by Kate Elliott
“Of course, Your Highness.”
“I have done a study into your people and their wealth. Eight generations ago Ri Amarah arrived on the shores of the Sirniakan Empire by ship from the east. When they disembarked they burned their ships so they could not be forced to leave. When their chief men were brought before the emperor, they begged for asylum, a place to build homes and live quietly according to their own customs. Two generations were born and grew old in Sirniaka, left alone by the emperor’s mercy to build their treasuries. Then the exalted priests of Beltak walked among the exiles and revealed to them the true worship of the Shining One. The wise bowed their heads to acknowledge the holy rule of Beltak but the rest stubbornly refused. When the priests confiscated their wealth as punishment, they left their homes and traveled north to the Hundred. Here they grew wealthy again, with the aid of their magic.”
Sarai knew better than to argue. She sat like stone.
“Never have your people married outside their own households. Yet here you are. A strange change of heart, is it not? To find a Ri Amarah woman married to a traitor’s son?”
“My people are not traitors, Your Highness.”
“The peculiar and vulnerable situation your people find themselves in as distrusted outsiders in a peaceful land means they would be foolish indeed to plot against the king. Yet I might wonder if the Herelian traitors are attempting once more to disrupt the stable continuity of the palace, and in doing so are making your people unwitting conspirators.”
She twisted her fingers together, seeking a calm voice. “I know nothing of such matters, Your Highness. I am merely a dutiful daughter.”
A different bald, beardless man appeared. He bent to whisper in the queen’s ear, and whatever he told her caused her to nod with satisfaction. As he retreated, Chorannah lifted a languid hand. Gem-encrusted rings crowded her fingers, each one a different stone and color.
“Let me assure the dutiful daughter that her people will be given the access and influence they desire. You will move here to the upper palace, Lady Sarai, and join my court. Your clan shall place their treasury at my disposal. Tayum will take you to your new chamber.”
“My new chamber?”
“Did you not hear me, Lady Sarai?”
The beardless man dressed in the vine-embroidered robes extended a hand, but she took a step back to evade his grasp.
“But where is Lord Gilaras?”
Chorannah fixed her with a gaze that was anything but bored or dull. “Lord Gilaras has been arrested for murder, Lady Sarai. He will be inked as a criminal and handed over to the work gangs. You are fortunate to be spared his disgrace, but I have intervened purely out of the goodness of my heart. Now go along, as I have commanded.”
Sarai felt she had no choice but to follow Tayum down a servants’ alley where he sat her on a bench and stood braced before her so she could not escape. An oppressive weight swelled to fill every nook and cranny of her being. She simply could not think, only sit stunned. She might as well have just had her arm chopped off and been left to watch the severed end leak blood onto the plank floor.
After an endless stifling interval, another servant appeared and beckoned. Tayum led her through a confusion of passageways and thence into a room with a matted floor. There, to her relief, Uncle Abrisho waited, his somber clothing in stark contrast to the giddy smile on his face. His appearance struck her like a sunny flower in the midst of withering hopes.
He rushed over to grab her hands. “This is splendid! You are to be congratulated. Even I did not think you could bring us to the attention of Queen Chorannah with such shrewd maneuvering.”
“Congratulated!” She wriggled out of his grasp and looked to the door, but Tayum blocked it. “My husband has been arrested and condemned to the work gangs!”
Abrisho led Sarai onto a tiny screened balcony that overlooked the king’s garden. He was actually humming to himself, almost floating with triumph. “The alliance with Clan Herelia was a means to get into the palace. Now that the queen herself has honored you, we are better off without them.”
That he could speak so callously about Gil made Sarai think she did not know him at all, but his enthusiasm forced her to realize how carefully she had to tread. “Was this your plan all along?”
“I was satisfied with the marriage, for it gave us access we did not have. But I admit that, yes, in my heart I dreamed we might gain a better position and even be able to jettison the Herelians.”
“Ah, yes, like wastewater off a becalmed ship whose sails have finally caught the wind.”
