Heart Readers

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  By the time the servant summoned him, Tarne’s entire body felt as if it were going to melt. As he followed the servant into the cool darkness, he had to blink twice. This pavilion smelled of sweet incense—probably something Vasenu had picked up on his travels. Tarne suppressed a sneeze.

  The hallway was filled with braziers and cushions—standard-issue furniture. Apparently Vasenu had not had time to make the pavilion his home. The servant led Tarne through an oval-shaped opening that led into a wide chamber. Flowing silk covered the walls. A thick pallet rested on wooden slats and pillows were scattered about the room. The colors were light, reflecting instead of blocking the sun. The servant bent at the waist and backed out of the room. Tarne waited, inspecting with his eyes.

  Off to the left stood a half-open door. Through it, he could see clothing and boots. This apparently was Vasenu’s sleeping chamber, a barren place, even for a man newly returned from campaigns.

  “You wished to see me, Tarne?”

  Tarne whirled. Vasenu stood against the silk-covered walls, hands clasped, as if he had been there all along. Tarne wondered at the man’s silent movements and thought perhaps he had underestimated the rooms after all.

  “I came to discuss your father,” Tarne said.

  Vasenu pulled down a cushion and sat on it. Even though he had taken the subordinate position, he still seemed to be the one in control.

  “My father sent you?”

  “No.” Tarne wished he had something to do with his hands. He felt awkward, standing in the center of the room, looking down at the princeling.

  “Then we have nothing to say to each other,” Vasenu said.

  “On the contrary, Highness, I think we have much to discuss.”

  Vasenu tilted his head. He assumed the regal posture as easily as his father did. “I’m waiting.”

  “Your father brought you home for a reason. It is time, I think, to discuss the future, yours and your brother’s.”

  “Your point?”

  “I can help you. With my men and the people behind me, I can guarantee that you will have your father’s place.”

  Vasenu’s smile had no warmth. “And you will retain your position as second in command.”

  “Yes,” Tarne said.

  “And my brother?”

  “I think we can get him to agree to this.”

  Vasenu nodded. “Get him to agree.” He stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced. “You can’t use the tactics you used in some of the southern villages, because my brother has no women for you to rape. Your other techniques won’t work either because, presumably, my father would already be dead and you wouldn’t touch me. So murdering family is out. Pray, then, how would you coerce my brother into supporting my reign?”

  “I think ‘coerce’ is the wrong word—”

  “No.” Vasenu stopped walking. “I’ve seen the results of your campaigns. Ruined families, destroyed villages. If that is what you believe conquered lands should be, then you have no right being in the position you are. My father has never been to these places. He sees only that there are no uprisings. But there are few children and even fewer families. The land is barren and produces little. And what it does produce, the villagers use for their own subsistence living. All they have is the water which the military governors send to Leanda by the barrel.”

  “Those are the results of war,” Tarne said.

  “Those are the results of a harsh military leader. A man who respects no one but himself.”

  Tarne held himself rigidly. “I have done good work for your father.”

  “You have done good work for yourself.”

  Tarne felt a frustration he hadn’t felt since he conquered villagers. Vasenu had that same power the rebels had. The rebels that Tarne had broken. Perhaps that was why Vasenu fought him. He knew that Tarne could break him, too.

  “I never campaigned in the northern lands. And now there’s talk of uprising.”

  Vasneu nodded. “We worry about it because the north is the only conquered section that brings a profit to Leanda. The southern lands are a drain on our economy. Ironic. We went after them because they were rich in fruits and foodstuffs. Even the herd animals are gone.”

  “Your father and I—”

  “Don’t speak of my father again.” Vasenu had softened his voice and somehow that made him seem more threatening. “He is alive and well, the firm ruler that he always was. You come into my chambers with an offer of treason, a way to betray both my father and my brother, and you do it in my father’s name. You are a destroyer, Tarne, and for that alone, I would hate you. But you are working at destroying my lands and my home for your own personal gain. I would never work with you. I could never trust you. I find it hard to believe that my father does.”

