Queen of Slaves (The Powers of Amur Book 4)

by J. S. Bangs

  Kirshta.

  Sadja must have heard it, but he must not have thought it was important. Or perhaps something else was going on.

  He would have to write to Sadja. If Kirshta was causing trouble in the north, then perhaps Navran could send a message to him. They had been friends of a sort. But he would need to know for sure.

  “Go,” he told the messenger. Dastha and another guard were waiting, and Navran took off with them for the throne room where they would finally sign the agreement.

  When he reached the throne room, he found Bidhra already there. The king of Patakshar had sent his servants to wait in the antechamber of the throne room, and he stood watching the garden through the north window. Upon hearing Dastha and Navran enter, he turned and bowed his head slightly. “Navran-dar. Greetings.”

  “Wasn’t expecting you, Bidhra-dar,” Navran said. He bowed in return. He glanced aside at Dastha, then at the throne. Dastha shook his head slightly. Navran stood beside Bidhra at the north window, watching the sunlight gleam on the leaves of the orange trees.

  “I came early,” the king answered. “Wanted to discuss something with you.”

  “What?”

  “I believe we all got a message this morning from Sadja-daridarya, whose name we say with fear and trembling. No?”

  Troubling. Navran had no idea that Bidhra and Gauhala had received messages. Bidhra’s informants in the palace seemed to be better than Navran’s own. He would talk to the Horn and see if he could root out who was informing the visiting kings. They were allies of a sort, but that was no reason to let them plant spies in Navran’s palace. He chose a carefully neutral response. “I got the message.”

  “A peasant uprising,” Bidhra said with a contemptuous edge in his voice. “Happens periodically, but its been many years since there was an uprising strong enough to disturb the Emperor. And he writes us letters assuring us of his victory.”

  “I was not assured,” Navran said.

  “Ah, well, Sadja-daridarya phrases himself carefully. It’s inconceivable that the peasants could actually do anything to the empire, especially during a drought. But the notion of an uprising in the north is upsetting, especially as regards our alliance.”

  “Really?” Navran stepped back from the window and began to pace. Bidhra glanced at him once, then resumed his casual perusal of the garden. “He’ll be distracted. Good for us.”

  “He’ll have to rouse the Red Men,” Bidhra said. “Call in garrisons from across the empire. Perhaps call in the militias of Gumadha and Davrakhanda, or even invite the majakhadir to raise levies in their cities. And when it’s done?”

  “Don’t see it.”

  Bidhra sighed. “He’ll have a large army gathered at his disposal. If there’s any sign of independence on our part, it will be a simple matter for him to march across the Amsadhu before disbanding his forces.”

  Navran murmured. Female voices drifted in through the window from the garden, carried on the cool morning breeze.

  “Worse,” Bidhra said, “if he calls for the militias of Jaitha and Patakshar to help him, we can’t refuse without going into full rebellion. And then we’ll be defenseless against any counter-attack.”

  “But the treaty—”

  “Is useless if your two allies have no army with which to defend you.”

  “So.” Navran returned to the window where Bidhra stood and faced the king. “What will you do?”

  “I might not sign anything,” Bidhra said. “Wait until things settle down.”

  Navran tapped a finger on the stone window sill. “I know the man. The Mouth of the Devourer.”

  Bidhra looked at Navran with eyes wide in surprise, the first wholly genuine expression that Navran had seen on his face all day. “You do?”

  “I think so. A disciple of Ruyam. A thikratta.”

  “I’d heard rumors of that sort. I thought they were false. One of Ruyam’s you say?” He rested his elbow on the window sill to look Navran in the face.

  Navran nodded. “Knew him in the Ushpanditya. A grade above the usual rebel.”

  “You have any way to contact him now?”

  “Not now. But Sadja-daridarya may be occupied for longer than you think.”

  Bidhra ran his finger along the edge of his beard. “I’m not sure it changes my calculations.”

  “It should. Ruyam fell because Kirshta plotted against him. Sadja-daridarya….”

  “Ah, but if the Emperor calls for our help to put down this thikratta slave, then exactly the scenario that I described will occur.”

  “If we are divided. But the Emperor cannot fight us and the Mouth of the Devourer at the same time.”

  “You’re suggesting something far more interesting than a mere defensive alliance, Navran-dar.” A thin, reserved smile appeared on Bidhra’s face. “We were supposed to sign the terms of the alliance today, but I’ll need some time to consider your new proposal.”

  “What new proposal?” Navran said. He gave Bidhra his blank, hard stare, the stare he used on gamblers sitting down across the jaha table from him. “Just naming things that could happen.”

  “Of course,” Bidhra said. “Still, I need some time to consider.”

  “Quickly. None of it happens unless you sign today.”

  “I see.” Bidhra pushed himself away from the window and strolled slowly across the room. “Perhaps we can wait until this evening? Gauhala-dar won’t mind. I should consult with my advisors.”

  Navran took a heavy breath. “This evening. Fine.”

  Bidhra bowed. “Let me go to my chambers. Gauhala-dar will be here soon. Perhaps you should explain the situation to him. See if he agrees with us.”

  “He will,” Navran said with leaden certainty. “Go.”

