Calling Up the Fire Page 7

  “I’ve never seen it so packed,” Paither said, squeezing in beside him. He accepted the tall rentar drink with gratitude and gulped it down in four long swallows. Temhas signaled to the smith’s daughter, who came and refilled their glasses.

  “The harpers are here, too,” Temhas said, indicating a colorful group by the back doors. “Fanae will make them play for their drinks eventually. Maybe he’ll get the newscrier in here, too.”

  “I hope not. I don’t want to hear it. It’ll only be about the Defiers again, and I had enough of that this morning.”

  Even in the midst of their bargaining, the indignant farmers had been full of a new tale that morning. A Defier group had set on a caravan in the foothills, they said, and murdered a family, even an infant. Soldiers were out looking for the rebels, who were hiding in the growth like rats in tall grass. “Death take all lins,” a woman had said, straight to Paither’s face. He had been buying grain from her for years.

  “Good day to you,” the smith Fanae boomed at them. “Top off that glass for you, Master Temhas? Certainly. Good buying today?”

  “Prices were high,” Temhas answered. Foam spilled on to his hands.

  “Ah, well.” The smith’s tone became philosophical. People were angry about the Defiers; they showed it with sharp dealing; his lin friends here had to expect it. Fanae was willing to serve lins in his ale-house, and he was even willing to settle in for some cozy conversation (something few others in the room would do), so he considered himself quite tolerant. Besides, the young man was the son and heir of the area’s richest estate. “Something a little stronger this time, Master Paither?”

  “All right. Thank you.” With some alarm, he saw his uncle’s glass filled again along with his own.

  “I heard one of the harpers,” Temhas began.

  “Ah.” The smith was sympathetic. “Hope she didn’t upset you.”

  “Upset me? I thought she was quite good.”

  Fanae paused, then laughed heartily. “My mistake! You mean you heard a performance. I thought you’d been listening to talk. A lot of tales, seems like, going about here today, and the harpers had one of their own to tell.”

  “Oh? And what was that?”

  “Well, Master Paither, I’ll tell you. You know you and your uncle are always welcome. I tell my family, Master Nichos never made a mistake in his relatives, and there’s to be no holding you responsible for your people’s outrages.”

  “Why, thank you. Most kind.”

  “You’re welcome, Master Paither, I’m sure. And I hope you’ll be telling Master Nichos my feelings.”

  “I’ll be certain to tell my mother,” Paither said pointedly. Temhas snorted into his glass.

  “Ah, yes. Well. As I was to be telling you, the harpers say they knew the woman the Defiers hanged.”

  “Woman? I thought it was an entire family?”

  “Well, that’s where the harper’s story is different from what everyone was saying this morning. This harper says she knew the woman that was hanged, and that the truth is the Defiers let the rest of the family go. Well, stole their horses of course, but didn’t hurt any of ‘em, just the woman.”

  Temhas stared out into the room, feeling the ale. But Paither felt a start of hope in his chest. He leaned closer. “You’re saying the Defiers attacked the caravan specifically to get their hands on this one woman.”

  “Seems that way, if the harper’s telling right, and she swears to it.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “That’s the stranger part.” Fanae glanced over his shoulder. A glass had broken, but shouts of laughter accompanied it. He continued, “The harper says the caravan was all regular traders, all right, but that the woman they were after had been a harvest director on the First Hill. Or was it the Second? Can’t keep these foul Hills straight. Oh, beg pardon.”

  “Go on.”

  “Anyway, she directed the harvest in Lindahne. You know, choosing what part of the crop comes here to Mendale, what stays there, deciding what the farmers should be paid. Apparently the li – the Lindahnes, I should say, grumbled about her decisions. So I guess when the Defiers heard she was on the road, they decided to take a chance at revenge. Cowards, you know. If they’d had a real case against her they could have brought it to the Hall of Merits.”

  “The Mendale Hall of Merits, with Mendale judges.”

  “Was the woman’s name Huoll?” Temhas asked, suddenly back in the conversation.

