Braided Path 02 - The Skein Of Lament

by Chris Wooding

  ‘He’s been very busy,’ Bakkara said. ‘You may have noticed a little disturbance outside Zila that’s causing us all some concern.’

  They left Chien to his rest; he bade them a sullen farewell as they departed.

  Bakkara took Mishani along a route that they had not walked before, but the surroundings were little different from any other part of the keep. It was dour and utilitarian, with narrow corridors of dark stone and little ornamentation or consideration for the natural flow of the elements.

  Bakkara told her that it was built to the original plans, drawn up over a thousand years ago, which explained its miserable lack of soul. It was a military building constructed in a time when the recently-settled Saramyr folk were still using Quraal architectural ideas, where the weather was harsher and where ruthless practicality was far more important than the frivolity of aesthetics. As Saramyr evolved its own identity, the people began to explore the freedom of religion and thought and art that had been suppressed in Quraal by the rise of the Theocracy, and which had led them to choose exile. The blazing summers and warm winters made the stuffy and close Quraal dwellings uncomfortable to live in, and so they invented for themselves new types of housing, ones that accommodated their environment rather than shutting it out. Many old settlements still bore traces of the Quraal influence in some parts, but most remnants of that era had been torn down as they crumbled and replaced with more modern buildings. Saramyr folk had little love for ruins.

  Xejen tu Imotu, leader of the Ais Maraxa, was pacing his chamber when they arrived. He was a bland-looking man of thirty-three harvests, thin and full of nervous energy. A mop of black hair topped his head, and he had sharp cheekbones and a long jawline that made his face seem narrower than it was. He was dressed in simple black clothes that hugged his wiry figure, and he scampered across the room to meet them as Bakkara knocked and entered.

  ‘Mistress Mishani tu Koli,’ he said, his speech rapid. ‘An honour to have you here.’

  ‘With such a gracious invitation, how could I refuse?’ she said, glancing at Bakkara.

  Xejen did not seem to quite know how to take that. ‘I hope your confinement has not been too terrible. Please forgive me; I would have seen you earlier, but the task of organising Zila into a force capable of defending itself is taking up all of my time.’

  He resumed his pacing around the room, picking up things and putting them back down, adjusting bits of paper on his desk that did not need adjusting. This room was as spartan as the rest in the keep: a few mats, a table, a desk and a small settee. Glowing lanterns depended from ceiling hooks, and outside the single window the twilight was deepening to darkness. If his headquarters were anything to go by, then Xejen could not be accused of the same abuse of power that the erstwhile Governor had.

  Mishani decided to be blunt. ‘Why was I brought here?’ she asked.

  ‘To my chambers?’

  ‘To Zila.’

  ‘Ah!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Part charity, part misunderstanding. Bakkara, why don’t you explain?’

  Mishani turned to the soldier with a patient expression, as if to say: Yes, why don’t you? It had been one of the few things he had refused to talk about; he had been waiting for Xejen’s permission, it seemed.

  ‘Well, first there was the matter of your friend Chien,’ he said, scratching his stubbled jaw. ‘Even if you hadn’t been there, we couldn’t leave him in the state he was in. Then—’

  ‘That’s the charity part,’ Xejen broke in. ‘And as for you, well, Bakkara made the entirely understandable mistake of assuming you were still well connected in the high families, and that you may prove very useful in attracting Blood Koli to come to our defence, to heighten the profile of our plight.’

  Bakkara looked abashed and gave an apologetic shrug, but Mishani was not concerned with that. She did not take it personally.

  ‘By the time you had come to my attention, the gates had been shut and we could not very well let you out,’ Xejen chattered on. ‘Of course, I realised immediately that you did not possess the worth that Bakkara imagined – excuse my plain speaking – because I knew that you and your father were very much at odds. And since you are, after all, something of a heroine to the Ais Maraxa, I would hardly use you as a bargaining chip and deliver you to him.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it,’ Mishani said. ‘Am I to take it, then, that my relationship with my father is known to the Ais Maraxa?’

