Chapter 14
A bell rang. The end of visiting hours. Siniq-elb shifted, preparing himself for the humiliating passage back to his room—a room with a bed so high that he could not climb in it to sleep, with a desk and a chair that mocked his efforts to reach them, as though built for a tair instead of a man. At least it was quiet and dark. He could curl up in the blankets he had stripped from the bed and sleep, with nothing to disturb him but dreams.
Agahm lay a few feet away; the eses found it amusing to place the two cripples near each other. After a few days of taunting Siniq-elb in vain, Agahm had given up, gone silent, unless it was to torture Vas. The stout, dark-haired man rarely came by, perhaps because of Agahm’s cruelty, perhaps because of Siniq-elb’s silence.
As though conjured by the thought, Vas emerged from a cluster of men and women dressed in normal clothes. He glanced over at Siniq-elb, but changed direction and headed toward the temple. Siniq-elb was grateful that Vas no longer tried to talk to him; the endless, philosophical ramblings had been more wearisome than the dull throb in his legs. Now both were quiet, almost whispers.
By rote, Siniq-elb ran through the Garden again in his mind, analyzing it for escape. The thought meant little to him now; he no longer had the desire to leave, to seek out vengeance. What good was vengeance when there was no life to be avenged? He had become less than dead—a cipher, a nothing, a palimpsest in the scroll of life, neatly over-written by Natam. But he could not stop examining the Garden. The larch and pines that ran along the east wall were no good; their branches were too thin to support his weight, they grew too tall, and they did not reach out over the walls. Better were the hardwoods of the western wall, in particular a beech with plenty of low branches, and whose higher limbs stretched teasingly into the air beyond the walls of the yard.
“Siniq-elb,” Vas said.
Siniq-elb blinked, but did not bother to look up. With Vas, silence and a little time would do what a request for privacy could not. No need to respond; he would leave soon enough.
“Siniq-elb,” Vas said. “This is serious. Are you listening?” His voice was tight, different. Afraid. “Please listen to me. They’ve given us dinner service tonight. Khylar told me you’re well enough to start earning your keep around here.”
Dinner service. That meant light and noise and people, instead of the quiet oblivion of his room. In the end, though, it made little difference.
“Are you listening to me?” Vas said. “You’ve got to be careful; the eses get rowdy at dinner, they’re not—” He stopped abruptly.
“Coming to dinner too, huh?” Crook said as he bent and picked up Siniq-elb.
“Father take me,” Bald said as he took Siniq-elb’s other side. “Bastard’s all but healed. Let him crawl around on his own. A man shouldn’t have to labor on his way to dinner.”
“Reckon they’ll have him on his own soon enough,” Crook said. “We’ve got better things to do than tote him around all day.”
Siniq-elb flushed in spite of himself, but the anger faded quickly. It was too hard to stay angry; it meant being in one place, being within himself, instead of drifting between memory and fantasy. Easier to drift into that oblivion between thoughts than to hate the two eses who carried him.
Crook and Bald continued their talk as they hauled Siniq-elb through the temple, past his rooms, until they finally passed through a pair of wide-set doors into a dining hall. In spite of himself, Siniq-elb noticed the size. It was massive; a small home could have fit within the dining hall, and even so the long tables and benches were filled with eses and, occasionally, su-eses. At the far end, a platform held a table set apart, along with musical instruments, easels, juggling balls. The eses enjoyed entertainment with their meals, it seemed.
Eses called out jokes to Crook and Bald as they carried Siniq-elb between the tables; cries of cripple and gimp ran through the room, followed by laughter. Crook and Bald gave as good as they got, and try as he might, Siniq-elb found himself furious, unable to escape into mindlessness. Every eye in the room was on him as he was carried like a child past men and women eager to point and mock.
His bearers set him down on the platform, near the musical instruments, and a moment later Vas joined him. The stout man plopped himself on the ground, face pale and sweaty, and wrapped his arms around his knees.
“Be quiet and do what you’re told,” Vas muttered. More eses were filing in, and su-eses as well. Among them appeared men and women in brown tunics, some carrying platters of food, others with drink. When a last knot of eses took their place on the stand, the meal began.
Once the humiliation had ended, Siniq-elb felt himself sliding into the darkness of his own thoughts again. He felt Vas nudge him, but Siniq-elb ignored the stout man. There was nothing in this place for him; let them point and laugh if they wanted. He would sit on the platform, if that’s what they required—the tair only knew why they would want a cripple to help with serving a meal.
“Child,” someone said, and a hand gripped Siniq-elb’s hair and tilted his head back.
