Buried Heart

  “Yes, yes, I see!” Maraya interrupts him as she would any family member, an intimacy that annoys me.

  Ro nods, as easy with her as she is with him. “What do you think, Jessamy? You’re awfully quiet.”

  I shrug, thinking of the Patrons who have blighted our lives. “Without a mask, the people who hold power may come to believe they have developed a sixth soul that elevates them above others.”

  “Ah. I wish I’d thought of saying it like that.”

  “You’re welcome to it. I’m not writing any plays or making any speeches.”

  Instead of saying more, Ro lapses into silence.

  I concentrate on my hand, squeezing and relaxing my grip on the rope railing as I strengthen the injured wrist. “It’s getting better but what if it never properly heals? What if I can’t compete again? What kind of life would that be?”

  “People go their whole lives without competing at the Fives,” says Maraya. “Jes, do you really not remember the trip we took to Ibua?”

  “No.”

  “You and Bettany were ten, I was eleven, and Amaya was almost nine. You and Bett started squabbling over who got to sit on Father’s shoulders to see the festival barge go past. She pushed you into the water so you grabbed her ankle and dragged her in after you.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  Ro snorts. “I can imagine it, though.”

  I squeeze, hold, and release, wishing Maraya would stop talking, but of course she goes on.

  “Father was so angry and embarrassed at the scene you two caused in public that he swatted you both very hard, right in front of all the people crowded on the bank. I started to cry because he had never hit any of us before, and Amaya started screaming because she wasn’t getting attention, so he slapped us too. Mother quietly took us girls back to the hostel where we were staying. Once we were in private she told Father that no matter how his father had treated him, if he ever hit his children again she would leave him.”

  I think of how Father slapped me on Lord Ottonor’s balcony, after Kal first talked to me, of how much his anger stung. But it wasn’t just anger that drove him that day; it was fear too. He defended us as well as he could against Lord Gargaron’s insults. Yet even as a general he couldn’t protect me from Gargaron’s revenge.

  Maraya has slipped into her lecturing mode. “As you and Bett got older, you started agreeing with everything Father did and said, as if Mother had no part in the success of the household, while Bett began complaining that Mother just gave in to him and did everything the way he wanted. But actually it’s just that Mother never argues in the Saroese manner, with a winner and loser. She negotiates and finds ways people can share. Ways we can live with dignity and happiness. Because we were happy then, Jes. Mother and Father were genuinely happy. That’s what’s so sad about it all.”

  I’m too choked up to answer her, so I just stare at the mesmerizing swirls and eddies of the current. Isn’t this movement, which never ceases and never repeats, the essence of Rivers? Even when you are trying to stand still you are nevertheless in motion. The past clings to us as we hold tight to our regrets and our pain and to the gardens of joy we wish could bloom forever. Yet the current drags us ever forward into the future whose true face we will never see until we take the next step, where every step is a new unmasking.

  In the gray twilight just before dawn we sweep around a mighty curve in the river and come into sight of the ancient city of Ibua. Despite what I said to Maraya, I do recognize it from our long-ago visit. Temples to Seon, Inkos, and Hayiyin line the shore, asserting their power. A huge square fronts the riverside, providing a parade ground and gathering place between the temples and a royal palace whose towering fortlike walls are carved with gigantic sea-phoenix figures. Boats are tied up against stone embankments to disgorge merchandise and passengers.

  But the royal enclosure and temple compound aren’t what strike a resonant memory in my head. It’s the conical island splitting the river that makes me stare, because I remember asking Father if we could climb to the top and him telling me it was forbidden by order of the holy priests to set foot there at all.

  The island’s slope is gentle on all sides, covered with a tangle of overgrown fruit trees and sprawling shrubs. Flowering vines wreath the ruins of a building at the top of the hill. I remember how Bettany and I whispered at night in the hostel when we were meant to be asleep, planning how we would swim to the island when we were grown up and be the first people in all the world to explore its secrets.

