They led him to the top of the ramp, and he imitated them when they sank into the ceremonial bow. The one with the sword laid it at the kru’s feet. Then they rose, the priests gently coaching Farrari with gestures, and the kru handed the sword to Farrari, blade foremost.
He was much too astonished to accept it, but a priest spoke softly to him, and he took the sword and transferred the handle to his hand. It was a massive thing, with broad blade and a very simple handle, and Farrari, because of his work with Semar Kantz, fancied that he knew rather more of its lineage than did the priests.
He gripped the sword and waited. It crossed his mind that a simple lunge would change this planet’s history, but only momentarily—there would be another kru as soon as a new relief could be carved, another titular owner of the olz, and things would proceed as before.
What did they expect him to do with the sword—slice the cake? Sword, table and stones were obviously very old, and the tabletop was immaculate. Nothing had ever been sliced there. The priest spoke again, and Farrari desperately focused on two vaguely familiar words. One meant hit or strike—or stab? If he stabbed the cake, he might knock it off the table, and he doubted that they’d be telling him to make a stabbing motion in the direction of the kru. Strike, then. He’d thought the other was the word for bread, but perhaps it also meant cake. Strike the cake?
He tested the sword’s edge with his left thumb and mentally indulged in several non-Rasczian curses. It was a ceremonial sword; probably it hadn’t been sharpened since it was cast and it had been dull to start with. Not even an expert like Gayne could have made a respectable cut with such a blade. No wonder the tabletop was unmarked!
They were asking him to split the cake lengthwise, or try. He hoped that was what they were asking, because he couldn’t delay longer and that was what he was going to do. The priest spoke again and gently pushed him toward the table. All eyes in the vast hall were on the cake. The kru was staring at it fixedly, the priests were staring at it…
Farrari stared at it. Strike… cake. And with a dull sword. He raised the sword with both hands and brought it down on the cake with all of his strength.
The sword hit the tabletop with a loud clunk. Farrari stared aghast at it—it had passed through the cake almost without resistance and left a deep mark in the polished wood. He stepped back, leaving the sword on the table. “When they see that, they’ll want to try it on my neck,” he told himself.
For the long eternity of a moment, everyone continued to stare at the cake. Then one of the priests removed the sword and pushed a stone aside, and the other priest caught the two halves of the cake as they fell. From behind Farrari came an eruption of excited babbling voices. As he waited tensely with eyes lowered, a movement caught his attention. The kru had leaped to his feet and was gawking at the bisected cake.
The priests made no move to quiet the uproar. They conferred with each other, one of them spoke with the kru, and then they led Farrari down the ramp. With a word of command they turned Farrari over to priests of less exalted rank, who led him through a pressing throng of nobility that gaped rudely at Farrari and attempted to touch him as he passed. The doors swung open for them, and they left the hall, marched briskly along a branch corridor, climbed a ramp, and entered a long, narrow room.
“What d’ya know!” Farrari breathed. “The art school!”
Circular openings in the wall looked down onto the assembly Farrari had just left, and at each of them several artists, all clothed in a form of priestly dress, were sketching—some with chalk on smooth slabs of stone, some on polished wood, some on cloth.
Attendants brought in the table, the stones and the sword, and Farrari found himself posed with the sword upraised while the artists circled him and studied his features. Either he was about to become immortalized on a new tapestry or relief for the temple, or what passed for a constabulary in Scorv wanted his portrait for its files. He could not decide which he would resent most.
Finally a very young priest came for Farrari and led him back to the lower floor. Another young priest greeted him with a smile, opened a door for him, placed folded garments in his hands, and withdrew with another smile and a half-bow.
The door closed. Farrari tossed the garments aside and hurried to the wide window slit. There were a few passersby in the square and several ranks of foot and cavalry soldiers positioned near the temple. The drop to the ground would be an easy one, but he had the uncomfortable feeling that to be seen climbing out of a window of the Life Temple must excite comment if not action—and the soldiers looked disconcertingly ready for action. He turned away reluctantly and examined the room.
It was furnished with a rough table with a bench, and a pallet on a stone slab. An empty niche in the wall probably had contained the old kru’s portrait and would contain that of the new kru when the artists caught up with the demand. On the table was an oil lamp complete with floating wick. The room would be bitter cold in winter—it had an unusually large window slit and no source of heat.
Obviously it was a priest’s living quarters, and whether or not the priesthood believed in their dogma, they were not luxuriating in it. “I suppose it’s the honor of the thing,” Farrari mused.
Then he examined the garments and found to his consternation that at some point during the day’s ceremonies he’d joined the priesthood himself. The robes were different from any he’d seen, but they contained the black borders that appeared on every priest’s costume.
He dropped them onto the pallet and returned to the window slit, and a short time later he had the good fortune to see, from an unfavorable angle, the exit of the kru and the nobility. He also noted that the soldiers accompanied the kru, which interested him much more.
The day waned, dusk came, and finally darkness. Farrari waited tensely, alert for the sound of his door opening, and the moment it seemed dark enough he went out of the window. He moved quickly to the side of the square and then edged along the square’s high stone wall to the exit; but the exit was not guarded. The buildings were already shuttered, and the streets were deserted. He forced himself to walk with measured pace, retracing their route of the morning, and he did not feel secure until he had made his way down the encircling road from the hilltop. He approached the bakery from the rear, opened the door, and entered.
All of them were there: Borgley and his wife, Gayne and his wife, the apprentices, two men Farrari had not met. They were working furiously. Farrari looked at the baskets already filled and realized with a twitch of conscience that they’d started early so they could have the night to do something about rescuing him.
All of them stared, except Borgley. He glanced at Farrari, turned to an apprentice, and snapped, “Get a cloak for him. Take him to the rendezvous point. Fast.”
The apprentice darted away. Borgley said to Farrari, “How’d you get away?”
“Through a window,” Farrari said.
“You weren’t guarded?”
Farrari shook his head.
“Why’d they grab you?”
“Because of the cake. It’s a long story and I don’t understand it myself, but—”
“All right. Tell it at headquarters. The important thing right now is to get you away from Scary.”
The apprentice returned with two cloaks, draped one about Farrari, and donned the other himself. Borgley said, “Get going. I’ll have a platform sent if one is available. Otherwise I’ll send Haral after you with grilz, and you’ll have to take him to the mill.”