The Godspeaker Trilogy (4 page)

She’d spoken too many words, against Abajai’s want. She shook her head again, lips pinched shut. The woman Bisla sighed, and held up the mirror again.

“Look,” she said, her voice coaxing now, like the man’s sons to the shy goats. “It will not harm you. How can it? The face in the mirror is yours.”

She had never seen her face before, never dreamed there was a way anyone could see their own face or imagined why they would want to. She looked.

Two blue eyes, big and frightened. Thick black lashes, long enough to brush her skin. High cheekbones. Hollow cheeks. A wide mouth with plump pink lips. A softly pointed chin. All these face-parts the woman had shown her, touching her own and saying the words over and over until she remembered. She could see the woman’s face in the mirror and the man’s too, muddled together to make Hekat.

Framing Hekat’s face were her godbraids. Fascinated, she watched her fingers touch the bright red and green beads the women had woven into her thick black hair. Her godbraids weren’t like Abajai’s, they were fatter and looser and they didn’t hold as many charms. When they reached Et-Raklion she would ask him to give her godbraids like his. He would do that for her, she was precious.

The woman Bisla’s finger stroked her cheek. “You are very beautiful, child. Do you understand?”

No, but the woman was smiling. Did that make beautiful a good thing? She wanted to know. Abajai had said no speaking, but these words were in service of him, so . . . “Beautiful please Abajai?”

“Yes,” said the woman Bisla. “Of course. Beautiful pleases every man.”

She let herself smile. Pleasing Abajai was all that mattered. In the mirror she saw her teeth, pure white in her clean and beautiful face.

“Now you must dress, child,” said the woman Bisla. “Abajai will be waiting.”

The tunic and pantaloons they put on her weren’t soft and silken slippery like Abajai’s yellow robe but they felt good all the same. They were colored dark green, with gold and crimson threads sewn around the neck and the wrist and the ankles. They sat upon her scented skin lightly, and rustled when she moved.

“Look at her feet,” said the older sister, frowning. “The soles are like leather! Does she even need shoes?”

“Shoes are Abajai’s word,” said the woman Bisla. “In shoes her soles will soften over time. She has pretty, slender feet. They must be protected.”

In the village only men had clothed their feet. Hekat wriggled as her toes were imprisoned.

“Tchut tchut,” said the woman Bisla, and tapped her on the shoulder. “Would you disobey Abajai?”

Never. Abajai had saved her from the man. He was more real to her than the god itself.

The women led her out of the white house with the blue and yellow lizard roof, back to the open place where the caravan waited. The villagers had gone away, now it was just Obid and his guards keeping close watch on the merchandise. A group of Todorok slaves waited in the village space, naked and chained. Hekat stared hard at them as she waited for Abajai to return, but none of these slaves looked precious or beautiful.

Not like me.

She counted two men slaves, three women and four boys. No she-brats. They were taller than the people of her own village. Their faces were wider. All were darker colored, save one man whose skin was dark and pale, faded patches like an ancient goatskin. Strange . One boy slave was fat. She had never seen a fat boy before. The man beat his sons with the goat-stick if he thought their flesh was gaining. Fat boys ran too slowly after goats and couldn’t do the snake-dance properly. That angered the god.

The fat boy’s hair was tightly godbraided and all black, no single scarlet slave braid. Not like the others standing with him. There was water on his cheeks. He was crying . Hekat shook her head, amazed. Here there was so much water, he must be used to wasting it. Here there was so much water, maybe it couldn’t be wasted. But he was still stupid to cry. Water could not melt the chains from his wrist and ankles. Better to stand up straight and show Abajai he was worthy of coin.

The fat boy stared at her, and she stared back. Then Abajai came out of the godhouse with Yagji and the godspeaker Toolu and she didn’t stare anywhere but at Abajai’s stern face. When he saw her, Abajai smiled and crossed the open village space. His long fingers dipped inside his robe and dropped three bronze coins into the woman Bisla’s palm.

“You have pleased me and the god.”

“Go now, Bisla, you and your sisters. Tend your menfolk and your hearths,” said the godspeaker. The woman and her sisters nodded, and walked away.

Abajai looked to Yagji, who went to one of the pack camels and from its panniers pulled a stout wooden box criss-crossed with leather lacings. Strung on the lacings were so many charms and amulets the box looked infested. Yagji carried the heavy box to Abajai, who beckoned one of the slave guards to him. Without having to be told, the guard knelt on the ground, making himself into a table. Yagji put the box on the guard’s back and together, with great care, he and Abajai began to unlace it.

