The Earth Goddess
Richard Herley
THE EARTH GODDESS
Richard Herley
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– Richard Herley
THE EARTH GODDESS
Copyright © Richard Herley 1984
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First published by William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1984
Revised for electronic publication, 2008
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THE EARTH GODDESS
PART ONE
1
In the grounds below his fortress Lord Heite, Gehan of the Gehans, had built a small pavilion by the lake. On spring mornings such as this he liked – when the burden of his duties allowed – to come here to meditate or perhaps to receive in privacy an especially favoured guest. Constructed of fragrant timber, five-sided, and with a gently sloping roof, the pavilion stood at the water’s edge and allowed the occupants to hear each nuance of the quiet surge of ripples on the shore.
The sun had just come out: the ripples were being repeated as a network of light on the cedar uprights and supports, on the lintel and across part of the ceiling. A chiffchaff began to sing from the leafless sallows. Lord Heite looked down again, at the water, and breathed deeply. He was at peace. He had made the right decision.
A dry branch snapped on the path behind the pavilion. His bodyguards were waiting at a distance, on duty in the grove. They had let his guest come through.
“Please join me, General Teshe,” he said, and looked round.
The general mounted the steps and, bringing his bulky form to a halt, gave a correct but informal salute. His eyes were friendly; his broad, blond-bearded features were about to break into a smile. He had been travelling all night, but he looked, as ever, immaculate.
The grey leather of his dress armour creaked softly as he accepted the unspoken invitation to seat himself beside his lord. In the regulation manner he drew about him his finely woven cloak, grey and darker grey, edged with black serpents along the hem. His kneeboots gleamed. Even when seated, he kept his shoulders perfectly square; yet he was also at ease. There was something permanent about the man, timeless, infallible. It had been the same twenty years ago, when he and Lord Heite had been boys together at the academy.
“Well, Kasha,” said Lord Heite, free now from the ears of his entourage. “Tell me. How are you?”
“Growing older, liege.” The smile broadened; his teeth were white. “The pagans in my care would age even Heite Gehan.”
“How did you once describe them? ‘Fractious’? Was that the word?”
“Let us say that their resentment of authority is second only to their idleness.”
“On the contrary, Kasha. You have tamed them remarkably quickly. The returns from your province tell me so.”
“You flatter me, my lord. Much remains to be done.”
“But not by you.” For a moment Lord Heite regarded the peaceful waters of the lake. Then he said, “Do you remember my kinsman, Brennis Gehan Fifth?”
“Only vaguely.”
“His father tried to make the island country independent of the mainland. When he inherited Valdoe, Brennis Fifth pursued much the same idea. We tolerated the position until he, fortunately or otherwise, went out of his mind. It then became necessary to replace him.”
“With General Hewzane,” General Teshe recalled.
“Exactly. That was seven years ago. Did you ever meet Torin Hewzane?”
“Yes, my lord. He is of the Garland.”
“Well, now of course he is Lord Brennis. Unlike you, Kasha, he lets such titles go to his head. I must say he has disappointed us. A mistake was made. We misjudged him.”
General Teshe sat forward, incredulous.
“We are informed,” Lord Heite went on, “that he has been stealing from us. He wishes, apparently, to finance the start of his own dynasty. In private he is already said to style himself ‘Brennis Hewzane First’. We understand that next year he will be strong enough to approach the barbarian warlords in the east. There is no reason to imagine that his envoys will be received other than cordially. First to be attacked would be our eastern holdings; from there he would encroach upon the citadel itself, using Brennis as a base.”
“Forgive me, liege, but is your information reliable?”
“Yes.”
General Teshe was plainly stunned.
“Even had this matter not come to light, we should by now anyway have considered transferring him to some lesser post. He has failed to carry out his brief. Settlement and forest clearance have not progressed at the required rate. Only three new forts have been finished. Fraudulent or not, the harvest returns have been consistently bad. He is unable to control the farmers without recourse to the most absurd and destructive measures: at least seven villages have been burned to the ground. As a result, a substantial number of people have returned to the mainland. More are expected to follow. The whole system of taxation on Brennis is in jeopardy. With Hewzane as their model, corruption has spread to the regional commanders, to the beilins, and even to certain officers and Trundlemen at Valdoe. Until we know how far it has gone we dare not risk a move. By the autumn, though, our information will be complete. At that time, Kasha, you will accompany Bohod Khelle and his annual commission of inspection. On arrival at Valdoe, you will publicly dispose of Hewzane and announce yourself Protector of Gehan Brennis Sixth.”
“I … do not understand, my lord. I thought Brennis Fifth died childless.”
