But the stories he told called up echoes in her mind. Distant ones for the most part, as if he’d struck one bell in a carillon, and the others all hummed in response. Not enough to trigger the kind of memory cascade she hoped for. But every so often something else clicked and she knew she’d been to that city before, or known someone with a similar habit. She hoarded those moments like treasures, fitting them in among the few shreds of memory she’d regained since leaving the Lhian’s island. Archai came out of the apeiron with nothing but the instincts of their own natures, no recollection of the lives that had gone before. Every fragment Mevreš gave her was precious.
It was more than payment enough for her efforts.
But she didn’t spend the entire time with him. Even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have avoided the women of the Nevati Korenat. They were the traders of their people, which explained why Zhutore had been playing interpreter; they spoke assorted trade tongues with varying degrees of skill. Every last one of them wanted to know what Ree could tell them about Taraspai and Solaike in general: how much certain goods usually cost in local coin, how far people here expected to bargain up or down, how to be polite and how to spot rudeness. It was survival work, a counterpart to the work the men did hunting game and keeping watch over the caravan at night. If they were going to live in Solaike, they needed to know the rules for getting by.
“Why do you want to settle down here?” Ree asked Zhutore, the night after they got out of the mountains. “You barely know anything about this place.”
Zhutore’s hostility had faded by slow degrees. She still wasn’t friendly, but Ree suspected the number of people Zhutore called “friend” would fit on one hand with fingers to spare. She said, “What other choice do we have? We lived in Hezâre for more than a generation, but when the plague came—” The flick of her hand spoke volumes. “We had to go somewhere. Here things are unsettled, but sometimes that means opportunity. And it’s bad enough for the children, losing the only home they ever knew; we don’t want them to live through the hardship of wandering.”
They sat in silence for a moment, studying the embers of the fire over which Zhutore’s daughter had cooked their meal. Then Zhutore asked bluntly, “Do you think we’ll be allowed to stay?”
Ree traced her fingertips along the lines worked into her vambraces. She hadn’t bothered masking again after her first conversation with Mevreš; everybody in the koton knew she was an archon, and there were benefits to not hiding her nature. “I don’t know. I come and go from Solaike; I was here off and on during the days of the revolution, and then less often since then. I don’t know what the current political situation is.”
“But you know people here. Important people.”
That had come out when Ree talked about the mountains, that she’d been among the rebels. Many of those who had survived the fighting were now officials in the new government. “Some. One of the king’s wives in particular.”
“Will you speak on our behalf to these people?”
She’d been expecting that question for the last day; the only surprise was that Zhutore hadn’t waited a little longer before asking it. It wasn’t just the way the women kept coming to her for advice; Mevreš had been introducing her to individuals all over the caravan, from old Granny Nivmi to a passel of children. Turning strangers into, if not friends, then at least people. People with names and personalities and families. If Mevreš could make Ree care about them in the few days he had to work with, then by all the higher powers, he was going to do it.
Guiding them out of the mountains was the least of the favors he wanted from her.
“I’ll tell the king’s wife about how you were attacked,” she said, guarded. Then, after a pause: “I’ll ask if he’s willing to help you. But no promises.”
Zhutore looked puzzled. “He?”
She clearly thought Ree had misspoken. Ree grinned. “You’ll see.”
* * *
Parts of Taraspai had burned during the revolution, and the scars were still there. The Great Bazaar that stood midway between the city’s edge and the palace had been rebuilt, but only recently; the building stood out sharply, the wood of its roof beams too new among the older structures surrounding it, some of which showed scorch marks or obvious repairs. Many of the streetside shrines were still broken and defaced: one of the greatest upheavals Valtaja introduced was the attempted overthrow of the old religion, exalting the soldiers’ fire god alone above all others. In the end, that turned out to be his greatest mistake.