He stared up into a familiar face—thin, sharp-edged cheekbones. Eyes the color of a summer storm cloud, between gray and blue. It took a moment for memory to sink in. The man Dakel had taken him to see, his first night in the Garden. The man who had ordered Dakel to take Siniq-elb’s feet.
A hot flush started in Siniq-elb’s fingers, racing up his arms like pinpricks, swelling in his neck to choke him. He brought his arms up, to grab this man, to claw the eyes from his head. Without changing expression, the man shook Siniq-elb’s head, bony fingers woven tight in Siniq-elb’s hair. Tears sprang to Siniq-elb’s eyes and he rocked back, off balance.
“Play us a song, child,” the man said. He gave Siniq-elb’s hair another tug that almost toppled him, and then the thin man was moving toward the nearest table, green robe trailing behind him.
The needling heat in Siniq-elb’s throat had reached his cheeks. He stared after the esis.
“Leave him,” Vas said. “That was nothing.”
“He treated me like a child,” Siniq-elb said. “No. Like a dog.”
“He will do worse if you don’t start playing something,” Vas said. The stout man picked up a flute and trilled a few notes. Some of the eses jeered and laughed; others paid attention only to the food.
“I don’t know how to play anything,” Siniq-elb said, staring at the instruments around him: a small harp, a mandolin, a pair of cymbals.
Vas pulled the flute from his mouth long enough to say, “Neither do I. That’s part of Khylar’s joke. He finds something to . . . to make you work.” Without another word, Vas played another note. Some of them were half-formed, and even Siniq-elb, who could barely sing the marching songs, could hear the wavering pitch.
“Child,” the thin man snapped. Siniq-elb glanced up and saw the esis staring at him, stormcloud eyes hard. “Now.”
Siniq-elb glanced at the pair of cymbals. They would be easy enough, just bang them together a few times. He reached toward them, then looked at Vas. The stout man gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
So there was a reason Vas had not taken the cymbals. Khylar’s joke, the stout man had said. Something to make them work. Not work, though, Siniq-elb realized. Something to humiliate them. Some of the eses played their part to perfection, shouting catcalls, but others refused even to acknowledge the men from the Garden.
Gritting his teeth, Siniq-elb took the small harp, grateful that it was light enough for him to lift it while sitting. He set it between his legs, the same prickling anger washing over him, and glared at Khylar. Eyes locked with the esis, Siniq-elb plucked a single string and gave Khylar a tight smile.
Red spots appeared in Khylar’s cheeks, and the esis rose from his seat. At that moment, a woman stepped onto the platform, a tray of roasted beef across her arms. Siniq-elb’s gaze slid to her for a heartbeat. Mece. Blonde hair, the pale, crisp gold of old sunlight, and an oval face dominated by eyes the color of fresh-blooming
lavender. He felt as though he had drawn a breath of that same sunlight, waves of heat rising and crashes through his body. The harp, the hall, the riotous eses—all forgotten.
Then Khylar stepped back into Siniq-elb’s vision. He gave Siniq-elb a long, careful look. Mece curtsied, tray wobbling across her arms, and tried to step around the esis. Khylar gripped her by the chin, turning her face toward him, and pulled her to her feet. For a heartbeat Khylar stared at her. His gaze flickered once to Siniq-elb, challenging. One hand rose, so fast it was almost a blur, and caught Mece in the cheek. The sound of the blow cracked the voices and laughter in the hall.
Mece fell to one side, catching herself on her knees, but the tray flew free and hit the ground with a loud crack. Beef and gravy sloshed across the polished wood, filling the air with their scent. The silence lasted only a moment before the eses returned to their conversations, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Siniq-elb could not breathe; invisible hands clutched his throat, stifling any words. Khylar had hit her to punish him. In a moment of clarity, Siniq-elb realized he was clutching the frame of the harp so hard his knuckles ached. Khylar had hit her to make a point. The thought rang in Siniq-elb’s mind like a bell.
Still darting glances at Siniq-elb, Khylar gripped Mece by one arm and dragged her toward the broken tray. The esis was shouting something, but Siniq-elb could not make out the words over the roar of blood in his ears. Siniq-elb got on his knees, harp still gripped in one hand, and started crawling toward Khylar, who stood with his back to Siniq-elb. Distantly, Siniq-elb heard a spluttering trill, like a drowning songbird, and a gasp from Vas, but he ignored the stout man. Vas was a coward. Weak. He stood by, whole of body, while others were tortured. Siniq-elb was a soldier of the army of Khi’ilan. He had sworn to protect the weak, to fight for what was right. No matter what had changed, he was still a soldier.
