all been right. What were his sensibilities but a thin garment he wore to conceal his true nature from others; from himself. A sickening fear oozed into him that his revulsion of what was happening to the Tribe down at the Poisoned Field might be nothing more than an attempt at denying the appetite in his blood at this rare chance to fully experience, to soak in the misery of the Plainsmen; to savour the torture of these barbarians he chose to fool himself he loved.
Wild with the torment of these thoughts, he ran to clutch the mother tree. He laid his cheek upon her soft bark. He could feel the power in her coming up from the good earth. She cleansed him. She gave him the courage to believe it was not wholly a Master's heart that beat within him. Salvation came from the love he bore Poppy, Fern, Akaisha and the Tribe. A love he had to believe in or else be lost, not knowing who nor what he was.
Tentatively, he released the tree and folded his arms over his chest, trying to catch any vestige of the warmth Poppy had left when her body had trembled against his. He could not abandon her. Whatever Fern had said, or Akaisha, his place today of all days was with these people who had given him love in spite of what he was. He must share their suffering. He began to mutter to himself, listing arguments why he would not really be putting the Tribe in danger.
'No one could see me. No one would expect to. Least of all the childgatherer. How would he guess that one of the Seraphim would choose to conceal himself painted in mud among barbarians.'
He shook himself free of this mood. He had to do this now or not at all. Before self-hatred could weaken his resolve any further, he made off in the direction he had seen Fern go; a direction which he knew led over the hill and eventually down to the Poisoned Field.
The air was deathly still as Carnelian crept around the Crag. He could hear nothing but the sound his feet made on the path. Peering down the slope into the Grove, he saw the branches of the mother trees were mute. It was as if they were listening out for their lost children. In that frozen world, he alone seemed to be capable of movement.
The clearing that lay below the Ancestor House was filled with amber heat. He groaned at the shock of passing into it from the shadows. He ran down the clearing to its further end, panting relief as he regained the cool, concealing shade.
On the edge of the rootstair he could see meandering down between the cedars, he paused to peer in the direction where he knew the Poisoned Field lay, but could see nothing through the meshing canopy. He descended the stair until he reached a fork. The right hand one led to the Northgate; the left one, to the childgatherer. Today, he could feel in his stomach why the Tribe called it the Sorrowing. He forced himself down it lest his doubts should make a coward of him.
The Sorrowing brought him within sight of the Childsgate. Wary of the light pouring through onto the stair, Carnelian left it, slipping under the cedars, aware he was trespassing on the rootearth of another hearth. Picking his way over roots, he made his way down the slope, approaching the Homeditch with stealth.
When he reached one of the cedars bordering the ditch, he crushed his back against it and closed his eyes. It was a while before he could hear anything over the beating of his heart. Then eerie silence. Carefully he turned and, clamping his chest to the trunk, he edged round. Every crack and channel in the tree's russet skin was starkly visible. Every tendril of moss, each molten glowing drip of resin. At last one eye was able to look out over the Poisoned Field.
The Tribe were formed up on the other side of the Homeditch, with their backs to it. Looking out over them were creatures from another world, with faces of pure sunlight from behind whom rose a billowing cloud of purple speared through with poles that were shafts of light topped with spiralling fire. Carnelian tried to still the beating heart of his terror. Ammonites, they were only ammonites catching the sun on their silver masks. His eye was drawn squinting to the centre of their glaring line. Some giant stood there, an alarming monster with two heads, masks; no, it was just the green and the black face standards of the God Emperor, rising up behind a chair that seemed to be made of shimmering water.
It was his heart that made him search for Poppy. He was forced to move around the tree and peer out the other side. She must be there beneath the Crying Tree, in among the massing of rosy brown skin that was the naked children of the Tribe. When Carnelian glimpsed the face of a mother or father, he saw it wore a strange passivity. Even the youngest looked old. Only their eyes moved, furtively, as if they feared they were being watched.
A throaty fanfare broke out, so harsh, so terrifying, Carnelian clapped his hands to his ears. He located the source of the sound: three ammonites, the lips of their fiery masks fixed to the mouthpieces of curving trumpets whose bellies were sunk into the dead and ashen earth. His attention was arrested by an apparition rising up from behind the platform like a sun, its perfect face, of metal, flashing. Dragging its purple brocades, accompanied by a staff of ammonites, the Gatherer came to the edge of the platform and looked out over the assembled Tribe. Wherever he looked, light moved over the crowd of covered heads, as if sunrays were leaping from his eyes.
'We are come from the paradise that lies within the Mountain at the centre of the world.' The clear Vulgate rang the silver of the Gatherer's face. 'Come as the emissary of the God and their angels to speak to you their commands. Obey them as you have always done. The tribute you give to them of your flesh should be a thing of joy to you. Those of your children chosen here today will at the proper time be given to them. They are to be considered fortunate indeed whom the God and his angels consider worthy to be their slaves. Shall you obey them?'
Carnelian broke free of the compulsion to gape and glanced at the sullen faces of the Tribe, knowing that few of them could have understood. But then, as one, the crowd rumbled: 'As they command so shall it be done.' A response in Vulgate many could only have learned as sounds.
The Gatherer waited for them to fall silent and then sat himself down upon the silver chair. At a lifting of his hand, one of the ammonites nearby let drop a length of glimmering string Carnelian knew must be a beadcord record.
'At the last audit, how many of the male gender?' the Gatherer asked.
The ammonite felt a portion of the cord. 'Eighteen twenties, and eleven, my master.'
'How many of the female gender?'
'One four-hundred and three, my master.'
'How many creatures in this tribe?'
'One four-hundred, eighteen twenties and fourteen, my master.'
'How many live offspring are projected by the Wise for this octad?'
'Eighteen twenties and twelve.'
'How many were not delivered to the Mountain?'
'Six, my master.'
The number to be chosen is therefore…?' 'A twenty and eighteen.' 'Ignoring the fractional part?' 'Precisely so, my master.'
The Gatherer turned his polished face towards the Plainsmen and cocked it slightly to one side. 'Are we not generous then in this calculation of your flesh tithe?'
The Tribe seemed to have been turned to stone. Mouths were lines. Eyes shadowed by hatred did not move their narrow stare from the mirror of the Gatherer's face.
As he threw up his hands, their honey-gold betrayed him to be a marumaga in whose veins some tiny portion of the blood of the Masters ran.
'You may petition us now.'
The Elders of the Tribe were let through, each accompanied by a youngster. Carnelian looked for but could not discern which of them was Akaisha. The Elders seemed suddenly very old as they leant on the youngsters and climbed the few steps to a shelf that lay below the Gatherer's feet. Slowly, painfully, they slid down to sitting. The wealth of salt in their hair seemed dull and mean in comparison with the flashing silver of the Gatherer's face.
'Petition me,' he said again, impatiently.
For an age the Gatherer and the Elders negotiated, the process made necessarily slow by those among the Elders who spoke Vulgate having to translate for those who did not. At last, one of the Elders stood to face the Tribe. Carnelian saw it was Harth.
They asked for thirty-eight, which takes into account the marked children who died before they were taken to the Mountain.' She paused. Her posture spoke of defeat. 'We've managed to reduce their demand by
