Of the others, she was not so sure. Several of the men seemed to bear a resemblance in their features, although she could not be certain.
One man in particular attracted her notice, but not for the richness of his apparel or the arrogance of his features. Subtly unlike the others, this man wore the long courtly robe of white edged with only the thinnest bands of blue and purple, and no jeweled chain or other ornament. Only a single ring circled one of his swollen fingers, and that bore a small, dark-red stone. His face was as puffy as his fingers, and his distended belly stretched the fine fabric of his robe. Lines, as if from unremitting pain, were etched into his misshapen face. Tsorreh observed the awkwardness of his posture and the crutch resting against the back of his chair. He frowned and shifted in his seat, looking very much as if he wished he were elsewhere.
One by one, the captives were brought forward, and one of the officers presented each to the court, describing their origin. They were trying to impress the Ar-King with their value, Tsorreh thought.
Cinath listened with an expression of grave attention but no other visible emotion. He waved away the first few, and they were taken away by their guards, back the way they had come. Tsorreh had no idea what would become of them, except for the Xian, who was to be trained for some sort of combat spectacle.
The black-skinned woman was next, and her guard told a long, elaborate story of her capture. She was from one of the tribes along the Fever Lands border, known for their savagery in combat, and had been taken on board a pirate ship off the coast of Verenzza. Apparently, this one woman had killed three Gelonian soldiers. The rest of the pirates had been summarily executed.
As the tale unfolded, the entire assembly, the court on the dais and the audience below, came alert. Eyes shone, and the murmur and rustle died down. Several of the men leaned forward from their seats. Cinath did not shift his posture, but his eyes narrowed. One of his hands clenched into a fist.
The officer finished the story by shoving the woman forward and then tripping her so that she fell on her face in front of the throne. She caught herself with her bound hands and scrambled to her feet, to the sound of raucous laughter.
Cinath straightened on his throne as the noise died down. Something in the intensity of his gaze alerted Tsorreh. Here was a man who would never question his own opinions or the rightness of his actions. His mouth twisted into a sneer. “So this person has dared to threaten the peace of my provinces? To lift her hand against my own sworn men?”
The woman stood, posture erect, face impassive, giving no sign that she understood him.
“What shall answer such insolence? How shall we set an example to any who dare follow?” Cinath paused dramatically.
“Give her to the Xian for entertainment at dinner tonight,” one of the younger men called out. He had the same pale skin and ruddy hair as Cinath and wore a robe of blue edged with gold.
Tsorreh recoiled, but the reaction of the audience was the opposite. One of the ladies clapped her hands. There were scattered hoots and cheers from the audience. Only the man seated to the left of the throne, the one who so strongly resembled the Ar-King, made no response.
“Cut off her feet,” another of the court suggested. “What a fine jest, to see her crawl about like one of those monkeys!”
“Aye! Being from the Fever Lands herself, she’s little better than one of them!”
One of the courtiers from the audience stepped forward. “Your Majesty, worthy nobles, they say the women of the Fever Lands fight as well as the men. Why not test this one against the brother-regiment of the men she has killed?”
Cinath lifted one finger to his temple. The room fell silent. “Send her to the barracks.”
“An excellent plan, Your Majesty!”
The guards to either side of the woman exchanged a glance, fierce and lascivious. Tsorreh had no doubt how they would pass the evening. An outright execution would be far more merciful.
The woman herself stood unmoving, but a new tension came into her muscles. The air around her seemed to quiver. One of the guards nudged her in the back with the tip of his sword.
“Let’s go. We look forward to offering you our hospitality.”
In a movement as quick and heartless as a striking serpent, the black-skinned woman darted forward, only a step or two, but close enough to spit at the Ar-King. The gobbet of slime struck him full in the face. A gasp shook the assembly.
Shouting a curse in Gelone, the guard lunged at her, slashing with his sword. One of the ladies shrieked.
