Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Ispend the rest of the day at Kina’s family’s farm.
They’re really nice people, all of them with bushy blonde hair and bright smiles.
They wear simple clothing and thick sandals on their feet, and I wander behind Kina through the day, since I don’t know what to do with myself.
She says I should rest, but resting feels like the last thing I need to do when I’m supposed to be doing Important Stuff.
God-related important stuff.
So I trail after her, watching as she feeds the animals in their crude barn.
It’s got an open face to one side, with more of the stucco walls under a thatched roof.
There are wooden stall doors with hay trailing over the floor, and inside are not horses but big, fat creatures with enormous heads and even bigger bellies and dun hides.
They remind me of a hippo. She calls them woales.
One of the woales drags a plow through the field with Kina’s father holding it steady, and her mother works in their vegetable garden and shoots me nervous looks, as if the gods are going to smite her if she makes eye contact with me for too long.
I probably do seem a little strange to them.
My hair is an unassuming brown, my skin pale compared to their sunny bronze, and I’m tall and a little on the thick side compared to their wiry frames.
My hands are soft and my nails clean and rounded, unlike Kina’s work-chapped hands and broken, square nails that have a line of grime under the beds.
It’s clear my days of “hard work” are very different than theirs.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, given that I felt like I had a moment to myself back home.
This is an entirely different level of work, however.
Kina's energy is endless. She finishes tending to the animals, then goes inside the small cottage and gets to work grinding spices from their cellar.
When the spices are ground, she takes fresh milk and begins to churn it.
Then she gets to work on her loom, her hands moving quicker than I ever thought possible.
I offer to help out with the churning, but she takes one look at my plump arms and hands me the mortar and pestle instead and tasks me with grinding more spices to a fine powder.
As she works at a frantic pace, Kina chatters at me about how she wants to marry a boy that lives in town, but her parents need her help here on the farm.
That he works with his father as a smith, so they haven’t yet figured out how they’re going to work things out.
“I’d ask the goddess of love, but I’m sure she’s got other things on her mind right now, what with the Anticipation and all. ”
“I think you should ask anyhow. Isn’t that her job?”
“Well, yes, but everyone knows that the gods come to the mortal realm during the Anticipation because they’re not doing things as they should.”
“Maybe she needs a reminder that she serves you.”
Kina’s smile is amused. “How hard do you work for people when you’re told that you’re shite at your job?”
Excellent point. “You’re just going to wait for better timing to marry him? What if things never change?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? That’s proof enough to me that things are changing.”
Another excellent point. “Maybe when Kalos gets here, I can ask him to put in a good word?”
She freezes, terrified. “Oh, please don’t, Mistress Elsie.
We don’t want to involve Lord Kalos at all.
We want to avoid his gaze entirely.” She grabs a pinch of salt out of the salt cellar and tosses it over her shoulder, then goes back to her weaving.
“Lord Kalos is angry at the goddess Belara anyhow. She was once his lover but no more.”
“Oh? I wonder why.” I don’t want to come between exes, even as a babysitter. That’s a quick way to get in over your head fast.
“The stories say he was a scorned lover. He was angry that she would not agree to become his bride, so he sent a plague to her followers.”
Yikes. Okay, Lachesis did mention that we wanted to keep Kalos as neutralized as possible.
What was the word she used? Apathetic. If I asked him to put in a good word for poor Kina, he’d probably kill the entire village so the smith would be free to join her on the farm.
I have to watch myself here. This isn’t my world, and I can’t think of things the way I did back home.
“Pray to the goddess anyhow,” I advise Kina. “Maybe just flatter her a lot instead of asking for specific things. We’ll skip asking Kalos anything.”
She brightens. “That’s an excellent idea. The gods love flattery, almost as much as they love a sacrifice.”
I wince.
“I know, I know. You don’t like sacrifices.” Kina grins at me. “I won’t do that while you’re around.”
“She’s the goddess of…what? Love? Beauty?” When Kina nods, I suggest, “Maybe you sacrifice something beautiful to her, like flowers or a favorite earring.”
Her eyes widen. “Or the most beautiful goat—”
“Or your favorite necklace,” I state again, voice firm.
“I’m teasing you, Mistress.” She laughs. “As for your goat, don’t worry. He’s quite safe.”
He is? I’ve forgotten all about him. “Where is he at?”
“He belongs to the farmer down the road. When you’re ready to retrieve him, we’ll go get him. I insisted that you rest first.” She frowns at the mortar and pestle in my hands. I’m probably doing it all wrong, and I grind a little harder on the spices in the heavy stone bowl just to be certain.
Retrieve him. “What am I to do with a baby goat?”
She shrugs. “If you don’t want him, we’ll tell Davios. He’ll make a fine stew out of him.”
“We’ll get him,” I say faintly. I know that people eat farm animals all the time, but something about saving that little goat from sacrifice just for him to end up in a stew pot doesn’t seem right to me. “Perhaps tomorrow. And then we should head back to the temple.”
Kina looks up at me, surprised. “So soon?”
I nod. “I have a feeling Kalos is going to be arriving quicker than we’d like.”
