Children of Chaos

by Frena's wild passage. Uls was stupid.

Verk was not.

Horth Wigson enjoyed owning things in sets—strings of pearls, fleets of ships, streets of houses, and now a pair of identical house guards. Not to be outdone, his daughter had treated herself to a matched pair of black onagers, very rare and very costly. After all, onagers were useful, while swordsmen were only decorative—life-sized animated bronze ornaments. Verk and Uls attended Horth when he expected important visitors. They escorted him on the rare occasions when he went calling on someone. The rest of the time they did little except harass maidservants.

Yesterday he had sent them to Kyrn to fetch Frena back to the city. The tablet they brought had been cracked, but quite legible. The seal impressed on it had certainly been his, and the Kyrn house scribe had read the message as being what the swordsmen said it was, that Frena was to go home to Skjar as soon as possible and they were to escort her. It had not said why Father needed her, which was annoying.

She hoped her visit would be short. The city was a steam bath in summer. Kyrn, on the far side of the hills, was blissful. All her friends were there now—boating, swimming, hunting birds in the marshes, driving chariots. In groups, of course. Women must watch their reputations, and very rich youngsters must be well guarded. All her friends were rich, although no old family fortune could compare with Father's. Not that life was all play at Kyrn. Far from it! She supervised the lambing and planting. Today she should be directing the planned extensions to the threshing floor and oast house.

'What did you mean, if not what you said?'

Verk pummeled himself, as if trying to scratch an itch under the bronze smock. 'If Quera had been bribed to harm your mother, would you just throw her out in the street?'

The chariot was slowing down as the ground flattened and the onagers tired. Frena was able to spare her companion a hard stare.

'Are you suggesting my mother was murdered in her own house?'

'Someone tried to murder her outside of it, mistress. They might have paid her to finish the job.'

Frena had never thought of that. But she had seen Father throw the stupid woman out. What was Verk trying to tell her? He shielded his eyes from the sun as he studied the village ahead.

The track was barely visible, and Bitterfeld was only a scatter of mud hovels around a spring. No doubt one of those thatch roofs covered a shrine to the Bright Ones and some others cattle sheds. What a revolting prospect! How could anyone stand the lethal dullness of life in such a burrow, where the principal occupation would be keeping the livestock out of the crops? But Father owned these lands, as he owned so much around Skjar, and the residents would certainly make Frena welcome, offer confections of berry juice, honey, and cream; have the children sing and dance for her. She would inspect the village and tell Father's tallymen what was needed, if anything.

Except that there was nobody home. Some sort of ceremony was already in progress a couple of bowshots away from the village, at the base of a rocky knoll bedecked with a few straggly fruit trees. The crowd looked surprisingly big to have come from so few houses.

'What's happening? A midsummer festival?'

'Something,' Verk muttered, frowning.

'Praying for rain, perhaps. Let us go and see.' Frena worked the reins, easing Night back, flicking Dark's haunches. The chariot curved off across the fields, heading for the assembly.

The center of attention was a man standing under a tree with his arms raised, as if appealing to the Bright Ones. The crowd had gathered in an arc before him, children closest, adults on the outside. Voices surged like waves of Ocean beating on shingle, but in no song or chorus she knew.

'What in the world are they doing?'

Verk did not answer, his craggy features oddly tense as he studied the scene.

'Which god do farmers pray to?' Even a city girl ought to know that much. 'Holy Weru, perhaps? He's god of storms.'

Still concentrating on the crowd, Verk muttered, 'Not Weru, mistress! Not farmers.'

'Holy Ucr, then?'

Everyone knew Father was an initiate of the Ucrist mystery, for no one could acquire so much wealth without the god's blessing. As patron lord of prosperity and abundance, Ucr should support farmers as much as merchants.

'They might pray to Ucr to stay away,' Verk muttered. 'Holy Nula, more like. Turn away, mistress! This is not for you. Go back—now!'

'You do not give me orders!'

'Stop her!' howled Uls, who had caught up with them by cutting the corner of the curve.

The crowd had noticed her approach and turned to watch. So far the man under the tree was ignoring her... and was wearing nothing but a blindfold? The man under the tree was hung there by his wrists, feet barely touching the ground. He was bloody, as if he had been savagely beaten.

'What is this?' Frena cried.

'Drive on, mistress!' Verk barked. 'This is not for you.'

'I am not going anywhere until I understand what is going on here! And what are those men over there doing?' Three of them, digging a hole.

'Tell her that black hair is bad luck!' Uls yelled shrilly.

'And black onagers, too! Drive away, mistress, as you value your life. They think you're coming to rescue him.'