  ‘Only myself and a few others,’ Xejen replied almost before she had finished her sentence. ‘Many of us were part of the upper echelons of the Libera Dramach, don’t forget; and we were there when you came to the Fold. But your secret is safe. I understand you have been a great help to the Libera Dramach by trading on the illusion that you are still a part of Blood Koli.’

  ‘I still am, as far as I am aware,’ Mishani said. ‘Legally, at least. My father has not cut me off yet.’ Though he had tried to kill her twice, she added mentally.

  ‘Your mother’s latest book has not helped matters in your case, I imagine,’ Xejen commented.

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ Mishani said. Truthfully, she had not even begun to consider the implications that Muraki tu Koli’s latest collection of Nida-jan tales might have.

  Xejen cleared his throat, wandering restlessly to the other side of the room. Mishani found his constant motion dizzying.

  ‘I’ll not dance around the issue, Mistress Mishani,’ he said. ‘You’d be a great asset to our cause. One of Lucia’s rescuers. Someone who knows her intimately.’ He looked up at her sharply. ‘You’d do wonders for the morale of these townsfolk, and lend the Ais Maraxa a good deal of credibility.’

  ‘What are you asking me to do?’ she prompted.

  Xejen stopped for a brief instant. ‘To support us. Publicly.’

  Mishani considered for a moment.

  ‘There are things I would learn first,’ she said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Xejen. ‘Then I will do the best I can to answer any questions you have.’

  ‘What are you doing here in Zila?’ Mishani asked, her keen eyes studying him from within the black mass of her hair. ‘What purpose does it serve the Ais Maraxa?’

  ‘Notoriety,’ came the reply. ‘It has been some years since we first learned of the sublimity of the Heir-Empress Lucia, some time since we broke away from the Libera Dramach whose more . . .’ he waved his hand, searching for the word, ‘secular appreciation of her was blinkering them to the wider picture. In that time the Ais Maraxa have striven to spread the news that there exists one to deliver us from the evil of the Weavers, to end the oppression of the peasantry and to turn back the blight that ruins our land.’

  Mishani watched him carefully as his rhetoric became more heated. She knew Bakkara had meant his comment about Xejen being a zealot as a joke, but she was conscious that there was a grain of truth in what the soldier had said, and now that she met him she suspected that Bakkara was not entirely at ease with his leader.

  ‘But spreading the word is not enough,’ Xejen continued, wagging a finger in the air. ‘The Heir-Empress is a rumour, a whisper of hope, but the people need more than rumours to motivate them. We need to be a threat that is taken seriously. We need the high families talking about us, so that their servants see they are worried . . . so that they see that even the most noble and powerful are afraid of the followers of Lucia. Then they’ll believe, and they’ll come to her when she calls, when she returns in glory to take the throne.’

  He was gazing out of the window into the night now. Mishani cast a glance up at Bakkara, who caught it. He looked skyward briefly in spurious exasperation, and the corner of his mouth curved into a faint smile.

  ‘But even with our best efforts, we couldn’t make the empire sit up and take notice,’ Xejen went on. ‘Until now. We’ve been working at Zila for a long time, and the onset of famine has given us just the climate we need to make our move. The fact that the Governor has stockpiled all our provisions for us . . . it’s as if
Ocha himself has given us his blessing. We can hold out for a year within these walls. By that time, there won’t be anyone in the empire who hasn’t heard of the Ais Maraxa and learned of our cause.’

  ‘Are you not concerned about Lucia?’ Mishani inquired. ‘After all, if her name becomes so notorious, you can be sure the Weavers will be searching for her harder than ever. It is because she is presumed dead and her abilities are not generally known that we have managed to hide her so long.’

  ‘The Weavers will still think she’s dead,’ said Xejen dismissively. ‘They’ll think we’re just wasting time fostering rumours. Besides, they’ll never find her. But what preparations are the Libera Dramach making for when she comes of age? None! We are building her an army, an army of common folk, and when she reveals herself they’ll suddenly discover that their rumour of hope is real, and they’ll come flocking to her banner.’