  Tarne felt as if he had been slapped. He took in a slow breath, to keep himself calm.

  “The audience is over,” Vasenu said. “You may leave my chambers.”

  Tarne didn’t move. Vasenu stared at him. For a moment, Tarne’s hand fluttered near his sword. Then he let his hand drop. It served no purpose to kill this young man. At least, not while his father was alive.

  Tarne turned and stalked out of the room into the incense-filled outer chamber. He didn’t need direct combat with a princeling. He still had Vasenu’s brother to visit. Only he wouldn’t approach Ele as directly. Tarne’s failure with Vasenu had been a lack of subtlety.

  Tarne wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  CHAPTER 8

  Dasis sat cross-legged on the rug. The heat rose through the sand, burning her legs despite the rug and the thickness of her skirts under her thighs. The morning had been long. The customers had been few and the flies heavy; she had brushed a number off her face in the past half hour alone.

  Stashie had said almost nothing all morning. She had greeted the two customers they had, but otherwise sat in silence. Dasis had tried to draw her into conversation, but Stashie had replied in monosyllables.

  Ever since the night before, Dasis had wanted to talk about Radekir. When she had returned to their room, Stashie had said nothing. When Dasis asked her, Stashie had smiled and said that they shared dinner and Radekir had assured her she had nothing to fear from the soldiers. Somehow Dasis didn’t think that was all that had happened.

  Dasis glanced at Radekir. The dice reader was sitting on her table, her turbaned head facing the crowd. The woman seemed too friendly, too nice. Dasis had seen something else in Radekir’s eyes, something that made Dasis believe Radekir wasn’t telling the entire truth.

  Dasis hadn’t told Stashie the entire truth either. The palace was just outside the city, and Dasis had heard that the King was looking for heart readers. The bazaar had been a good excuse to come to the city—it had paid off—but it had been merely an excuse.

  She heard Stashie’s slight intake of breath, and she turned, following her gaze. A soldier stood at the edge of their rug, his hat clasped in his hands. He was young—no more than sixteen or so. His face still had the rounded look of baby fat and a scraggly attempt at a beard dotted his cheeks.

  “Hello,” Dasis said. Stashie’s hands dug into her thigh, pinching skin.

  The boy nodded once. “I hear you can read character.”

  “We read hearts.” Dasis stifled the urge to push Stashie’s hand off her leg. “Sometimes that gives an indication of character.”

  “Will it tell me if I’m brave?” the boy asked.

  “No.” Stashie’s tone was harsh.

  The boy crushed his hat between his hands and was about to turn away. Under the protection of her skirt, Dasis did push Stashie’s hand aside. “Heart reading doesn’t answer specific questions,” Dasis said. “You have to go to fortune-tellers for that. What heart reading will do is give you reasons and understanding about many things about yourself.”

  “I’ve been to fortune-tellers,” the boy said. “They all tell me something different.”

  Dasis nodded, refraining from making a comment on
fortune-telling. “Come sit,” she said. “Let’s see what we can do for you.”

  Stashie’s face turned white and she pushed herself backward a little on the rug.

  “He’s a boy,” Dasis hissed.

  Stashie nodded and bit her lower lip. She set a slate on her lap and arranged her chalks. “Give me your left hand.”

  The boy sat in front of her and did as he was told. Stashie’s fingers were shaking. She grabbed his finger so hard that the boy winced, and then she closed her eyes. Dasis watched, fascinated as she always was by Stashie’s movements. The true magic seemed to come from Stashie’s half of the work: the unreadable vision, marked down by chalk. That Dasis could understand that vision seemed less a miracle to her than the fact that the vision appeared.

  Stashie’s body sagged. She once said that she disappeared into the subject—lost in the other self. When Dasis first saw this, she had grown frightened. She knew that Stashie was barely in her body. Sometimes she thought she witnessed a little death each time Stashie read. In the early days, Dasis would hold her breath until Stashie moved again.

