“But to kill an ambassador—”
“There’s no real need to keep using that word, is there?”
“But that’s what you want. I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I?”
Husathirn Mueri said implacably, “The situation is critical. He’s creating an enormous disturbance in the city. This is our responsibility, Curabayn Bangkea, and by all the gods we’re going to deal with it responsibly.”
Curabayn Bangkea nodded. He was beginning to feel like a leaf being swept along on a swiftly flowing stream.
Husathirn Mueri said, “You’ll go to the games at the opening hour, and you’ll make sure you’re seen. Then you’ll leave, and you’ll make sure you aren’t seen. You’ll take care of the work that has to be done, and then you’ll go back to the games, where I’ll happen to run into you, and you’ll come sit in my box where everyone can see you and we’ll spend a little time together, just chatting, going over the highlights of the day’s contests. No one will suspect you were mixed up in anything unusual while the games were going on.”
He stared. “I’ll take care of the work that has to be done, you say. You mean me, personally?”
“You and no one else. Taniane’s explicit order. What’s more, it’s essential that we mustn’t allow it to be traced back to her, or to me, for that matter. That would compromise the city leadership very seriously. Therefore you’ve got to do it, acting alone. Understand? And you have to forget it the moment it’s done.” Husathirn Mueri paused. “You’ll be suitably rewarded, of course.”
The only suitable reward, Curabayn Bangkea thought, would be the freedom to do as I please for a whole night with Nialli Apuilana. But they aren’t going to give me that.
He felt a burst of anger. What did they think he was, an animal, a barbarian? He was the captain of the guards, the upholder of the law. Why pick him for this filthy business? Couldn’t they have found some drifter in a tavern, who could be conveniently disposed of afterward?
I need you. You’re the only one I’d trust to do it.
Well, maybe so. That softened it, the fact of being needed, of being specially chosen. A secret mission at the chieftain’s specific request. Flattering, in a way. Unquestionably flattering. The only one I’d trust. A tavern drifter might bungle the job. Or might talk too much before getting it done. And this was official business, after all. Taniane’s order: put an end to the subversion of the children. A critical situation, yes. A threat to law and order, the spreading of all this hjjk-love.
His annoyance subsided a little.
In any case he saw that he had no choice but to go along with it, like it or not. He was in this too deep already. He knew too much. Now he had to play the game out. Serve your masters loyally, rise to the top. Turn your back on them when they need you, and it’ll be the finish for you.
“You aren’t going to let us down, are you?” Husathirn Mueri asked, as if he had been using second sight on him.
“Not at all, your grace.”
“What’s troubling you, then?”
“I’d like to know a little more about the payment that’s involved, if that’s all right.”
Smoothly Husathirn Mueri said, “This whole thing has come up so quickly that I haven’t had time to work out the details. I’ll be able to tell you that this afternoon, at the games. But one thing I promise you: it’ll be suitable. More than suitable.” The ingratiating smile again, soothing, conspiratorial: we’re all in this together, and one hand washes the other. “You’ll be well taken care of,” Husathirn Mueri said. “You know you can trust me on that score. Can I count on you?”
I’d sooner trust in a rat-wolf, Curabayn Bangkea thought. But there was no turning back.
“Of course you can,” he said.
Afterward, when Husathirn Mueri was gone, Curabayn Bangkea sat quietly for a time, letting the breath travel in and out of his body. He was past the first shock. His anger was gone, and he was beginning to see the benefits.
Not just the advantage that would accrue from carrying out a sensitive and secret mission for which he’d been specially selected, or the power that his part in the removal of Kundalimon would give him over Husathirn Mueri and even over Taniane. But also there was the killing itself, what it would accomplish. The clearing away of something infuriating, something unacceptable. If I can’t have her, he thought, at least he won’t either. It was pleasing to think about, the killing itself. To come up behind the man who had made himself Nialli Apuilana’s lover—to seize him, to pull him into a dark corridor, to snuff the life from him—
That might just be the purgation he needed, freeing him from this torrent of impossible thoughts that tormented him. The obsession that had possessed him for so long. For days, now, nothing but Nialli Apuilana on his mind. Hardly any sleep, no rest at all. Nialli Apuilana and Kundalimon, Kundalimon and Nialli Apuilana. Feverish fantasies. Imagining her in that little room with the hjjk emissary, picturing him enfolding her in some weird caress he’d learned in the Nest, some bizarre scrabbling hjjk-like maneuver, vile and revolting. Bringing ecstatic gasps from her as she lay in his arms.