The Fever Lands woman pivoted and reached out with her bound hands. The sword edge sliced through the rope at her wrists. She curled and rolled, agile as a gymnast. Coming up to her feet, she faced her guards.
The circular attack had carried the guard’s sword past his body. He had put his power into the blow, and now he stumbled, struggling with the weight and momentum of the blade. His partner, caught unawares, brought his own sword to ready. The woman stood with one foot before the other, hands raised, knees bent. White gleamed around the darkness of her eyes. She bared her teeth in a feral smile.
The nearest soldier moved to join the attack. In only a moment, the woman would be encircled. Even with her hands free, what could she do, unarmed, against a dozen or more?
The guard who had first struck out at her regained his balance. The initial attack might have been one of surprise and impulse, but he was no green recruit. With deadly economy, he brought his sword around in a backhand slice. The arched path of the blade would catch the woman obliquely across her belly.
At the same moment, she hurled herself toward the blow. The edge of the blade slashed through her skin, but she was already moving, twisting around it. She seemed to draw the length of steel into herself, to embrace it like a lover. For an instant, the sword lifted her up. The tip slipped along the angle of her ribs, toward her heart.
A look of fierce, almost transcendent joy lit her face. Then the light went out of her eyes. Her body folded in on itself. Her weight pulled the sword from the hand of the guard.. The guard wrenched his sword free. The coppery reek of blood filled the air.
Tsorreh could not breathe in the silence.
Several courtiers rushed forward with cloths to wipe the spittle from Cinath’s face. One of the soldiers, an officer by the colors across his armor, went down on one knee before the king.
“I offer my life in payment for my failure,” the officer said.
Again, the crowd held its breath. Tsorreh’s mind whirled with the sudden turn of events. She was too numb, her thoughts too slow, to make any sense of what she’d witnessed. The alien nature of the Gelon made her shudder. How could the officer be responsible for the captive’s death—or did he mean the woman’s insult to the king? What kind of honor would exact such a penalty?
Cinath rose and stepped down from the dais. With his hands, he lifted the officer to his feet. His voice was low, so that Tsorreh could catch only a few phrases, something about loyalty and a strong sword arm. Now she sensed something familiar in the crowd, for she had seen it in the faces of her own people. Such a leader they would follow gladly, joyfully, even into the jaws of darkness.
The moment passed, and Cinath took his seat on the throne once more. “Get rid of that.” He indicated the body of the black-skinned woman with a jerk of his chin. “Feed it to my dogs, if they will eat it.”
After the corpse was removed, the officer returned to the presentation of the captives. One of the courtiers suggested that the two remaining prisoners, Tsorreh and another woman, might be sent to the barracks, since the soldiers had been deprived of their sport.
“Perhaps,” Cinath said carelessly.
One of Tsorreh’s guards stepped forward and bowed deeply. After the proper salutations, he gestured at Tsorreh. “This woman was taken at Isarre, a refugee from Meklavar.”
“Mortan sent her all the way here?” Cinath sounded bored and irritated. “One more filthy, scrawny female slave? Gods, as if I haven’t eno
ugh of them already!”
The courtiers tittered.
Gathering all the grace of movement she could summon, Tsorreh sank to the floor in a deep obeisance.
“Your Majesty! Ar-King of all Gelon!” She lifted her head to free her throat, sending her voice into the room as her grandfather often had, addressing the congregation of Meklavar. “I am Tsorreh, second wife and now widow of Maharrad, King of Meklavar. My kingdom lies in the hands of your army. After the city fell, I fled through the mountains to seek refuge with my kinfolk in Isarre, in Gatacinne, and was taken prisoner there.”
By Cinath’s expression, and those of his courtiers, he did not believe her. The man to the king’s right, the one with the crutch, came alert, clearly interested. He leaned over and said in a mild voice, “The timing would be right, according to our own reports. Consider also, my brother, how well she speaks Gelone, yet with an accent one could well describe as scholarly. Clearly, she has studied it properly and not just picked up a few phrases from the gutter. As to her appearance, what woman would look better after so many days at sea?”