Khylar was shouting, bent over Mece, shaking her by a handful of that white-gold hair. Siniq-elb heard eses shouting now, and a swell of laughter to drown out even the frenzy of his anger. Khylar turned, still gripping Mece by the hair, with a smile on his face, just as Siniq-elb reared back on his knees.
The smile faltered for an instant, wavered as Siniq-elb brought the harp around in a wide swing. With a low, metallic twang, the instrument struck Khylar in the jaw, and Siniq-elb felt the crunch of bone ripple through the wood and up his own arm.
Stumbling back, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, Khylar let out a cry. Eses were moving now. Angry shouts had replaced the taunts. Hands grabbed him, tearing at his arms and head, buffeting his face and ears. Pain, hot and sharp, flashed through him like lightning.
Then Vas was there, pulling men off of him, his dark foreign hair a wild fringe above his pale face. Siniq-elb, blinked, trying to clear his vision, but something seemed wrong with his eyes; everything around him seemed distant, seen through old glass.
Vas’s face disappeared, and then Khylar stared down at him, rain-cloud eyes threatening. He held one hand against his jaw, mumbling words that Siniq-elb could not understand. With a nod at someone out of Siniq-elb’s sight, Khylar left.
Still wrapped in that gauzy pain, Siniq-elb did not resist as the hands returned, dragging him from the hall and through the corridors of the temple. The wooden floors rasped his wounded limbs, and soon the old fires started up again in his legs. Fresh air burst over them, and a glimpse of a striated sky of riverstone-blue and ocher. The eses laid him over a stone, its edges cutting into his stomach and chest through the thin tunic, and chained his arms. A ripping noise as the tunic was torn away. Old blood stained the air, faded under the sharp tang in Siniq-elb’s mouth.
A whimper nearby told him Vas was here as well. Before Siniq-elb could think about that, the first lash landed, a line of living heat followed by ripples of pain. Over and over again the lash struck, until blood seemed to fill Siniq-elb’s nostrils, drowning him in the bouquet of his own pain. Fire scored his back. He screamed until his throat was raw, and then screamed more.
Eventually, the punishment ended, and somehow Siniq-elb found himself alone on the damp ground, the soil gritty against his bare chest. A man dressed in the brown and yellow robe of a healer knelt next to him, applying a salve to the wounds on his back, then to the stumps of his legs. A wall of cool numbness dropped between Siniq-elb and the pain, and his breathing evened out, pressed between the weight of the pain and the rough dirt beneath.
The sound of crying reached him. With an effort that left him dizzy, Siniq-elb turned his head, presenting a fresh cheek to the blood-soaked ground. Vas lay a few feet away; the healer knelt next to him now, but if the salve made any difference, Vas gave no sign. His corpulent frame shook and trembled like upset pudding as sobs ran through him. Bawling like a babe. As weak as Siniq-elb had thought.
Siniq-elb had tried, given it his best effort. He had done what the old Siniq-elb would have done; he had been a soldier. Siniq-elb closed his eyes. He was a soldier no longer; he was a man without feet, a cripple. He was nothing anymore. The man who had been Siniq-elb had died weeks ago, chained to a block of stone, and he would never return. The chill dampness of the earth threatened to draw Siniq-elb under, into that realm of half-thought, that world of infinite escape. It would be so easy to go back there; he would do what he was told the next time, do his best to obey, so that they would leave him alone. Alone with the emptiness inside him.
Then he thought of Mece, and of hair so bright it could cut the air, of eyes that had soaked up the color of the sky before an over-due rain. He thought of Inara and Natam, of Dakel, and most importantly, of Khylar. To surrender to that undertow of sleep would be to give them the victory. Siniq-elb had been a soldier once; he had fought to help those in need of help. His encounter with Khylar, the ease with which the eses had subdued and beaten him, they were proof that he was a soldier no longer. But even if he was no longer a soldier, was still a fighter. And a fighter fought to the death.
Gritting his teeth against a groan, Siniq-elb pulled himself across the stained ground, inch by painstaking inch, until he could reach out and rest one hand on Vas’s arm. The stout man flinched, eyes pressed shut. He was not a soldier, perhaps, but he had done what he could to help Siniq-elb. Under all those words, under the layers of cowardice and ineffectiveness, there was a fighter buried in Vas as well. And Siniq-elb needed all the fighters he could find.
“I’m so sorry,” Siniq-elb whispered, the words burned raw by his aching throat. He patted Vas’s arm as a flood of deep, wrenching sobs washed over the stout man. “I’m so sorry.”
The old Siniq-elb was gone; that way of fighting was gone. But Siniq-elb was still alive, and that meant he could learn to fight again. Tomorrow was a new battle, with lines yet to be drawn. And every battle had the seeds of victory buried within.