This is the eighth chapter of Wealthgiver, an alternate history serial romance about nationalism and cave-Thracians. For the back-of-the-book description and an index of chapters, click here. For the beginning, click here. For the previous chapter, click here.
Kori clapped as she entered her sitting room, indicating the position of the furniture. "Put him next to the stove."
The echoes faded and the picture painted itself: the thick felted carpet, the soft wall-hangings with their buzzing patterns of wire. The sharp gold and silver ornaments. The two faces carved into the wooden panels of the ceiling.
Sixteen hundred years ago, the priests of the Depths might have dragged a stranger into a dank cavern and thrown him into the stalagmite pit. Wailing priestesses would have torn this man's limbs from his body and mixed his blood into the sacred wine.
Now, Kori could recline on a divan in her private apartments, a bowl of honeyed wheat on the tray next to her, her feet warmed by a cast-iron stove. Her people had abandoned Dionysus and Ares in favor of deeper gods.
Murad and Theodoros lowered the prisoner to the carpet. Nikolai and Bogdan sat behind him. Kori turned her face toward where his must be.
"The Sacred Depths welcome you." Her words outlined a body stocky rather than tall, with powerful shoulders. His eyes were large and deep-set, his jawline sharp. Junior Physician, Captain and Baron Voropayevski. Andrei. If Kori whistled high enough, she might get a sense of the shape of his lips.
"Very well," said Nikolai. "What would you have me ask him, My Maiden?"
"Never mind about that," said Kori. "Monsieur le Baron, me comprenez-vous?"
"Uh…oui?" said Andrei, as Nikolai choked.
"My Maiden! You're speaking French!"
"Juste comme ça," she said, and, still in French, "I got better marks in composition than you, as I recall."
"Mais, I mean, 'but'!" Nikolai groaned. "Maiden, this is the Holy Mountain! These are the Sacred Depths! It is forbidden for the Maiden to sully herself with the tongues of foreigners."
Into the silence that followed, Nikolai grated, "I mean, with foreign words."
"Don't tell me what is forbidden, Nikolai Igorevich," said Kori, still in French. "I broke the rules for you once, and now I'm breaking the rules for him."
Air swirled as the priest waved his arms, bringing with it Andrei's scent. Soil and grass and the smell of fresh lightning. Male sweat and screaming of horses. You, Kori thought, and her fingers tightened on the edges of her cushions.
"My case!" gasped Nikolai. "It isn't the same at all. My Maiden, you spoke the Good language to me in the outside world, yes. But here, now, within these Sacred Depths, to speak French! One is like pouring pure spring water on sewage. The other, pouring sewage into a spring."
Kori found it hard to pay attention. Andrei might have hurt her, there in the corridor when he'd taken her hostage, but he had chosen not to. He had restrained himself, even as he had restrained her.
"Your heart pounds, My Maiden," said Brother Bogdan. "Are you frightened?"
Kori exhaled and dragged her mind from her prisoner to her plans. "I am impatient."
"As am I, My Maiden," said Nikolai, and switched to French. "Fool! You lie bound before the vessel of the Mistress of the Holy Mountain! The Hungry One. The Light-Bearer. The Wrathful Maiden. She who Reaps the Grain. Betrothed of the Wealthgiver."
The high priest's voice rang with conviction, but he still vibrated with fear. Kori wondered if Nikolai was himself aware of the real emotion under his mask of zeal. The mask, as they said, was the truest face.
"Nikolai," she said, "you are overdoing it."
"Not at all." Andrei's smile was clearly audible. "Mademoiselle Hungry One, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. And you too, of course, Your Serenity."
"You may call me Kori Chthamali," she said. It was the name she had used in Switzerland. The name Nikolai had first known her by. "You heard my titles, but maybe you don't understand them. I am the hereditary sibyl, prophetess and vessel of the goddess you might know as Persephone."
The bound man seemed to sense that some response was expected of him. "I'm not acquainted with that particular goddess personally."
"You are now." Kori spoke with some smugness. "Through me she speaks. And if you read your classics, you also know her husband."
"Hades is a Russian?" From the direction of his voice, Andrei must be looking at Nikolai.
"He is not my husband."
Nikolai spat something in his native language.
"He is one of us now," Kori said. "I converted him."
"To a Satan-worshiper."
"You bite your tongue, you drunken Fool!"
"Satan is an invention of your church," Kori corrected. "We worship the Wealthgiver, the shrouded Host of Many, the Unseen One, Master of the House of the Dead. Fools call him Hades or Pluto."