Each charm and amulet had to be touched, with fingertip or lip or tongue or a charm pulled from a pocket or set into a ring. With every touch a wisp of godsbreath puffed into the air. Only when the godsbreath had been blown away was the charm or amulet safe to unstring from its leather thong and only then if the right man had touched it, in the right order. If the wrong man tried to unlace the box, he would die a horrible death.

This was how the Traders protected their wealth, Abajai had explained on the road. Even though Traders were beloved of the god, men were sometimes foolish and thought they could steal from Trader caravans. Or sometimes Traders fell into misfortune so they perished and their money was found beside their bodies. That money by the god’s law must be returned to the Traders’ city but if it was not protected by godsworn Trader charms a man might not do his duty. He might keep that money and spend it for himself.

Hekat marveled that men could be so wicked.

The godspeaker Toolu had brought a large woven basket with him from the godhouse. When the godsbreath was blown from the last amulet, and all the box’s leather lacings unlaced to show its burden of coin, Abajai poured silver and bronze coins into the basket. Last of all he took a single black purse from the box and added three gold coins to the silver and bronze. When he was finished there was more air than money in the unlaced wooden box.

The godspeaker Toolu nodded, and carried his laden basket back into the godhouse. Yagji closed the box’s lid and relaced all the leather lacings, threading them with the charms and amulets. His fingers moved swiftly, surely. Hekar marveled at how he remembered every charm and amulet’s proper position. Abajai stood quietly watching, a small smile curving his lips.

Just as Yagji finished, the godspeaker returned carrying a large scorpion carved from some shiny black stone banded with thin strips of bronze.

Yagji stood back. The godspeaker placed the carved scorpion on top of the leather-laced wooden box and closed his eyes. It seemed to Hekar that the whole world went silent.

“ Breathe, god,” said the godspeaker Toolu, in a voice like distant thunder. “ Breathe, god. Breathe, god .”

A thick black mist oozed from the carved stone scorpion and onto the charms laced over the wooden box, soaking into them and swiftly disappearing. The guard who was a table shuddered and groaned, but did not collapse. Blood dripped from his open mouth to splash on the ground beneath him.

“The god has breathed,” said the godspeaker once the mist stopped oozing, and picked up the carved stone scorpion. “Merchandise has passed between us. Payment is given, payment is taken. Our business is done.”

“Our business is done,” said Abajai, as Yagji put the wooden box back into its pannier on the pack camel. “It has been a good Trading.”

The godspeaker nodded. “Travel well, Trader Abajai. I will not ask where next you buy and sell, for this I know is Traders’ business not fit for a village-bound man to know, even if he is the godspeaker.”

Abajai’s small smile grew wider. “Well do you know the ways of Trading, Toolu godspeaker.”

“But be wary as you travel through Et-Jokriel,” said the godspeaker, frowning. “The times are grown uneasy. Green fields turn brown and where water flowed freely, in places now it trickles. Where there was water now is dirt. The sky is blue, crops wither in the sun. Jokriel warlord dreams of grain within his empty barns. He sends his warriors over the borders to raid and fight his brother warlords. He is not the only warlord so afflicted. Hammers ring on anvils, Abajai. Bloodshed rides the wind.”

Abajai bowed. “We will be wary. The god see you, Toolu godspeaker. The god see you in its eye.”

They left the village, then, with the handful of new slaves chained to the tail of the snake and poked into walking by Obid’s sharp spear. Once Todorok was behind them, Yagji turned to Abajai in fright.

“You heard him, Aba! Bloodshed rides the wind! How bad have things become since we began our caravan?”

“The god knows,” said Abajai. “Hold your tongue, Yagji. We will talk of this beneath the stars, when only you and I are listening.”

“Abajai—’ said Hekat, wanting to know, but he pressed his hand on her shoulder, then dropped a loop of leather over her head. Dangling from it was a beautiful amulet, a carved snake’s eye in deepest blue.

She snatched it up. “ Abajai !”

“You must wear this always,” Abajai told her. “While you wear it the god will see you in its eye.”

Never in her life had she possessed her own amulet. “Yes, Abajai,” she whispered, and pressed the snake-eye against her lips.

“Such extravagance!” Yagji scolded. “And after we were paid too little for the pish, and charged too much for Todorok’s slaves! With all your spare coin it would he better had you paid the godspeaker to give it a slave-braid, not—”

“No,” said Abajai. “The god does not desire that.”

Yagji made a gobbling sound. “And does the god desire us reduced to seven bronze coins and a single camel? Aieee, you try me, Aba, you try me sorely! I will bargain next time, you are growing soft in your old age . . .”