Two Korenat riding through the city on their way to the palace compound didn’t attract much attention; there were foreigners aplenty in the city, with the king aggressively pursuing alliances and connections with neighboring lands after Valtaja’s long isolation. But Ree wasn’t masked, and although very few ordinary citizens knew about her, the black of her clothes and the red of her sash made her a noticeable figure in the streets.
Guards halted them at the front gate of the palace, beneath the towering mud-brick walls. It wasn’t one of the king’s audience days, or they would have had to fight their way through a crowd to get anywhere near the gate. But even on an ordinary day, a line of people waited to deliver messages or request permission to speak with someone else in the compound. “How long will we have to wait?” Zhutore asked.
“I’m guessing about—” Even the brief estimate Ree intended to make was too long. One of the guards spotted her, and his eyes widened. Maybe not everybody in Taraspai could recognize her, but that guy definitely could. Ree strode past the waiting petitioners and said, “Aadet Temini.”
“Of course,” the guard stammered, and beckoned to one of the flock of messenger-children waiting by the gate.
They still had to wait, because finding anybody in the palace compound was often a lengthy process. But all things considered, it wasn’t very long before the messenger came back and escorted them through the palace gardens to the house Aadet occupied with some of the king’s other male wives.
Ree still stumbled a bit over thinking of him that way. In this place, “wife” was a political term, not a familial one; kingship in Solaike was an extension of the lineages that bound the country together, and Aadet’s “marriage” was a way of joining him to the royal household, which doubled as the government. Even most of the king’s female wives weren’t his spouses in the usual sense—just a pack of women who served as officials in various capacities, mediating between the lineages of their birth and the one they’d married into.
Even so, Aadet’s new status meant certain changes. Gone was the leather vest he’d worn on the Lhian’s island, replaced by a much finer one decorated with colorful stitching. His hair was braided along his scalp in a geometric pattern, and a touch of gold dust on his eyelids signaled his rank.
For Ree, though, the biggest difference was an invisible one, marked by what Aadet didn’t do, instead of what he did. When they were fighting at each other’s sides in the mountains, he would have greeted her with a strong embrace, clapping her on the back like a fellow soldier. They’d shared a bedroll back then, and sometimes more than that. But to touch the king’s wife, whether male or female, was not permitted.
Instead he laid one hand over his heart, grinning broadly. “Every time you leave, I wonder if I’ll see you again.”
“Afraid I’ll die, or just that I’ll forget the road here?”
He snorted. The physical distance between them might have grown, but they were still close in other ways. Formality didn’t count much between them. “You don’t forget the road anywhere. No, I’m just worried you’ll decide you’ve had enough of this place, and show us your heels for good.”
“I’ve certainly had enough of your summers,” Ree said wryly. The heat wasn’t the issue, of course, and they both knew it. The revolution was over; in its place came politics, the delicate business of rebuilding a country, and Ree didn’t have the inclination or the talent for that. Neither did Aadet, if they were being honest—but they never w
ere. Not out loud. He’d sworn himself to the man who was now his king, and couldn’t walk away just because the fun part was over.
They bantered to avoid talking about that, or about Ree’s own frequent and lengthy absences from Solaike. Even during the revolution she’d come and gone, throwing herself full tilt into their fight while she was around, but then leaving them to it for weeks or months at a time. Aadet wanted her to stay . . . but she couldn’t, and he knew it.
He even knew most of the reasons why.
She still found an open door every time she came back, though. Their friendship was good enough for that much. And, Ree hoped, for assistance.
Aadet looked curiously at the two Korenat. “You’ve brought friends with you.”
“Zhutore Iv Vlaya Nevaten and her husband, Rovit Šek Taça Nevaten,” Ree said. She’d coached the two of them for this moment; they greeted Aadet in accented but comprehensible Solaine and touched their hearts in the formal manner, with both hands. Then Ree said, “They ran into a welcoming party on their way out of the mountains. Let’s sit down, and I’ll tell you about it.”
