The Light of the Oracle, Page 3

  She must have committed some terrible crime.

  “Turn back while you can. You don't know what they are.”

  But Bryn couldn't turn back. She would never be able to walk to Uste alone. Besides, she wanted to study in the Temple, become a priestess of the Oracle if she could. Uste already seemed a bleak and graceless place, nowhere she wanted to be.

  Gazing at the harsh landscape, Bryn rode in silence until she began to burn with sickening thirst. When she felt she couldn't bear it anymore, she asked Nirene for a drink of water.

  Nirene's face was all hard angles as she turned to Bryn. “What have you done with your water bottle?”

  “ You saw—I gave it. She would have died.”

  Nirene shook her head, frown lines deepening. “ You must learn to take better care of what you are given.”

  “But how could I just leave her? Please.”

  “No. I can't reward your carelessness.”

  Bryn met Nirene's narrowed eyes and understood that she must say nothing more now. She must act as if what she had seen had been a specter. Fear raised goose bumps on her hot skin. How long would she have to endure the desert without water? What sort of people were these, and what would be her fate among them?

  When the group halted briefly for midday prayers and food, Nirene gave Bryn a biscuit and a handful of dates. Bryn had trouble swallowing, for the biscuit was dry and the dates fibrous. Clea lifted her water bottle to her lips and made gloating, gurgling sounds while Bryn waited for someone to offer her even a few drops. No one did. The mare was watered but not Bryn.

  Should she go to the Master Priest, tell him of her thirst? But Renchald had ridden past the nameless woman, unmoved by her cries. If he learned that Bryn had given away her water, he might order her to be left behind.

  She pulled her legs into the circle of her arms, trying to gather her whole body into the shade of her hat. I'm glad I gave her my water, she told herself stubbornly.

  They rode all afternoon. As the heat wore on, Bryn's sore lips cracked. At every crossroads, she wanted to run to where Renchald poured the wine, wanted to catch it on her tongue. Visions of water streamed through her mind, brooks and ponds and the deep side of the quarry. She imagined the desert as a fresh and sparkling lake. How she wanted to close her burning eyes, slip down onto the road. But if she did that, she doubted anyone would pick her up.

  As the sun sank lower, tufts of green began to dot the sand; Bryn thought at first that she dreamed. But no, the air began to smell different; a hint of water caressed her nose, an inkling of coolness. She saw clumps of hardy grass, then wispy bushes, finally trees. Odd, twisty trees, with needles rather than leaves, but trees nonetheless. As the travelers crested a hill, a city was laid out not half a mile away.

  “Bewel,” Nirene said. “We'll stop there for the night.” To Bryn, her words sounded garbled and distant.

  Just when Bryn was sure she would tumble onto the road, the procession halted. She dropped from the saddle, landing in a heap on hard-packed dirt. As she floundered on the ground, a fine boot trod on her hand and she heard Clea's spiteful laugh. How she would love to trip King Zor's descendant into a pile of steaming manure.

  Nirene stood over her. “Get up.”

  Bryn got slowly to her knees, looking about for a prop, but there was nothing at hand. The horses had been led away. She reached for Nirene, but the Sendrata folded her arms. Setting her jaw, Bryn forced herself to stand, but the inn yard wavered. She toppled, falling.

  “Very well,” Nirene said. “Sleep here.” She stomped away, the last to enter the inn where everyone else had gone.

  Bryn tried to call after her but no word came out, only a dry sound, like a rock scraping against another rock. She closed her eyes.

  In the best room the inn had to offer, Nirene faced the Master Priest, who was flanked by Bolivar.

  “ You're telling me the stonecutter's daughter threw her water bottle to Selid?” For an instant, Renchald's calm seemed shaken.

  “ Yes, Your Honor. For punishment, I deprived her of water. She wasn't able to stand when we arrived, and I left her outside. What do you wish me to do now?”

  He tapped his index fingers together. He looked at Bolivar. “Post a discreet guard to watch over the girl. See to it she is not harmed. Allow her to help herself as she can, but give her no aid.” The soldier nodded. Renchald turned to Nirene. “Bryn may rejoin us in the morning if she is able to do so under her own power. Allow her water at breakfast, but give her none on the journey tomorrow.”

  “And Selid?” Bolivar asked. “Do you wish action taken?”

