REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 9

It got dark quickly, though there was a ghostly half-light from the light from the two moons reflecting off the snow.   Inside the stone building, the sleigh-riders had refilled the glass oil reservoirs of lanterns hung all round off hooks on the walls from a barrel on a shelf of stone in one corner, and had lit them with lucifers.  There was no indoor privy.  There had been one outside, and Magritta had urged them all to use it while they could, because the main door to the outside world would not be opened again until morning.  

“What if we have to go, in the middle of the night?” asked Bryon, the sergeant, in a jokey tone.

“You have to use those,” said Magritta, pointing to several porcelain chamber pots set on a shelf against the wall. “And you have to empty them yourself in the morning.”

Bryon pulled a face.  “At least when we camp in the bush we can go outside.  In private,” he muttered.  Everyone ignored him.  Complaining wouldn’t help.  Steppan was beginning to wonder whether he shouldn’t be insisted that they return back to Dorno.

“Who maintains these huts?” he asked Magritta, to distract himself from his worries.

“There is a team of people paid by the clan-mother, my grandmother.  This is not a road often taken in winter, you understand.  In summer, it is free from snow, except of course on the Great Ice itself, and the days are long.  The dangers of the wild beasts who live here are much reduced.  We can stay outdoors at night, if we have a bonfire, and we don’t need to bring as much provender and clothing with us.  The maintenance teams come up here in summer, repair the huts, add to the wood stacks, and clean up.  But summer is short, and autumn comes quickly here in the south, in the highlands.”

“Yes, but why is this route maintained?  Who wants to travel up to the Great Ice to see it?”

“Theclan-mother thinks it is necessary.” 

Which Steppan didn’t think was an answer.  Why were they really making this trek into these desolate mountains?  What was so important?

The sleigh-riders prepared a fire in the fireplace.   They piled some kindling from the store next to the chimney and then started the fire with lucifers.  When it was burning well and there were some small red embers, they placed three “firebricks” on the embers.  These were black bricks, the size of a clay brick, but black and oily.  They started to burn immediately, with smoky flames and a pungent smell.  In 10 minutes, they were glowing red at their edges and between each brick, and Steppan could feel the heat on his face.

“Those are extraordinary,” he observed to Magritta.  “How do you make them?” 

“They are very useful, because they are light to carry, but burn fiercely, for most of the night.  They are mined to the west, about thirty thana away.  There is black rock and it is mixed with pitch and tar and then pressed into blocks.”

“That is something else you could export to Cappor.”

“It’s not cold enough there!” she answered dismissively.

“Yes it is, in winter.  And anyway, remember how effete and weak we are!  We need to overheat our houses to keep us warm!  Poor feeble Capporeans.”

She glared at him.

“I’m serious.  What you have there is very useful.  You could sell it to us, and make your fortunes.  We don’t have anything like it.”

He left her to think about what he had said, and went off to join Tilthon, who had appropriated two of the bunk beds in the far corner of the hut, and had spread their sleep-sacks on them.  There were no mattresses, just hard wooden boards.  He was lying on his own sleep-sack, still fully dressed.

“I wonder if we get supper,” he murmured.  As he spoke, the sleigh-drivers took two of the pots they had filled with snow, and set them on metal grids over the flames.  “Ah,” he said, “perhaps we’ll get tea.  That’ll be nice.”  Smaller pots were brought out of the bags piled on the sleighs, and the drivers started preparing food as well.  It wasn’t long before the hut was filled with the smells of cooking, which mingled with the pungent odours of firebricks and ice-deer.

“We would not survive in this wilderness without the aid of these men,” Tilthon added, softly.  “What would do if they deserted?  If they stole all our things and headed back to Dorno without us?  We have been too trusting, perhaps.” 

Steppan nodded.  “I think we should take turns to keep watch, tonight,” he whispered.   Tilthon nodded.  “I’ll watch until midnight.  You can take over then.”

You Are Loved

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 8

Steppan and Tilthon had decided to take the Healer and the sergeant with them, leaving the lieutenant to oversee the rest of the guards and their horses.  Steppan thought that the sergeant might not be senior enough to keep the soldiers out of trouble.

