The 40th day of Spring's Beginning, 992 KY
Meggan Esterill entered Twenna's tiny room with a perfunctory knock. "He's come again."
"Hush, Rikki just fell asleep," said Twenna, her foot rocking the baby's cradle. "Who's come?"
Meggan dropped her voice. "You know very well who. Captain Marr." She sat down beside Twenna on the bed.
Twenna tried to avoid her pointed look. "Oh…oh. He's serious, isn't he."
"Not to be put off, I'd say. This is his sixth visit in two weeks. Come, he's waiting for you in an alcove."
"Rikki just fell asleep," Twenna repeated in a weak voice.
Meggan patted her shoulder. "I'll watch him. Connia's at the nursery. They know where I am. If she needs me they'll come get me and I'll take Rikki with me. He won't die if you're not with him every single moment."
Twenna thought she might die without him, but she rose from the bed and put her apron back on, dawdling like a child trying to put off chores.
"Oh, come now. He's really a very nice man," tutted Meggan. "Good-looking enough, steady job in the Guards, and he'd marry you. The last two only wanted to keep you."
"I don't know if he'll let me take Rikki, and I'm not leaving without him."
"You'll never know if you don't go down to the alcove to see the man," insisted Meggan, shooing her toward the door.
Twenna dragged her feet down the five staircases from her room to the main hall. Captain Marr waited for her in the last alcove to the left of the dining hall door. The Mothers had no time to play chaperone; instead the open alcoves gave a bare amount of privacy while still allowing the occupants to be seen if not heard by the multitudes constantly coming and going past them.
Captain Marr nervously groomed the bottle-brush mustache growing into thick chops framing his broad, pleasant face, a style in fashion two years ago called the Heir after Prince Temmin, though Twenna remembered older men wearing their facial hair like that in her childhood. How much older was Captain Marr than she? Twenna estimated perhaps ten years at most—early thirties. There had always been something familiar about him, something protective and reassuring.
The Captain stood at Twenna's approach, dropped a glove and fumbled, trying to decide whether to pick it up or make his bow. He chose the bow. "Good day, Miss Shelstone, thank you so very much for honoring me with your company!"
"Oh, the honor is mine, Captain," she murmured, blushing.
"Please! Please, sit," he said, gesturing at a straight-backed wooden chair. "Or—is it—that's not correct, is it? This is your house, not mine, and…I'm afraid I am a Guardsman, ma'am, my manners are not perhaps as genteel as they might be." He sat down in the second chair and smiled, all muffled nerves and excitement.
Meggan was right. He seemed a kind man.
"He is thirty-one, widowed three years ago," Twenna told Meggan that night just before lights out. "He's being transferred to Hawksfield in Barle next week as commander of the garrison there, he has a ten-year-old girl named Mellit, he admires me greatly and thinks we should do very well together. Then he requested the honor of tying the marriage cord round my wrist."
"Will you give it to him?"
Twenna was silent for a moment. "I told him Rikki must come with me—he was reluctant and somewhat surprised, but I told him that was my bride price. He said he'd think on it and tell me later this week."
She was sweeping the main hall floor early the next morning after breakfast, Rikki in his sling, when Captain Marr returned. He'd shaved so closely that his chin shone; his beefy frame filled out his best uniform. Twenna winced, recognizing its lines: her father's special pattern, still in use at his old tailoring concern. Captain Marr apparently had money enough to bespeak the best; whatever else could be said about the late Elbig Shelstone, he'd been an excellent tailor.
"May I have a word, Miss Shelstone?" asked the Captain. Twenna looked to the raw-boned Mother supervising the cleaning crew; the smiling priestess nodded toward an empty alcove. Once inside, Marr dispensed with sitting and took her hands. "I will raise your son as my own. I will love you both. Please—Twenna—let me take you from this dismal place. Do me the honor of being my wife."
The Captain's warm, thick-fingered hands clasped hers in awkward sincerity. Rikki stirred and gave a faint squeak in his sling, his blue eyes blinking awake before flashing the gummy grin of a two-spokes-old at her. She looked around the main hall, at the gray, drawn women and barefoot children coming and going, as cheerful as they could be in a cold and sterile place. Life in Barle married to a stranger? Or life here among the ghostlike surplus women, unwanted children and overworked Mothers to watch her son grow up to an uncertain future? "The honor is mine," she faltered; with greater strength she added, "I accept you, Captain Marr."
