by Jill Braden
QuiTai stood at the back of the first cell. It was hard to see where she ended and the shadows began. Even her face was difficult to see, but it was undoubtedly she.
Nashruu’s relief to find her locked away was a bit embarrassing. She was glad no one knew how she felt.
The soldiers glanced around with wild eyes There was nothing to see, so their imaginations seemed to paint pictures for them. They edged toward the stairs as if they might abandon her.
“Wait!” Nashruu’s voice ricocheted off the stone dungeon wall. She raised her hand as she peered through the cell bars. “Let me into the cell with her.”
The soldiers drew themselves up as if a silent consensus had been reached. She knew the signs of men about to lie to justify something stupid.
The one with the luxuriant mustache spoke slowly, as if forming a lie took all his concentration. “Yes, well, that may be what you think you want, miss –”
“Ma’am.”
He rolled his eyes as the other one smirked. “Ma’am. We can’t let you put yourself in danger.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Lady QuiTai won’t kill me.”
At least, she hoped not. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the small figure waiting patiently for this scene to play out.
A quiet groan echoed through the chamber.
QuiTai stepped closer to the bars of her cell. Her unbound hair fell in matted, twisted locks down to her knees, as if she’d been floating face down in the sea for several days. In the sickly green light of the sole jellylantern, her eyes seemed to glow from the bottom of deep pits. It was silly to think this, but she looked exactly like the surkraim from that illustrated book of folktales that was probably in every nursery in Thampur. But QuiTai wasn’t a vengeful marsh spirit. No adult believed in such things.
Somewhere else in the dark, something moved.
The soldiers bolted for the stairs, leaving Nashruu to face her alone.
~ ~ ~
“We haven’t been introduced properly, Lady QuiTai. I’m Governor Zul’s wife. Please call me Nashruu.”
“Not for all the rice in Levapur.” She sounded a bit annoyed, as if the interruption were barely tolerable.
“Are we enemies?” Nashruu was able to keep her voice light and pleasant. That was something, at least, although she suspected that QuiTai could hear her booming heartbeat.
“That has yet to be determined, Ma’am Zul, but you must appreciate my caution. In this place, I can’t afford a single misstep.”
It dawned on Nashruu that QuiTai’s refusal to use her name hadn’t been personal. If the soldiers overheard a Ponongese being familiar with a Thampurian, they’d probably use it as an excuse to beat her. Nashruu been warned that rules were different in Levapur: more formal, rigid, harsh. That was easy to forget in a place with no paved roads, where animals and plants seemed to wander where they willed, and most people walked around draped in little more than a bed sheet. At least QuiTai’s reminder had been gentle. Grandfather would have roared at her.
She lifted her satchel. “Do you care for tea? I’ve brought cakes, too. One can’t have proper tea without a little something to nibble on, don’t you think?”
Her nerves were showing. She had to stop talking so much.
QuiTai’s fingertips trailed across the cell bars as she sauntered the width of her cell. “Tea and cakes in the fortress dungeon? How delightfully absurd.”
Her laughter didn’t sound cruel or mocking. It was gentle. After all the warnings about QuiTai, Nashruu was surprised at her kindness. “I’d planned to have tea with you the moment I set foot in Levapur. Grandfather insisted I visit you here as soon as he heard you’d been arrested. I’m being efficient and doing both.”
“You are either naive, Ma’am Zul, or you’re the bravest Thampurian I’ve ever met.”
Brave? Since stepping into the dungeon, she’d imagined the weight of the fortress overhead crushing down on her. Every breath dragged the stench of the place across her tongue. She didn’t trust the bars to protect her from this woman whom even Grandfather feared.
With some effort, she willed her hand from her jacket’s frogs and down to her side. Her arm felt awkwardly posed, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had to prove she deserved Grandfather’s faith in her.
