by Jill Braden
LiHoun chuckled when RhiHanya said, “She’d come out of hiding in a heartbeat if she thought she could get convince QuiTai to fire Inattra. She’s had it in for Inattra since the moment he became Madam.”
Kyam tapped his bottom lip. “If only someone would go back to the Pha and tell them–”
“Hah! Don’t for a moment think we work for you, Thampurian,” RhiHanya said. “Go talk to them yourself.”
A coughing fit shook LiHoun’s thin body. “Too direct,” he muttered from behind his hand.
“I’m not here to protect delicate Thampurian feelings. He takes what I have for him the way I see fit to give it, or he gets nothing,” she said.
“She’s in training, Mister Zul,” LiHoun apologized to Kyam.
“Don’t you go making excuses for me. I’m fine the way I am, brother.” She turned back to Kyam. “Well? How many hours do you think you have to waste before your friends hang her? Shu, shu, shu. Get moving.”
He felt like a jungle fowl caught pecking in the grain basket. Kyam checked his pocket watch. He’d lost too much time already with nothing to show for it.
“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?” RhiHanya asked.
Kyam glowered at her. “I know one thing – you can get the Pha to hear what you have to say, even if they pretend to ignore you. I can’t. If I so much as set foot in the slums, there’s going to be trouble, and I don’t need that distraction right now. So you’re going back there and you’re going to convince them to tell PhaSun whatever she needs to hear to come talk to me. I don’t care if it’s hard or they’re rude to you. Just do it.”
As she drew in a sharp breath, LiHoun put his hand on her arm. “Time is wasting, sister. Teach the Thampurian manners on a day with too many hours, not one with too few.” The old man gave Kyam an angry look and then tottered toward the Red Happiness on his bandy legs. RhiHanya followed him in a cloud of indignation.
Chapter 9: A Social Call
The soldier stood in a gently rocking rowboat with one boot in an inch of filthy water and the other braced on one of the seats. He’d put his hand out for Nashruu’s, but drew back. “Maybe we should ask…”
Nashruu’s smile was her most ingratiating. She had hoped to get by on charm alone until she was forced to use the sterner stuff.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She knew the question was aimed at the man behind her. It was already clear he didn’t care what she thought. It was so easy for Grandfather to say, ‘Go to the fortress and offer Lady QuiTai our help in exchange for her promise to be my agent’ and expect it to be done. But maybe she could get it done, after she convinced these two to do as she asked.
Perhaps if she stripped right here on the beach, calmly placed her clothing in her bag, shifted into her sea dragon form, and swam across the harbor to the fortress… No. She would be criticized for overreacting. If she wanted to force them to do what she wanted, she’d have to be ladylike about it. Subtle. Sneaky. She hated that.
“Oh!” With her most helpless squeal, she teetered into the soldier’s arms, jammed her satchel into his knees, then squeaked again as he grabbed her around the waist. Her pretty blue sun spectacles dropped near his feet. There was much apologizing and stepping around each other as the soldier retrieved them for her. She plunked down on the tiny seat set into the bow and extended her hand for her glasses.
While she’d never gloat openly, she was rather pleased with herself. Lady QuiTai probably never had to resort to such silly scenes. She got to threaten them or have her thugs beat them. How Nashruu envied that!
The soldiers huddled together. They seemed to suspect her fall onto the little boat was an act. She held onto her parasol tightly as a gust of wind threatened to take it from her hand. She sat primly, set her jaw, and tried to appear as intimidating as her mother-in-law. The soldiers’ conference ended in shrugs. Thankfully, one sat on the far bench and grabbed an oar while the other untied the boat’s line from the cleat.
Nashruu had never seen such pale green water. In Thampur, it was either angry gray or cold sapphire. Here it was so clear. She could see reefs far below the rowboat surrounded by white sand, plants gently swaying in the current, and sharks endlessly circling.
