Rhavas couldn't get up right away—not till that horrible feeling of being unable to breathe eased a little. Then, slowly and painfully, he rose. He hobbled all bent over for a few steps, like a sick old man. Pausing then, he made himself straighten. He still moved slowly, but he moved the way he should have moved. It hurt as much as anything he'd ever done, but he did it. Pride could be a terrible thing for any man, and all the more so for a priest.
As he got to the head of the stairs, he turned back and pointed at Toxaras. "I curse you as you have cursed me," he said.
The head of the militia fleered laughter. He gave Rhavas a gesture nasty boys had used on the streets of Videssian towns since time out of mind. Rhavas started to return it, then checked himself. He'd already lowered himself to Toxaras' level once. That was quite bad enough.
He went on down the stairs. Each footfall hurt. He was biting the inside of his lower lip against the pain by the time he got to the bottom. But he stayed straight. Yes, pride could be a cruel master indeed.
"Very holy sir?"
"What?" Rhavas didn't want to talk to anybody right now. He wanted to go back to his residence and pretend everything that had happened lately was only a bad dream. He knew better, of course, but the worst nightmare seemed better than this dreadful reality.
But the peasant in front of him didn't, couldn't, know anything about that. His colorless clothes, his colorful, rustic accent, and his hangdog manner all proclaimed him for what he was. "Phaos bless you, very holy sir, is all I wanted to say," he went on now. "I've heard how you done stuck up for us, and I reckoned you should ought to know we're right grateful."
Rhavas had never felt less blessed by the lord with the great and good mind. He didn't tell the peasant that. The man was being as pleasant and gracious as he knew how, and deserved to be treated the same way himself. The prelate stiffly inclined his head. "I thank you."
"No, very holy sir. I thank you." Awkwardly sketching the sun-sign, the peasant turned away.
"Phos bless you as well," Rhavas added—he should have said that first. The other man waved to him and went to do whatever such people did with their time. An aristocrat since birth, Rhavas had no real notion of what that might be.
He was still moving stiffly when he got back to his residence. "Are you all right, very holy sir?" Matzoukes asked.
"The Khamorth have come to Skopentzana," Rhavas answered. "How can anyone in the city be all right now?" The young priest exclaimed in dismay. He didn't ask Rhavas anything more about himself. That came as a little relief, or maybe more than a little.
Bit by bit, the bruise on Rhavas' midsection faced from purple to greenish blue to yellow. The bruise on his spirit took longer to heal. He wondered if it would ever fully fade.
When he and Toxaras saw each other on the streets, they both turned away at the same time. It was as if neither trusted himself in the presence of the other. Rhavas knew he didn't.
No matter what Toxaras had said, he would go up on the wall every so often to look out at the plainsmen. Somehow, the militia leader was never nearby when he did. The Khamorth would occasionally ride up and shoot a few arrows at the men on the wall. The defenders shot back. A few people got hurt, but only a few. It was a desultory sort of siege. But no one came into Skopentzana, and no one seemed eager to try to go out of the city, either.
Zautzes began rationing grain. The rations were smaller than people would have liked, but not small enough to make them suffer. They soon got used to them. Toxaras, however, scowled fiercely at the idea of food being rationed at all. And he scowled whenever he saw peasant refugees lining up to get their allotted amount of grain along with folk whose families had lived in Skopentzana for generations.
Rhavas affected not to notice that, or the whispers that followed him around. Toxaras was not the only man who resented his stand on behalf of the peasants. To the ice with all of them, the prelate thought fiercely.
He was just coming back to the residence after getting his own ration—he was too proud to have Matzoukes pick it up for him—when someone called his name. He turned and stared through spatters of snow. It was Voilas, a potter who'd become Toxaras' second in command in the militia.
"Yes? What is it?" Rhavas' voice was colder than the weather. Voilas had never made any secret of agreeing with Toxaras.
Now, though, the militia officer sketched the sun-sign on his breast before speaking. "P-p-please come with me, very holy sir." He had to try three times to choke out the first word. His face was white as the snow on the wind.
"Why should I?" Rhavas snapped. "What will you show me to lacerate my spirit now?"
"By the good god, very holy sir, this you must see." Voilas drew the sun-sign again, more vehemently this time.
Glaring, Rhavas said, "If you are fooling me, you will pay." Voilas violently shook his head. He had the air of a man rocked to the core. Something had happened. The prelate grudged him a nod. "Wait till I put my grain away, then."
"Yes, very holy sir. Whatever you say, very holy sir." If Voilas was only pretending to be rocked, he made a better actor than any Rhavas had seen in the mime troupes on Midwinter's Day.
When Rhavas came out again, the potter led him toward the western wall. Rhavas' suspicions flared again. That was where Toxaras had shown him the Khamorth after he began to hope Skopentzana had fended them off. "How now?" he growled as they neared the wall.
"You'll see for yourself in just a moment, very holy sir." Voilas kept repeating the title as if it were some kind of charm.
They came around the last steep-roofed building. A crowd of men—mostly militiamen, but a few ordinary townsfolk, too—stood near the base of the stairway Rhavas had used to reach the wall and descend from it on the day when he quarreled with Toxaras.
"Phaos! Here's the prelate!" somebody in the crowd said. The men scattered. Some of them hurried back up onto the wall. Some went into Skopentzana. Some seemed to flee almost at random, as long as they were moving away from Rhavas. That left . . .
"You see, very holy sir," Voilas whispered.
"I see." Of itself, Rhavas' hand shaped the sun-sign. There lay Toxaras, his head twisted at an unnatural angle, the right side of his face and of his skull crushed. Blood pooled beneath his ruined head. It still steamed—this had just happened. But, though his blood might still be warm, he was only too plainly dead. "How?" Rhavas asked.
"You ought to know, very holy sir," Voilas told him.
"What do you mean?" the prelate demanded irritably.
"You cursed him up there—right up there, very holy sir." Voilas pointed to the top of the wall. More militiamen were staring down at Toxaras' body. Some of them signed themselves when their eyes met Rhavas'. Voilas went on, "You cursed him up there, very holy sir, and he was coming down the stairs, and he slipped on some snow or some ice, and he fell—and there he lays."
"Lies." Rhavas made the correction without conscious thought.
He made it, and Voilas didn't understand it. "No lies, very holy sir. Nothing but the truth, by the good god. Your curse bit, and he's dead. No one's going to quarrel with you now, very holy sir. You tell us what to do, and we'll do it. You'd best believe we will. We want to keep on breathing, we do."
"Why don't you curse the Khamorth, very holy sir?" a militiaman called from the top of the wall. Several others nodded.
"This is nonsense," Rhavas said. "This is chance. Men curse one another every day. This is nothing but Toxaras' bad luck. Anyone can slip on snow or ice. I had nothing to do with it."
"Not likely, very holy sir." Voilas shook his head again. "No, not bloody likely. Bad men call on Skotos"—he spat—"and the dark god listens. Everybody knows that. If a good man calls on Phos, won't he listen, too?"