The woman reached for the box, but just as her fingertips touched it, Cathy yanked it back. “ If you’re Epona Gray,” she added.
The woman smiled contritely. “All right. I’m not Epona. I’m her assistant. My name is Nicole Ritter.”
“Assistant?” Cathy repeated disdainfully. She gestured at the temple. “Then is she the priestess here or something?”
“Something. She’s also very ill.” She said this as if the words didn’t quite convey the meaning.
“Then maybe we should get this to her quickly,” Cathy snapped as she returned the box to her pocket.
“I could sign for it,” Nicole said. “Epona wouldn’t mind.”
Cathy shook her head. “Sorry. From my hand to hers. That’s what I was paid for.”
“We could take it from you,” Carnahan said. There was no malice or threat in his voice, just a simple statement, and that made him scarier.
I turned to him and kept my voice just as neutral. “Might be harder than you think.”
“Mr. Carnahan, we’re not that way here,” Nicole said firmly. To Cathy she said, “I would really prefer not to take you to Epona right now, miss. Both for her sake and yours. But…” She bit her lip as she thought.
Then she stepped close and looked intently into Cathy’s eyes. Cathy tensed but didn’t move away, almost like the woman had instantly transfixed her to the spot.
“Do you know the goddess inside you?” Nicole asked, so softly I barely heard it. “Are you a spiritual woman?”
Like a contrite little girl Cathy said, “I don’t… ” The she blinked to break the moment. “I’m a busy woman,” she said in her normal voice. “If it’ll simplify things, we can leave my muscle-boy here. He gets in the way more than he helps, anyway.”
Nicole pondered this a moment, still looking Cathy over. “Very well,” she said at last. “I’ll take you. Give me a few minutes to change clothes. Mr. Carnahan, since you and this gentleman seem to have so much in common, why don’t you entertain him until we return?”
Carnahan looked at me like you would an ingrown toenail. But he said, “Sure.”
Nicole excused herself into a back room. Cathy put her hand on my arm and leaned close. “If it seems like I’ve been gone too long, don’t wait for an invitation. Come find me.”
“My plan exactly,” I replied quietly.
Cathy nodded, then said for Carnahan’s benefit, “Then go play with your new friend. But don’t get so drunk we can’t leave when I get back.”
I grinned at Carnahan. “Reckon I’m all yours.”
“Hmph,” the big man replied. With a last look at Cathy, I followed him out the door.
The sun had dropped out of sight behind the treetops, and torches now illuminated the paths and doorways. I smelled meat cooking and incense. A crowd gathered near the central well, and I heard music and dancing. Between two other buildings children too small to celebrate played and laughed, watched over by two hugely pregnant teenage girls.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked Carnahan.
“Ah, when their daughters turn five, they send them out to get trampled by the wild horses. But I’ve never seen it happen. The horses always miss, and the kid is therefore ‘blessed by the goddess Epona.’ ” His sarcasm was thick.
“Epona is a goddess? ” I asked.
“You betcha.” We reached a long, narrow building with a sign over the door proclaiming it Betty’s Place. “The great goddess Epona, who lives in the forest with her spirit birds and magical horses.” He snorted. “It’s a bunch of horse shit if you ask me. Somebody trains those animals not to run over people. And if Epona’s a goddess, then I’m the damn King of the Monkeys.”
The door opened just in time to catch his last words, and the same woman who’d led us to the temple smiled at us. “Your majesty,” she said with a mock curtsey.
“Oh, stop it. Betty, this is-?”
“Eddie,” I said, and bowed slightly. “Pleased to officially meet you.”
“Likewise.” To Carnahan she said, “You have a friend with manners, Stan. How’d that happen?”
“Nicole told me to entertain him,” the big man mumbled. “C’mon, let’s sit down.”
“Just pick a seat, I’ll be right with you,” Betty said, and I followed Carnahan to a corner table. The place wasn’t exactly a tavern or entirely a restaurant; parchment books lined the walls, and board games were available. Small candles on the tables kept the room dim and somehow mysterious. Three teenage girls talking in low, intense voices sat at the only other occupied table. Music filtered in from outside.
“So what kind of place is this?” I asked softly. It may have been a bar, but it felt more like a library or church.
“It’s some damn place for thinkin’ instead of drinkin’,” Carnahan confirmed. “They serve watered-down beer and tea so strong it’ll slap you.” He shook his head. “You put women in charge, this is what you get.”
Betty appeared next to us. If she took offense at Carnahan’s comment, it didn’t show. She put some bread on the table. “I’ll be right back to take your orders, gentlemen.”
When she was out of earshot I observed, “You seem a bit out of place here, Stan.”
He ran his fingers through his short hair and nodded. “Yeah, you could say that. No matter how much I try, I still stick out, and not just ’cause I’m tall.”
Then he looked at me with surprising sincerity. “You ever kill anybody? Hell, course you have, I could tell the minute I looked at you. Well, I killed one too many people. He wasn’t any different than anyone else, except that when I looked in his eyes, I didn’t see an enemy. I just saw a guy just like me, man. With everything inside him-” He slapped his chest for emphasis. “-that I have inside me.” He looked down. “After that, I went looking for something different.”
“And you found it?”
He shrugged. “If you like rule by committee, kids underfoot all the time, and some woman who claims she’s a goddess living in the woods calling the shots, then yeah, I found it. I thought these folks were all here for the same reason as me, to get away from all the meanness in the world. And they’re mostly decent people. But they’re so cut off here, I don’t think they realize how fragile all this is. They think anyone who shows up has been divinely drawn here by Epona. But eventually someone’s gonna top that hill who ain’t lookin’ for peace and love.”
“So why do you stay?”
“Gave my word,” he muttered. “All I got left, so I have to make it worth something.”
Betty returned and put down two tankards of wine. “Compliments of the house. We have to finish this old stuff before we open the new cask Epona gave us. Enjoy.”
Again I waited until Betty was across the room. “Epona gave them wine?”
He nodded. “She keeps the good stuff to herself, and when her worshippers hold their mouths just right, she gives it to them. Us,” he corrected.
“She sounds more like a bartender than a goddess.”
He took a long drink. “I’m bein’ too cynical. Epona’s something, I gotta admit. She started this place. A spot away from everything, away from all the troubles of the world. People hear about it, but supposedly you can’t find it unless you’re meant to.”
“So I’m meant to be here?”
“Hell, I’m just repeating what she told me. She lives in a little house in the heart of the woods out there, and every full moon, people go up there to ask her advice, her blessing, and so forth. Nicole is sort of her day-to-day manager here in town, making sure everything runs smooth. Most of the jobs are done by women, unless something needs lifting or killing.”
“Lots of things need lifting?”
“No. And nothing ever needs killing.”
“You sound disappointed,” Betty said from behind me.
Carnahan looked up. “Got nothing to fight against here, Betty. Nothing to measure yourself against.”
“We fight against what’s inside of us. That’s the scariest stuff of all, don’t you think?”
“That’s Epona talking,” he snorted.
“ No,” Betty said with surprising, sudden intensity. “It’s me talking. Every person here believes in what Epona represents, but we think for ourselves. We believe we can exist without conflict, in harmony with nature and-”
