Rhavas always had—till it happened to him.
Ingegerd got out of the bed. She opened the shutters. Gray light filled the farmhouse. The bloodstains on the floor and the furniture seemed almost black, but gained more color as sunrise drew closer. Ingegerd scratched and made a wry face. "Bugs," she muttered, and then, "I wonder if the Khamorth stole all the food here, or if they came but for the sport of slaying."
"We have little left of our own, do we?" Rhavas said, and his stomach snarled like a hungry wolf.
"We will have nothing left of our own after we break our fast here, and a meager breakfast it shall be," Ingegerd said. "And we needs must have food. Tramping through the freezing cold wears one down faster than almost anything else."
She rapidly searched the house, and exclaimed in delight when she turned up four loaves of bread. The cold had preserved them against mold and insects. They were the last things the farmwife had baked before she became a victim of the nomads' lusts.
As Rhavas broke chunks of bread and warmed them in his hands before eating them, his gaze kept sliding to Ingegerd. I would have made her a victim of my lusts, he thought unhappily. But then he shook his head. He would sooner not have had her a victim. He would sooner have had her willing, even eager, even wanton.
He glanced at her again. And if she weren't willing, let alone more than willing? He was grimly honest enough to realize he wanted her anyway. But I didn't do anything, he reminded himself, and salved his conscience.
They each ate one loaf along with the last of the cheese she'd brought from Skopentzana, and set aside the last two for later. "We had best be off, and make what use we can of the light," Ingegerd said.
"Yes," Rhavas said, and laughed at himself. After another day struggling through snow, he would be too weary to threaten anyone's virtue by the time nightfall came.
They had just left the farmhouse when a strong aftershock staggered them. They clung together for a moment, not from lust but from fear. "I hate this," Ingegerd said when it ended. "Once something is over, it should be over."
"I wish it were so." Rhavas meant that from the bottom of his heart. "But it will go on. The quakes will mostly grow smaller as time goes by, and will come less often. Come they will, though."
He and the Haloga woman slogged south. She pointed to a dark smudge on the horizon. "I think that will mark a town."
"The good god grant that you be right," Rhavas said. "May he grant also that it still be in Videssian hands." If its walls had fallen in the earthquake, it would make easy meat for the Khamorth. How far had the barbarians spread through the Empire? Was anyone doing anything to try to hold them back? Rhavas pondered the blood-mad folly of his cousin and of Videssos' best and most famous general. If their war was not madness, what would be?
Quietly, Ingegerd said, "I fear me we have a problem, very holy sir." She pointed to the west.
Rhavas turned his head that way. As quietly, he answered, "Well, I'm afraid you're right." Four Khamorth on their ponies were trotting purposefully toward the two of them. They weren't within bowshot yet, but they would be before long. Without looking over his shoulder at Ingegerd, Rhavas said, "Run. I'll hold them as long as I can."
"Thank you, very holy sir, but there is no place to run," Ingegerd said. And she was right: there weren't even any trees close by. She went on, "As you have stood with me, I will stand with you. If I fail and you have the chance, kill me quickly at the last. And if even that cannot be"—her pause might have been a shrug—"sooner or later, everything ends."
Fury burned through Rhavas. Just when they had hope of safety, the barbarians came upon them. They were close enough now for him to see the snow spurting up from their horses' hooves, and to see them set arrows to their bowstrings. One let fly. The shaft fell short, but others wouldn't.
"Curse you!" Rhavas cried with all the rage he had in him. "Curse the lot of you!"
One by one, silently and without any fuss, the Khamorth fell off their ponies and lay motionless in the snow. The horses trotted on for a few paces, then stopped in what looked like confusion. Rhavas gaped at the dead bodies in astonishment and disbelief.
He slowly became aware that Ingegerd was gaping at him. "By the good god, very holy sir," she whispered. "You saved us."
VI
Rhavas and Ingegerd rode up to the town of Tzamandos on two of the plainsmen's ponies. They led the other two. Neither of them was much of an equestrian, but they both saw they could travel faster mounted than afoot. They carried the barbarians' bows and arrows, and they wore wolfskin caps that kept their heads warmer than anything they'd had before.
"Phos spoke through you, very holy sir," Ingegerd said as they neared Tzamandos. "What else could it have been?"
The prelate didn't answer. His own thoughts were all awhirl. He had not believed his curse had anything to do with Toxaras' death. He'd figured that for nothing but an unfortunate coincidence. He had not thought the earthquake that leveled Skopentzana sprang from his curse of the Khamorth, either. How could any man imagine he might command an earthquake?
But what had just happened, out there in the snow-covered field . . . How could he ignore that? How could he claim it had nothing to do with him? He couldn't, and knew it all too well.
How could he believe Phos had had anything to do with it? He couldn't, and he also knew that all too well. The knowledge terrified him as nothing ever had before.
Phos had been the furthest thing from his mind when he called down the curse on the Khamorth. It hadn't been a prayer. Prayer hadn't had the first thing to do with it. That curse had been a cry of outrage, a cry of hate, wrung from the very depths of his being.
He'd done a lot of praying. What had it got him? An Empire riven by civil war, a city fallen to the savages, disaster almost beyond reckoning. If the lord with the great and good mind heard his prayers at all, he had an odd way of showing it.
His curses, on the other hand, struck home. He didn't care to think about what that might mean.
And, to his vast relief, he didn't have to. "Who comes?" shouted a man on the wall. "If you're as barbarous as you look, you'd better steer clear. We're still ready to put up a fight, by the good god."
Taking off the wolfskin cap, Rhavas called out his own name and station. He continued, "With me is Ingegerd, wife to Himerios, garrison commander of Skopentzana. If you have refugees from our city within the walls, they will vouch for us."
"No need," the man said. "You speak Videssian like a native, and I see your head was shaved. Come in and be welcome, holy sir—uh, very holy sir—and the woman with you as well."
Was shaved? Rhavas set a hand on top of the organ in question. Sure enough, he felt stubble there. He shook his head in bemusement. He'd kept his scalp smooth since taking the vows of priesthood. But he'd had no chance to shave it the past few days. One more thing to tend to, he thought.
With much creaking of hinges that needed oiling, Tzamandos' gates swung open. Rhavas and Ingegerd rode into the town. The militiamen closed the gates behind them. The amateur soldiers were full of questions: "How bad is it in Skopentzana?" "Did the barbarians really break in?" "How could they take such a strong city?" "What did the earthquake do up there?" "Do you people aim to stay here?" "Where will you go if you don't?"