by Kate Elliott
The corridor is awash in a locust cloud of voices. Because I do not know the layout of the villa, I miss the route taken by the servants and find myself in a large atrium in which a company of finely dressed Patron men and women are gathering. Across the room I see Lord Kalliarkos, Lord Thynos, and General Inarsis chatting amid a circle of brightly dressed courtiers, and although Kalliarkos glances around the room, my mask protects me as I creep along the wall like a shadow.
Lords and ladies mingle, chattering and laughing. The women wear linen sheaths, the fabric covered with embroidery and tiny beads to create flowers and vines and butterflies. Bright ribbons tiered in clusters and waterfalls in their hair swirl and swing as their heads move.
At the still center stands Prince Nikonos. No adornment gilds his gold keldi and sleeveless jacket; unrelieved gold silk is all he need wear to mark his status as the younger brother of the king. No one stands close to him, leaving him alone in a sea of laughter. He looks up at a woman with her back to me. Their gazes cross like sparks spitting and, making the gesture a deliberate snub, she greets a woman with an effusive smile and a cheek touched one to the other’s.
I have seen that face before, so striking with decorative kohl artistry turning her eyelashes into the spine of wings drawn onto her cheek. The architecture of ribbons in her hair spreads like a fan to frame her round face. She is the young woman who was peering out of the carriage at the Ribbon Market the day Coriander’s brother was arrested and Kalliarkos saved me from the same fate. Kalliarkos got into the carriage because she is his sister, and now my father’s wife.
Her gaze catches on me as on a hook. She gestures to one of the less glowingly dressed women and pulls her close, a hand curled possessively around the other woman’s arm as she speaks to her.
Why have I been so stupid as to stare? Praying the wall will hide me, I head for the far entrance, but before I reach it I am intercepted by the steward whose dour face kills all hope in my heart.
“You stupid country girls.” She pinches the underside of my arm so hard I choke down a yelp. “You were expressly told not to walk through the atrium. In these kitchen clothes as well, the worst sort of alley dress. Lady Menoë is displeased you have spoiled the efforts we made to have all the decorations exactly as she wishes. Believe me, you will regret you came to her attention. You have lost your pay for the week. Be in my office at dawn. What is your name?”
“Coriander,” I squeak in a voice not my own.
Mercifully she releases me to scurry on my way.
I make it out to the courtyard just as the atrium swells with the excitement and noise of more arrivals. When I glance back, I catch a glimpse of Lord Gargaron accompanied by my father. Unseen musicians sing the famous prayer for victory from the play The Firebird’s Revenge, which ends with the beleaguered general defeating all his evil foes, although, in typical fashion, he dies just before the messenger, who is his lost son, arrives to announce that the enemy has been utterly vanquished.
I flee past the courtyard and hurry through the bustling servants’ wing, where I find a random surface to place the tray. It is a relief to tug the smothering mask off my face, although I leave it pushed atop my hair just in case. A woman waves me down.
“Here, girl, take this to the kitchen.”
She hands me a bucket brimming with glistening oysters still in their shells and stinking of brine. I wander dazedly to the kitchens, gripped by the scents of baking bread and roasting fowl, the platters of fruit carved into the shapes of winged dragons and horned lions, and the sculptures of dates and honey built into miniature facsimiles of famous buildings like Saryenia’s lighthouse or the Gem Gardens of ancient Saro, where the last emperor was murdered beneath a flowering peach tree.
Steam wafts over me like the breath of the firebird. Smoke from grilling meat stings my eyes. I have no idea what to do with the oysters. Just as I have identified a table where I can stow them and flee, another woman accosts me, takes the bucket, and directs me to a table where girls are chopping onions, leeks, radishes, and cucumbers. I am set to peeling grapes, which a woman arranges in pleasing patterns on lacquered trays. My head is thick and my limbs move as if encased in lead. An anchor weighs down my heart. Seeing my father has set me as into a stormy sea, tugged this way and that but ever caught on the cable that ties me to him.
Can I really save them? Is it possible to unbury the dead?
