The Gold Falcon - Katharine Kerr [103]
“What about your warleaders? Rakzanir, I think they’re called. Do they want to live in peace?”
Rocca bit her lower lip and looked sharply away. “Well,” she said after a moment, “it be true that they be a stubborn lot. Not always do they see eye to eye with our priestesses.”
“I rather thought they wouldn’t.”
“But in the end, the holy council will win. Alshandra the Wise does help us, and she will melt their hearts and teach them mercy and mild ways. I do ken it in my heart, and so does Lakanza. She be the high priestess, Her Holiness Lakanza, and she be ever so old and wise. She prays every day that she may live to see the truth spreading among Deverry men. In my heart I ken that it be wyrd. Look at Honelg and his blessed kin and clan! Their faith be strong and pure, bain’t? And you, too, for that matter—you did recognize the truth the moment you heard it.”
“Well, so I did.”
“We do call it waking up. Most people, Horsekin and Deverry folk alike, they do live their lives asleep. They do believe in their false gods and dream the years away. But Alshandra’s truth be a silver horn, calling out the signal to wake and rise.”
What Salamander desperately wanted at the moment was the signal that Rocca was going to lie down and sleep, but that night she seemed to be in a talkative mood. She insisted on drilling him on the lore lists, then talked some about her childhood, growing up a slave in a Horsekin tribe until Alshandra’s religion brought her freedom.
“Anyone that the priests deem fit to serve her does gain their freedom, you see.” Rocca paused for a yawn. “So I do count myself blessed.”
“Indeed. What would your life have been like if you’d not been chosen?”
“Naught too horrible. My family did work, and they still do, at the growing of grain for the warhorses. Up on the high plains the summers be short and scant, so down among the valleys there be many a farm that owe the Horsekin dues and taxes. We did live, my kin and me, much like Deverry bondmen, only better, or so Honelg said once, after I did tell him about my early life. We held rights to keep a third of everything we did raise, while bondmen have to hand so much over to the lords that it be a wonder they don’t starve.”
“That’s true.” Salamander feigned a long yawn, which prompted her to yawn herself. “It’s very sad, how the bondmen are treated.”
“Now, I’d not lie to you. Some slaves do lead terrible lives, but the priests and priestesses, we be doing our best to change that. Some of the Horsekin leaders, they do begin to see the light, that all Children of Alshandra be worthy of respect.”
“That’s a noble cause, then.” Salamander yawned again. “My apologies! For some reason I’m weary tonight.”
“Me, too. I’ll just be saying my prayers.” Rocca got up, shaking her head as if she were trying to stay alert.
She trotted off, humming part of a hymn under her breath. Salamander fed their little fire with twigs and sticks until he could be sure she’d taken herself well away. Then he contacted Dallandra and told her what the Horsekin believed about Vandar’s spawn. Her image, floating over the fire, stared at him for a long horrified moment.
“Well,” Dalla said at last. “That’s one up for Cal. He keeps insisting that the Horsekin are planning some evil thing, and they are.”
“They see it as purging the world of a great evil, of course.”
“Of course. Most people who work evil think of it as good in some way. That doesn’t make it any better for those they hate.”
“I’d never deny that.”
“Ebañy, you’re running a huge risk, a much larger risk than either of us realized when you started this journey. Hadn’t you better just abandon this whole thing? You can ride away faster than she can follow on foot.”
“I’ve had that thought.” Salamander paused to glance into the forest, where Rocca still knelt at her prayers. “But it’s more necessary than ever to know where this fort lies, isn’t it?”
“True. But be careful. Be careful