Steelflower

by Lilith Saintcrow

  Her strange Clau eyes managed to look through me. Kesa knew well enough to tell when I spoke of something that pained me. She would ask me later, or not, judging by my mood and her own. “Ach. Come in, then. Your room is empty, and I add the one next door for half price. Cha?”

  “Agreed.” I kissed her smooth cheek. “Jettero will join me for dinner. Do you care to make it a festival?”

  “Do you have news?” Her eyes began to glint. “Trade or pay?”

  “For you, Kesa-li, trade.” I was rewarded with her broad face breaking into a smile. “Of course.” I brought out two of the Rams I had left and pressed them into her hand. “No business right now, lya-ini.” I used the G’mai term for an agemate who was a particularly close friend, for Darik was right behind me. He was dusty, and his dotanii and knives made him into a dour picture, helped by the dark expression on his Dragaemir face.

  “Cha.” She breathed out slowly, examining him from head to toe. “A pretty piece, Kaia’naa, not your usual type.”

  I managed a laugh, but Kesa was not fooled. Then she inspected the barbarian, who stamped his booted feet on the stone to knock away road-dust. “And that one. He looks too big for a bed.”

  I saw the speculation in her blue eyes, was not convinced. “I would not know. He says I am too small for pillow-play.”

  She laughed and chucked me under my chin, lightly. “Ah, come in, come in, why do I keep you waiting? You need a bath, and a massage. A’lian will be pleased to see you.”

  I let out a sound that was half a groan. “Oh, I cannot wait. Lead on, lovely one. I am weary and hungry for your kindness.” I half-sang the line, from an old ballad. She grimaced, pulling me into the inn’s dark warm exterior. The sky overhead rumbled, a warning of weather to come. A roar of conversation spilled out behind her. This passage led directly to the commonroom.

  “Cha, not that old song,” she sniffed, and I smiled, my mood lightening as it always did around Kesa. She slid her arm around my waist and I let her lean her golden head on my shoulder, ignoring Darik’s silence. It would do him good to see he was not anything to me.

  The barbarian came behind Darik, ducking his head, and I glanced back over my shoulder at him. “You would not happen to know where I could buy a Skaialan draft-horse, Kesa’li?”

  “No.” The thought evidently amused her. Laughing, she brought us out into the commonroom. I scanned the room habitually and felt my heart drop into my belly and pound like wardrums.

  I stopped dead, and Kesa smoothly swung me around so we faced Darik, who stopped short as well. “G’mai,” I said, softly. “Two of them, by the fireplace. Kesa, I cannot have them see me.”

  “Oh.” She stopped for a moment, thinking, her head against my shoulder. “Well, there is no other way up to the room, my darling.” There was a burst of laughter from a bunch of traders, all clustered around a low wooden table groaning under the weight of an early dinner.

  I cursed under my breath. “Very well. Darik, walk on the other side of Redfist. And do so quietly. They speak to each other, we may pass unnoticed. I thought they had left?”

  “They returned,” Kesa murmured. “Trouble on the road between here and Shaituh. They would say no more. What is it, Kaia’naa?”

  “He cannot be seen either.” I indicated Darik with a slight nod. “Could be unpleasant for me.”

  Kesa, as usual, did not question. “Very well. Come, walk with me, and hide that pretty face of yours behind your hair.”

  Twas too late. One of the G’mai—the slender, small woman in the indigo dress—had seen us. She reached us just as Darik glanced up at Redfist, shrugging, and her gasp was loud enough to make me whirl, Kesa suddenly behind me and my hand on my knife-hilt. I was strung far too tightly, my nerves stretched like an acrobat’s wire.

  A s’tarei was suddenly at her side, watching me with eyes as black as the velvet between stars. “In’sh’ai, adai-sa,” he greeted me. He had the long face of a Tyaanismir. Twas a shock to see another G’mai man. Eleven summers had I gone without hearing a voice or seeing a face from my homeland, and now I was faced with three of them. He wore G’mai clothing too, and the adai was in a long beautiful dress of the deepest evening-sky. There were lilies patterned into the fabric, and she looked every bit as lovely as an adai should. Twas a double shock to see her, this woman who could have been one of my agemates.

  I thought I had escaped them, the G’mai. I had grown accustomed to a world without them.