Very likely the reason why Husathirn Mueri wanted it done was connected with Nialli Apuilana, too—not the subversion of the children, why would Husathirn Mueri care a hjjk’s turd about that, but the fact that the girl and Kundalimon were lovers. Doubtless Husathirn Mueri found that impossible to take. And had come to him, knowing that he’d be better able to manage the job than anyone else. Who’d suspect the guard-captain of such a crime? Who would even think of it?
He wondered what kind of payment he ought to ask for. He’d be in a strong negotiating position. One word from him and the city would explode with scandal: surely they realized that. He’d want exchange-units, certainly. A bushel of them. And a higher rank. And women—not Nialli Apuilana, of course, they could never deliver her to him, no one could, but there were other highborn women who were easier in their ways, and one of them—yes, they could let him have one of them, at least for a time.
Yes.
Everything took shape in Curabayn Bangkea’s mind in a moment.
He rose, donned his helmet, finished his morning’s chores. A wagon of the guard force took him to the stadium, then, and in a light downpour he watched the opening ceremonies and the first few competitions. Taniane presided, with Nialli Apuilana beside her. That made it much simpler for him, her being here instead of with Kundalimon. How beautiful she is, he thought. Her fur was soaked. Every curve of her body showed through. The chronicler Hresh was there with them in the chieftain’s box, slumped down boredly as though he had no wish even to try to hide how bored he was. But Nialli Apuilana sat upright, bright-eyed, alert, chattering.
He stared at her as long as he could, and then he turned away. He couldn’t stand to look at her for long. Too frustrating, too disturbing, all that unattainable beauty. The sight of her made his entrails churn.
After a time the rain let up once again. He left the stadium through one of the underground-level gates and went back into the center of the city. At this hour Kundalimon usually took his walk, down Mueri way and into the park. Curabayn Bangkea was prepared. He waited at the mouth of a narrow alley in the shadows of the street just below Mueri House: ten minutes, fifteen, half an hour. The street was deserted. Almost everyone was at the games.
And there was the young man now, by himself.
“Kundalimon?” Curabayn Bangkea called softly.
“Who? What?”
“Over here. Nialli Apuilana sent me. With a token of love from her for you.”
“I know you. You are Cura—”
“Right. Here, let me give it to you.”
“She is at the games today. I thought I would go to her.”
“Go to your Queen instead,” Curabayn Bangkea said, and wrapped a silken strangling-cloth around Kundalimon’s neck. The emissary struggled, kicking and using his elbows, but struggle was useless against Curabayn Bangkea’s great strength. He drew the cloth tight. He imagined
this man’s hands on Nialli Apuilana’s breasts, this man’s lips covering her mouth, and his grip tightened. For a moment Kundalimon made harsh rough hjjk-noises, or perhaps they were merely death-rattles. His eyes bulged. His lips turned black, and his legs gave way. Curabayn Bangkea eased him to the ground and dragged him deeper into the alleyway. There he left him lying, propped up against the wall like a drunk. He wasn’t breathing. Wrapping the strangling-cloth around his own wrist as though it were an ornament, Curabayn Bangkea returned to his wagon, which he had left three streets away. In half an hour more he was back at the stadium. He was surprised at how calm he felt. But it had all gone so smoothly: a very skillful job, no question of it, quick and clean. And good riddance. The city was cleaner now.
Husathirn Mueri was in one of the grand Presidium boxes near the center aisle. Curabayn Bangkea looked across to him, and nodded. It seemed to him that Husathirn Mueri smiled, but he wasn’t sure of that.
