To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [37]
Nothing there but wash water and breakfast, nothing for us to use in any kind of ritual. I hope. Unless we’re supposed to do something with the milk and bread. He saw that the innkeeper wasn’t making any attempt to leave—was in fact deliberately loitering, his eyes fixed on Riker. Is he waiting for me to do something? What?
Uh-oh. All right, let g stay calm. If he calls me on this, I can always explain that we do things differently in the lowlands. If he buys that— Purposefully, Riker got up and walked over to the breakfast tray. He raised one bowl of milk in what he hoped looked like a reverent manner, and let a few drops fall to the ground.
“Oh, let me see to that, sir!” The innkeeper dropped to his knees, whipping a rag out of his apron belt, and mopped up the spill quickly. “No harm done, no harm at all.” So much for that, Riker thought. He decided to take the direct approach. “Is there something on your mind, innkeeper?” “Well…” Sekol looked ill at ease. He stood there twisting his apron in his large, square hands, then coughed again and said, “I don’t like to say, being as how they are of good family and all, and it’s only that they’re young and in high spirits. You must remember what it’s like, being young?” Remember what it’s like? Oh, thanks a lot, Sekol, Riker thought. Maybe I ought to get rid of this beard after all. Aloud he asked, “Are you talking about V’kal and Misik?” “They’re good lads, truly,” Sekol insisted. “Onlym Well, even if the ladies aren’t your kin, perhaps you ought to let them know that no matter what those two say, there’s no holy decree that says only two folk may enter Ma’adrys’s shrine at a time, and that with the door closed after ‘em. And there’s nothing yet been laid down by the Na’amOberyin about the proper rites for honoring her in her own shrine, so if they try telling those good ladies the same fleece-mouthed story they handed my younger sister about how a kiss in Ma’adrys’s shrine means a rich husband within the year, just see to it that those rascals get a clout in the ear for their pains!” The innkeeper gave one final chuff of righteous indignation and barrelled out of the room. Riker waited until he heard the man’s footsteps clumping down the stairs before he enjoyed a good laugh.
“He told you, eh?” V’kal scratched his head sheepishly and toed the dirt outside the rundown hovel at the uppermost edge of the village.
“Can you blame him?” Riker said.
“That bit with his sister, yeh.” The two natives nodded, looking more embarrassed by the minute.
Misik cleared his throat and asked, “S’pose it wouldn’t do to tell you that she was the one came up with the whole story when he caught us up here?” Riker patted him on the back. “Why don’t we say no more about it, instead? I understand. I was young myself, once.” He caught the look Counsellor Troi was giving him and shrugged.
“This does not look like any of the shrines we have seen in our travels,” Troi said, stepping forward to examine the humble structure.
It was a hut like many others in the village, the dwelling places of the poor. Sekol’s ramshackle inn was a palace next to those, and they in turn were mansions when compared to this. It stood so far removed from its nearest neighbor that it seemed as if the very houses of Kare’al village had agreed tO shun it for its poverty. And yet, though the daub walls were so worn that their timber underpinnings were showing through in many places, the beaten earth threshold was strewn with flowers, cakes, clay images, and even a few pieces of jewelry.
“Oh,