Young men of the house ran to open the gates of the carriage house just as a pair of eagles plummeted from the sky and landed with a rousing thump on the grassy riverbank. The speed of their descent made her clutch the railing and stifle a giggle born of excitement. She had never seen reeves and eagles so close before today. One was the good-looking young man she had encountered earlier. The other was a much older woman. Her hair was shaved as short as the man’s, her ears were unadorned with a woman’s earrings, and she carried a baton in one hand and looked ready to use it.
The first three wagons were piled with objects. In the last lay a woman as limp as if she were dead; she was jammed in beside a covered basket. The sight of woman and basket hit Sarai like a fist to her gut. According to Tsania, Sarai had arrived at the estate as an infant twenty-two years ago, in a basket wedged into the bed of a wagon between a bundle of ragged garments and her mother’s decaying corpse.
The sky opened up, rain drumming so hard that the people caught out in it could only laugh as they ran for cover. A gust of wind made the roof howl. The sacred flame leaped, although no wind touched it.
Footsteps hammered up the steps and the door slammed open below as two strangers walked into Uncle Makel’s private study as if they needed no permission, and probably they did not. Peering down through the lattice, Sarai glimpsed the silver-streaked black hair of the woman. A soldier wearing his hair in a topknot glanced at the ceiling as if he sensed her. She froze, suddenly sure the Black Wolves had come to kill her as they had her mother.
Then she remembered that the Black Wolves were no more. King Jehosh’s elite soldiers were known as the King’s Spears.
Makel and Abrisho had given up their disagreement to stand together in solidarity by Makel’s writing desk.
The reeve spoke in the tone of a woman accustomed to obedience. “I am Marshal Dannarah of Horn Hall. This is Chief Tuvas of the Spears. You are Headman Makel. Your house is recorded in the covenants as the Fourth Branch of the Tree of Heaven. Is this correct?”
“In the language spoken here it is a decent approximation of what we call ourselves. I am Makel, who stands as headman of this branch.”
“Who is your companion?”
“This is my cousin Abrisho—you would say Abrishon since Abrisho would be a woman’s name here in the Hundred. He lives in our household compound in Toskala, where most of our trading ventures take place. I mean no offense, Marshal—”
“One of our reeves saw a woman up by the demon’s coil,” the reeve broke in, clearly unwilling to waste time. “I have come to interview her according to your custom, for I know you do not like your women to speak to Hundred men. If you would fetch her, I would be most obliged.”
Makel scratched his neck. “It would be most irregular. I must object—”
“I think it best you do not object, ver,” she said over his words. “We have reason to believe a group of fugitive prisoners settled in the hills nearby and have now escaped us, most likely with the assistance of a demon. One of your women was seen atop Vista Hill, next to Demon’s Eye Peak.”
“Impossible!” cried Makel. “None of our women would walk outside our walls alone.”
But Sarai felt dizzy. The reeve’s accusation suddenly made Elit’s mysterious errand seem ominous. And yet the Elit she knew would never do anything criminal.
“In fact, as I recall,” the marshal went on in a voice that had an edge like honed steel, “your clan was implicated in the murder of King Atani. One of your women was found with the outlaws who ambushed and murdered him.”
Makel’s voice spiked higher than normal. “We had nothing to do with that! It’s true my wife’s sister was found with Lord Seras and his traitors. But her presence there had nothing to do with us. She disgraced us by running away from her husband, taking her infant daughter with her and leaving behind her five-year-old son. She ran away with a wagon driver! You can’t imagine we would have humiliated our clan by agreeing to any such thing!”
Abrisho coughed. “Marshal Dannarah, we who are Ri Amarah know very well that we are beholden to the original covenant made between King Anjihosh and our clans that has been upheld by his son Atani and now his grandson Jehosh.”
The marshal studied the two men until they began to shift from foot to foot uneasily. “A covenant that protects your people, whom many in the Hundred consider to be untrustworthy outlanders. As long as you understand, and report any suspicious activity, you will remain under the king’s protection. Where is the girl I wish to speak to?”
