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He sat there in his soaked leather breeches and the city-soft tunic the priests had given him while his own was laundered, dripping puddles on the floor, and cursed the rain, which did no good. He had dry clothing in his pack, but could see no point in do
“A refinement to my sense of humility, I suppose,” muttered Meoraq, glancing heavenward. “And I thank You for it, O my Father. It is so comforting to know that You take so personal an interest in the improvement of my character.”
Sheul did not reply. Not here, at any rate, although it might be raining even harder outside.
Meoraq tightened his bootstraps and loin-plate and finally glared at the table where his weapons awaited him. The abbot had requested, as all of them did, that he not go armed within Sheul’s House. Meoraq’s usual reply to this was that all the world was Sheul’s House and he went where directed ever-ready to do Sheul’s work, but having the right to be an arrogant ass whenever the whim took him did not make it an obligation and this abbot was a better man than most.
He put his travel-harness on over his wet tunic and clipped the great hook of his beast-killing kzung at his hip. Its weight was an immediate comfort to him. Next came the long, wide samr, sheathed and slung across his back to be drawn against those whose crimes either did not merit or could not wait for trial. Last of all, his honor-knives, the slender sabks, buckled high on his arms. They were meant only for the arena in the sight of Sheul and frequently used in the wildlands for all ma
A soft knock upon his door. A familiar sound these past many nights. Not a priest.
“Enter,” Meoraq called without turning. “And stand.”
She had already taken her first steps toward him. Now they faltered to a stop. Her voice was as hesitant as her footsteps. “Sir?”
“Sheul calls and I go to answer. You have done well in your service to me,” he added, damned generously. “Go in my favor.”
She retreated one step, but only one. Her hands clasped, trembling, at one another. “Have I offended you, sir?”
She had not. Nor had she gone to any great effort to please him. Indeed, she had done little to make any impression on him whatsoever. She hadn’t even told him her name.
Nor should she, in all honesty. She was not a friend to him, only one of the many women who came to the temple after being turned away by their husbands for want of children. They haunted the halls of the temples in every city, veiled shadows in the shape of women, offering themselves in solemn rituals in the hopes that Sheul’s sons would heal their wombs. She did not come to him for pleasure and he should not expect to find any in her.
She was neither young nor beautiful, but Meoraq had been compelled to have her all the same when he had passed her in the hall, returning from his first judgment in this city. As Sheulek, he had the right to any woman he was given to desire, but it was this one who lit the spark in him that night and every other night that she came to him. The marks of many Sheulek before him scarred her from neck to mid-arm, but she had not burned for Meoraq and his own did not stand among them.
He had not decided yet how this made him feel. His masculine pride was, in truth, somewhat insulted, although he knew it was Sheul who had the ultimate judgment over each mortal coupling and therefore His will that she not conceive of him, but only receive Meoraq’s fires. If that was enough to heal her barren womb, so be it. If not, well, Meoraq didn’t particularly want her haunting the halls at House Uyane anyway. Sheul had blessed him at each coupling, sometimes twice, but the sex itself had been as unpleasant as sex could be. Her way of bending silent and motionless beneath him disturbed him. He had given her permission to move, to speak, even to struggle, but she did nothing except to whisper her prayers and drift away when it was over.
Now she seemed dismayed at his leaving, as if it were some failing of hers that drove him out from the city in the dark hours of night. That if she had been more winsome, or if her worn flesh had just been fresher, he might stay and give her the children Sheul had thus far denied her. That she had displeased him, shamed herself, failed God.
Meoraq understood the situation well, but he knew no better how to extract himself from it than he ever had. He finished securing his travel-pack and slung it onto his back, then turned to face her at last.
She bent her neck at once, hiding her eyes from him as a proper woman learns early to do, but her hands grasped anxiously at one another, never entirely still.
Meoraq started walking, but stopped at the door. He sighed, rubbed once at his brow-ridges, then came back to her. He stood awkwardly before her while she cowered, then reached out and brushed the back of his hand gently across her well-scarred shoulder. Her short spines only flattened further, uncomforted.
“I thought surely it would be you,” she whispered.