"Lorrenz, please, my name is Lorrenz," he said, the bottle-brush on his upper lip quivering. He kissed her hands; the mustache tickled her knuckles, but not unpleasantly. "Oh, Twenna, you make me very happy, very happy indeed, and I shall do everything in my power to make you happy as well!"
The Mothers were nothing if not efficient. Twenna found herself packed and ready to go in two days, her gray uniform returned to the laundry and her fine clothes from her former life sold in exchange for four plain dresses, two of cotton and two of wool, and a warm wool cloak; she kept her beautiful underthings, stowed these last spokes in a paper box under her bed. The Captain paid for her to keep her sturdy gray shawl, her Mother's House underthings, her boots, Rikki's clothes, his sling and a supply of diapers. "I will buy you more when we are in Hawksfield, my dear, but this will do for now."
The young Father who worked as the Mother's Temple liaison officiated at the wedding, a small affair held in the Mother's House chapel. "Obedience, humility, fidelity," Father Nino chanted as he helped Lorrenz tie the marriage cord round her left wrist—expensive, fine silken cord, many-stranded and braided in bright colors. Lorrenz tucked the end into the sleeve of her new fawn-colored dress: "I'll not lead you through the streets by it all the way back to Hawksfield, I promise," he winked, and she smiled.
Twenna made her goodbyes in the main hall now, a carpet bag at her feet and the cheerful Rikki kicking his legs in her new husband's arms. "Don't forget me," said Meggan, kissing her cheek and hugging her with her free arm.
"How could I ever forget you!" said Twenna, kissing Meggan in return. "You're the best—no, you're the only real friend I've ever had! I shall write, I promise." She kissed Connia's fuzz-covered head. "Be good, little bunny." She didn't know whether to cry tears of relief or regret as they walked from the Mother's House, through the Temple and onto the street, the Captain carrying her carpet bag and she carrying Rikki re-wrapped in her woolen shawl and a blanket, a soft white bonnet trimmed in pale yellow ribbons on his round little head. Lorrenz hired a cab and they trundled off to the post house to begin their long journey northeast into Barle and Captain Marr's new command. His daughter Mellit had gone ahead with Twenna's maid Wendia, newly recalled to service; Wendia would make the garrison commander's house fit to live in before the newlyweds arrived.
"I, ah, I must be honest with you, Twenna, now that we're married," said the Captain, fidgeting against the cab's firmly-stuffed seats.
Twenna tried to ignore the cold, trembling fingers stealing over her heart. "Please, sir, I hope you shall always feel you may tell me anything."
"Well…I don't wish to mislead you as to the kind the life we shall have in Hawksfield. You see, I've done myself up very nicely," he said, indicating his uniform, "and I'm afraid I indulged myself in the matter of our marriage cord."
Twenna touched the silk at her wrist; the cold fingers around her heart paused in confusion. "I'm not sure I understand."
"What I'm trying to say is, I am not a rich man. I've presented myself perhaps as having more money than I do in an effort to impress. You are used to far, far better than I can provide. Not that I am poor, not at all," he hastened. "I just don't wish to mislead you. My pay as a commander is not magnificent, but I have a family annuity as well. You will always have a good solid roof over your head, a cook, a footman and a girl of all work not including your Wendia, but I can't afford to keep my own carriage. And I can't afford many silk dresses, though you shall have at least one. I am sorry you could not keep the one you had. You were very beautiful in it, but I thought it might contain too many memories."
Twenna cast her mind back. She hadn't worn that dress since she'd arrived at the Mother's House. When could he have seen her in it?
His Farr's knot bobbed as he cleared his throat, rippling up and down his solid neck. "Which brings me to my last confession." He held her hands between his own, so large they made hers look childlike. "I have loved you since the first moment I saw you. You would not have noticed me, but I was quite close by many times. I was one of the King's Own in His Majesty's personal escort—we're trained to fade into the background. I was already on my way to becoming Chief Commander of the King's Own itself some day. When you…when Nerrik was born, I heard you'd come to the Mother's House. I gave up my position in the King's Own and applied to become Commander at Hawksfield in the hope that you would marry me. If you would, then I wanted to take you away from here, away from bad memories and staring eyes. If you wouldn't, then I wanted to be as far away as possible, for fear I might see you again and my heart crack wide open in grief."
