P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

Jameth sat on her sleeping pad with crossed legs, elbows on knees, chin on her clasped hands, frowning into the fire under the bronze basin. Having proved for the umpteenth time that he couldn’t fit into her lap, the ounce Jorin curled up beside her with his chin on her thigh. Flickering light picked out the shadows on her fine-drawn face, the curve of her body. She had unbound her hair but had laid the comb aside after a few absentminded sweeps. Rue handed her the cup, picked up the comb, and knelt behind her.

Surely Jameth had proved herself over and over again during this last year, the cadet thought, running the tines through a swathe of heavy, ebon silk. The time was long past when Rue saw anything strange in the presence of a Highborn lady at Tentir. Most cadets felt the same way. It was the randon—some of them, at least—who couldn’t see past bloodlines to genuine if rather strange ability. True, one day of tests remained, but Jameth would need at least two whites just to break even, and what hope was there of that? Rue herself had as yet earned neither white nor black, but that was common among the average Kendar. If it occurred to her that the future of her ten might depend on their commander’s fate, she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Jameth stiffened.

“Sorry,” muttered Rue, struggling with a snarl.

“There, in the fire. Rue, fish that cinder out for me. No, that one.”

It was hard to see which she meant, so Rue raked half of them out onto the hearth. Jameth picked one up.

“Damn,” she said. “Mother Ragga just won’t let me forget.”

Rue peered at the small, black knob veined in red that Jameth juggled from one gloved hand to the other.

“What is it, lady?”

Jameth’s smile was lopsided. “For once, not a finger bone. It’s a Burnt Man’s knuckle. That settles that.”

“What, lady?” But Rue received no answer.

Soon after they rolled up in their blankets to sleep. When Rue woke in the morning with Jorin curled up beside her, Jameth was already gone.

Once again, as at the winter solstice, Jame regarded Kithorn’s inner courtyard through its outer gates. This time, not snow but wild flowers blew between the flagstones, and she was mounted on Bel-tairi, having left Death’s-head at the college in reserve against future need.

Otherwise, the inner square was again full of bustle and gaudy figures: the Earth Wife flouncing about with her bright, full skirts; the Falling Man rustling with black feathers; and the Eaten One squatting under his catfish cape, glowering out through gaping piscine jaws. Only the Burnt Man was absent, although the bonefire heaped in his northern corner dwarfed the Earth Wife’s miniature clay lodge, the Eaten One’s basin, and the Falling Man’s wicker cage. Other Merikit scurried around them purifying the square and setting up torches.

It was also much like the previous Summer’s Eve when she had been tricked by Hatch into fighting to become the Earth Wife’s Favorite. There was the serpentine molding around the well mouth that led straight down the River Snake’s throat; there, the indentation where the Snake had claimed the previous Favorite, except for his sheared-off feet. The whole, now as then, was lit by a blazing sunset that tinged all beneath with crimson shadows.

The shaman wearing the Earth Wife’s skirts saw Jame and trotted out to greet her. Under a straw wig and rouged cheeks, she recognized Tungit’s wizened features.

“It’s about time,” he said, making a grab for Bel’s bridle as if to prevent her from escaping, but the Whinno-hir shied away from him. “Did you bring it?”

Jame handed him the knobby, blackened knuckle.

Tungit sighed with relief. “The last Burnt Man’s bone. It was only a guess that it had come to you, though the Earth Wife did say that she had done something to bring you running.” He called over a boy and gave it to him. “Quick, put this in the bonfire set beside the hanging man.”

“Where is Chingetai?” Jame asked as the boy ran off.

“Placing the other two hundred and five gathered bones to change the bonfires into bonefires.”

“What, all in one night?”

“Set the fires beforehand, didn’t he? A week’s work he made of it, all the time avoiding Noyat scouts. Well, tonight he has to run the whole circuit again, putting a bone in each fireplace, still dodging the Noyat. They’ll be out in force tonight, thick as jewel-jaws on a fresh kill.”

Jame remembered that once the fires were primed, each with its own cinder bone, Chingetai would play the Burnt Man and ignite them all simultaneously by jumping over the first—presumably hidden in that mound of kindling in the square’s northern corner. Still, that was a lot to do in one night. She said as much again to Tungit, hoping for more information.

“Ah.” He shoved back the straw wig and wiped a sweaty, wrinkled forehead with the back of his hand. “Take your questions to Gran Cyd’s lodge. Maybe she has time to explain.”

Jame rode on, thinking that this time both the village and Kithorn’s square seemed to have their roles in tonight’s ritual. Perhaps it had been the same last Summer’s Eve, but if so she had never heard of it. Generally speaking, Kithorn was men’s business and the village, women’s.

Here was the Merikit homestead on its palisaded hill under a smoldering sky. The gates opened before her and closed behind, manned by girls from the maidens’ lodge.

“Ride on, Favorite, ride on!” they called. “Gran expects you.”

The wooden walk echoed hollowly under Bel’s hooves. Lodge-wyves popped out of their sunken houses amid billows of savory smoke to wave as she rode by. If all went well tonight, the village would feast. If not, they might find themselves fighting for their lives.

The courtyard outside Gran Cyd’s lodge was crowded with armed men and women who cleared a path for Jame. Anku calling out a greeting, echoed by her war maids. Dismounting, Jame descended into the lodge. A fire burned on a raised hearth at its northern end, illuminating bright tapestries and a wealth of rich furs melting into the shadows. Otherwise, the lodge seemed to be empty. Muffled voices came from behind a hanging in back of the Cyd’s gilded judgment chair. Behind the tapestry was another short flight of stairs. Again Jame descended and ducked under a low lintel deeply carved with imus into the loamy shadows of the Earth Wife’s lodge.

“About time,” said Mother Ragga, sitting back on her haunches in a flounce of skirts. An irregular ring of small stones surrounded her in the middle of her lodge’s dirt floor. Outside it stood Gran Cyd in a green gown shot with gold thread, her dark red hair spilling over white shoulders. The gentle swell of her belly made her more statuesque than usual, her presence enhanced by imminent motherhood.

“You can’t go,” she was saying patiently to Prid, as if she had said it too often already. “This is work for your elders.”

The girl shook her tawny mane in frustration. “I’m old enough to be a war maid. Almost. Besides, Hatch is out with the men hunting the wood. Please, Gran!”

“Your cousin is older than you, however closely the two of you have been raised. Stand back, my love.”

Then they saw Jame. Prid rushed to her across the stone circle, drawing a growl of warning from the Earth Wife.

“My granddam won’t let me stand by my sisters. Will you?”

How like a child she was, refused by her mother, turning to her father. Jame touched the girl’s bare shoulder. It felt surprisingly thin and her face, upturned, was full of something close to desperation. Something had changed since the spring equinox, but what?