  Darik had not caused me such an instant flash of vertigo. I took a step back, crowding Kesa, and stopped when Darik’s hands met my shoulders. “In’sh’ai, Tyaanismir Atyarik. It is good to see your face again.” He spoke in commontongue.

  The s’tarei stared at me, up at Darik’s face, and back at me again. “Your Highness.” It would have been hard to imagine a man looking more shocked. “This—you have—ah—”

  “A moment, if you please.” Darik’s voice changed. It was the tone of a man accustomed to command. His hands shifted on my shoulders. “Kaia?” He meant to turn me to face him.

  I swallowed, hard. Stepped away, shaking his hands from me. He let me. I half-turned, saw Kesa’s face, blank and carefully uninterested. They all watched me, from the adai, her perfect mouth half-open in shock, to the barbarian, who looked grave and dark-eyed. The crowd was avid, staring at me again.

  “Come, Redfist.” I nodded to Kesa. “We have returned the princeling to his people. I wish for a bath and a pot of kafi, if you do not mind, lya-ini.”

  I started across the room, my footsteps unnaturally loud.

  “Kaia.” Just the one word, Darik’s tone half a question, half a plea.

  It was the plea that fired my anger, I tried to tell myself. Make the cut quickly, Kaia. They have found him, they will take him to another G’mai woman, and you will be left in peace. You knew it would happen. Save a scrap of your pride and thank the Moon you have not done anything ridiculous.

  My heart scalded and rang inside my chest. It was useless. I had no choice. “No thanks are necessary, prince. You are where you belong now.” There were plenty of people in Kesa’s commonroom, staring at me while the fire crackled. I hated being the object of this attention. Travelers and freetowners gaped at me, and a tide of whispers raced through the room.

  Kesa saved me. She fell into step beside me, sliding her arm around my waist. “A prince? Oh, dalai’al’al’alai wahana, Kaia’naa, you have risen in the world. Last time I saw you, you were with that acrobat.”

  “Very funny.” My heart cracked. “I was merely traveling with him. Besides, he was a boy-lover.”

  Redfist walked behind us, and for once I was glad of his bulk, shielding me from interested eyes.

  “To what do I owe this honor?” Darik sounded cool and calm, but my fists tensed. I had to look down at my hands to see them loose and easy at my sides. Why did I feel someone else’s fingers wanting to knot into fists?

  I knew why. Refused to know why. As soon as I escaped on a ship, I would toss the Seeker into the depths of the Shelt, and I would hope that with it went the feel of his wounds in my flesh.

  Kesa swept me aside, up a flight of stairs leading to her own suite. Redfist lumbered up after us. “Lass?” he said, once we had reached the top of the stairs.

  “You stay in the room next to mine,” Kesa answered in my stead. There was a long hall, lit by skylights of the thick glass Vulfentown was famous for, mosaics of sea waves and monsters on the walls. Kesa opened a smaller door to one side and motioned to Redfist. “Will this do, Skaialan?”

  “Oh, aye.” A cursory glance inside, his attention elsewhere. “I’m more worried about yon lassie there.”

  I looked up at his broad, ginger-furred face. “I am hale enough, Redfist. Tis a shock, seeing so many faces from G’maihallan after so long. I thought I would be better prepared.” My lips pressed together, I settled for nodding sagely. “Dinner tonight, with us?”

  “Nae.” His broad shoulders slumped, and I saw how weary he m
ust be. “I think I mun well sleep, t’clear m’head. Dinnae be too hard on the Gemerh, lass.”

  I shrugged. “He is where he belongs, with his people. Now I must find a lonely giantess for you, and my work is done.”

  The barbarian turned, and fixed me with his strange green eyes. “I would nae draw my axe on ye, lass.” It seemed he clenched his teeth, though through his hair I could not be sure. “Do nae sharpen yer tongue at m’expense.”

  “That is enough.” Kesamine bowed to the barbarian—slightly, I noticed, but definitely. “I shall care for her, tall one. Enjoy your room. Pull the rope on the left side of the door should you need aught. Dinner will be sent up, tis a private bath and watercloset through that door.” She pointed.

  “My thanks, lady.” He doffed an imaginary cap, bowing deeply. There was a rough sort of grace to the gesture, and I thought wearily that I had misjudged him.

  Kesa ushered me down the hall, and I heard the door close behind us. “There now.” Her skirts made their familiar low sound. “Is that not better? Lahai wakana lawai, eh?”