Astonished tears filled Twenna's eyes, and the icy fingers melted. "Lorrenz—!"
"I know you don't love me yet, but I hope some day you may...that some day you may forget the King and love me instead."
Twenna reversed their hand clasp to wrap hers around his. "I'm not very clever as you may know, Lorrenz, but I will try to be a good wife to you, and I will try so very hard to love you."
Though it was not Malla's intent, Temmin closed his face to the world. He spent more time in the less-senior clergy's beds and gave Allis no more than his polite, rather stoic regard. He declined any assignment that might lead to physical intimacy between them—indeed, any assignment that might lead to them being alone. Supplicants were not allowed to pick and choose, but now the senior clergy let him.
As he withdrew, Allis did her best to let Temmin go. He would leave at Nerr's Day anyway, and here it was almost Neya's Day. But he stuck to her heart like a burr, a ball of tiny hooks she could never remove no matter how hard she tried. She'd done quite well at hiding the depth of her love from Issak and the Most Highs, but to herself she despaired. He would be gone soon, she would stay behind in a beautiful, pink, plush prison, and they'd rarely see one another for at least ten more years.
She never thought she would tire of being Neya's Embodiment so soon; she was proud the Goddess had chosen her. Issak was her sole family since their mother died, and separation from him had been a constant anxiety until the Gods had accepted them both together. Now they need never part. They would always be safe, always have enough to eat and a fine place to live. Though it forced them into…circumstances…twice a year that reminded them both of childhood suffering, the Gods soothed and healed them even as They possessed and used their bodies. She'd been proud, relieved, even happy until Temmin. Falling in love had not been among Allis's fears. Her girlhood and training made it unlikely, and she'd gone years in the Lovers' Temple with many dear friends and bedmates. None had possessed her so.
She sat on the dais in the dining hall now, the night before her seasonal ordeal began again. She picked at her dinner and did her best to keep herself from seeking Temmin out among the ranks below her. Even so, his height and golden hair made him obvious among the others, and the rich embroidery of his Supplicant's tunic stood out in the sea of rose, white and red garb. Who sat with him? Some Lover whose name she couldn't recall—a recent transfer from the Temple at Maryakuspa—and the recently-sworn Justinna Beloved, who'd attended her last time and would again tomorrow. All three laughed and flirted. Jealousy flared like a fire that burned too hot for its hearth, and she sent up a prayer: I wish to serve you, Neya. Take this burden from me. Do not desert me!
Preparations for the twins' possession began the next day. Temmin kept his eyes averted from Allis as much as possible; outwardly she was composed, but now he sensed her fear for the first time. He wanted more than anything to spare her the coming ordeal and had to struggle to keep from throwing himself between her and the door to the Gods' Chambers. Everything he'd learned in the last two years deserted him. He didn't trust himself any more.
Neya's Day night, Temmin helped bind Issak to the frame, knowing the Beloveds did the same with Allis in the next room. The sound of worshippers entering the gardens filtered through to the Chambers as he went about his business with Barik Lover, Senik and Mathanus Lover. Temmin lit the incense; woody resins masked the bitterness of the drug it contained. The smoke flared up and he accidentally breathed in too much. Temmin stumbled back from the brazier, searching for fresh air. A dread crept into his bones, and he reeled as dark, indistinct images filled his head. Something terrible was approaching...
A few deep breaths, and Temmin cleared the poison from his system. The disturbing images faded, but the dread remained. He told himself it was his last Neya's Day, and that was all.
Temmin helped Barik and Mathanus set the heavy jeweled clamps in place on Issak's nipples and sac. At the right time, he kissed the Embodiment hard; Issak screamed into his mouth as the clamps came off until a shuddering calm came over the Embodiment, and possession's rosy glow spread from his streaming eyes. Temmin jumped back. Nerr had come.
