Sanctuary

“Gan!” said Kalen instantly. “If you cause all of them to become enchanted with your handsome face, I will be very put out!”

Kiron glanced over at Kalen to see if he was joking, but couldn’t make out anything but a shadow among the shadows.

“By At-thera’s horns, aye, leave some for the rest of us!” exclaimed Pe-atep.

“He does have competition, you know,” Oset-re reminded them.

“Perhaps we ought to prevent him from venturing anywhere near until we have our chance,” Kalen suggested, in a tone that sounded as if he was entirely serious.

Surely not.

Quite taken aback, Gan evidently decided to put a gracious face on the matter. “I,” he announced, with a dignity that bordered on the ponderous, “have no intention of frittering my time away in pursuit of women. Or at least, no more than one or two women. We have a new home to create! That temple that was uncovered—it is to be our winter quarters, and what had been workshops are to become our dragon pens, and that will take much work. As you yourselves pointed out, we have no one to do it but ourselves. There is too much to do to waste our precious time on such nonsense.”

“Ehu!” cried Huras in mock alarm. “He’s demon possessed!”

“Or else the Magi stole him and left a changeling!” Kalen said with a shudder. “For surely that is not Gan!”

“Perhaps I should exorcise him,” Kaleth said slyly. “A long fast, and an ordeal might do the trick, or perhaps there is a more expedient solution. It is said that neither changelings nor demons can survive immersion in running water.”

“Attempt to duck me in the spring, and you will regret it,” Gan growled. “That, I do pledge you!”

“And you the one who cannot get enough bathing!” Pe-atep chuckled. “What is the difference between a cold bath and a ducking, I ask you?”

“A world of difference, I thank you.” Gan’s face was quite visible in the moonlight, and he was glowering.

No one made any move to get up, but they teased him unmercifully, at least until it looked as if the jests were about to get more irritating than amusing.

Kiron refrained from joining in, and for the most part, so did Kaleth. After all this time together, they all had a fairly good sense of how far they could go with each other, and a distinct aversion to stepping over that line, though they could, and would (and tonight, did) go right up to the very brink of it.

The great irony of it all was that in this case, the others were far more likely of success than Gan was. Most of the young women that Lord Ya-tiren had brought with his household would be common-born, servants and laborers and the like, and with them, Gan’s noble blood and handsome face were likely to count against him. It had been Kiron’s experience—limited though it might be—that young women who were not born into wealth and privilege tended to be suspicious of men who were. And when wealth and high birth were combined with good looks, that only made them doubly suspicious that, whatever the man in question said, what he actually intended was to have his joy and wander on to the next conquest. Whereas for someone nearer in rank, philandering came with attendant high costs . . . and not just social costs, for if the girl in question had brothers, those costs could swiftly become both physical and painful.

In fact, those few young women who were of anything approximating Gan’s social rank probably already knew him, knew of his reputation of old, and might well be as uninterested in him as their lesser-born sisters.

No, in fact, Pe-atep, Huras, and Kalen were all more likely to have success among Lord Ya-tiren’s household than Gan, and Menet-ka be more likely to succeed with young ladies of rank. As for Oset-re—he might well prove Gan’s equal now.

But Gan probably hadn’t realized this, and it was pretty certain that it wouldn’t occur to the others either. Kiron didn’t intend to point it out. For one thing, it wasn’t too likely that any of them would believe him, and for another, it was pretty amusing to see Gan stew a little.

“Peace, enough,” Gan said finally. “Women and cats will do as they please, and there is no predicting either of them. Except that I would advise any of you who wish success to sacrifice to Pashet on the morrow, and leave me be. She is like to contribute more to your benefit than anything I could do.”

Since Pashet was both the goddess of cats and of love, it was generally agreed that Gan was right. And a sacrifice to that goddess was a light one, anyway—a bit of a tribute to one of the temple cats would serve. Kaleth had lured a few wild mau-cats out of the desert, and their first litters of kittens had grown up tame. They had taken up residence in the temple he and Heklatis had set up. And to make doubly sure, a little incense burned at Pashet’s image would do the trick. Pashet was the sort of deity that preferred admiration to worship, and a practical tribute to one of her chosen creatures to an expensive or elaborate sacrifice.

Kiron yawned hugely. “Sacrifice to Pashet or not, as you will. I agree with Gan in this; there is a great deal to do, and I very much wish Avatre to have a pen all to herself soon. With these new people about, the sooner I can give her privacy, the better.”

“There is . . . something you should know,” Kaleth said, and the hesitation in his voice caught the attention of all of them instantly. “There is another group of people coming. And on the one hand, you will be pleased because of what it will mean for your dragons. But on the other hand . . . I do not know what you will think.”

There was such a long silence following that astonishing statement that finally Kalen burst out with, “Well? You cannot just say something like this and leave us hanging! Out with the rest of it!”

Kaleth sighed. “The new group will be here in two days, three at the most. You will be pleased because they will give you heated sands for your dragons. But you may not be pleased because—because they are priests from several temples. From Tia.”

FIVE

THE entire population of Sanctuary was waiting, when the travel-worn and weary caravan of Tians arrived with a light escort of Bedu. There was no doubt that they were priests—their shaved and wig-less heads marked them. But these were not the sleek, polished, and gold-bedecked priests and priestesses Kiron remembered.

They wore the simplest of garments, nothing more than linen kilts for the men, simple sheath gowns for the women and mantles for both to shelter them from the worst of the direct rays of the sun. The kohl about their eyes was smeared, and it did not look as if they had renewed it since they left the borders of Tian lands. They were not laden with gold and faience jewelry either; the most any of them had were common amulets on leather thongs to mark which god they served. The little priestesses were in the saddest condition, nearly fainting with weariness, thin and parched looking, so much so that it would have taken someone with a much harder heart than anyone here possessed to turn them away.

But it was Kaleth who stepped forward first, to extend his hand to the priest in the lead of the group, as the Bedu who had guided them here dropped discreetly back.

The leading priest drew himself up with weary dignity. “We have come to fling ourselves at your mercy, Altan,” he said, his voice hoarse, the Tian accent and pronunciation sounding strange in Kiron’s ears after all this time away from it. “We are no longer safe in our own land.” Not only did he look weary, he looked bleak, as if he had no real hope of anything other than being turned away.

“This is why we called this city Sanctuary, my friend,” said Kaleth, his hand still extended. The priest looked at it for a moment, as if he could not quite believe it—then he stretched out his own hand, and the two clasped arms, hands to wrists. “Welcome, brother,” Kaleth added softly.

One of the little priestesses burst into tears of relief, and as her sisters clustered around her, the rest of the women of Sanctuary, Aket-ten among them, hurried up to them, enveloped them, and carried them off before the priests could say a word.

The priest smiled wanly. “Trust the women to cut through all the nonsense we men put up as barriers. I am Baket-ke-aput.”

Kaleth’s smile was broader. “I am Kaleth, and you all are weary, hungry, and, most especially, thirsty. Come. You can tell us the rest after you have remedied all these ills, and when you are not standing in the desert