‘No, mama. What does it mean?’
‘One of you will die ten years before the other. Each step stands for ten years together. So let’s practise. I’ll be the man.’
They stood facing each other at opposite ends of the main saloon of the royal carriage.
‘Hands clasped. Look down.’ Sisi did as she was told. ‘He moves, then you move. There. Now you.’
Sisi stepped forward.
‘Pause. There’ll be music. Don’t look up until after the third step.’
‘Why am I not to look up?’
‘In the early years, a good wife is ruled by her husband.’
‘But you’re not ruled by papa.’
‘Only in the early years, darling. Now I step. And off you go again.’
Sisi stepped forward.
‘Before you were married, mama, did you want to be married to papa?’
‘Of course I did, darling. He was the son of the Johanna of Gang. The old Johanna, that is.’
‘But did you love him?’
‘Now the third step. How could I possibly love him, dear? You can’t love a man if you’ve never so much as said good morning to him.’
‘What if you hadn’t liked him?’
‘Fourth step. Keep it small.’
Sisi stepped forward.
‘Now look up. Keep your head up from now on.’
Sisi looked up at her mother. She was close now.
‘I chose to like him. As you will do. Fifth step.’
The Johdi stepped forward, and Sisi followed. Now they were close enough to touch. Her mother parted her plump hands and declared,
‘With these five steps, I stand before you as your husband. Do you receive me as my wife?’
‘And all I say is, yes?’
‘You say yes, my darling. And you’re a wife.’
Sisi felt a great sadness come over her. Not wanting her mother to see, she put her arms round her and buried her face in the Johdi’s ample bosom.
‘There, my sweet one. There, there.’
‘Mama,’ said Sisi after a moment. ‘Have you been happy, married to papa?’
The Johdi sighed.
‘I know no other life,’ she said. ‘He’s a good man. Who’s to say it would have been any better with anyone else?’
When Sisi was alone with Kestrel in their carriage that night, in the soft secret time between going to bed and falling asleep, she listened for Lunki’s soft regular snores, and then spoke to her friend.
‘Kess, darling. Are you awake?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was wondering. Have you ever wanted to run away from everyone and everything, and be a quite different person?’
‘Yes,’ said Kestrel. ‘Often and often.’
‘But you didn’t ever do it?’
‘I ran away once. But I didn’t become a different person.’
‘Did you go home again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did everything go on just the same as before?’
‘No. Everything was different after that.’
‘Was that good or bad?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Kestrel thought about it, wanting to answer truthfully. ‘I think maybe it was bad. I’ve never felt I really belong anywhere, ever since.’
‘Maybe you don’t belong anywhere. Maybe some people don’t.’
Kestrel touched the silver voice that hung round her neck, night and day.
‘Maybe not.’
There followed a silence, in which Kestrel thought how her mother had wanted her to marry, and how Sisi was going to be married, and for the first time she felt Sisi was someone like her.
‘Kess,’ said Sisi out of the dark. ‘I don’t want this wedding. But I don’t know how to stop it.’
Kestrel had a short struggle with herself. She was beginning to be ashamed of the way she was using Sisi in her plan. But she had no choice. She must trick Sisi into playing her part, or her family and her people would never be free.
‘Maybe you should talk to your parents.’
‘They’ll just tell me I have to be married. Mama will say it’ll be the same whoever I marry, and I won’t want to in the beginning, but after a while I’ll get used to it.’
‘Well,’ said Kestrel, to quiet her conscience, ‘you’re not married until the wedding, and that’s days and days away. Maybe something will happen to change everything.’
‘Maybe.’ Sisi’s voice sounded small and sad. ‘But I don’t expect it will.’
Kestrel steeled herself to carry out the next step in her plan. She reached an arm out to where Sisi lay.
‘We’ll still go on being friends, won’t we?’
‘Oh yes! Always!’
‘We could have a secret sign, if you like.’
‘A secret sign for what?’
‘Just to tell each other we’re friends.’
‘Oh, yes. I’d like that. What shall it be?’
