Cutrath tried to break free and was dismayed to find that he couldn’t-not without using a wrestling trick or two, and that was not proper behavior in a temple. Masterless Heroes who disturbed the peace by brawling soon found themselves in serious trouble.
“Let me go,” he whispered in the sculptor’s ear, “or I will tear out your guts and strangle you with them.”
Benard released him with a puzzled look. “Only trying to be friendly! I really am overjoyed to see you. Ingeld has been going out of her mind for days, staring in the fire day and night. Half a pot-boiling ago she started screaming, ‘He’s here! He’s here! He’s going to the Pantheon!’ So we came to get you.”
Dismayed, Cutrath said, “We?” Not his mother here too? Then he saw that the third person present was very small.
The Hand bent and raised her. She was another Florengian, with dark curls and very large, dark eyes. Thumb in mouth, she stared at the stranger from the safety of her father’s arms.
“Your sister Oliva. This is your brother Cutrath who Mommy’s been telling you about. What do you say to him?”
Oliva thought for a moment, then took her thumb out of her mouth. “Twelve blessings!”
“That’s very good. Cutrath?”
“Twelve blessings on you too, Oliva. Now, why don’t you run outside and catch pigeons while I break your daddy’s neck?”
Benard set the girl down. “Pardon me,” he said, and brazenly reached out to untie the rag hiding Cutrath’s collar. “You don’t need to wear this in Kosord-not you. You are not a masterless out-of-work unwanted Werist here, you are the dynast’s son. You are also-if you will pardon my mentioning it-her consort’s stepson. Old Guthlag is too old and I need to find a new hordeleader. Cutrath Horoldson is the logical man.”
If Cutrath did not hit this mucker soon he would explode. He must smash him into rubble or die of frustration. Unfortunately the priests were nosily watching this encounter between the vagrant Werist and the consort, not to mention the dynast’s heir apparent.
“ You need a hordeleader? Oh, isn’t that kind of you! You killed my father. You raped my mother. And now you have the gall to offer me a job? To work for you?”
The Florengian raised heavy black eyebrows. “Work for her, actually. Kosord belongs to your mother. I was not the one who raped her, Horold was. Repeatedly. I rescued her and took her away where he could not abuse her. And yes, I led him into the ambush that killed him. He came two eyelashes short of beating me to death while I was at it.”
“My ambition is to finish the work my father started.”
Benard sighed. “I should warn you that Ingeld forbids me to travel anywhere outside the palace without a bodyguard, a full flank of Werists. They are an accursed nuisance. Or have been up until now. Suddenly they feel sort of useful to have around. Why didn’t you come straight home to the palace? Did you find religion? Develop a sudden interest in art?”
“I’m not staying. I won’t go to the palace. I’m leaving as soon as I have walked around this craft shop of yours.”
Infuriatingly, the Florengian laughed. Laughed at a Werist!
“That won’t make my life any easier. Ingeld will order me to order the hordeleader to run you down and bring you back. What’s the matter, really, my lord? Whatever it is, you’re safe here in Kosord. How can we help you?”
Cutrath swallowed a mouthful of bile. A Hand offering to help a Hero? The world had gone mad. “You can’t. I’ve been having bad dreams is all, terrible dreams. I keep dreaming I’ve become your Weru idol. I dream that instead of carving my likeness, you somehow turned me into stone, and there I am, sitting here in the Pantheon in Kosord, and people are going in and out and worshiping me-worshiping Weru I mean, but offering me the sacrifices. And nobody can see that it is really me! I can’t cry out or move or anything. I finally went to an oneiromancer. He said the dreams were a sending from holy Cienu. Don’t ask me how he knew that. His job to know. He said they meant I should come to Kosord and pray in the Pantheon. And when I had done that, the nightmares would stop.”
Benard shrugged. “Go ahead and do it, then. If we keep your mother waiting too long, she’ll spoil all your fun by strangling me herself.”
Cutrath turned and strode on to the next god. “Holy…” The figure wore a robe and held a deck of clay tablets in his hand, but he was far younger than the Lawgiver as traditionally represented. Color him brown instead of pink…
“You are getting mighty uppity, aren’t you, showing your own brother as holy Demern?”
“Orlad’s a fine figure of a man,” Benard protested, but he looked a little guilty at Cutrath’s accusation. “He feels very strongly about oath-breaking. I had to use mortal models, you know. Gods don’t do modeling. I used you, and your brother Finar, and my other brother, and Hiddi… and Orlad looks the part!”
His expression certainly looked stubborn enough. “I honor You, holy Demern, give me Your blessing.”
“And here’s Cienu!” Benard said eagerly. “I love His smile! I’m prouder of that than anything else in the whole temple.”
Cienu, god of mirth and chance; Cienu as a naked young man holding a wine jug and wearing a mischievous, knowing smile. It was another masterpiece, of course. Oh, that face! Cutrath’s fists balled, his arms and shoulders flexed. He thought he was going to burst.
“What’s the matter?” Benard said, not looking a fraction as worried as he should. “Did you know him? Waels Borkson? Wonderful man!”
Cutrath swung around to stare at him. No, it was not deliberate. Even Benard could not be so suicidally offensive deliberately. He had always been a genius at blundering into trouble by accident.
“I met him at Nardalborg.”
“He and Orlad were very close, so-”
“I know that,” Cutrath said through clenched teeth. “I had barely walked in the gate when that Waels came over and said he heard I’d insulted a friend of his.”
Benard said, “ Oo! Ahem! Oh! I mean, he never told me this, Cutrath, I swear he didn’t! If you would rather not talk-”
Cutrath looked again at the image. “He smiled at me just like that. Exactly like that. I thought it would be fun to rearrange his pretty face. So I told him what I thought of his mudface friend. In detail.”
Pause.
“Surprise?” Benard said warily.
“Yes, you could say that.” Why in the world was Cutrath telling this stonemason about it? “Like fighting a stampede of mammoths.” The worst beating of his life. After he came to, he’d had to ask permission to battle-form so he could heal his broken ribs and fractured jaw. The man to ask had been the commandant of Nardalborg, Heth Hethson, and Heth Hethson had not only been the one person who could possibly have told Waels Bork-son about Cutrath’s wrangle with Orlad at Halfway Hall, but had later turned out to be Cutrath’s cousin as well. Cutrath hadn’t known that at the time, but Heth must have.
The sculptor avoided his eye. “Didn’t know that. Waels died. Killed by Stralg, if it makes you feel any better.”
Much better. “Tell me!”
“Don’t know any details, just what my sister wrote. She said that Waels and Orlad took on Stralg in the throne room at Celebre. It was a standoff until Waels deliberately let Stralg catch him, so Orlad could get inside the Fist’s guard.” The artist hesitated. “Then Orlad killed Stralg.”
“And Therek too, I heard. Earlier.”
“Yes.”
Curiously, Cutrath felt less worked up now than he had been at first. Trying to pick a fight with Benard Celebre was totally unsatisfying, somehow. “You and your brother really thinned out my family tree, didn’t you? What happened to Fabia? At one time I was supposed to marry her.”
“She’s fine! A healthy son and another due about a thirty ago.”
“Married to?”
“Marno Cavotti. Doge of Celebre.”
