Priestess of the Dragons' Temple

Chapter 7: Darna Stays-2

“Oh, shrew’s blood for a small slight, a goat for something important, or even a lion. It’s all very complicated.”

“And does it involve dressing as a servant?”

“Not at all, it’s only that I can’t let their people see me coming to the temple. It is not part of our arrangement. Of course Galia and I keep the rites at home, but … ”

Darna was dumbstruck for a moment. This foreign priest had sway over a prince of Theranis here in Anamat?

The prince cleared his throat. “As you know, my brother has two sons and a daughter. He will want to install one of them in my place as soon as possible, as I have no heir. If you return with me, I can have you made consort to that boy, Connaten, the chieftain’s son from the village where you were raised. He is a very distant cousin, some three or four generations back. I can declare a son of that union my heir.”

“By the laws of Theranis?” Darna asked.

“Of course, and it accords with the customs of other nations, as well.”

“I don’t see why that should matter,” Darna said. It worried her that he mentioned that so openly. Everyone knew that the Cereans had been gaining influence with the princes for some years now, even generations in some provinces, but they were still enemies of the dragons. She hadn’t heard much about the people of Enomae except as horse traders and trainers, but now it seemed they, too, wanted to influence the rulers of Theranis.

The priestesses didn’t give foreigners entrance, as far as Darna knew, but maybe it was different in the lesser temples. The farmers didn’t like foreigners, either, from what she’d heard.

“Come back to Tiadun, marry this young man,” the prince said, as if she were obliged to obey.

When they’d been novices, Lenasa and Savasa had preened all day and talked about what they would do when they became keep consort somewhere, as if there were enough princes in the twelve realms for every young priestess who wanted to rule a keep beside a prince. They would hate to see Darna halfway to a throne before they had their princes in hand – if they ever did. Even Tiagasa might be jealous, but for herself, Darna would rather be a free guildswoman of Anamat, or even a peasant. She stalled.

“Connaten,” Darna said. “Who is he again? Can you tell me about him?”

The prince leaned his elbows on the table and smiled at her. “He is the chieftain’s eldest son. He is perhaps five years your senior, and a competent swordsman. I don’t see that the particulars matter much.”

“If he were to rule over Tiadun, even as a regent, I should think that his intelligence and character would have some bearing.” Darna’s eyes had now adjusted to the dark well enough that she could see a little more of the prince’s face. He had dark circles under his eyes, but the servant’s tunic couldn’t disguise his smooth-skinned hands and carefully trimmed fingernails. He made no response, so Darna went on.

“I have done my best to forget that village, to forget everything about my life in Tiadun except for Tiada herself,” Darna said.

“Are you so pious as all that?” the prince asked. “I don’t think that would do very well for a keep mistress in these times.” He scratched his neck, clearly discomfited by the coarse cloth of his borrowed clothes.

“Piety wouldn’t do?” she said. “You’re in a temple here, you should expect piety.” Darna considered letting him think that she was as devoted as any priestess, but she wanted to know more. “In any case, I am not as pious as most, and I’m sure that returning to the outside world would render me quite ordinary.”

The prince sighed. “Good, then. You can marry Connaten. It’s my only chance.”

“Technically, marriage would render me no longer a priestess, and unfit to be keep consort,” Darna said. The latter would mean only lying down with this Connaten, who she knew almost nothing about.

The prince waved his hands. “We can work something out. Something that will keep my allies happy, as well as the people.”

“Your foreign allies?” Darna wondered if they were the Enomaeans, or if it was more complicated than that. On the night she had left Tiadun keep, the prince had greeted a ship full of Cerean traders. In the far corner of the scene in her memory, the prince’s brother had scowled, but whether he was angry at the foreign incursion or at some other thing, she didn’t know. She hadn’t cared at the time. She’d had other things on her mind – food, for one, and escape.

“The foreign traders are important to our continued prosperity, not just for Tiadun but for all of Theranis,” the prince said.

“Are your brother and his heirs more pious than you like, more devoted to the dragons?” she asked. He ignored her question.

“I have local allies as well, people of our land. If you come, they will rally to my side.”

Darna doubted that her presence would make much difference. The people of Tiadun certainly hadn’t liked her when she was a servant at the keep, and they probably wouldn’t like her any better as a princess. She racked her memory for any image of the boy Connaten, but all she could summon was a foggy image of some village youths, led by a tall boy, throwing rocks at a cat. She did not like him, this vague memory of a boy.

