“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.”
“He doesn’t really eat babies,” Lord Ermenwyr told her. “Very often, anyway. Ow.”
“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.”
“Some sort of holy man anyway,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “Resistance leader, apparently. Foretold the coming of a Holy Child, then conveniently produced one. Daddy’s always had his private opinion on how that happened.”
Willowspear was shocked into speechlessness for a moment before stammering, “She miraculously appeared in the heart of a great payraja blossom! There were witnesses!”
“Yes, and I saw a man pull three handkerchiefs and a silver coin out of his own ear over on Anchor Street this very afternoon,” Lord Ermenwyr retorted. “Life’s full of miracles, but we all know perfectly well where babies come from. The point is, when she was three days old the Yendri rose in rebellion. The Star-Cloaked Man carried her before them, and she was their—”
“Their Shield, their Inspirer, that day in the wheatfield, that day by the river, when grim was the reckoning—”
“And evidently in all the uproar of overthrowing their masters, the Star-Cloaked Man cut his foot on a scythe or something, and the wound could never heal because he’d broken his vow of nonviolence to finally start the rebellion. So he limped for the rest of the big exodus out of the Valley of Walls, lugging Mother-as-a-baby the whole way.”
“And flowers sprang up in the blood where he walked,” said Willowspear.
“I remember hearing this story,” Mrs. Smith murmured. “Oh, what a long time ago … There was supposed to have been a miracle, with some butterflies.”
“Yes!” cried Willowspear. “The river rose at his bidding, the great-glassy-serpentbodied river, and for the earth’s children it cut the way, the road to liberation! And they left that place and lo, after them came the souls of the dead. They would not stay in chains, in the form of butterflies they came, whitewinged-transparent-singing, so many flower petals drifting on the wind, the broken-despaired-of-lost came too, and floated above their heads to the new country.”
“Which means they followed the annual migration path of some cabbage moths, I suppose. It added a mythic dimension to everything, to be sure, and eventually they got as far as where the river met the sea,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “The ‘sacred grove of Hlinjerith, where mist hung in the branches.’ Just exactly what happened next has always been a matter of some speculation in our family.”
“Everyone knows what happened,” said Willowspear, looking at his liege lord a bit sternly. “The Star-Cloaked Man, the Beloved Imperfect, was sore afflicted of his wound, and his strength was faded, and his heart was faint. His disciples wept. But She in Her mercy forgave his sin of wrath.”
“Oh, -nonsense, she can’t have been more than six months old—”
“She worked a miracle for his sake, and from the foam of the river his deliverance rose—”
The song rose seemingly from nowhere, warbled out in a profound and rather eerie contralto. It was a moment before Smith realized that Mrs. Smith was singing, from within her cloud.
They all sat staring at her a moment before Balnshik pulled a handkerchief from Lord Ermenwyr’s pocket and handed it to her.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Smith indistinctly. “You could top up my drink, too, if you don’t mind. Your father used to sing that, young Willowspear.” She blew her nose. “When he was stoned. Mind you, we all were, most of the time. But do go on.”
“Daddy thinks that the Star-Cloaked Man died, and was quietly buried on that spot,” said Lord Ermenwyr. “But most Yendri believe some magical craft bore him away across the sea. And all the white butterflies went with him. The Yendri crossed the river with Mother and the rest of the refugees, and they settled in the forests.”
“But each year, in the season of his going, many of our people travel to that grove where the river meets the sea,” said Willowspear. “There they pray, and meditate. In sacred Hlinjerith, it is said, healing dreams come to the afflicted, borne on the wings of white butterflies.”
“And now, just guess, Smith, where your Mr. Smallbrass has decided to build his Planned Community,” said Lord Ermenwyr.
“Oh,” said Smith.
“No wonder the greenies are having fits,” said Mrs. Smith, blowing her nose again.