anyone ever sworn to my service, and an oath is just as good as a geas any day—”
“Bloody greenies!” snarled Crucible, emerging from the lobby. “Are you all right, son?”
“Don’t call him a greenie!” cried Burnbright, who had finally struggled across the yard. “Oh, oh, he’s hurt!”
“Well, but he’s our greenie, and anyway it was the other damn greenies—”
“I’m fine,” Willowspear assured her, attempting to bow to Lord Ermenwyr. “It’s a scratch. My gracious lord, I trust you’re well? We were coming back up Front Street and we were accosted by three, er—”
“Members of the Yendri race,” supplied Smith helpfully.
“—who demanded to know what I was doing in the company of two, er—Children of the Sun, and wanted me to go with them to—I think it was to attend a protest meeting or something, and when I tried to explain—”
“They started chucking rocks at our heads,” said Pinion, dusting his hands as he stepped out to join them. “But halfway down the block the City Wardens caught sight of them and they took off, and the Wardens went after ‘em like a gree—like something really fast. You want us to board up the window, boss?”
Fifteen minutes later they were back at their places on the terrace, somewhat shaken but not much the worse for wear. Balnshik had deftly salved and bandaged Willowspear’s cut, and he sat with a drink in one hand. Burnbright perched in his lap, clinging to him. Mrs. Smith had been puffing so furiously on her jade tube that she was veiled in smoke, like a mountain obscured by mist.
“But you’d be safe up there, you young fool,” she was telling Willowspear. She turned in appeal to Lord Ermenwyr. “You’re his liege lord or something, aren’t you? Can’t you tell him to go, for his own good?”
“Alas, I released him from his vows,” said Lord Ermenwyr solemnly. “Far be it from me to tell him that considerations of duty outweighed the vague promptings of a vision quest. Bet you’re sorry now, eh? Ow,” he added, almost absentmindedly, as Balnshik boxed his ear. “Besides, if a boy won’t listen to his own dear mother, whomever else will he heed?”
“I can’t go back to the Greenlands,” said Willowspear. “I’ve planted a garden here. I have students. I have patients. My child will be born a citizen of this city. I’m doing no one any harm; why shouldn’t I be safe?”
Mrs. Smith groaned and vanished in a fogbank of fume.
“And how would my love travel, so heavy laden?” Willowspear continued, looking down at Burnbright. “You can’t have our baby in the wilderness; not a little city girl like you. You’d be so frightened, my heart.”
“I’d go anywhere you wanted, if we had to,” she said, knuckling away her tears. “I was born in the wilderness, wasn’t I? And I wouldn’t be scared of the Master of the Mountain or anybody.”
“And maybe everyone will come to their senses, and this whole thing will blow over when the weather turns cooler,” said Smith.
“Ah—not likely,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Things are going to get rather nasty, I’m afraid.”
“That’s right; you were saying that when all hell broke loose.” Smith got up and opened another bottle. “If my business is going to be wrecked, I’d at least like to know why.”
Lord Ermenwyr shook his head. He tugged at his beard a moment, and said finally, “How much do you know about the Yendri faith?”
“I know they worship your mother,” said Smith.
“Not exactly,” said Lord Ermenwyr.
“Yes, we do,” said Willowspear.
Lord Ermenwyr squirmed slightly in his chair. “Well, you don’t think she’s a—a goddess or anything like that. She’s just a prophetess. Sort of.”
“She is the treva of the whole world, She is the living Truth, She is the Incarnation of divine Love in its active aspect,” said Willowspear with perfect assurance. “The Redeemer, the Breaker of Chains, the Subduer of Demons,”
“Amen,” said Balnshik, just a trace grudgingly.
“Yes, well, I suppose she is.” Lord Ermenwyr scowled. “All the Yendri pray to Mother, but she has someone she prays to in her turn, you know. You have to understand Yendri history. They used to be slaves.”
“The Time of Bondage,” sang Willowspear. “In the long-dark-sorrow in the Valley of Walls, in the black-filth-chains of the slave pens they prayed for a Deliverer! But till She came, there moved among the beaten-sorrowing-tearful the Comforter, the Star-Cloaked Man, the Lover of Widows.”