CHAPTER 6
Kovat the Slayer returned.
The guards who rapped at the gate and brought the message were stiff with terror, their faces drawn down in frozen frowns. They were large men dressed in leather and arm bands, with swords hanging from their belts. They usually looked fierce. Now they looked terrified.
To me one said, “Templekeeper, tell the lady Nance the prince sends word that his father, great Kovat, approaches.”
“Great Kovat. I will tell her, thank you.” I smiled at them as I often did when I opened the gate.
Nance had told me they were free men who could look at us and speak. Did I want to figure out the social structure of this place? Not until my life depended on it. Then I'd give it a thought. Until then, the whole thing made me want an aspirin.
The guards had always returned my smile, sometimes with a nod. Today their expressions remained grim.
All the simple routines of the temple exploded into a frenzy as a stuttering, trembling Nance pushed me into a heavy, jewel-trimmed robe, covered my face with layers of painted color, and tugged my hair into fancy swirls.
She hovered over me, her fists clenched, her eyes brimming tears. “No, no, that is not right, I cannot do it, wait, let me try again!” She flew at me with her combs and jeweled clasps.
“Nance,” I gasped, covering my head with my hands to prevent her from pulling out my hair in her efforts, “what are you doing to me?”
“Don't you hear the horns? Sit quietly, don't muss that robe. He will be here before we are ready! Hold this comb, there, it will have to suffice, hurry now, Stargazer. Pray to the Daughter that you do not forget the chants.”
Two days ago we'd lounged on a grassy hillside watching clouds. The sun had slowly crossed the sky and Nance had pouted at its hurrying. Today she acted like she wanted to reach up and stop it altogether.
“I will not forget the chants. Ouch! That's my scalp you're tearing.”
“If you forget the chants, you will have no scalp to tear.” Rushing in front of me, she crossed the temple courtyard and threw back the heavy bolts on the temple's double gates, and then a guard slowly walked each heavy gate open on its groaning hinges. Nance's fingers dug into my wrist.
The guard, who usually lounged against the wall, now stood in a rigid pose, one hand crossed over to his sword hilt, elbow out, the other arm straight and pressed against his side. He would have made a cute model for a toy soldier.
With her head held high, spine straight, Nance walked stiffly through the gates. Beneath her headdress of fluttering scarves and jewels, her round face was a mask of white powder applied so heavily it totally hid her freckles. Her eyes were framed by ovals of ash black filled with lavender powder on the lids. Her round mouth was painted to form a thin line of blood red.
She had painted and powdered my face in similar fashion.
Only Nance's shining eyes, open so wide they appeared to bulge from her head, showed her terror. I felt her hand shake as she released her grasp and stepped in front of me.
A line of guards marched behind us. As we wound down the hillside, throngs of people edged the path. Their unusual silence as they joined the moving crowd finally drew my thoughts away from the smothering heat of my heavy robe and itching face powder. I glanced back to see the growing length of the procession, and then saw the horror in the face of the guard who walked directly behind me. Must have committed some blunder in turning my head, don't ask me what.
Quickly straightening my shoulders, I stared forward and moved only my eyes beneath half-closed lids to gaze at the faces of the crowd. They all wore the same expression. Terror. Above the usual odor of unwashed bodies rose a sharper stench of fear.
From somewhere in the distance a horn sounded. Across the valley and up the other hillside the huts of the city stood out in their shadows, sagging shacks of grayed wood and piled rocks on dry earth. Above them rose a cloud of dust. It spread, settled across the hills like a drifting fog, then parted so that in its center I saw the first glittering armor on a horse and rider.
Surging forward like the water of a flooding river, the line of warriors wound down the pathway toward us until we could see clearly the red and yellow banners flying from headgear and from the bridles of the horses.
A pebble slipped between my foot and the sole of one of my sandals. I started to bend over to remove it. Some hunch nudged me. I glanced at the crowd. Their red faces were wet with perspiration even though the day was cool. Okay, unless I wanted a major increase in pain, I knew I better walk on the pebble while keeping a smiley face.
Like the army on the far hill, we wound down the pathway. When we reached the flat land, all the watchers dropped back so we two templekeepers led the procession to greet the returning army. We met at the valley's center. Lights, camera, action.