‘When we’re in public together,’ said Kestrel, ‘and I can’t speak to you because you’re a princess and I’m a servant, I shall press the palms of my hands together, and then clasp my fingers, like two people hugging. That’ll tell you I’m thinking of how we’re friends.’
‘Oh, Kess! How lovely! And what’s my sign?’
‘You do the same for me.’
There was a silence. Then Sisi spoke happily out of the dark.
‘I’m doing it now. Are you doing it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I do love you, Kess. I’ve never had a secret friend sign before.’
‘Nor have I.’
‘Then I’m your first secret friend, and you’re mine.’
Warmed by this thought, Sisi settled down at last to sleep.
The next morning Ozoh the Wise awoke to find his chicken gone. The cage door was open, and the chicken nowhere to be seen. He searched the carriage in mounting panic.
‘Where are you, silky? Cluck-cluck-cluck! Where are you, my dove?’
The chicken was gone. It couldn’t let itself out of its cage. Someone, therefore, had stolen it.
Ozoh sat on his chair by the empty cage and tears crept down his painted cheeks. He loved his chicken. He knew it was ridiculous to love a chicken, but the fowl had been a friend to him, and he was lonely on the journey.
Then he dried his tears and did some serious thinking. The time for his morning sign reading was rapidly approaching. It would not do much for his reputation if he admitted he had lost his sacred chicken, and had no idea what had become of it. So he made a short discreet visit to the provisions wagons.
That morning, the Johdila chose to attend the sign reading. With each passing day, she was becoming more interested in predictions of the future. Kestrel accompanied her, remaining discreetly in the background.
Ozoh the Wise arrived, with his escort of guards. He carried his sign mat, and he was followed by his servant. But Kestrel, along with the rest of the assembled court, saw that his servant did not carry his caged bird.
The royal augur proceeded to unroll the sign mat on the ground, and squat down before it, and study it, all in profound silence, as if nothing was amiss. The Johanna looked from side to side, and at last said to his wife in a loud whisper,
‘I can’t see the chicken.’
‘Silence!’ hissed the royal augur.
‘Be quiet, Foofy,’ said the Johdi.
Ozoh began to groan. He swayed back and forth, his eyes closed, crooning.
‘He’s never done that before,’ said the Johanna.
The Johdi looked on in alarm. Something terrible was going to happen, she was sure. Kestrel looked at the Grand Vizier, who was watching with furrowed brows, trying to work out what the augur was up to. She then looked at Zohon. He had no expression of any kind on his smooth handsome face. Kestrel knew at once that this change was somehow his doing.
‘Haroo! Haroo!’ crooned Ozoh. Suddenly he bounded into the air, fell back down prostrate onto the sign mat, and bounced back into his squatting position.
<
br /> There on the mat, spinning round and round, was an egg.
The entire court gasped. Even Zohon was surprised.
‘To see the future,’ Ozoh intoned, ‘I must reach into the past! The sacred chicken has returned to the egg!’
‘Oh, Foofy!’ cried the Johdi in terror. ‘We shall all have to grow backwards!’
‘The egg,’ said the royal augur, ‘is the sign of new life, the sign of joyful beginnings.’
‘Joyful? Are you sure? That poor chicken.’
‘See how it comes to rest, Little Mother.’
The Johdi calmed down. She liked being called Little Mother. The egg had now stopped spinning.
‘The narrow end favours Haroo. This is the dawn of a new age of love. A blessed sign for the coming marriage!’
He bowed towards the Johdila.
‘So everything’s all right, is it?’ said the Johanna.
‘Better than all right, mightiness. The sacred egg shows the way. Your magnificence has only to look for himself.’
‘Well, I do see it, that’s true.’
‘You see love. You see peace. You see soldiers returning home to their rejoicing families, and putting away their swords, and turning with glad hearts to honest toil.’
Kestrel saw Zohon frown and look away.
‘I see breakfast,’ said the Johanna; and laughing heartily at his own joke, got up out of his folding chair and waddled off to his carriage.