  Renchald clicked his tongue lightly. “Selid's sentence decreed she be left in the desert without water. That was done. The goddess Monzapel must still favor her, but she cannot live for long, consecrated to the Lord of Death as she is. Let Keldes work his own way with her. We need not intervene.”

  Bryn awoke shivering, with the sensation of something crawling over her neck. Giving her head a violent shake, she scowled at the distant stars that glimmered upon the deserted inn yard. “ You're all right,” she whispered grimly to herself. Her tongue felt swollen and dull. She gave a croaking laugh. “Among your own kind.”

  No one seemed to be around. Bryn didn't see the soldier who watched her from the shadows. A few lights shone in the windows of the inn, but it looked too far to get to. The stable was closer. She began to crawl toward it.

  Panting, she found the horse trough. With the last of her strength she heaved herself bodily into it, dunking her head to wash away the bitter sand of the desert. She pumped the cistern, her face under the spigot. When she felt the water singing in her veins, she hauled herself from the trough, and went to find a bed of hay near the white mare.

  Selid, former handmaid of the Temple of the Oracle, bird-chosen by the red cardinal, clutched the precious water bottle that had been thrown to her by an unknown girl, as she walked alone down the path of the moon. Monzapel's light had never appeared more lovely—it touched Selid's shoulders with soft silver fingers, guiding her forward. The pain of the previous two days was gone, days spent under Solz's unremitting heat. Selid knew her raw and blistered feet should hurt; her burned skin should be on fire. But instead, protected and guided by Solz's gentle sister Monzapel, Goddess of the Moon, she seemed to float within a web of comfort.

  By the time the sun's shimmering rim began to rise, eclipsing the moon's cooler light, Selid saw a city ahead. Grateful tears filled her eyes. “Thank you, Monzapel,” she told the moon as it faded. “Thank you, and watch over the one who gave me her water.”

  Bryn crept into the inn as the sun rose, gnawed by dizzying hunger. When she joined the others, no one welcomed her, but she wasn't turned away and was given breakfast along with the rest of the Temple travelers. She ate ravenously.

  “Where did you learn manners?” Clea asked. “In a sty?”

  Gulping milk, Bryn longed to break a plate over Clea's head.

  When they rode out of the inn yard, Bryn noticed there was no water bottle hanging from her saddle horn, and her mouth went dry. But the agony she felt watching Clea drink freely when they stopped to rest was more bearable than it had been the day before. She told herself that by holding up her head without complaining, she was proving herself worthy to the gods; she wanted them to send her a feather. Not a vulture's feather, though. A lovely one.

  Bryn was too tired even to exclaim in wonder when the Temple of the Oracle came into view. The road had climbed steadily for much of the day, until mountains were visible in the distance and the air was somewhat cooler.

  At first Bryn believed she must be dreaming, for surely it was impossible for a building to be bigger than the entire village of Uste.

  Stern guards wearing red and gold insignia waved the line of travelers through a wrought-iron gate in a thick, high wall. Red and gold banners flew proudly from the Temple's turrets; turrets higher than the tallest trees back home. The stonecutter's daughter marveled at the way the Temple
walls were set. She'd heard her father speak of masons so skilled that they could make walls like these, with corners smooth as glass, the mortar mixed so well that it appeared to be only an artful addition to the stone. Marble stairs wide enough for fifty people to stand abreast led up to great doors embossed with brass, the metal cast into symbols twined around a silver-inlaid keltice. The great silver knot was delicately worked, yet it looked strong enough to bind the world.

  Bryn dismounted along with the others beside long stables. Eager for water, she took a step toward the Temple. A firm hand fell on her shoulder. “Come along,” Nirene said sharply, waving both her and Clea down a path away from the broad stairs.

  “Where are we going now?” Clea asked irritably.

  Nirene rounded on her. “Royalty or not, Clea, I will tell you only once: When anyone here in the Temple, whether priest, priestess, guard, or Sendrata of Handmaids, gives you—a student—a direction, do as you're told.” She took in both girls with her furious glance.

  Faint and nauseated, Bryn nodded, very glad that she would not have to walk up all those stairs just now. Clea nodded too, resentfully, and Nirene led on past a corner of the Temple, along a wall, and around another corner where soldiers guarded a studded door. Nodding to the guards, Nirene opened the door, pushing Bryn and Clea into a wide hallway lit by flaring torches.