How long I stand with the smell of food making me ravenous I do not know. But when a procession of young men in formal skirts and jackets appear to carry away the trays of grapes, figs, and cut melons, I wake as from sleep. Fruit marks the last course of the feast. Soon Kalliarkos, Thynos, and Inarsis will make an excuse to leave. If I’m not in the palm grove, Kalliarkos may decide to prove himself by sneaking in to find me, and that would be a disaster.
Fortune favors me. I am marshaled into a group given baked fish wrapped in lettuce to feed the wagoners making ready to return to Saryenia. Outside, some wagons are already leaving in a rumble of dust and noise. I hop onto the back of one as if I am part of the cavalcade and gulp down the delicious fish in its moist wrapping. With such a vast procession departing, the guards take not the least notice of me as I lick the last lingering taste off my fingers.
The wagons roll along the beaten earth lane, their way lit by young men pacing alongside with lanterns. I scan the heavens. The Four Sleeping Sisters have already risen. The moment the shadowy ranks of date palms come into view I jump off. Not until the procession has faded into the night do I run into the palms. To my relief, Kalliarkos and Thynos await me.
Kalliarkos hurries to greet me, grasping my hands and staring so intently at me that I can’t take my gaze off his dark eyes. “I thought you were captured! I was about to go in and rescue you!”
A spark of brilliant joy surges up from my weary, grief-stricken heart. I squeeze his fingers a little more tightly, enough to make him really notice how strong my grip is. “That’s why I had to hurry. I was afraid you would run in to rescue me and get caught and then I would have to rescue you from your rescue of me.”
He laughs, glances at Thynos, and defiantly plants a quick kiss on my mouth. “You never stop competing, do you?”
Thynos coughs.
Kalliarkos releases me but I just stand there. I touch my lips, sure I can feel the pressure of his mouth still lingering.
He grins cockily. “That’s the first time I’ve made you blush.”
I cross my arms and lean just a little closer, chin coming up. “You won’t manage it again.”
“Won’t I?” His fingers close on my elbow.
“Come along, children, enough playacting,” says Lord Thynos sharply. He leads the horses down the path between the trees, calling over his shoulder. “I can hear Menoë’s cavalcade rattling along the road. She never travels anywhere without twenty wagons of furnishings and five carriages of personal servants, and her drivers have specific orders never to let any vehicle pass her household’s wagons unless it belongs to the king, the queen, or Prince Nikonos. We need to get ahead of them or we won’t reach the city gates until dawn.”
Thynos keeps walking, expecting us to follow, but neither Kalliarkos nor I move. His hand braces my arm. Our bodies touch like they are eager to learn more about each other. He examines me in a way that makes me feel he is searching for my every least secret simply because I fascinate and concern him so much.
“Did you see your father? Did you get what you desired or needed from him?”
I don’t hesitate. I leap.
“I need your help to do something so dangerous and entirely forbidden that bringing me here to see my father is trivial in comparison. If we are caught, we will both be executed.”
His warm hand slides caressingly down my arm to capture my hand. “What could possibly be that dangerous and forbidden?”
I am both terrified and exhilarated because I have seen something in him tonight that no one else has ever believed in. That I didn’t really belie
ve in until right this moment.
“Your uncle entombed my mother and sisters with Lord Ottonor to keep them away from my father forever. I’m going to rescue them. I can only do it with your help.”
He lets go of my hand as if I’ve burned him. Crouching, he buries his head in his hands. A whisper escapes him, words I can’t quite hear. He rocks back and forth in some kind of pain.
Out of the darkness, General Inarsis trots into view. “Lord Kalliarkos? Are you injured?”
Kalliarkos jumps up so fast that Inarsis draws a long knife and spins a full circle to fend off attackers, but there is only me.
From the other direction Lord Thynos runs up, sword drawn. “Who has assaulted you?”
“‘I am assaulted by impiety, injured by blasphemy,’” cries Kalliarkos. It is a famous line from a tragic play, and he speaks the words with a vehemence that chills me.
Taking a step back, I make ready to run. My rash confession has jeopardized everything.
He grabs Thynos’s elbow so aggressively that Thynos looks startled and Inarsis almost leaps between the two men. “Did everyone know except me?”
