The man who shook the prelate awake sounded apologetic. "Awfully sorry to bother you, very holy sir, but it's your turn," he said.
"It's all right," Rhavas answered around a yawn. He did his best not to disturb the other snoring Videssians as he got up and went outside.
Somewhere, an owl hooted. Somewhere much farther off—fortunately—a wolf howled, and then another and another, till they might have been a distant chorus of demons. Rhavas shuddered; that fit in too well with his own worries. The moon peered through rents in the clouds every now and again, spilling pale light over the dead village and turning shadows to blots of living midnight.
He carried a spear. He wasn't sure how dangerous that made him. The answer, he feared, was not very. But if he could shout an alarm and try to fight back, that would do the others some good. Hurrah, he thought unhappily. Some Videssian clerics—the holy Kveldoulphios, for instance—courted martyrdom as secular men courted beautiful women. But that longing was not in him.
Thinking of Kveldoulphios made Rhavas think of the Halogai, who had slain the convert to Phos' faith although he was of their blood. And thinking of the blond barbarians to the north made Rhavas think of Ingegerd. He reckoned that a great and astonishing coincidence, though the truth was that almost anything would have made him think of Ingegerd just then.
His eye went to the peasant hut where she sheltered with the other two women. As if on cue, the moon came out again and bathed it in cold silver light. Rhavas sighed gustily. Two nights earlier, he'd held her in his arms—oh, not in the way songs sang of, but in his arms nonetheless. And now . . . Now she might as well have been on the far side of the moon.
Padding like a wolf himself to escape the thoughts he carried with him, he prowled through the deserted peasant village. Once something scurrying across the snow made him gasp. But it was only a mouse dashing from one burned-out hut to another. The priest breathed again.
Frightened of a mouse! How Toxaras and Voilas would have laughed! But Toxaras was dead—under my curse, he thought, and shuddered. And if Voilas hadn't died when the Khamorth entered Skopentzana, he likely had when the earth trembled and walls and houses fell. Try as Rhavas would, he couldn't make himself believe he missed either man who'd led Skopentzana's militia.
Something glided by all ghostly overhead. The prelate's heart leaped into his mouth, but it was only an owl, sailing along on silent wings. Too late. The mouse is already hiding again. But there would be others.
The moon disappeared. Darkness came down like a cloak. In Videssos the city and in Skopentzana, lamps and fires would have leaked lights through shutters. Some streets even had torches flaring after the sun went down to hold night at bay. None of that here, nor stars, either. This might have been Skotos' realm come to life on earth.
Rhavas' hand shaped a gesture said to hold the evil god at bay. He did not like the way Skotos kept cropping up in his thoughts. He looked around, not that he could see much. Moving carefully in the gloom, he made his way back toward the houses where his companions sheltered.
He was almost there when yet another aftershock rattled the peasant village. It was a strong one, strong enough to stagger him. Men and women cried out; horses squealed in terror. But unlike the quake that had leveled Skopentzana, this one did not go on and on and on. A few heartbeats and it was done. The animals fell silent. Inside one of the men's huts, somebody said, "That was nasty." A couple of others laughed in agreement.
Another man stuck his head out of the hut and called, "You all right?"
"Well enough," Rhavas answered. The man waved and disappeared again.
Little by little, Rhavas' heart stopped pounding. Aftershocks were wearing. They constantly threatened to turn into great earthquakes, and no one could know they wouldn't till they didn't. The fear was that they would never let up.
A motion from the women's hut. Rhavas' hands tightened on the spearshaft. That was absurd, as he realized a moment later. No danger would come from there—none that a spear could rout, anyhow.
Rhavas recognized Ingegerd even in the darkness. The other two women were short and on the dumpy side; next to them, she was a fir beside spreading oaks. "Are you all right?" the prelate called to her, as the man from the other hut had to him a moment earlier.
Her head swung toward him. He didn't think she'd known he was there. "Is that you, very holy sir?" she asked.
"No one else," he said.
"Then as friend to friend I may freely tell you I am not all right," Ingegerd said. "Whenever the earth shakes, my heart freezes within me. I want to scream. I want to run. And I know none of that would do me the least good in the world. Mine is a warrior folk. I feel shame in owning to such cowardice, but shame at lying would be worse."
"No one is a hero against an earthquake," Rhavas said. "How can any man oppose something so much stronger?"
"I know that." Ingegerd hesitated, then resumed: "How can any man summon something so much stronger?"
"I do not know that I did," Rhavas answered. "And if I did"—something he would not have admitted even to himself before watching four Khamorth slide from their horses and die—"I know not how I did."
The moon came out. It turned her golden hair to shining silver. Her eyes gave back the light almost as if they were a cat's. She took a few steps toward him. "If you were not a very holy man, surely you could not have done it."
His laugh rang harsh as a raven's croak. "If I were as holy as you would make me out to be, you would not have had to pull away from me after we slept under the same blanket."
To his amazement, Ingegerd laughed, too. "Does that still distress you? It bothers me not at all. Even the holiest man is yet a man, with the desires of a man. You did not violate your oath, and you did not seek to violate me. Let it go. It is forgotten."
Maybe by you, he thought. He would not forget the feel of her against him, or of his rising to the occasion, for the rest of his days, however long those might prove. He would not forget the red fury that had fired his curses, either. What did that have to do with holiness? Nothing he could see.
"I think you can safely go back inside again," he said. "If that aftershock did not shake down the hut, none is likely to."
"No doubt you are right. You are a sound and sensible man," Ingegerd said. Rhavas had tried for many years to be exactly that. Never had he so regretted succeeding. She went on, "I tell myself all will be well, but I cannot make myself believe it."
"With all the Empire turned upside down and with the very ground trembling beneath our feet like a beast in pain, hope comes hard," Rhavas replied. "Yet to deny hope is to deny the lord with the great and good mind and to give oneself into Skotos' hands."
"This I will not do, then," Ingegerd said with a sturdy determination alien to most Videssians. She nodded to Rhavas and went back into the hut as if about to slay a dragon inside it. Had a dragon dwelt there instead of a pair of dumpy Videssian women, she would have slain it, too. That Rhavas did not doubt.
And what of me? he wondered. Somehow, he feared dragons less than he feared either Ingegerd or himself.
The party plodded south. Even on a Khamorth pony, Rhavas felt as if he were struggling through mud. He and Ingegerd had to hold their pace to that of those on foot. He did not think any good would come of that. The only thing he could do about it, though, was abandon the dismounted travelers. He didn't want to do that, either.