The monolith stones that rose high overhead also fascinated her. She’d seen one standing as a lone sentinel in the midst of the Sea of Erykoli the day before, ferns and vines clinging to the white rock. Bird nests seemed to fill every crag and nook on the leeward side. At the water line, urchins and anemones hung on despite the constant waves. The monolith stones in the harbor were much the same, although the vegetation growing over them was more varied than on the one far out at sea.
This island was endlessly fascinating. She’d have to explore it more. Grandfather said no one except the plantation owners crossed the Jupoli Gorge Bridge. Levapur was such a small part of a big island. How could anyone resist exploring it?
There would be time for that later. Right now, she was on a mission. She twisted about to see where the rowboat headed.
The circular fortress at the end of the breakwater struck her as useless. The longer she looked at it, the less sense it made. From what she could see, the militia inside didn’t seem to even take note of the ships sailing past its walls, except to occasionally wave at sailors in the rigging. They couldn’t stop a Ravidian ship from sailing into the harbor. Perhaps, like the fortresses sitting on the seaward islands of Surrayya, it was equipped with ballistas to shoot flaming harpoons and oil at enemy ships, but she saw no evidence of such weapons on the ramparts.
It made no sense, though, to make it so difficult to reach the fortress by land. One could try to climb over the enormous, wet, barnacle-encrusted rocks of the breakwater, but it wouldn’t be easy. They obviously wanted to make it as difficult as possible to walk to the front gates of the fortress.
Ah! She’d figured it out. The fortress had been built to protect Thampurians from the Ponongese, should the natives ever revolt. Thampurians could shift into their sea dragon forms and swim quickly to the protective walls. The Ponongese would have to row over.
She was quite pleased with herself.
Her theory also explained why twice as many arrow slots faced the harbor as the sea. And maybe that’s why the executed prisoners were hung from the ramparts facing the harbor rather than the seaward side. She averted her eyes from the corpses.
They were nearly at the breakwater when she saw the short dock for the fortress. Up close, the stone walls were much more intimidating. She was going to walk in there, get Lady QuiTai to agree to work for Grandfather, and then tell Colonel Hurust to release her. That’s what Grandfather expected her to do. Unfortunately, he hadn’t told her how she was supposed to affect this miracle.
Nashruu had been lectured, quizzed, and tutored relentlessly for years. It had all been a waste. She was completely unprepared for this. Her shoulders slumped as a wave of doubt eroded her confidence. She was going to mess this up. Lady QuiTai would be hanged because of her, and Grandfather would make her come back to Thampur in disgrace.
Her mouth twitched. Wasn’t that usually the other way around? One got sent to Levapur in disgrace, not recalled home. As she laughed at herself, her spirits rose.
~ ~ ~
Nashruu walked into Colonel Hurust’s office in the fortress. It was a small room on the third floor with a view of the ramparts below. The battered furniture looked as if it had been bought as a temporary solution and never been replaced. His small desk was cluttered with files.
“Colonel Hurust–”
The colonel’s secretary, Major Rheagus, spun around. His hair was curly, unusual for a Thampurian, and rose above the high dome of his bare forehead. Ill-advised academic’s whiskers surrounded his wet little mouth that made smacking noises when he spoke. He gave Nashruu the most astonished look. “I told you to wait outside in the hallway.”
“Did you? Oh, how dreadfully embarrassing. I didn’t realize you meant me.”
“There wasn’t anyone else out there!”
Nashruu wiped away an offending bubble of spittle that had landed on her cheek. Colonel Hurust gripped the arms of his chair as if he might flee any moment. His neck overflowed his uniform collar as if he believed he was still the gawky youth he’d been when he’d entered the military academy.
Her eyes were drawn to his hair. There was an unreal quality to it, as if it had been waxed and then sculpted into shape by a doll maker. Something about his pursed lips and stubby fingers reeked of prissy habits.
When she managed to move her gaze from his astonishing hair to his eyes, she was startled to realize he was also judging her. She saw the sneer in the spread of his nostrils.
“Look at my manners. Colonel Hurust? How do you do?” She inclined her head just enough for it to count as a bow.
That should put him in his place, she thought.