Thynos looks at the fingers gripping his arm and smiles perilously. “What am I meant to know?”
“Uncle Gar has committed a terrible crime.”
If the ground had dropped out from under my feet and I had plunged into the furnace where the unjust are blasted and blinded by flames for eternity, I would have been less surprised. “You believe me?”
Kalliarkos’s chest shakes in a false, fierce laugh. “Of course I believe you. It’s exactly what he would do.”
“What are you two talking about?” demands Lord Thynos.
“Uncle Gar entombed Jes’s pregnant mother and her sisters as the oracle’s attendants in Lord Ottonor’s tomb.”
“Ah!” sighs Inarsis. He sheathes his long knife.
Kalliarkos begins to pace, but his gaze sticks to me. “The priest-wardens will not just let us break open the brick door. What do you propose?”
“We’ll go in and out the air shaft,” I say. “It has to be at night, but I will not be allowed into the City of the Dead on my own.”
Kalliarkos considers the plan as if it is a maze. “I can walk in and out at any time without being questioned. Everyone will expect me to have attendants with me.”
The world waits to bow at his feet, and he is finally starting to see the power of his rank.
“You’re serious.” Thynos crosses his arms.
“They both are.” Inarsis lowers a suspicious gaze on the other man. “Did you know?”
“Sun of Justice!” Thynos swears. “With the gods as my witness, I knew nothing! Nor would I ever be party to such an act. Bad enough they bury living women in the tombs of every lord and prince and king here in Efea. To entomb a pregnant woman on top of that! It’s sickening. It wasn’t like this in the old country.”
“Then you’ll help us, Uncle,” says Kalliarkos, his words more command than request.
“You can’t free them.” Thynos stares Kalliarkos down. “No one can.”
This time Kalliarkos does not give way. “Yes, I can. Jes and I can. And we are going to. So your choice is either to aid us or get out of our way.”
26
At the speed to which Kalliarkos whips the horses we quickly return to the city. Inarsis directs us to a barracks compound for Efean soldiers, where he obtains the things we need. The gate-wardens at Eternity Gate allow Kalliarkos and Thynos to enter the City of the Dead without a single question, even though it is the middle of the night. Inarsis walks ahead, carrying lamps, and I walk behind, carrying a jug of broth slung over my shoulder and a covered tray that the priests believe is an offering, but which really contains clothing.
The lower paths that lead through the community mausoleums and the Weeping Garden are quiet. A few mourners wait with tomb wreaths and offering trays to set before the bones of their ancestors. Path-wardens bow as we walk past. Partway up the hill Lord Thynos veers off, leaving us.
Out of the darkness Lord Ottonor’s tomb rises before us. A single oil lamp burns on the porch, as it is said, “The everlasting flame of memory burns on the strength of a man’s fame.” Years from now, when his living oracle ceases to speak, offerings will no longer be laid at his door, because his clan has been exiled. Its seal of bricks will be broken, his bones interred in a vase, and the tomb cleaned and anointed for a new inhabitant, one whose fortune may burn brighter and flame burn longer than Ottonor’s fortune and fame, marred as they have been by his disgraceful ending.
We proceed around to the oracle’s alcove at the back of the tomb. The alcove is a narrow cleft built into the wall where supplicants can kneel and hear the oracle’s voice through a tiny opening no bigger than my hand laid flat. I kneel and peer through, but no light burns within. What if Lord Gargaron had them smothered the way tomb servants were back in the old empire?
My pulse roars in my ears. I dare not whisper to see if anyone is alive inside because the oracle is not our ally and might call for the priests.
After making sure no path-wardens are in sight I pull off my linen sheath, fasten on my Fives jacket, and wriggle into a climbing harness used to train fledglings as they learn more advanced skills. Kalliarkos hands me a packet of tapers and flint for light. I climb up on Inarsis’s shoulders. My feet balanced on his hands, he hoists me so I can scramble up onto the roof.
From this height I look around. The City of the Dead is a low hill with the four kings’ tombs on the central height, each marked by three lamps. Below the kings’ tombs lie the palace tombs, each lit with two lamps. Lord Ottonor’s tomb lies among the lesser lords’ tombs lower down.