  Four

  Dawn was the tallest handmaid in the Temple of the Oracle. Her morning was beginning badly, and she believed her height was to blame. She'd already bumped her shins on the edge of her bed—twice—and had nearly upset the basin while washing, though she'd purposely risen before the gong to give herself extra time. At seventeen, she should be done with growing taller—would she ever stop? Her student robe was getting short. Again.

  She hurried back to the long room she shared with dozens of other handmaids. She would make her bed, straighten her desk, and draw her curtain so that it hung evenly as it should, all before the gong sounded and woke the others.

  As she wrestled with the stiff loops of the heavy beige curtain that separated her bed from those of the handmaids on either side, Nirene approached her. Dawn sighed, expecting to be reprimanded for something, but the Sendrata of Handmaids bade her sit on her rumpled bed, and then abruptly told her that it was time she became a duenna. Duennas looked after new handmaids for their first year at the Temple, guiding them, helping them study and learn.

  “Ohh!” Dawn cried, excitement vying with surprise within her; she'd been doing well in her studies and not causing too much trouble, but she wasn't bird-chosen yet and might never be.

  “For pity's sake, don't squeal,” Nirene said, frowning.

  “I'll be the best duenna you have, Sendrata,” Dawn whispered fervently. “But which handmaid will be my ward? You brought in two last night.” Dawn hoped she'd be assigned to the ragged peasant girl, who'd been so tired when she arrived that she'd fallen onto the bed assigned her. Nirene, lips pursed in irritation, had drawn the curtain around the sleeping girl herself. The other new handmaid, the yellow-haired one with a false smile who put on airs, was rumored to be a cousin to the queen.

  Nirene pointed across the room. “Her name is Bryn. A stonecutter's daughter. You may begin by getting her out of bed and explaining what is expected of her.”

  The one she'd hoped for! Dawn grinned, even as nervous fear rose in her chest. Bryn was sleeping in the bed formerly belonging to Selid, the handmaid who had disappeared a week or more ago. “Won't Selid be coming back?” Dawn asked.

  “No,” Nirene snapped. “ You'd best forget her, and there's no need to gabble about her to Bryn.”

  “ Yes, ma'am.” Dawn wanted to ask where and why Selid had gone, but it would be useless.

  “Remember, duennas are responsible for the actions of their wards. As you know, Queen Alessandra will be visiting the Temple in a few weeks.” Nirene's lips tightened. “ You must teach Bryn protocol, so she doesn't disgrace you.”

  Dawn sucked in her breath. Yes, of course she knew about the impending visit by Sorana's queen. “I'll teach her everything she needs to know, Sendrata.”

  “See that you do. Today, you'll show her the work areas and grounds; you're excused from your studies. And try to divine any abilities Bryn may have so that when I assign her chores I won't be too gravely disappointed.”

  “Me? Divine her abilities?”

  The Sendrata frowned. “Haven't you been studying the stars for more than two years? Ishaan tells me your progress is adequate.”

  Adequate? Dawn didn't know what to make of Nirene's comment. Ishaan was teaching her about the heavens: the stars and planets, led by the gods, influenced people and events. She'd been chosen to study the stars because she was head of the class in mathematics and she could calculate planetary positions in the skies. But Ishaan had never given Dawn the least indication that she was making “adequate” progress. In fact, he frequently scowled at her, bemoaning her lack of understanding.

  Fortunately, Nirene didn't wait for a reply. She marched away. Dawn saw her approach Alyce's curtain and pitied Alyce, guessing she was to be duenna for the other handmaid, the conceited one. Strangely enough, Alyce wasn't bird-chosen either. Ah well, who knew why the Sendrata did what she did? Her orders could not be questioned, only obeyed.

  Pulling aside the curtain around the bed that had been Selid's for so many years, Dawn wondered again what had become of Selid. Chosen by the red cardinal and said to be the most talented prophetess in the Temple, Selid had treated everyone with the same distant kindness. She'd been close to becoming a priestess when she left. Will I ever find out what happened?

  The wake-up gong was still several minutes away. Dawn kneeled by Bryn's bedside. She would wake her now and show her where to wash before the other handmaids rose.

