The Godspeaker Trilogy (35 page)

He laughed. “I am no such thing and you know it, Nagarak. I am chosen, the god’s warlord, it desires what I do. If that is not so let it strike me dead at your feet.”

The god did not strike him. He knew it would not.

Nagarak stood still beneath the sun. “And have you chosen the field where you will sow your seed?”

“No, Nagarak,” he said, as the last of his summoned warhost gathered before him. “The god has chosen for me. I am obedient, I will sow where it desires.”

Nagarak said nothing to that. Moments later Hano appeared, sounding a gilded ram’s horn. Two slaves followed him across the grass, carrying a wooden dais. They set it down and withdrew. Hano stood beside it, still sounding the ram’s horn. The warhost’s muttering voices fell silent.

Raklion walked to the dais, Nagarak grim beside him. He climbed its steps and swept his gaze across his people’s faces. He looked for Hekat, he could not see her. It did not matter, he knew she was there.

“Warriors of Et-Raklion, you see me, your warlord!”

“ We see you, warlord !” they answered him, shouting.

“Warriors, I see you. The god sees you. It sees you in its smiting eye.”

“ The god sees you in its smiting eye, warlord.”

His heart was so full of them he had to pause and repress his tears. “Warriors, I have sorrowful news. The god has taken Et-Nogolor’s Daughter. It has taken my son in his moment of birth.”

A moment of silence, then loud cries of dismay, shouts of grief. His warriors wept, they wept for him. He let them weep, he did not chastise them. They were his brothers and sisters, the children of his heart. He glanced at Hano, who wept silently with them. Their eyes met, and he smiled. He had no need for tears, the god had dried them.

Nagarak did not weep, his face was stone like his scorpion pectoral. He stood in his stained robes and communed with the god.

After some time, Raklion raised his hands. “Warriors, grieve no longer. It was the god’s will, we do not question. It has happened, it is behind us. I have other news. You must hear it now.”

One by one his warriors stopped weeping. The warhost field was hushed as they waited for him to speak.

“Warriors of Et-Raklion, the god has spoken. I will have a son,” he told them, triumphant. “I will have a son like no son born in Mijak since the god breathed and there was light. He will not be born of a woman from diluted bloodlines, from the leached seed of a warlord who has no love for Et-Raklion, for me, or for you. He will not be born of a woman who has never killed in war. My son’s mother will be a warrior ! A warrior of Et-Raklion, chosen by the god itself!”

As the warhost shouted its amazement, Nagarak climbed the dais steps behind him. Reaching its top he demanded in a hissing whisper, “Raklion warlord, what is this?”

He turned and smiled. “The will of the god.”

“ Raklion!”

Raklion turned away. Nagarak had no power here, he was a witness, no more than that. As he turned he caught sight of Hano’s face, stricken with astonishment and something less benign.

Be pleased for me, Hano. If you are not pleased, how can you say you are my friend?

Pushing Hanochek’s displeasure aside he looked at his warhost. “Hekat!” he shouted. “Hekat. Knife-dancer. Bajadek’s doom. Seen by the god in its blood-filled eye. You are chosen. Step forward and come to me. Come to me now !”

It was the god calling her, clothing itself in Raklion’s voice. Hekat felt her scorpion amulet, warm and heavy against her skin, and the god in her heart giving her strength. As surprise shivered through the warriors pressed close around her, as their heads turned and their voices lifted, she answered the god and the warlord together.

“Hekat comes to you, Raklion,” she said, pushing through the warhost. “Knife-dancer. Bajadek’s doom. Chosen by the god, seen by the god in its blood-filled eye.”

On the dais beside the warlord, Nagarak high godspeaker choked with rage, his nostrils flared wide like a horse that could not breathe. His eyes were molten fury, he would have killed her with a look, but the god did not listen to his hating heart. Hekat ignored him. She ignored Hanochek warleader, shocked and staring as she emerged from the ranks. She walked towards Raklion, the warlord, the god’s chosen man for the making of her son.

He came down from his dais and waited for her, tall and strong, his spine unbowed, his shoulders wide and carrying the weight of Mijak upon them. His godbraids were silver, his face was lined. He was a man, there was hunger in his eyes. Lust for her body, boiling his blood.

He will make me a strong son, the only thing that matters. The rest of him I will tolerate, as is the god’s desire. He is not a bad man, I can endure much worse.

“Hekat,” he said when she reached him, and wrapped her godbraids round his fingers. “The god’s knife-dancer, and Bajadek’s doom. Chosen for me by the god.”

