“I think it is! And if I may, I will do it to you, not to your father. I owe you this.”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Up on the Speaker Stone, Atheling!” Twist said brusquely. Apparently it did matter, then. The crowd parted. Gath stepped forward to mount the center slab again and the blind Jaurg knelt before him to do homage. The others backed away and resumed their places on the bench around the walls.
Of course it mattered—there might still be Covin votaries present who had not revealed themselves. Every man must prove his innocence by paying homage to King Rap’s deputy, and every woman, also.
“I am Jaurg the bastard and I am your man.”
Two cindery heaps lay by the doorway. That was where the smell was coming from.
“In the name of my father, Rap Thanes—”
“Your man, I said, Atheling Gath!”
It couldn’t matter, but it felt good, a sort of Kadie makebelieve. ”’Then I accept your homage, Jaurg the bastard.”
I died today! Gath thought, as he raised his new vassal, the man who had confessed to killing him. His heart had stopped. Had he also been charred to a crisp like those two at the door? Was that why his hair felt funny? His breeches seemed like a better fit than before, so perhaps they were not the same breeches. Roast Gath—his gut turned a somersault.
One by one, the sorcerers were coming forward to kneel to him. Most took their cue from Jaurg and did homage to Gath himself. They didn’t mean that, surely—it was all just a formality anyway, wasn’t it, just make-believe? He accepted in his own name or Dad’s, as they wanted.
Eventually the procession ended. He stood alone on the slab in the center and everyone else was sitting on the shelf around the walls. They had all passed the test. Now what? He could guess now what, but again it was something from one of Kadie’s stories that told him what to say. He glanced around. Which?
“I yield to Drugfarg son of Karjiarg,” he said. Since Drugfarg had held the floor when he intruded, that was fair. He quit the Speaker Stone and the audience broke into applause, some even cheering. Unable to believe this was all happening, Gath hurried over to Twist, who grinned triumphantly at him and made a space on the shelf. Gath squeezed in between him and Jaurg. The huge Drugfarg rose and came forward to resume his place in the center.
“In respect to our liege lord,” Drugfarg boomed, “I move that this debate shall continue in words.”
A chorus of groans returned from the outskirts, but no one argued.
“Brothers and sisters,” Drugfarg proclaimed, “we have now all established our loyalty . . .”
He was winding up for a speech. Gath glanced at Twist and whispered, ”How many were there?”
“At least a dozen.”
“There were fifteen of us,” Jaurg said softly, not looking around. ”You have made thirteen lifelong friends today, Atheling.”
Gath stole a squeamish glance at the two odious corpses. “They took their own lives,” Jaurg murmured.
Twist said, “Sh!”
The jotnar Gath knew preferred actions to words, but Drugfarg evidently fancied himself as an orator. He was in full torrent already, denouncing the Almighty and demanding that the sorcerers of Nordland, here assembled, now prove their valor, be true to their pledges of allegiance, and rally to the banner of Rap Thaneslayer.
Fine! Gath thought. Where to find that banner, though?
It would be a historical battle, the sorcerer proclaimed. Skalds would sing of it for centuries.
Not if Zinixo wins, they won’t.
The audience sat in stony silence around the cold, dim crypt. Easy for them! They can magic themselves warm.
Et cetera, et cetera . . . At long last the big man reached his inspiring peroration. “I have spoken!” he concluded unnecessarily, and stepped down from the Speaker Stone. A few of the listeners clapped politely. Half a dozen of them rose to their feet.
Drugfarg looked them over and pointed. “I yield to Osgain, daughter of Gwartusk.” One of the women hobbled to the center to take the podium. She was very old and bent.
She was also very long-winded. Certainly the jotnar must support Thane Rap, she agreed, for he was of jotunn blood himself and his cause was the more just of the two. Nevertheless, as she understood the issues, the revolutionaries were not proposing to restore the Protocol of Emine, which had for three thousand years protected Nordland from the abuses of sorcery . . .
A protection that the thanes had shamefully abused, in Gath’s opinion, although he could not imagine himself saying so in this company. The stone bench was cold and most horribly uncomfortable. This moot was going to go on all day, and the Gods alone knew what might be happening outside.
How long? He opened the spigot on his prescience. Ten minutes, twenty . . .
Twist rammed an elbow in his ribs. Oops! To use foresight when people were making speeches would be bad manners, like glancing at a clock.
At long last Osgain announced that she had spoken. The next speaker observed briefly that the Covin was certainly waiting for the company to emerge from the Commonplace, and the danger was extreme. They were trapped! Should not the meeting be considering means rather than ends?
That seemed like good sense to Gath.
But the speaker after that went back to discussing principles. He started to hint that a scout should be dispatched to open negotiations with the Covin. A few angry murmurs broke the silence. Suddenly men began jumping to their feet. They said nothing, but apparently the move implied dissent. When about a dozen had risen, the speaker took the hint and yielded the floor to another.
And he, in turn, to another.
An hour or more crept by like a dying snail.
Perhaps, suggested one oldster, the jotnar should offer to remain neutral. More angry growls . . .
This was becoming ridiculous! They had all sworn allegiance to Dad or to Gath himself, and now they were threatening to renege. What sort of jotnar were they?
Sensible, probably. They seemed to have very little grasp of correct debating procedure, for they wandered from topic to topic, but perhaps as sorcerers they knew a hopeless cause when they saw one. How were they going to escape from this cellar under the eyes of the Almighty?
How would they ever find Dad, who might be anywhere at all? What was happening outside, in the real world? What was going on at the Moot Stow?
8
Rap gazed up drowsily at the rafters, working out what had wakened him. Shafts of moonlight angled down from window to bed, reflecting enough light to show the ceiling. It was around midnight, the start of Longday.
Nothing stirred in the mundane world. In the other room, Kadie fretted through a nightmare on her cot. Inos slept deeply at his side, one arm across his chest. He summoned memories of their lovemaking and cherished them—first outdoors, then again in bed. Not since the first nights of their marriage had they so utterly abandoned themselves to raw passion, like wild, crazy youngsters. A sense of impending doom had contributed to that, but of course a little sorcery did help compensate for advancing years . . .
He had been summoned.
Keeping Inos asleep, he slid magically from her embrace and from the bed. When he released the spell, she stirred and rolled over on her back. The moon cast silver light over her face, her breasts, the tracery of her hair on the pillow. He stared in rapture for a moment. Then with a sigh he turned to his duty.
He clad himself, making the sort of sensible artisan work clothes he wore at home in Krasnegar. He could change them for cooler pixie garb when the day grew hot. He added a cowled cloak of dark flimsy cotton, archon uniform. He said, ”Ready!” and was snatched away.
The Chapel was huge and dark, but not silent, susurrous with the beat of rain on the jungle outside. The archons were assembled, kneeling around Keef’s grave. He saw them by farsight—three women, four men. In the ambience they reacted with consternation; obviously they had not been informed that Thaile had chosen a demon as her replacement.
To hurry in such sanctity was unthinkable. He walked forward slowly, boots tapping on the ancient stone. He was disinclined to kneel to Keef, but even less inclined to antagonize his new associates. He knelt, completing the circle.
Young Raim shot him a smile of welcome in the ambience. Several of the others radiated strong disapproval.
The Keeper materialized outside the group and the archons bowed their heads. Rap joined them willingly in that token of respect, paying homage to her pain, the agony he so well remembered.
She was garbed as she had been when she came to the Rap Place the previous evening, in a white robe, cowled like her predecessor’s. It was impervious to farsight and he could detect no hint of her feelings or expression. She was a glimmering wraith in the darkness, barely visible.