“So it is generally believed.” A note of distaste had appeared in Lord Heite’s voice. “Lady Brennis, as you may have heard, was with child at the time of her husband’s death. Unluckily she was lost during the siege of Valdoe, and although her body was not accounted for, the Prime is satisfied that she was killed.” Lord Heite paused. “However, among the various aberrations leading to his downfall, Brennis Fifth contracted a liaison with his sister, the Lady Ika. The result is a boy, now six years of age. In the absence of a legitimate heir, the Prime has decreed that this child shall be designated ‘Brennis Gehan Sixth’. Until he comes of age you are to be his guardian at Valdoe. In effect you will control the island of Brennis and be accountable only to me.”
“Where is the boy now?”
“At Valdoe, with his mother. During the siege she escaped to a village close by. On my orders she was found and brought back to the Trundle, where she has remained ever since.”
“Does Hewzane know all this?”
“Of course. But he would not dare harm the child. I had even hoped its presence might have reminded him of his true position and tempered his conduct. There are still those in the Valdoe domain who remember Brennis Fifth, if not fondly, then at least with a certain nostalgia. At least the farmers knew where they were. I suspect the appearance of another Gehan at Valdoe will be met with equanimity, or even approval. That is one of the main reasons the High Council has decided to confer Brennis on this boy.” Lord Heite stood up; the general did the same, still trying to absorb the implications of all he had been told. “Shall we view the herons, Kasha?”
<
br /> More than two hundred and eighty years earlier, at the foundation of Hohe and the Gehan empire, herons had begun to nest at the lake below the citadel. Overlooked by the temple, they had established their colony in the southern end, among islands wooded with alder and birch. The trees were bleached with droppings; almost every fork and crutch among the outer branches held its mattress of sticks, repaired and built upon year after year or, for no obvious reason, abandoned and allowed to disintegrate. To the priests in the temple, and then to the men of the garrison, the birds had become sacred symbols of the Gehan ideal. The grace of the heron’s flight, its patience, persistence, and skill in hunting, its noble and independent nature, its courage in the defence of its young, its cooperation with others of its kind to secure the continuance of its race: all these made it an exemplar of the eternal truths. Gentleness through strength – this was the path to the highest goal of the empire and of the Prime, and as the empire grew so did the heronry, until the trees were full and ninety or more pairs came each year to breed.
On a morning such as this, viewed against the rise of the citadel, the air above the heronry was a confusion of arrival and departure: in many nests the hungry young birds, grey and fluffy, could already be seen. But Lord Heite, one hand on the rail of the viewing platform, was more interested in observing his guest.
“You do not seem to be enjoying the spectacle, Kasha.”
On the way here, following the plankwalk through the ornamental marsh, the general had been rather quiet, and for the last few minutes he had spoken hardly at all.
“I am troubled, my lord,” he said at last.
“Duty is always onerous,” said Lord Heite. “That is how we grow stronger.”
“I know, my lord. But I remember Torin Hewzane as a brother officer, an officer of the Garland. What I must do is not easy.” The general put both hands on the rail. “Is there no way he can be saved?”
Lord Heite did not answer at once. Out of respect for his friend, he reconsidered the decision with which he had been struggling for many weeks past.
They were separated from the trees by a hundred yards of water. Wildfowl of many sorts were lazing in the sunshine, safe in the lee of the island; bright reflections, sisters of those that had lit up the pavilion, were moving across the bare branches above their heads. It made a peaceful scene. Lord Heite allowed his gaze to travel upwards, to the herons, and then to the sheer wooden walls of the temple and of the citadel.
“There is no choice,” he said. “Hewzane must die.”
2
“Listen, father,” Paoul had said. “The beechmast sounds like rain.”
Tagart had not noticed, but it had been true. Yesterday afternoon, all through the beechwoods, uncountable numbers of husks had been opening to let their contents fall. As each nut fell it struck, perhaps, one or two yellowing leaves before hitting the ground, just as a raindrop might. Tagart, for all his years in the forest, had marvelled that he had never heard the sound before.
He was thinking of it now, when his mind ought to have been on other things. With Paoul sitting here beside him, cross-legged on the gleaming boards of the Meeting House floor, the arguments of these village elders seemed infinitely less important and interesting than the sound of falling mast.
Bocher, the head man, glanced yet again at Paoul. Tagart could guess his thoughts. The sight of Paoul made Bocher dissatisfied with his own small son. It was the same in almost every village: the boy sitting cross-legged on the floor was extremely beautiful. There was no other way to think of him. Tagart tried to see him through Bocher’s eyes, through the eyes of someone unprepared for his appearance.
He was seven. He might have been a year younger, or a year older, but his beauty was ageless. It came from within, from some deep source that defined and brought to life each detail of his outward form, blending him into an exact, ideal, and self-contained whole. In colouring he was dark, with brown eyes, as his mother had been; in general cast of feature he resembled his father, who, as even his victims had admitted, had been a handsome man. There the resemblance ended: Paoul’s gaze was open, innocent, and sane. His limbs were smooth and clean, his skin utterly flawless. His hair had been cut very close, revealing the perfect shape of his head. The ears were neither small nor large, modestly moulded. His cheekbones and the structure of his jaw made a face that was at once striking and mild, softened still more by the gentleness of childhood. His nose was straight, his mouth exquisitely formed; but something in the set of his lips was uncompromisingly masculine. So too were the repose and the attentiveness with which he sat listening to the arguments of the adults.