“Ha! Ha! How droll you are, Sarai.” He rubbed his hands together as if polishing his carefully laid plans. Standing this close to him it was easy for her to see how neat he was in all his ways, his head scarf perfectly creased and tied, his silver bracelets untarnished by any least blot, his clothing in keeping with the somber custom of the men of a Ri Amarah house yet splashed with a few bright jewel clasps on his jacket and an emerald pin in the shape of a lion on his head scarf as if to remind people of his exalted new ally in the palace. “You shall see this is the best we could have wished for. No taint of Herelian disgrace adheres to us.”
She grasped the lattice, fingers woven around the carved wood, for otherwise her legs would have given out. But her voice shook only a little. “Of course, Uncle. I see how wise you are. Are there any particular business propositions you wish me to raise with the queen right away?”
“No, no!” He glanced toward the other room, at the man watching them. “First ingratiate yourself. I’ve brought a chest of coin for you to sweeten a path, as they say in the palace. Everyone likes a little gift, do they not? Later you may ask for advice, for people love nothing better than to give advice. You may learn a great deal from what they tell you, for it is exactly when they are expounding that they may most reveal themselves.”
“I understand completely. Is there anything else you recommend?”
“Be patient. You are a credit to the clan despite everything that was said about your mother.”
Her hands tightened on the lattice as she wished she could wrench it from its moorings and batter him over the head with it. He seemed not to notice the fixed glower of her smile. “Of course, Uncle. Am I to be allowed to return to my apartments in the lower palace to fetch my things?”
“No. It is a measure of the queen’s good opinion of you that it has already been arranged for your things to be brought here.”
“Ah.” She tasted bile as the enormity of the disaster weighed into her. “So I am to remain here, not even allowed to see Gil before he is taken away…”
“As for that, Sarai,” he said, then paused to clear his throat with the self-conscious rigor of a man about to say something delicate. His gaze dropped to her abdomen. “Do you know yet if you are pregnant?”
At once she pressed a hand to her belly.
He looked again toward the door where Tayum waited in stolid silence, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “There are ways to rid oneself … Women’s knowledge…”
“What do you mean?” she demanded even though she knew exactly what he meant.
“If you are pregnant with his child then we retain an obligation both to him and to his clan, according to the conditions of the contract. If you are not, the queen will find you a more suitable husband, perhaps even a high official.”
“So it would behoove me to make sure I am not pregnant, is that what you are suggesting?” she said through gritted teeth.
He grasped her hand, lifting it off her belly. “Yes, you understand me exactly! You are very clever, Sarai, just as Makel and Rua said you were. You and Great-Aunt Tsania know all about the pharmacology of plants and how to regulate women’s courses.”
She tugged her hand out of his, and to her relief he let her go and took a step away, obviously eager to be done with their interview.
“I’m thirsty,” she said, and then more loudly, letting despair and fury give strength to her voice, “I’m thirsty an
d hungry; is there nothing here for me to eat and drink?”
“I will not stay,” said Abrisho as he handed her the key to the coin chest.
She could scarcely abide the way he kissed her on each cheek as he would one of his own daughters. She did not walk him to the door. As Abrisho left, Tayum admitted a woman dressed in drab dark-blue trousers and a long jacket. She helped Sarai out of the suffocating court jacket and brightly colored under-robes with their weight of pleats, then poured perfumed water into a basin so Sarai could wash. She scrubbed her skin as if to rub the touch of Abrisho’s approval right off, but nothing would ease the sense that she had been befouled by his ambition. And her own ambition! She had walked into the contract with open eyes. She had been willing to endure marriage to a man she cared nothing for or might even despise because she wanted the freedom it would bring her. It was Gil who had surprised her.