Nance held up her arms. Our followers stopped.
Nance chanted, “The Daughter of the Sun rejoices at the safe return of her beloved and faithful champion, Kovat, ruler of rulers.”
Raising my powdered face to echo the chant, I stared up past the enormous beribboned horse and its rider's armored body into the meanest, ugliest, most distorted face I ever saw. My mouth hung open and if I was supposed to say something, I lost it. Behind me the procession echoed Nance.
Gotta admit, terror seeped through me and chilled my bones until my hands trembled inside the folds of my robe. So this was the guy who controlled the minds and destinies of every person present.
From his high seat on his horse, Kovat the Slayer stared down at me. Across his bulging chest muscles were rows of metal discs reflecting the sun, while bands of gold circled his powerful arms. None of the luster of his armor equaled his eyes, pale water-blue points of light. His ears and nose were missing bits. His face was so twisted by slashes of old scar tissue, it was impossible to know what he must once have looked like.
That he could remove my head from my shoulders as easily as Nance could remove jewels from my hair was clear. I fought to keep my expression an unreadable mask while fear caused a river of perspiration to run down between my shoulder blades.
When the crowd quit chanting, Nance said, “The Daughter of the Sun and her consort guide and protect their own.”
Raising my hands slowly in the motions drilled into me by Nance, I repeated the greeting. When I finished, the silence hung above the hills and the thousands of inhabitants. Not even the wind had the nerve to snap a fluttering banner.
Kovat the Slayer raised his sword, releasing the people from their invisible bonds and all I could think was, Arnold couldn't have been more dramatic. The horses pawed and snorted, the armor of the warriors clattered, and as the villagers moved back from the path's edge, the warlord and his army continued up the dusty road toward the castle.
After they passed, Nance led our parade on a winding path between the huts, circling the hill in a long procession before we returned to the temple. The guards opened the temple gates. Nance and I entered, turned, raised our hands in a sign of blessing, and then stood silently until the guards pulled the gates closed. Nance slid the bolt into place.
“So now you have seen him and survived.” She grabbed my hand and ran with me across the yard and through the temple and down the corridor to our rooms, then outside again to our small private courtyard. We both collapsed on the bench by the door. “What do you think of Kovat the Slayer?”
“Never gonna be buddies.”
Not much of an answer but my brain was shorting out.
“I wonder what he thought of you.”
“I'm alive, if that means anything.”
“It means he enjoyed victory and was feeling kindly toward all of us.”
And what would he do on his return from a defeat? Maybe that was something I really did not want to know. Or was I jumping way past unfair? Was I equating ugly with mean, and if so, dumb me. The Decko boys, both con man and wizard, were lookers, tall, personal-trainer trim, good bones, wavy hair, expensive teeth, straightened, capped and whitened.
Despite the pretty, those boys were mean to the core.
That night Kovat sent for me.
Stiff-faced guards rapped on our gate and brought the message, then waited at attention outside the courtyard wall so they could usher me to their ruler's presence.
After a tearful, frightened Nance had dressed me once again in robes and jewels and paint and powder, she hugged me and whispered, “I wish I could go with you, but I dare not, as he did not ask for me. Be careful what you say to him. Behave with the manners of a slave and the wisdom of a god.”
The road from the temple to the castle wound below the wide, star-filled sky, my familiar. It assured me I was not in some other universe or even some other time or location. The constellations and the planets were exactly where I knew they should be in the northwest sky. They were a good deal easier to see here against clear black than in the brightly lit Seattle sky.
As I walked toward the castle, preceded and followed by guards, my mind drew my own horoscope and surrounded it with tonight's placements of the planets. Venus protected the First House of Self while Mars formed an unpleasant aspect with my future. And that meant?
Okay, I am good at reading other people's horoscopes, bad at reading my own.
The castle of Kovat, stone walls clumsily erected and clumped together to form a number of bare, square rooms, was similar to the temple but much older. In an odd way it was typically northwest, an ongoing remodel with new wings stuck any which way and corridors and floor levels not always matching.
We entered through a courtyard and a wide doorway, then walked along a corridor lined with closed wood doors and a guard by almost every door. The guards' eyes moved, following us, but they stood silent in their heavy leather vests laced over wool tunics. Sheathed swords hung from their belts. A few servants hurried by, heads bowed, carrying trays.
