The thought made her pulse race and her eyes sting. Could Makel help her? Would her brother Aram aid her? If she fled to him in Nessumara, would he hand her back to Uncle Abrisho?
She had to fix her mind on the business at hand. “What is this passageway, Your Highness? Is it meant to be kept secret?”
He replied in a low voice almost drowned out by the scuff of their footsteps. “It’s a lovers’ passage, Lady Sarai. The story goes that my great-grandfather King Anjihosh did not want his concubines known within the palace, lest courtiers try to bribe them to assassinate him. So he brought them to and from the palace by means of this passage. For the period when they were his lovers—never any one for more than a month, so the story goes—they were locked into that lower chamber to await his pleasure.”
“That sounds unpleasant,” she whispered, shuddering.
“It was necessity, not cruelty. He was protecting himself, and the women. I’ve never heard any family story that he mistreated his lovers. When my father first married my mother, he kept her out of sight of Queen Chorannah by bringing her here. Later he had the lower palace built for her. Now he brings his other lovers to this chamber to keep them out of my mother’s sight.”
“Does the king keep many lovers?” she asked, remembering the way Jehosh had flirted with her. With the part of her mind braced in an icy clarity, she wondered if she might manipulate the king’s interest in her as a means to help Gil. She began to make a mental inventory of the tools she had. Her clan’s coin wasn’t really hers. She had to find other means.
“He keeps as many lovers as he wishes, I am sure,” replied Kasad with apparent indifference. “His loyalty to my mother has never wavered. And here we are.”
He carefully opened a locked door that let into the dusty confines of a storage room, and closed it after them. Lantern light revealed storerooms carved out of rock and clustered along curving passages, hard to make sense of in the dark. Instead of taking her to the Thousand Steps he led her to a wide courtyard, flanked by warehouses, where guards stood watch over a pair of mighty winches, neatly coiled rope, and a collection of huge, sturdy baskets. A curl of wind chased around the courtyard through air thick with unshed moisture.
“Queen Chorannah won’t think to look here right away,” he said as the men hooked a basket to a winch.
“These men will surely tell her what they’ve done.”
“We just have to stay ahead of her. Now, we sit in a basket and they lower us down. Don’t worry. It’s not as frightening as it may seem. You can’t really see anything at night.”
“I’m not afraid of heights,” she said, wishing she could examine the mechanism, but instead she had to seat herself in the tight confines of a basket fitted with a woven bench on which Kasad sat gingerly beside her. The way he tried not to touch any part of her amused her briefly. Then her thoughts scattered as the basket rocked, lifted by the rope cable, and swayed out as it was swung over the cliff. The oddly still night magnified every noise: Kasad’s breathing and his feet shifting on the floor each time the basket tipped slightly to one side or the other as he braced himself so as not to bump into her; the clack of the winch, fading as they sank lower; the creak of rope; the river’s voice growing louder.
The walls of the basket were too high for her to see over. Above, high clouds imperfectly concealed the stars.
From below a man called out orders. Hooked poles caught the rope with jerking tugs, and they set down with a bump against a raised platform lit by a pair of lanterns. Kasad clambered out and helped her. Soon he had them seated in a hired carriage driven by two Ri Amarah men, a father and son. She looked enough like a Hundred woman that they did not remark on her at all.
As the carriage rattled through the streets she slid the window panel open a crack and peeked onto darkened buildings. “Our steward Welo mentioned a night market. May we stop there?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s best to plan for every possible outcome. I’ll be quick.”
“I can’t walk unguarded in public,” he said.
“I don’t need your escort in the market, Your Highness. No one will recognize me.”
So it was that she ventured into a bewildering maze of rows and aisles, many fragrant with herbs or freshly cooked slip-fry. No one took any notice of her as she asked directions and chose what she needed, except for a few curious glances at her scar. When she returned to the carriage, people had gathered to watch the two Ri Amarah men walking the horses. They paid no attention to Sarai as she wove a path through the crowd to the carriage.