He took his seat in the commoners’ section, and waited to be invited to Husathirn Mueri’s box.
The summons was a long time in coming. They had run the long race, and done the vaulting one, and were getting ready for the relays. But eventually a man Curabayn Bangkea recognized as a servant of Husathirn Mueri appeared. “Guard-captain?” he said.
“What is it?”
“Prince Husathirn Mueri sends me to you with his good wishes. He hopes you’ve been enjoying the games.”
“Very much.”
“The prince invites you to share a bowl of wine with him.”
“It would be an honor,” Curabayn Bangkea said.
After a time he realized that the man didn’t seem to be leading him toward the central row of boxes where the aristos sat. Rather, he was taking him on some route around the far side, to the arched corridor that encircled the stadium.
Perhaps Husathirn Mueri had changed his mind, Curabayn Bangkea decided, about meeting with him in such a conspicuous place as his own box. Maybe he was afraid that the job had been botched, that there had been witnesses, that it wasn’t such a good idea to be seen in public with him until he knew what had actually happened. Curabayn Bangkea felt his anger returning. Did they think he was such a bungler?
There was Husathirn Mueri now, coming along the corridor toward him. Stranger and stranger. Where were they supposed to share that bowl of wine? In one of the public wine-halls downstairs?
He’s ashamed to be seen with me, Curabayn Bangkea thought, furious. That’s all it is. A highborn like him doesn’t ask a mere guardsman into his box. But then he shouldn’t have told me he was going to. He shouldn’t have told me.
Husathirn Mueri looked happy enough to see him, though. He was grinning broadly, as he might if he were going to a rendezvous with Nialli Apuilana.
“Curabayn Bangkea!” he called, from twenty paces away. “There you are! I’m so pleased we were able to find you in this madhouse!”
“Nakhaba favor you, your grace. Have you been enjoying the games?”
“The best ever, aren’t they?” Husathirn Mueri was alongside him now. The servant who had led Curabayn Bangkea to him vanished like a grain of sand in a windstorm. Husathirn Mueri caught him by the arm in that intensely confidential way of his and said, under his breath, “Well?”
“Done. No one saw.”
“Splendid. Splendid!”
“It couldn’t have gone off better,” said Curabayn Bangkea. “If you don’t mind, your grace, I’d like to talk about the reward now, if I could.”
“I have it here,” Husathirn Mueri said. Curabayn Bangkea felt a sudden warmth at his side, and looked down at the smaller man in astonishment. The blade had entered so swiftly that Curabayn Bangkea had had no chance even to apprehend what was happening. There was blood in his mouth. His guts were ablaze. Pain was starting to spread through his entire body now. Husathirn Mueri smiled and leaned close, and there came a second stunning burst of warmth, and more pain, far more intense than before; and then Curabayn Bangkea was alone, clinging to the railing, sagging slowly to the ground.
5
By the Hand of the Transformer
To Hresh the games seemed endless. The crowd was roaring with excitement all about him, but he longed to be anywhere else, anywhere at all. Yet he knew there was no hope of leaving the stadium until the last race was run, the last weight was tossed. He would have to sit here, bored, wet, aching with the knowledge of irretrievable loss and struggling desperately to hide the pain that he felt. Nialli Apuilana sat beside him, completely caught up in what was going on down there on the field, cheering and shouting as each race was decided, just as though their conversation of the night before had never taken place. Just as though she was unable to realize that she had struck him in the heart, a blow from which he could never recover.
“Look there, father!” she said, pointing. “They’re bringing out the cafalas!”
Yes, they were going to run the cafala race now, a comic event, each rider atop one of the plump short-legged beasts trying frantically to make his sluggish mount move forward against its will. It had always been one of Nialli Apuilana’s favorites: so silly, so completely absurd. One of his little jokes, in fact. He was simply being playful when he had added a cafala race to the original roster of games. But the others had taken him seriously, had loved the idea, in fact; and now it was one of the high points of the day.