Uncle Makel held hard to the old traditions, and in his hesitation Sarai read his absolute belief that to expose an unmarried girl to outsiders was to taint her irrevocably. He was not an unkind man. He treated her respectfully because she was dutiful and quiet and because she helped him catalog the scrolls and books he had shipped up from the city to fill his collection. He did not avoid Tsania as some did, and for that she could forgive him a lot.
Yet like everyone else he said that her mother had been a selfish and wicked young woman who had betrayed her husband, her young son, her siblings and parents, and indeed her entire clan to run away and join a criminal who then helped to kill the beloved king.
The tower shuddered as the gale swept over them. Rain misted against her face, driven sideways by the wind. The storm’s voice tore into her heart.
Beyond the estate walls lay the Hundred, the village where Yava and Elit had been born, all the rivers and cities and provinces she had read so much about. The Ri Amarah called this land Exile even though it was the only home generations of their people had known.
Reckless fancy had never suited Sarai. Not for her the daring story of a bold girl setting out with a single rice cake and a change of undergarments to make her way in the world on a dashing escapade. Better planning beforehand would make the journey far more likely to succeed rather than ending in misery, starvation, abuse, and death.
Her mother had run away and been brought back dead.
But she was not going to die in this cage. She deserved better than this.
She hurried down the steps, treading hard so they would hear her coming. So it was that Makel had not yet replied and the others were looking with curiosity toward the door as she entered the study with her shawl pulled up to conceal all but her eyes.
“Why have you called me away from the jubilee, Uncle Makel?” she asked, speaking in the language of the Hundred, which she had learned to perfection in the servants’ parlor and in the comfort of Elit’s arms. “Garna and I have just begun to sing our betrothal songs.”
“Your betrothal songs?” Makel’s silver bracelets jangled as he gestured in confusion.
Abrisho gaped, then clamped his mouth closed as the skin around his eyes wrinkled like that of a man acquiescing to a cunning plan.
The reeve had a hawk’s gaze and features very different from those of Elit and Yava. “You are the girl Reyad saw up at the demon’s coil?”
“I was with my great-aunt in her workshop awaiting the jubilee and celebrating my good fortune. I have just become betrothed to Gilaras Herelian of the Herelian clan. He’s the grandson of General Sengel, of whom you may have heard.”
The soldier snorted and, for the first time, spoke. “Gods and hells, that will put the swan among the feral dogs in all their mange.”
Sarai pretended not to hear this rude comment. The reeve watched her with steady eyes. It was disconcerting to see her dressed in the same sleeveless vest as a man. Up close, Sarai saw that the woman was older than she had guessed from a distance because her muscular shoulders and arms and her confident stance gave her a physical authority Sarai associated with soldiers.
“Lord Gilaras is the youngest son of Lord Seras the traitor, who murdered my beloved brother,” said the reeve in a tone whose implacable contours made Sarai shiver. “What an unlikely coincidence.”
She ignored it as best she could and traipsed gaily on, pretending she were Elit playing the part of The Oblivious Girl in a tale. ?
??It is a terrible story, I know, but it all happened so long ago, when I was only a baby! The women are singing the jubilee now. We will feast tonight. In the morning I journey to Toskala with Uncle Abrisho and Cousin Beniel. I am sorry if I have caused any trouble for being quite with my head in the clouds this morning for the excitement of my change in circumstance.”
Uncle Makel blinked.
The curse of longing that Sarai had spent all her life crushing into silence burst so hard in her heart that it hurt.
But she waited.
To deny her claim would make Uncle Makel look foolish and a liar.
So he did not deny it.
“You have discovered us at an unusually busy time, Marshal, with much celebration afoot,” he said as Abrisho fought down a victorious smile that tugged at his fleshy lips. “I do not know what your reeve saw up at Demon’s Eye Peak. I wish I did. But I make an oath no betrothed girl of this clan left our estate this morning. The oaths of my people were honored and embraced by your own father King Anjihosh the Glorious Unifier. Indeed, it was our people who gave him the assistance he needed to mount his campaign to drive out the army that was laying waste to the Hundred.”