  Mishani’s inclination was to argue: what banner? If this was all about building Lucia an army, then he was making an extraordinary assumption in assuming that Lucia wanted one. She wondered if he would talk this way if he knew Lucia as she did. Not as some glorious general, nor as some beatific child assured of her own destiny. Just a young girl.

  But she had no illusions about changing Xejen’s mind, and she wanted to stay on his good side, so she held her tongue.

  ‘But what of the siege?’ she asked. ‘How do you plan to deal with that? You will run out of food eventually.’

  ‘You know what’s going on in Axekami, Mistress Mishani,’ he said, again clipping the end off her sentence in his rush to speak. ‘The high families will have a lot more than us to worry about in this coming year. You can see yourself how little enthusiasm they have for a fight. Look at that army!’ He made a sweeping gesture to the window. ‘We have ways of communicating with our operatives outside Zila. They are already talking about our plight and what we represent. Word will spread. A lot may change in a year, but whatever comes, everyone will know the name of Lucia tu Erinima before we are done.’

  Xejen crossed the room to face them, his thin features wan in the lantern light. There was an intensity in his eyes now, a fire ignited by his speech. Mishani had no doubt that he was a formidable orator when faced with a crowd. His conviction in his own words was indisputable.

  ‘Will you help us, Mistress Mishani?’

  ‘I will consider it,’ she said. ‘But I have a condition.’

  ‘Yes, you wish to have your confinement ended,’ Xejen finished for her. ‘Done. A sign of good faith. It would have been sooner, but I had too many other things to worry about. I don’t want you as a prisoner, I want you as an ally.’

  ‘You have my thanks,’ said Mishani. ‘And I will think on your proposal.’

  ‘I need not tell you, I suppose, that your freedom only extends to the walls of Zila,’ Xejen added. ‘If you try and leave the town, you will regrettably be shot. I am sure you will not attempt anything so foolish.’

  ‘Your advice is noted,’ Mishani said, and with that she made the requisite politenesses and left, telling Bakkara that she could find her own way back.

  Chien was asleep when she returned, murmuring and stirring in the grip of a dream. She shut the door of their room quietly behind her and sat on a mat to think. A plan was forming in her mind. It was like the old days at court. The principal players had been introduced; now she just had to work out how best to exploit them.

  But this man, she did not yet understand. There was a piece of the puzzle missing here, and had been since the start. Until she knew what it was, until she knew whether Chien was an enemy or a friend, she dared not act.

  She studied him closely, trying to find an answer in the broad angles of his face. He muttered and turned away from her, rolling over on his mat and gathering the blankets around him tighter. He was shivering despite the warmth of the night.

  ‘What is your secret, Chien?’ she murmured. ‘Why are you here?’

  After a time, she got up and extinguished the lantern, undressed in the moonlight and slipped beneath her own covers. She was just drowsing when Chien began to sing.

  She felt a smile touch the corner of her lips. He was dreaming, his voice a tuneless drone, too soft to vocalise the words properly. She listened, and listened, and then suddenly she sat up in bed, staring across the dark room at him.

  He continued, oblivious, singing his fevered song.

  Mishani’s breath was a shudder. She felt her throat close up, and then she slowly sank down to her pillow and faced the wall, stifling her sobs with her blanket. Tears came and would not be held back, sliding over the bridge of her nose and dripping into the fabric.

  She knew that song, and it all made sense now.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Blood Emperor Mos tu Batik stormed through the marbled corridors of the Imperial Keep, his brow dark with fury. His beard, once close and tidy, had grown unkempt, the patches of grey more pronounced. His hair was a mess, hanging in draggles over his eyes and damp with sweat. Wine had spilled on his tunic, and his clothes were wrinkled and pungent.

  There was madness in his eye.

  Days and nights had blended into one, an endless half-consciousness swamped in alcohol. Sleep brought him no rest, only terrible dreams in which his wife rutted with faceless strangers. His waking hours were spent in a constant state of suspicion, punctuated by sporadic outbursts of rage, directed either at himself or at anyone else near him. He was spiralling slowly and inexorably into mania, and the only escape from the torture was intoxication, which provided a small surcease but only made him more bitter afterward.