Nashruu set the satchel on a stair and undid the heavy buckles. The compartments on one side held a box of little pink cakes, a tin of tea leaves, sugar, and a thermos of cream. The other held a teapot, spoons, saucers, and two cups. It wasn’t practical; it was flash, the kind of toy most people liked to have but never used because it was more trouble than it was worth. “This is my favorite part.” She unsnapped the base to reveal a rectangular metal canteen that was uncomfortably warm to the touch. “This end here has the fuel and enclosed flame. The rest is filled with water. It takes a while to boil.”
“Ingenious. Made for train travel, I assume,” QuiTai said.
Grandfather said QuiTai had a fascination for inventions of all sorts. She’d certainly smuggled enough of them into Levapur. He’d slipped a few items into those shipments to see what she might make of them, although Nashruu wasn’t sure how he found out an answer. His spies watched QuiTai, but she had proven herself elusive many times.
“The protected flame was an innovation for ship passengers, since fire is the worst hazard on board. Cake?” Nashruu placed the thickly iced cakes on a plate with a gold edge and handed it through the bars to QuiTai.
“Perhaps it was in the past, before jellylanterns, which makes one wonder why the incidence of burns has risen sharply among the Golden Barracuda’s crew. Mm. Such a pretty cake. Suin’s?”
“I was told it was the only pâtisserie in Levapur worth visiting.” Nashruu took the plate from QuiTai and picked up a cake for herself. She bit into the corner. The filling wasn’t the usual berry jam, but it was quite good. She popped the last bite into her mouth and flicked away the moist crumbs from her fingers. “Grandfather will be jealous that he didn’t join us.”
“You have no idea how much I also wish Grandfather were here.”
There was menace in her tone. Nothing overt, of course, but her intent was clear.
“You call him Grandfather too?” Nashruu asked.
“It’s a sign of greatest respect among the Ponongese. If he doesn’t like it, I will use another name for him. I’d hate for him to think I underestimate him. Or his agent.”
For a moment, she was taken aback, until she remembered that she’d told QuiTai herself that Grandfather had sent her here. Was QuiTai’s seeming clairvoyance merely the result of listening to the things people forgot they’d said?
“That’s quite flattering,” Nashruu said.
“Not at all. Oh, I see. You’re suspicious because I’m on my best behavior.”
“Are you?”
QuiTai smiled to herself. “I’m not usually that generous. Such a warning, and for free!”
Nashruu thought back furiously over their conversation. What warning? “I’m sorry. I must have–”
QuiTai’s very breath sounded impatient. “If I can spend an hour at the wharf and observe three crew members with obvious burn marks on their hands and arms disembarking from the Golden Barracuda, imagine what a spy who was looking for such things might learn. And it doesn’t take much to extrapolate the rest of the story, does it? Three sailors, who from their jocular banter, work together. Their paler skin suggests they work below deck, but they are allowed shore leave, even though it’s known that the Golden Barracuda sails tomorrow on the tide. So they don’t work with the cargo or ship’s stores, because those crewmen are working furiously to make sure everything is in order for tomorrow. Not to mention that their clothes reek of burned juam nut oil. And then there’s the ship’s doctor, openly negotiating the purchase of a large quantity of black lotus on the wharf where anyone might overhear. Black lotus has many uses, but in a ship’s doctor’s pharmacy, it’s used for pain – intense pain. He also bought juikoo leaves, which ar
e used to soothe burned skin. Need I go on?”
Nashruu’s throat tightened. Did she know about the top secret engines on board Hadre’s ship?
“Tell Grandfather that the crew of the Golden Barracuda needs to be much more discreet, or the Ravidians will figure out it’s not a typical junk, if they don’t already know,” QuiTai said. “Remember, any farwriter can receive your transmissions if someone stumbles upon the frequency, even if you change it daily. That’s why Grandfather delivers his most important messages in person. So chose your words carefully when you share my warning with him.”
QuiTai had a way of clipping the end of her sentences to indicate she’d said all she meant to say. Nashruu certainly thought she’d said enough.
“Is the water hot?” QuiTai asked.
She changed subjects so abruptly.
“Yes.”
“Go ahead and make your cup. I prefer you be settled before we start the next part of this conversation.”
Nashruu rinsed out the pot with some of the heated water. “What is the next part?”