They could have told their own story; Aadet spoke Japil well enough to understand the gist of it. But Zhutore and Rovit had guessed, rightly, that it would carry more weight in Aadet’s native tongue . . . and that Ree, as his friend, could command more of his attention than a pair of strangers ever would.
She delivered the tale with almost the concision of a report, knowing that for something like this, Aadet wouldn’t have much patience with the slow buildup of detail and tension. But she gave him the names of all the Nevati who had died, and the litany of the wounded, because the point wasn’t just to alert Aadet to a military threat; she was here for the Korenat, to help them gain acceptance in the Solaine court. They would need palace backing for that to happen, the support of at least one of the king’s high-ranking female wives, and if Ree could get Aadet’s sympathy, they’d be halfway there.
He listened with increasing grimness. When Ree was done, he muttered, “The Red Leopard.” She raised an eyebrow; he saw it and said, “Remnants of Valtaja’s army.”
Strictly speaking, the army those remnants came from had ultimately belonged to Valtaja’s son and successor, who lost the staff to Enkettsivaane, the new king. But everyone still spoke of his father instead, the man who seized control from the previous royal lineage and brought Solaike to its knees. Even more than seven years dead, Valtaja cast a long shadow—one it seemed they hadn’t yet managed to eradicate. “Who’s leading them?” Ree asked.
“Sihpo Teglane,” Aadet said. “Valtaja’s nephew. Not the military genius his uncle was, but he’s smart enough to know he can’t oust Enkettsivaane in a direct attack. So instead he’ll make the royal lineage unpopular, destroy the stability we’re trying to build, until enough people hate us that they’ll be willing to support a new claimant.”
“And so they’re disrupting trade. If the king can’t protect even the main road, the effects of that will ripple outward pretty fast.” The major lineages of Solaike were all trading families, and the smaller bloodlines who were clients to them depended heavily on the money and goods their patrons brought in.
Aadet nodded. Then he rubbed at his brow and spoke in Japil, addressing Zhutore and Rovit. “Words can’t make up for what you’ve lost, but you have my sincere apologies. It’s the responsibility of the palace to make the roads in this kingdom safe, and we’ve failed you. I’ll arrange some kind of compensation—it’s the best I can do.”
Knowing Aadet, the compensation would come out of his own wealth. The kinds of trade a king’s wife was allowed to engage in were limited, but he wasn’t wholly dependent on the royal household to support himself. Which was a good thing, since influence in the palace frequently depended on one of two things: wealth, and the ability to produce a potential heir to the royal staff.
“Money’s good,” Ree said, “but help is better. They’re hoping to settle down in Solaike, not just pass through. You could speak for them to the king’s ministers.”
Aadet obviously hadn’t yet thought that far, beyond the pleasant surprise of Ree’s arrival and the unpleasant one of the Red Leopard’s attack. He blinked, gaze drifting out of focus as he thought it through. He wasn’t the most politically adept of the king’s followers; Ree hoped his revolutionary past still carried some weight at the palace. Enkettsivaane owed his staff to Aadet, who had traveled halfway around the world and the rest of the way back home to bring him the words that would inspire the people of Solaike to his side. But the give-and-take of favors and gifts that drove palace decisions . . . finding his way across the treacherous island of the Lhian was easier for him than navigating the world he now lived in.
He questioned the two Korenat for a time, sounding them out on what they hoped to achieve and what they could offer his land in return. Their trades were portable ones; their ambitions were modest. Basically they want to be able to live here and not get killed, enslaved, or taxed into starvation, Ree thought. It didn’t sound like much to ask—but she was even worse at palace games than Aadet was. A king still trying to consolidate his power might see a pack of Korenat refugees as an unnecessary disruption.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Aadet said at last. From his tone, Ree knew what would come next. He was going to ask her to help.
He’d forgotten what day it was.