After a long silence, in which the men stared at her, she quietly cleared her throat. “I suppose I must make the introductions then. I am Ma’am Zul, wife of Governor Zul.”
“I humbly beg your pardon, Ma’am Zul. We don’t receive many guests here,” Colonel Hurust said. He didn’t seem to regret that.
“How sad. You must feel so isolated.” She sat down and placed her satchel at her feet.
If Major Rheagus’ eyebrows rose any higher, he’d have a proper hairline for a man his age.
“We prefer to keep apart from the contamination,” Colonel Hurust said. He suddenly leaned forward. “Does your husband know you’re here?”
She didn’t like to lie, but she knew what would happen if she told the truth. “Yes.”
“He allowed you to come here without an escort or–”
“I’m surrounded by the gallant men of the colonial militia. How could I be any safer?”
Colonel Hurust apparently didn’t like being interrupted. “This is a prison.”
“Exactly.”
Now he was ticked off. That didn’t worry her. Maybe his wife shrank back when he scowled, but he wasn’t nearly as scary as Grandfather.
“I came here to see a prisoner. Lady QuiTai.”
Colonel Hurust chuckled. His secretary chortled. That was worse than any other insult. She hated the rising heat in her cheeks as they belittled her.
Then, for no reason she could understand, he rose from his desk and said, “Come on. I haven’t got all day.”
He strode from his office at a quick pace. She struggled to keep up as her narrow skirt forced her to take mincing steps. When she fell behind, he didn’t slow down. At the stairs, she gritted her teeth and raised her hem almost to her knees so she could keep up. If a soldier saw her legs, she’d never be taken seriously.
She lost sight of him at the bottom landing as she quickly pushed her skirt back down. Hurrying as best she could, she turned a corner and found him waiting at a double-biolocked gate to the prison section of the fortress.
Hurust didn’t have to say a word to make it clear he was doing this on a whim, and that he could easily change his mind. That was more unnerving than the laughter. Was she supposed to be grateful and obedient now? Or was he accommodating her because he liked her bravery? There was no telling with men.
Nashruu followed Colonel Hurust across the lush grass. The parade ground reminded her of the first time she’d seen Voorus at Thyrinmun, Thampur’s elite military academy. He’d looked so dashing with his new stripes, and she’d felt so wicked. Men had affairs all the time, but outside of plays and operas, she’d never heard of a woman taking a lover and living to tell about it. Not that she’d ever told anyone. Grandfather made the price for letting out that secret graphically clear.
A delightful ocean breeze ruffled the longish grass, and gulls wheeled far overhead in the cloudless sky. As far as prisons went, she imagined this one was quite nice.
Colonel Hurust stopped at a thick door with a grill at eye level. He lifted the rusting iron ring to knock on the door.
“Why wasn’t Lady QuiTai put in one of these cells?” Nashruu pointed to the empty cells built into the wall ringing the parade ground.
“Your husband demanded we put her in the dungeon.” His tone made it clear that he’d had enough of her already, so she didn’t press for details.
He knocked on the door again. They stood in silence. He seemed too surly to share information about his fortress or the militia, so she didn’t attempt any polite chatter. She was a bit shocked he hadn’t offered to carry her satchel. Even while annoyed, men of a certain social rank could usually be relied upon for such manners. Then again, if he were a good example of a gentleman, he most certainly wouldn’t have been exiled to Levapur, would he?
Although the Colonel’s lips were a natural enough shade, she wondered if maybe he were a black lotus user. Not an addict; not yet. But she knew he’d been caught using his position to smuggle the addictive black tar into Thampur. She also understood she wasn’t allowed to tell him she knew why he’d been exiled. Levapur’s unwritten rules of society were odder than those in Surrayya.
Hurust shifted from foot to foot and pounded on the door. He cursed dreadfully but didn’t apologize to her. Instead, he jangled a ring of keys irritably, found the one he wanted, and shoved it into the lock.
The door swung open under protest. Her nose wrinkled as a wave of air smelling of algae and mud oozed out of the dungeon.