The stale air smelled of cooking and animal skins and ashes and unwashed humans.
A large scruffy dog stretched across one doorway. It raised its head to look at me, before settling chin on paws. At a recessed archway the guards were met by more guards who announced my presence, then stood back. Guess I had no choice except to enter alone. From their expressions it was obvious they didn't plan to accompany me further.
Standing in the opening, I briefly glanced at the room in front of me, moving only my eyes beneath the shadow of my lashes. I have thick dark lashes and I learned young that if I hold my lids half-closed, people don't see my eyes move. The room was somewhat larger than the others but almost as bare, with a food-laden table at one side and piles of sheepskins in the corners. By the dim light of wall sconces I could see the upper walls were decorated with the painted likenesses of animals and warriors.
Kovat the Slayer sat on a fur draped chair in the center of the room. His chair was placed on a platform, probably so he could look down on everybody else. Behind him on the platform stood Tarvik, dressed in a fur-trimmed tunic and thigh-high boots, and to either side stood two guards. With a slight nod, Kovat dismissed the guards.
They walked past me, their faces rigid, as though they believed that if they glanced at me, even with their backs to their ruler, he would know and be cranky. You don't want cranky in somebody called the Slayer.
Although the room was undecorated, Kovat was not. Gold ornaments circled his arms and hung from his ears and around his thick neck. His tunic was made of a black fur that looked as soft and supple as velvet and his leather boots were dyed dark red and oiled to a glow. A band of gold set with jewels rested on his yellow hair. His hair was thick and of the same color and texture as Tarvik's hair, and his head was the same shape, but because of the scars, I could not guess what his face had once been.
I met his stare, dared not blink, and didn't like his expression at all.
His voice, a scratched roar as though strained by constant shouting, echoed against the walls. “Who are you?”
I repeated my memorized lines. “I am the keeper of the temple of the Daughter of the Sun.”
He waved impatiently. “I know who Nance and Tarvik say you are. Now I ask you once more only. Who are you?”
My mind blinked at the question. Did he mean that if my answer displeased him, I was dead meat? At such times, I think, the truth is the only chance worth taking.
“I come from the same people as the Daughter and her consort.”
The silence left me a moment to imagine my spine melting and my blood turning to sand. Terror flooded Tarvik's face. Well, shucks, he hadn't coached me about what to say.
Kovat the Slayer stared through my eyes to my very thoughts. “If this be so, what magic do you possess?”
Magic? What magic had the Daughter possessed? Why had he spared her? Looking at him was enough to tell me he did nothing by whim.
Okay, the safety of Nance hung beside mine in this spider's web. Better come up with an answer that would intrigue him.
“I study the stars and from their messages can see the future.”
His eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “You study the stars? What does that mean?”
“I chart their travels in the night sky and see in them what will come to be.”
He grunted. “The magicians of Thunder see the future in fire. They are often wrong.”
To argue with him the accuracy of the priests of Thunder would be a mistake. Wouldn't go there, hadn't a clue about the extent of their abilities. All I could do was hope his curiosity about my claim to magic would keep me alive until he gave me a chance to read his stars. Then he would have to wait for the predictions to prove out. Or not. I’d be smart to predict a major event in the very, very distant future.
Elbow on knee, he leaned his chin on his upraised fist and glared at me.
“Tell me this, woman. Will my next raid on the followers of Thunder bring me victory?”
“Tell me the moment of your birth and a day to work my calculations, and I will give you an answer.”
Did a smile almost raise the edges of that hard mouth? In his eyes something close to amusement flickered, as though he saw me as a new challenge.
“I was born at midday, twenty days past the Day of Equals, thirty-nine years ago come next spring.”
So his Sun was at the midheaven in the constellation of Aries. No surprise there. Only his age surprised me. From his scarred and wrinkled countenance I should have thought him much older. Still, knowing he was born under the sign of Aries warned me how to speak to him. Children of this fire sign are new souls, strong-willed and often rash, sometimes too trusting. He looked willful and daring, but trusting?
Midheaven. Right. Driven to succeed on one side, superstitious as hell on the other. I'd try the ambition thing first.