The attendant presented her with cotton trousers, a gauzy shift that fell to her calves, and, as an overgarment, a patterned knee-length shirt that tied closed with a bright-yellow sash. A second woman entered bearing a tray of rice porridge, salty greens, and a cup of pear juice. Obliged to eat under their eyes, she consumed the meal quickly. Under Tayum’s supervision the women arranged a sleeping mat, several cushions, and a chamber pot as for an extended stay. The two attendants looked so alike in their drab blue tunics, their black hair cut too short even to braid, that Sarai had trouble telling their faces apart, but one worked with brisk, impatient movements while the other, who was missing the little finger on her right hand, fussed to make everything perfect.
When they had finished she handed each woman a handsome gold cheyt, which they accepted with downcast eyes. Then they left her alone.
To do nothing was insupportable. She pressed herself against the door to listen. As soon as she could no longer hear footfalls she tested the latch. But of course they had locked her in.
31
Dannarah brought a full flight of eighteen reeves to attend her at the reeves’ convocation, according to her father’s maxim: Come well armed to a hostile gathering. All the marshals had come, so the reeve compound atop Law Rock bustled with fawkners trying to tend too many eagles. She landed with Tarnit and Lifka, leaving the rest of her flight to repair to a landing ground outside the city. Lifka’s presence would prove Auri was dead in case anyone had their doubts.
Hammering and sawing serenaded the three reeves as they walked to the gate. Scaffolding surrounded an old barracks and an abandoned loft. Lifka scratched her dog’s head as the little monster growled softly, uncomfortable with all the activity.
“This building activity is new since we were here last month,” Dannarah remarked.
“Looks like they’re expanding the compound,” said Tarnit.
“Jehosh needs to consult me before he acts. This is exactly the problem I had with him before, the way he would jump in and expect me to follow whatever hair-witted scheme he came up with.”
“Marshal, just remember—”
“Remember that arguing with Jehosh is what made him take the chief marshalate away from me twenty years ago? I haven’t forgotten, Tar. I’ll be polite and reasonable in all my dealings with him. Sheh!” Tarnit had such a comical way of rolling her eyes that Dannarah elbowed her, wanting to laugh but knowing that here in public it was below her dignity. “I will deal with him differently this time around. I will!”
Tarnit’s ability to draw a laugh out of any fraught situation was another reason Dannarah kept her close.
“I know I’m too blunt and abrupt. I just want to get things done!”
“And you will, Marshal,” said Tarnit with that cursedly sunny smile that made a person feel like warmth and heart and brightness still existed in the world. “You know all of us at Horn Hall will follow you anywhere.”
A palace steward escorted them to the King’s Audience Hall. The way Lifka carried the cursed little dog everywhere got people staring. If nothing else surely the girl could train the hells-spawned creature to bite anyone who annoyed the new chief marshal.
Dannarah nudged Tarnit as they followed the steward along a shaded portico lined with soldiers, so many palace guards it seemed Jehosh was reminding everyone who was in charge now that he was back from the north. “You ever heard of a Silver getting chosen by an eagle?”
“As a reeve? Never.”
“Don’t you think that’s strange? I knew a man who started life as a Qin soldier who became a reeve. A couple of northerners who came to the Hundred from Ithik Eldim after the war likewise. A Sirniakan priest’s daughter, to her father’s horror. But I’ve never seen a Silver in reeve leathers.”
Tarnit scratched her chin. “The men’s scarves would come off in the wind. Then we’d find out what sort of horns they really have.”
Cracking a smile at Tarnit’s predictable joke forced Dannarah to realize how tightly wound she had become, like wet cloth being wrung. A crowd of officials and high-ranking servants waited outside as if eager to be the first to hear the news. Entering the King’s Audience Hall did nothing to dispel her nerves. Instead of a convocation of reeves alone, in the traditional manner, King Jehosh had draped the proceedings in a full panoply of kingly majesty. The king’s chair, currently empty, was placed on the dais and ornamented with silk banners. Here I am, it said.
On the step below the king’s chair stood three chairs, one for each of his sons.