  Dasis found herself holding her breath this time. Stashie had been so reluctant to go inside the soldier. Maybe she would have trouble returning.

  The boy’s eyes had grown wide. His right hand had crept to his breast, as if he felt the invasion. He trembled but didn’t move. Some subjects cried during this part. Others struggled. But Dasis had never seen one pull away. She didn’t believe that breaking the union was possible.

  Finally, Stashie’s hand moved. Dasis let out the breath she had been holding. The boy’s body visibly relaxed.

  Stashie grabbed pink and red chalks and, with her left hand, began slashing at the slate. She swirled in some browns and pale whites. The boy watched her too, eyes wide. His right hand gripped his knee, but he managed to keep his left one steady.

  After a moment, Stashie flung the slate at Dasis, and released the boy’s hand as if it burned her. Her entire body was rigid. Dasis looked at the slate.

  The heart Stashie had drawn was full and bruised. Lines of white ran along the bruises like scar tissue and the brown swirled in the middle as if the bruised areas had once been worse.

  “Come here,” she said softly, ignoring Stashie’s distress.

  The boy slid across the rug to sit in front of Dasis. He chewed on his lower lip.

  “You have loved freely, but your love has been badly returned,” Dasis said. “People have hurt you, over and over again, and still you love. Some of these bruises are fresh—and are probably the reason you became a soldier, right?”

  The boy nodded. His eyes were red-rimmed.

  “You have a very strong heart that bears its bruises well. You came to us asking if you were brave. Anyone who risks loving after being hurt as badly as you have is brave. I don’t know if you will survive battles or show yourself to be a superior warrior, but if you follow your heart, you will always show an incredible measure of courage.”

  A tear slipped out of the corner of one of the boy’s eyes. He swiped at it, nodded, and clasped Dasis’s hand. “Thank you,” he whispered. He took four gold pieces from his pocket and threw them into the pouch. He reached for Stashie but she flinched away from him. “Thank you both very much.”

  He grabbed his hat, stood, and wiped at his face once more. Then he summoned dignity as if it were a shield, stepped off the rug, and disappeared into the crowd.

  Dasis smiled and turned to Stashie. Two spots of color dotted Stashie’s cheeks. “You made me touch a soldier,” she said.

  “He was just a boy.”

  “Now. And then he’ll go off and he’ll kill children and what kind of heart will he have then? Bruises and scars and bravery. None of that will matter once he learns how to kill.” Stashie got to her feet.

  Dasis rose too, reaching for her. “Stashie—”

  “Don’t say anything. You don’t understand. You’ll never understand. You seem to think that all people are the same and they deserve the same treatment.”

  “I can’t understand unless you talk to me,” Dasis said.

  Stashie studied her face for a moment. The color in Stashie’s cheeks had risen to a flush. “I tried. But every time I think you grasp what I’m telling you, you invite a soldier over to have his heart read—or you make me come to a place that I don’t want to be. This partnership is failing, Dasis.”

  Then Stashie whirled, skirts twirling around her, and ran, her bare feet leaving light prints in the dirt. Dasis gripped her own skirts and held tightly, watching Stashie push her way through the crowd, moving blindly. Dasis waited until she couldn’t see Stashie anymore, then she eased back down, picked up the soldier’s slate, and ran her fingers along its edges.

  “They destroyed some part of her, you know.”

  Dasis looked up. Radekir was kneeling on the rug, her eyes wide against her dark skin. “What do you know of Stashie?”

  “Only what she told me. Enough to realize that those soldiers from her past stole something precious from her, something she believes she’ll never get back.”

  “They killed her family.” Dasis’s voice felt tight, almost as if she were defending herself against this woman.

  “We all lose family,” Radekir said. “But something happened to Stashie, or it happened in such a way as to take something else from her.”

  “She didn’t tell you?” Dasis couldn’t resist the question. Radekir acted as if she had known Stashie for years.

  “I don’t think she’s told anyone.”