“Your stars signify power and bravery.”
“Do they?” His lips curled back from his broken teeth. “My son was born halfway between the midday and the eventide, one moon and seven days past the Longest Day, nineteen years ago. Tell me what I may expect of him, you who know everything.”
So the little beggar hadn't lied to me about his age. Yeah, he looked nineteen but sometimes he acted more like nine. With no time to draw Tarvik's chart or place the planets within it, all I knew was that his birth sun was in the constellation of Leo which is also ruled by the sun, a glaring place at midafternoon. The placement seemed familiar. Oh, I thought, the moon in my own birth chart was at almost the same degree.
Maybe I never remember where I put the car keys, but I have an exceptional memory of the approximate placement of the slower planets for many years past. The placement of the sun or moon or planets in a constellation depends on the day of birth. The placement of the House cusps depends on the hour. Knowing the minute is even better, but not too dependable in our society where approximate birth times are the norm on records.
Ah. If I remembered correctly, Saturn was in Scorpio in Tarvik's birth chart and from there it did a rotten aspect on his sun.
I said, “His constellation is Leo, the second fire constellation. He
must journey through shadows alone.”
And he won't like that, I thought, because a Leo is a person who likes company.
“What is a constellation?”
“A pattern of stars in the sky.”
“Draw it for me.”
Okay. Right. Sure. And how do I do that? I had no idea how this man reacted to questions and was trying to think of what to say when Tarvik moved past his father's chair and held out his hand to me. I almost reached out because wow, did I ever need a hand to hold, and then I saw that he held something that looked like a bit of charcoal.
So much for dignity. If taking a pebble out of my shoe was not allowed, was it okay to draw on the floor and what other choice did I have? Should I draw a lion? Or should I draw the star formation? I made a quick guess that people who lived so far from electric lights probably had more first hand knowledge of the night sky than I did and so I drew the pattern of the stars on the stone floor.
Kovat stared at the scattered dots.
“That's the Warrior,” he said.
A sword-carrying, hand-holding warrior, yes, that was Tarvik.
I also should have guessed that these people would have their own names for the constellations. If I lived through tonight, I would have to drag Nance out into the courtyard to identify the constellations and planets for me and tell me her names for them.
“You speak like the magicians, girl. Empty words of many meanings or none at all.”
“I don't know your history, so I don't know the direction of Tarvik's journey. Give me time to place more of the stars in his chart, maybe learn more about your country, and then I can tell you about your son's future.”
Kovat rose slowly from his chair and stepped down from the platform. It was the first time I had seen him standing. He was the same height and nearly the same build as Tarvik but with bulkier muscles and a thicker body. Even his hands were the same square shape. Scars covered his bare limbs and one arm was oddly bent, as though it had been badly broken and poorly healed. Had he once been a handsome boy and what had he done with his life to fill his face and form with so much distortion?
The smell of his unwashed body so close to me was a bummer. His eyes, on a level with mine, stared intently. I tried not to let a muscle twitch to give away my thoughts. One thick jeweled hand rose and reached toward my face, then dropped, and I saw in his face a darting memory.
“She drew me back from death,” he said.
The Daughter? I'd kind of guessed she must have had some medicine in her backpack. What would a camper carry? Maybe she had a prescription with her for herself, probably antibiotics, and she made a lucky guess? Because she sure wouldn't have been Doctors Without Borders, hiking with a complete doctor's bag, not on the Olympic peninsula.
He said, “Tomorrow you will come back and give me answers to all the questions I ask. If the Daughter of the Sun guides you, you will know the correct answers.”
And if I did not?
Tarvik must have shared my doubt. He said softly, “My father, no one can know all the answers to all questions. Even the gods must be puzzled sometimes.”
“You think me unfair?” Kovat roared, spinning around on his heel to face his son.
To Tarvik's credit, and so far I had seen little of him that I thought merited credit, Tarvik didn't turn away. He stared in silence at his father, not blinking.
Kovat glared back at him. “No one can say Kovat is unfair, even to his enemies. On this journey's return I have brought with me a magician of the followers of Thunder, one of their mad priests. Tomorrow I shall bring him and this - this -” He turned to me and waved his hand toward me and snapped, “Have you a name?”
“I am called Stargazer.”