The reeve’s glare probed but the shawl hid Sarai’s expression.
“It is true my father considered the oaths of the Ri Amarah to be honest and unshakable. Very well. If I find evidence you are involved with outlaws or demons I will destroy your clan myself.”
Without the courtesy of a proper farewell the reeve and soldier walked out. Thunder rolled along the heavens, drowning out their footfalls as they descended. It was getting dark.
Sarai dropped the shawl to face her uncles.
“This will do very well, Makel,” said Abrisho. “In fact, it is a brilliant idea. My daughter can expect an advantageous marriage within the clans. But Sarai is of no use to you as she is. Her birth shames her but there is no way the Herelians can know that if we do not tell them. Except for the stain in all other ways she looks a healthy girl. She is certainly intelligent enough, and would suit our purpose well in that regard.”
The flickering light chased the shadows from Makel’s face. He was so sure of himself and his place. “They are not our people, Sarai. They are not us.”
“So was the man who fathered me not one of us.”
“Your mother is dead and in shame for all eternity for what she did!” he thundered. “You do not understand what this will mean for you. To marry a man who is not Ri Amarah. To live in the world outside the walls, a dreadful thing for a woman. You will be cut off from the heart of your people … the sacred fire tended by women’s magic … the curse…” He dragged a hand across his brow as Abrisho shot him a stern glance. “The curse of living outside the household for the rest of your life.”
“I am already cut off. If I stay here I will never be allowed to learn the woman’s magic that is our sacred duty. Here in the clans you would not even allow me to bear a child, should I want that! I understand it is preferable for Uncle Abrisho’s daughter to marry within the clans. You cannot give the best fruit to the swine, I understand that. But the fruit that is too bruised and rotten to be eaten, that you may feed to swine.”
Abrisho whistled under his breath. “I would not call the people of the Hundred swine,” he said with a hint of asperity and quirk of his eyebrows.
She nodded politely but with a flare of her eyes. “A figure of speech, Uncle Abrisho. I mean no insult by it.”
He chuckled. “The court appreciates the blade of cool sarcasm.”
Uncle Makel shook his head. “I cannot allow it.”
Storm wind shook the walls. Rain hammered the tower. She gave way to the gale of emotions ripping through her.
“Let me go, Uncle Makel. If you do not, I will run away as my mother did.”
“You would shame the entire house with such selfish conduct!”
“I have never done anything wrong. But I will not live in this house as a girl for the whole of my life, not as Aunt Tsania has. You are cruel to condemn me to that life.”
“She is right,” said Abrisho, pressing his case. “She is not crippled as Tsania is.”
“Shame cripples her.”
“No. We are the ones who visit shame on her. She has done nothing. So the Hidden One exhorts us, Makel: Do not visit the wrongdoing of the parent upon the child. Do not smother a spark before it has a chance to burn.”
“Let me go.” She would not let Uncle Makel look away, would not let him allow his scruples and Ri Amarah custom to trap her.
His stare met hers, but then it wavered.
“Let me go,” she said.
When Uncle Makel glanced down at the rug on the floor, she knew he had given in.
Abrisho’s smile flared, thrown at her in shared triumph. “We leave at dawn. Will you be ready for whatever comes of this decision?”
She thought of Aunt Tsania, left behind. But she knew her aunt would demand that she fly.
Was this what anticipation felt like, surging up from her feet to flood her head with giddy smiles? Lightning flashed outside, and thunder boomed in answer, cracking her open with hope and possibility.
“Yes. I will be ready for whatever comes.”
11
Long past the seventh bell, in the dead of night, the three young men were kicked out of the brothel. They stumbled out the door into the teeth of a storm. Rain poured in sheets, driven sideways by the howling wind. Their hired coach rocked in the gale, windows shut tight. The poor horse shivered in its traces with only a thin blanket to protect it.