  “I do not speak Clau, sweetness. I need some kafi and perhaps a real meal. Was that chaabi I smelled?” Speak of food, Kesa. Let us not speak of what you just saw.

  She pushed open the door to her private chambers, and I saw white linen and yellow silk. “Cha, thinking with your stomach like any sellsword.” Her skin was pale, too, like Redfist’s. But what was uncooked dough on him was white satin on her, and something familiar tightened under my breastbone.

  Yet I thought of black eyes, and callused hands, and an even mouth. A band of scar tissue across a throat, a band I wanted to trace, and ask how he had received the wound.

  “You have redecorated,” I said, without seeing the room through the haze in my eyes. “Tis beautiful.”

  She laughed, pushing me down into a chair by the fire and tossing a handful of sweet incense into the flames. “My thanks. You always did have a good eye. Remember those candlesticks?”

  I groaned and began to work my boots off. “I suppose you have not forgiven me yet.” I dropped the first boot, pulled my stocking off, and grimaced at it. The second boot followed, and the second stocking. I rubbed my feet against the red Shainakh rug.

  “Not every day I walk into my own bedroom to find a dead assassin, half my linen shredded, and my candlesticks broken.” She dropped down in the seat across from me. “And a bloody, exhausted Kaia’naa in my bed. T’jai will bring up your gear, and we shall have a long chat. But for now, I think a bath is what you need, and some fresh clothes.”

  “I am leaving for Shaituh early on the morn,” I heard myself say. “With the gray gelding. I will leave the packhorse and a purse for the barbarian.”

  Run, Kaia. Run. See how well I flee my fears.

  “Kaia.” Her red mouth pursed, and her blue eyes sparkled. She crossed her legs under her skirts—they were a savage pattern of green and red and yellow, and her top was patterned with red diamonds against a yellow background. “I have never seen you flee from trouble. Why begin now?”

  I leaned my head against the back of the chair. Outside, thunder rolled and boomed. A storm coming in off the sea. Twould be a harsh one, and there would be no ships leaving the harbor anytime soon. Pity, that. I could have leapt ship to Antai. There was always enough work in that city, even for me.

  “I am not fleeing,” I lied. “That was a problem, rather neatly solved by others. Now there will be a new round of rumors about me and another man. They must think me the most successful streetseller in the history of the Lan’ai Shairukh coast.” I sighed theatrically.

  Kesa laughed, a brilliant golden sound that made my own mouth twist up a little. She folded her white, white hands. “So he is a G’mai prince, this man. What makes him unpalatable, the G’mai or the prince?”

  A knock at the door, and a young girl dressed in the tunic and leggings of an inngirl entered, carrying a tray with a pot of kafi and two porcelain Shainakh cups.

  “Kafi, Kesa.” The girl was a young Shainakh, her long red-black hair braided back in a thick rope reaching her waist. “The lord who came with Lady Kaia is downstairs. Sitting in a corner by the fireplace, willna accept wine or food. Says he waits on her.”

  I all but cringed. “Let him wait,” I muttered, but Kesa shook her head.

  “Tell him he needs a bath before he sees her, she shall be at dinner with me, and he is welcome to attend in two candlemarks.” Kesa winked, and the girl set the tray down on a handy table. “If he wishes. Tell him also we are honored a prince of the Blessed People is in our humble inn, so on, so forth.” She waved a hand, lazily.

  “Kesa—” I began, but she lifted her white hand to me, gold sliding down her wrist to chime sweetly, and I bit at the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Kesa poured kafi, her black-rimmed eyes intent on the cups.

  “Take him to the west room. Give him whatever he wishes.” She nodded at the girl, who dropped a pretty courtesy. “How long did he speak to the other two?”

  “Cha, they were pleading with him about something. He didna listen. Just watched the lady leave the room and walked away while the Lady Gemerh still spoke. Should have seen their faces! He went to the fireplace. Staring at the staircase now, Kesa.” The girl cut her dark eyes at me, and I closed mine. She would see nothing on my face except weariness.

  So I hoped.

  “Thank you, Vavakha.” Kesa sounded amused. The girl left, gliding along the polished wooden floor.

  “Very unkind of you, Kesa-li.” Even to myself, I sounded unsteady. And far more bitter than the occasion warranted. “Have I done aught to displease you?”

