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12

THE PRIESTS WERE STILL HARANGUING THE CROWD.

As subtly as drifting snow, the young men of Sonalby closed in around the stranger in their midst. Just as unobtrusively, women, children, and older men left his vicinity, leaving Edward surrounded by youths. They all seemed intent on the funeral pyre, but he knew better than to try to escape.

Most of them leaned on spears, and some had shields also. Every one had a wooden club dangling at his side; none wore more than a leather loincloth. Their hair and beards were trimmed short, so they could not be caught hold of in battle, and they all had painted faces. They all had scars on their ribs, too regular to be accidental—some old and healed, others still raw and oozing.

The Carpenter house collapsed into ashes, and there were no more heretics to burn. The priests departed, and the mob began to disperse.

The young men turned to the next item of business, the stranger in town. They opened up into a circle around him and proceeded to discuss him as if he were a piece of furniture. He was footsore and thirsty and melting in the heat. The debate seemed likely to go on for the rest of the day. It might eventually conclude with a decision to put him to death or perform something less fatal but more unpleasant.

There were two factions involved, one slightly younger than the other. The younger group were clean shaven or just beardless, and their faces were painted in a complex design, mainly yellow, with very minor amounts of blue, white, red, and green. The older group had beards and another pattern, in which blue predominated, with lesser amounts of the other colors and an ominous addition of black.

Had Edward been a native-born Englishman, he would probably have demanded at that point to be taken before the village headman, and that would have been a very serious error. Fortunately, he had been raised among the Embu of Kenya, so he had some idea of what he was dealing with, although he could not make out a word of the jabbering talk.

Finally heads began to nod; some sort of agreement had been reached. One of the blue-painted older ones said in heavily accented Joalian, "Do you wear merit marks?" He tapped the scars on his ribs.

Sussian smocks left arms bare, but concealed chests. "It is not the custom of my people."

The debate resumed, as incomprehensibly as before.

Then the same man asked a second question. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"How long since you shaved your face?"

Edward rubbed his stubble. "Two days ago."

There were grunts, then. And more jabber. At last the younger, yellowfaced youths just melted away. They had conceded that the beardless stranger belonged to the other group.

He belonged to them outright. He was fairly certain that he was theirs to do with as they pleased. There would be no headman, no council of elders to whom he could appeal. A young male stranger in town was a matter for the young warriors.

There must have been fifty of them around him now. By and large they were too swarthy to be a typical crowd in England, but they would not have been out of place in Southern Europe. They varied from lithe to beefy, from short to tall, although few were six-footers like himself. They were all about his own age. Now they were debating who should interrogate the prisoner, with much pointing. Eventually one of the tall ones was selected; he stepped forward and the rest fell silent.

"Foreigner, what is your name?"

Edward had already given that matter considerable thought. He had decided to stick with D'ward, having learned that it was not uncommon, the name of some minor god or other—who might be an interesting stranger to meet sometime, possibly a fellow countryman. To use an alias would be to concede to himself that he was frightened of the Chamber. D'ward he would remain, but in the Vales a man's name included his trade. He could think of only one skill he possessed that might be of any value at all in Sonalby.

"I am D'ward Spearthrower," he said.

 

It was an insane gamble. He would have to prove himself in the eyes of men who had been practicing all their lives, and he had no idea of the technique required for their weapons. But he had always had a knack for throwing things. He had set a school record with the javelin.

Now he had won the interest of his age group. They marched him back out of town in very short order, to the practice field he had seen on the way in. An audience of women and the younger youths watched curiously from the sidelines.

He would need to work a miracle. He had done so once, after picking up mana by playing holy man on a node. Later he had absorbed some from the audience in the theater, but that had been trivial and he must have used it up in the exertions of the last two days. Now he was so tired he doubted he could summon up any charisma at all.

A couple of warriors offered him a choice of spears. They were heavier than he had expected, with leaf-shaped metal blades. He selected one of medium length and weight and hefted it a few times. At that point someone thrust one of the round shields at him, a massively heavy circle of wood and thick leather. He was supposed to hold that while throwing this! His confidence plummeted.

"This weight is not familiar to me," he announced brashly. "I shall try for distance first." After that he might attempt to hit a moderate size barn at close quarters. He nudged the tall man with the edge of his shield. "Give me a mark." He could watch how it was done.

He expected the tall man to run, but he barely moved. He just leaned back, took one long pace with his left foot, and hurled. The spear flashed in the sky and dropped into the scrubby grass about a hundred miles down range.

Merciful heavens! Wasn't that out of bounds?

"Good throw!" Edward said. He could sense that it was a good throw from the reactions around them. He steadied himself for the roll of the dice, braced his left arm to support that pestilential shield . . . . He threw.

His spear fell well short of the other, but he heard no sniggers. He thought he sensed some grudging approval. He snarled angrily.