“We discuss why you’re here. I gather Grandfather has instructed you to make some sort of deal with me.”
“Do you take sugar?” Nashruu put leaves in the pot and poured the rest of the water over them.
“None for me, thank you.”
“No sugar?”
“No tea. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s a little quirk of mine.”
Nashruu laughed uncertainly. “But you ate the cake.”
QuiTai held out her hand. It was almost too dark to tell, but the cake she held looked whole. Yet Nashruu was sure she’d seen her eat it.
“Never assume. What you believe you’ve seen may be an illusion.”
“Why would I poison you now? We haven’t even begun to talk,” Nashruu said.
“This is going to sound fanciful–”
“I’ve never heard you described that way.”
QuiTai smiled down at her feet.
She’s modest, or at least she pretends well. Grandfather never mentioned that!
“In the jellylantern serials, they always slip poison to the hero and then withhold the antidote until he does what they tell him to. Pure rubbish, I think, but one can never be too sure. The chemists in Thampur have been so busy in their laboratories lately. Busy, busy, making weapons of war, great and small. Who knows what they might be concocting?”
“And you’re our hero, Lady QuiTai?”
“Oh no, my dear. Never. I’m the villain.”
She knew the spike of fear that went through her was silly, because QuiTai couldn’t possibly have magical powers. Nashruu had watched her every second since she’d entered the dungeon, hadn’t she? It wasn’t possible that QuiTai could have slipped between the bars and doctored her tea while she was watching, any more than it was possible that QuiTai had been standing inches away from her in the darkness at the top of the stairs earlier. The woman couldn’t possibly glide through iron bars like a spirit, and she couldn’t become invisible.
The dungeon walls echoed with a guttural moan. It had to be her imagination. This was a little play that QuiTai was staging for her benefit. That sound couldn’t be real.
Nashruu set down her cup and pushed it away.
Two rings of gold glowed from the dark pits of QuiTai’s eyes. With her chin lowered and the jellylantern casting dim light up on her face, she gave Nashruu the shivers.
“Now, let’s talk about why Grandfather sent you here, Ma’am Zul.”
Chapter 10: Reporting to Grandfather Zul
Nashruu knew she should tell Grandfather that QuiTai had turned down his deal, but she was putting it off. From the moment she’d returned to the compound, her servants had harassed her with a million stupid questions. Unpacked crates still sat in the foyer. The remains of their meal littered the dining table. Tempers were on edge.
Her maid, Simarn, followed her up the stairs and breathlessly delivered a list of complaints against the others. Nashruu made sympathetic noises and unbuttoned her jacket. Before it could fall to the floor, the maid snatched it away.
Nashruu drew in a deep breath as her maid unlaced her corset. Underneath, her shift was damp with sweat.
“No wonder those snakes wear nothing under their thin blouses,” Simarn said.
“Maybe if I went without my corset I wouldn’t get so hot. Oh, that look? You’re the one who brought it up.”
“It wasn’t a suggestion, Ma’am.”
Allowances had to be made for the heat, but that attitude had to change quickly. Simarn had received an outrageous bonus for agreeing to come to Ponong. She shouldn’t blame Nashruu if the colony wasn’t to her liking.
“Governor Zul says we are to refer to the natives as Ponongese, not snakes,” Nashruu reminded her.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Is my bath ready?”
“Yes, Ma’am, although you might wilt in that steam, so I also left you a pitcher of water by your basin. We drew it up from a well, so it’s cool, but not enough to give you a chill.”
The idea of getting a chill in Levapur was absurd.
“That was very thoughtful of you, Simarn. I’ll need my blue dress when I go out this afternoon.”
“You’re leaving again?”
Being scolded by one’s maid was simply too much. Nashruu gave her a stern look.
“Yes, Ma’am. Shall I close the doors?” Simarn indicated the typhoon shutters that were open to the veranda, although wood screens had been pulled across the opening for privacy.
“Leave them open. Perhaps the breeze will pick up.”
