But then there was a hiss of air like the sound of the north spring wind whipping through the gargoyles on the palace roof, and suddenly all the stars were blotted out. Necias staggered, thunderstruck with the sight; he heard a cry from Luco, gasps from the others, the earnest whisper of one of the Brodaini chanting something — a prayer for deliverance? A charm against witches? — in his own language.
It was a vast metal thing, winged, massive, delta-shaped with the blunt end forward, hovering with its outlines indistinct in the darkness — and suddenly lights stabbed out from its underside, illuminating the terrace in a harsh, merciless yellow light. Necias saw Fiona’s scarlet dress flash like a blaze in the light, her arm upraised in a gesture of welcome; and then something came falling out of the dazzling light, something that thudded onto the terrace with a metallic ring.
The lights winked out, and as Necias’ dazzled eyes tried to adjust to the darkness he received an impression of the winged thing vanishing into the dark, wind hissing over its curved surface. Nearby Necias heard the sound of a woman sobbing, then a rush of skirts, and Luco had her arms around him, pressing her cheek into his barrel chest. “It’s true!” she cried. “She’s from the stars!” Her voice was hysterical, though not, Necias realized, from fear. He recognized with surprise the touch of ecstatic, mad joy in it, the same rapture he’d heard in the voices of the priestesses of the god Plantas as they raced through the streets on their god’s day, drinking their spiced liquors until they were giddy and flogging one another in their madness until their white robes were spotted with blood. He looked at Luco in shock, then forced his eyes to return to Fiona.
She had stepped into the center of the terrace, kneeling to the object that had dropped, some kind of tube of white metal that had partly crumpled with the impact. Necias lowered his eyes to watch her, his arms going around Luco as she wailed into his chest. Fiona detached one end of the tube, and with some difficulty got a rolled shape out of the crumpled form. A scroll.
Necias’ mind, laboring still through the awe and surprise, began to cry aloud the opportunity. Acragas Necias, it said, founder of the Elva and the Hundred-Year Peace, the man who sponsored the star-people for the good of all Arrandal.
He would do it, he thought. His name would never be forgotten.
Fiona walked toward him, the tube clattering on the flags, offering the scroll.
“My credentials,” she said.
Luco sobbed on in her ecstatic madness. Necias lifted his hand from her shoulder, reached for the destiny he saw before him, and took the scroll.
CHAPTER 9
Fiona, yawning in her bedroom, scratched her head and opened the window overlooking the canal to bring some morning air into her small room. She was in the Acragas palace now, in a comfortable series of apartments, locked away — thank goodness — from her admirers in the city. Their early response to her appearance had been hysterical. That first day there had actually been a riot, thousands of people shouting her name, trying to storm the gates of the palace in hopes of a glimpse of her. Dozens had been trampled, two small children had died. She had, at her own insistence, appeared on the walls, hoping to calm them — the sight had been terrifying. A roaring mob, surging and eddying like the tide, reaching up to her, screaming her name, worshiping, crying, demanding... demanding things she did not understand, and could not give. A visitor from the sky, the story had spread, who would distribute wealth and happiness to all, and who had miraculous powers. A goddess, perhaps. Certainly not an ordinary mortal.
She’d told them to go, but they hadn’t listened: there was so much noise she hadn’t been able to make herself heard. In the end, after they’d started piling into boats and trying to get through the water gate, Necias had the militia turned out, and the mob was dispersed. In the eight days since then no more great crowds appeared, but there were still far more people than normal outside the gate, many of them gazing wistfully upward; and there had been a steady line of petitioners presenting themselves, hoping to interest the starwoman in their ideas, or hoping for relief from their problems.
She was almost at the point of envying Kira. Kira had made her announcement to Neda-Calacas two days after Fiona, at a massive celebration that their new Brodaini ruler, Tastis, had proclaimed to announce his policy of normalization — which meant, apparently, that he had enough of his prospective opponents under arrest that he could afford to take most of his soldiery off the streets. Kira, speaking over the spindle, had been ecstatic about the success of Fiona’s performance, and apprehensive about her own.
But the performance had gone well, and she had been invited to move into the Brodaini quarters, where servants had been provided to attend to her needs. In her case the government hadn’t asked for the proof Necias had required: no atmosphere craft had descended on Tastis’ keep, nor had there been mobs of hysterical people rampaging outside her doors — the Brodaini had seen to that — but instead a number of civilized meetings with Tastis and his aldran, at which they asked respectful questions and appeared impressed by her answers. She had, as agreed, given them the idea of the fore-and-aft sail, and they’d agreed to study it. Tastis, Kira had reported with surprise, was charming — she hadn’t expected charm from a Brodainu.
So Kira was prospering, and it was Fiona who had to cope with the mobs. The worst were the cases of sickness. Desperate people, knowing they were dying, had been coming in swarms — or, most horribly, they’d brought their children for healing: mothers with pale, limp forms in their arms, weeping, shouting, pleading... . There had been nothing Fiona could do. The conditions of her mission forbade it. In the end she’d asked Necias to make a proclamation to the city: Fiona was not a healer, could offer no advice to the physicians and surgeons who already existed in abundance.
A lie, and a heartbreaking lie. There was so much Fiona could do even without taking up the practice of medicine: most illness here was caused by bad sanitation and bad diet, these and the nonsterile conditions of the home and the surgery... but such aid was forbidden, until these people came up with the notion of sterility and sanitation themselves. Then she might — might — be able to give them some ideas. If, in the meantime, they asked her in the right way, she could at least present them with ideas that might tend to lead them in the right direction.
To help or not to help? Every decision had implications that were terrifying, each raised another dilemma in its place. Dilemmas that she, her cohorts, and her eventual successors would live with all their working careers. “Learn,” she’d been told, “to accept the conditions of these people’s existence. Learn to accept the fact that many will die young, and that most will live in wretchedness their entire lives. Your duty lies not to them, but to their descendants. And to your descendants. Remember that.”
She tried her best to remember, but their and her descendants were so far away, and the present wretchedness so apparent... . She tried her best not to think about it, to stay here in the Acragas palace and get as much of her work done as possible.
There had been, for example, an entire day spent training the town’s watchmen and criers, plus delegates from the majority of the deissin and the deissin themselves, in her mission, her presence here. She had to be very careful in presenting herself: what she could do, what she could not. She would not be involved in politics; she would not give military advice; she would not act as an oracle. For the present, she announced, she wanted only to live in the city and grow acquainted with it. Afterwards, perhaps, she would be able to offer a suggestion or two.