  “Come now, Kaia. If you leave tomorrow morn I will have a mad Gemerh tearing down my inn.” Kesa made a short sound of annoyance. “You are generally more intelligent, Iron Flower.”

  “Oh, by the Moon, stop.” I failed to still my reflexive protest on Darik’s behalf. “He might drown himself in the bay, but he will not tear your inn apart.”

  “Are you so certain? Gemerh are mad, and if what I hear is any indication, this one is one of the maddest. Here, have some kafi, and tell me what ails you.”

  I opened my eyes, stretched my legs out in front of me. It felt good to be motionless, and I saluted Kesamine with the cup. Twas beautiful, eggshell-thin porcelain, a pleasure to hold something so well made. “I picked the barbarian’s pocket.”

  “I have never known you to pick a pocket without reason.” She blinked, slowly, giving me the full force of her pale blue gaze. “So?”

  I hardly know, myself. “A training exercise. Actually, I was compelled.”

  “Ah.” She sipped at her kafi, tucked one sandaled foot behind the other. “So you were witched to pick a pocket? What did you gain?”

  “Hain sequins, an iron key and a necklace.” I shuddered at the thought of witchery, stopping the reflexive ward-evil sign with an effort. The instinct of other sellswords, rubbing off on me. “A flawed Seeker.”

  “Flawed Seeker?” Her golden eyebrow raised. She set her cup down and reached up, unwinding her hair. I sighed. My own head suddenly seemed very heavy.

  “Tis meant to help a G’mai man find his twin.” I retrieved the chain from under my linen shirt and leather vest, pulled it over my head and tossed it to her. It flashed sharply as it left my hand. Kesa plucked it out of the air, a sheaf of hair like liquid light falling over her shoulder.

  She examined it while I sipped my kafi. Her blue eyes came up to mine. “Tis flawed?” She tossed it back to me, and I caught it without thinking.

  “The crystal.” I held it up.

  Her eyebrow raised. She crossed her legs, the silk of her dress sliding sweetly. “My eye may be off, but I see no flaw in that gem, Kaia’naa.”

  I set my cup down. It made a thin chattering sound against the inlaid tile of the tabletop, my hand shook so badly.

  The crystal was no longer a crystal. “Mother’s tits,” I breathed.

  Now the chain was fine G’mai silver, supple as
a serpent’s back. The setting was a silver wingwyrm, curled around a glittering diamond. I have stolen a fair number of jewels over my long seasons away from G’maihallan, and if this was not a diamond I was no thief.

  The Seeker had indeed healed itself. “Kesa…I swear by my sword this was a cheap streetseller’s gaud on a lightmetal chain when I first saw it. Less than a tenday ago it still held a flaw as large as a Shainakh palace.”

  “Sorcery.” Kesa shivered a little. The Clau do not mind witches, but sorcery they fear mightily. Their gods take a dim view of a sorcerer's habits of sacrifice and secrecy.

  “But I have no Power,” I said blankly.

  “Oh, you do not?” She laughed, a bell-clear sound. “Oh, come now, Kaia. You are a witchling if ever I saw one. Why, that time you won against Faverro in my very own commonroom—he was witched, you know. Bought a charm from that woman outside the city walls, the one with the birds.”

  I shivered too, rubbing my soles along the floor. I always stayed far away from the northwest edge of Vulfentown, using the East Gate and swinging around to reach the road through a shallow belt of marshland. The only time I met the birdwitch outside Vulfentown had not been comfortable for either of us. I like witches little, and they seem to have an aversion to me as well. “He was witched by that one?”

  “Paid a pretty penny for it, too. Won against everyone—except you.” Kesa took another ladylike sip of her kafi. “He returned and laid siege at the witch’s door. She told him the only thing twould not work against was a more powerful witch. Said she had given him no surety against other witches, merely luck with dice. He threatened to cut her and she threatened to curse him. Set her birds on him.” Kesa laughed a warm caramel laugh, imagining the scene. I could almost see it myself. “Cha, Kaia, how can you say you have no witching in you?”

  Everyone but me thinks I have a G’mai’s Power. I should be grateful; then again, those outside Blessed Land cannot tell. If I had Power I would not have been thrown from. I shrugged helplessly. “Mayhap I need that bath now.” In other words, this discussion is closed.

  “You cannot tell me you did not know.” Her bracelets chimed again, earrings tinkling faintly as she moved. “Oh, Kaia.”