Nagarak said from the top of the dais, “Raklion warlord, there is no custom. She is common. She has no heritage.”

“She is beautiful and precious,” said Raklion, with a flickering glance.

“She is blemished ! See her face!”

“Her face does not matter,” said Raklion. “I see her heart. She lives in the god’s eye, it has decreed her for me.”

“ I have not said so !” Nagarak thundered. “The god has not told me!”

Raklion looked up at him, his smile was a knife. “But it has told me, Nagarak. I am the warlord, the god speaks to me. The god has spoken, I must obey. I must seed this woman with my son.”

Nagarak bared his teeth. “She is a warrior, she lives in the barracks. Warriors rut like dogs in a ditch. Warlords bed virgins. That is the law.”

“She is chosen for me by the god, Nagarak. Do you say the god has chosen a rutting bitch?”

“Tread lightly, warlord!” said Nagarak, eyes slitting. “I am high godspeaker, I will have you on the wheel.”

“My scorpion-wheel days are behind me, Nagarak,” said Raklion, calmly. “I know Hekat is virgin, but come down to her and satisfy yourself. The god will tell you she is untouched.”

Hekat tensed. If Nagarak put his fingers in her as once dead Abajai had done, she would plunge her snakeblade into his throat and that would be the end of him. Her fingers strayed towards her knife’s hilt.

Suspicious, unfriendly, Nagarak came down from the dais. He withdrew a godstone from his robe pocket and closed it tight within his fist, and his fist he pressed against her belly. She felt heat, saw light behind her closed eyelids. The light shone into the empty spaces inside her. Nagarak grunted.

“She is virgin,” he admitted, grudging, and slipped the godstone out of sight.

“As I told you,” said Raklion, serene. “She is virgin, and she is mine. You will witness her breaching in the palace, as custom decrees. This is the god’s desire, Nagarak. I think you know it.”

“No,” said Hekat, before Nagarak could answer, and laid her hand on Raklion’s heart. She swept her gaze across the silent warhost, then rested it upon his face. “Claim me now, warlord, before your warriors. Beneath the sky in the god’s open eye. Let the warhost witness I am taken by you. Let it witness this is the god’s desire. If the god does not want this it will smite us together and the warhost will see. Nagarak high godspeaker will also see. I am the god’s chosen. This is its desire.”

Raklion frowned. “You are certain, Hekat?”

Her heart was pounding, it pounded her ribs. If Nagarak alone was their bedding witness he could lie to thwart her, claim the bedding had never happened; he was a man and not to be trusted. “I am certain, warlord.”

Raklion turned to Nagarak. “You will witness, Nagarak, as is proper, and so will my warhost. In years to come, when their godbraids are silver and they sleep in the sun, they will boast of the day they saw Raklion’s seed planted, Mijak’s new dawning, the birth of an age.” He stepped close to his high godspeaker, making them private. “Try to thwart me, Nagarak.” His voice was a whisper. “Try, and the god will strike you down.”

Nagarak’s palm flattened against his scorpion pectoral. His eyes rolled upwards, became crescents of white. Hekat waited, her scalp burning as Raklion’s clenched fist on her godbraids tightened, tightened. The god was speaking, she could feel its power in her scorpion amulet, hot against the skin beneath her linen training tunic.

The warlord’s watching warhost was silent. Hanochek warleader, standing nearby, kept one hand lightly upon his blade. Nagarak released a shuddering sigh. His palm fell from his pectoral, the dark of his eyes reappeared. “Your snakeblade, warlord,” he demanded, his voice clipped and cold.

Raklion held out his other hand so the high godspeaker might cut him. The blade bit deep, he did not flinch. Blood welled and swiftly covered his palm.

Hekat held out her own palm next. Nagarak slashed it, almost to the bone. Bright pain rushed through her but she made no sound, she would not give him even that much of her. She knew what to do next, the god whispered in her heart. She laid her wounded hand in Raklion’s and gasped as the heat of his blood burst through her body. She reached for his godbraids, tangled her fingers in them as his tangled in hers. They were joined, they were one, their hot blood was mingled.

Dimly she heard a roar from the warhost. Her knees were folding, he was forcing her downwards, onto the short grass of the warhost field. Their wounded hands were clasping still but now his other hand had released her godbraids, his fingers fumbled beneath her linen training tunic. His body was on hers, covering hers, smothering hers. She knew what this was, this was fucking. She had seen it, oh, over and over in that village, in the kitchen, so long ago in the savage north.