On the step below that, nine chairs for the judges, called Guardians, who oversaw the assizes. Each chair had a different-colored cushion to represent the nine provinces of the Hundred: green for Mar, heaven blue for Olo’osson, silver for Sardia, red for Herelia, gold for Teriayne, brown for Istria, purple for Haldia, black for Arro, and white for Ofria. Only five Judge Guardians were present today, three of whom Dannarah had never seen before and did not recognize. They looked cursed young; two had no gray in their hair at all. In Anjihosh’s day the Judge Guardians had always been elders chosen because of an exceptional reputation for honesty and wisdom.
On the step below the judges, Supreme Captain Ulyar and three generals sat on camp stools, representing the army.
On the lowest step the six reeve marshals were allowed to sit on cushions. She was the last one to arrive, as she had planned.
Courtiers and officials waiting for the king and princes to arrive packed the hall, five or six hundred at least. Everyone who aspired to be anyone was here. The gathering seethed with the energy of men eager to claw their brothers’ eyes out for a chance to climb one rung higher in court now the king was back. She strode right into the mass just to watch them see her and step back. It wasn’t their deference that pleased her. People who embraced sycophancy were useless to her. All she needed was their recognition that they had to get out of her way.
Scanning the screened-off balconies she glimpsed the bright silks of palace women waiting for the event. It seemed a puzzling lot of fanfare for the election by reeves of their new chief marshal, especially when everyone knew it was really the king’s decision.
But that was exactly it, wasn’t it? Jehosh did not have Atani’s generosity of spirit nor Anjihosh’s astute judgment of character. But he had a finely honed sense of how to stage himself to best effect and reassert his power after his long absence.
The crowd quieted as everyone watched her take her place. She greeted each of the marshals by name: stolid Ivo of Iron Hall, even older than she was and rarely at court, a place he despised; quiet Goard of Gold Hall, who had been her lover many years ago, an affair they had regretted in its immediate aftermath and later come to laugh over; handsome Fuli of Copper Hall, a man always standoffish. Arrogant Toas of Argent Hall could barely be bothered to give her a nod. Bronze Hall’s marshal was a fellow she did not know, cursed young and clearly of Sirniakan ancestry; he offered her a condescending smirk as she acknowledged him.
“Otham,” he said, giving her his name but not asking hers. They all knew who she was.
As she sat, she hoped her knees would
n’t crack too loudly or her stiff hip seize up and make her look like an invalid, but she made it down without scrutiny because they were all staring at Lifka and the quivering little dog as the girl and Tarnit took a place among reeves standing off to the side. To her disgust no other female reeves were in attendance. The last woman besides her who had been marshal had died ten years ago and been replaced by a man. It hadn’t been like this before. Other than consolidating the reeves into military operations, her father had left the halls alone to administer themselves in the old way. When Anjihosh had died, the reeve halls had prudently elected her chief marshal in her father’s place. It was her inheritance from him, as he had planned.
Jehosh had wasted the lives of too many reeves in the Eldim wars and afterward rewarded those who had supported him with offices and authority they didn’t deserve, turning out experienced administrators and generals in favor of men who told him what he wanted to hear.
Let it go.
That water had long since flowed under the bridge. She and Jehosh needed each other now. This time they could work together.
The doors in the back opened. Guards filed in, followed by Prince Tavahosh draped in the white robes of the priesthood and Prince Kasad wearing a long jacket and loose trousers in sober purple like a courtier in the palace who does not want to draw too much attention to himself. Tavahosh could barely disguise a triumphant sneer, while Kasad had the look of a kicked dog trying to creep out of sight to safety. Farihosh had not yet returned from the south.
After the princes seated themselves, rustling occurred in the balconies: the unseen entrance of the queens to sit among the women already at their places.
Last, King Jehosh strode in with such a thunderously ominous frown that a murmur ran through the crowd.
He sat.
Yet after all he was not the last to enter. True servants should already have been waiting in obedience for the arrival of the king. In utter defiance of tradition, three priests entered in his wake. The eldest was fitted out in a towering headdress, embroidered veil, and voluminous vestments whose panoply marked him as the supreme exalted priest under whose holy authority the benighted peoples of the Hundred sheltered.
