Kurt caught his breath, exhausted, far from help of Kta or Djan. Then he remembered the other gate, the sally port in the far end of the wall where it touched Haichema-tleke, and opened onto the temple square. That would be the one for them to guard, that nearest the temple. They might hear him there, and open.
He raced along the wall, jostling Sufaki in his exhausted weaving and stumbling. A few drunk ones laughed and caught at his clothing. Others cursed him, trying to bar his way.
A cry began to go up, resentment for his presence. Jafikn-wearing Sufaki barred his path, turned him. Someone struck him from the side, nearly throwing him to the pavement.
He ran, but they would not let him escape the square, blocking his way out,—t’Tefur’s men, armed with blades.
Authority, he thought, sensible authority would not let this happen. He broke to one side, racing for the temple steps, sending shrieking women and cursing men crowding out of his way.
Hands reached to stop him. He tore past them almost all the way to the very top of the long temple steps before enough of them seized him to hold him.
“Elas’ doing!” a hysterical voice shrieked from below. “Kill the human!”
Kurt struggled around to see who had shouted, looked down on a sea of alien faces in the torchlight and the haze of thin mist. “Where is Shan t’Tefur?” Kurt screamed back at them. “Where has he taken my wife?”
The babble of voices almost hushed for a moment: the nemet held their women in great esteem. Kurt drew a great gasp of air and shouted across the gathering. “Shan t’Tefur! If you are here, come out and face me. Where is my wife? What have you done with her?”
There was a moment of shocked silence and then a rising murmur like thunder as an aged priest came from the upper steps through the men gathered there. He cleared the way with the emblem of his office, a vine-wreathed staff. The staff extended till it was almost touching Kurt, and the priest spat some unintelligible words at him.
There was utter silence now, drunken laughter coming distantly from the wall-street. In this gathering no one so much as stirred. Even Kurt was struck to silence,—the staff extended a degree further and with unreasoning loathing he shrank from it, not wanting to be touched by this mouthing priest with his drunken gods of earth. They held him, and the rough wood of the staff’s tip trembled against his cheek.
“Blasphemer,” said the priest, “sent by Elas to profane the rites. Liar. Cursed from the earth you will be, by the old gods, the ancient gods, the life-giving sons of Thael. Son of Yr to Phan united, Aem-descended, to the gods of ancient Chteftik,—cursed!”
“A curse on the lot of you,” Kurt shouted in his face, “if you have any part in t’Tefur’s plot! My wife Mim never harmed any of you, never harmed anyone. Where is she? You people,—you! that were in the market today—that walked away—Are you all in this? What did they do with her? Where did they take her?—Is she alive? By your own gods you can tell me that at least. Is she alive?”
“No one knows anything of the woman, human,” said the aged priest. “And you were ill-advised to come here with your drunken ravings. Who would harm Mim h’Elas, a daughter of Sufak herself? You come here and profane the mysteries—taught no reverence in Elas, it is clear. Cursed be you, human, and if you do not leave now, we will wash the pollution of your feet from these stones with your blood.—Let him go, let go the human, and give him the chance to leave.”
They released him, and Kurt swayed on the steps above the crowd, scanning the faces for one that was familiar. Of Osanef, of any friend, there was no sign. He looked back at the priest.
“She is lost in the city, hurt or dead,” Kurt pleaded. “You are a religious man.—Do something!”
For a moment pity or conscience almost touched the stern old face. The cracked lips quavered on some answer. There was a hush over the crowd.
“It is Indras’ doing!” a male voice shouted. “Elas is looking for some offense against the Sufaki—and now they try to create one! The human is Elas’ creature!”
Kurt whirled about, saw a familiar face for the first time.
“He is one of them!” Kurt shouted. “That is one of the men who was in the market when my wife was taken. They tried to kill me and they have my wife—”
“Liar,” shouted another man. “Ver has been at the temple since the ringing of the Inta.I saw him myself. The human is trying to accuse an innocent man.”
“Kill him!” someone else shouted, and others throughout the crowd took up the cry, surging forward, young men, wearing the Robes of Color. T’Tefur’s men.
“No,” cried the old priest, pounding his staff for attention. “No, take him out of here, take him far from the temple precincts.”
Kurt backed away as men swarmed about him, nearly crushed in the press, jerked bodily off his feet, limbs strained as they passed him off the steps and down into the crowd.
He fought, gasping for breath and trying to free hands or even a foot to defend himself as he was borne across the courtyard toward the wall-street.
And the gate was open, and men of the Methi’s guard were there, dimly outlined in the mist and the flaring torches, but about them was the flash of metal, and bronze helmets glittered under the murky firelight, ominous and warlike.
“Give him to us,” said their leader.
“Traitors,” cried one to the young men.
“Give him to us,” the officer repeated. It was t’Senife.
In anger they flung Kurt at the guardsmen, threw him sprawling on the stones, and the guards in their haste were no more gentle, snatching him up again, half dragging him through the sally port into the Afen grounds.
Hysterical outcries came from the crowd as they closed the door, barring the multitude outside. Something heavy struck the door, a barrage of missiles like the patter of hail for a moment. The shrieking rose and died away.
The Methi’s guard gathered him up, hauling his bruised arms, pulling him along with them until they were sure that he would walk as rapidly as they.
They took him by the back stairs and up.
13
“Sit down,” Djan snapped.
Kurt let himself into the nearest chair, although Djan continued to stand. She looked over his head toward the guards who waited.
“Are things under control?”
“They would not enter the Afen grounds.”
“Wake the day guard. Double watch on every post, especially the sally port. T’Lised, bring h’Elas here.”
Kurt glanced up. “Mim—”
“Yes, Mim.” Djan dismissed the guard with a wave of her hand and swept her silk and brocade skirts aside to take a chair. No flicker of sympathy touched her face as Kurt lifted a shaking hand to wipe his face and tried to collect his shattered nerves.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“She will mend. Nym reported you missing when you failed to return; my men found her wandering the dock. I couldn’t get sense out of her; she kept demanding to go to Elas, until I finally got through to her the fact that you were missing too. Then Kta came here saying you’d come back to Elas and then left again to find me; he was able to pass the gate in company with some of my men or I doubt he’d have made it through, given the mood of the people out there. So I sent Kta home again under guard and told him to wait there,—and I hope he did. After the riot you created in the temple square, finding you was simple.”
Kurt bowed his head, glad enough to know Mim was safe, too tired to argue.
“Do you even remotely realize what trouble you caused? My men are in danger of being killed out there because of you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What happened to you?”
“T’Tefur’s men hauled me out of the market, held me in some warehouse until dark and took me out—I suppose to dispose of me in the harbor. I escaped. I—may have killed one or two of them.”