The road led out of the gate in the brick and timber town walls, and headed off towards the south, and the great ice cap.   At the far southern horizon there were high snow-capped mountains, and almost at once, before the township was even out of sight, the road started to climb over low hills which steadily steepened.

There were three sleighs, each one led by a team of four ice-deer, each driven by a Yarsfeld man.  There was a bench at the front of each sleigh, with bundles of luggage piled at the back, and tied down with ropes.  The sleigh-drivers were armed, and Steppan was glad that he had insisted that his group all bring their swords as well as a dagger. 

They travelled through the countryside, passing occasional farmsteads where smoke rose from stone chimneys.   The road would descend from the top of each hill, but ahead, you could see that the next hill was higher, and the one beyond that one higher still. 

They stopped for mid-meal at a shelter made of brick and stone, and the sleigh-drivers produced food from sacks on the sleigh for the ice deer.  There was no grass visible, no trees, no bushes.  Steppan wondered whether there was any grass even in summer, or whether it was always like this.  The food seemed to consist of moss and tree bark mixed with cakes made of what looked like oatmeal and fat.  The ice deer munched noisily, with apparent enjoyment.  For themselves, there was food packed into smaller sacks tied down onto the sleighs.  Steppan privately thought that it wasn’t that different from what had been given to the ice deer:  oily dried fishcakes, raisins densely packed in blocks of fat, oatcakes with honey, and dried sheaves of some vile-tasting vegetable, akin to cabbage, also soaked in dripping, but perfectly disgusting.  When Steppan pulled a face as he munched on these strange fronds, Magritta smiled, “Yes, I know.  But they will give you stamina for the climb.  It gets steeper from now on.”

“Magritta, you have gone to a lot of trouble to organise this trip.  Thank you,” said Steppan, feeling that he should make peace with her.  Besides, it was true.

She ducked her head, pleased, but then snorted.  “Somebody had to do it,” she said crossly, the implication being clear—no mere male would have been organised or efficient enough.

Steppan merely smiled to himself.  She hadn’t changed at all.  Yet he believed she had learned a lesson from the rebuke he had given her.

The sleigh drivers watched them eating, apparently unimpressed, and obviously increasingly impatient.   After just a quarter of an hour’s break, they set off again up the road to the south.  Magritta had been right:  the way did get steeper.  At the steepest parts, the drivers indicated that they should get off the sleighs to ease the burden of the ice-deer. 

A few more hours brought them to another of the brick and stone shelters.   This one was much bigger, though, the size of two or three large houses.  There was firewood stacked in an alcove next to the fireplace inside, though they hadn’t seen a tree for the last several hours. Someone had brought it laboriously up from the treed lowlands on their backs or on sleighs.

The sleigh-drivers collected several large metal pots of snow, which they brought inside and stack next to the chimney.  Finally, the ice-deer were brought into the shelter, as were the sleighs, and the door was securely bolted.

“What is the danger, here?” Steppan asked Magritta softly.

“Wolves.  Bandits.  Ice demons.  Ice bears.  Wraiths.  Goblins.  Wargs.”

“Should we not have brought all our guard?”

“We didn’t have enough spare sleighs or ice-deer.  And anyway, your guards might have been more of a hindrance than a help.  They couldn’t protect us.  The danger is greatest at night or in the twilight.  That’s why we have these stone buildings with strong oaken doors.  You will notice there are no windows.  And we burn a fire at night.  We keep the ice deer inside, too, because they would be attacked.  Besides, the nights here are very cold, especially if the sky is clear.  So it is better for the ice deer to be kept inside, out of the cold.  Even though they are used to cold, all the same, they will be better inside.”   Steppan looked more closely at the ice-deer clustered together at the end of the hut, separated from the people by a waist-high wooden railing.  They had much more than half the building, with perhaps a third reserved for the humans.  Bright eyes looked back at him.  Steam rose from their bodies and their urine.  They seemed to be creating their own warmth.  Some of them were already lying down, chewing the cud.  He was surprised at how placid they appeared to be.

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 7

When they returned to their chambers in the Motherhouse, wonderfully warm, and for the first time in days, clean and dry and relaxed, Magritta was pacing up and down impatiently.

“Where have you been?  What have you been doing?  What took you so long?”  Her accent was stronger when she was annoyed.

