by Sylvia Kelso
Taking her place, Tellurith checks moods and faces in a glance. So long the thirteen Houses have held Amberlight, so solidly each is locked to its trove of qherrique, that their equilibrium, however testy, is impossible to shake. Vannish will bicker with Telluir, Jerish will try to snub Hezamin, Zanza and Iuras will ally against Diaman and Winsat and Keranshah. Hafas is president this month; Zhee’s eyes glitter, ancient as a lizard’s, as she eases her rheumaticky limbs into the chair.
The agenda is almost a rote matter too: up and downRiver intelligence reports, from Cataract, from Verrain, from Dhasdeini provinces as well as Riversend, a gesture, it appears, worn perfunctory as the citadel itself. And no whisper of untoward activity. No fresh news to settle a queasy House-head’s stomach over the puzzle of a stray Outlander; not so much as a clearly emerging threat to affirm the jangle of recalled history down a less complacent set of nerves.
Nor is anything amiss in the estate and trade reports; from the quays, where the wealth lands even from the Heartlands upRiver beyond Cataract, and the Oases cross-desert where only Verrainers go. From the breadth of Amberlight’s outer domain, the Kora, where House and city districts mingle with common land. Gifted too, most of it; much from Cataract, in default of other wealth. West of the city, the irrigated levels of the Sahandan that grow the city rice and the cotton that clothes River Quarter. North and east, the open sheep and cattle-lands that graze many a House’s herds. Southward, the Iskan marble quarries, northward the newly gifted timber-fief. Cataract was bitterly hurt by that: the cedar-forest is coveted the River’s length, Cataract’s most valuable resource. With account tallies finished, the Houses bandy thoughts of that grudge between them, till it is lost in internal concerns.
Such as Downhill gangs who drop their flotsam in Telluir House.
“Blighted upstarts,” opines Damas of Jerish House, fuming over tales of a warehouse robbed, another burnt. “Running the black-market, picking off travelers, right up under the Engravers’ eye!”
“Of course they trade up there.” Liony of Zanza smothers a yawn. “Uphill’s the best price.”
“In our rotted goods!”
“What does Telluir make of the—er—residue?”
Tellurith does not stiffen. But old warning tightens her ribs at the sound of Maeran’s voice, Head—old balance, old bane, old sparring-partner—of Vannish House. She steadies her breath before she replies.
“Very badly hurt.”
“Outlander?”
Friends can be more perilous than foes. It is Jura of Hezamin whose wit, usually so agreeable, probes the sensitive point.
“Outlander!” Damas sits up with a jerk. “Telluir, you don’t think this is an agitator? Some trouble—paid or sent—over the borderline?”
Eye-whites show. Nobody has to say the name aloud.
“If Cataract were involved, I’m sure,” Maeran’s drawl has deepened, “Telluir would let us know.”
The one nightmare that can still vex House sleep. And is it new caution or old animosity that makes Tellurith answer, levelly, holding that languid, copper-green stare?
“At present he’s still drugged.”
A pause. A lull. From Damas, a snort. From Jura, a growl. “There’s enough trouble building in River Quarter. Dispossessed clan-folk. Docker brats. Outland jetsam. And the man-balance is out. It’s been out for years . . .”
As many years as Jura’s complaint. Tellurith could almost like Maeran for the raised brows, the silently recited, I don’t know why the Quarter can’t expose boy babies like the Houses do. They know too many men make trouble. Why can’t they ever learn?
Zhee moves, folding her gnarled hands on the table. Speaks softly, slowly, as the glide of a passing hawk.
“Does Hezamin advocate that we—the Houses—Amberlight—set the balance right?”
A very awkward silence, growing appalled as the images fill various minds: man-hunts, Navy and House crews hurt, qherrique power unleashed. Lethally. On Amberlight folk.
Zhee re-folds her hands. Just possibly, within its folds, her nearly invisible mouth smiles.
“Is there other business?”
There is a freight-quibble between Prathax and Terraqa; an exchange on price for yet another Verrain Family, a discussion of river-heights. The autumn ebb is late. And finally Zhee sits back, intoning, “Praise to the Work-mother,” and the meet is over for a month.