Kestrel was following the Johdila back to their own carriage when Barzan approached, and asked the Johdila for permission to speak to her servant. The Johdila was surprised.
‘You want to speak to Kess? What about?’
‘A personal matter, radiance.’
Sisi took Kestrel aside.
‘You don’t want to talk to him, do you, darling? He’ll probably put out your eyes with red-hot skewers. He’s been wanting to do it ever since I found you.’
‘I’m sure he only wants to ask me about you.’
‘What about me? What will you tell him?’
‘What would you like me to tell him?’
This was a new way of seeing the matter. Sisi reflected.
‘You could tell him I don’t like this whoever I’m to marry, and I won’t marry him.’
‘He’ll say you can’t not like him if you don’t know who he is.’
‘Oh. Do you think I can’t?’
‘Maybe I should try to find out who he is.’
‘Yes, that’s a good idea. How clever you are. Find out who he is, and then say I don’t like him.’
The Johdila returned to her carriage, and the Grand Vizier spoke with Kestrel.
‘No doubt you heard the augury,’ he said, smiling in what he meant to be a fatherly way. ‘The dawn of a new age of love.’
‘Yes,’ said Kestrel.
‘Love is in the air. The sacred egg has pointed the way.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Perhaps the egg also points towards you.’
‘Me?’
‘I believe you have an admirer.’
‘Who?’ Kestrel was genuinely surprised.
‘The handsome and eligible Commander of the Johjan Guards, no less! The man for whom the hearts of the maidens of Gang go pitter-pat!’
Kestrel began to understand.
‘You’re very kind,’ she said, ‘but the Commander has given me no reason to suppose that he favours me.’
‘He’s spoken to you, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there you are! Why would a man like that speak to a girl like you if he didn’t mean to marry you? No, no, depend upon it, he’s courting you.’
‘I see,’ said Kestrel.
‘I admit I can’t imagine why – that’s to say, you’re a bright-eyed little thing, and if he likes you, why not? He has rank, he has wealth, he has – some would call him handsome, and so he is, in an obvious sort of way. Personally I believe looks of that sort age rapidly, and I’m sure he’ll run to fat – however –’ recovering himself, ‘you’ll not find a man to match him in all Gang. A fine figure of a man. A noble fellow. One of the best.’
Looking round, he saw that Zohon himself was watching them from a distance.
‘You see! He can’t take his eyes off you. A sweet smile, a soft touch, and he’s yours.’
He nodded twice, satisfied that he had planted the necessary seeds of love, and went on his way.
Zohon waited until the Grand Vizier was out of sight, and then approached Kestrel himself. He did not want to be seen talking to her, so he passed close by without seeming to pay her any attention. But as he passed he said loudly enough for her to hear,
‘Meet me in my carriage.’
Kestrel waited a few minutes, and then did as she was told. In Zohon’s carriage, she was surprised to find the royal augur, Ozoh the Wise, but no sign of Zohon himself.
They looked at each other with mutual suspicion.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Ozoh.
‘I was told to come,’ said Kestrel.
‘So was I.’
They said nothing more for a few moments. Ozoh was looking at the silver voice hanging round Kestrel’s neck.
‘That pendant. It’s unusual. Where did you get it?’
‘From home,’ said Kestrel.
‘I’d like to buy it from you. I’d pay you well.’
‘It’s not for sale.’
Before Ozoh could speak again, there came a chuckling cooing sound, from somewhere very near at hand. Ozoh jumped up.
‘My chicken!’
He spun round, his baggy pantaloons billowing.
‘Where are you, my silky one?’
The sound was coming from the bedroom half of the carriage, which was reached through an open door in the dividing partition. As Kestrel watched, Ozoh passed through the door, and approached the curtained bed beyond. The cooing had now become an alarmed cackling.
‘I’m coming, my dove! I’m coming!’
Ozoh pulled back the curtains, and froze, staring. On the bed lay Zohon, fully dressed, holding the chicken by its legs, upside down.