  The smith said, “Yes, I think – I’m almost sure that’s the name the harper said. Huoll. You heard of her?”

  “She sent more than three-quarters of the harvest to Mendale and only paid the farmers for a half, at prices under every market.” Temhas gulped back more ale. “Then instead of distributing the rest of the crop to the Hill workers, she had it stored for later use – more efficient, she said. Then the barns burned down. All the grain was lost, she said, just an accident. By coincidence another haul of grain was sent to Mendale right after, for her family to sell.”

  “Uncle.” Paither was appalled and astonished. “How do you know all this?”

  “I have a friend on the Second. It was the Second Hill.”

  Fanae shifted his bulky body. Temhas smiled blandly and finished off his drink. “This Huoll was in charge of the harvest last year, too. They lost a lot of children the following winter. Somehow there wasn’t enough food to go around. People were hungry, and the children fell sick.”

  Relief washed over Paither. A vision of the Defier, red hair floating, passed across his mind. It had not been a cold-hearted killing, or an attack on innocent people: the Defiers had carried out a sentence, on an enemy convicted by her own actions.

  The smith cleared his throat but said nothing. Not bad, these two, he thought, but a lin was a lin all the same. Though why the young man chooses it, when his own father’s pure Mendale – well, they pay for their ale, and have the sense to keep to themselves.

  Voices were raised by the kegs. Fanae’s daughter called to him. “Better be looking after my business,” he said, and faded back into the crowd.

  Paither gazed out at the room of Mendales, then glanced at his uncle. Temhas had never been easy to know. Lately he was incomprehensible. “Who?” he blurted, jogging Temhas’s elbow. “Who do you know on the Second?”

  “A fisherman.That is, he was a fisherman before the War. Came from the Fourth originally. I soldiered with him in the army and saved his life once. So now he sends me little letters from time to time. Maybe he thinks I can help him someday, I don’t know.” “You’ve never mentioned him. You never talk about the War.” “Should I?”

  “You never seem to say – you’ve never told me –”

  “Nephew, what are you after?”

  “The Defiers,” he hissed, suddenly understanding himself. “I thought this morning that maybe it was true, maybe they were nothing but murderers. Hatred riding over the foothills. But by what you’ve said, they’re not. They’re soldiers just as you were, fighting the enemies of Lindahne.”

  “Are they heroes of yours? Then I’m glad to restore their standing with you. Wouldn’t want you disillusioned.”

  “By Nialia, Uncle. We should be helping them.” He closed his jaw, afraid for a moment to come closer. Temhas’s eyes flickered. He persisted, “Don’t you admire them?”

  Temhas grunted. He put up his palm to signal for ale, but Paither’s hand suddenly shot out and knocked his arm down.

  “Now look, boy –”

  “Uncle, I heard the Defier speaking to you. She asked you to convince my mother to help them.”

  Temhas went rigid, staring. After many long heartbeats he relaxed, and shrugged.

  “Uncle –”

  “Be quiet.” Temhas glanced meaningfully at the crowd around them.

  “No one can hear us,” Paither said impatiently. “What did my mother say? Is she going to help them?”

  “Proseras and Wintern, don’t be a fool. This isn’t the place.” “
What did she say?”

  “No! She said no. She refused to help them, she refused me. Let go of my hand!”

  “Why? Do you know why she refused?”

  “Yes. And no, I am not going to tell you that.” A gleam of hard amusement came into his face. “You can ask her that one yourself.”

  Paither was furious. Questioning his mother would be to accuse her, in some way that he did not understand. He couldn’t do it. His uncle’s scorn peered out at him through his drink-reddened eyes. Temhas said, “So you think killing’s all right, do you, as long as you know who you’re killing? If you pick the right target, make it a matter of justice? It’s an interesting thought.”

  The smith’s daughter drifted over and offered them more ale. They accepted. Paither waited for his anger to recede. He knew that the older man, startled into one admission, would not make any more. Finally he said, “Executing an oppressor, a tyrant, is different from murdering an innocent trader. You know it yourself, that’s why you made a point of telling Fanae the truth of the tale.”