The air shaft has a short brick chimney with gaps in it to catch the crosswinds. Its mouth is covered by an iron grate. A smell wafts up, thick with death and tainted with blood.
What if they truly are dead?
Suddenly sparks spin aloft from the far side of the hill. Distant shouts stir the slumberous night. Thynos’s diversion is in progress.
The grate shifts easily. A whisper of sound alerts me to movement inside the tomb.
Faintly I hear a woman say, “That’s right, Doma. Breathe. You have given birth before.”
Mother is alive.
Heart racing, I swing my legs over the shaft and feel out the courses of brick. The opening is exceedingly small, no doubt to discourage tomb robbers. While Kalliarkos stands watch, Inarsis grounds himself as my anchor and lowers me into the tomb. I fend off the walls with elbows and knees, scraping my way down. It’s a very tight fit. When my feet touch the floor I slip out of the harness and give a pair of tugs to show I am in.
Invisible in the darkness, fabric flutters across my left hand like the brush of wings. A cardamom-scented breath hisses along my cheek.
“What unwanted demon’s shadow troubles our holy rest?”
Its raspy voice makes me jump with a flare of such panic that for an instant I can’t think. Then, fumbling, I unwrap one of the oiled linen twists, strike a spark on flint, and light the taper. A woman at my elbow winces back, shielding her eyes. She is not young, as newly entombed oracles are meant to be. She is so old that her hair is as white as bone. But she is highborn Patron through and through. Her painted hands bear no calluses. This woman has never done a day’s labor in her very long life.
“Get out, foul shadow! Be banished! Return to your flesh and disturb us not.”
Her burning stare unsettles my fixed determination. Oracles are sacred. We honor their connection to the gods. But she looks more than a little crazy, trembling with fear and indignation. She’s in my way and I won’t let anyone stop me, not even the gods’ voice.
I dodge around her and stride to the arch that opens into the central chamber. The taper burns hotly in my hand, its light revealing all.
Maraya sits on the floor, bracing up our mother.
Mother is ashy and drained of vigor, her body slumped.
Coriander kneels in the gloom bey
ond Maraya. How has she come to rest in a Patron tomb? Her face is streaked with smears of drying blood. She holds strips of torn linen, which she is plaiting to make pads to soak up blood.
Cook crouches between Mother’s spread legs. Her hands are blotched with stains. The taper’s flame is not bright enough to illuminate color but I can smell the overpowering scent. My mother lies in a seeping puddle of blood.
A dark globe crowns between her legs.
Cook says, “Hold your breath, Doma! You must hold your breath and push.”
“It is all for nothing,” murmurs my mother in a ragged tone that shatters my heart. “The baby is dead.”
Maraya can barely speak through tears. “There’s another baby coming, Mama. You must push.”
“It is better to die than chance the child will live in this tomb. You cannot wish such a death upon her. You cannot!” Despair ravages Mother’s voice.
From behind, the oracle brushes past me, a dagger in her hand. “Pregnancy defiles the tomb! You have brought death upon us!”
She lunges for my mother.
Slamming my shoulder into her, I shove her sideways, then punch her in the chest. The dagger is knocked loose. I scoop up the knife as the oracle stumbles over a naked newborn on the floor. My breath floods in bursts as I gape at the tiny, empty body. The poor little thing, given no chance to breathe, no spark to brighten its souls into life.
The oracle paws at the lifeless infant, cradles it lovingly in her skinny arms. “They tore him away from my breast and killed him. Why torment me with this memory of the past?”
Our scuffle has drawn attention. Maraya, Cook, and Coriander all stare at me, mouths open and eyes wide, too stunned by my appearance to speak.
A new contraction shudders through Mother but she does not even try to ride it. Her self-soul has fled her body, leaving her weak and apathetic. The thought of my mother dying from despair banishes every point of confusion in my mind.
“Mother, you have to push!” I say in the sharpest voice I have. “You have to give birth to the baby and the afterbirth. Do you hear me, Mother?” I am shouting because if I do not shout I will dissolve into wretched misery.
