He paused. His listeners, who should have been making the most of the short summer season instead of standing around listening to sweet-tasting nonsense, broke into applause. Skatval saw Skjaldvor’s hands meet each other, saw in profile her bright eyes aimed straight at Kveldulf, her mouth wide and smiling.
He began to worry in earnest.
After some days’ preaching, Kveldulf began to worry in earnest. The Halogai, once his people—still his people if blood counted as well as dwelling, as it surely did—flocked to hear him. They listened to him with greater, more serious attention than a crowd of Videssians would have granted; every imperial fancied himself a theologian, and wanted to argue every shade of meaning in Phaos’ holy scriptures. The Halogai listened respectfully; they nodded soberly; they declined to convert.
It was not that they had no questions for him; they had many. But those questions did not spring from the holy scriptures; they did not assume those scriptures were true, and argue from or about their premises. To the Halogai, everything pertaining to Phaos, even his existence, was open to debate. Kveldulf had been warned of that before he sailed for his birthland. Only now, though, was he discovering what it meant.
No Videssian, for instance, would have asked, as did a herder whose rawhide boots were stained with sheepshit, “Well, just how d’you ken this Phaos o’yours is what you say he is?”
“Things act for good in this world, and others for evil,” Kveldulf answered. “Phaos is the architect of all that is good, while Skotos works without pause to pull down all he does.” He spat between his feet in rejection of the dark god.
The shepherd spat, too. “So you say. Who said so to you?”
“So say the good god’s own holy words, written down in ancient days.” Kveldulf nodded to Tzoumas, who held up a copy of the scriptures. The words within meant nothing to the watching Halogai; they did not write their own language, let alone Videssian. But the cover, of brass polished till it gleamed like gold and decorated with precious stones and an enamelwork portrait of Phaos’ stern, majestic countenance, promised that what lay within was worthy of consideration. As the Videssian proverb put it, a robe is revealed in advance by its border.
But the stubborn shepherd said, “Did your god speak these words straight to you?” Kveldulf had to shake his head. The shepherd went on, “Then why put faith in ’em? When I hear the thunder, or see the grain spring green from the ground, or futter my woman, these are things whose truth I know for myself; I feel no shame to worship the gods that shaped them. But a god who spoke long ago, if he spoke at all? Pah!” He spat again.
Behind Kveldulf, one of his Videssian colleagues—he thought it was Nephon—softly said, “Blasphemy!” Kveldulf himself felt brief heat run through his body, heat warmer than that which the watery sunshine of Halogaland could engender. Along with their hair, Videssian priests gave up carnal congress as a mark of their devotion to the good god. Kveldulf had worn his celibacy a long time now; it rarely chafed him. But imperials did not talk about futtering as casually as the shepherd had, either. The naked word made Kveldulf feel for a moment what he had given up.
He said, “If the good god’s holy words will not inspire you, think on the deeds of those who follow him. They hold sway from the borders of Makuran far in the southwest, round the lands which touch the Videssian Sea and the Sailors’ Sea, and sweep up along the edge of the Northern Sea till their lands march with yours as well. And all this under the rule of one man, the mighty Emperor Stavrakios, Avtokrator of the Videssians, where small Halogaland is split among countless chiefs. Does this not speak for the strength of Phaos?”
Behind him, Nephon said, “This argument is unscriptural. The barbarians must come to Phaos’ faith because of the glory of the good god, not that of those who follow him.”
“Don’t call them barbarians,” Antilas said quietly. “He’s one of them, remember?”
Nephon grunted. Tzoumas said, “How worshipers find Phaos matters little; that they find him matters much. Let Kveldulf go on, if he will.”
The byplay had been in Videssian. The Halogai to whom Kveldulf preached took no notice of it. And now, for the first time since he’d come to Halogaland, he had hearers who listened seriously. He wondered why, for Nephon was right: an argument from results was weaker than one from doctrine. But the men of the north respected strength; perhaps reminding them of the power of Videssos had not hurt.
“Cast forth the evil from your own lives!” he called. “Accept Phaos into your hearts, into your spirits. Turn toward the good which rests in each of you. Who will show me now that he is ready to cleave to the lord with the great and good mind, and reject evil forevermore?”
He’d asked that before at the close of every sermon, and been answered with stony silence or with jeers. The Halogai were happy enough to listen to him; it gave them something unusual and interesting to do with their time. But hearing and hearkening were two different things, and for all his passionate exhortation, he’d not convinced anyone, not until today. Now a woman raised her hand, then another, and then a man.
Kveldulf sketched the sun-sign over his heart. As he looked up to the heavens to thank Phaos for allowing him to be persuasive, his eyes filled with grateful tears. At last the good god had given a sign he would not forsake the folk of the north.
Skatval slashed the horse’s throat. As the sacrificial beast staggered, he held the laut-bowl under its neck to gather the gushing blood. The horse fell. From the laut-bowl he filled laut-sprinklers and stained the wooden walls of the temple with shining red. He also daubed his own cheeks and hands, and those of the clansfolk who had gathered with him for the offerings.
As he moistened men and women with the holy blood, his priest, Grimke Grankel’s son, declared, “May goodness flow down from the god as the gore goes out of the offering.”
“So may it be,” Skatval echoed. So did his warriors and their women—those that were here. He did his best to hide his unease as he began to butcher the horse, but it was not easy. Sacrifice should have brought together the whole of the clan, to receive the gods’ blessing and to feast on horseflesh and ale afterwards. Most of his people had come, but far too many were missing.
Among the missing was Skjaldvor. Skatval’s eyebrows came together above his long, thin nose. Of all the people who might listen to this southron twaddle about Phaos, he’d expected his daughter to be one of the last.
He glanced over at Ulvhild, his wife. After they’d lived together in that longhouse the whole of their grown lives, she picked thoughts from his head as if he’d shouted them aloud. Now she shrugged, slowly and deliberately, telling him there was nothing she could do about Skjaldvor: his daughter was a woman now. He snorted. No one could do anything with a girl, once she turned into a woman. Ulvhild heard the snort and glared at him—she’d stolen that thought, too.
Hastily, he turned back to roasting horseflesh. The first pieces were done enough to eat. Someone held out a birchwood platter. He stabbed a gobbet, plopped it onto the plate. Beside him, Grimkel plied a dipper, filled a mug with ale. “The gods bless us with their bounty,” he intoned.
Some time later, his belly full of meat and his head spinning slightly from many mugs of ale, Skatval strode out of the temple. He was one of the last folk to leave: not least of his chiefly requirements was being able to outeat and outdrink those he outranked. The rich taste of hot marrow still filled his mouth.