“Why?  What’s the fuss?  Magritta, we have been travelling for days.  And we haven’t had a bath since we left Cappor.  We needed a thorough soaking.  A beautiful bathhouse, by the way.”

 “Humph!  The wisewoman believes that we will have a week of fine weather.  The clan-mother suggests that you use this chance to go and see the Great Ice.  She thinks that without seeing it, you will never understand the Yarsfelders.”

“Is it a long way?”

“A three-day journey to the south.  The land rises higher and higher till we reach the Great Ice.”

“What about the negotiations?”

“There will be no progress until you have seen the Great Ice.”

“I see.  ‘Suggests’, eh?”

Magritta smiled wintrily.  “Precisely.”

“Very well,” replied Steppan, secretly amused despite himself.  “I’ll give orders for our company to get ready.”

“I have already given orders,” Magritta attempted to gloss over the discourtesy, but he could tell that she felt she had obviously overstepped the bounds of being a polite hostess.

“That is not your right!”  Steppan was angry, and he spoke coldly.  “You have presumed too much!”

“I didn’t want to waste time,” she replied, avoiding their eyes.

“We are a diplomatic mission from the Empire.  You cannot simply order our guard to do the things you think are necessary.  I am the head of this diplomatic mission; you are my employee.  Just because you are here among your own people, just because you are the granddaughter of the head of the clan, doesn’t give you the right to order the guards around.” 

The guards might not be needed to protect them, given his own powers, but the look of the thing affected their prestige, their standing.

“We are far from our home, among strangers, who, if you will forgive me for saying it, appear to be potentially hostile.”

Magritta made denying gesture, spreading her hands out, and pushing away at this comment.  “Yes, yes, I apologise.”  Her embarrassment made her accent sharper and more guttural. “I wasn’t thinking.”  Her face coloured and she looked everywhere but at his face.

When Magritta attempted to speak again, Steppan held up his hand for silence.  “I understand that you wish also to serve your grandmother and your clan, but your ordering our guards around endangers our mission.  It makes us look weak.  And that will do us no favours with the clan-mother.  We have come with a generous offer to assist your people, and, to be sure, to also help the Empire.  What will happen if your grandmother insists on asking for more than we can give, because she thinks we are weak and over eager?”  He shook his head, and added, more in sorrow than in anger, “You are no longer working for a shifty and dishonest lawyer in some small country town.  You are working for me.  I am a duly appointed delegate of the Panthron.  And I have duty to ensure that this mission succeeds.” 

She stood sulkily silent in front of him.  He debated telling her about their fears about the likely Khars invasion, and decided to his regret that he didn’t trust her not to tell her grandmother, which really would make their mission impossible.  “Very well, that’s over now.  We had better go and pack our gear.”

Magritta’s face went scarlet.  “Very little needs to be done,” she mumbled.  “I have given orders to our servants to attend you.  They have packed clothes for the journey—” she waved her hand as Steppan opened his mouth to speak “—most of which came from our own stock.  The clothes you came with are not warm enough for the Great Ice.  We have provided you with furs and woollens, and your guards, too.”   Seeing both men silent, just staring at her in amazement, she added, defensively, “We have also provided sleighs and our ice-deer to pull them.  Your horses would not survive the journey.”

“It gets that cold?”  Tilthon was aghast.

“You Capporeans are so weak and cosseted,” she replied scornfully.  “Cold enough that you would die without our clothes, our tents, and our fire-bricks.  And because of we are only able to spare three sleighs, only two of your attendants may come with us.”

Tilthon and Steppan were silenced.  Only then did Steppan notice the clothes laid out on their bed: long woollen underwear, thick woollen shirts and trousers, fur gloves, full-length sheepskin coats, and sheepskin hats with ear flaps.

Well, we will warm enough, he thought.  But he was still angry that Magritta had been so rude.  She might at least have pretended to observe the niceties.  In public, anyway.

The air was still and the sun shining when they set off.  The sky was almost clear of clouds, except for some high wisps against the piercing blue, and the sunshine sparked off the banks of snow and the snow-covered roofs.  It was cold, but it was nevertheless a lovely day.

“Our weather shaman says that we will have 5 days of this weather, but after that, the spirits tell her that a storm will come.”