  “Killing is killing, my boy, even if we don’t want to face it.”

  “You killed Mendales, didn’t you, in the War?”

  “Certanly. And I’ve often wondered how many Lindahnes Nichos must have killed.”

  His head jerked, but it was only a glancing blow. “That was war. Just as the Defiers are at war. There’s no difference.”

  “To the dead, no, not much.”

  “Uncle –”

  “Hear what I’m saying. Think. I’m not condemning the Defiers, I understand them. And I’m not in a position to judge other people. If you knew – no, never mind, I won’t tell you. There isn’t enough ale in the world to make me tell you that. But I once learned in a very hard way that not facing the truth will destroy you. You should want something, yes, but not so strongly that you make yourself believe any step is all right if it gets you there. You’ll pay for that in the end, in high coinage.” He fell silent, swishing the amber drink in his glass.

  Paither asked, “What truth do you think I’m not facing?”

  “That while killing may be necessary, it’s never right. If you think that it can be, you’ll go on from there. Soon you’ll kill not just when it’s necessary but when it’s convenient, too. You’ll kill in anger. Finally you’ll kill in hatred.”

  “I don’t think the Defiers have gone that way.”

  “No, not yet.” He felt Temhas watching him, waiting for something. “But they may, if they are brought to it, by the wrong leader.”

  He considered it, long and seriously. “If they do, the gods will forsake them. But I don’t think it will happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the Mother is with them,” he said simply. “You and I, Uncle, can sit in a Mendale alehouse and debate, but while we’re wasting our time and breath the goddess is moving among the Hills.”

  Temhas shrugged. His earnestness faded, replaced by his usual sardonic manner. “Nialia may even be found in an ale-house, nephew,” he said. Paither didn’t understand why he laughed.

  Scayna’s first letter from her mother was a litany of complaint: her father was drinking too much and had been insolent to a ranking; her joints hurt; Scayna had deserted her. “... ungrateful. Besides that, with your sick spells, you could get into any kind of trouble in MenDas. But don’t go telling people your problems, they’ll think there’s something different about you...”

  She let the scroll slide closed. How could she have hoped to find any freedom here? She was living in muck and mud.

  Beauty had always been hard to find, though she looked for it everywhere. Her earliest memory was of staring into a shimmering beam of sunlight, rainbow through glass, until her father slapped her away, saying she’d hurt her eyes. As an infant she splashed and sprayed water, in her bath or a brook, in a puddle or waterfall. Water could be a carrier of light, and light, after all, was beauty: containing every shade and none, free of restraint, able to touch every darkness and vanquish it.

  Before one dawn, at the age of eight, she had decided to ride into the sun. When it first came over the horizon, she reasoned, it was earth-level, and could be touched. Perhaps it would swallow her up, into the brilliance.

  In the dark she saddled up her father’s only horse, a broken-down mare who had never been known to move faster than a trot. Her fierce little feet drummed into the animal’s sides; she shrieked and called. Still they went slowly. As the dawn began she was in a fury. There was so much ground to cover, all before the sun rose too high.

  She brought the mare to a halt, pointing straight towards the gathering rose glow, pleading, whispering into its ear. What had she said? She no longer knew. Perhaps, as at other times, a voice not her own may have come from her. All she remembered clearly was the animal’s bound forward, the sudden strength, the steady thud of its hooves rising to a song of exhilaration and escape. They flashed through the air. The circle of gold seemed to rise up to greet them.

  Then the mare’s front foot slipped, or caught a stone. For one final moment she really was flying, soaring. There had been no fear. She crashed shoulder-first on to the unyielding ground. She lay for quite some time, while the globe of light rose over her and sailed beyond her reach. When it was directly above her, bursting down on her face, her father found her: still on her back and silent, the lame mare a few feet away. Quienos felt her for broken bones, hauled her to her feet. As soon as he knew she was unhurt he beat her.

  She gave a grimace, pushing away the memory. Chasing the sun, of all fool things. She sighed and reopened her letter.

