Penric cleared his throat. “It might be best not to mention my calling, at first. Or my rank. The former tends to make me a distracting novelty in places like this, rather like a performing bear, and the latter would get either daunted deference from rural Temple folk, or elicit every complaint they have of their superiors who neglect them. As if they could draft me as their messenger.”
And neither would speed Oswyl’s inquiries. “What should I name you, then?”
Penric tilted his head. “Your assistant, I suppose. Your local guide. Not untrue.”
It seemed a curious reticence, from a young man who had seemed proud enough of his rank back in the princess-archdivine’s palace. Better, Oswyl supposed, than the off-balance swagger one sometimes observed in those newly promoted to tasks above their weight. They clopped over the bridge and turned onto the main street, where they soon found the local temple. It was built in a style not unlike the barns and houses, fieldstone and dark timber, if taller and six-sided. A little crowd was gathered under a broad portico running the full length of the front, and Oswyl stopped his horse short, flinging up a hand to halt his party. After another moment, Oswyl dismounted to wait more respectfully. Penric followed his lead, coming to stand beside him and watch.
A funeral was in progress, and had reached its most delicate stage, the signing of the gods, or god. Upon a bier decorated with evergreen boughs, a shrouded figure lay. At the head stood a middle-aged man in the five-colored robes of a divine—no, an acolyte, by the single braid looping at his left shoulder. At his sign, what was plainly the family of the deceased shuffled back out of the way to stand attentively along the wall, and the holy animals and their grooms waiting at the side came alert.
A young man had a pet raven perched upon his shoulder, clearly intended as the representative of the Father. A youth, surely a close relative, held a copper-red dog on a leash, its long fur brushed to a silky shimmer, as plainly the emblem of the Son. A leggy girl gripped the lead of a fat white pony, its shaggy hide curried as well as it could be at this season, looking quite appropriate as a beast of the Bastard. An older woman cradled a placid mama cat, marked only by the green ribbon signifying the Mother around its neck, and a younger girl clutched a squirming kitten, objecting to a like ribbon in blue for the Daughter.
One by one, the acolyte motioned the handlers to the bier. The raven, held out hopefully on the young man’s arm, evinced no interest in the proceedings, and hopped back to its shoulder perch. The kitten continued its war with its ribbon. The pony sniffed briefly, causing the people lined up against the wall to stiffen in dismay, but then pulled away, tugging to get its head down and crop some weeds growing up at the corner of the portico. The red dog also sniffed, waving its tail genially but without any obvious excitement. The mama cat jumped down from the woman’s arms and curled up neatly upon the chest of the deceased—an elderly grandmother, apparently—and blinked placid gold eyes. A general ripple of relief ran through the mourners, briefly stayed when the dog pulled back, but it was evidently attracted by the cat, not the dead woman, and was swiftly discouraged by a possessive hiss and a swipe of claws.
In great city temples like the ones at Easthome, the signing of which god had taken up the soul of the dead had economic as well as theological significance, as Orders devoted to individual gods took possession of the family’s monetary offerings for prayers for the dead. Here, there was likely only one altar table, the colors of its coverings changed out seasonally. It was perhaps shrewd showmanship that had inspired the acolyte to offer the Mother’s beast last, rather than cutting things short by beginning with the obvious. Poor these people might be, but not, therefore, paltry.
“That red dog…” muttered Penric out of the corner of his mouth to Oswyl.
“What about it?”
“I think we’ve come to the right place.”
“How so?”
But the sorcerer only made a wait wave of his hand, vexingly, although he continued to look around with keen interest.
The acolyte intoned a short prayer, and signed the tally of the gods. The half-dozen burliest men of the family took up the bier and bore it off up the street, and the grooms collected their animals and headed in the opposite direction, quickly losing their formal demeanor. The acolyte, making to follow the bier, glanced uncertainly at Oswyl’s party and paused. The woman who had repossessed the mama cat came to his side.
“May I help you, sirs?” he said.
“My name is Locator Oswyl, and I am on a mission of inquiry from Easthome,” Oswyl began. As the man jerked his head back in alarm, Oswyl quickly added, “I want to ask after any strangers you may have lately heard about in your district, but we can wait till your duties are done, Acolyte, ah…?”
“Gallin,” said the acolyte, looking less alarmed but more curious. “Uh, perhaps my wife, Gossa, can take you in and make you comfortable till I return?”
It wasn’t clear which of them he was asking, but the woman, looking equally curious, relieved the cat of its ribbon and set it down, shooing it away with her foot. She bobbed a curtsey at the unexpected visitors. “Indeed, sirs. Follow me.”
The children with the animals also paused to stare. Penric cast a special smile at the girl with the white pony, touching his thumb to his lips in a blessing of the white god; the girl looked surprised at this courtesy. Gossa directed what were ever-more-obviously her offspring in assorted directions, the girl with the kitten to stop playing and run ahead to put the kettle on.
The guardsmen with all their horses were sent in the wake of the girl with the pony. Oswyl stepped aside to instruct them, once they had settled the beasts in the temple’s stable around back, to spread out through the village and make inquiries as they had done at every stop so far, then hurried to catch up with his reticent sorcerer and the acolyte’s wife. Such Temple spouses were often as much the servants of the gods as their mates, if through their mates. She must be a source of local news as good as Gallin.
The acolyte’s house was next to the temple, and had little to distinguish it from others along the village street, although the front windows were set with glass, not parchment. It held a cramped but cheerful air suggesting more children than money. The kitchen was set to the back with a sort of parlor-study in front, doubtless where the acolyte performed his spiritual counseling, and to which the visitors were conducted. Oswyl had thus to wait till his hoped-for informant returned from her domestic domain to begin his inquiries. The young girl approached the smiling Penric to show off her kitten, which the sorcerer duly held in his lap and admired. Stroked by his long fingers, it purred like a cogwheel. Oswyl trusted no one else noticed the faint patter of dead fleas drifting off the beast when it was handed back. Oswyl attempted a smile as well, but it apparently lacked the blond man’s magic; he was offered no kitten.
Goodwife Gossa, assisted by her dekittened daughter, bustled back in to offer ale, tea, and bread and butter. Penric politely made the sign of the tally before they partook, by way of blessing, which won a smile from Gossa this time. Oswyl’s hopes that she might also offer information were quickly dashed, however. At his now-well-practiced queries, she shook her head in regret. No strangers that she’d heard of had arrived in the vale in the past week, or month for that matter. Oswyl cast Penric a reproaching glance.
Penric, undaunted, said to Gossa, “That red dog of your son’s. Where did he come by it?”