Hadn’t Lachesis said as much? I want to be there so I can truly begin my task. I don’t want any chance that I’ll be sent back to my world and mess up David’s chance for a happy ever after.
I need to stay.
The next morning, I head back out to the swamp and the temple there with Kina as my guide.
We both carry heavily laden packs, since I’m determined to live out there instead of staying at the comfortable farm.
My job is clear, and I can’t avoid it. More than that, I don’t want to.
Kina and her mother are distressed at my decision, but I remind them that it’s my divine calling or something, and they’re eager to make the gods happy.
Going with us are a few changes of clothes for me (more of the plain, cool linen slip dresses), dried fish and meat, cheese, bread, and some other foodstuffs I don’t recognize.
Kina’s pack has a rolled-up padded mat for me to sleep on, along with a pillow, blankets, and a trunk full of “necessities.” Her bag looks heavy enough to drag me to the ground, but Kina carries it easily and I’m reminded that she’s a farm girl and made of sturdy stuff.
I’m the wilting flower that knows how to make coffee and not much else.
Also with us?
Dingle the goat, the one I saved from sacrifice.
The farmer showed up with him late last night, and now he’s mine. He’s adorable and small, with two tiny buds for horns, cute little hooves, and a black and white coat. He trots at my side, tiny hooves clopping merrily, as if he wants nothing more than to venture into the swamp with me.
The walk back to the swamp is slow-going.
We take a flat, muddy road with wheel ruts going down the middle.
Off to both sides of the road are thick clusters of trees, some of them evergreens, some tall and spindly, with a high canopy.
There are birds everywhere, and the smell of rot and fetid water grows the closer we get to the swamp itself.
Kina talks endlessly about things I should expect living at the temple in the swamp. “You’ll want to keep your food covered at all times and off the floor, so crawling things stay out of it. Keep the goat close to you because of alligators. Oh, and don’t drink the water.”
“The…swamp water?” She really thinks I would drink the swamp water. Seriously? Do I seem that helpless?
“Aye. There’s a blessed fountain inside the temple that has flowing water. Drink and use that one to bathe. Any other water, like from the bowls to catch rainwater, might be full of worms.”
Delightful.
“And remember to set up the netting over your bed so the mosquitos don’t feast upon you. Though perhaps when the god arrives, you can ask him to make them ignore you. I imagine he’s the sort that likes mosquitos.”
I imagine he is, but I also don’t plan on asking him for anything.
I haven’t thought about what I’ll say or what he’ll be like.
I’ve just been taking things one day at a time, but now Kina’s words remind me that I don’t know anything about the man-slash-god that I’m going to be serving for the rest of my days.
A lump forms in my throat at the thought. Have I made a mistake?
No. He could be the most awful person imaginable and I’d still have volunteered just to give David his life, his future. He deserves it.
“Tell me about Lord Kalos,” I say to Kina. “What’s he look like?”
She spits over her shoulder, nearly hitting me. “We don’t say his name. We don’t want his attention.”
“Right, of course. Tell me about him, then. What’s he like?”
Kina thinks as she walks, her steps brisk despite the muggy morning air.
Me, I feel like I’m drowning in the heat, and my skin is slick with sweat.
“Like his statues, maybe? I don’t rightly know.
He is the Vulture God. All the stories say that he’s as handsome as he is terrible, but not much more than that.
The gods are always beautiful unless they choose to be otherwise.
” She thinks for a moment as we walk, stepping to the side to avoid a rotting branch along the side of the rutted road.
“Though the Lord of Disease does seem like the type to choose otherwise.”
He might indeed. I need to brace myself for that. He might be covered in pustules or something awful. He might be a leper. I don’t know what to expect. “Can you tell me anything else about him?”
“No more than what I’ve already told you, Mistress. One of his aspects always shows up at the temple here, and the others at temples in other lands. He picks the same spots every time. We are lucky for him to bless our people, and we’re lucky to be on the eve of an Anticipation.”
She doesn’t look like she feels lucky. She looks terrified. I can’t blame her. If all the gods in my world were coming back to Earth for bad behavior to fight it out in some Hunger Games-style contest, I’d be a little freaked out, too. “Have any other gods ever shown up in this area?”
“Oh, no. The Lord of Disease remembers any slights done to him. I doubt any want to inflame his temper.”
I hope the god doesn't have an attitude problem. I wouldn't be surprised if he did, given the situation, but it'll make it easier to get along with him if he's not an angry sort. "I'm sure he'll be very reasonable."
He can take his time showing up, too. I'm not eager for this task to begin. . I just need him to arrive before I’ve talked myself out of the entire situation. Dingle starts trotting again, letting out a happy bleat as we head down the road once more.
If only I could be as carefree as a baby goat who has no idea of what he’s just escaped.
We walk for maybe another hour or so before the overgrown temple appears on the horizon.
By the time we get to the stone plaza, full of broken statues and crumbling buildings, the air has grown oppressive with moisture and the water laps at our ankles.
My dress sticks to my skin with sweat, and I feel disgusting, the air heavy.
As we approach, the priestess rushes out to meet us, her skull headdress with the spikes askew, ribbons fluttering as she hurries forward. “You’re late,” she pants. “He’s already here.”