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Yagji had more words than the sky had stars, and none of them as pretty. Hekat didn’t listen. Abajai had paid coin to give her an amulet, to keep her in the god’s eye. She was precious. He cared for her. She cared for him, too. A new feeling, strange, unfurling shyly like a seed in dry dirt. He was the only breathing thing she had ever cared for. She was his, for ever and ever.

No matter what that Yagji said.

T
hat night, after dinner, Hekat curled up by the camp fire and listened, eyes closed, as Abajai and Yagji talked Trader business in soft urgent voices.

“It is unwise not to heed a godspeaker’s warning,” said Abajai. “From newsun we will travel straight through Et-Jokriel to Thakligar in Et-Mamiklia, and from there over the border into Et-Nogolor. Nogolor warlord’s treaties with Et-Raklion will keep us safe. Until then we are prey for raiding warbands.”

“That is true,” Yagji sighed. “But surely we can do a little Trading along the way, Aba? Remember we were blessed by Nagarak himself. The god sees us in its eye.”

Abajai hissed air between his teeth. “Being blessed does not make us untouchable. Demons can take us, and so can fighting warlords with no love for Et-Raklion.”

Demons . Hekat clutched her snake-eye amulet. The village godspeaker shouted loud against demons. Demons sickened goats. They spoiled the snake-dance so the young men died fangstruck. They dried up the well-water, or made it bitter. Demons dressed in plague and pestilence. Women who spawned she-brats only were demon-ridden. They had opened their legs to a demon so their man’s seed was poisoned. That was why such women were stoned. Only stoning could drive out a demon and afterwards sacrifice, because demons had power where the people did not love the god enough.

I love the god , she promised, as her snake-eye amulet bruised her fingers. Do not let the demons prick me .

“I know, I know we must travel swiftly,” moaned Yagji, and tugged his godbraids. “But so much lost money, Aba!”

Abajai growled. “What is money to a dead man in the grass? We are no match for a warlord’s raiding party.”

“No, but perhaps we will not see one!”

“That is not a risk I am prepared to take,” said Abajai, sounding grim. “You have eyes, Yagji, you see Et-Jokriel is turning brown. It is not alone, you saw how changed are Et-Bajadek and Et-Takona since last we caravanned through them. Those warlords will soon be at each other’s throats, spilling blood.”

“Each other’s throats, Aba,” Yagji wheedled. “Not ours. We are Traders, no part of their squabbles.”

“When the bloodlust is on them they will not care!” Abajai’s voice was cold and hard. “And we are from Et-Raklion. Raklion warlord’s lands are still lush and green. That alone is cause for hate.”

Yagji sighed again. “True.”

“Et-Raklion is like a fat lamb cast before a pack of starving dogs. When the other warlords have stolen all they can from each other there is where they will turn their envious eyes. They might even think to defy the god and band together in a single attack. We must be home before that happens. You do not believe me?” Abajai added, as Yagji fidgeted. “Then I will read the godbones, and the god will tell you.”

Through slitted eyes Hekat watched Abajai study his godbones. The scarlet scorpion in his check was restless as he rolled the painted pieces of snake-spine, read them, and rolled them some more. She had never seen godbones painted like that, blood red and venom green and blue like the sky at highsun. The man had godbones, small, chipped and bare of paint. He’d made them himself after a snake-dance and was never pleased with what they told him. The racing lizards he bet on always lost.

But neither was Abajai pleased with his fine godbones. His scarlet scorpion leapt and writhed. In the flickering firelight it looked like it was stinging Abajai. His forehead sweated, his breathing rasped.

“Well? Well? What do they say?” Yagji demanded.

“They say what I have said already,” Abajai whispered harshly. “We must caravan hard to Et-Nogolor city, sell the merchandise there and seek the swiftest way home to Et-Raklion.”

“Aieee!” said Yagji, pressing his palms to his plump cheeks. Then he flicked a sideways, hopeful glance. “Sell all the merchandise?”

Hekat stopped pretending to sleep, she threw herself to the edge of Abajai’s blanket. “Abajai not sell Hekat!” Her teeth chattered with fear. “Hekat belong to Abajai!”

“There, Aba, you see what you’ve done?” said Yagji, outraged. “It’s got attached! You made a pet of it and it’s got attached!” He took her by the shoulders and shook her till her eyes rolled. “You be quiet! Shall I beat you? Shall I give you to the god? Be quiet with your howling, you wretched monkey!”

“Be still, Hekat,” said Abajai. “You also, Yagji.” The scorpion in his cheek was sleeping now, his fingers plucked up the godbones one by one and slipped them into their snakeskin pouch. When it was full he closed his eyes and pressed it to his lips.