Colonel Hurust stepped back and indicated she should go first. That struck her as bad manners, but if it were a dare, she would prove she had the nerve to step into the darkness.
She took off her blue sun spectacles. The room wasn’t as dark as before, but the sunlight streaming through the door and the green light jellylanterns hanging from the stone walls didn’t illuminate enough. She saw stairs leading down into pitch darkness ahead. To the side there was a space big enough for a roughly hewn table and a couple battered chairs. Tiles covered most of the table. Some were up, arranged in sets, but the rest were face down in the center. A game in progress, then. She rested her hand on the back to the chair closest to her and examined the tiles. The north seat was winning handily.
“My guards can escort you to the dungeon from here. Good day, Ma’am Zul.”
Colonel Hurust’s voice grew fainter. The little alcove darkened as the door swung closed. A half-forgotten nightmare of being buried alive sent her hand flying to protect her neck. She found her voice. “Colonel, there are no men here!”
“They’re probably down in the dungeon with the prisoner. Simply call down–”
“I will not!”
Her hand ached where she’d been gripping the chair too tightly. She let go and went to the door. It was far heavier than she expected and didn’t swing easily on its rusted hinges. Colonel Hurust hadn’t walked away yet. He looked as if his lunch had turned viciously on him.
“Colonel, kindly wait with me for your men to return, or summon someone to escort me down.”
He nodded as he turned to look at the parade ground. A sauntering guard appeared on the rampart across the way. Colonel Hurust yelled to get his attention, but the wind blew his voice away.
“Wait here.” He walked stiffly to the flight of steps leading from the parade ground to the ramparts.
Nashruu pushed the door open wider to make sure it didn’t close and lock her in.
Colonel Hurust was moving too slowly for her taste. Everyone on this island moved in slow motion. It was as if the heat sapped them of their will to get anything done. Impatient, she cast a glance behind her to the dark staircase leading down.
“Hello? Lady QuiTai? We met earlier. I’m Ma’am Zul, and I’m here to speak with you,” Nashruu said. If the poor woman was locked down there in the dark, maybe another woman’s voice would comfort her.
Nashruu tilted her head. The soft schussing she heard reminded her of pressing a seashell to her ear. Wait! Was that something moving? No. That must have been her imagination.
No matter how hard she squinted into the darkness or how hard she concentrate
d, she couldn’t hear anything. The sounds from outside were muffled. Silence billowed over them and consumed everything.
A voice whispered from the pitch black staircase, “You shouldn’t be here, Ma’am Zul.”
~ ~ ~
It had to be a weird acoustical effect where the stone curved sound, or maybe like those entertainers who made voices come out of puppets. QuiTai couldn’t be part of that darkness, could she? Was she close enough to reach out and touch Nashruu?
Nashruu refused to let her imagination spook her.
QuiTai wasn’t a folktale demon. She should be feared, certainly, but she was mortal, like everyone else.
Two soldiers reluctantly edged into the room with her.
Colonel Hurust had found her escort, but he stood behind them and didn’t cross the threshold.
“These men will take you down to see the Devil’s whore, Ma’am. If you see my other men, tell them to report to me.”
She didn’t feel as if she should carry messages for him. Perhaps his men had taken a meal break, been relieved of duty, or… She glanced down the staircase again and gulped. Oh, this was silly. QuiTai could hardly be a threat to a fortress full of soldiers.
The soldiers didn’t move. Apparently, she was supposed to go down the stairs first.
“I require a lamp,” she said.
Jellylantern in hand, the three of them descended into the gloom. The stone stairs were slick and there was no handrail. The slow drip of water echoing through the dungeon could have been blood draining from a corpse.
The fading green light of a single jellylantern in the dungeon barely illuminated the first cell. It was impossible to know what lurked in the utter darkness outside the sickly halo of light. Nashruu’s arms prickled as she peered into the gloom.
The soldier’s shuffling boots on the stone floor sounded like the scrape of talons behind a wall. It made the hairs at the back of her neck stand.