  Untidy strands of chestnut-brown hair spilled over Bryn's pillow, and her face was streaked with grime. Her dress was stained and threadbare, torn at the hem and one of the shoulders. Lifting one of her hands, Dawn felt calluses on the palm and fingers.

  Bryn opened alert golden-brown eyes. “Water,” she whispered.

  “Sorry about the old robes and scuffed shoes,” Dawn said after she'd given Bryn water and taken her to the dispensary for clothes. “It's the penance for being poor. Wealthy handmaids get their robes sent from home—more fancy every year.” She snorted. “So much for being ‘sisters' here at the Temple.”

  “These are finery to me,” Bryn said, but Dawn thought she looked very shabby. When they reached the dining hall, Bryn stared about her with great eyes, awed by the length of the room, the deep windows on two sides, the well-varnished tables, the senior handmaids who served those who were eating. She handled the dishes as if they might break at her touch. Dawn, a weaver's daughter, remembered her own first day in the Temple, and how elegant the glazed pottery had appeared to her, how soft the linen napkins, how clean and smooth the granite floors.

  Once the grace had been spoken, Dawn introduced Bryn to the other young women who often shared an eating table. “This is Jacinta. She's dove-chosen.” Jacinta's glossy braid was wound with blue ribbons. Her robe fell in elegant lines, and her skin glowed. She greeted Bryn with gentle friendliness.

  “And here's Alyce,” Dawn said, pointing to the young woman sitting across from her. Alyce had straw-colored hair and darting blue eyes. “Did Nirene make you duenna to the other new handmaid?” Dawn asked her friend.

  Alyce tossed her braid behind her shoulder. “Oh yes. Clea. Lord Errington's daughter, as she made plain within seconds.”

  “Descended from King Zor,” Bryn put in.

  Alyce laughed. “Pity me. I'm her duenna, but she can't bear to be seen with me; she must have smelled out that I'm nothing but a baker's daughter. How will I endure a year with her as my ward?” She pointed with her fork at the table behind Dawn. “Look. The Feathers have accepted Clea before she's even set foot in the Ceremony of Birds.”

  Turning, Dawn saw Clea seated next to Eloise in the group of bird-chos
en handmaids known as the Feathers. “Naturally,” Dawn said acidly. “She probably met Eloise when they were both little nibbies crawling through their papas' castles, long before they wanted to be Feathers.”

  “Feathers?” Bryn asked, puzzled.

  “Bird-chosen snobs,” Dawn explained. “The girls who keep sneering in your direction. They call themselves the Feathers.” She hefted her mug to her friends. “How we'll laugh if no bird chooses Clea.”

  “She thinks the vulture will choose her,” Bryn said. Dawn had just taken a drink of milk. “Vulture?” she spluttered. Across the table, Jacinta and Alyce froze. “May the gods forbid,” Dawn said.

  Bryn watched as the others laid their napkins on the table to signal completion of the meal. She copied them.

  “Trying to teach the quarry rat manners, Dawn?” said a voice at her shoulder. Turning, Bryn saw one of the young women who had been sitting with Clea. Wispy eyebrows lifted into the girl's high forehead, and her full lips were gathered into a sneer. The satiny sleeves of her blue robe looked as if they hadn't seen a day's wear.

  Dawn didn't look up. “Find someone to teach you manners, Eloise.”

  “How touching that you would stick up for your rat. But for gods' sake, give her a bath!” And Eloise moved away, surrounded by a group of sniggering handmaids, all of them dressed in fine robes.

  “Don't listen to her,” Dawn said. “She's chosen by the woodpecker, which means she has a tireless beak.” She smiled grimly. “I'll show you the grounds now.”

  Her long legs set a rapid pace through the hallways as she led the way to an outside door. She bowed to a guard standing by. He wore a helmet of beaten brass; red cloth was embroidered with gold over his breast-plate in the insignia of the Temple soldiers; a sword and dagger hung at his hip, a bow at his back.

  “What do they guard against?” Bryn asked as she followed Dawn out into the sunlight.

  “Didn't anyone tell you that the word of the Oracle is very valuable? What if prophecies meant for Queen Alessandra or Lord Errington fell into another's hands? The Temple has some of the most skilled warriors in the world. They pledge their lives to safeguard the prophecies and protect the priesthood.”