And Tellurith has not told her fellow-Houses assembled: I have a man in my infirmary who may be more trouble to Amberlight than all its qherrique is worth.
* * * *
But when she climbs to her apartments that evening, one blessed evening with nothing ahead but supper, and a glance over some Dhasdein colony offers, and, were she so inclined, a call to a musician—even a visit to the tower—Iatha is posted by her door.
“In,” says Tellurith, walking past, and heaves the papers toward her workroom. “Shia! Set for two!”
Only over the wine, an imported Wave Island red that has already cost an Imperial ransom, does she groan and unlace her boots and demand, “What now?”
Iatha scowls. “Caitha wants to check that thigh-wound. Worried about a false clot or something. And the internal stuff. She wants the street-healer back. She wants you too.”
“In the Work-mother’s name! Can nobody in this House manage that pestiferous dangle without me?”
Albeit wryly, Iatha’s grin revives. “Could you make it clearer to everyone in this House that you’re the only one who can manage him at all?”
“But—”
In Iatha’s silence the image recurs. Moonlight flooding black cloak, black blood, bruise-mottled back. The physician’s taut face, the preliminary moment of prayer. The weakness of that hand against the cup.
“I suppose he’s still at risk.”
“Caitha’s double twitchy.”
Tellurith groans. “The Mother aid. Well, tomorrow I was doing accounts again. Tell Hanni—”
“I know. In the book.”
* * * *
Next morning she walks in on medical chaos, and the eyes hit her, solid as night. Glowering over tight-clenched sheets, wide open in a rigid face.
“And who’re you?”
“I am Head,” startled into arrogance, “of Telluir House.”
“And I’m the King of Zamba’s daughter. Spin again!”
Then the eyes flick, absorbing local consternation, shouting in their turn: War-maker, agent, power. One too-brief instant off-guard, before he folds his lips. “What are you—”
“They want to change the dressing.” Tellurith snatches control. Blight him, why couldn’t this be a meek, ordinary man? “And check your—other wounds.”
“What other wounds?”
“They’ll explain—”
“Explain what? There’s only one!”
The physicians erupt; are curbed by Tellurith’s gesture. His eyes mark that, too.
“There’s more,” she says. Memory stressing it. “Believe me, there is.”
“Then what is it?” There is panic gripped below the disbelief now. “Why don’t I—” Did I, the glare cries, forget that as well?
Tellurith takes two long strides to the bed-side. Says, “You weren’t just robbed. You were raped.”
She has time to regret the baldness, the unlowered voice. Time for remorse, as his lips go white. Then the eyes glaze, the eye-socket’s bruise comes out like thunder. The hands go slack. Before he drags himself over, burrowing face-down in the sheets.
Tellurith cuts off Caitha’s forward surge. Out, says her hand sign. Quiet. And as novices tiptoe, there is time to signal Iatha, hovering half rueful, half amused. To consign accounts yet again to perdition, and know Hanni will get the message: until further notice, the Head is engaged.
A hand comes back round the door. The stout physician tenders a night-watche
r’s stool.
Blast him, seethes Tellurith, scrabbling for compunction, as the sand slides in the counting glass. And blast me for being a double fool. But to thoughts of intrusion, honor and guilt and instinct all give the same response.
The sheet rustles. A smothered intake of breath.
Very quietly Tellurith says, “It can happen to anyone.”
A jerk. A gasp.
Then, low and vicious as a stab, “Get out.”
Tellurith does not reply.
“Get out!”
“I can guess your feelings. But if you heave around like that, you could easily start another haemorrhage. And then they’d all be back.”
The sheet storm checks.
A House-head’s sense of timing makes Tellurith get off the stool. Sit on the edge of the bed. Pin the first furious lunge with a hand on a shoulder point, and say in her cutter’s voice, “Quiet.”
Coiled under her hand, savage but sapped, muscles plunge in more than revolt. In panic. Buried memory, stark burnt-in fright.
“It’s all right, it’s all right.” Her inner voice has responded instantly, the real message in its tone. “It’s only me. You’re safe.”
