At Winter's End

  “Boldirinthe—”

  “Not necessary,” the offering-woman said. The girl’s eyes were closed again. She had slipped into a deep, healthy, healing sleep. Auras glowed around her. But Boldirinthe still could see the wounded Nest-creature crouching deep behind the outer aspect, the hidden hjjk within, glowing like an angry red sore, and she shivered a little.

  She knew, though, that she had dealt it a terrible blow. The rest was up to Nialli Apuilana. And to the Five.

  “Help me up,” she said, wheezing a little, patting her brow. “Or get one or two of the others, if you can’t do it alone.”

  Taniane laughed. And raised her easily from her bench, as though Boldirinthe were no bigger than a child.

  Outside, in the gray stone hallway where green glowglobes flickered, Husathirn Mueri approached her and took her by the arm. He looked edgy and forlorn.

  “Will she live, Boldirinthe?”

  “Of course she’ll live. Never any doubt about that.”

  She tried to move on. This day she had gone down into the deepest abyss and returned from it, a costly business, hard on the soul. She had no wish to stand here chattering with Husathirn Mueri now.

  But he was holding her. Wouldn’t let her go. A warm insincere grin starting to spread across his face.

  “You’re too modest,” he said. “I know a little of the healing arts myself. That girl was dying until you came here to treat her.”

  “Well, she’s not dying now.”

  “You have my deepest gratitude.”

  “I’m sure that I do.”

  She stared at him a long moment, trying to see behind his words. There were always meanings behind his meanings. Even when he sneezed it seemed somehow devious.

  Finding Husathirn Mueri likable was something Boldirinthe had never managed to do, which troubled her, for she disliked disliking anyone; and he was Torlyri’s son, which made the matter worse. She had loved Torlyri as she loved her own mother. And here was Husathirn Mueri, quick and clever and handsome, and warmhearted, after a fashion, and looking a good deal like Torlyri with those brilliant white stripes running through his black fur; and Boldirinthe couldn’t like him at all. It was his slyness, she thought, and his unbridled ambition. Where had those traits come from? Not from Torlyri, certainly. Nor from his father, that hard and austere Beng warrior. Well, she told herself, the gods have their mysteries. Each one of us is a special mystery of the god.

  Softly Husathirn Mueri said, “You know that I love her.”

  Boldirinthe shrugged. “So do we all.”

  “I mean it in another fashion.”

  “Yes. Of course you do.”

  His foolishness saddened her. She had no wish to see anyone hurt himself this way. Wasn’t Husathirn Mueri aware how strange she was, the girl he claimed to love? He must at least suspect by now that she had taken Kundalimon as her lover. And that after refusing the best young men the city had to offer. Well, Kundalimon was dead; perhaps Husathirn Mueri no longer regarded him as important. But what would he say if he knew that he had another and greater rival, no less than the Queen of Hjjks? How he would turn away in horror! But he’d have to twine with Nialli Apuilana to find it out, and Boldirinthe doubted that he had much chance of that.

  She moved on, slowly, toward the outer door.

  “May I have a few more words with you?” Husathirn Mueri asked.

  “If you walk with me. Standing in one place is unpleasant for me, now that I’m so huge.”

  “Let me carry your satchel.”

  “The satchel is my holy burden. What do you want to say to me, Husathirn Mueri?”

  She thought it would be something more about Nialli Apuilana. But instead he said, “Are you aware, Boldirinthe, that some sort of cult is already beginning to spring up around the murdered ambassador from the hjjks?”

  “I know there’s a shrine of some sort in his memory, yes.”

  “More than just a shrine.” He licked his lips nervously. “I have the guardsmen’s reports. The children are praying to him. And not only the children, but it started with them. They’ve got some little bits of his clothing, and things from his room, hjjk things that somehow were taken after he died. Boldirinthe, they’re making him into a god!”

  “Are they?” she said indifferently. “Well, such things happen from time to time. As they please. It’ll change nothing for me. The Five remain sufficient for my needs.”

  Sourly he said, “I didn’t expect you to start worshipping Kundalimon. But doesn’t this trouble you at all?”