“You have a mage who tells you what the weather will be?” Tilthon was interested.

“Yes.  Our climate is severe.  Our people need warning.”

“Is her foretelling any good?”  ask Tilthon, with a sly sideways glance at her.

Magritta didn’t deign to reply to this.

“We’d better waste no time, then,” observed Steppan briskly.  “Let’s start.”

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 6

When he’d eaten enough, Steppan pushed his plate away, and asked “Where are the baths?”

Magritta stood up and pulled a bell pull in one corner, which Steppan hadn’t noticed before.  A male servitor appeared in response to the summons.

She spoke to him in Yarsfeld.

The man bowed.

“Follow, my lords,” he said, his accent so strong his speech was barely understandable.

“Towels? Soap?” asked Tilthon, ever practical.

“All  …. there …. ah ….. ready,” replied Keiron calmly.  His Capporean was limited, but they could make that out.

Outside, it had stopped snowing and though the air was cold, the sun was shining.  The baths were a block or so away from the Motherhouse.  It was a large brick building, divided into several rooms.  Each one they went through had a glowing fire and a tiled bath, filled with water which steamed a little.  It was utilitarian, not luxurious.  In Cappor, there might have been marble statues, mosaic artwork on the walls.  The waters might be scented, the towels thick.  These were baths for working men, not the rich and pampered.

 Around the baths were slatted wooden benches.  The fires were surrounded by stones.  There were scoops set next to the stones.  Keiron explained, “Water. Take.  Throw.” And followed this by showing them what to do, by scooping up some water from the bath and dashing it onto the stones.  A cloud of steam rose from the stones, making the air thick with moisture.  He showed them the shelves where towels were provided.  There were small tablets of coarse soap, too.  When Steppan proffered a coin in payment, the attendant shook his head.  “No pay,” he said, “Proud guests.”  He bowed and left them.

Tilthon and Steppan took a towel each, and stripped off.  There seemed to be no one else there.  They sank into the warm water and, for the first time since they had left Cappor a week before, they felt comfortable. 

“Shall we?” inquired Tilthon.

“What if somebody turns up?”

“There’s no one here.”

“Now.  But what if someone does arrive?  Anyway, Til, we’re representatives of his Serenity the Panthron.  We must keep up our state, and not make mad love in a bathhouse, rutting like crazed rabbits.”

Tilthon kissed him.  “You totally sure, Step?”

Steppan smiled at him.  “No.  Not really.  All the same.  Best not.”

“Are you completely sure about that, honey?” He nipped Steppan’s ear with his teeth, while squeezing one of his nipples with his hand.

Steppan pulled him down and kissed him, enfolding him in his arms.  “I do love you, so much, moi car ….”

“I thought we weren’t going to,” gasped Tilthon when he came up for air.

“A man can change his mind.” 

“Are you sure it’s your mind we’re talking about?” queried Tilthon, eyeing Steppan’s erection.

Tilthon stroked the other man’s hair.  “Well, perhaps not,” he replied complacently, his eyes gleaming, his smile soft.   He bent his head to kiss Tilthon’s nipples, his tongue tracing lines round the stiffening nubs of flesh.  Tilthon’s own cock hardened.  

As always, their love-making felt completely right, perfect.  Though it was familiar now, their bodies known, the way to ecstasy habitual, yet Steppan never tired of it. 

After, they sank back into the blissfully warm bath, arm in arm.

“Do you miss Lthon?”  asked Steppan, out of the blue.

“A bit,” replied Tilthon, leaning against him, and nuzzling his neck.  “But he wasn’t strong enough for me.  He was—is—very pretty, but you’ve got iron in you.  And I need that.  I need someone strong to resist me.  And to lean against.”

“You mean I’m not pretty?”  Steppan pouted.

“Not on the least.  You” —and he kissed him vigorously on the mouth—” you are manly, sexy, suavely handsome, erotic, desirable, and perfect.  And while we’re asking, do you miss Fluin?  Or Ilya?”

