Children of Earth and Sky

  “It isn’t just about that vote, is it—hanging me or handing me over. There’s something you know?”

  The girl was brave. Even a rich man’s daughter in Dubrava could be brave, it seemed. She met Danica’s gaze. They were about the same age, the three of them.

  Kata Matko said, “Not just you, maybe.” She lowered her voice, the other two women had to strain to hear.

  What? What is she—?

  Danica nodded. It was important, always, that others not see she was disturbed. She said, calmly, “Someone might appear to be attacking me and intend someone else?”

  The girl’s dark eyes widened. “How did you . . . ?”

  “I’ve had a certain kind of life,” Danica said, but kept her voice gentle. She looked at the other woman. “Gospodar Djivo? Marin? You don’t want him dead?”

  Beside her Leonora made a startled sound, and her grandfather made a similar noise in her head. People, men and women, could be wildly different and much the same, it occurred to Danica. They could be alive and dead and much the same, she thought.

  “No, I don’t,” said Kata Matko, colouring. “He doesn’t deserve to be. Not for this.”

  “Someone is unhappy with him? And you know of it, more than the men do?”

  “Yes. A few of us do.”

  “This is to do with a girl? Her family?”

  That was a gamble, a guess. Perhaps too much so.

  “I didn’t say it to you,” the other woman said firmly. “And it isn’t me or my family.”

  “You didn’t,” Danica agreed quickly. The woman hadn’t denied the thought, though. Had confirmed it, really. “You have been generous. I lack the skills to put it better but I thank you.”

  “What are we to have been talking about?” Kata said, looking at Leonora. “My mother will ask. I can deceive her but . . .”

  “But you need a direction.” Leonora smiled briefly, she’d regained her own composure quickly. “I admired the cut of your dress. I need mourning clothes made. I wish to have them made well.”

  Kata Matko nodded. “Tamara, in Sule Street. First one north of here, halfway along. She is a Kindath, but is very good if you don’t object to them. She makes all my clothes and has many fabrics. Tell her I sent you. Or . . .” She hesitated. “Would you like me to go with you?”

  Leonora smiled again. “That would be lovely. It does depend on what happens this morning.”

  “Yes,” said Kata Matko. She turned to Danica. Her colour was still high. “I would be happy if you were able to come with us.”

  “A Senjani raider?”

  “Yes.”

  “For a dress?” Danica smiled, but her thought was, again, This one has courage.

  Kata Matko smiled back. “Well, as our guard, then, if you don’t want to look as pretty as you are.”

  She wasn’t going to address that here.

  They made their way back to the mother and the older sister, whose curiosity was amusingly avid, as was that of others nearby. One woman’s mouth was actually hanging open. Catching dragonflies, her mother used to call that.

  Kata and Leonora sank down impeccably to each other. Danica bowed. To the mother as well, on impulse. She was thinking hard.

  That was well done, her grandfather said gruffly.

  A start. What do you think they’ll do?

  We’ll need to see the council chamber. They won’t let you keep your bow.

  I can try.

  —

  AS MARIN HAD EXPECTED, they will not let Danica Gradek in with weapons. She is a Senjani, an enemy of the republic, whatever her reasons for being here.

  As they approached the palace, she’d been crisp, speaking to him and Drago.

  “If I can’t keep my bow and quiver, I need them near me. I think there might be trouble.”

  “Of course there is trouble,” Drago muttered. “Why else are we here?”

  “No. Listen to me. Captain, please offer to keep my bow for the guards, then stay close to me, and . . . also near Gospodar Djivo. This may not be about me.”

  Which had been unexpected. There was no time for more. There are people all around them, entering the chamber; privacy is gone.

  Marin needs to concentrate on what he is going to say. He sees his father and brother already inside. His father is never late for council.

  “I am a guard for the Djivo family,” Danica says to the man at the doors. They are proud of the new bronze doors to the Rector’s Palace. Images in relief of the lives of Blessed Victims, done by an artist from Rhodias, paid extremely well.