"Let me try again, with a longer pole!"

He was given a longer spear. This time he did better, and the audience was moderately pleased.

"Good throw!" said the tall man. "I am Prat'han Potter." He gripped Edward's left shoulder and squeezed. Edward did the same for him.

Then the fifty or so others went through the same procedure, each announcing his name in perfectly understandable Joalian, although the accent was harsh. Their trades were not what he had expected—tanner, shoemaker, tentmaker, yes, but also wheelwright, silversmith, printer, musician, and many others.

Now Edward must show that he could hit a target, and he discovered just how seriously young Nagians took their spear-throwing. One of them stalked forward about thirty paces, then turned and waited. His shield covered him from his shoulders to halfway down his thighs, but that still left far too much of him exposed. The blades were not honed to battle sharpness, but they could still maim.

"I will not throw against that target!"

Suddenly the blue-painted faces were dangerous again. The circle seemed to close in with menace.

"Your spears are not what I am accustomed to!" he protested.

"You are so good that Gopaenum cannot block your cast?"

"I don't mean that. It is unfair to the man to throw against him until I have practiced more."

"It is perfectly fair," Prat'han said. "That is a very easy shot. You throw to Gopaenum Butcher's shield. Then he throws to yours. Throw, D'ward!"

Hmm! Like that, was it?

"It is still not fair. He is at much greater risk than I shall be."

He provoked another debate. Did they never sit down in Nagvale? The human target was called back for the discussion, but in the end nothing was changed. Edward asked that Gopaenum stand closer, which was folly because now he had complicated the matter with questions of courage. Of course Gopaenum went out even farther than before, making the range greater. They really did seem to think the shot was an easy one.

Fortunately there was no wind. Wiping a sweaty palm on his smock, Edward summed up the problem. His bluff had been called. Only the most incredible luck would let him hit that shield, and even then he might be expected to repeat the throw. Gopaenum probably could block a single spear, and obviously this exercise was shield practice as well as spear practice, but Edward would not risk wounding a man just to carry off a fraud. It is better to have leaped and lost than never to have stuck your neck out . . . .

He missed the shield. His spear passed three feet over Gopaenum's head, and that was still a yard closer than he had planned. The audience burst into howls of ironic laughter. Their accent suddenly became incomprehensible again.

Out in the field, Gopaenum Butcher retrieved the spear and turned to throw.

The spectators moved back a pace or two, but probably only so the marksman could see his target more easily. None of them expected Gopaenum to miss.

Edward looked around for a safe place to hide, and of course there was none. The sprawling village was the only settlement in sight. Beyond the river, bare plain stretched out to the misty peaks, shimmering in the awful heat, and behind him the rocky face of Nagwall. At best he would be driven out to die of thirst and hunger. At worst the warriors would all use him for spear practice.

He should have claimed to be a traveling scholar. Then they would have assumed he was a spy, but they might have allowed him a night's sleep before they ran him out of town. He had gambled and lost.

He put down the shield, lower edge resting on the ground just in front of his toes, upper edge leaning against his thighs, leaving valuable parts unprotected. He straightened and folded his arms.

"What are you doing, foreigner?" Prat'han demanded.

"Waiting for Gopaenum."

The target was the same, but now the human part of it could not dodge or move to block the throw. Edward felt a strange tingle as his words registered; he knew it for the touch of mana. In the end these warriors would be more impressed by courage than by anything else. He had never thought of himself as being particularly brave—in fact, he was sure he was not—but he was not going to have them laughing at him, even if this mess he was in was all his own fault. Now he had captured their imagination.

Someone shouted an explanation to the waiting Gopaenum Butcher.

Gopaenum hesitated, then raised his spear. He hefted it a few times, judging the throw. Edward wished he would get on with it.

He felt a spasm of terror as the pole arced through the air. It struck the shield on the extreme end, jerking it away from him. Even so, he felt as if someone had kicked his knee. He almost fell over. He winced, staggering to regain his balance and wondering if a direct hit would have broken his legs. Gopaenum had either almost missed altogether or had deliberately aimed off to the side. The blade had gone right through the wood and leather—a possibility that Edward had not even considered.

The audience broke into cheers and rushed forward to thump him on the back. Their admiration sent intoxicating waves of mana surging through him. Willing hands thrust a spear at him and retrieved his shield. Gopaenum was waiting for the next throw. Again?

Oh, hell! How could he fail now? Too elated to stop and consider the risk, Edward drew back his arm, stepped forward, and hurled with all his strength. He could not tell how much he used mana on his arm and how much on the missile. Probably most of it went on himself, because to influence material objects must require far more power. He felt the sudden loss, the drain of mana, exactly like the time he cured Dolm Actor's despair. Again the results surprised him. The spear flashed over the field in an arrow's flat trajectory. Gopaenum did not have to move his shield an inch and perhaps did not even have time to react. The spear struck it dead center. The impact threw him flat on his back, the pole quivering upright. The spectators yelled out an incredulous whoop, and Edward felt his confidence return with a rush, greater than ever. Bizarre!

