can be seduced by promises of power .

Raklion had believed him. All words spoken at the portal of death were true. To lie at the portal was to freeze in hell until the sun burned to ash. Looking at Grakilon he saw a man seduced. By demons, or Bajadek, it made no difference. He had set himself against the god’s desire.

He looked again at Nogolor. “To sit in the god’s eye is to heed the words of your high godspeaker. It is a sin not to listen when he speaks.”

Nogolor nodded, his eyes were relieved. “So we are taught. Raklion.”

“It is a greater sin to speak with your own tongue and claim your words belong to the god!” said Nagarak. He was rigid with rage, his knuckles white upon his brown horse’s reins. “The god does not accept sacrifice on its altar or witness the giving and taking of oaths, then claim those oaths were not given and taken and no sacrifice was made! You sinning Grakilon, you false speaker for the god!”

Nogolor’s warriors heard Nagarak’s angry words. Nogolor held up his fisted hand and their muttering silenced. He said, “If this is the god’s business, no warlord may interfere. Is this the god’s business, Raklion?”

Raklion stared at his stallion’s striped and spiky mane. Bajadek’s name had not been mentioned. Until it was spoken, that meddling warlord had no place in this. To name him now would be to muddy waters already swirled with silt.

Nogolor will not live so many more seasons. Then his son Tebek will be warlord, with troubles like crows upon a carcass. If I speak of Bajadek when Nogolor seeks to put right what is wrong I risk the treaty, I will lose the Daughter. I cannot lose her, I must sire a son.

He lifted his gaze to Nogolor’s strained face. “Et-Nogolor’s Daughter is in my eye, she sits in my heart, my loins burn to possess her. Nagarak tells me the god desires that she bleed in my bed and give me a son. I am a man, I cannot know the god but through the words of my high godspeaker. I am bound by the god to heed his words.”

The shadows in Nogolor’s eyes shifted. “So you are bound, and I am bound, we both are bound to obey the god and its high godspeakers. This is the god’s business, Raklion warlord. It is for the god to deliver the Daughter where it desires.”

“And if that place is in my bed?” he asked. “If the oaths we swore in Et-Raklion’s godhouse are proven?”

“Then you will leave here with my girl-child. She will bleed in your bed and give you a son.”

Raklion nodded. “And if that is not the god’s desire, I will take my warriors and return to Et-Raklion, our treaty unbroken, our brotherhood intact.”

They nudged their horses forward until they stood beside each other, knee brushing knee, then withdrew their sharp knives from their belts and held out their palms. Raklion sliced his blade through Nogolor’s flesh as Nogolor did the same to him. The pain was clean, and cruel. Blood welled and dripped, spattering the horses’ glossy hides. Their curved ears flattened, they tossed their heads. Raklion twined his fingers with Nogolor’s, mingling their blood to seal their swearing. When the blood was fully mingled they untwined their fingers and backed away.

Nagarak said, “I have brought with me three hundred scorpions from Et-Raklion’s godhouse. Grakilon, you will fetch three hundred of your own. We will dig a pit for them before Et-Nogolor’s gates. Naked in the god’s eye we will swim with the scorpions and the god will choose who speaks the truth.”

Grakilon hissed. “Who are you, godspeaker of Et-Raklion, to demand this or that from me? I am high godspeaker of Et-Nogolor, I do not bow down before your demands. I am the servant of Nogolor warlord, I answer to him, not you or Raklion!”

Nogolor swung his horse about to look at him. “My servant, Grakilon? The god’s servant only, you are its high godspeaker. I am nothing, a puny man. You stood before me in the godhouse, Grakilon, you swore you spoke the god’s true words, that I must break my godpromise to Raklion and give my girl-child to Bajadek warlord. That, you said, was the god’s desire. Is it so, or did you lie?”

Grakilon’s eyes widened with shock. “Warlord, you can ask me that?”

“I can ask you, Grakilon. If you speak the truth there is nothing to fear. The god will smite Nagarak and see you in its eye.”

Nagarak’s burning gaze was fixed to Grakilon’s hollowed face. “Send for your godspeakers and your scorpions, Grakilon. This matter must be proved by the god with no more delay.”

“Nogolor warlord!” Grakilon kicked his horse forward. “Why do you support this? How do you stay silent? Did I come to you and say the god’s desire was changed? You know I did not. You came to me, you were troubled in your heart, you wondered aloud before the altar: did the god truly intend Et-Nogolor’s Daughter for Raklion warlord’s blunted spear? Bajadek warlord sent you messengers, you came to me in the godhouse after they departed.”

And Grakilon told Nogolor the words he desired to hear. Grakilon obeyed the wants of his warlord, not the desires of his god. His twisted plan was Nogolor’s twisted plan, and Bajadek’s, they were tangled in lies together. Raklion kept his face still, he showed no outward thought or feeling, but in his breast the fury raged.

You sinning man, Nogolor. This web of lies, this snare of deceit. The god will smite you in its eye for this.

Nogolor wore jet and silver amulets in long loops from his ears. They trembled, as he trembled, Grakilon’s harsh words striking him like stones. Here was the break between them, here the ground gaped wide at their feet. Would Nogolor extend a hand to his high godspeaker, or push doomed Grakilon into the chasm?

Nogolor said, “A man may stand before the altar and ask a question. There is no sin in that. You told me the god’s desire, how could I think you spoke false? Men must obey the god’s godspeakers. Raklion warlord himself has said it: we must listen and obey. If you had told me the god’s desire remained unchanged, Grakilon, Et-Nogolor’s Daughter even now would be impaled upon Raklion’s sharp spear.”

Grakilon said nothing. He was thrust into the chasm, his bones were broken kindling. Raklion felt a rough pity. It would be far kinder to thrust a knife through the high godspeaker’s heart than put him into the scorpion pit. The god would see him for a liar, it would sting him to a screaming death. But it was too late for mercy, his lies must be proven before the warriors of Et-Nogolor, who believed their warlord was in the right to overthrow his godpromised word.

“You and your godspeakers dig the pit, Nagarak,” said Raklion. “Side by side with the godspeakers of Et-Nogolor and their high godspeaker Grakilon. I will wait with my warriors. Nogolor warlord will wait with his. The god’s true words will be shown to all, and that will be an end to this matter.”

He wheeled his horse and rode towards his waiting warriors. Nagarak rode beside him. When they halted, Nagarak said, “Warlord. Your hand.”

Raklion held out his knife-cut hand, and Nagarak healed it with a godstone he took from the pouch on his belt.

“This is the god’s business now,” said Nagarak, putting the godstone away. “It will smite Grakilon. It might in some time smite Nogolor too, he was a fool to be corrupted.”

“And Bajadek?” said Raklion softly, so none of his warriors could hear. “Will the god smite Bajadek also?”

Nagarak smoothed his godbraids with fingers as calm as the sky. “That is warlord business.”

He withdrew to gather his godspeakers around him. Raklion motioned to Hanochek, silently waiting, and they rode a small distance from the godspeakers and the warriors, that they might talk in private.

“Warlord?” said Hanochek. “Is it war?”

He shook his head. “Not between Et-Raklion and Et-Nogolor. Not this highsun. Bajadek tried to beguile Nogolor into taking the Daughter away from me, and giving her to him. Nogolor was tempted, or afraid to refuse, he went to Grakilon to ask if the god still intended the Daughter for me. Grakilon is no fool, he heard the question that was not asked. He told Nogolor what he wanted to hear, for reasons I do not know, that do not matter. Now Nogolor puts distance between them and says he acted on the word of his high godspeaker. He has no intention of being blamed for Grakilon’s sin.”