  “Why does it trouble you?”

  “You don’t understand, Boldirinthe, they’re setting up a boy who was half hjjk by spirit, or more than half, as a figure of power in the city! They want favors from him. They want guidance. And they’ll confer favors in return. Do you really want to see a new religion get started here? A new priesthood, new temples, new ideas? Anything could come out of that. Anything. While Kundalimon was alive he went around preaching Nest-stuff to them, and suggesting to them that they follow him back to the Nest. And the children loved it. They ate it up. I have absolute proof of that. What if this—this cult—falls under the control of someone who can build on what Kundalimon was starting? Will we all find ourselves loving the hjjks, and begging them to love us? Will Nakhaba and the Five be swept away? You’re too casual about it, Boldirinthe. This will grow only worse, and very rapidly, like fire spreading in the drylands. I can feel it. I’m not without a certain shrewdness in these matters, you know.”

  His face was flushed and disquieted. His amber eyes, gleaming with feverish excitement, were like polished glass beads. Something was at work in him, no doubt about that. She could not remember having seen him so agitated. It wasn’t much like Husathirn Mueri to display such open emotion.

  It was the last thing she needed right now, this frantic outburst. She was still shaken by the shock of what she had seen in Nialli Apuilana’s soul. What she needed was to return to her cloister and rest. A quiet dinner with dear old Staip, a few bowls of wine, and bed—yes—

  Let come what may, she thought. New cults, new gods, anything. I’ve worked hard today. I’m tired. I long for my couch.

  Coolly she said, “Perhaps you’re making a great deal out of very little. The children liked Kundalimon, yes. He amused them. He told them interesting stories. Now they mourn him. They bring offerings, offerings to his spirit. I saw them at it as I came here today. A harmless gesture, a memorial, nothing more. And in a few days it’ll all blow over. He’ll become part of history, something for Hresh to enter in his chronicles, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “And if you’re wrong? If there’s a revolution here instead? What then, Boldirinthe?” He waved his hands excitedly.

  But she had had enough.

  She said, “Speak to Taniane if these things bother you, Husathirn Mueri. I’m fat and old, very fat, very old, and whatever changes will come, if they do, will probably come when I’m no longer here to see them. Or if I still am, well, I’ve seen more changes than you can imagine in my lifetime already. I can stand to see some more. Let me go, now. May Mueri give you peace, eh? Or Nakhaba, if you prefer. All gods are one, to me.”

  “What? But you are sworn to the Five!”

  “The Five are my gods. But all gods are godly.” She made a sign of Mueri at him, and moved slowly onward past him to the door, and down the steps to the waiting wagon.

  The boy’s name was Tikharein Tourb. He was nine. He wore the black-and-yellow Nest-guardian talisman on his breast.

  The girl was Chhia Kreun. She had the wrist-amulet.

  They stood before a congregation of eleven children and three adults. Aromatic boughs were piled high in the little rough-walled basement room, so that the pungent odor of sippariu sap mingled with the sweetness of dilifar needles to make the air almost intoxicatingly strong.

  “Hold hands,” said Tikharein Tourb. “Everyone, touch together! Close your eyes.”

  Chhia Kreun, standing next to the
boughs, was virtually in trance. She began to chant, unknown words, thick and harsh. Perhaps they were hjjk words. Who could say? They were sounds that Kundalimon had taught them. What they might mean, no one knew. But they had a holy sound.

  “Everyone,” Tikharein Tourb cried. “Come on! Everyone, say the words! Say them! Say them! It is the prayer of the Queen!”

  The negotiations, such as they were, were stalled. Since the news had come of those murders in Dawinno, Thu-Kimnibol had fallen into some sort of black pit of brooding. Salaman watched him with surprise and growing uneasiness. All day long he paced the halls of the palace like some huge beast, and at the royal feasts each night he said practically nothing.

  What was bothering him, so he said, was the lateness of the autumn caravan from the City of Dawinno. It was nine days late arriving at Yissou. “Where is it?” Thu-Kimnibol kept asking. “Why isn’t it here?” He seemed obsessed by its failure to arrive. But there had to be more to it than that. For a caravan to be a few days late wasn’t sufficient cause for so much fretting.