She couldn’t really blame him. If she didn’t stay in Solaike, he couldn’t be expected to keep track. But even as he turned to face her, she shook her head. “I’ll be out of the city for a few days,” she said. “I’ll check back in after I return, see where things stand.”
Aadet shut his mouth. Zhutore looked at Ree, plainly curious; she might not be able to hear their unspoken conversation, but she wasn’t blind enough to miss that there had been one. “Thank Mevreš again for the stories,” Ree said to her, and left.
* * *
Whether Zhutore passed along the message or not, Ree never found out. But when she came back into the city three days later, it took Mevreš less than a day to show up on her doorstep.
She spent most of the intervening time at the palace. Aadet’s first words to her upon her return were, “We’re going after the Red Leopard. Want to come along?”
Ree grinned. “You even have to ask?”
The rebels against Enkettsivaane had been busy. The Korenat weren’t the first ones they’d attacked, but nobody else had survived to report before that; in the days since, more stories had filtered down to the capital, of merchants killed and caravans burnt. Ree looked at the list of incidents and shook her head. “Either they’re way the hell more numerous than they should be, or they’re driving themselves really hard right now.”
“Probably the latter,” Aadet said. He grimaced. “I hope the latter. It makes sense—hit hard and fast right out of the gate, when people don’t know yet to be extra wary. Once word gets out, merchants will hire more guards, and then these strikes will get more difficult. But the more damage they do now, the more frightened people will be afterward, even if the attacks get less frequent. They’ll be able to ride that reputation for a good long while.”
Unless the king’s forces could crush them, and fast. “How soon do you plan to leave?”
“As soon as we can get out the door,” Aadet said. “Which should have been three days ago, if it weren’t for the politics of it.”
With her, he didn’t even try to hide his frustration. The problem wasn’t getting the king’s ministers and officials to agree on action against the Red Leopard; it was deciding who should lead the counterattack. Every influential lineage in Solaike wanted to provide the commander—even those who were never a part of the revolutionary band in the mountains. Especially those who hadn’t been. “Powers have pity,” Ree said in disgust. “What the hell do the Tehiiga think they’re going to do up there? Wander around in circles waiting for the Red Leopard to present themselves for smiting? They couldn’t find their own asses in a forest without a n
ative guide to lead them.”
“If you think that’s bad,” Aadet said, “wait until you get to the part where you start wondering if they’re secretly in league with the rebels, and only want to lead the expedition to make sure we get slaughtered.” When Ree stared at him, his mouth twisted in a sour line. “Welcome to life in Solaike these days.”
He wasn’t joking. Somebody was funding Sihpo Teglane’s efforts against the king; his rebels wouldn’t have lasted this long without support. That someone might well be inside the palace. Ree started a mental list of possible suspects, then gave it up when she got a headache. There were too many lineages who might gain power if they supported a new royal line, or people within those lineages who could take over from the current heads under the right circumstances. Once she added in the possibility of providing wives to a new king—the kind who might give him an heir, with all the influence and benefits that brought—the list encompassed about ninety percent of Solaike’s nobility.
Compared to the aftermath, winning a revolution was easy.
Those intrigues put Ree in a bad enough mood that she almost threw Mevreš out of the palace when he found her in one of the lesser gardens, where she was cleaning her boots. “How did you get in here?” she demanded, not pausing in her task. Why can I mask these boots to look like anything I want, but I can’t mask the mud on them?
“I asked the guards to let me through,” he said mildly.
“You’re a damned archon.” But he was masked, an ordinary-looking Korenat man, and she kept her voice low as she said it. If the palace guards didn’t know he wasn’t human, she didn’t want to deal with the consequences of announcing it to the world.
His reply was equally quiet. “They don’t know that. And before you start describing all the problems with me keeping it secret—I don’t intend to be here for much longer. Either the Nevati will be allowed to stay, and I’ll move on to another caravan, or they’ll be told to leave, and I’ll travel with them. Revealing myself now seems like opening everyone up to unnecessary trouble.”