“Those cursed Silvers should have stayed where they came from. Did you hear the news? They got that lord who married one of their daughters arrested just so they can be rid of him and climb one step closer to the queen.”
Kasad had a tight smile on his face, hard to interpret, when she climbed into the carriage carrying an old leather sack. He tapped on the roof, and they rolled away. Although he did not ask her about the market he fretted silently, too restless to sit still.
“I know your actions tonight expose you to danger,” she said. “My thanks for your help.”
Daringly he took her hand in the darkness of the carriage. She held herself very still, not sure what to expect, but his tone was solemn. “Whatever happens tonight I will not see you for some time, Lady Sarai. Perhaps never again. My mother is sending me to her country estate to get me away from court now this trouble has broken out. Gil has been a loyal friend to me. I will not forget it. But I can’t be seen here. I’m sorry.”
“I understand.”
Soldiers manned the prison’s entrance armed with swords and stolid expressions. A small clot of people stood outside the high wall, all clutching sacks that they begged the guards to take in to prisoners waiting to be marched out at dawn. Misery and fear washed the scene, succeeded by silence and then whispers as she emerged from the carriage. At the gates, an older woman surrounded by a substantial retinue was arguing with a priest whose stolid, if sympathetic, expression was that of a man who has been hearing the same complaints all night.
“They cut off my son’s hair!” she was crying. “His face has been mutilated as if he is a common criminal!”
“Yes, all the prisoners have their hair shorn off and their faces inked the night before they are marched out. It marks their shame, and makes it difficult for them to escape and take up a new life without questions being asked. You know the law, Lady Palo.”
“But my Tyras was never tried before the assizes! He had nothing to do with the Silver’s death. It was the fault of his troublemaking friends, the sort of bad influences you’d not wish upon your own dear children. If only Tyras had learned to be as obedient as you, Your Holiness. I can reward you to the measure of your true worth if you would but see your way to making sure he stays behind when the condemned are marched out tomorrow.” The praise sat awkwardly as an attempt at a bribe but it was the cloth pouch she held out that drew his gaze.
“I know you are frightened for your son, verea, so I will pretend I do not see the coin.” As the hope in her face died, she tucked the pouch back into her sleeve and blinked back tears. The priest added, in a kindly but firm manner, “The king himself put his seal upon the judgment of guilt earlier this evening, verea. He came here to the prison.”
Sarai halted, stunned by this information. How was Jehosh involved?
“But I heard the king promised every arrested man a proper hearing!” Lady Palo’s grimace twisted to a meaner visage. “The Silvers probably paid plenty of coin to the king to get him to exile those innocent lads. How can we know the Silver coachman was really dead? They have evil sorcery that protects them. How can you take the side of people who worship a false god, Your Holiness?”
“I honor my vows to Beltak by striving to take the side of justice, verea.”
At that instant the small pedestrian door set within the double gates opened, and Gil’s older brother walked out. “Lady Palo, I just saw you inside. I wanted to
say—”
“General Shevad, how dare you speak to me as if we are acquainted! I knew Gilaras’s antics would end in disaster for his friends! What do you have to say in his defense?”
“Nothing, Lady Palo.” General Shevad’s grim expression turned dire as he spotted Sarai in the shadows. “We have washed our hands of Gilaras.”
Sarai’s mouth dropped open as the bitter words hit home.
But Shevad nodded at her as if nothing was wrong! Then he turned to the priest. “Your Holiness, may I take my brother’s wife in to bid him farewell and repudiate him if she so wishes?”
Seeing Sarai, Lady Palo turned her back and stalked off.
The priest looked uncomfortable, whether at Sarai’s presence or Lady Palo’s insult she could not be sure. “The relatives of criminals are only allowed to see them if they bring provisions.”
“And as you see, Lady Sarai carries a sack. I believe Lady Palo just delivered a similar gift to her son, Lord Tyras.”
“So she did. Very well. Make haste. It will be dawn soon.”
“I’m sorry, Lady Palo,” Sarai said, but the other woman kept walking.