The prince leapt up from the table and seized her hand. “Please,” he said. “My brother’s position grows stronger with every year that I fail to produce an heir.” He breathed heavily, the smell of his breath carrying the aroma of tea, but not of ale. He was earnest, and sober. Darna drew back.

“If you truly believe me to be your child, and I think you do, then why not take a new mistress for the keep?”

The prince retreated into the darkest corner of the room and faced away from her, gazing at the wall. “I cannot live without her,” he said. “I liked your mother well enough, she was a beautiful priestess, even inspiring sometimes, but she was not, as you know, my life’s companion. Galia is. She has even told me that I might put her aside, but I will not do it.”

“Not even to preserve your rule over Tiadun, not when you must resort to a desperate measure like this, pairing a petty chieftain’s dull-witted son with a girl you are not quite certain that you sired?”

“He is not dull-witted, merely uneducated,” the prince said. “You could rectify that, and I have been convinced that you must be my child.”

Of course he was convinced, it suited his purposes. “And you think this village boy would take instruction from a female, even though he must be somewhat influenced by foreign ideas to be acceptable to your horse-trader allies.”

“What do you know of their religion?” the prince asked, surprised. “Surely they don’t teach you that here in the temple.”

“Not much,” Darna admitted, “but I’ve heard things, and I observed some Cereans in the streets of Anamat during my time there.” She remembered quite a bit about them, none of it good. “They keep bed slaves, who do not have the honor of the priestesses here, not even the respect offered to the priestesses in the lesser temples. They call us all whores.”

The prince nodded. “Regretfully, I admit that they do.”

“So you think I would be better off with one who takes that view?”

“I don’t think he does, not entirely, and yes, I think it would suit you better to serve one man, rather than any who come calling. The priestesshood does not wear well on many women.”

“And being partnered with a man they dislike is so much better?” Darna asked. She did not like all of her petitioners, but they treated her with respect and they did not stay long. The worst of them had been, in fact, a village chieftain’s son. He barely knew his part, and even told her that he would brag of having seduced a priestess of Ara’s Landing when he went home next season. She did not point out that he had not seduced her. If he couldn’t see it for himself, she wouldn’t be able to convince him.

“You should come with me now,” the prince said. “I don’t think I will be able to give you another chance.”

“You don’t think you’ll be able to give yourself another chance, is what you mean,” Darna said. She turned toward the door. She looked over her shoulder to see that the prince was holding a robe, extending it to her.

“Go on, take it,” he said. “Come with me. When Galia and I are gone, you will be the most powerful woman in Tiadun.”

“And leave what I’ve earned here?” she said. “My position and my own wealth?”

“We will send for that. I can give you a better position.”

There was a terrible desperation in the prince’s gesture. He promised that she would be the most powerful woman in Tiadun, did he? He could hardly guarantee that. His manner suggested that he was fast losing grip on his own position. Besides, she was not ready to leave Anamat. She might not be much of a priestess, but she wouldn’t throw away her years of training on a man who would probably hate her for it, for a man who had thrown rocks at cats when he was a boy, and for the fraught chance to rule over a place she had never loved. She would also have to abandon everyone she had learned to call a friend: Myril, Ganie, Sunna, Iola, maybe even Thorat.

“No,” she said, opening the door. “Your brother is unlikely to let go of his long-nurtured ambitions as soon as I appear. He would not like me, nor would this boy you would pair me with for your own ambitions.”

The prince banged his fist on the table, sending up a cloud of dust. “Show some respect! I am your ruler.”

“No, you are not,” Darna said. “I am a priestess of Ara’s Landing. No man rules me. Rather, it will be the other way around, as you should know.”

§

Darna stopped running as she passed the doors of the new sanctuary. Sunna caught up two strides later.

“You don’t have to go,” she said.

“I know,” Darna said. “I wouldn’t, even if the Aralel told me to.”

Sunna walked beside her. As they entered the peresi’s courtyard, she paused. “I thought you wanted to leave this place.”

Darna shook her head. “I do, but not to Tiadun, especially not now.”

Sunna lowered her voice. “Why did he come in disguise?”

Darna looked around to make sure no one was listening. “There’s an Enomaean priest he’s taking instruction from, the priest of an eagle-headed god. He says he can’t come here.”

Sunna stared straight ahead. “That’s bad.”

“Did you know they extended the trading season?”

Sunna nodded. “The Aralel heard, too. We’re not pleased, those of us who know.”

“Can’t we do anything about it?” Darna asked.

Sunna shook her head. “Not now. I can’t say more.”

“Maybe I could help?” Darna said.

“I doubt it. I’ll see what I can do about that priest of the eagle-god, though. We might be able to draw him off.”