  I miss her so much, even if she did push me into the river. Even if she did betray me and Amaya at Crags Fort.

  But the island is no longer a forbidden landmark, now that Efeans control the city. A pontoon bridge is being built, a walkway floating atop boats and barrels to link the city to the rubble of a stone wharf on the island’s bank. On the island itself, people swing machetes and axes to clear an overgrown staircase.

  We tie up against an embankment alongside the square. The triple gates into the temple complex stand wide open. Inside, soldiers drill.

  “We’ve turned the Saroese temples into army barracks,” says Ro with a laugh.

  “How are we supposed to find Mother in this crowded city?” I demand.

  Our ship’s captain commands crewmen to swing the gangplank over but a person comes running, waving an official’s baton.

  “You can’t disembark until after the sunrise ceremony,” shouts the man. “We have new orders, proclaimed last month when the Custodian was named.”

  “The Custodian?” I ask.

  Maraya misunderstands my tone and starts explaining. “Custodian and Protector are the old Efean names for queen and king. They don’t mean quite the same thing, but the principle is the same—”

  She’s cut off when horns blow from the palace. People flood into the square. To the beat of drums, rank upon rank of recruits march out of the temple complex. Some are clearly brand-new to soldiering because they have looks of fierce concentration as they strive to stay in step. Only the sergeants and officers at the heads of columns or the ends of lines wear uniforms, clearly taken from dead or captured soldiers because you can tell where Saroese clan badges have been picked out.

  All the soldiers are Efean. I have never seen anything like it, a field of Efean faces lifted with pride and the authority of arms, and although it looks strange it also makes my heart pound with an uncanny thrill.

  The wall of the palace overlooking the square includes a wide balcony. The restless crowd quiets as people carrying parasols and huge feathered fans take up stations at each corner, and a file of masked people emerges. It’s too far away to make out the details of the masks but I am sure they represent all the animals from the menageries.

  The morning sun clears the eastern hills. Its light spills across the balcony just as a man strides out to the railing to stand in that golden glow. He wears an ankle-length keldi and a feathered cape but no vest or jacket. Instead his chest is painted with swirls, like rings splintering apart to become swords and spears. A lion mask conceals his face but I know who it is even as the soldiers standing at attention in the square cheer him with thunderous shouts.

  “Inarsis! General Inarsis! Protector Inarsis!”

  He lifts a hand palm out, poised and waiting.

  We are all waiting for the Custodian of the land, the representative of the Mother of All who shares Her bounty among all Her people. A wind lifts off the flowing waters to brush a ripple through the white awning that shades the palace.

  She comes, a woman wearing a simple linen sheath dress, the ordinary clothing of everyday Efean women. She carries in one arm what at first glimpse I think must be a cornucopia until I realize it is a baby tucked in her strong embrace. Her cloud of black hair frames the mask of feathers she wears, shaped in the form of a butterfly.

  Ro has the smug look of a man whose secrets have stayed hidden. He knew, and he never gave us even a hint.

  Our mother is queen of Efea.


  22

  The royal palace and compound in Ibua is older than the king’s and queen’s palaces in Saryenia. According to tradition it was built by the order of Serenissima the First in the early days of her reign with her younger brother, Kliatemnos. Its rectangular courtyards and buildings with roofs curved like ships look foreign, not like the palace in Saryenia, which blends Efean and Saroese styles.

  Instead of courtiers and servants, refugees crowd the courtyards and audience halls. People stand in lines to receive platters of fried millet porridge. A dame wearing an elephant mask pushed up over her white hair addresses a staggeringly ancient old woman supported on either side by young people.

  “Thirty-two from your village? How many children? What craftspeople and artisans? How many recruits for the army? We need laborers as well.” At her side, clerks are recording the numbers. “And you, Honored Dame, when you are recovered from the journey, will you speak with our menageries council? We are interested in whatever you recall from your childhood. You are the most precious treasure-house of all.”