“Mine is the same clay as any other’s. Look to no living man for your restoration.”
“He has forsaken me.”
Meoraq gave the door a glance, wishing it would be miraculously filled by a priest who would know better how to handle this. It remained shut. The woman before him continued to stare at the floor between her bare feet, even as silent tears welled in her eyes. He was Sheulek, a true son of Sheul, and he had felt His touch and heard His voice all his life, but for the sake of that same life, he could not think of a thing to say to her.
“We are all tested in our time,” he said at last and immediately regretted it. It was precisely the sort of lame and obvious non-answer that priests liked to give and which Meoraq himself had always found simply infuriating.
But she only brushed at her eyes and made a quiet sound of wordless acceptance. Living here, no doubt she’d heard such answers too many times to be moved by them any longer.
“Forgive me, honored one,” she said, sinking to her knees. “I have delayed you with a foolish woman’s unhappiness. Go your way in the sight of Sheul, I pray, and good journey to you.”
All spoken as heavy as the eternally overcast skies. He found himself wishing she would look at him, as wildly inappropriate as that would be, to show him her naked eyes and let him see some glimmer of a future in them.
But the burning arm beckoned. A Sheulek answered to God above his brothers, his teachers, even his own father. He could not spurn Him to linger with this woman, particularly since he could be of no comfort to her.
He touched her again, actually gripping her shoulder this time in a more direct farewell than he had given anyone else in Xheoth, but she cringed beneath his hand, understandably confused and dismayed by this intimacy. He left her, shutting the door behind him to give the first of her soft, broken tears some privacy.
* * *
His usher was waiting in the hall to lead him to the temple’s gate, trying—and failing—to disguise his curiosity at the sexual mysteries he knew to be unfolding behind the door once the woman entered. He seemed very surprised to see Meoraq so soon emerged and it took him some little time to remember the proper genuflections. Meoraq, brooding, waited out about half of them and then set off without him.
He regretted it within a few moments, knowing it was only the difficult scene with the woman and the prospect of walking in the dark and the rain that fa
When he reached the gate and the cluster of priests waiting to see him off with the right chants and prayers, Meoraq made a point of tapping the boy on the shoulder. “I have left my bedroll. You may have it, if you like.” And to the smiling abbot, ignoring the boy’s immediate outcry, “I leave Xi’Xheoth to you.”
“We thank you for your service, honored one, and pray we shall not soon require your return.”
His provisions were presented, exactly as he had demanded: Two waterskins sized for long travel, bread enough to see him to Tothax and cuuvash enough to see him right through and on to Xeqor, a fresh bedroll, and a good thick blanket to hold back the growing chill at night. Of his own will, the provisioner had added a candle-brick and a small pot of honey, doubtless from the temple’s own waxbeetles. Meoraq would not have asked for these things. He was entitled to whatever he was moved to demand, but Xheoth’s usual prosperity had been hard-tested this past year and he was loathe to take away even its most frivolous resources. Besides, he had every intention of making outrageous demands when he reached Tothax and the House of whoever dared to summon him without giving cause. Oh yes. Then, he meant to replace his tent, his travel-packs, his boots, his harnesses—both travel and battle—all his buckles, his various tools for ski
The abbot began to pray as Meoraq made himself ready, and since it was the custom for the prayers to continue for so long as the honored visitor was there to hear them, he did it quickly and moved on before the elderly man’s voice could tire.
Beyond the temple gates, the city moved and breathed. At this hour, on any other night, the i
Now the walkways were choked with people and most of the food-stalls in sight were opened as merchants took advantage of the crowds. Looking around at all this activity, anyone would think it was full day outside.
A shifting beside him. The temple had sent for watchmen to escort him out of the city and they waited nervously for his acknowledgement, looking at him with eyes that said they knew as well as he did for whom the message in the sky had been written.
Meoraq beckoned and started walking for Southgate. He was recognized—in his battle harness, with blades hanging off every side of him, he was damned hard to miss—and hailed in many voices all at once. Each had a different turn of phrase, but it all came to the same question: What was the meaning of the fire?
As if any man could know the mind of Sheul. The fire had been for him, and even Meoraq did not know what it meant.