Abashed, Sarai followed the general inside, trotting to keep up as they crossed a wide inner courtyard. Thirteen years older than Gil, Shevad had a hardened look that she had once or twice thought would suit Gil should he grow up a little and not seem quite so weightless and lacking in depth. Now the idea that Gil would suffer nauseated her. How could she ever wish misery and pain on anyone, thinking it would make them more attractive? Wasn’t happiness attractive?
“I have been ordered north to take over command of a garrison in Ithik Eldim,” Shevad said in a low voice, indicating with his gaze that she too must speak softly so guards could not overhear.
“Thus neatly removing you from court.”
He nodded approvingly. “Yes, you see how the matter stands. It appears as an honor but separates me from my clan. If I refuse, I will be arrested as a rebel. I have a single question, Lady Sarai. I request you speak truthfully. I have been wounded before and can take the injury.”
With an effort she did not drop her gaze to the level of his genitals or what was presumably left of them.
He smiled wryly, as if he guessed her thoughts. “Do you mean to end our alliance?”
“No, I do not. Maybe it seems strange to you but Gil gave me the gift of not caring about the very thing my own clan called my shame. For that alone I owe him my loyalty. I also don’t believe he killed any Ri Amarah. And anyway, I like him.”
“No one has been more surprised than me by how well you two fell together.” He stopped in front of the farthest gate and, quite unexpectedly, bent to kiss her lightly on the cheek, his scent of musk vine and stardrops as heady as desire. “We have been more fortunate than we could have hoped for in gaining you, Sarai.” He stepped back and, while she was still too breathless to speak, added, “Are you pregnant?”
“I don’t yet know.”
“We must hope you are. This is the prison for the men who will be marched out tomorrow.”
He led her into a building that Sarai guessed had once been a vast stable. Each stall had been converted into a small wooden cage. Each cage contained multiple men with shorn hair scattered at their bare feet. Every man’s scalp had been raggedly and messily shaved. A party of guards and priests was working their way along the cages with bowls of water, needles, and ink. In the dim light the reddened skin of men shone with crossed spears inked into their cheeks, the mark of the work gang. The stench of voided bowels and an atmosphere of futility made her eyes water as Shevad led her to the darkest end of the barracks.
They reached a barred door. Shevad lifted the bar as Sarai grabbed a lamp from a nearby hook. Behind the door lay a lightless storage closet that stank of urine and sweat. It was long and low-ceilinged, the wall set with wooden hooks for hanging harness. Gil and Tyras sat side by side on a cot, braced and wary. Both had shaved heads, with inked spears still red and raw on their cheeks.
“Haven’t you scolded me enough that you have to come back for more, Shev?” said Gil wearily. “I’ll do what you asked me to do, I promise.”
She stepped past Shevad and hung the lamp from a hook.
“Sarai-ya!” Gil leaped to his feet as she dumped the sack onto the cot and pulled out a folded taloos. “I didn’t think I would see you again … What in the hells are you doing?”
She shook out a folded taloos and tied it to hooks to make a screen between cot and open door. “Lord Tyras, General Shevad, please stand at the door and make some manner of noise. I need to be alone with Gil.”
“What?” Tyras looked stupefied as Shevad, cracking a smile, dragged him out past the cloth.
Gil’s gaze met hers, his surprise turning to curiosity as he waited.
Probably her tone came out too crisp and flat. “Lie down, Gil. This is our last chance.”
He gaped at her. “You want to …! Here …!”
She pushed him down on the cot and pressed her mouth on his. Fortunately his elaborate court clothes had been stripped from him and he’d been given a laborer’s kilt to replace it; nothing easier to lift to get at the business end of him.
“What’s going on?” said Tyras from the other side of the cloth.
Shevad leaped into battle. “Let me sing a lament for my lost kinsman, appropriate to a parting of ways.” His bellow filled the space, his voice more pleasing than might be expected at such volume. “The road runs to the sea, to the city, to the hills! But when you pause to look back, your tracks in the dirt lead your eye to home. Farewell to you, dearest ones. Your faces will ever walk in my heart. Let there be one more tender embrace.”