Tsorreh got a closer look at the man. He was not as old as she had first assumed, although his hair was so thin that he appeared almost bald. An expression of keen intelligence lit the eyes that looked out between swollen folds of flesh.
“Majesty, she was interrogated b-by the Q-Q-Qr priest,” the guard said. “He v-v-verifies that she is indeed the Queen of M-M-Meklavar.”
Through her rising panic, Tsorreh caught the whispers at the back of the chamber. They were laced with fear, she thought, rather than respect.
“Qr does not rule here,” Cinath said darkly. “Yet its servants have powers beyond those of ordinary men, and an uncommon ability to detect the truth beneath layers of falsehood. Bring her forth.”
Praying she would not stumble, Tsorreh got to her feet, waited for the guards to take their places as if they were an escort of honor, and walked forward between them. She kept her features composed, her head lifted, and her step stately. All the while, her thoughts churned, searching for a way to convince this king that she was worthy of his protection. Cinath glanced at the man at his right, the one who had called him “brother.”
“What seeketh thou, O my sister,” the bloated man recited in surprisingly musical Meklavaran, “so far from the mountains of your birth?”
Tsorreh startled, for he had not only spoken in the ancient holy language, but had quoted from an early version of the Shirah Kohav. She had not thought to hear the poet’s words, not so far from home nor spoken with such reverence.
She drew in a deep breath, raising her voice in the lilting chant:
“When I left the tent of my fathers, O my brother,
I thought only of fame and treasure,
I found only parched sand and empty skies.”
“Then seek no more,”
the crippled Gelon answered,
“but abide with me,
And I will pour cool water for your thirst,
And fill the heavens with songs of rejoicing.”
The king’s brother regarded her gravely. At first, she had thought him old, but now she saw the lines around his eyes and mouth were those of suffering and ill health, not age. He shifted again on his hard wooden chair, and she saw that one of his sandaled feet, like a sickle, crooked inward. That would explain the crutch.
“She is Meklavaran, of that there is no doubt,” the king’s brother said. “And she’s an educated woman. If she is not the runaway queen, she must surely be of a noble family. It would be a waste to turn her into barracks fodder or a scullery maid.”
“Since the priest of Qr took an interest in her, I suppose we must keep her under guard. You have evidently taken a fancy to her, brother. I give her to you.”
The man blinked, clearly surprised. “I meant for you to place her as a lady-maid here in the palace—”
“No, no, I want her close but not that close. Come now, Jaxar. What’s the problem? Is Lycian jealous? Who rules in your house, you or your wife? Besides, if this woman is as well-educated as you claim, she’ll make you an adequate assistant. Call her a guest or a hostage if you don’t like the word slave. From this moment, she is your responsibility. I’ll hear no more objections.”
“And I will offer none,” Jaxar replied after the faintest hesitation. “In this, as in all things, I serve the Ar of Gelon.”
Chapter Fifteen
TWO days later, Tsorreh found herself in the entrance hall of Jaxar’s city estate. She had not been sent directly there, but had passed the intervening time in the custody of Cinath’s lady-steward. No one spoke to her in Cinath’s palace, except to give her brief instructions—go here, wait there, lift your arms—spoken as slowly as if she were a child or a simpleton. In the women’s slave quarters, she had been bathed and scrubbed, her hair combed and tied in a single thick plait down her back, her nails trimmed, and her ragged clothing taken away and replaced with a short gown, clean but worn. The garment was no more than a length of lightweight undyed cotton, folded and stitched along the sides, with a hole cut for the head. A few fraying tears bespoke previous hard usage. The hemline fell ungracefully to the middle of her calves. She felt half-naked with so much of her legs exposed, until she realized that many of the other women—slaves or servants, she could not be sure—wore even shorter ones.