  “That group fled from the southern coast, where the East Saroese army is pillaging and burning,” Ro says over his shoulder to me. He walks beside Maraya with a hand tucked under her elbow, making sure everyone sees he is treating a Saroese-looking woman with honor and courtesy.

  It isn’t that she and Polodos are spit on or shoved, but people look at them as if wondering why Patrons ought to walk here at all. Yet among the refugees I see Saroese faces: a pale child seated amid darker faces plays a clapping game sung in Efean; a young Saroese soldier casually keeps order alongside two Efean comrades; and that rarest thing of all, a pregnant Saroese woman in the company of an Efean man who holds an older child who clearly belongs to them both.

  When we pass into the inner courtyard I expect to be shown into the private wing where the nobility luxuriate in wealth and isolation, but this area is also crowded with refugees. Instead we make our way to a vast kitchen bigger than the compound I grew up in. An army of cooks and assistants sweats in the heat of hearth fires and griddles. Vats of porridge simmer. Wagons disgorge baskets of fruit and sacks of grain, each arrival meticulously recorded by yet more harried clerks.

  Behind the main kitchen lies an herb garden. Here, at last, we find Mother seated on a reed mat nursing Safarenwe. Cook is setting out a simple, nourishing meal on a low table, helped by faces I recognize: the household women Bettany and I rescued from Akheres. It reminds me painfully of the home we once had, where we all knew who we were and did our work together.

  Denya sits off by herself in the shade sewing, while Amaya stands at the far gate with her arms crossed, arguing with someone I can’t see.

  Her voice has always had the ability to penetrate any space she is in. “Honored Dame, the Custodian will be glad to hear petitions after she has taken a meal and fed her baby. How is it you are come to this gate? Petitions are to be brought first to the outer council so that the Honored Custodian is not overwhelmed by a thousand voices each claiming her time. No, your complaint is not important enough to disturb her!”

  Ro gestures with the arm that is not assisting Maraya. “I would love to make an actress of her. Look at that posture! Imagine that beautiful voice uplifted by my magnificent words!”

  “A romance devoutly to be wished,” I murmur. I can’t help but notice how many people are looking him over as we cross the garden, and how he struts to attract their gazes.

  Mother sees us. Her expression sharpens from one of drowsy lassitude into a look of almost painful joy and relief.

  “My dearest girls! We were told you’d been rescued but now I can truly believe it.”

  Her smile is the balm I have been craving. Maraya and I swarm forward like eager puppies and settle on either side of her on the mat so as not to jostle the vigorously nursing baby. Only now, resting against her, do I finally feel safe.

  “Maraya, you are well?” she says calmly enough although her voice is hoarsened by emotion.

  “I am well enough, Mother. But what really matters is that we took possession of much of the temple Archives, including treatises and tracts locked up long ago. There is a great deal for me to investigate.” She rests a hand on her belly and smiles at Polodos, who waits anxiously a few steps away.

  “You must sit and eat with us, Polodos. Then, if you wish some occupation in our great enterprise, you can see how badly we need clerks to keep order amid this upheaval.”

  “Yes, Doma. If I am allowed to participate.”

  “Why would it not be allowed, if you have the desire and the skill? You are my daughter’s husband, after all.”

  “Not by law, Doma.”

  “Saroese law no longer rules us. Under Efean tradition two people may marry by declaring it is so in the presence of their families. Now, how is your Efean script coming?”

  “It is coming well, Doma.”

  “You must call her ‘Honored Lady,’” says Ro, in Efean.

  Polodos glances at him, alert to the challenge in the poet’s tone, but he’s too wise to engage. “My script comes along better than my spoken Efean, Doma,” he goes on in Saroese. “Reading and writing are easier for me than conversation.”

  An Efean boy wearing a spotless keldi hurries up to unroll a second mat beside Mother.

  “Monkey!” I cry. “So all of the household did get here safely from Akheres.”

  He hunches his shoulders. “Yes, Doma,” he mutters.