"Ohh," Andrei sighed. "I've been kidnapped by neo-pagans. Some branch of the Philhelenes, are you? French dilettantes who read too much Homer and drank too much absinthe?"
"The Reaper of Grain does not drink," said Brother Bogdan.
Kori gave a disapproving tongue-click and the old priest quieted. "I'm flattered you take French for my native language. I was afraid I had grown rusty. My guest, we are not Philhelenes."
"The Helenes never loved us much," muttered Theodoros.
"We are the Good," Kori continued. "We are the original inhabitants of this country. Once, the Fools called us Thracians."
"An outrageous slur," said Nikolai in the tones of a philologist who cannot help himself. "Thrax is just Greek for 'the irritating one.'"
"Thracians," said Andrei. "Well, why the hell not? We already have Albanians, Armenians, Bulgarians, and Circassians knocking around this peninsula. Why not add another ethnic group to the mix?"
Kori forgot what she had been about to say. "I'm sorry. Did you alphabetize that list?"
"I spent a long time thinking on the march," said Andrei. "You should ask me about my opinions on the Treaty of Westphalia. But what the devil have you people been doing here for the past two thousand years?"
"Sixteen hundred years," Nikolai corrected.
"We have been hiding," said Kori. "Before the coming of the Goths, the Light-Bringer came into the dreams of my great ancestress, and told her that our people must cease to worship wine and war."
"Dionysus and Ares," said Nikolai. "Bacchus and Mars. Jesus and Muhammad."
Kori didn't think that was helpful, and so went on with her speech. "We were welcomed by the Mistress and Master, and came to live in the caves and gold mines of this, their Holy Mountain."
"You've lived all this time in these caves?" said Andrei. "That hardly seems healthy."
Kori continued. "We used that gold to buy safety, and sometimes we took safety with a dagger. We infiltrated Roman society, then Ottoman, and now the new empires. Every Great Power has one of us in its halls."
She heard Nikolai's relief in his sigh. He must think she planned to kill this stranger after all.
Andrei must have a similar concern. "And then you kidnapped me, dragged me down into your mountain, and told me all this."
"We have reason to believe," said Nikolai, "that you are valuable. A gift from the Wealthy One. There is a prophesy."
Andrei's bonds creaked. "Yes?"
"As well," said Kori, "we simply must stop killing outsiders. We wanted to see your reaction to us."
"And now we know," said Theodoros in the Good language. "Satanists he called us. A cult. He thinks we're a pack of spies and assassins."
"He's not wrong," said Brother Murad.
"Ah ha," said Andrei, as if to himself. "Now I understand why that old woman tried to poison me."
Murad switched to French. "She did try? I'm glad. How did you know it was poison?"
"I could smell the hemlock."
"Of course it would be hemlock." Murad clicked his tongue. "Grandmother! I've told her that strychnine is more effective and more modern, but the first thing she does when she sees a stranger is reach for the hemlock. Still disguising it as dried parsley, is she? Putting it next to the fireplace? One of these days she'll forget and poison herself and Grandfather Rado."
"Brother Murad," said Nikolai, "this is hardly the time."
"If you're concerned about their health," said Andrei. "You should keep them where you can take care of them." His head turned. "And, Mademoiselle, I agree. This secrecy has to go."
"What do you mean?" asked Kori before anyone else could yell 'Silence, Fool!'
"The Turks don't care much about the Western Rhodopes, but the Tsar certainly will. I've seen the ethnolinguistic maps they're drawing up. The justification of this war rests on the libration of our fellow Slavs and Christians, and you're neither."
"We know all this already," said Nikolai.
"In other words," said Kori, "you agree with him. Doctor, what comes next, in your opinion?"
A surprised chuckle. "Amputation. Or so I'd prescribe to my commanders, if they asked for my opinion. Cut off the Greek and Albanian lands and throw them back to the Turks. I will grant that from the perspective of the appendage in question, the prognosis looks grim."
"We've discussed this scenario as well, and why we should avoid it."
"What do you suggest?"
"A rational scheme of social hierarchy."
"With you at its top, I assume. The Good."
"Who better?"
Kori held her breath, listening. Nikolai spoke as if to another priest. No, as if to a respected superior.
Even bound and blinded on the floor, Andrei controlled the room. The priests and Kori surrounded him, not like jailers, but like supplicants. This was exactly what Kori needed.
"Our numbers are yet small," Nikolai explained. "Even before the last plague, there were too few of us."
"There are never enough Good men," said Brother Bogdan.
Nikolai clicked assent, but continued in French for Andrei's benefit. "That is why, before we can dominate the Fools, we must impress them with a show of force."