Yagji released her. She sat on the cold ground and waited as Abajai gave thanks to the god for its teachings in the bones. She had no fear of a beating. Yagji told Abajai all the time he should beat her, and Abajai never listened. She knew he never would. Abajai would never hurt her.

“You belong to Abajai, Hekat,” he said when he was finished, slipping the godbone pouch into his robe pocket. His face was grave, but his eyes were warm. “I will not sell you in Et-Nogolor city.”

Silly pricky burning in her eyes. They traveled through a land of water but she wouldn’t waste any of hers. “Hekat belong to Abajai,” she whispered.

Muttering crossly, Yagji withdrew to his tent. Abajai ignored him, and raised a finger so she would pay close attention.

“Yes. She does. Now go to bed, Hekat. From tomorrow you will walk as well as ride my camel. You are stronger now, there is meat on your bones. You have shoes on your feet. Walking will be good for you.”

She gifted him with her widest smile. “Yes, Abajai! Thank you, Abajai!”

Tucked beneath her blankets, she held her beautiful blue snake-eye and waited for sleep to claim her. She was not afraid of squabbling warlords, or of demons, or Yagji. Abajai was here, Abajai would protect her. Abajai, and the god.

It gave me to Abajai. It sees me in its eye. The god sees Hekat, it knows she is precious.

So the caravan continued, but she did not walk. She ran. She danced. She darted ahead, then back to Abajai, sometimes with flowers to give him, other times just a smile. She felt like a snake that had shed its skin, all scaled and wrinkled, tattered, torn. Hekat was the new snake, with cotton clothes and shoes on her feet and charms woven through her godbraided hair.

Yes. She was a beautiful snake.

Following many highsuns travel they left the lands of Jokriel warlord and entered the lands ruled by the warlord Mamiklia. There they were told of warbands on the prowl, of fighting fierce and bloody and not far away. They came across burning bodies and slaughtered horses twice. The stink made Yagji vomit. Once they were nearly caught in a warrior raid.

After that, Abajai and Yagji made their white camels jog as well as walk. The pack-camels jogged too, and the long chained snake-spine of slaves, with Obid and his fellow guards poking and hitting and scolding with vulture voices. Abajai wouldn’t let Hekat run, he kept her on the camel with him. All the camel-jogging made Yagji sick, like the dead rotting horses had made him sick. He clutched his fat belly, moaning and spitting. Abajai wouldn’t stop for him to get off and spew into the grass so he spewed up his insides over the side of his camel, or when they paused to water the slaves.

Hekat lost count of the highsuns that followed. One day blurred into the next, and the next. Even the countryside lost its charm. There were trees, she’d seen trees. There were flowers, she’d seen flowers. And villages, and crops, and orchards, and horses, and cattle, and wild hawks flying. The water flowing deep beneath the land of Mijak, Abajai said, rose to the surface where the god desired, in streams and rivers. Creatures called fish swam in them, good for eating, she had seen fish now. Once there was a small blue lake, there were things called boats on it, she could not get excited. Water was water, it had lost its power to amaze.

She was tired of traveling. She wanted to rest.

They crossed the border into Et-Nogolor, and four fingers after acknowledging the godpost met a band of hard-riding warriors, men and women wearing shells of hardened leather on their upper bodies. In the middle of their leather chests was a hunting bird picked out in stones of lowsun fire, and plaited into their charm-heavy godbraids waved long red feathers banded thickly with black. Leather thongs dangled round their necks, threaded with rattling, bouncing fingerbones. They were fierce men and women with cold eyes and cruel months. Their horses’ eyes were angry. They carried arrows on their backs and a bow looped onto their saddles. Long curved blades belted at their waists flashed silver in the sunlight.

The warriors belonged to Nogolor warlord, Abajai said, and those curved blades were scimitars. A scimitar could cut a camel’s head right off its neck. Never cross a man with a scimitar, said Abajai. Sell him a sharpstone instead.

Hekat stared as the warband drummed towards Et-Mamiklia on their dusty, sweat-streaked horses. They were beautiful, those warriors. As beautiful as she was, in their way.

“If all we see are Et-Nogolor’s warriors we need not be afraid,” Abajai told Yagji. “Or even the warriors of Raklion warlord. But if we see warriors of Bajadek, or Mamiklia, or one of the other warlords . . .”

Yagji whimpered and was sick again down the side of his unhappy camel.

On and on and on they caravanned, and slowly the road grew crowded with other travelers, ox-carts and slave-litters and plain men on horses. Farms and fenced cattle pastures stretched on either side of them. Eleven highsuns after crossing the border they reached Et-Nogolor city. It rose from the plain like a rock on green sand.