Another long, quaking breath. And his body is shaking now, harder and harder, uncontrollably, sobs choked, strangled in the ruck of it, bitten back between his teeth.
At some point in her low-voiced litany she has moved up the bed, and he has turned, and as on Exchange Square, as when they reached the infirmary, his head is in her lap, her hand smoothing the disheveled black hair, a freshly broken lip spotting blood on yet another shirt. Only this time his fist is clenched too, mindlessly, convlsively, in its appliqued linen front.
To be repudiated the instant the flood subsides.
You shouldn’t have told him like that, says stinging reproach. For the Mother’s sake, this is an outlander. You know their men’s pride. At the very least, you could give him time to recover, learn to live with it . . .
No, retorts instinct, sure as in the mine. Not this one.
“Can you handle the rest now?”
He has curbed the head-jerk before she withholds her hand. More blood runs, generously, as he anchors teeth in his abused lip.
Tellurith lets the silence ask it: Have you nerve enough to face what happened to you? To face that others know? To withstand its aftermath?
If you do, I am here to uphold you, adds her fleeting touch on his cheek.
And after another two breaths he gets out, eyes clamped shut, voice choked but grim, “—handle it.”
He handles it like a Kasterian martyr, the ignominy, the humiliation that undoubtedly burn deeper than the not inconsiderable pain, all without a murmur, without resistance, except the squeezed-shut eyes, the thoroughly bitten lip. And the sweat that Tellurith again wipes away, his head, without either’s asking, back in her lap.
Until at last the interminable delicate operations are over, the physicians’ faces eased, his humiliatingly splayed body refuged under the sheet. This time when Tellurith proffers the sleep-syrup, he does not demur.
But as he lies mutely shivering, shut eyes still denying reality as it removes itself from his outraged presence, she brushes fingers across his forehead. And says softly, “That was brave.”
And though he does not move, a hint of easement softens that rigored jaw.
* * * *
Sunset on Amberlight, grey-veiled under a first winter shower. On the high hill’s lap beyond Dragon Spur, wind-pines roar. Glowering through closed windows, Tellurith tries not to do the same.
“Zuri’s intelligencers have combed the Quarter,” Iatha says patiently. “Either he was cursed clever, or he’d just changed disguises. Or he’d just arrived.”
“If the Mother were so kind!”
Rain hisses at the window; the veins of qherrique glow, rivers of moonlight on a marbled wall.
“We’ve found the gang.” Iatha’s intonation adds, Of course. “They scrap people all the time. He did fight. No weapons. No way to ask about the moves.” Cataract’s hand-to-hand school is as famous as its style is recognizable, but curiosity has a limit. Especially round gangs. “The money was forgettable. He had an ear-ring. Plain gold, the lead-girl was wearing that. Could be any sailor’s. Or any Navy hand’s.” Viciously, Tellurith kicks at a priceless Verrain rug. “Seems the rape started because she fancied him.”
“And he said, No? What taste!”
“He said, NO, from the way she talked.” A perfunctory smile. “They got him in the alley by Demas’ coffee-house. Coming up.”
Across the rain-glittering balcony, a fresh onslaught rattles the panes. Glass freighted upRiver delicately as eggshell, its huge sheets only cast in the workshops of Dhasdein’s capital. Riversend.
Iatha casts herself back in the broad brocaded velvet lounging cushion with a grunt.
“Cataract boots, Dhasdein salute—and an Uphill finger in the puddle? Damme, ’Rith!”
Tellurith glowers, pearl-lit, decided chin on thin-fingered fist.
“There’s no word?”
“Wish the roof up. What House would dare play with Cataract, but Vannish or, maybe, Keranshah? And you know what chance we have of knotting Huiza’s lines.” Maeran’s trouble-Head is a consummate intelligencer. “Besides . . .”
Outland: trailing traces of upRiver, downRiver conspiracy. Hinting at the deadliest threat, a coalition between the two. With the encounter site pointing to connivance in the plot, if there is a plot, here in Uphill Amberlight. Whatever its present torpor, the city has not survived five hundred years of River greed, siege, sack, half-a-dozen wars, by waiting for dangers to reveal themselves. But if there is an apostate . . .