“Both,” answered Steppan sombrely.  “I was friends with Fluin first, before we were lovers, and it was never about strong passion for me.  I loved him and love him, deeply, and always will.  He has moved on, though.   He has Lthon—though Lthon will have as many partners as he can—and he has Alisya.  I watched him you know, when we were at the Khedha’s castle.  I saw him looking at her.  He was …. smitten, even then.  I only made love to him the first time because he had been tortured, and he needed to be loved.”  Steppan had told Tilthon the story of Fluin’s capture and torture before, when he and Fluin had been in the Bridgetown, so Tilthon just nodded.  “And I don’t regret it.  I would never have found out that I could love men, if I hadn’t.”  He squeezed Tilthon tightly round his waist, making him gasp.  “Sometimes making love, you know, isn’t just about desire or lust, but about comfort and joy.  He and I will always be blood brothers.”  He was silent for a moment, and Tilthon thought he’d finished, but then he added,  “As for Ilya, we were never friends.  There was sex, but never comfort.  Never joy.  Never companionship.  With you, my dearling, I have both.”

“What if the Panthron asks too much, one day, relying on your love for him to make you do what he asks?”

“Then I would retire to my holdings.  If necessary, in Elfhame.  And I’d hope that you came with me.”

“You’d never be able to give up power that easily.  You are meant for high office.  Idleness would make you ill-tempered.”

“Let us hope that never happens.  In the meantime, we have a task, right here, right now.”

In silence, they gently washed each other’s bodies and hair with the coarse soap, rinsed off using the scoop, and carefully dried each other off.

“We should get a bath like this when we get home, yes?”  murmured Tilthon as he dressed.   “That was good.”

“Yes, we should.  At the keep and the city house.”

“Surprising to find something so civilised in Yarsfeld.”

“They need it because of the cold.  It would be very unwise to underestimate them, I think.”

Tilthon nodded. 

Through a crack in the wooden walls that divided up the building into separate rooms, a watcher observed them, ready to report back to the clan-mother.

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 5

“Yet he is missing, and your Empire is ruled instead by a ‘Steward’.  Whoever—or whatever—he is.”

“He is utterly loyal to Fluin.”

“Ah yes, ‘Fluin’.  Are you sure you’re not getting carried away by your love for him?” she inquired shrewdly.

Steppan just smiled.  Tilthon said, sleepily (the wine was affecting him and it had been a long day on horseback), “When I met him, I felt it. He is easy to love, hard to forget.  I think he charmed his way into the heart of the people.  He is Goddess-touched.  Even though I was not at Carlathan, even so, I could tell that.  He is Her instrument.  And She is the Mother of all peoples in this world, of all animals and all things.  And She has a plan, and though we don’t know our precise parts in that plan, we will do our best with what we have to fulfill it.”

“Sounds as if you are in love too.  Anyway, I don’t trust men with too much charm.”

“Perhaps,” answered Tilthon placidly, holding out his empty wine glass to Steppan to refill.  As Steppan refilled it and his own, he realised that they were already negotiating the treaty.  Both the old harridan on her throne in her hall of stone, and her granddaughter here, were not to be underrated, and despite Magritta’s ostensible contempt for her homeland, she still cared.  A lot.  He had been wise to share Cappor’s proposals with her.  He didn’t doubt that they would be passed on to the clan-mother.  And they would be fully considered.  He hoped that they would be accepted.

They sipped their wine in silence.  

At last, Magritta yawned, and apologised.  “It’s been a long day.  Time I turned in.  May the Goddess keep you and cup you in Her hands!”

They returned her good wishes, and she stood up and left them to go to the door connecting them with the room next door. 

“Before you go, princess,” said Steppan drily, “where is our guard sleeping?”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped.  “And of course, they have been provided for.  Not in the mother-house, naturally, but in the barracks.”

Steppan bowed.  “I thank you, princess.”

“Stop smirking.  Good night, wizard.  Good night, ninny.”

“Sleep well, princess,” they chorused.

“Tcha!” she replied.

The next morning, food was brought to them, fine food, and the plates and goblets and left-over food from the night before were taken away.  They were clearly to be fêted and well cared for.  When they had eaten, the women returned, and in heavily accented Capporean, explained that if they wanted to bath, a tub would be provided.

Steppan and Tilthon were effusive in their thanks, and didn’t hear the interconnecting door open. 

“Don’t bother.  Too much trouble,” said Magritta.  “The barracks have steams.  For men.  We have no women warriors here.  Go there, instead.”

