‘What is it again that they do?’ Head cocked, he listened and questioned as she told him again, bile burning in her throat.
‘I think I could do that.’ Lithos smiled. The smile was terrible, lit by gleaming metallic eyes. She fell into that smile as into a maelstrom. He whispered, ‘Let me try…
A neighbour found her later. Those who were summoned buried the remains quickly, surreptitiously. Men of the villages took weapons and went to search for the boy. They did not find him. He had gone to learn what he could at Owbel Bay before going on … to other things.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JASMINE
Year 1167
Jasmine, a woman of a certain reputation, had borne a daughter in the Year of the Owl. In honour of the year, or perhaps in honour of certain night flying habits of her own, Jasmine named the child Hu’ao, which was the name used by the Lakland people for a particularly tiny, insect-earing owl with an ingenuous stare and a habit of blinking sleepily in the light. The child did not eat insects, though it was not for want of trying, as she, like most babies, put anything she could catch into her mouth. In other respects, she was as owl-like as her name implied.
As soon as the child was weaned, Jasmine put Hu’ao in the care of the Sisters of the Temple of the Goddess, Lady of the Perpetual Seas, Daughter of the Eternal Waters, and suchlike nomenclature. The Lakland people said ‘Goddess’ and meant all of that. From those austere surroundings, Hu’ao was taken by Jasmine at intervals for a day’s outing or a two-day holiday to the herb farm where Jasmine had grown up and where her sister now lived with stout, red-faced Uncle Hahd, or to the parks, or to the theatre to sit wide-eyed among the scene shifters and dancers who were Jasmine’s friends. Between these times, Jasmine plied her trade as sometime dancer, sometime actress, sometime companion, well liked and not ill thought of by those who knew her. Jasmine and Hu’ao lovea one another, were happy with one another, drew great satisfaction from their times together with which to endure those times they were apart. It should be noted that the good Sisters did not care for Hu’ao out of charity. Jasmine paid them well for their trouble, and during the four years that Hu’ao stayed with the Sisters, the money was never late, never diminished, never refused.
Ill fortune fell, however, as it must. Jasmine fell ill of a disease, not serious but enervating. Her usual activities were greatly curtailed, both from want of vigour and want of custom. She was at first late in the payment to the Sisters; then she ceased to pay at all. The matter was brought to the attention of the Eldest Sister, a title denoting responsibility rather than age, who asked that Hu’ao be brought before her. The child was pretty, with Jasmine’s slight darkness, her tilted eyes, and flowing, smoke-coloured hair. Something woke in the Eldest Sister which had been long repressed. As a holy virgin, dedicated to the Goddess, she did not regret her virginity, but she found herself much regretting her childlessness. She determined upon that moment that Jasmine could not be a fit mother for the child and that Hu’ao should be adopted by the Sisters and raised to become one of their Order.
Thus it was that Jasmine, when she was recovered and went to the Temple with a partial back payment and a longing to have Hu’ao in her arms, was met by a stern-faced, stick-dry old woman who told her she was not to see Hu’ao again. The woman told her this after taking the money, and Jasmine pleaded with her in vain.
Jasmine had friends among the people of Lak City. There was the tall watchman who knew the plump tavern-keeper, Linn-oh, and Linn-oh had introduced her to the music master of the Theater Phenomenal, who in turn had taken her to dinner with the dark young clerk of the Bureau of Boats, whose sisters, both giggly and pretty, had slightly crossed eyes. It was the younger one, Zillba (was it Zillba? Or Thilna? Well, one or the other) who had invited her to the Water Festival where they met the magistrate. He had become a good friend. They were all good friends, and they all rallied, cooing or thundering, in accordance with their natures, at the injustice and monstrous arrogance of the Eldest Sister. The magistrate was quick, privately, to assure Jasmine that he would soon set the matter right.
So it was arranged that Jasmine should have a hearing before the Magistrate Official (in robes, in chambers) to test whether the sisters or Jasmine had the right to Hu’ao. When the Eldest Sister was informed of this development, she spent long hours in thought and other long hours in the library. The night before the hearing she spent in the Temple proper, and it was said that she lay on the floor of the sanctuary beside the holy pool waiting the Goddess’s guidance.
At the hearing, after Jasmine had made her plea and had brought tears to the magistrate’s eyes and to the eyes of those in the court, the Eldest Sister rose to make her statement.
‘Sir Official,’ she said, ‘you know as do we all that the black-robed ones, the acolytes of Gahl, have built a temple to their foul doctrines in Tiles which was called by the ancients Labat Ochor. South, on the River Del, they are building. Here in Lakland we are still at peace with one another, but the armies of darkness surround us. Even on Lak Island, even in the Temple garth, I have seen their black-robed