  He had taken enough. Now he meant to have it out, once and for all. He would not stand by while he was cuckolded.

  There would be a reckoning.

  It had started long ago, before Eszel the flamboyant poet. He had come to realise that, in the long nights he had spent alone while spite gnawed at his soul. He remembered other times, when Laranya had wanted to pursue her interests and he his, and how he had indulged her in whatever she wished. Times when he had been disappointed that she was not waiting for him when he returned from a particularly harrowing day in the council chamber. Times when she had laughed and joked with other men, who seem attracted like moths to a candle, drawn by the brightness and vivacity of her. He remembered the jealousy then, the seeds of resentment burrowing into a soil made moist by his natural inclination for domination. Among the delusions and venomous slanders that he had persuaded himself to believe in those lonely hours, he had found nuggets of truth.

  He had come to realise that he wanted Laranya as two different people, and that she could not be both. On the one hand was the fiery, wilful and entirely insubordinate woman he had fallen in love with; on the other, the dutiful spouse, who would be there when he wanted her and be absent when he did not, who would make him feel like a man because a man should be able to control his wife. One of the reasons he had fallen in love with her – and stayed in love with her – was because she would not bend to his will, would never be meek and submissive; it was because she galled him that she challenged him and kept his interest. His first wife Ononi had been the model of how a woman should be, but he had not loved her. Laranya was impossible, would never be tamed no matter how he tried, and she had both captured his heart and poisoned it.

  It was the child that had turned things bad. For years, Mos had forgotten those fleeting moments of mistrust and disappointment, the feelings erased as soon as he saw Laranya’s face again. But now he brought them all back to pick over them like a vulture at a carcass. All that time, and no child; but now, suddenly, she was pregnant.

  He remembered when she had told him, what his first reaction had been, an instant of doubt that he had swept away, feeling guilty for ever having thought it.

  Just like Durun. Just like my son, and his scheming bitch wife, letting him raise a child that wasn’t even his own.

  History was repeating itself. But this time, Mos was ahead of the game.

  It was l
ate as he stalked towards the Imperial chambers. His sleep patterns were erratic and took no account of the sun or the moons, and he had begun to fear the nightmares so much that he would do anything to put them off. He had been awake for more than forty hours now, dosed up with herbal stimulants to counteract the soporific lull of the wine, thinking in tighter and tighter circles until there was nothing left but a white-hot ball of fury that demanded release.

  Oh, she had come to him to plead, or to demand, or to shout. Different approaches to the same end: she wanted to know what had possessed him, why he was acting this way. As if she did not know.

  There were others, too. Kakre loomed in and out of his memory, croaking reports and meaningless observations. Advisers came and went. In some dim fashion, he had been aware of the other affairs of state which he was supposed to be attending to, but everything had become transparent to him in contrast to the one overwhelming matter of Laranya. Until it was resolved, he could not care about anything else. Reason had failed. The spies he had set to watch his wife had failed.

  But there was another way; the only resort he had left.

  He threw aside the curtain and stamped into the Imperial bedchamber. The violence of his entrance startled Laranya out of sleep. She sat up with a cry, clutching the sheets to her chest in the warm dark of the autumn night. Something moved in the pale green moonlight, by the archway that led to the balcony beyond: a figure, blurred, gone in an instant. Mos blundered across the room in pursuit, roaring in anger.

  ‘What is it? Mos, what is it?’ Laranya cried.

  The Blood Emperor’s hands were clutched on the stone balustrade; he was glaring down the north-eastern side of the Imperial Keep where it sloped away in a clutter of interlocking sculptures and carvings. He cast about, looking up, then to his left and right, then leaning far out as if he might see underneath the balcony. It was no good. There were too many folds and creases in the ornamentation, too many looming effigies and archways where the intruder might have hidden himself. Gods, he was so quick! Mos had barely even seen him.