In her head she heard the man’s dogs howling.

The god wants it. The god wants it. Close your eyes, Hekat, you obey the god.

When her body was breached she scarcely felt it. The god was in her, filling her with fire. The scorpion amulet was burning through her, her bones were melting, Raklion was nothing. All that mattered was the god.

The howling dogs weren’t dogs at all, they were Et-Raklion’s warriors. But they howled like dogs, they howled to see the warlord plow her, fuck her, make her the son the god had promised.

The pain in her cut hand vanished, then was reborn. She felt it in her belly, in that untouched place between her legs. Her legs were spread, she was split in two pieces, Raklion labored and panted above her, inside her. His blade was not puny and her field was fertile. He plowed without mercy, she thought of the god.

The god sees me. It sees me. I do this for the god.

With a shout of triumph Raklion spilled himself into her. Dazed, head spinning, she felt herself free of him, felt him pull her upwards to her feet. Her loincloth was discarded, her tunic torn, her bruised breasts kissed by sunlight but not by him.

He traced a finger over her scars. “Beautiful Hekat, mother of my warlord son. Mine, all mine, until death defeats us.”

She was Hekat, chosen by the god. She belonged to no man. But if Raklion wished to think otherwise, he could. He could think and think and never change the truth.

Nagarak took their cut hands and inspected them closely. The wounds were gone, their palms smooth and unscarred. Her blood was in Raklion, his was in her. She was no longer virgin. His seed was planted in her belly.

Let it grow, god. Let it grow. Let it grow into my son.

The watching warriors had not stopped howling. They waved their swords and snakeblades in the air, they drummed their spear-butts into the ground, they leapt and shook so their godbells rang out. Hekat thought the sleeping godmoon and his wife would wake and hear them, in their bed below the horizon.

“What now, warlord?” she asked Raklion as he laughed and punched his fists in the air, drinking down his warhost’s acclaim.

“Now?” he echoed, smiling at her. “Now we retire to the palace.”

The palace. “I will live there, warlord?”

“Where else would you live?” he asked, puzzled. “You are chosen for me, to bear my son. Do you think I should live with you here in the barracks?”

As Nagarak muttered something beneath his breath, she shook her head. “No, warlord.”

Raklion’s hand cupped her scarred cheek, briefly. “You will miss the barracks? You have shell-mates in your heart?”

Only the god was in her heart. “No, warlord.”

“Yet you do not wish to leave them. Why?”

Was he angry, or only confused? She blotted out the rest of the world, glaring Nagarak and staring Hanochek and all the shouting, celebrating warriors. “Warlord, Hekat is a knife-dancer. Hekat knife-dances for the god. For the god, and for the warlord. Can Hekat knife-dance in the palace?”

He smiled. “Hekat will always knife-dance for the god and for her warlord. She will knife-dance where she pleases. Hekat is beautiful when she dances with her snakeblade. Of course you can knife-dance in the palace.”

She nodded, relieved. Without her knife-dancing she would not be Hekat. “Then I will go with you and live in that place.”

Raklion laughed, and called for a horse. The warleader Hanochek brought one with his own hands, his own horse, a blue-striped stallion with a long mane full of godbells. He brought a light linen wrap also, and gave it to Hekat.

Raklion thanked him and vaulted into the saddle. Her nakedness covered in the linen wrap, Hekat vaulted behind him, clasped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his muscled, linen-covered back. He smelled of sweat and dirt and of her as well. His long, fine godbraids tickled her nose.

The warriors cheered and howled so loudly the striped stallion reared and lashed out its hooves. She and Raklion sat it easily. They were warriors of Et-Raklion and did not flinch from horseflesh.

Raklion’s head turned over his shoulder. “It was a rough taking, Hekat. I am sorry for it.”

She shrugged. “It was nothing, warlord. Hekat is a warrior.”

A small sigh escaped him. “Hekat is much more than that.”

As the warhost shouted, they galloped away.

She knife-danced for him in his private palace chamber, all her hotas for him and the god, and after that he fucked her again. It meant no more the second time than it had the first. He sweated and grunted, he stroked her and pressed her, seeming eager that she find pleasure in the act. She had not thought there was pleasure in fucking, the woman in the village never spoke of pleasure, just rutting men and the pain they caused. Not even the man had enjoyed it, or so it had seemed to that nameless child she had been. Despite Raklion’s strivings she felt no pleasure, fucking was a thing to be lived through, not enjoyed.