Hresh had never cared much for games himself, not even in his boyhood in the cocoon. Sometimes he had played at kick-wrestling and cavern-soaring with the others, but never with any enthusiasm. He had been too slight, too small, too strange for such things. Spending time with gray-furred old Thaggoran the chronicler had been more to his liking, or, once in a while, wandering by himself in the maze of ancient abandoned corridors beneath the main dwelling-chamber.
But games were important all the same. They provided amusement; they held the attention of the flighty; and, what was far more significant, they focused the spirit on divine matters—the quest for excellence, for perfection. And so he had devised this annual festival in Dawinno’s honor, Dawinno being the god of death and destruction but also of mutability, of transformation, of inventiveness and wit, of a thousand channels of energy. And, having devised the games, he was stuck here whether he liked it or not, watching them to the end.
The rain came and went, now a faint misty drizzle, now a sharp slanting flurry. No one seemed to care. The stadium was covered only at its perimeter: the center sections, even the chieftain’s box, lay open to the sky. Between showers, warm drying winds blew and sometimes the sun appeared, and that was comfort enough for onlookers and contestants alike. In their fascination with the games they paid no attention to the rain. Hresh, sodden and disconsolate, feeling no fascination, suspected he was the only one it bothered.
And now the cafalas were off and away waddling down the muddy track. Usually it was a Beng who won the cafala race. The Bengs, in their wanderings at the edge of hjjk country long before the Union, had found herds of wild cafalas and domesticated them for their meat and their thick wool. They had been the great cafala experts ever since.
But that was a Koshmar lad at the head of the pack, wasn’t it? Yes. Yes. Jalmud, it was, one of Preyne’s younger sons. Nialli Apuilana was standing, waving her arms frenetically, urging him on. “Go, Jalmud! Go. You can do it!”
The boy was sitting hunched well forward on his cafala, knees dug deep into the animal’s rain-soaked bluish wool, his fingers tugging at its floppy, leathery black ears. And the dull-eyed flat-snouted cafala was responding heroically, chugging steadily forward, head bobbing, legs splaying wide. It was taking a good lead now.
“Jalmud! Jalmud!” Nialli Apuilana called. “Go! Beat those Bengs!” She was jumping about now, imitating the clumsy rhythm of the cafala, laughing as he hadn’t heard her laugh in a long while. She seemed more like a young girl at her first cafala race than like a woman who would never see one again.
Hresh, watching her watching the race, felt a sharp pang of gri
ef. He kept looking at her as if expecting her to vanish right then and there. But there was a little time yet. There were the things she had promised to tell him, first. About the Queen, about the Nest. She was one who kept her promises.
How soon would she leave? A few days, a week, a month?
She had always been an adventuresome child, ever inquisitive, ever eager to learn. Fondly Hresh saw her now as she had been when a little girl, bright-eyed and forever laughing, stumbling along beside him through the corridors of the House of Knowledge, bubbling with questions: What is this, Why is that?
No question of it: she would go. She saw it as the great adventure of her life, a grand quest, and nothing else mattered to her, nothing. Not father, not mother, not city. It was like a spell, an enchantment. It would be impossible for him to hold her back. He had seen the glow on her. She loved Kundalimon; and, Dawinno help her, she loved the Queen. The one love was natural and much to be praised. The other was beyond his understanding, but also, he knew, beyond his power to alter. Whatever had been done to her in the Nest while she was a captive there had changed her irreparably. And so she would go to the hjjks again; and, just as surely, this time she wouldn’t return. She would never return. It seemed unreal to him: just a little while longer, and then he would lose her forever. But he was helpless. The only way to keep her here would be to lock her away like a common criminal.
“Jalmud!” Nialli Apuilana shrieks. She seems to be in ecstasy.
The race is over. Jalmud stands grinning at the altar of Dawinno, accepting his wreath of victory. Handlers are trying to round up the wandering cafalas, which have gone straying in all directions.
A helmeted figure appears just then at the entrance to the chieftain’s box, a thickset man wearing the sash of the guards of the judiciary. He inclines his head toward Taniane and says in a low voice, “Lady, I have to speak with you.”