The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [161]
Jahdo smiled in acknowledgment. “I were a-wondering,” he said, “if it be time to send a messenger down to Penli.”
Dallandra glanced at Niffa, who answered. “I think it be so. ’Twill take the folk there some days to pack up their goods and the like. Dalla, how soon, think you, that the prince will be arriving here?”
“Five days, or so he hoped.” Dallandra paused to change the baby to her other breast. “I doubt me if they can travel any faster, even with extra horses.”
“So be it, then,” Jahdo said. “There be no way for me to give their horses wings. And truly, there be much to do here. Tonight I did call a special meeting of the Council of Five. We do need to decide how much to tell the town and when we should be a-telling of it. ’Twere best to have everyone know the truth before Prince Dar does arrive. The folk, they be needing time to chew things over, like.”
“Just so,” Dallandra said. “And I want to consult with your spirit talker.”
“Artha, her name be,” Niffa put in. “Werda did go to her ancestors many a year past. I do warn you: Artha does show forth all of Werda’s holiness but few of her wits.”
On the morrow morning, Niffa and Dallandra trudged up the hill to Citadel’s central plaza, a wide paved expanse at the top of the hill. To the north stood the stone buildings that housed the council and other official doings, and to the south stood a little shrine to the spirits of the lake. Four stone pillars held a roof over a cubical stone altar, laden at the moment with summer wildflowers. Artha’s house lay below it at the end of some wooden steps.
Dressed in white linen trimmed with white fur, the spirit talker stood waiting for them in the doorway, but rather than let them in, Artha came out to meet them on the grassy flat in front of her door. She was carrying the staff of her office, as well, made of dark wood ringed at intervals with silver. When she held it up as if to bar their way, Dallandra went on guard. She had expected trouble from this quarter, and she got it.
“I will leave not,” Artha snapped. “Nor may I countenance my folk deserting their gods.”
“If you stay,” Dallandra said, “you’ll all be killed or enslaved. The Horsekin will never allow the survivors to worship your gods. They believe that their Alshandra is the only god.”
A silent Artha studied Dallandra with hostile, dark eyes. Her hair, a steely gray, hung in two long braids to either side of her wrinkled face. Dallandra kept her own expression carefully arranged in a pleasant, or so she hoped, neutrality.
“Artha, Holy One,” Niffa said. “The Horsekin, they do plan to turn our town into a fortress for their impious armies. Naught we can do against them will save our folk. The gods—”
“The gods, think you they be powerless?” Artha said. “They do protect those who give them their due. Have they not quieted the fire that lives beneath us? Have they not steadied the shaking earth?”
“Somewhat has done so. How do we know it be the gods?”
“Can you stand there and mutter blasphemies so close to the holy shrine?” Artha spat out the words.
“Have we not wrangled and snarled over all this before?” Niffa said, and she smiled.
Dallandra was expecting the spirit talker to take grave offense at that smile, but instead Artha merely heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes.
“Mayhap we have,” Artha said. “But still, I will leave not.”
“You may choose what you choose,” Niffa said. “What does trouble my heart is this, that other folk will heed you and stay here to meet an ugly wyrd.”
“They may choose what they will choose as well. It be no trouble of yours, witch woman.”
“Ah, but it be my charge, truly, to speak out against false counsel.”
Artha made a sound much like the hiss of a furious cat and waved her staff in Niffa’s direction. The sunlight caught the silver rings and gleamed in long sparks of light. Dallandra suddenly realized that beside the rings, the staff bore runes. While Artha and Niffa continued what seemed to be a familiar argument, Dallandra studied the staff, which Artha held upright and unmoving in front of her. The runes all