She ran a hand down Gil’s chest and belly to his penis. That part had no trouble grasping the plan as she curled her fingers around it. “If I’m not pregnant they will dissolve the marriage and try to force me to marry someone else.”
“There’s a useful thought,” he murmured as she rubbed him. “I’m glad it occurred to you, Sarai-ya, because now that I think about it I’ve always rather dreamed of having sex with someone while people were trying to look, or maybe while they were looking.”
The way he could dance fecklessly right across even this frantic disaster aroused her. “Do you want me to pull down the cloth then? And let everyone look?”
He squirmed, smiling at her in that way that made her want to laugh even in such straits as this. “I only want what you want, my peach.”
Shevad boomed an extensive and melodic description of a kiss of nectar dampening the beak of the honey-seeking flutter-bird. Faltering at first, then gaining strength, Tyras joined in on the refrain.
Sarai kept working. “What did you mean by telling Shevad you would do what he asked?”
“He wants me to be a spy for Captain Kellas.”
“Captain Kellas …?”
“The sweet rose is filled with scent.” Tyras launched into a new song with its catalog of the beauties of flowers blooming beneath fresh rains.
“The king’s new chief of security. The king does not trust Queen Chorannah, because she is usurping his officials. Meanwhile the captain finds the number and movement of work gangs to be suspicious, especially as in the last year so many are being sent south.”
“Something is definitely moving in the south,” murmured Sarai.
“I can feel what is going on.” He loosened her sash, slid his hands up beneath her shift, and found the drawstring of her trousers. “It’s a good idea. I can pretend to be a spy instead of languishing as a sad helpless doomed prisoner. How do you like that?”
“I like it if you like it.” She straddled Gil. No time for niceties! She applied herself to the task.
Of course he was laughing low in his throat as if it were all a game, and his hands found the places to touch her that she loved best.
Tyras arrived at length to the end of the flowers and rains and with Shevad singing a descant they flowed easily back to the refrain of parting, j
oined by defiant voices among the other prisoners. “I shall stand at the gate and watch the road, waiting for the return of the one I nurtured and cast out into the land, waiting for them to return from—”
“The hells!” gasped Gil as his eyes closed and his head tilted back.
“That’s not in the verse,” remarked Tyras as the prisoners kept the song going, voices gaining strength while the general’s voice ceased.
“The road runs to the sea, to the city, to the hills!”
Sarai collapsed onto Gil as the familiar wash of pleasure flooded through her. What fleeting triumph! As his chest heaved against hers she savored the knowledge they’d had this bold chance to thwart those who were trying to separate them.
“You’ll need a watchword, to distinguish friend from foe,” she whispered as, eyes closed, he sighed with heady satisfaction. “Gil, are you paying attention to me?”
He nuzzled her ear. “Sheh! You injure me with your doubt. I was paying full attention as you certainly felt my awareness rise.”
She tweaked his ear harder than she needed to as he grinned.
“Let my lament crown the heavens!” the prisoners thundered.
He whispered, “I already chose a watchword and told it to Shevad. I will know my allies if they speak this: the flare of the crescent moon. The reply is, It shines like a swan among feral dogs.”
Her heart burned to hear him speak of their first meeting, or maybe that was just the heat of lovemaking dissipating as they held each other close. “Oh, Gil. I will find a way to get you back. I will!”
“My treasure.” He kissed her hard on the mouth. His breath was sour, but sweet to her regardless as he embraced her. A trace of moisture from the fresh ink stippled into his skin smeared her cheek, reminding her of the other things she had brought for him.
“Keep the wound clean until it heals. In the pouch you’ll find soldier’s friend, with the edged leaves. It is best for cuts, but the weed called red-bell if steeped in hot water makes an infusion to soothe wounds also. There is also ironseed that can be ground to a paste for strengthening the blood, and bark of purple thorn if your lungs sicken. Keep the cloth to use as a shelter or ground cloth. I bought sandals, too. Keep your feet healthy. Stay alive!”