Northern Storm ac-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Kheda hid his qualms as Itrac’s bold statement prompted whispers all across the open ground. ‘It’s a hot day, my wife. Let’s take some refreshment before we continue about our own duties. It’s time everyone had a break.’

  As he gave a lordly wave of his hand, maids and men-servants alike promptly set down their loads and abandoned their errands. Some dropped to the grass; others headed for a stone spring house where water barrels were being filled. Those carrying provisions up from the shore “shared out fruit and cloud bread.

  Kheda drew Itrac to him, tucking her hand through his arm as they walked towards the main gate of the residence. The outer wall constructed of Esabir’s pale, gritty rock towered over them. It was set with angular towers banded with different stone, dark as shadow. Here and there, dark smudges were mute testament to the magical fires of the invaders. Kheda acknowledged the salutes of the warriors standing on the wall-walk

  ‘Each contingent has its own tower, my lord,’ Jevin explained from the rear, ‘where they eat and sleep and keep their armoury.’

  ‘Most impressive,’ Kheda said approvingly. Do they keep as alert a watch on what goes on inside the walls? Where will their loyalties lie if Dev and I need to get in and out without arousing suspicion when Risala returns? Kheda led the way into the inner compound through a gatehouse easily the equal of the one in the beach defences. Here springs bubbled up from fissures in the riven grey rocks and had been channelled into a lattice of rivulets enclosing delightful arbours, songbirds busy among the bright blossoms. Miniature waterfalls tumbled into pools with splashes of glee. As they passed, white and silver dart fish hid among swollen green spears soon to bear scarlet flagflowers or the sprawling, rumpled leaves of azure lilies now fading from their first magnificence. ‘I wouldn’t fancy trying to mount an attack along these dainty little paths,’ Dev observed to Jevin.

  ‘Try running through the water and you’ll find pits and beds of spikes.’ The younger slave pointed to shadows beneath the ruffled surface of a pool.

  Not that anything stopped the wild men, by all accounts,’ Itrac said tightly.

  I’m not the only one who hasn’t wanted to come here. You’ve made restoring the southern dry season residence your excuse for avoiding all the memories lying in wait for you here, haven t you?

  Not here, perhaps, but we stopped them eventually,’ Kheda reminded her. ‘Chazen and our allies.’ Will leading that rescue be enough to see me accepted here’/ He looked up at the heart of the complex. A solid fortification of banded stone barred their way, outer wall pierced only by small windows at the very top. The single access was through a substantial forebuilding boasting octagonal towers at each corner. Colonnades ringed the walls at ground level, providing shade and benches for those who had come to call on their lord. The benches were full of men and women scrambling to their feet, faces hopeful as they bowed low. Warriors looked down from the heights of the battlements above.

  ‘My lord!’ Beyau, the steward, hurried out of the shadows of the colonnade. ‘Please forgive the disorder.’

  ‘We’ve barely unloaded the galleys,’ Kheda said mildly. ‘I’ll give you till sunset before I have you flogged for an incompetent.’

  After an instant of wide-eyed startlement, Beyau guffawed. Kheda grinned and squeezed Itrac’s arm. ‘We’ll look at the gardens. Come and find us when there’s some lunch ready.’

  Beyau fell into step beside Dev and Jevin as Kheda led the way through the bowing throng to an archway leading into a garden. The forebuilding was a hollow square, its inner face similarly ringed with colonnades. As yet no suppliants had been admitted and the benches stood empty on the intricate lattices of blue and brown tile underfoot, still gleaming here and there with the fast-fading dampness of a mop. One stretch was bright with new tile.

  Kheda nodded towards it. ‘What happened there?’

  ‘The savages made a fire with the roses.’ Beyau scowled. ‘They’re recovering, I see.’ Kheda glanced at Itrac with a smile.

  The rosebushes no longer filled the garden at the centre of the courtyard but those that had survived were making a valiant effort, just coming into bud, their flourishing leaves glossy and green.

  ‘Let’s take that as an omen,’ she said with brittle brightness. ‘Did you see any other portents as you landed, my lord?’

