The Blue Hawk Read Online Free Page A

time when Tan was weakest and calling for the harvest tax at seedtime. This I know as well as you know your Great Hymns. And I also know that it is the same with the hymns and the rituals. You think a little change here and there will do no harm? I tell you that if anything can be changed, everything can. Very soon men would be trying to change the Gods. And who would rule in the kingdom then, do you think?”
    â€œBut Goat,” said the Mouth of Silence. “There has always been Goat.”
    â€œI have wondered,” said the Keeper. “That medal the boy wears is not like any other ritual object in the Temple. What else is white, of a polished stone hard enough to stand a thousand years of knocks from irresponsible boys?”
    â€œIt is right that it should be different. Wait. Hear me.”
    Though his function was to speak for the One of Aa and interpret his sign-language, speaking seemed to hurt the Mouth of Silence. His voice was suited to a servant of Aa, grating and slow. He gathered his strength while the others waited.
    â€œThe boy is Goat,” he said. “It is not the medal, it is the boy. You have seen how the hawk answered our brother, twice. The servant of Gdu knows. He allows himself to be touched and carried because the boy is Goat. I too would fight to preserve the least of the rituals. But Goat is a ritual himself. The Wise decreed him. Listen, you are saying to yourselves that the boy broke his bowl by accident and did not drink his sweetwater and that everything follows from that. He did not sleep, because he had not drunk the sweetwater drug. Therefore he woke and saw our brother visit the dormitory to bless the boy Diran, wearing the mask of Gdu. Chance sent the feather to his bowl. Chance set him opposite the hawk in the House of O and Aa. Chance caused our brother to move and speak so that the hawk should seem to answer him. I am older than you all by thirty floods. I say that there is no such thing as chance. It is all the working of the Gods. I say that the Wise decreed that every day a Goat should be chosen by a stone baked into one of the boys’ loaves just for this—so that there should be room in our stiff rituals for the Gods to act, when They so choose.”
    By the end his voice was a difficult whisper, but the Major Priests heard him with respect. Only the One of Aa sat easy, rubbing his bristly chin and seeming to take pleasure from the rasping movement in the same way that a dog takes pleasure in having its hackles teased. When the speech finished he fluttered his hands across the table in dancelike gestures.
    â€œHe asks if he should take the King,” said the Mouth of Silence.
    â€œOf course,” said the One of O. “His soul was not renewed.”
    â€œHe can die in his sleep,” said the One of Gdu. “I will mix the powders. Has he shifted his bed? Who has been watching?”
    The pale hands danced through a different message.
    â€œHe says the bed is where it was,” said the Mouth of Silence. “He asks if he should take the boy too. He proposes a knife sacrifice on the Tower, this midnight. He will not need powders for the boy.”
    â€œI should think not!” snapped the One of Gdu. “Powders are scarce as emeralds! Huh!”
    His anger, twice frustrated, was still looking for a. way to release itself. The One of Aa shrugged and smiled at Tron, but his eye was speculative, as if measuring the body for the Dark Altar.
    â€œMy brothers,” said the One of O, “it is not a matter of how Aa shall take the boy, but whether She shall take him.”
    The One of Aa shrugged again, but his smile was a sulky pout now.
    â€œWe can’t have him joining the other boys as if nothing had happened,” said the Keeper. “Think what the next Goat might try!”
    â€œThink what the nobles will say if he’s not punished!” said the One of Gdu. “They’ll spread it about that we put him