“Why don’t you have women warriors?” asked Steppan intrigued.

“Fighting is for men,” she answered with disdain. “Women plan and order and arrange.  Men do the dirty work.”

“As yes,” replied Steppan, after all a man, “I quite see.”

Surprising them all, she giggled.   When she smiled, she looked very likable and attractive.  Steppan wondered if she knew that.

“To tell the truth, some of our best generals have been women,” Steppan conceded.  “Where then will the lieutenant and her women bathe?”

“I shall give instructions that they be admitted to the women’s baths in the house.”

“How kind,” murmured Steppan.

“Off you go,” she said, smiling sarcastically at him.  “You both need a good wash.”

Steppan grinned at her.  “Ever tactful, ever polite, that’s our Magritta.  Until later, princess.”

“Don’t call me that!”  Magritta snapped, her eyes glinting.

“Sorry!”  Steppan smiled, impenitently. “But you must permit us to eat, first.  One doesn’t want to waste all this food, does one?”

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 4

“I am authorised to offer, first, a reduction in taxes on Yarsfeld’s key exports to the empire.”

“You mean, spirit water, furs and timber.”

“You know more about it than you pretend, Magritta,” he said wryly.  “Just so.”  Though in fact the Steward hadn’t mentioned timber to him.

“Well,” she replied irritably, tossing her head at him, “so I should, not so?”

He merely nodded in response.

“And ….?” she queried.

“A healer, temple trained.  There are still too few, you know.  Fluin has started the schools and universities again, and we have borrowed Elvish tutors from Elfhame, so that is a great boon.”

“Have you been to Elfhame,” she asked, diverted.

“I am from Elfhame.”

“You don’t look Elvish,” she said, suspiciously.

“We are both elf-kindred,” interjected Tilthon placidly.  But his eyes were amused when they turned to meet Steppan’s.

“Don’t mock me!” Magritta was angry.  “Just because you’re Elvish.”

“I am sorry,” answered Tilthon demurely.  “We did not intend it.  And to be honest, Mags, you are full of courage and …. achievement.  I admire you.”  To Steppan’s surprise, Tilthon was completely sincere.

“Mags?! Hmph!”  She had so exactly the tone of her grandmother that Steppan had to hide his smile.

“And….?” she insisted, impatiently.

“Ambassadors.  One from Cappor to Yarsfeld and one from Yarsfeld to Cappor.”

“What we really need is more land.  Our soil is thin, our summers short.  Without war, our people grow in number.  We need farmsteads for our young men.  They fight each other in the taverns, and are a sore trial to our women.  We need land,” she repeated fiercely.

“We are ahead of you, there,” replied Steppan calmly.  “The Steward and I talked of this.  I am authorised to offer your people land in the southern forests of the Empire.  They would become citizens of the Empire and have to give up allegiance to Yarsfeld, but there is land in abundance there.  Imperial land, which is the Emperor’s to give.  And title deeds would be issued by the Ambassador here.  To all who wished it.”

“That is …. very generous,” Magritta replied, sulkily, mortified at being wrong-footed.

Steppan and Tilthon sipped their drinks, watching her patiently.

 “And what do you require in turn?” she asked.

“Peace,” Steppan murmured.  There was a tense silence.  He continued, “The Emperor has experienced war.  He fought the Roidan at the Battle of Woodend.  He saw people he loved killed in the battle.  He does not care about prestige or the sort of ‘honour’ some men think is achieved by prowess in battle.  He just regards it as a waste.  He wants peace.  Don’t misunderstand me, if he must wage war, he will.  He will do it to save his peoples.  And he regards them all as his peoples: humans, Elves, dragons, Bantes, all sentient beings.  He believes he does the Goddess’s will in this.”  He sipped again.  “I do too.”

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 3

For the first time since they had met her, Magritta appeared to be at a loss for words.  She walked over to the window and stared out.  After several heartbeats, she muttered, “I didn’t lie to you.  I really did want to escape.  And I was the apprentice of the lawyer in Bridgetown.  And I still want to escape.  Surely you can see why?”  She waved her hand at the building, the township, the country which surrounded them.