Trouble had come to Sturt. Besides the crushing weight of ever-increasing taxation, besides the number of people who had left the village and gone to the mainland, besides last year’s drought and this year’s floods, besides the diseased animals and blighted crops, the village had been singled out for specially harsh treatment at the hands of the spirits.
The head man’s daughter had been struck down by a horrible ailment. He was being punished. Gauhm, Spirit of the Earth, was angry. Because of all their troubles, the villagers had been neglecting the observances. It was Bocher’s fault, his responsibility, and now Gauhm could be appeased only by a huge sacrifice. This the village could not afford. Many pigs would have to be slaughtered, many bushels of wheat and barley burned. Bocher had begged neighbouring villages for help; it had been refused. They too had suffered from the drought and the blight, and they too were subject to Valdoe’s taxes. The taxes had always been heavy; since the arrival of the new Flint Lord they had grown intolerable – and Sturt had yet to be assessed for this year’s harvest. Several villages in the region had been ruined. Others had been destroyed by the soldiers themselves, in retribution for real or imagined crimes against the Valdoe domain.
All this and more the elders were debating at length, just as if it had any bearing on the matter in hand. Tagart cared nothing for their gods. Excepting the daughter’s illness, the troubles of the village, such as they were, had probably arisen from the villagers’ own indolence and lack of foresight, or from the greed of the Gehans, over whom even the gods had no control.
But Tagart well understood why the villagers felt the need of a supernatural explanation for everything bad, and by now, after a hundred such debates at a hundred such villages, he had learned to listen with patience and apparent humility.
He and his party had come seeking work. The crops had long been in, but one of the villagers, the council man in charge of field-drainage, had wanted to offer payment and a week’s lodging in return for clearing a blocked ditch in the south meadow. The task was unpleasant and greatly overdue. Despite the council man’s complaints, nothing had been done about it all summer. Now the winter and perhaps further flooding were on the way and, like it or not, the ditch would have to be cleaned. If the villagers were reluctant to do the job, the council man had argued, why not give it to this band of vagrants? Others on the council, though, had objected to the cost, so Bocher had convened a meeting. While most of Tagart’s party waited outside the village, he himself had been brought into the Meeting House to listen to the interminable talking and to answer the council’s questions.
His head ached. His eyes hurt. The room was dazzling, filled with reverberating light. The southern shutters had been laid open, letting sunshine pour in. The walls were limed, the floor and beams highly polished. Even the altar at the far end was of glaring, spotless white stone. But the doorway, overhung by a thatched porch, was in shadow, and beyond it, beyond the village houses and the palisade, there was a wide view of the wooded, gently rising slope. The trees there had started to turn: oaks mainly, one or two maples and cherries. Their foliage formed a continuous mass, invested by the warmth of the afternoon with a barely perceptible haze. The air was quite still: he faintly heard the cry of a soaring buzzard.
Even on such a luminous autumn day as this, three weeks after the equinox, the village of Sturt might at one time have see
med to Tagart a squalid and confining place. He would have been made uneasy by the closeness of the palisade; he would have despised the way of life of those who had built it. And, even in the years before he had known anything at first hand of the farmers or their fields, he would have taken an instinctive dislike to this shifty and indecisive head man.
But it was no longer in him to have such feelings. He was too tired, too old, too weary of wandering from place to place. He had seen his own and all the other nomad tribes destroyed: the old way of life was finished for ever. Its freedom and plenty, its grinding hardships, its terrors and grandeur, everything he had lived for, everything was gone. Even had there been enough people to make a spirit group, there was nowhere left for them to go. The trees had gone from vista after vista, cut down or ring-barked and left to die. The ancient territories of his people had been laid waste, and still Valdoe’s blades were at work. Once he had been angry; recently he had begun to fear that, one day, he would view it all with indifference.
By his reckoning he was thirty-three. The last eight years he had spent in pain, and now he could scarcely walk ten steps unaided. His hair was turning grey, years before its time. Often at night he longed for release. It would be better then for the others in his party, the people who still called him their chief. Including himself and Paoul, only eleven remained. They carried him everywhere on a wicker seat. He was aware that he made a strange and pathetic sight, at the gates and meeting houses of villages throughout the domain; the children still sometimes threw stones, even where he and his party had been before.
Were it not for Paoul, he knew he would have killed himself long ago.
“What do you say then, Bocher?” asked one of the elders, when the debate came at last to an end.
Tagart stared at the floor. In his bones he knew he was going to be turned away. Once again he would have failed to find his people decent food and shelter. They all thought they depended on his ability to negotiate, but he knew they were wrong. He was useless. He was stupid, too. By letting the ever-curious Paoul accompany him like this he had succeeded only in antagonizing the head man: he had made him jealous because of Paoul.