  “There are guards inside,” the one at the entrance says. He’s a senior man, in the rector’s dark-green livery. He speaks courteously but he isn’t about to be moved in this. The guard looks at Drago.

  Who says, easily, “She’s here of her own accord, Jevic.”

  “Perhaps also for her own reasons,” the guard says, still politely. “No weapons. That includes the dog.”

  Danica Gradek nods. She speaks to her dog, a hand on his head. The dog goes obediently to the shade near the entrance. He is impressively disciplined and formidably large. A weapon, any way you want to define those.

  Drago turns to Danica. “Gosparko, this guard does have his duties, and only those approved may bear weapons, even ceremonial ones, here. I undertake to hold yours for you. You’ll get them back.”

  “If they let me out without ordering me hanged,” the woman says. She hands her bow and quiver to Marin’s captain. The guard hesitates a moment, then nods to Drago.

  “Knife?” the guard named Jevic says. He is performing a task. There is no malice here.

  Danica removes hers from her belt. Hands it to Drago as well. She smiles briefly at the guard. “I have another in my boot.” She bends down and pulls this one out, thin blade, thin hilt. Drago takes this, too.

  “Always prepared, you Senjani,” Jevic says. He seems close to smiling back.

  “Not much choice,” Danica replies.

  Marin sees respect in the man’s eyes. It surprises him. Jevic steps aside. They go in. The dog watches from the shade outside.

  —

  THERE ARE SIXTY-FIVE MEMBERS of the Rector’s Council as of this morning. There should be sixty-six but one has recently died and not yet been replaced. It isn’t a trivial process, replacing a councillor. There have been skirmishes, feuds, even deaths in the past.

  There are other councils and committees governing Dubrava, smaller groups for day-to-day decisions. There are many decisions in a city-state with wide and varying needs, from quarantining some visitors against arrival of the plague, to dealing with information—or demands—from Asharias, to the need to arrange the remarriage of a wealthy widow, deploying her assets strategically within the circle of noble families.

  There are night patrols against theft and disorder, monitoring of water quality in the fountains, defending their salt flats to the south. All have committees. The city governs several of the islands north of them (against Seressini pressure, always) and there is frequent unrest among the islanders at having to pay a land tax. There are those charged with controlling this unrest.

  Public baths need construction and maintenance, as do, more importantly, the city walls and towers. Gifts and communications to various powers of the world must be carefully judged. Information is gathered and assessed and deciding where they share what they learn is an intricate challenge.

  Medical needs are responded to, whether acquiring doctors (a renewed problem this morning), dealing with unwed mothers, or caring for the indigent. The sanctuaries of the god are to be preserved and, whenever possible, improved, to the greater glory of Jad and Dubrava.

  Marriage among the noble classes is not a private matter. There is a committee controlling how large a dowry may be offered with a daughter. Competitiveness is an element in this. The republic allo
ws wealth to be displayed, but excess is disruptive.

  They frown in Dubrava upon that which disrupts.

  They trade and survive in a world disinclined to allow them to trade and survive as an independent republic, and so extreme attention to many matters is always to be paid. They know their past and observe the present closely. A small city-state, among lions and the threat (or reality) of war, cannot do otherwise.

  They pride themselves on being more observant of shifts in the winds of the world than others are. A younger son in Ferrieres named heir of valuable lands instead of his brother? That can ripple a long way. The daughter of the king of Esperaña rumoured to have inherited the Kohlberg dynasty’s mental infirmity? Some will be glad to learn of this from Dubrava. A new cavalry serdar at the Osmanli garrison in Mulkar? Might have implications here, since their overland trade route to Asharias runs near there. Someone will be assigned to discover the new man’s tastes in gifts. Everything matters.