On the brief trip to Jaxar’s compound, she saw a little more of the city’s broad paved streets, plazas with fountains shaped like leaping dolphins or men with the tails of fishes, avenues of blossoming trees, and walls of weathered gray stone.
Through a gate set in one of these, her guards conducted her to an inner garden. Beyond the jewel-bright beds of flowers, the dwarf orange trees and hedges, stood the house itself. It was at least two stories tall. The walls might once have been as white and shining as those of Cinath’s palace but were now worn to a grayish sheen, veined with delicate darker streaks. The house looked old and dignified rather than shabby, as if the hopes and dreams of those who had lived here still hummed softly in its bones.
A steward greeted them, a pear-shaped man with sallow, sagging skin, a nose that looked as if it had been broken several times, and slanted almond-brown eyes. He moved soundlessly, gliding over the tiled floor. Tsorreh could not imagine much happening within these walls that he did not know about. Such a man could be an invaluable ally or a formidable enemy. She must proceed carefully, avoiding even the appearance of a challenge to his authority until she had a better sense of his temper.
Tsorreh followed the steward inside the house and through a spacious entrance hall. Exquisitely wrought mosaics covered the floor and one long wall. Their path skirted an inner courtyard, open to the sky and bounded on two sides with graceful colonnades. Tsorreh faltered at the sight of the garden. Someone had put a great deal of care into its design and nurture, here placing a thicket of roses, there a tiny meadow of blue and yellow starflowers. Through the meadow wound a trail lined by benches that invited her to rest beneath the trellised vines. Beyond, she glimpsed a fountain and flagstone-paved patio with table and chairs.
She drew a breath, inhaling the fragrance of flowers, the scents of rich, moist earth and growing things. Longing filled her. She wanted to weep among the lilies, like the poet of the Shirah Kohav.
She came back to herself, standing at the edge of the garden. The steward had paused as well and was looking at her curiously. She sensed sympathy in that oblique gaze. He could have hurried her away and castigated her, and yet he waited, the creases at the corners of his mouth deepening, as he allowed her this moment of comfort. Eventually, they passed along a colonnade into the shaded darkness of the house and then up a flight of stairs.
The steward tapped on a door of honey-toned wood whose carved panels depicted the four Gelonian primals: fire, water, earth, and air. Inside was a library unlike any Tsorreh had seen, with not only bookshelves, but also work tables bearing instruments of glass and metal and reed tubes. A wooden ladder at the far
end rose the entire height of the room and into a wide opening in the ceiling. Light streamed down, bathing the chamber in gentle brilliance.
“My lord?” the steward called, for the room appeared to be empty.
A muffled sound came from beneath one of the work tables. Jaxar’s head emerged. Cobwebs laced his sparse hair and dust smeared one puffy, flushed cheek. He clutched a scrap of yellowed paper in one hand. Panting, he pulled himself up, using the table for support. When he saw Tsorreh, a smile lit up his homely face.
“Oh, there you are. We didn’t expect you until this afternoon.”
“My lord,” the servant said in an aggrieved tone, “they sent her over from the palace just now.”
“Then, Lady Tsorreh, I bid you welcome to my laboratory.” Jaxar fumbled with his crutch, got it into position, and limped toward her.
“Thank you for your graciousness, Lord Jaxar,” Tsorreh said in her best Gelone. “As you see, I am your prisoner. Or rather, your brother’s. You need not flatter me with honors.”
An unreadable emotion touched Jaxar’s face, a tightening of the expressive lips, a shadow evanescent behind the eyes. “There are neither slaves nor hostages in my house. As for being a prisoner, where are your chains? Do you see any bars upon these windows? I told Cinath, may-his-reign—well, we’re not in court, so never mind what I wish for him. I told him I would keep you safe, and so I shall, as best I can within these walls.”
Jaxar’s mood shifted. The corners of his mouth twitched upward and smile crinkles appeared around his eyes. “Whether I can protect you equally well against boredom is another matter. Where to start?”
The Seven-Petaled Shield Page 19