Even if it hadn’t been so hot, with her eyes closed, Nashruu would have known she was far from home. She’d never thought about Surrayya having a scent until now. It never smelled of dirt, verdant plants, decay like the jungle, the sharp spices of the marketplace, or the cloying sweetness of the flowers that grew on the trellis over the typhoon shutters. Surrayya smelled of the canals and damp velvet frocks, or like a storm coming over the ocean.
Simarn put Nashruu’s afternoon frock into the wardrobe, bowed, and left the room.
Nashruu pulled her shift over her head and let it drop on the floor. It seemed so improper to stand naked inside her room with the doors wide open to the courtyard. No one could see through the wood screens unless they stood on the veranda, but still, it felt dangerous. She never would have done it in Surrayya. She wondered if Kyam would ever be tempted to creep across the veranda that linked their rooms to peek in at her.
How funny to think of her husband coming to her bedroom as scandalous, wicked even. The idea probably wouldn’t have sent a shiver down her spine if it hadn’t been forbidden. She’d never given much thought to Kyam as a husband. He’d always been more theoretical than a reality to her, but for the first time since their wedding, they would be living in the same house. Anything could happen on this island.
She dipped a sponge in a basin of water, squeezed it, and dragged it from her wrist to her shoulder. The warm breeze flowed over the drops of water on her heated skin. She lifted her hair to wipe the nape of her neck. It felt so lovely.
After the terrible things she’d heard about Ponong, she’d been prepared to hate it, but at her first glimpse of the agricultural terraces carved into the steep slopes of the mountains, the white streaks of waterfalls cascading hundreds of feet through the deep green of the jungle, and the turquoise lagoons, she’d felt free. Grandfather was miles away. The rules that had governed her every waking moment no longer seemed to apply. If one were smart, one could get away with almost anything here – she hoped. For eight years, she’d been forbidden a lover. Eight long years of listening to friends complain about their husband’s physical demands, of fending off libertines, of praying for release.
Rivulets of water trickled down her thighs. If only she could have written to Voorus and told him she was coming to Levapur. Kyam couldn’t have done anything to stop her from flinging herself into his arms at the dock.
Except tha
t he might have beaten or killed her afterward. He would be expected to. Grandfather’s protections were always such double-edged swords. Constrained and practically imprisoned in his house for years, she’d at least been safe from Kyam. She didn’t think he was the type to do such a thing, but one never knew with men.
She assumed she was safe from him. Grandfather seemed to anticipate everything… with the exception of Lady QuiTai.
Nashruu smiled at the memory as she squeezed the sponge and let water spill down her spine.
The evening before the rice riot in Levapur, back in Surrayya, Nashruu had gone to the ballroom with Grandfather. Grandfather had been genuinely shocked when QuiTai had used Kyam’s farwriter to contact him. Then he’d chuckled. But the thing Nashruu remembered most about that night was how, for the first time, she’d seen fear on Grandfather’s face, and she knew QuiTai was the person who’d made him feel that way.
She had to save QuiTai today, because QuiTai was the only one who could shatter Grandfather’s shackles. QuiTai had done it for Kyam. Would she do the same thing for a woman she had just met? Maybe she would to thwart Grandfather…
Yes, QuiTai might help move her beyond Grandfather’s reach. But first, she had to convince QuiTai to accept his deal. She had to hand him what he wanted to get free. A prisoner exchange. QuiTai for her. How could she trick QuiTai into it? There had to be something the woman wanted, something QuiTai valued above her own life.
Nashruu set down the sponge and looked about the room for her silk wrap. Simarn hadn’t put it out. Perhaps it was still in the luggage.
It felt strange to move around the room absolutely naked. One stepped immediately from a bath into a warmed towel, from a night shift into an undershift. One was never naked for more than a few seconds at most. One never looked at one’s own body, or touched it, or took pleasure in it. A Thampurian lady was above such animal behavior.
She tugged the top sheet from her bed and quickly wrapped it around herself.
~ ~ ~
Nashruu tucked the corner of the bed sheet between her breasts so she could type with both hands when she sat before the farwriter. How scandalized would Grandfather be if he knew her shoulders were bare and she was wearing a sarong of sorts?