He smiled at the augur, and swung himself into a sitting position. Reaching out his free hand, he took his silver hammer from the table by the bed.
‘Did your signs foretell this?’ he said.
With one rapid sweep of the bladed hammer, he sliced off the chicken’s head. Ozoh gave a terrible croaking sob. Zohon held out the headless corpse, blood streaming, and Ozoh took it, and pressed it to his bare painted chest.
Zohon rose to his full height.
‘From now on,’ he said, ‘you work for me.’
He looked through the open doorway at Kestrel, and smiled for her in the way he had smiled for the augur. He scuffed the toe of one boot sharply over the floor. The chicken’s head came skittering over the planks to rest at Kestrel’s feet.
Kestrel heard Ozoh sobbing quietly, as he stroked the little bundle of white feathers he held in his arms.
‘Oh, my dove,’ he was saying. ‘Oh, my silky one.’
Zohon turned to stare at the augur.
‘I expect to hear signs favouring my ambitions from now on,’ he said. ‘You will speak of the need for a strong leader. You will speak of the treachery of strangers. You will say that the purest love is found at home. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Yes,’ said Ozoh, bowing his head.
‘You may go.’
Ozoh shuffled out of the carriage, with the remains of his chicken still clutched in his arms, its blood smeared over his turquoise-painted stomach.
Zohon turned his merciless gaze on Kestrel.
‘I make a good friend,’ he said, ‘but a dangerous enemy.’
Kestrel knew he had meant her to see him kill Ozoh’s chicken, to frighten her. He had succeeded. She had always thought him stupid, but now she thought him cruel as well as stupid. The combination frightened her very much.
‘Why were you talking to Barzan?’ he demanded.
‘He was talking to me. I
never went to him.’
‘Why was Barzan talking to you?’
He swung his silver hammer back and forth, never taking his eyes off her.
‘Because of you. He thinks you’re showing an interest in me. He wants me to encourage you.’
‘He thinks –!’
Suddenly he burst out into a peal of rich full laughter.
‘He thinks I’m interested in you! Wonderful! What a fool the man is! Well, why not? Let him think it. Tell him I’m courting you. Tell him the great Zohon is lovesick for the Johdila’s servant girl.’
He rocked with laughter at the thought.
‘Well, well, well! I wasn’t expecting that.’ He calmed down, and became serious once more. ‘What of the Johdila? Do you have a message for me?’
‘Not quite a message,’ said Kestrel.
She felt her cheeks begin to flush. She had prepared for this moment, but that was before she had seen Zohon’s cruelty. She was glad to deceive him, but she feared for Sisi. Zohon interpreted her awkwardness differently.
‘You mustn’t be shy,’ he said. ‘Just tell me what she says.’
‘The Johdila is afraid to speak,’ said Kestrel. ‘But to let you know her heart, she will give you . . .’
Again she hesitated. Then, with her eyes lowered, she went on,
‘She will give you a secret sign.’
Zohon’s eyes widened.
‘A sign of her love! What is the sign?’
Kestrel slowly pressed the palms of her hands together, and slowly interclasped the fingers.
‘The sign of eternal love.’
Zohon looked on Kestrel’s clasped hands as if mesmerised. He drew a long sigh.
‘The sign of eternal love,’ he murmured. ‘When will she show me this sign?’
‘When she can. You must be patient. She is very frightened.’
‘I understand. Tell the Johdila – tell Sisi – no harm will ever come to her. Tell her she is under the protection of the Hammer of Gang.’
He raised his silver hammer as he spoke. On its blade Kestrel saw the lingering stain of the chicken’s blood.
12
Reward and punishment
Marius Semeon Ortiz climbed the wide stairs to the upper levels of the High Domain, forcing himself to maintain a dignified pace, though his heart was racing. From above he heard the sound of an orchestra playing, led by a virtuoso violin. A good sign: the Master only played when he was in a contented mood. Surely, thought Ortiz, the moment has come. The Master can’t delay much longer. The wedding party was said to be only days away, and the Master had yet to name his son and heir.
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