  “And you don’t think I was wrong, making her read.”

  Radekir shrugged. “Insensitive, perhaps.”

  Dasis dropped the slate. “He was a child. He was just a baby when Stashie was hurt.”

  “He wears the same uniform.”

  Dasis’s entire body felt tense. If she didn’t control herself she would hurt Radekir. “What makes you think you understand my partner better than I do?”

  “I observe people. You look at slates.”

  “You have to watch people to make your dice reading sound plausible.” Dasis picked up the slate and wiped it furiously with her rag.

  “That’s right.” Radekir’s voice was soft. “But you glance at slates and think you understand the entire race. You wouldn’t even be able to see without Stashie.”

  “What do you know about that?” Dasis said. “I had talent long before I met Stashie.”

  “But there’s a reason she became your partner, isn’t there?”

  Dasis stood up and set the slate in a pile under the canopy. “Get off my rug,” she said without turning around. “You’re not welcome here anymore.”

  “Because I tell you the truth?”

  “Because you want something.” Dasis finally turned around and found that Radekir was standing too. “You don’t care about me and you certainly don’t care about Stashie. You want something from her, something you can’t get on your own.”

  Radekir’s eyes were level with Dasis’s. “Are you sure about that? Or are you just jealous?”

  “Get off the rug.” Dasis kept her voice low.

  “She’s as welcome here as anyone else.”

  Dasis turned. Stashie stood behind her. A streak of dirt crossed her face, and in her hand she held a cluster of dates.

  “Don’t bully her just because she’s decided to be my friend, Dasis.” Stashie took one of the dates and tossed it to Radekir. “Ignore her. She gets jealous easily.”

  Radekir held up the date and smiled just a little. “I don’t want to create problems,” she said.

  “The problems were already there.”

  Dasis looked at Stashie. The words had a finality to them that Dasis hadn’t expected. She felt a slight coil of fear then, a trembling that surprised her.

  Radekir noticed the expression. “I need to get back to my table. I’ve left it unattended too long.”

  Stashie tossed her another date. Radekir caught it, smiled, and winked. Then she pushed her way into the
growing throng to return to her table.

  “What do you mean that the problems were already there?” Dasis asked without taking her gaze from Radekir.

  Stashie sat down and spread the dates on her lap. She took one and bit the end. “You don’t understand me, Dasis. And you don’t work with me.”

  “I can’t work without you,” Dasis said.

  “No,” Stashie said. “You tell me where we’re going to go and how much money we’re going to make. You demand that I work with soldiers—”

  “If we don’t, we invite suspicion.”

  “Then let’s leave. Let’s go somewhere where they won’t suspect our politics just because we refuse some business.”

  Dasis wished that Stashie would give her a date. Just one, to share in the simple way she had shared with Radekir. “I don’t know of anywhere like that anymore, do you, Stash?”

  Stashie studied her hands. “There’s got to be. Maybe in the north—”

  “Rebellion’s brewing in the north. Do you want to experience another war?”

  Dasis regretted the words the moment she said them. They hung in the air like a death knell. Around them the sounds of the throng seemed to grow louder: people laughing, the snatches of gossip, voices raised in barter. If Stashie said anything, Dasis didn’t think she’d be able to hear her.

  Stashie sighed and reached out, her hand holding a date. Dasis took it and sat beside her.

  “Why are we so mean to each other?” Stashie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Dasis said. The date felt warm in her palm. She suddenly wasn’t as hungry as she thought she was.

  “There was a time when we could only do nice things for each other and we never fought. Do you remember?”

  “I remember.” Dasis closed her eyes. Stashie had been so small when they met. Stick-thin and all eyes. She didn’t speak for the first several days and after Dasis had decided that Stashie couldn’t speak at all, one morning she whispered her thanks. That had been the beginning. The entire time they had been together, Dasis had taken care of Stashie. And now that Stashie no longer wanted her to, Dasis didn’t know what to do. “I think you want different things now, Stash.”