Queen of Springtime (35 page)

“You must come with me, Mother Boldirinthe,” the earnest young guardsman said. “The chieftain requires it. Her daughter is in great need of healing.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” the offering-woman said, smiling at the guardsman’s solemnity. He was a Beng, like most of the guards, blocky and thick-tongued, with a heavy manner about him. But he was very young. Much was forgivable, on that account. “Don’t you think I knew I’d be summoned? Four days lying in those vile swamps—what a shape the girl must be in! Here, boy, help me up. I’m getting as big as a vermilion.”

She extended her arm. But the guardsman, with unexpected diligence and courtesy, rushed around behind her chair and slipped his own arm around her to lift her to her feet. She tottered a bit. He steadied her. It was hard work for him, strong though he was. Boldirinthe chuckled at her own unwieldiness. Flesh was accumulating on her with the force of an avalanche, new layers of it every day. Soon she’d be entombed within herself, virtually unable to move. Her legs were like pillars, her belly was a rippling massive mound. That was a matter of little concern to her, though. She was grateful to the gods for having let her live long enough to undergo this transformation, and for having provided her with the sustenance out of which she had created her vastness. Many others hadn’t been so fortunate.

“Over there,” she said. “That satchel on the table—hand it to me—”

“I can carry it for you, mother.”

“No one must carry it for me. Hand it here. There’s a good boy. You have a wagon waiting?”

“In the courtyard, yes.”

“Take my arm. That’s it. What’s your name?”

“Maju Samlor, mother.”

She nodded. “Been in the guards long?”

“Almost a year.”

“Terrible thing, your captain’s murder. But it won’t go unpunished, will it?”

“We seek the slayer day and night,” said Maju Samlor. He grunted a little as she swayed and lurched, but held her steady. At a cautious pace they proceeded into the courtyard. This was twice in two days that she had left her cloister, now, for only yesterday she had attended the meeting that Taniane had called at the Basilica. That was unusual for her, in these days, to go out so often. Movement was so difficult. Her thighs rubbed together with each step, her breasts pulled her groundward like weights. But perhaps it would do her some good, she thought, to bestir herself more frequently.

The long satchel she carried was more of a burden to her than she had expected. She had loaded it that morning with the things she would need in caring for Nialli Apuilana—the talismans of Friit and Mueri, of course, but also the wands of healing, which were carved of heavy wood, and an array of herbs and potions in stone jars. Too many things, maybe. But she managed to hobble out to the wagon without dropping it.

Her hillside cloister was near the head of the steep street known as Mueri Way. Just a hundred paces or so farther uphill was Mueri House. The alleyway in which Kundalimon had been murdered lay midway between Mueri House and her cloister.

It angered Boldirinthe that blood—innocent blood!—had been shed so close to her holy precinct. How could anyone, even a madman, have dared violate this place of healing by casting an aura of violent death over it? Each morning since the killing she had sent one of her junior priestesses to the site to perform a rite of purification. But she hadn’t gone to it herself. Now, as Maju Samlor tugged at the reins and the xlendi moved forward into the street, she turned to look toward the fatal place.

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 the others bore bunches of flowers, or arm loads 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 worshipping 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 had 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 worshipper 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 on 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.

No. I won’t allow it, Boldirinthe thought.

From her satchel she drew the two great wands of healing and laid them alongside Nialli Apuilana, who barely stirred. She took out her herbs and ointments, and set them in a row on the table. She placed the talisman of Friit the healer at Nialli Apuilana’s head and that of Mueri the comforter at her feet.

To Sipulakinain she said, “Bring me that brazier. We’ll burn the leaves of Friit in it, and see to it you breathe the smoke yourself. It’ll do you some good too.”

“I’m on the mend, Boldirinthe,” said Sipulakinain.

The offering-woman gave the grain-merchant’s mate a skeptical look. “Yissou be praised for that,” she said without conviction.

Together they worked to light the aromatic herb. Taniane watched, silent, motionless. In the far corner the old woman Fashinatanda prayed in a toneless mumble, seeing nothing. Purplish smoke curled upward.

“More,” Boldirinthe said. “Another five sprigs.”

Sipulakinain’s hands trembled. But she fed the herbs to the blaze. Boldirinthe took Nialli Apuilana’s ankles and held them. She felt the congestion in the girl’s lungs, the weariness in her heart. Her soul-center was chilled and enfeebled. Nialli Apuilana was strong, though. These weaknesses could be driven from her.

The smoke grew thick in the room.

Now the gods became visible.

Boldirinthe had long had the skill of seeing the Five Heavenly Ones clearly. It was not something she ever spoke of to others, for she knew that the gods, real though they were, had never appeared to anyone else in actual manifestations, only as powerful abstract presences. It was different with her. They had forms and faces, familiar ones. Mueri the Consoler was much like Torlyri to her, a tall strong handsome woman whose dark fur was marked with white. Dawinno the Destroyer had the look of Harruel, a fierce red-bearded giant. Yissou was wise and remote, sparse of fur, almost like a human. The Provider, Emakkis, was fat and jolly. Friit the Healer was very serious, and frail, a little like Hresh. They stood now by her side. She indicated the sleeping girl, and they nodded, and Friit told her what must be done, and Boldirinthe, though she felt a stab of uneasiness, made ready unhesitatingly to do it.

“You have to leave the room now,” she said to Taniane.

“I—”

“There’s too much strength in you. We want only the sick and the old and the fat in here now.”

Taniane’s mouth opened, and closed again. She gave Boldirinthe a look of astonishment and, perhaps, anger. But she went out without a word.

Boldirinthe applied the ointments of healing now, one to Nialli Apuilana’s lips, another to her breasts, a third to the place between her thighs. Nialli Apuilana stirred and murmured as the heat of these herbal creams began to penetrate her skin.