  “There must be bad weather somewhere down south,” Salaman said, trying to soothe him. Thu-Kimnibol was too explosive, too unpredictable, when he was this troubled. “Heavy storms along the way, flooding on the highway, some such thing.”

  “Storms? We’ve had nothing but one golden day after another.”

  “But perhaps to the south—”

  “No. The caravan’s late because there’s trouble in Dawinno. Once killing begins, where does it stop? There’s some upheaval going on there.”

  So that’s what’s worrying him, Salaman thought. He still thinks he should have gone home the moment he got word of the murders. He feels guilty because he’s up here doing nothing while Dawinno may be in an uproar. If Taniane had wanted him to come home though, Taniane would have asked him to come home. The fact that she didn’t must mean there’s no problem there.

  “My prayers go with you, cousin,” Salaman said unctuously. “Yissou grant that all is well in your city.”

  But the days went by, five more, six, seven, and still no caravan. Now Salaman too was puzzled. The caravans were always punctual. In winter and spring Yissou sent caravans south, and in summer and autumn they came northward from Dawinno. They were important to the economic life of both cities. Now Salaman found himself plagued with fretful merchants and manufacturers whose warehouses were piled high with goods ready to offer. Who would they sell them to, they asked him, if the caravan didn’t come? And the market place vendors who dealt in goods from Dawinno had the opposite problem. They needed to restock; but where was the caravan? “Soon,” Salaman told them all. “It’s on its way.” Yissou! Where was it? He was getting as edgy as Thu-Kimnibol.

  Was something really wrong down south? He did, of course, have a few spies in Dawinno. But he hadn’t heard from them in weeks. The distance between the two cities was so great, the time of travel so long. We need some better way of getting news from abroad, the king told himself. Something faster, something that doesn’t involve asking couriers to travel hundreds of leagues. Something using second sight, maybe. He made a note to give the matter some thought.

  Thu-Kimnibol continued to pace and scowl. Salaman found himself beginning to do it too.

  Gods! Where was that caravan?

  Husathirn Mueri said, “I trust your daughter’s recovery is proceeding well, lady.”

  “As well as can be hoped for,” said Taniane, in a dull, toneless way.

  He was astounded to see how tired she looked. Her shoulders were slumped, her hands lay limply in her lap, her fur was faded and without sheen. Once she had seemed to him more like Nialli Apuilana’s older sister than her mother, but no longer.

  Maybe the state of Nialli Apuilana’s health had been the wrong topic to open with. He went on quickly to something else.

  “As you requested, lady, I have the latest report on the search for Curabayn Bangkea’s murderer. The report is that no progress has been made.”

  Taniane stared at him balefully. “There won’t ever be any progress there, will there, Husathirn Mueri?”

  “I think not, lady. It was such a casual crime, it seems—”

  “Casual? Murder?”

  Suddenly there was cold fire in her eyes.

  He said, “I meant only that it must have been a sudden brawl, something that came up out of nowhere, perhaps even without reason. Of course, we’ll continue the investigation in every way possible, but—”

  “Forget the investigation. It isn’t leading anywhere.”

  Her brusqueness was startling. “Just as you wish, lady.”

  “What I want you to get your guardsmen thinking about is this new religion we have. This cult. It seems to be traveling through the city like a pestilence.”

  “Chevkija Aim is leading a vigorous program of suppression, lady. In the past week alone we’ve uncovered three chapels, and we have—”

  “No. Suppression isn’t going to work.”

  “Lady?”

  “I’m hearing disturbing news. Men like Kartafirain, Si-Belimnion, Maliton Diveri—property-holders, men who get around and know what’s going on. They say that as fast as we close down one chapel, two more open. Everyone out there is talking about Kundalimon. A prophet, they call him. A holy prophet. Queen-love’s spreading among the workers faster than a new drink. It’s becoming obvious very quickly that the policy of suppression’s going to cause more trouble than it cures. I want you to tell Chevkija Aim to call off his campaign.”