Gilaras Herelian hammered a fist on the coach’s closed door. “Open up! We want to go somewhere we can get a drink!”
The door remained shut.
When his friend Tyras tried the handle, it stuck. “I cursed well paid the man enough that he ought to have waited for us!” Tyras had to shout to be heard above the cloudburst. “I hope the Devourer bites off his cock!”
The third man edged down the rain-slicked steps. “That’s what we get for hiring a Ri Amarah coachman. Everyone says Silvers can’t be trusted. He delivered us here and then abandoned us to this foul weather. The poor horse, too.”
“If you call that a horse,” said Gil, wiping rain out of his eyes.
“It looks like a horse to me, Gil!”
“You look like an intelligent man to me, Kas, but that doesn’t make you one.”
Kasad was drunk enough to swing at him. Prince Kasad might be graced with such magnificent titles as Third Lord of the Bow and Fifth Exalted Master of the Hunt, but when he slid on the wet ground and pinwheeled his arms to keep his balance he looked as ridiculous as anyone.
“Oh shut up, Gil,” said Tyras, but he laughed as Kasad went down clumsily on his ass, biting out several ripe curses.
Gil looked up and down the empty street. He was in a mad, bad, dangerous mood, and not nearly drunk enough. But something about this situation made his skin prickle. “Don’t you two find it odd that the coachman is missing but his coach and horse are still here? Where would he have gone if not inside the coach? Why would he abandon the very animal he relies on for his livelihood?”
Every shutter along the facade was closed tight. The building had seen better days when it was part of a respected temple precinct, dedicated to Ushara the Merciless One, the All-Consuming Devourer, mistress of love, death, and desire. Yet even the oldest scribe in the city recalled the days of his youth through a misty haze, back before the Righteous Victory of King Anjihosh the Glorious Unifier, sixty years ago. Now the place was a brothel staffed with listless flower girls. Since it annoyed the hells out of his family that he went there, Gil kept going back.
He ran back up the steps and pounded at the entry, but the door didn’t budge and no one answered. They had been the last to leave. The flame in the street lantern farther down the avenue blew out. Its glass and brass door, having come unchained, banged and then shattered. Only two other lanterns kept the shadows from engulfing the street. For an instant Gil th
ought he saw a person move along a wall but when he blinked water out of his eyes there was no one there.
Kasad staggered to his feet. “An intelligent man keeps a hierodule in style instead of cocking about with cheap flower girls. My mother says she’ll advance me the coin to hire the Incomparable Melisayda.”
“Fat chance the Incomparable will accept a contract with you,” said Gil as his hands clenched.
Kasad’s upper lip curled in a gloating sneer. “You’ll be jealous, won’t you? You’ve lusted after her ever since she took up with your brother although I don’t know how the hells he can afford her. How he manages the deed with no balls is a mystery to everyone.”
“Gil, don’t!” Tyras grabbed Gil’s arm.
Gil shook off Ty’s grasp, swung, and connected. Kasad went down hard.
“Leave him be, you ass-witted cow,” said Tyras. “Help me get this door open. Neither of you will have any use for your cocks now or later if they freeze off like mine’s about to!”
Together they wrestled with the handle but it wouldn’t give.
Teeth chattering, Tyras looked up and down the street as if expecting some helpful servant to appear. “Gods, I’m soaked. I wonder how long I’ll linger before the rot sets in with fever.”
“Not long, I hope, if it will spare us your moaning.” Gil tapped at the door thoughtfully. “Does either of you have a knife?”
“Your family doesn’t even allow you a knife when you go out?” demanded Kasad, getting to his feet again as he rubbed his chin.
Gil said nothing as the old anger roused in his gut.
Kasad’s laugh was as good as a punch. “It was that incident with your cousin, wasn’t it? Lord Vanas’s oldest son.”
“My uncle Vanas is always lording it over us, how our branch of the family fell while his rose. His snot-nosed son thought he could taunt me with some limp jest about cocks.”