“Yes, but we’re from Cappor.  We wouldn’t want to leave there.  But you wanted to leave here—despite being who you are!  Explain.”

“It was all I could do, to get away from here.  It’s so …. backward and …. dull …. and I just don’t ….”

“Don’t what?” asked Steppan in a hard voice.  “Let me guess.  That terrifying old monster in the hall is your mother—”

“—grandmother—”

 “—and she’s furious with you.  For leaving?”

Magritta nodded in silence, looking down at her hands as if they contained a most fascinating novel, full of engrossing tales of love and iniquity and suffering and redemption.

“And no doubt she thinks we are your fancy-men, here to carry you off to a life of sin, oblivious to the dictates of the Mother and the Weavers.  Or, in this place, is it to be you who will carry us off?”

“Don’t be vulgar!” she rebuked, offended.

Steppan went over to the table, where several flagons of wine and one of the local spirit water were set out with some ornate glasses on a tray. He poured out three glasses of a sweet, golden wine (from its taste and bouquet, he thought it very likely that it came from one of the vineyards north of Cappor) and gave Magritta and Tilthon each a glass.

“My dear, I don’t care one way or another what you’ve done to offend the customs of your home.  Or not offend them. But I do care about my task.  I am on a mission from the Steward to settle the southern borders.  And you’ve just royally screwed us.  So, I ask again, what is going on?”

Magritta coloured and looked away.

“Stepp,” interjected Tilthon, his tone a warning.

“Yes, you are right, moi car.  Magritta, I am sorry, but you do see, don’t you?  How is our treaty going to succeed, now?”

“Well why not?” she responded, suddenly furious.  “It’s not the polite words that matter!  It’s what you have of substance to offer!”

“That’s just the point!  I have much to offer!  But now your grandmother is too annoyed to listen to reason!  And my mission will fail.”

Magritta glared at him, then looked away.  “What are you offering?”

Steppan stared at her and deliberated how much he could or should tell her.  She had to be on their side, or their mission would be a failure.  He gestured to the others to sit down, and sat himself.

REVELATIONS, chapter 13, part 2

Inside, the stone floor of the fort was covered with rushes, and though it gave an impression of gloom, in fact there were many oil lamps attached to hooks on the stone walls, as well as generous fires in four different fire places.  Against the far wall there was a raised stone platform with steps up from the hall floor, and arranged at the centre of the platform was what looked uncommonly like a throne.  Seated on the throne was an ancient old woman.  Neither Steppan nor Tilthon made the mistake of assumed that merely because she seemed ancient and past it that she was.  All the power in the room seemed to flow from her.  The retainers around the room had the sort of deference used only with great lords, and their eyes were on her, except when they turned to gaze at the doorway where Magritta and her two companions entered.  Steppan wasn’t certain, but their stares seemed hostile.

The old woman didn’t speak until they had reached the foot of the stairs up to the raised dais. 

Then she spoke harshly, and her dialect was so strong that once again, neither Steppan nor Tilthon could understand it.   Magritta answered in the same idiom, proudly and defiantly, it seemed to Steppan.  She bowed her head to the matriarch on her throne, but only a little.

Next the ancient turned her attention to Steppan and Tilthon.  She spoke to them in heavily accented Capporean.

“Why are you here?”  She wasted no time with honorifics or politeness.

Steppan and Tilthon bowed deeply.  Steppan judged that it would be unwise to kneel to the old termagant.  He was, after all, the representative of a powerful empire, and came from the largest and most populated city in the world, a city in which this tawdry township would vanish without trace.

“We are come from the Steward to negotiate a treaty with the Yarsfelders.”

“Hmnph!” was her only reply.

“The Steward wishes to be at peace with all our neighbours,” said Steppan, coolly.

“I’m sure he does,” replied the old lady, dry as dust.  In Yarsfeld, she addressed several women who were hovering near her, and added, to Steppan and Tilthon, in Capporean, “We will talk more on this later.  These women will show you to your rooms.”

Steppan had no choice but to bow in thanks to this ungracious display.