Then this is a menace without precedent. And among Houses grown touchiest over each other’s threat, far more dangerous than ignorance will be the knowledge that you asked.
“So we’re back to him.”
Iatha sets her cup down. Hazards a grin. “Tell Hanni? Tomorrow?”
“Put it in the book.”
* * * *
With the morning dose of syrup omitted, he is awake when they come in, and by his expression, in similar mood. From the bed-foot, flanked by steward and scriber, Tellurith asks moderately, “What do you remember today?”
“I remember a lot of misbegotten, impudent, so-called women doctors digging around in my—”
“That’ll do.” Tellurith bites back a smile. No amity in that fire to answer her. “Do you remember your name?”
“No.”
Fire out. A flat, barely composed stare past them. At the door.
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
The blackened orbit comes into darker relief. With smooth speed Tellurith amends, “What do you remember?”
“I—” the eyes swerve back to her. With that midnight iris, impossible to tell if the pupils dilate. “Where am I? What is—Telluir House? Why did you—why are you doing this?”
House-head’s, cutter’s instinct spurs her to sit down by him, soothe that raw bewilderment, that belligerent distress. House-head’s training retorts, Later. Interrogation first.
“You are here,” Tellurith says precisely, “because we found you. Took on the obligation of your care.” And feels a stab as the too-sharp cheekbones flush. “It would help us help you, if you could remember—your name. Your origin. What you do. Why you were here.”
“Gods, if I could remember! Where is ‘here’?”
Nothing for nothing; which nothing to trade is finally the interrogator’s choice. “Amberlight.”
“Amber . . .” Sharp alertness, search. Frustration. Aching bafflement. Rubbing his brows, he mutters, “If I could just . . .”
“Don’t distress yourself.” No mistaking the ragged foretaste of despair. No wasting it, either. “Tell me, were you ever in Dhasdein?”
>
The hand drops. “If you want to interrogate me, get the serif-juice!”
“Serif?”
And the ghost of knowledge and power is gone. “Oh, gods,” slamming the bed, “if I could just think!”
Carefully, Iatha speaks.
“You had a pair of Cataract boots.”
“I always wear Cataract boots, I like the cut . . .”
“Cataract?”
“Cataract . . . gods damn!”
He glares at the wall while they all regroup. Iatha and the scriber gather stools along the working side of the bed. Tellurith sits on it, with something like relief.
“The physicians say, with rest and patience, most things should come back.” She cannot resist the hand on his, the shift to calming voice. “Don’t try too hard. You’re still very weak, and you need to rest.”
The eyes pivot. Perennially startling, that live and living blackness in a human face. Patent, the struggle of defiance, of a formidable lost personality, in destruction’s aftermath; and half-knowledgeable fear. “I don’t need rest, I need—” Skill’s caution cuts it off. She finds herself thinking, Thank the Mother we don’t have to tangle with him whole. “I—”
The battered face becomes a mask. Melts again. Nothing for nothing; which nothing to offer is the interrogator’s skill, but this price is from the bowels. “If you try me with—some more names?”
What you give away, I may double in return. And with the choice of offer, the vantage is yours. Palpable as confession of my need.
“Else I’ll just lie here and fume!”
* * * *
“So far,” snorts Iatha, “the scriber assays a Quetzistani ‘a’”—the eastern province of Dhasdein—“a few Cataract ‘r’s, some common River idiom like, ‘Spin again.’ A good helping of Iskan burr, and he may well have been a child in Verrain.”
“Bah!”
* * * *
“You had a pair of Cataract boots. Very expensive. Do you remember Cataract?”
The accounts have been dismembered, the kinglet’s negotiations extended, a new cutter’s trial looms at moon-end, two days hence. Almost a relaxation to walk into the familiar room and watch the small changes to the sharp familiar face: the bruise’s rainbow passage in his eye-socket, the softening of too-sharp cheekbones, the simultaneous calming and sharpening of that black, black stare.