Screams penetrated from Neya's side of the Chambers. The double doors flew open; Allis struggled against the frame, her breasts swinging from side to side. The holy light did not surround her: The Goddess had not come. "Release Me," said Nerr-in-Issak. His voice was cold. "Release her as well."
Allis fell from the frame in a writhing heap on the floor. Nerr ran to her, but instead of helping her up as Temmin expected, He kicked her square in the ribs. "What are you doing!" yelled Temmin. Barik tried to seize him before he could do something stupid, but it proved unnecessary; they were all rooted to the spot. Nerr kicked Allis again as the mortal attendants all cried out. Allis did nothing to avoid the blow, howling as she huddled naked on the floor. "What in Pagg's name are you doing!" Temmin yelled again.
Nerr stabbed a finger at him; pink stickiness filled Temmin's mouth. "You dare to invoke My Father's name against Me, little Prince?" He turned to Barik; the elder priest stumbled, the hold on him released. "Fetch Me a strap." The dark forebodings from the drugged incense crowded into Temmin's mind, less cloudy and more menacing. Barik came back holding a thick leather belt, split at one end into two wicked tongues; the stocky Lover trembled and kept his eyes averted as he handed it to Nerr. "You have spoiled My Sister's Embodiment and made her unfit for use, Temmin, and so this punishment falls on you," snarled the God. "You both leave Me little choice."
Temmin closed his eyes and waited for the expected blows but snapped them open at an agonized scream. Nerr was beating Allis, striking her bare back over and over, leaving deep welts where the tongues snapped and bit at her skin. Blood soon ran down her sides to the marble floor. Mathanus vomited on his own feet; Justinna huddled on the floor in incoherent shrieks. Temmin would have begged for Allis's life, but the stickiness filled his mouth; all he could do was cry. Nerr was going to kill her, to whip her to death, and it was his fault—beat me, kill me, Lord! he begged silently. "She bears responsibility too, never doubt it," said Nerr, raising the strap and bringing it down again. "She must bear the pain alone if she's to be of any use to My Sister."
The beating went on and on until Allis lay still in a pool of blood; her long black hair soaked in it. "Please, Lord, I think she's stopped breathing," begged Glaes Beloved. "She's of no use to Our Lady dead!"
Nerr threw down the strap. "She's not dead."
"Not dead at all," came Allis's voice. The rose-colored light spread over her; the savage cuts obliterating her pale skin began to close. "Though I would have preferred her less mauled, Brother." Neya-in-Allis stood up; the blood covering Her skin and clotting in Her hair fell away, leaving Her borrowed body pristine and whole once more.
"It was the only way to open her, and You know it. Besides, remembering the fruits of disobedience will serve her well. Now run, let Me chase You before I beat this princeling to death for his presumption." Neya laughed and took off running; somehow the door to the garden had opened, and as She entered the grounds the crowd roared. If only they knew what had just happened, Temmin thought. Nerr strolled up to him and took his chin in His hand. "Speak, boy."
The stickiness left his tongue. "How could You—how could You do such a thing? I prayed and prayed to You both, and no help came! What were we to do? You deserted us!" he cried.
"Prayed and prayed? Pride brought both of you down, not Us." Nerr seized his tunic and ripped it in two. "You are excused, Temmin Antremont. We release you a spoke early but still in Our debt. You will leave this place instantly, and not return while these Embodiments serve. You will not see them or speak with them in any way until We are done with them." The God released him and walked toward the garden door, followed by the other priests but for Justinna.
"What else can the Gods take from me?" Temmin screamed after Him. "I gave You two years of my life—I lost the last moments of my mother's life to You! Harla took her from me, and now You take Allis and Issak! What more do You want from me?"
The God turned. "Everything. The Gods are no one's friends, little Prince—but rejoice! The land loves you more than any of your line." He ran through the door in pursuit of His Sister.
The garden door closed, leaving Temmin alone but for the young Beloved still hunched on the floor. His gorge rose in his throat and he fought it back down. Best to help Justinna…and then leave. He stumbled, and his foot slipped in Allis's blood, drying on the floor. He cursed aloud. "No one's friends, no indeed—enemies!" Rage burst through him in a familiar tingling under his skin. The room grew brighter, hotter, the shadows sharper; blood and burning timber came to his nose. His eyes followed the scent to its source. Flames leaped in a wide arc from the incense braziers to the racks that had lately held the twins; they were well and truly ablaze.