  Kheda realised belatedly. A flash of sunlight caught his eye and he looked up to see that the topmost level of the rear tower to the east of the forebuilding was enclosed with glass panes whose angles did not match those of the octagonal walls.

  Twelve facets. Chazen Saril’s observatory. My observatory now that this is my domain. What will I see there?

  Gates opened from this outer courtyard into the main residence, paired guards ready at each one. Itrac unobtrusively steered Kheda towards the eastern entrance, through the anteroom beyond and out into another, considerably larger, secluded garden.

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, my lord.’ Beyau slid past as Kheda halted beneath the shade of another colonnade. ‘I’ll see to your refreshments.’ He hurried away towards the doors on the eastern edge of the garden. The inner face of the fortification’s boundary wall was lined with sleeping quarters and workrooms for servants and slaves, resident or visiting. The warlord’s accommodations were a complex of courtyards framed by single-storey buildings of the local grey stone, topped with ochre-tiled roofs with skylights here and there catching the sun.

  ‘Is that upper servants’ accommodation?’ Kheda hazarded, glancing at Itrac. ‘Or the kitchens?’

  Itrac didn’t hear him. Her eyes glistened with tears as she looked at the garden in the heart of this first courtyard. ‘Chazen Saril’s .’ She corrected herself hurriedly. ‘The Chazen warlord’s physic garden.’

  ‘And his audience halls beyond,’ Kheda said thoughtfully.

  Where I will be expected to sit in judgement as lawgiver for the domain when I’m not out here doing my duty as healer and teacher of healers. Which I must do, if I’m to reassure these people. They have to believe all is well, or at least as well as can be expected. But how can all be well if I can’t find a way to slip out of here unnoticed to save them all with whatever abhorrent magic Risala brings back from the north?

  How can all be well if I’m only making a sham of being this domain’s warlord?

  A faint sound turned Kheda’s head. He saw Dev idly tracing the intricate tiles with a dusty toe, his expression bored. Jevin was watching him, indignation and something colder shading his face. The younger slave realised that Kheda was looking at him and his face darkened with a blush of embarrassment as he dropped his gaze.

  ‘The audience halls are through there, Dev.’ Kheda pointed abruptly to the wide arch at the southern end of the garden leading into a formidably large building. ‘Three of them in succession. Just keep going till you hit the great reception room and turn west. The warlord’s apartments run all along the back wall of this fortress. Go and make sure everything is as it should be.’

  Dev shifted the coffers he was canying on his shoulders and sauntered away. ‘As you wish, my lord.’ Kheda released Itrac’s silk-draped arm from the crook of his own and took her hand. ‘I remember when this was Chazen Saril’s garden,’ he said softly. Gentle yet insistent, he left the colonnade for the white sand paths threaded through the carefully chosen arrangements of herbs. Jevin hesitated before staying leaning on a pillar, following Itrac with his gaze.

  Purple poppy to dull pain mingled with red lance to cleanse the blood, bringing the bees to both. Firefew to ease the chest planted with mossy pepper, so effective against parasites of all kinds and incidentally keeping yellow mites away from the firefew. All shaded by carefully trained wax-flower trees offering up their leaves for wound washes and their trunks to support white vines, so insignificant in themselves yet valuable with such potent roots. Potent yet perilous, so barberry bushes keep anyone from incautiously digging those up.

  ‘I’m glad to see the household here still honouring Chazen
Saril with their care of this place.’ Kheda surveyed the herb beds. No impertinent weeds marred the rich, black soil raked smooth between the myriad plants. The only sign that unfriendly hands had ever been at work here were scorch marks on the papery bark of the wax-flower trees.

  ‘He loved this place.’ A single tear trickled slowly down Itrac’s cheek, leaving a faint trail of golden face paint. ‘That’s where we met, in my father’s physic garden. We all liked flowers, me and Olkai and Sekni . .’ Distress choked her and she looked away, stricken.

  ‘I know.’ Kheda squeezed her hand with sympathy. ‘For every book of herb lore I studied out of duty, Saril must have read ten or more, for sheer love of plants and their properties.’

  He wasn’t brave or overly astute, but he was content in his modest domain, with his wives drawn from lesser daughters, all charmed by his amiable adoration for them. Will I ever be so content here, without bonds of blood or affection to tie me to Chazen?