  Even Seressa with all its spies does not observe so obsessively, because Seressa is one of the lions. It has the power and scope to survive a serious mistake. The Dubravae believe that they might not.

  The Rector’s Palace has been rebuilt twice after fires. Fire is a matter for which there is a committee. It is the greatest fear, along with plague. A careless blacksmith or cook can destroy a city.

  The current palace is new, a source of pride. High-ceilinged, with worked bronze bands around the perimeter inside and a ceiling fresco by another Batiaran master. There are sixteen red marble pillars, cedarwood benches for the councillors, and an upper-level gallery for visitors, from which some of the rector’s guards observe proceedings below. The new windows are tall, handsome, with expensively tinted glass. The chamber on a morning in spring is airy and bright.

  The rector sits in a handsome chair but not a throne. This is a republic—not always, but for two hundred years now, since the Seressinis and then the emperor in Obravic ceded control. Their rectors change every two years, rotating among the council members who are all, of course, from the nobility. They are expected to marry only each other. It is difficult for even the most successful merchants to enter this class.

  These merchants are placated by being allowed to wear furs and expensive jewellery and to have handsome works of art in their homes. On occasion they are allowed elevation to the nobility. (It costs, of course.) There is, after all, a risk of excessive intermarriage, which their clerics frown upon. New blood is useful, in moderation.

  The clerics also need appeasing, always.

  This morning, two decisions face the council in the form of two women now entering the chamber—causing a predictable stir, since women are almost never here. One is comely and sympathetic, it is agreed; the other is Senjani. They represent very different dilemmas, though they are linked to a single incident on the Djivo family’s Blessed Ingacia.

  The charming one in black needs to be sent back to Seressa, and her family will be contacted with regard to assuming a portion of a ransom paid for her to Senjani pirates. Either that, or the republic itself will need to compensate the Djivos, whose clever younger son seems to have avoided a diplomatic incident by paying the raiders directly, keeping the woman on his ship.

  In addition, this widow of a doctor they’d hired and who has died in their care likely has to be personally compensated. The clerics will urge this, and, frankly, the Seressinis will need to know it has been done. There will be little debate about this. The sum is another matter.

  For merchants, it is always about the sum.

  Unfortunately, it seems the widow of Doctor Miucci has made it clear, through one of their own number (the senior Djivo, Andrij, sitting in the front row with his older son) that her family will not reimburse any of the ransom paid for her. She has not explained why. Nor, she has also indicated, will she willingly return to Seressa. She has not explained why.

  She intends to stay in Dubrava, it seems. Charming as the woman undoubtedly is, it is a difficulty.

  The other difficulty is the other woman. Some in this chamber are prepared to enjoy watching her executed. There is, to put it more delicately than they would themselves, no love in this room for the so-called heroes of Senjan.

  The rector seems to have finished the conversations he’s been having. He can be seen moving towards his chair, slowly (the bad leg is from long ago, at sea). A well-built man in a green silk robe trimmed with fox fur. He uses a handsome walking stick, has a mane of still-dark hair, the envy of many much younger than him. He is not to be taken lightly.

  —

  LEONORA HADN’T THOUGHT any of this through. There hadn’t been time. She was here under false pretenses. She knew enough not to tell them that. She had told Danica Gradek, improbably. Her first friend since being sent away from home turned out to be a tall, fierce woman from Senjan who carried weapons, dressed like a man, and had killed the raider who’d run Jacopo Miucci through with a sword.

  What saddened her was that she was beginning to forget what Miucci had been like, after only a few days. She remembered kindness, and his gratitude in the dark. Both had been new to her. A gentle man.

  But this morning in the Rector’s Palace she needed to be clear and alert, and she wasn’t feeling so. Clarity was beyond her just now. Or, rather, she was clear only on what she would not do—and had told them.

  She had no idea what she would do with the life Jad seemed to have ordained for her, this unexpected path, so far from what she’d imagined as a child, daughter of a distinguished family. Loved. Or at least seen as valuable.