  “Jessamy, please henceforward address people by their names instead of the insulting nicknames given to them by your father, which to my shame I did not protest vigorously enough. His is Montu-en.”

  I flinch at Mother’s mild tone, and now I want to cry.

  She touches my cheek with her free hand. “Let me look at your face, Jessamy. What a stubborn inflammation this is. I was told you were in the mines. How did you receive that injury?”

  “A whip.”

  Her gaze meets mine in quiet fury. “Who whipped you and left you to suffer and starve?”

  All my breath has left my lungs. The best I can manage is a shrug.

  She nods, because she already knows who it must be.

  “Mother.” I don’t know how to ask. The question seems stupid, but I have to know.

  “Say what is in your heart, Jessamy.”

  “Do you come from some secret royal Efean family, living in hiding all this time?”

  Her laughter makes me laugh, although I don’t know why. “Not at all, although it is sweet of you to think it might be true. I grew up in a village by a marsh, fishing, weeding, and climbing palms to harvest dates. It was the most boring life imaginable.” She smiles to herself, secretive and amused. “Going to Saryenia was the greatest adventure I could imagine when I was sixteen. That’s why I never looked back. Well, that and meeting your father.” She grows pensive, then looks up brightly as Cook approaches. “Ah! Here is the food.”

  Safarenwe squirms, and Mother hands her to me to burp.

  “I want something to do, Mother, a job like you gave to Polodos.”

  “Eat first. Ro-emnu, you may sit beside Jessamy.”

  “Honored Lady,” he says, right hand pressed to his chest. His shining expression betrays how much he admires her.

  “Jes? Maraya!” Amaya has finished dispensing with the annoying supplicant and pelts over to crush us with enthusiastic hugs. She coaxes Denya to the mat like her lover is a skittish kitten. We sit in our little family group eating our meal as if the world hasn’t turned upside down around us. All we lack is Bettany criticizing anything and everything, and Father reclining at his ease amid the women he loves.

  Ro touches my elbow. “Jessamy? Are you all right?”

  “A speck of dirt in my eye.”

  Does Father suspect that Mother leads the people who intend to overthrow all he holds sacred and meaningful?

  Where is Kalliarkos now? Is he eating a sumptuous meal in a pit of snakes as Gargaron gloats?

  I know I shouldn’t be thin
king about them, and yet I can’t bear to throw them into the current and allow the river to carry them away.

  Yet when rebellion is stirring, a peaceful meal can last only so long. Maraya takes charge of setting up a new Archives, using an unused clerks’ office as her headquarters. Amaya and I accompany Mother to a pleasure garden inside the palace, now called “the petition garden.”

  Mother sits patiently as people come forward with requests and disputes and demands. Watching her, I finally understand that Inarsis wasn’t courting my mother because he had fallen in love with her. He was courting her fearlessness, her generosity, her intelligence, her tranquil firmness. Her skill at negotiating across a vast divide without losing her self or her temper. It’s no wonder people trust her.

  After a while I doze on a mat with Safarenwe curled against my chest but wake to alertness when the boys from the Inkos temple are herded in. They are frightened and dirty, and have been cowed out of their childish Patron arrogance by the long journey they undertook on foot. Three crows land on the roof. I ease away from the baby and kneel behind Mother.

  “The boy with the cloth tied over his eyes was in training to become a crow priest. Allow Maraya to foster him. He knows a little about the priests’ magic.”

  “An interesting idea. It would please Maraya.”

  “And be useful to us! And there in the second row? That’s Lord Gargaron’s son.”

  “Is he?” She nods in thoughtful consideration, then speaks to the assembly. “Let this be my judgment upon these children, who were given by their parents into the hands of the god Inkos and through this means delivered to us. Disperse these boys among village families. Let them be raised in those homes as sons. I will take one of the boys into my own household.” She points to Menos.

  “Is this how you mean to revenge yourself on Lord Gargaron?” I whisper.

  “To raise his son with respect for those he despises is vengeance enough for me.”