A crowd seemed to have gathered. She saw thirty or forty people, or perhaps more, bustling about the narrow entrance to the alley. The ones going in carried string-bags bulging with fruit, and others bore bunches of flowers, or armloads of greenery of some sort — boughs pulled from trees, so it looked. The ones coming from the alley were empty-handed.
Boldirinthe turned to Maju Samlor, frowning. “What’s going on there, do you think?”
“They’re bringing offerings, mother.”
“Offerings?”
“Nature-offerings. Branches, fruits, flowers, things like that. For the one who died, you know, the boy from the hjjks. It’s been going on two or three days.”
“They place offerings on the spot where he died?” That was strange. Her priestesses had said nothing about it to her. “Take me over there and let me see.”
“But the chieftain’s daughter—”
“She can wait another few minutes. Take me over.”
The guardsman shrugged and pulled the wagon around, and drove it up the street to the mouth of the alley. At closer range, now, Boldirinthe realized that there were only a few adults in the crowd. Most were boys and girls, some of them quite young. From where she sat it was hard for her to get a good view of what was going on, nor did she want to dismount and investigate directly. But she could see that someone had set up some kind of shrine in there. At the far end where the line of offering-bearers terminated the green boughs were piled higher than a man’s head, and they were draped with bits of cloth, glittering metallic ribbons, long bright-colored paper streamers.
For a long moment she sat there watching. Some of the children noticed her, and waved and called her name, and she smiled to them and returned their greetings. But she did not leave the wagon.
“Would you like a closer look?” Maju Samlor asked. “I could help you out, and—”
“Another time,” Boldirinthe said. “Take me to Nialli Apuilana now.”
The guardsman turned the wagon and headed it down the hill.
So now they’re worshiping him, Boldirinthe thought in wonder. The one who died: they are making him a god. Or so it would appear. How strange. It’s all so very strange, everything that has happened that is in any way connected to that boy.
She found it bothersome that such things should be going on. That there should be a shrine in the alleyway, that the children should be bringing offerings to Kundalimon as though he were a god, seemed improper to her.
Perhaps it’s not so serious, though, she told herself.
She thought of all the unorthodoxies that she’d seen arise during her long life. Had any of them done any real harm? These were unstable times. The coming of the New Springtime had shaken the People out of the narrow ways of the cocoon by sending them out to face the unknown mysteries of the larger world; and it wasn’t surprising that they would grasp at new salvations when the old ones didn’t appear to be producing immediate gratification.
Some of the novelties had been short-lived. Like that odd cult of human-worship that had sprung up during the last days in Vengiboneeza, when a few of the simpler folk had met secretly to dance around a statue of a human that they found somewhere in the old city, and had made prayers and sacrifices before it. But that had died out in the time of the second migration.
On the other hand, the worship of the alien god Nakhaba had been integrated into the life of the tribe after the union with the Bengs, and that seemed to be permanent. And other creeds had come into fashion from time to time, centering around the stars, the sun, the great ocean, and even less likely things. Boldirinthe had heard it whispered around that Nialli Apuilana was a worshiper of hjjks, and kept some holy talisman of theirs in her room in the House of Nakhaba.
Well, so be it, thought Boldirinthe. She was a godly woman, devout enough to understand that there is godliness in everything. The Five Heavenly Ones weren’t necessarily the only repositories of the sacred. They were simply the ones that she had sworn to serve. It wasn’t that they were true and the other gods false: just that to her they were the most efficacious, the ones who partook most fully of the holy. If these children wanted to make offerings to the memory of Kundalimon, so be it. So be it. Worship is worship.
“Hurry,” Boldirinthe said to the guardsman. “Can’t you make that xlendi of yours go any faster? Nialli Apuilana is very weak, you know. She needs me urgently.”
“But you just said—”
“If you won’t use the whip, give it to me. You think I’m afraid to hit with it? Go faster, boy. Faster!”
Nialli Apuilana lay on a pallet in one of the upstairs rooms of the chieftain’s residence, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and shallow. Her fur was matted and damp. Now and then she muttered something unintelligible. She seemed lost in some realm beyond consciousness, farther than sleep but just this side of death. Seeing her thus entranced, Boldirinthe was reminded of something out of her distant youth, out of the cocoon days: the strange being — Hresh said he was a human — whom the tribe had called the Dream-Dreamer, who had lain for years deep in unending sleep, only to awaken and die on the day when the People received the omens of the Going Forth. He had slept the same way, as if he were more in another world than in this one.
A somber little group surrounded Nialli Apuilana’s bedside. Taniane was there, of course, looking taut and drawn, as though about to crack. Hresh, too, seemed to have aged years in a few days. And also Husathirn Mueri and Tramassilu the jewelry-maker, and Fashinatanda, Taniane’s blind and doddering old mother, and the architect Tisthali and the grain-merchant Sturnak Khatilifon and his mate Sipulakinain, who was ill, a mere charred ember of herself, with death’s hand practically at her shoulder. And there were still others, some of whom the offering-woman couldn’t place at all.
What such a mob as this was doing in a sickroom was beyond Boldirinthe’s comprehension. No doubt they all wanted to offer help. But they were pressing too close on the poor girl, overheating the air, draining the room of vitality. With quick impatient flutterings of her hands Boldirinthe cleared them all out, all but Taniane and Sipulakinain, whose presence seemed somehow significant. She let old Fashinatanda stay also, silent in a corner, seemingly unaware of anything that was going on.
“Where was she found?” Boldirinthe asked.
“In the lakelands,” said Taniane. “Lying on her face in the mud beside a little pond, according to Sipirod, with a bunch of animals grouped around her and watching her closely, some caviandis and stinchitoles, a little herd of scantrins, a couple of gabools. Sipirod said it was the most amazing thing she had ever seen, those animals gathering around her. It was almost as if they were guarding her. She must have been there two days or so. Burning with fever, said Sipirod. She must have been drinking the pond water. And of course she had no food.”
“Has she been conscious at all?”
“Delirious, only. She babbles sometimes — the Queen, the Nest, all of that. And calls Kundalimon’s name. They were lovers, did you know that? They were going to elope to hjjk country together, Boldirinthe!”
“Poor girl. No wonder she ran.” But then the offering-woman made a grunting sound of dismissal. None of that mattered now.
“Bring that table over here, will you? Set my satchel on it. There, where I can get at it. And give me something to sit on, beside the bed. It’s all I can do to keep myself on my feet, you know.”
She lifted Nialli Apuilana’s arm and ran her fingers along the length of it, feeling for the life-currents. They were very feeble. The girl was warm but her soul-river was flowing sluggishly, like quicksilver beginning to congeal. Boldirinthe turned her face away from Taniane, not wanting the chieftain to see the extent of her concern. Another few hours in that swamp and there’d have been a dead girl here. It was possible that they would lose her yet.