“So big ,” said Hekat to Abajai, astonished.

“Not as big as Et-Raklion city,” said Yagji, and shifted on his camel. “Or as fine. Aba, I hope this means we are out of trouble. I hope we see no more galloping warriors. Are you certain you read the godbones right? We will be safe in Et-Nogolor city?”

Hekat knew Abajai well, now. She knew he wanted to shout at Yagji or smakck him till his godbraids clattered their charms. But she knew Yagji, too. Shouting at the fat man only made him sulk and when he sulked his cooking was bad.

So did Abajai know Yagji. “I have told you ten times, Yagji, they say we are safe here.”

Yagji fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a cloth. “The godbones will never speak to me,” he fretted, dabbing sweat from his face. “I wish I had the ears to hear them. Aba, we should spend coin to make sacrifice in Et-Nogolor’s godhouse. If the warlords squabble it is because demons prick them. We must make an offering against their wicked wiles.”

Abajai said, “Sacrifice is a good idea, Yagji. Deaf to the godbones you may be, but never deaf to the god.”

Yagji’s miserable face brightened. He always smiled when Abajai told him good about himself. “Never.”

So many others now traveled the road with them it was three fingers past highsun before they reached the tail-end of wagons and horses waiting to be allowed through the enormous city gates. Et-Nogolor rose up and up above their heads, ringed by a wooden wall, tall cut-down trees as wide as three Abajais, standing side by side by side, no space between. Each tree was carved and painted with the god’s eye, with snakefangs and centipedes, with scorpions and the same bird face that shrieked on the leather shells of Et-Nogolor’s warriors. Real skulls there were, too, glaring blind at the spreading plain. Horse. Goat. Bird. Man. Painted with god colors, dangled with amulets, jangled with charms. Godbells sang silver-tongued on the breeze.

With her head tilted back so her godbraids tickled the camel’s shoulder, Hekat looked past the city’s climbing buildings to the godhouse at its very top. The godhouse’s godpost was so tall that even from so far below she could see its stinging scorpion, tail raised to strike the wicked sinner.

She felt her voice shrivel in her throat. This place . . . this city . . .

“You are right to be awed,” said Abajai. He always knew what she was thinking. “Et-Nogolor is a mighty city. Only the city Et-Raklion is greater, because once it was Mijak’s ruling city.”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Ruling city, Abajai?”

He nodded. “When Mijak was ruled by a single warlord, before the god decreed one must be seven. The city Et-Raklion was his home. It was not called Et-Raklion then, but still. It is the same.”

Warlords . She had been thinking about them. “Abajai, what is a warlord?”

“A man of power,” he said. “Appointed by the god to rule lands and villages and the people who live there.”

She frowned. “No warlord rules Hekat’s village, Abajai. Only godspeaker.”

“The savage north is different. Long ago it had warlords to rule it. It was part of what is now Et-Jokriel and Et-Mamiklia. But the land is harsh there. With every season, grain by grain, the sands of The Anvil creep closer. Those long-ago warlords abandoned the north. Its villages are in the god’s eye, Hekat. The god is their warlord.”

“ Tcha ,” said Yagji, pulling a face. “First geography, now history. To what end, Aba, there is no point.”

Abajai patted her shoulder. “Yagji is right. The past does not matter, or the savage north. Rest your tongue, Hekat. We move again.”

So they did, but slowly. She could see the city gates, they had long iron teeth to bite off the heads of the unwary, and tall men with bladed spears to guard them. Snakes and scorpions were carved in the wood, and the sign for godsmite. Any demon who tried to pass these gates would die.

At last they reached the Gatekeeper, a monstrous tall man like a tree made flesh. His body was clothed in red and black striped horsehide. On his head he wore a horse skull with horns, around his neck a scarlet scorpion. His belt was green snakeskin threaded with snake-skulls, each winking eye a crimson gem. He wore no godbraids, his head was bald. His skin was hidden beneath writhing tattoos. Hekat was pleased to see not one was as fine as Abajai’s scarlet scorpion.

“Business!” the Gatekeper barked, like a dog. He had so many protections set in his teeth his lips wouldn’t close properly over them.

Abajai put his hand in his pocket, then held out a piece of carved green stone, round like a thin branch and as long as his palm was wide. “Trader business, Gatekeeper. Abajai and Yagji of Et-Raklion, brother city of Et-Nogolor. There you have our seal stamped by Raklion warlord himself.” His hand dipped again into his pocket, to pull out another stone cylinder. This one was blue. “And here is proof of road-rights fully paid. We come to trade our merchandise and give the god sacred blood in the godhouse.”