Darna thought of the prince’s hunted expression. Why would anyone choose that god over the life-giving dragons?

“It’s a pity you stopped going out,” Sunna said. “I thought you were going to join that guild.”

Darna looked at her. “How did you know about that?”

“You paid for an apprenticeship, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but –”

“I know how you paid, too. Thorat told me. The chief planner might suspect it, but he doesn’t care. They’d like very much to have a guild priestess again.”

Darna thought of the shadowed man she’d just left in that bare chamber.

“I’m sure the Aralel won’t tell the prince where you’ve gone,” Sunna said.

“But what about their eagle-headed god?”

Sunna threw her arms up. “A dragon is bigger than an eagle. You have more faith than that.”

Darna grunted. Sunna was right about that, at least. Tiada was stronger than some puny foreign eagle and its horses. She had to be.

§

Iola left the kitchen carrying a covered tray, bursting with food. Ganie trailed her with a pot of tea in one hand and a flask of watered wine in the other. Over the past two months, Jasela’s appetite had improved steadily. Now, she was eating as much as three other priestesses put together, but still her flesh hung loose. None of the nourishment seemed to stick.

They carried the ambassadress’s food and drink along the less-frequented route between the front and back of the temple, past the old sanctuary. Though the decorations in that hall were faded with age, Iola still preferred them to the ones in front of the new sanctuary, although even those were probably over a hundred years old. She slowed to admire a trailing vine etched by some artisan or priestess from long ago, from a time when they were all closer to the dragons. It was barely green now, only a shadow of itself trailing across the plaster, but still it was an elegant form.

Behind her, Ganie let out a curse. “By Na’s blood!”

Iola gaped. She stopped and turned to look. Ganie was leaning against the wall, barely holding on to her pitchers.

“I’m going to retch,” she said. “Here, take these.” Ganie thrust the ewer and the flask at Iola, who hurriedly set down her tray on the floor. She took the drinks and set them down, too, as Ganie turned to lean her forehead against the wall. Her back heaved and she clutched her knees, but nothing came up.

“Are you all right?” Iola said, putting an arm around Ganie’s shoulder.

Ganie shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she said. “It’s only that I missed my monthly blood twice now, and …” She sank down, leaning her back against the wall, and wrapped her arms around her knees. “I’m so tired,” she said. “At first I thought it was just the strain of Jasela being so sick and I thought it would just go away, but it hasn’t, and I think – ” She looked helplessly up at Iola.

“I’ll take these in two runs,” Iola said. “You just wait here.”

“No,” Ganie said. “I have to come. Otherwise they’ll know.”

“You can’t be ambassadress like that,” Iola said. Ordinary priestesses weren’t supposed to get pregnant, never mind those who were being considered to succeed the ambassadress. They were supposed to channel all of their energies to the dragons’ realm, so that none of it would sit in their wombs to grow, but of course they were not all able to do that every time. That was why they drank the tea.

“You’ve been drinking the tea, though,” Iola said, leaving out the larger problem of whether Ganie had been giving the energy of the rite to the dragons.

Ganie shrugged. “I have, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to keep it.”

Iola bent over to pick up the ewer and flask. They were heavy, heavier than the tray. “What did you want to keep?”

“Him,” Ganie sighed.

“Your petitioner?” Iola said. That was forbidden, among the most forbidden feelings. And yet, she could not pretend it didn’t happen sometimes.

Ganie nodded. “Do you know what it’s like, when you … When you love a man, when he makes you want to leave all this behind?”

Iola tried not to think too much about that, or about Thorat.

Ganie went on. “He came a moon or so before Midwinter, and then again just after the festival. He’s a watchman now, and he said he had plenty of beads. Do you remember Pannen? From our scrappling days?”

Iola nodded. She did remember him. He’d been the leader of the East Market gang of boys. She hadn’t liked him then – he’d taken Thorat away day after day – and she didn’t think that time would have improved her opinion of him much, but he was tall and young and many of the petitioners were staid and older, not the kind of men to stir her to anything other than or beyond what the dragons or the temple required of her.

“So he came again?” she asked.

Ganie nodded.

“Does he know?” Iola felt sick just looking at Ganie. She looked away.

“I’m not sure,” Ganie said, getting to her feet. She took the ewer and flask from Iola. “I tried to tell him, started to tell him, but then I wasn’t sure what to say. You’d think he’d know from that, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” Iola said. She picked up the tray again. “We’d better get this to Jasela before it goes cold, but after that, I think you should go to the infirmary. I’ll take you. I don’t think it’s too late.”

Behind her, Ganie said nothing.

§