  Other warlords may have mocked Chazen Saril as one who was ruled with a silken whip, but there were plenty who envied him his quiet life. How I miss the sound of the gates shutting on the Daish residences, knowing Janne would unbend from her wifely dignity within those walls and Rekha might even set aside her intricate tally of trades.

  But my man-iages as Daish Kheda are as dead as Chazen Saril. And how much more Itrac has lost, barely older than my own eldest daughter. At least my children know I am still alive, even if I am lost to them in all other ways.

  ‘It’s so strange to be here without them.’ The desolation in Itrac’s voice cut Kheda more deeply than her tears. ‘Saril and your sisters in marriage still share in this domain, as long as the gardens you planted still flourish.’ Kheda put his arm around Itrac’s shoulders and drew her close. ‘Sekni’s benevolence will lend virtue to the tinc—

  tures made with these herbs. Olkai’s goodness will sweeten the perfumes made from her flowers.’

  I had better take care that these gardens do flourish. Their failure to thrive would be an omen everyone in Esabir could

  ‘You’re right.’ Itrac wriggled free of his embrace and wiped a tear from her eye with a careful fingertip. ‘What’s done cannot be undone. The chances that led us both here have been stranger and harder than we could ever have imagined but we must believe they are for the best. What’s happened just proves that you were right to claim this domain,’ she pressed on resolutely. ‘There’s the omen of the pearl harvest, and what hope would we have of driving out this dragon without your slave’s recollections of such beasts in the north being defeated? Chazen Saril was a good man in times of peace but he could not meet such trials.’ Her voice wobbled despite her determination.

  ‘We none of us know what we can bear till we’re tested,’ Kheda said distantly.

  If Chazen Saril failed the trials of magic and invasion, that still didn’t entitle Janne Daish to put him to a trial of his life, not on her judgement alone. I lived with her half my life, shared my bed and my blood with her in our children, and I never knew she could be so ruthless. Now she comes here, doubtless with the same unshakeable confidence in her own interpretation of what must be done.

  ‘Where are you going to accommodate Janne Daish?’ he asked briskly.

  ‘The guest apartments are between the other gardens.’ Itrac turned towards an arched passageway ending in a gate leading towards another green oasis. She looked uncertainly at Kheda. ‘Olkai Chazen always invited the wives of the domain’s allies to share her own apartments but I don’t think I want to do that.’

  ‘I think that’s probably wise,’ he agreed with a twinge of shame that Daish was no longer trusted. He followed Itrac, Jevin falling in step behind them. This next garden was flanked to the north by accommodation for lesser guests. To the south, doors opened on to a labyrinth of playrooms and nurseries that had been the riotous province of the domain’s children. ‘This was Sekni’s garden.’ Itrac pointed at dark-green glossy fans of leaves sprouting from low woody trunks. ‘See, she planted pitral to catch the rains. She loved the sound.’

  Kheda glanced at her.

  You’re hearing the lost voices of Sekni and Olkai’s children, just as I hear the echo of the sons and daughters Janne and Rekha have taken from me.

  ‘Olkai’s garden was through here.’ Itrac led the way through another shady passage separating more luxurious guest suites. ‘Where we grew the perfume flowers and kept the aviaries.’

  White augury doves looked out of their intricate cages, cooing softly amid the irresistibly soothing fragrances of the brightly coloured garden. Dun quail bathed in the dust or preened themselves, oblivious to the presence of warlord or lady.

  ‘So those are now your quarters as first wife of the domain and you’re entitled to your privacy.’ Kheda looked to the south where wide doors opened on to an audience room, the faintest of breezes stirring the light drapes within. ‘I’m sure Janne and her entourage will be entirely comfortable in any of these other apartments.’

  Sounds of activity within prompted Jevin towards the first wife’s suite. ‘With your permission, my lady?’ Itrac nodded and crushed Janne’s letter, still in her hand, still further. ‘Tell the maids to make the ash-flower suite ready for my lady of Daish.’