He ran to the braziers. He'd doused Issak's incense himself, he knew he had, but the more sand he now dumped onto the two braziers the higher the flames rose until he fell back. At this rate the room would be an inferno in seconds.
Justinna still clutched herself in a crouch and gibbered, mad with fear and oblivious to the danger. Temmin shook her to no avail, scooped her up and over his shoulder, and ran for the door. He ran until he reached the hallway, where he deposited the young Beloved in the arms of a surprised Temple's Own guarding the door: "Take her to the Sisters here on duty, she's had a terrible shock!" To the other guard standing by, Temmin yelled, "The Chambers of the Gods are on fire, get help!" He ran back, casting around for anything he might use to smother the flames.He finally grabbed one of the rose silk wall hangings, ripped it from its moorings and dashed into the Chamber.
The fire was out, leaving nothing but faint smoke in the air and two piles of ash on the floor: the racks. Melted metal blobs, once the fastenings that held the wood together, hissed among the remains. Temmin backed away, shaken to the core.
A Temple's Own captain rushed in, more following at his back. "Your Highness! I thought there was a fire—?" He stared at the ash heaps, then at the ripped tunic still hanging from Temmin's shoulders. "Are you all right, sir? What happened here?"
"I don't know," whispered Temmin. "I don't—I don't… Bring round a carriage or horse of some kind—no, for once I'd prefer a carriage—something enclosed. I'm going home." The Temple's Own members took in a shocked breath all at once.
"I don't understand," said the captain, brows drawn together beneath his silver helm. "It's Neya's Day!"
"And I'm leaving," answered Temmin, his voice strengthening. "I'll be ready in ten minutes. Bring the carriage round immediately."
Temmin walked from the Temple and into the carriage so differently than he'd arrived on that dramatic Neya's Day two years ago. His eyes smarted, and shame and rage cramped every muscle.
When they reached the Keep, Temmin strode through the family's private entrance and surprised an antsy pair of footmen waiting until their duty ended and they could join the Neya's Day festivities. "Your Highness!" squeaked the one he recognized as Josip.
"Has the King gone to the Temple yet?" said Temmin.
"He's not going at all, sir," said the other footman. "He's up in his rooms, if you please, sir." Temmin took the stairs two at a time toward the Residence Wing. Below him, the footman said, "What's 'e doing here?" Where else was he to go?
Winmer opened the King's receiving room door to Temmin's sharp rap. "Your Highness!" he blinked. "What are you—"
Temmin brushed past the startled secretary. "Is he in?"
"He's in his study, sir. He will be puzzled but pleased to see you."
Harsin jerked around when Temmin opened the door. "Temmin! What's happened? Are you all right? What are you doing here on Neya's Day?"
To return in shame to the father he'd defied so gleefully—how could he bear it? How could he have been so wrong when two years ago he'd never been so sure of anything in his life? "I've come back," said Temmin, his voice breaking like a boy's.
Harsin circled around his chair to approach his son. "During a Spectacle? Nothing bad has happened, I hope?"
"Everything bad has happened." Temmin's head began to pound; he rubbed at his eyes. He searched until he found his father's brandy, poured himself a shot and downed it in a gulp. "Everything bad. I'm back." He poured and downed another brandy.
"Against your vows? Now? Temmin, don't drink so quickly, you'll make yourself sick."
"I don't care," he said, but he put down the decanter before pouring his third drink in as many minutes. "I—I'm not sure but I think my vows are suspended. I don't know. I'm confused." He was beginning to feel the two quickly-downed brandies. "All I know is, I've been banished from the Temple and I can't go back until Allis and Issak are no longer Embodiments."
"By whose order?" rumbled Harsin.
"Nerr Himself."
His father turned a pale shade of parchment. "What did you do?"
"I should never have gone. You were right. I was wrong…you were right." Temmin sank to his knees, wobbly but determined, and his eyes burned as he looked up at his father. "From now on, I'll listen. Tell me what to do."