  She didn’t know how to attach value to herself now, and it needed to be done or they would send her back to Seressa. Andrij Djivo, Marin’s father, had explained this over dinner the night before. He had assumed it would be what she wanted.

  She had cried then, at their table, explaining that she could not go back. Actually, she hadn’t explained it, only told them, and begged that they’d honour her privacy by not asking why. Pleaded that Gospodar Djivo might cause the Rector’s Council to allow her to stay, at least for a time.

  He’d shown great sympathy, the elder Djivo, along with perplexity. He obviously liked her, her appearance, manners, accent, breeding. Liked her much more than Danica, of course.

  She saw him standing now beside the older son, near the rector’s chair at the front, under the tall windows. He was talking to a man with a walking stick. That one, in fur-trimmed green, would be the rector of Dubrava, she guessed.

  It was a handsome room. Not as large as the council chamber in Seressa where she and Miucci had accepted their tasks, but it was beautifully fashioned, and on another morning Leonora might have paused to admire the windows facing the sea.

  Just now she couldn’t. She was too afraid. She stole a glance at Danica. The other woman was scanning the room and upper gallery. Danica was standing in front of Marin Djivo, who was greeting one of the younger councillors.

  She had already considered—and dismissed—the idea of marrying here in order to remain. It was almost impossible. She was in mourning, was not a member of their nobility, even though she would certainly count as a good marriage. Or, she might have done so if there hadn’t been a child somewhere in the world and if her father hadn’t disowned her entirely.

  And if the Council of Twelve across the water didn’t hold her life in its hands, like something easily shattered. They could make her do what they wanted to. Or so they’d think.

  Leonora had spent two nights trying to work it through. If they revealed her false marriage they exposed themselves as having arranged it. If she revealed it . . . she wasn’t sure what followed. But she’d be self-exposed as a spy, and also as the sort of woman who slept with a man not her husband for a state purpose.

  A whore, it would be said.

  “Go step by step,” Danica had told her. “We can’t know what is to come. Do you think,” she’d added, “that I
expected to be here?”

  Right now, Leonora thought, Danica might be thinking only as far as tomorrow. They had both seen the gallows and headman’s block, just outside the city gates.

  Nobles were allowed beheading and a burial. Common thieves—or Senjani pirates—were hanged and left to rot. Messages were sent that way everywhere in the world. There was no reason to expect Dubrava to be different.

  It occurred to Leonora that death could be very close to a person, even someone young, as she moved under sun or moons, over a blue-green sea, along city streets or wilderness roads past forests with dark leaves hiding the god’s sun, or between red marble pillars under tall windows.

  —

  DANICA KEPT LOOKING at the men gathered in the chamber and those still entering. The problem was, she wasn’t trained for this. Simply being Senjani didn’t make you a capable guard. On the other hand . . .

  Zadek, help me, what do I need to see?

  Be aware of the younger ones. And the gallery above. Watch that.

  The gallery was a concern. There were guards up there, she saw some with crossbows. But what could she do if one of them . . . ?

  She motioned to Drago Ostaja. He was still holding her weapons. The captain hesitated, obviously startled that she was ordering him about, but he did approach. Marin was behind her, talking to another man. She was trying to screen him from the gallery; he would be exposed if she moved.

  She said quietly to Drago, “Stay in front of him, where I am now. I do believe there is danger.”

  “For Marin?” His tone was somewhere between dismay and anger.

  She nodded. “Yes. That’s what I learned in the street. From the girl. It may have to do with women, that is why they knew.”

  She left him, walking quickly back to the guard at the door, the one who had made her yield her weapons but had done so with courtesy, perhaps even respect. He also had a crossbow, against the wall beside him.

  She waited for him to finish admitting three men, who eyed her with expressions that could not be called courteous or respectful. The guard—his name was Jevic, she remembered—turned to her.