“Stargazer. Tomorrow you and the mad magician will stand before me and I will give questions about things neither of you know. Let him consult his false god while you study your stars. We shall see who outguesses who.” To Tarvik he muttered, “There, princeling, is that fair enough for you?”
Tarvik nodded. It did seem to me they might have included me in the decision making, and if I’d been alone with Tarvik I would have told him so, loudly, but in the presence of Kovat I did not even twitch an eyelid.
Kovat marched out of the room, leaving me alone to turn and meet Tarvik's look.
He said softly, “Do you possess the same magic as the Daughter?”
“I never knew the Daughter.”
“I remember her. She knew magic.”
He stepped down from the raised platform and walked over to me, then slowly circled me, looking up and down in a way that made me rather uncomfortable. It was one thing to have him staring openmouthed in the temple, where he would do nothing more than stare. It was another here, where who knew what he had on his mind.
“Who winds it up like that?” He reached out and touched my hair. The guy really was full of surprises.
“Nance, of course.”
“Yes, and so added to your lack of skill at cooking, you also cannot dress your own hair.”
As there was no way to answer that comment without starting an argument, and raised voices in the castle with Kovat the Slayer present seemed unwise, I said nothing.
“Then we must hope that you are clever at this telling fortunes from the stars, because my father has set great weight on it.”
His fingers slid down the side of my face, touching me gently, before he hurried away from me.
I returned to the temple, once again with guards in front and behind me. There were a few other guards standing around, and servants and slaves hurrying by, usually with their hands filled with bundles or trays, but if they looked at me, they did it quickly and secretly.
Nance waited, her fingers twisting nervously, a foot tapping with impatience. I reported the meeting to her while she removed the ornaments from my hair, helped me out of the robes, brushed them down and hung them away. Then I asked her for pen and paper.
She answered with a blank stare.
For a second I’d forgotten these people did not read or write. A face to face visit with a slayer maybe dulled my memory? Nance had no paper, no pencils, nothing to use to draw horoscopes.
“The walls,” I said finally, thinking of the paintings, “how are those drawings done?”
“With paint or charcoal. I have neither.”
Only later, after I had finally calmed Nance and sent her to bed, did I consider Tarvik and decide he might mean well, but he couldn't save my neck. I had to do that myself. With only a table top and Nance's face colors as tools, I drew a horoscope for scary old Kovat. Next, I went out into the courtyard and picked up pebbles until I had a handful. I brought them back inside and dabbed them with colors from Nance's small pots of face paint to make each one represent a planet.
And there I was, reading a warlord's life and my own survival in the glitter of face paint and a handful of pebbles.
After long hours spent stretching my mind to recall the memorized positions of the slower planets in the sky for the day of Kovat's birth, information I would have found in an ephemeris if I were home, I lay my head in my arms and closed my eyes. My memory of planet positions had always been exceptional but seldom burdened to this extent. If Tarvik's gods were watching, I hoped they would give me a little guidance.
I could place the slower planets, Pluto, Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, who spend several years in each of the constellations.
Like it or not, astronomers, Pluto swings a lot of weight in a horoscope. Oh right, astronomers don't approve of horoscopes either, so scratch that and plow on.
Even the quicker Jupiter, who moves through a constellation in a year or less, was fairly easy to figure out. Although I could not recall the exact degree for each, I remembered approximately where they would have been. But the constantly changing locations of Mars, Venus, and Mercury as they sped through the sky were impossible to recall for years long past.
Might have been able to come close with a calculator, but while close is useful
for a planet, forget it with the moon. As the moon moves a degree every night, no way to guess. I knew well enough where it was tonight, but thirty-nine years ago? No, Kovat's horoscope was filled with blanks.
Perhaps having one's head removed from one's body by a very quick and very sharp sword was not the most painful death, I told myself.
At this thought, I remembered Tarvik. The kid had watched me from the moment I entered Kovat's room, with that foolish look he wore too often, his eyelids heavy, his mouth partly open, his tongue against his upper lip. It was something Nance did, too. They did not resemble each other much but they did often use the same facial expressions.
