“Tibo—?”
“Hush,” she whispered. Then she kneeled down by him, and he caught from her the savage mingled fragrances, incense-soap, skin and hair, night and desire.
It was so dreamlike even then, there was no need to speculate on what was prudent in this backland midden, what was sensible or kind. And before even he reached out to her, her narrow hands, scarred all over from the misuses of her life, yet tender as the fur of kittens, crept about his neck, and her warm lips sought his own.
He had not had a girl since Xarabiss. He was eager, and she seemed as famished as he was. All the while he stroked her, molded her, she twined him, muttering love-words he could not comprehend. When he met the barrier of her virginity, he was not entirely startled. Iscaian law, the backlands—with a generous impulse to counter his impatience, he took his time to open her, fill her; he owed her boundless thanks, and even his life. To return her a taste of pleasure, obviously what she had trusted him to give, was slight enough. And she responded to his tuition, singing her ecstasy under her breath, gasping, outflung, melting, laving him with brighter darker fires—“I thought you were your goddess, Cah, there in the shadow,” he said to her, a little later. It was a courtesy, an accolade. Perhaps, for a moment, in some way, it had been true. But she made a tiny averting gesture. Blasphemy, to be taken for Cah. And yet, it seemed to Tibo then, lying against him, burned by his heat, her seals broken, her flesh for the first time vital and alive, it seemed to her that maybe Cah had sent him to her, that Cah, in order to enjoy his beauty, had possessed her. Why else the disregard of law and sin, why else the pulsing avalanche of joy?
The sunrise started with a rent of rosy orange, that slowly bled across the straw through ail the shed’s cracks and crevices.
Accustomed by now to Yennef, as well as to Tibo, the canine pack had paid them small heed, but with the dawn the dogs became restless, aware the thaw held, and anxious for the valley.
I’ll come back for you,” he said again. He had said this previously after their third joining, when she had cried out in his arms, trying simultaneously to smother her own delight with her fist—for fear it be heard in the hovel-house. “I can’t leave you here, I’ll come back. Tibo.” But she knew he would not and said nothing in response. She said nothing now. She knows all men, even if not cretins, are bloody hars, he thought, and was glad she knew and that she did not even for a minute believe him. For he would not come here again, of course. A wayside flower, as they said. Not even that. She was braiding her hair, ready for the copper rings. She did not tell him to go or say she loved him, or weep or smile. She simply was as she had been all along. Thank both their gods. It was as if nothing had happened at all.
Despite that, he kissed her at the door, and gave her an Alisaarian drak of gold-bronze—high currency in the towns of Iscah. “I’m not trying to pay you,” he said. “Take care. May your goddess stay awake for you.”
She lowered her eyes, in the familiar way. As he went, the dogs also crowded out and rushed off over the pasture. Blackness, who, when he lay sick he had deliriously watched licking his own blood from her coat with a gourmet’s quantifying attention, now nuzzled his hand as she plunged by.
He looked back only once. The girl was not to be seen.
She had known what she wanted, and asked for and received it. Rather in the way of the white Lowland races, she appeared to look for nothing beyond the measure of each day.
Tibo, the rings on her hair, dressed, aproned and booted, was at the hearth preparing the old woman’s gruel, when Orbin entered the room.
His head and belly troubled him after the previous evening’s drinking, and he did not notice the easterner had absconded until it was almost noon. Then, too, when the absence was sure, he could not get up much enthusiasm to beat his brother’s witless dolt of a wife. He contented himself with hitting her across the head until she fell to the floor—which, at such times, she always did rapidly. Then she would lie for a while, until he cursed her, at which she dragged herself up and went on, unspeaking. with her duties.
Orhn always cried when Orbin repeatedly struck Tibo, and the old woman wailed and rocked herself.
As soon as Orbin had gone off—to search the dog-shed in case any Lannic valuable might have been left behind—Tibo comforted the mother and her son.
Though her head still rang, she knew by now how to angle herself to miss most of the violence, and always fell over before much harm had come to her. Orbin had not thought her guilty of any plot, merely negligent: she was a scapegoat for every ill. When the cabbages blighted, he struck her, too.
She did not think particularly of Yennef as she moved about the room and yard. Only in the evening, when the light began to die and the snow-cold breathed down again upon the farm, did she imagine him, in Ly by now, bargaining for temple dogs and sled.
All day, every so often, still hot from the fire of her womb, the wine of his orgasms ran out between her thighs. It was the only thing he had left her of himself; the rich man’s coin did not count. When all his semen had passed from her body, there would be nothing at all.
2
The Will of Cah
The temple of Cah, standing on high ground, dominated Ly, which was not difficult. The Big Thaw, snow’s end, and the tepid rains which teemed after it, turned the village every year to sludge. Dwellings, shored by earth, came undone and collapsed. The throughfares were brown swirling swamps in which feet and wheels stuck. Everywhere lay drowned rats and the stones of rebuilding. On its central hill, however, the temple squatted above a dressed stone terrace, a pillared box which, even in the rainy cool, smelled of thick perfume and blood.
Cah had created the world. Those who said otherwise were naturally in error. Theology was not worth discussing, it simply was. Being female, though, she had made a great many mistakes, and eventually called on the male gods, her lovers, to rule in her stead. She it was who taught women their proper function, which was to grow new men in their bellies. It was well known that Cah also relished the act of conception, and therefore was fond of the male species in general. Worshiped Iscah over, and next door in the land of Corhl, as Corrah, Cah upheld masculine dominion. She had never instituted a matriarchy, as was once the state of affairs with the snake goddess of the pale races.
Every Big Thaw Orbin would set out for Ly to make his sacrifice to Cah in the temple. Sometimes Orhn was taken, and less frequently, Tibo—the old woman then being left to the charge solely of the fierce dogs. Orbin did not use a cart. They walked to Ly, over the muddy mountain tracks, starting before sunup—it took only three or four hours to get there when the snow was gone—returning just ahead of the dark. On these excursions nothing had ever beset them. Bandits seldom came so far north, it was a poor region. By the time of the rains, the more sinister animals had retreated to low country.
This Thaw Orbin nevertheless went to get the easterner’s knife from inside his mattress. Probably he fancied himself parading through Ly with a steel blade in his belt. The knife had vanished, however, and Orbin spent some while hunting for it, concluding at last the easterner had somehow stolen it back.
Tibo seemed reluctant to make the journey to Ly, so Orbin told her she would be going. The hopeful Orhn, he decided conversely, must stay behind to guard the house. Orhn was crestfallen, and watched them sadly as they set off into the wet dark morning.
Tibo walked the correct eight to ten paces behind Orbin, carrying their provisions tied on her back.
Orbin strode ahead. The sun rose. The passes through these mountains were ramshackle and unsafe, slick with water now, and here the surest danger lay in wait. Glissades of melted ice roared down the distances between huge disembodied fanglike crags. Pebbles dashed underfoot and fell over the slopes, sixty feet or more, to smash on levels beneath. After an hour the travelers began to descend through the stoops of broken valleys. Soon the rain began again. Neither took much notice. This was the way life was.