She soon forgot it, though. Relaxing on a couch and nibbling candied sweetmeats while Plumna and Lilin played and Ni sang for her, gazing out at the blue Ocean framed in the canyon mouth, Frena shed almost all of her headache. The seer, had she been present, might have seen that as a sign that Frena had made her decision. She had not, of course; she was still weighing her options. She eventually felt strong enough to send for the archivist of the inferior inventories.
That meaningless title belonged to Master Pukar, one of Father's scribes. He came and went a lot, and even his official duties were mysterious. His unofficial duties—according to servants' gossip that Frena had collected over the years, and which the seer's remark this morning tended to confirm—included some very unsavory tasks around the house. That was one reason she disliked him. He was plump, and while some plumpness could suggest cuddliness—the quilted Bjaria's, for instance—his did not. He also seemed to be completely hairless; his mouth was loose and slobbery; he bore a perpetual odor of fish. He made her skin crawl in all directions.
She did not hear him approach over the strumming of Plumna's dulcimer and almost jumped off the coach when she realized he was standing there. A white linen wrap draped him from armpits to ankles. Wet lips smiled, fat hands clutched together on his potbelly, and his eyes did not meet hers.
"How may I serve my lady?"
Frena waved a hand to dismiss the girls, their departure giving her a moment to collect her wits. There was another couch available, but she did not invite him to sit down. He would not expect her to. She reached for a candied grape and a whiff of fish odor dissuaded her.
"I was informed today that you are a Chosen."
Master Pukar was standing just a fraction too close, smiling down at her body. He continued to do so.
"You do not wish to comment?" Frena demanded, rattled.
"Chosen for what, mistress?"
"A Chosen of—" She caught herself before she said the forbidden name. "A chthonian."
"Ah."
"That is a serious charge."
He sighed, scanning her thighs. "It is indeed. Naturally I deny it. I do have some dubious acquaintances, though. Does my mistress require some chthonic ritual performed? How many days since you bled?"
"How dare you! Insolence! I should have you flogged for that!" Her face burned painfully hot.
"I am so sorry," Pukar said, lisping slightly. "A natural misapprehension. Perhaps my lady will inform me how else—"
"I am well aware that you procure miscarriages for misguided servants. Most of them blame their troubles on love potions you sell to unscrupulous male servants. I do not normally discuss such matters with my father, but—"
"That fish will not bite, mistress." Pukar's smile had now settled on her left breast. "Your father refuses to know things he does not wish to know, and he values domestic harmony. I perform many little tasks that he desires but never specifically orders. If you are hoping to blackmail me with kitchen tattle, then you will be disappointed. You would endanger him also."
Frena took a few deep breaths to rein in her temper. He was cleverer than she had expected. "I am also aware of the fees you charge in such instances. Three nights from the pretty ones, briefer but more humiliating services from the older and plainer ones. You can likewise forget about blackmailing me into anything like that."
His bow was little more than a nod at her navel. "Then let us speak plainly, as ..."—he smirked—"... partners. Your mother was a Chosen. True, there is no evidence, but your father hired me soon after she was ... 'returned to the womb,' as they say. One may speculate that I replaced her as provider of some lore or service. Now you are being forced into a dedication to the Twelve, so you must choose between them and the Dark One to whom your mother bound you. You wish to discuss a complete initiation."
"All of that is evil slander!"
The great white slug studied her left breast. "My humblest apologies. I was misled by the wound on my lady's shoulder into assuming that she had tried a sacrifice on her own."
"Wound?" Of course the maids would have chattered.
"Made by a sharp stone, I suspect? A metal blade is anathema. Ah, I see from your flush that I am correct. You even knew enough to use your left hand, obviously. The blood sacrifice is the essential core, but very dangerous without proper procedure and peripheral ritual. Guidance is essential. Shall we discuss terms?"
"Gold."
"What a sweet voice you have." His stare wandered down to the vicinity of her hips. "How much gold?"
"What exactly am I buying?"
"Guidance. Instruction. Merely spilling a few drops of blood on the earth will not suffice. You must offer sacrifice in a place sacred to the Mother of All and swear the correct oaths. There are rituals, as I said, but it is a brief service, light compared to the years of toil and humiliation some cults require. I should be happy to provide a knowledgeable mentor to lead you to the place and guide you through your vows to the Ancient One."
No question that the promised mentor would be fat, hairless, and slippery-eyed. Blood and dark? No, that wasn't right. Cold earth was part of it, though.
"What powers does She grant and what corban must I swear?"
Pukar beamed at Frena's thighs, so enthusiastically that she wondered if he could see through the cloth. "She rewards according to your offering. You swear only to endure. She is also Death, but when She gathers in the night, She knows and spares Her own. If I told you my true age, you would not believe me."
"Yesterday I saw a mob burying a Chosen alive."
"How do you know he was a Chosen, mistress? How did they?"
"You mean, if he dies, he is innocent; if not, he is guilty?"
"I never said She granted immortality. We all die in time."
Frena shivered. "I will have to think about it."
"But not too long, mistress. Your appointment with the Twelve is only two days away and it will bind you with knots you will find hard to dismiss as mere insincerity if you later wish to acknowledge Mother Xaran. My! I spoke Her holy name and am not struck down. The mentor I mentioned will naturally require payment in advance. Five measures of gold."
"Never. Two might just be possible."
"Five. May the ground below your feet be bountiful, mistress." Master Pukar bowed to her crotch and departed as silently as he had come.
♦
Every day must end eventually.
Frena sat up, trembling. Darkness?... noise...
Rain at last! It spattered on the floor under the windows—not a full monsoon, but a heavy downpour even so. The air seemed just as hot, but would cool soon. She rose from her rumpled sheet and stumbled over to close the shutters by the trivial gleam of her night lamp. Then she flopped back down on the edge of the platform, head in hands, and thought it over yet again.
Pukar was impossible. Supposing she could meet his price, which she couldn't, she could never trust him to deliver what he promised. Even the seer had not been certain that he was what he would not deny being.
Common sense said she should take her problem to Father ... to Horth—she could not think "foster mother" or "foster father"!—but he had lied to her all her life and she still did not know how much he knew. Had he been aware that his wife was a Chosen, or was that one of the things he refused to know, as Pukar put it? She could not ask Horth for help.
Perhaps there was a clue there. If the Chosen were the cult of Xaran, then it was a cult like no other—no great temples, no priests or teachers, just solitary devotees, hunted and hated. Saltaja needed a puppet to run that Celebre place, and a Chosen would never be a puppet. A Chosen might even have the power to avenge Paola's murder!