"So," said Andrei. "Your people, the Good, must become a nation. A nation must have an army. An army must be commanded."
"Yes," said Kori.
"I still think rational self-interest will be enough," said Theodoros in Good. "Surely it should be clear that cooperation with one's neighbors will yield higher gains than war, whatever the nation of those neighbors."
Nikolai scoffed. "You read too many ledgers and not enough reports from our spies."
"I read both," Kori said, "and I am inclined to agree with Brother Theodoros. There is a limit to what one man may do, after all. Are not great endeavors only possible if many cooperate?"
"I sometimes forget how little My Maiden sees of the world," said Nikolai. "You only leave the mountain in spring time, when nature is fresh and full of hope. Of course you look to the future and see only pleasant fantasies."
And you, thought Kori, never leave the mountain at all. Of course you see nothing but the inside of your own skull. Nikolai never actually heard her when she spoke. Instead, he held up a perfect mask in his mind, and bounced his words off that. It made him infuriatingly weak.
Kori breathed out, visualizing smoke. "I know only what the gods caused me to recite."
Nikolai followed her lead. "With Master at Hand, the Mistress will stand. Death will be on our side when we rise up."
Andrei's face lifted, as if he understood what was being said.
Ah, there was the shape of his lips.
Nikolai slapped the floor. "It does! What is this man? Why does he come to us, now, spewing portents and signs from every orifice?"
Kori answered both men's questions. "It means that the Wealthgiver has revealed himself to us."
"I'm not sure I understand," said Andrei, but Kori could hear that he did.
"So it is," said Nikolai in Good. "That with the equinox approaching and the balance of worldly powers shattered, The Maiden welcomes a vision and this stranger on the same night. The Wealthy One gives us all that our nation needs. Brothers, do you understand it?"
He did not wait for their assent. "After the Ceremony of Un-descent, the Fruit-Bringer will take her annual leave of the Mountain. When you are upon the Earth My Maiden, will you know what to do?"
"Prepare our nation, Elder Brother, as we have planned." Kori spoke as clearly as she could, although she felt as if she hurtled down a torrent.
Kori felt again the tugging at her skirts. Metal glittered between fingers and smoke rose from armies. The Holy Mountain opened her eyes and mouth, rivers running red down her face. Kori had arranged this. This war was hers.
"Much blood will be spilled," she said.
Nikolai's answer was so low as to be almost a growl. "Only the blood of Fools, Maiden, I promise you."
And who are you, mortal, to make that promise?
For a moment, some trick of echoes made Nikolai seem very small. Very far away. The coin in a hoard, the sprout on a field, the pawn on a chess board that shouts "I matter!" as the hand descends, fingers poised to pinch it round the head.
Kori shuddered and clicked her tongue. the echoes showed Nikolai exactly as he should be, kneeling on the carpet behind Andrei, long back bent, arms upraised, teeth bared, eager to begin.
The river Kori rafted was white, swollen and foaming with spring melt. There was no faster way to reach her destination, and no safe way to disembark.
Unless I can find someone who is good at rowing.
"In my absence, the words of the Wealthgiver will guide you," she said, and four sets of lungs stopped. "With Master at hand, the Mistress will stand."
"The truth of the Maiden's prophesy flows through us," said Nikolai. "But I am not satisfied that this stranger truly resonates with the Wealthgiver. I would test him further."
"How?" asked Murad. "Check his entrails?"
Nikolai chuckled. "I have something else in mind first. Andrei Trifonovich will play the part of Pluto."
"I'm sorry?" said Andrei. "I'm afraid I somewhat lost the thread of your conversation. Am I to pretend to be your god now?"
Nikolai laughed. "Oh, Doctor, there will be no pretense. Not if the Wealthgiver truly speaks through you." He switched to Good. "Brothers, summon the servants and tell them stranger is to be washed, fed, and changed. He is to be given a novitiate's cell, where he will await his instruction in the Good language."
"Perhaps after he has slept," said Kori.
The angle of Nikolai's voice dipped with his bow. "My Maiden, it is best I begin in instruction at once. I shall attend to this myself."
Both Theodoros and Murad shivered audibly.
"We must act quickly," Nikolai went on. "The equinox approaches. By the time of the Rite of Un-Descent, we must know whether this Andrei is a worthy vessel for the Wealthgiver." His voice dropped as his thumbnail rang softly on the edge of his sickle. "Or not."
Next: Chapter 9: A Narcissus from a Viper
etymology is a helluva drug. Might have to name my next son "Thrax"