  Although Nichos kept a small house in town, First Tribune Haol insisted they stay in his lavish apartments in the Assemblage House. This and his greetings to the lin-wife were, in his own opinion, quite magnanimous. For Nichos’s sake Pillyn was willing to be patronized.

  “You can even see the morning markets from the other room,” Tribune Haol said, like an enthusiastic innkeeper. “It gets a little noisy, but as you’re mostly left at home – that is, don’t visit often –?”

  “I haven’t been in MenDas since I was a girl, Tribune.” “Then I’m sure you’ll find it all very exciting.”

  The room furnishings were in the new fashion, made of pale

  woods and fragile upholsterings all too likely to tear. The legs of the scattered restchairs looked dangerously thin. The white woven rugs would show every boot mark. The servants must have their hands full keeping this clean, Pillyn thought.

  Two of her own were unpacking, respectfully deaf to the conversation. Her daughter Calli was investigating the bottom drawers of a bureau. Paither, eyes wary, stood beside her, silent.

  Haol continued, “And of course, the nomination ceremony will be quite thrilling for you.”

  Nichos said, “I hope it goes as smoothly as you think.”

  “My dear man, you’ve been an excellent – and patient – herald for many years. It’s time you had a little reward. Besides,” Haol said as a satisfied grin spread across his round face, “the Assembly won’t oppose me.”

  “I’ll still have to be confirmed in the post.”

  “The public voting? Nonsense. The people haven’t turned down an Assembly nomination in years. It’s only for show.”

  “I’ve never seen the voting,” Pillyn said. “It’s not a custom in my – in Lindahne.”

  “Ah well,” Haol said, his tone expressing his opinion of Lindahne ways. He was a large deliberate man, corpulent, with only a few tufts of white hair left clinging over his ears. His front teeth curved together, giving him a predatory smile. “You should be Third Tribune by next week. By that time we’ll have heard from your – cousin, is it? Who’s moving in to the herald position?”

  “A fourth cousin. She’ll be glad of it, I think, as her family is not doing very well.”

  “A listtel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, she’ll have a hard time living up to your work,” Haol said.

  Nichos smile
d and inclined his head. The Tribune was a natural flatterer; it was part of his success.

  “When will I meet the Second Tribune?” Pillyn asked.

  “When we dine this evening. Rhonna’s been very anxious, you know, Nichos. It’s awkward to keep things running around here with only two Tribunes.”

  “Yes, she mentioned it last time I was here. Have you heard any more about Athas?”

  Athas was the former Third Tribune, who had lost his place through a political wrangle. While on a visit through Lindahne, he had challenged the authority of Nesmin, the Oversettle Governor. Nesmin was an old hand at politics (he had been First Tribune himself, during the War) and he kept close control of the Oversettle. His protests over Athas’s meddling had been listened to sympathetically by the Assembly; Athas’s career had come to an abrupt end.

  “He’s slunk off somewhere to lick his wounds. He was a fool, taking on Nesmin of all people. Well, I’ll leave you all to settle in. I’ll see you this evening.”

  “Good day, Tribune,” Pillyn said.

  Nichos added, “And thank you.”

  Paither bowed. When Haol was safely out of hearing, he said, “You wrote to a cousin?”

  Nichos moved to his top packcase and began digging through it. “I meant to make some notes on my speech.”

  “You wrote to a fourth cousin?”

  Nichos looked up. To the servants, Pillyn said, “Thank you, but let’s finish later. Take Calli with you, please.”

  “Momma?”

  “Go on now, sweetest. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  “The herald position has to be filled,” Nichos said mildly. “It’s an inherited position of my kin.”

  “And why isn’t your son entitled to it?”

  When his face flushed, the scar stood out whitely. Nichos felt a stir of pity, thinking, He is a man, but a young one still. “You’ve never shown much of an interest in politics. I didn’t think you’d care for it.”

  “I’m the next in line. You didn’t even ask me.”

  Pillyn said, “Paither.”

  “You never take me with you!” he burst out. “Only Baili, Baili, Baili, never your own son!”