  “But we have to suppress it, lady! The thing is outrageous heresy. Are we simply going to allow it to spread?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you so godly, Husathirn Mueri?”

  “I know a danger when I see it.”

  “So do I. But didn’t you hear what I just said? Suppressing it may prove to be more risky than letting it thrive.”

  Perhaps so, he thought.

  “I don’t like this new religion any more than you do,” she said. “But it could be that the best way of controlling it just now is by not trying to control it. We need to learn something about it before we can decide how dangerous it really is. It may be simple foolishness of the common people, or perhaps it’s active subversion by the hjjks, and how can we know which it is, eh? Except by looking at it. What I want you to do is drop everything else and find out what’s really taking place. Send guardsmen to snoop around in those chapels. Infiltrate them. Listen to what’s being said.”

  Husathirn Mueri nodded. “I’ll see to it personally.”

  “Oh, and one more thing. Check up on the people who are about to go with the caravan to Yissou, will you? Make sure none of them are cultists. That’s the last thing we need, to have this business infect Yissou also.”

  “A very good point,” said Husathirn Mueri.

  The Dawinno caravan had arrived at last, more than two weeks overdue: eleven xlendi-drawn wagons with red-and-gold banners, clip-clopping up the Southern Highway amid clouds of tawny dust.

  The night there was a grand celebration: bonfires burning in the plazas, street musicians playing until dawn, feasting and carousing galore, little sleep, much revelry. The coming of the caravan was always a signal for unfettered rejoicing in Yissou, where the prevailing mood was more often one of constraint and caution: it was as though the arrival of the merchants from the south caused the great stone wall of the city to swing apart and warm sultry winds out of the tropics to blow through the narrow winding streets. But the lateness of the caravan, the uncertainty about whether it would get there at all, made its arrival an even bigger occasion than usual.

  To Salaman, in his private palace chamber, came the merchant Gardinak Cheysz, the most useful of his agents in Dawinno. He was a plump but somber man, with fur of a curious grayish-yellow cast, and a mouth that drooped on one side from some weakness of the facial muscles. Though born in Yissou, he had lived most of his life in Dawinno. Salaman had employed him for years.

  “There’s much confusion in Dawinno,” Ga
rdinak Cheysz began. “That’s why we were late. Our departure was delayed by it.”

  “Ah. Tell me.”

  “You know that a boy called Kundalimon, who had been taken from Dawinno many years ago by the hjjks, returned to the city in the spring, and—”

  “I know all that. I also know that he was murdered, and the captain of the city’s guards was also. This is old news.”

  “You know these things, do you?” Gardinak Cheysz paused a moment, as if to reorder his thoughts. “Very well. Very well, sire.” From a courtyard outside the palace came wild skirling sounds, some kind of discordant piping, and the sound of laughter. “Do you know also, sire, that on the day of the two murders the daughter of the chieftain Taniane went mad, and disappeared from the city?”

  That was something new. “Nialli, is that her name?”

  “Nialli Apuilana, yes. A difficult and unruly girl.”

  “What else could be expected but unruliness and difficulty, from the child of Taniane and Hresh?” Salaman smiled grimly. “I knew Hresh when he was a boy, when we were in the cocoon. A mad little child he was, forever doing forbidden things. Well, so this Nialli Apuilana went insane and vanished. And the delay in your setting out, then—a period of mourning, was it?”

  “Oh, she’s not dead,” said Gardinak Cheysz. “Though I hear it was a close thing. They found her raving and feverish in the swamps east of the city, a few days later, and the offering-woman nursed her back to health. But it was touch and go for days, they say. Taniane could deal with nothing else. Not a shred of government business transacted all the while the girl lay ill. Our permit to depart lay on her desk, and lay there, and there it lay, unsigned. And Hresh—he nearly went out of his mind himself. He locked himself up in the tower where he keeps all his old chronicles and hardly came out at all, and when he did he said nothing to anyone or anything.”

  Salaman shook his head. “Hresh,” he muttered, with mingled respect and contempt. “There’s no mind like his in all the world. But a man can be brilliant and a fool all at once, I suppose.”