Honor was satisfied. Gopaenum came running up to give D'ward a hug of congratulation. There was much laughter and shoulder squeezing. Then the entire age group trotted off to their barracks to discuss the situation over warm beer. At last their visitor had a chance to sit down.

 

The barracks was a long building of wicker and thatch, as barren inside as an empty bottle. What need for closets when you owned only one garment? Where else would warriors sleep but on the bare ground with their shields as pillows?

The culture was not organized in quite the same way as the Kenyans', but there were strong similarities. These were the young men of the village. They had no designated leaders, for everything was resolved by consensus, but some were more respected and listened to than others. They had been together since they were children. Forty years from now the survivors would still be together, but by then they would be elders, with other responsibilities. There was a class of senior warriors three or four years ahead of them, and another of adolescents close behind, the yellow-faced Boy Scouts who had contested jurisdiction over the visitor.

The newcomer was questioned closely, because any traveler in the Vales was automatically assumed to be spying for someone, probably several someones. He did not mention the Service, which was obviously out of favor just then. Again he said he hailed from Rinoovale, because that was a long way away. Ah, they said—Rinoo was a vassal state of Nioldom, so he was a Niolian spy, was he? No, he was traveling because he was curious to see the world. They all thought that a very weak excuse. How would he ever earn enough money to buy a wife?

After more beer and prolonged debate, though, the junior warriors of Sonalby decided that D'ward Spearthrower was acceptable. Niol was too far away to worry about. He was given a leather loincloth, which was manly wear; his boots were removed, probably going in trade for it. Two of his new brethren brought paints and proceeded to decorate his face, instructing him carefully in the meaning of each of the symbols they had chosen for their mark. Blue spears and shields were for Olfaan Astina—blue was sacred to the Maiden. The black skulls showed that they served Zath and did not fear him. Two yellow triangles and a frog because they still owed allegiance to the Youth. Blue crescent, hand, and scroll for other aspects of Astina. A small white sunburst as a token to Visek. No red yet, because they were virgins. The green hammer of the Man for strength, and so on and so on.

There was a brief debate about whether he had earned one merit mark or two, and they agreed on two—one for being accepted and another for his dare with the shield. Raucous, tipsy, but probably not very dangerous, the age group set out to escort D'ward Spearthrower to the shrine of Olfaan Astina. In this aspect the Maiden was goddess of warriors and also patron deity of all Nagland, her main temple being located in Nag itself.

When they reached their destination, Edward could feel virtuality from the node, but the shrine seemed to be on the edges of it. He was now fairly confident that a shrine, unlike a temple, would contain no resident numen. This one was only a shabby—and smelly—leather tent enclosing an altar and a carved image of a young woman in armor. The figure was about half life size and surprisingly well made; he wondered if it had been looted from somewhere, sometime. If there was no numen present he was probably in no danger from Astina or any of her vassals.

But directly adjacent stood the temple of Krobidirkin the Herder, an aspect of Karzon. He was a definite threat. Kalmak Carpenter's auto-da-fé had been organized by priests of the Man, and the timing was too slick to be a coincidence. Either Karzon or Zath had guessed that the Liberator would seek out the Service, and might suspect he was in Nagvale. Edward had a strong hunch that a stranger would be able to detect the presence of another on his own node.

Yet he could think of no way to avoid the ordeal his classmates had planned for him. Merit marks were awards, a source of pride, recognition from his peers. His newfound brethren cheerfully inked lines on his ribs for him to cut along. They provided the stone knife; they offered the salt he had to rub in to stop the bleeding and create a lasting scar. Then they watched critically to see how he would perform. It was a sacrifice to the goddess, of course. It was a demonstration of his manhood. It was a damnable risk, because he was a stranger. The mana that should flow to Olfaan might stick to him and be detected by Krobidirkin Karzon, or he might be drained of the little he had collected that afternoon, or . . . or all sorts of things.

But he had no choice, so he cut and rubbed and shook away the tears before they could smudge the paint on his face. He felt nothing except anger and extreme pain. The first touch of the salt was the worst shock he could remember. The second time his hand shook so much that he cut too deep and the salt hurt even more. But nothing miraculous occurred. He was probably too exhausted and too intoxicated by the rotten beer to notice mana now.

His brothers carried him back shoulder-high to the barracks and cheerfully informed him that it was his turn to be cook.

Still, he had found a home and without it he might well have been facing starvation or execution. A few weeks to polish his skill with the language and he could hope to set off in search of the Service somewhere else.

If the Service was still worth finding, that was.

The only Service personnel he ever met always died very quickly.

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Framed