  ‘Only once they’ve seen to my lady of Chazen’s comforts,’ Kheda said pointedly. ‘You should take your time to bathe and eat and satisfy yourself as to the standing of our trade with Daish. It’s been a long voyage and a busy day and it’s barely half-over.’ Itrac glanced around to be sure they weren’t being observed. ‘And when Janne Daish arrives?’ She looked at him, beseeching.

  ‘If-’ Kheda emphasised the word ‘-you’re ready to receive her, do so. If not?’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t. I think it entirely possible that I will be occupied until at least the early evening,’ he mused. ‘So Jevin can take word to Birut that we’re both occupied with affairs of our domain and that Janne Daish can take her time to recover from the rigours of her journey. She’s not so young as she was, after all.’

  ‘I don’t think Jevin had better take that message to Birut,’ Itrac said with a faint smile.

  ‘We don’t want to make an enemy of her,’ Kheda agreed frankly, but it won’t hurt to remind her that you’re first wife of Chazen, with all the status that entails and the respect it requires.’

  Itrac’s smile widened. ‘All the same, we won’t keep her waiting too long.’

  No, but just long enough.’ Kheda looked around the garden. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and see if Dev’s got himself lost or found his way to my apartments.’

  Itrac laid a hand on his arm after another furtive glance around. When we’ve put all this upheaval behind us,’ she said hesitantly, ‘might you look for a personal slave with blood ties to the Archipelago? Let him go back to his northern barbarian lands?’

  ‘That’s something I shall be happy to do,’ Kheda promised fervently. He hesitated. ‘I can get to the central corridor through your audience hall, can’t I?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ Itrac very nearly laughed.

  Jevin appeared at the doorway to her personal apartments. ‘My lady, are you ready to eat?’

  ‘I should check the omens from the observatory first.’

  Kheda kissed Itrac lightly on the forehead. ‘You go ahead.’

  The audience hall opening off the garden was cool with lengths of muslin shading the arched windows. Blue and golden flowers painted into posies on the white-tiled floor surrounded a fountain whispering in a central marble basin. Carpets at either end of the room drew the eye with their vivid pattern of white and blue vine flowers worked on a golden ground. The patterns were echoed in the painted walls where climbing roses coiled elegantly around fretwork trellises. Banks of yellow cushions were piled ready for those invited to sit with the domain’s lady; silver trays on side tables were set ready with ewers and goblets.

  The household slaves certainly managed to hide a good deal from the wild men. I wonder how. I wonder if they managed
to save Chazen Saril’s store of talisman gems as well as the fabrics and furniture.

  Kheda went through a central arch to a smaller square reception room with doors on either side leading to the private apartments that Chazen Saril’s other wives had shared. An arch opposite opened on to the broad corridor that he recognised as separating the women’s quarters from the warlord’s preserve. He strode down the long passage past paired ironwood doors opening on to identical suites ready to welcome visiting warlords invited to some council or other.

  Not that the other warlords of these southern domains ever came to sit at Saril’s feet and receive his wisdom. Am I the one to raise Chazen to such status? If I get rid of this dragon, they’ll sit up and take notice, that much is certain. Even Vila Safar. Janne Daish can chew on that till it chokes her.

  He passed through a reception room luxurious with furnishings of brocaded silks, soft carpet beneath his feet and the wall hangings painted with hunting scenes suitable for a warlord’s dignity.

  ‘There you are,’ said Dev with relief, appearing through a door leading to some indeterminate hallway. ‘Are you eating your lunch with Itrac or should I try to find a maid to send to the kitchens?’

  ‘I want to visit the observatory,’ Kheda said briefly. He paused. ‘I think it’s this way.’

  He opened another door to find a lesser reception room furnished with carpets whose bold scarlet pattern of interlocking canthira leaves on a rich brown ground was relieved with a white lattice of sashflowers. Low tables of rich russet fora wood bore broad brass bowls of scented petals. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen anywhere; two maids clutching polishing rags bowed as they disappeared through a far door.

  Kheda waited until the door was closed. ‘You’re going to have to play a much more convincing slave here than you did in the southern residence,’ he warned Dev in a low tone. ‘A lot more of these people lived here before. They had time and warning to flee the invaders, not to get caught and killed.’