Two women rose from the end of the dais where they had been sitting on the stone floor, and gestured in silence to Steppan and Tilthon to follow them.  Steppan turned to Magritta, to ask what was happening, but she was already following.  He cast a glance at Tilthon who met his look with eloquently raised eyebrows.  Steppan nodded at him, as if he knew precisely what was going on, and turned to follow the women.  They were led up to the fifth floor, and a fine carved door was opened, and the women gestured them inside.  The chamber was large and luxuriously furnished.  This was obviously the place where honoured guests stayed, and Steppan relaxed a little.  Perhaps, after all, this embassy might be successful.

The wooden timbers of the floor were for the most part covered with a thick Jernan carpet.  There were three beds, one double, one in one corner, and one in a sort of alcove next to the window.  A few moments after they entered the room, two male servitors arrived, one carrying a brazier, the other two steaming bowls of wash water.  A moment later, more servitors arrived with scented soaps and unguents and warmed towels.

“We are indeed honoured guests,” commented Tilthon drily.

Steppan stared at him for a moment before turning to Magritta.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, what?”

“You are no simple Yarsfelder.  The guard admitted you, with …. respect? …. and us—he gestured to himself and Tilthon—on sufferance.  Explain.”

(To be continued)

REVELATIONS (chapter 13, part 1)

(The story so far: The Emperor was lost after the sacrifice at Carlathan, and is still not yet found. But before he disappeared, he appointed Jaan, Demon-King, as his steward. Jaan has sent Steppan, the emperor’s blood-brother, and Steppan’s lyubon, Tilthon, to the Yarsfelders in the far south of the country, a people who live in the shadow of the great ice cap, to draw up a treaty with them, with the intention of averting war or incursions, because he knows that in the far north-east, there will be an imminent invasion by the Khars.)

It is a mistake to assume that the way of the Goddess is clearly marked and easy to find.  Oftentimes, that path we follow appears to deviate from the smooth and straight way we think the Goddess and the Weavers plan for us.  Only after, when we look back on the path we have followed, do the logic and necessity of what we have endured emerge.  Even the most advanced wizard-priest experiences doubt and fear.  Even the highest initiates wonder, at times, whether their Goddess has deserted them.  Yet if we wish, as wizards or shamans or priests, or whatever name it is we serve Her and Them under, to achieve our aim—unity with the One, the ecstasy of knowing that we are part of the Great Spirit Mother and She embraces us—then we must accept all that comes our way, and attempt to fit it into our lives.  That does not mean we must acquiesce in wrong-doing, or supinely submit to events.  But it does mean that we must consider, deeply, and reverently, all that happens to us and to those we love, and try to make sense of it, using prayer and such drugs as I have already mentioned.

This way lies wisdom and serenity.

Yarl Icbodo ys Dalrim

The “capital” of the Yarsfelders was a town made mostly of timber, brick, and thatch.  There was a single structure made of stone: a large five-storeyed building in the centre of town. It had the fortifications of a military outpost.  The windows at ground level were no more than slits, wide enough to shoot arrows out but narrow enough to prevent ingress. The windows on the second floor were also slits, but on higher floors they widened, though all were protected by iron grilles.  There was a single door in the front, made of stout oak planks, bound together with iron.  At the door stood two doormen, each armed with a sword and wearing armoured gauntlets, greaves, cuirasses and helms.

The doormen bowed deeply to Magritta, but blocked the door with their crossed javelins to the others.

“These may enter,” said Magritta with a sigh, gesturing to Steppan and Tilthon, and avoiding their eyes. 

“Not the soldiers, my lady.”  The guards were firm.  Their words were on the edge of understanding to Steppan and Tilthon, because they spoke in the strongly accented guttural argot of the Yarsfelders.   But they inferred the guards’ meaning from Magritta’s answer.

“No, not them.” Magritta gestured at Steppan and Tilthon, and the javelins were momentarily lifted to an upright position and as soon as Steppan and Tilthon had stepped over the threshold, were raised again, blocking the lieutenant, the sergeant, the healer and the soldiers.

Steppan turned to them.  “We will be back shortly.  I will give you further instructions then.”  The lieutenant looked mutinous, the sergeant amused, the healer dismayed.  Steppan didn’t care—he had enough to worry about.

He leaned closer to Magritta as they entered the gloom of the stone fort.  “You have some explaining to do.”

She merely waved her hands irritably at him, and shook her head.  “Later,” she said, out of the side of her mouth.

(to be continued)