Later his face reflected shock when I spoke a bit quickly to his father. Did they have some form of address that he and Nance forgot to mention? Was I supposed to call Kovat “my lord” or “sir” or some such thing? I was perfectly willing to add any old title the guy preferred. Was Tarvik's terror for me? Did it matter to him, then, what became of me? Hmm. Maybe I was his first prisoner and that pumped his ego, made him possessive proud.
As I pulled a lamp closer to the chart and turned my study to Kovat's destiny, I wondered if Tarvik had it in his power to keep me alive no matter what happened tomorrow. Didn't think he did, yet I suspected he would try. My opinion of Tarvik continued to edge very slightly toward something milder than fury.
Think of the boy and there he was, like an unlucky charm. As I worried over the charts, he pounded on the gates. I rose, went out into the courtyard where embers still flickered from our evening fire, and said the ritual who-is-there knowing perfectly well who was there.
When he was inside and the gate closed again, I went back to the center of the courtyard and held out my hands to the warmth of the dying fire.
“What is it now?” I said.
“I know who you are. Beyond what you told my father today, beyond being from the land of the Daughter.”
“Not a templekeeper and not a god.” I looked him in the eyes. His face reflected the firelight, and it turned his yellow hair to red.
“More than that. I thought about the story you told me that did not have an ending.”
“Umm, did you?”
“Stargazer, you really are from outside.”
I nodded.
“So were they, but they were gods.”
“And your question is?”
“People, not gods, live here. Gods live outside, and when we die our souls go outside and join them.”
He thought anything beyond the boundaries of their land was heaven?
“Are you saying no one has ever gone away and then come back?”
“How could they? Only the dead can leave.”
I mulled that one over. “Can you go up in the mountains?”
“Of course. But we don't because that's elf land and it's better to leave them alone.”
Elves in the mountains? Pointy-eared, pointy-toed ballet type folk in flowing gowns and straight out of the Tolkien films? Or maybe they were really little bitties, like fairies. And was my brain imploding? Skip that thought and get back to important stuff. I didn't want to go mountain-climbing, I don't even like those climbing rock things in the sporting goods stores.
“Have you ever tried to walk out of here?”
“Yes, everyone does that, goes exploring. And then we reach a place where we are turned around and return.”
Like what happened to me when I tried to follow the deer. “Why is that?” I asked, not expecting any answer.
But he surprised me. “Because the gods protect us. They surround us with magic that keeps us in and keeps death out.”
And somehow makes you invisible to the rest of the world, I thought. “So when you saw me, you didn't know where I came from but you decided to let me live. Did you think I came from the gods?”
“Not that,” he said softly. “I saw you were unarmed and you looked so very fragile and it seemed to me it would be a terrible thing to harm you.”
The day had been long and stressful. I had faced the intense questioning of Kovat the Slayer, not to mention the hysteria of my roommate and the scrutiny of one too many strangers. Now I was faced with this silly boy who was as bored and lonely as was his cousin. They both regarded me as entertainment.
“If you thought that,” I said, holding out my hands and ticking off points on my fingers, “when you first ordered me to turn around, then took my knife, than tossed me on a horse, then paraded me in front of your soldiers as your newest capture, why did you also think the manners of a perfect host included requiring me to sleep with a sword blade across my throat?”
It was a long speech and his eyes grew steadily wider. Now it was me who couldn't seem to shut up. I needed to find a way to even the score between us, and at the same time, I didn't know what game we were playing.
“Don't be angry, Stargazer. That's what I am trying to tell you. I want to help you. I want to protect you.”
“Protect me? You threatened to make me a slave.”
Was I supposed to tell him how wonderful he was, that I forgave him for capturing me and he had no reason to feel guilty? I would do that when he took me back to the edge of the woods and helped me find the way out. And why did I think that would not happen soon?
I said, “So, I know who you are and you know who I am and neither of us really knows anything at all about the other. It isn't as though we are friends. And I am sure you trust me as little as I trust you.”
He stood staring at me, his mouth open, the tip of his tongue touching his upper lip. He stood there so long, I worried I would never get any sleep that night.
Then he did that exit thing that left me sputtering speechless. He said, “It isn't as though we are enemies.” He walked to the gate, opened it, and just before he pulled it closed he added, “And I do trust you.”
Good thing one of us trusted me. The more I worked on my charts, the more I doubted Kovat would be impressed.