  Bidhra disappeared out the curtains. Navran took a breath and went back to the window. The voices of the ladies in the garden flitted like birds in the wind. He spotted Utalni outside in a yellow sari, shining like a flake of gold among the leaves and lotuses.

  “Dastha,” Navran said absently, “send someone after the jaha board in my room.”

  “Yes, my lord and king,” Dastha said. “Any reason?”

  “When Gauhala-dar gets here, we’ll need to talk. And I’m in the mood for a game.”

  Dastha gave him a knowing smile. “I’ll send for it right away.”

  The curtain parted. For a moment Navran was alone. The breeze was growing hot with the approach of midday, and the stones of the palace’s parapet shimmered with heat. He watched Utalni through the window. She sat in the shade of an orange tree and laughed with three other young noble ladies of the court.

  He smiled.

  Mandhi

  It actually felt like summer here in Kalignas, though by Mandhi’s reckoning the summer was nearly passed and fall harvest would be on them in another month. The incessant drizzle had abated, the grass of the meadows was long and golden in its tips, and the sun burned in a brilliant blue sky. There was none of the brutal heat of the Amuran summer, but there was enough warmth to stir her blood and raise her spirits.

  Aryaji marched next to Mandhi through the meadow. Mandhi had awoken that morning with the realization that she hadn’t set foot outside the os Dramab palisade in nearly a month, so she called Aryaji alongside her and left Jhumitu with Hrenge and went for a walk in the Dramab.

  The valley gleamed in the late morning sun, echoing with the cawing of crows, the bleating of the sheep in the fields, and the singing of the shepherds lying in the shade. The Kaleksha women waved as they passed, and Mandhi returned their waves.

  The mouth of the valley grew broader and flatter. Here the meadow was plowed and planted with wheat, green stalks just turning to gold. Here was the largest of what Shadle had called the “outer villages,” the collections of conical huts and storerooms outside the palisade and far from the lodge. The path on the north side of the stream wound through the middle of the white-plastered huts, crossed in two places by a narrow bridge of spruce planks.


  The os Dramab that greeted them were pleasant and cheerful. Mandhi would hardly have suspected they were her captives, and their lives were forfeit as soon as she chose to leave. Aryaji watched them with a reserved shyness, holding tight to Mandhi’s hand.

  As soon as they had passed by the last of the huts, she whispered to Mandhi, “What are you going to do?”

  “You mean about the os Dramab?”

  Aryaji nodded. She was breathing heavily, and her brows were knotted in concern.

  “I don’t know. They have to decide if they’ll accept the worship of Ulaur, and I have to decide if I’m willing to stay with them.”

  Aryaji bit her lip. She dropped her head for a moment, squeezed Mandhi’s hand, and said quickly, “You should bring them in.”

  “Bring them in?”

  “To the Uluriya. It has to happen.”

  Mandhi was quiet. The green-and-yellow wheat fields slipped past. Squirrels chattered at them from the trees. Up ahead, a pair of lichen-covered stones inlaid with images of a vole and a rabbit marked the boundary of the Dramab. Beyond the boundary the path dived into a stand of aspens that turned the light green with their coin-shaped leaves.

  “What do you mean it ‘must’ happen?” Mandhi asked at last.

  Aryaji answered in a rough, serious voice. All the girlishness was gone from her, and she spoke with the confidence of a proud woman. “Graft a new branch onto the ever-blooming tree.”

  The hair on Mandhi’s arm stood up. She pinched Aryaji’s hand. “Where did you hear that?”

  “The amashi told me.”

  “You said that in Kaleksha. Shadle told me.”

  “I understood it.”

  The valley tilted around her, the blue sky blurring into the black spruces and golden heads of wheat. “You never… do you remember what the amashi speaks through you? You said you didn’t.”

  “Not at first,” Aryaji said. “But after a while I began to hear its voice in my dreams. And when it came to me in the clan lodge, though my body fell and my tongue wasn’t mine, I understood it, the way you understand things in a dream. When I woke up I remembered everything.”

  “And you didn’t tell me,” Mandhi said.

  “I waited until the moment was right. Now listen,” she said, and she spoke again with more authority than it seemed her thin, girlish body could bear. “The tree of Manjur will bloom with a new branch. You and Taleg were the harbingers, your marriage the first fruit of the strange union which will bring the iron of heaven to a new land. Do not be afraid.”

  She squeezed Mandhi’s hand with incredible violence. Mandhi cried out in pain.

  “Do not be afraid,” she repeated.

  The brush around them rustled and popped. Four men stepped out of the stand of aspens and surrounded them.

  Mandhi gasped. She glanced back. They had continued a hundred feet past the boundary stones in their inattention, and they now stood in the clanless lands beyond the Dramab valley. They were alone.

  “You are Mandhi,” one of the men said. “The Amuran woman who came here with a hleg against the os Dramab.”

  “You’re one of the os Tastl,” Mandhi said. “I recognize you.”

  “Yes, and we fought with you to overcome the os Dramab.” The man fingered a dark wooden cudgel hanging from his waist. “You remember our agreement.”

  “We had no agreement. We worked together to humiliate your foes.”

  “We agreed to bring our hleg against the os Dramab to a conclusion,” the man said, stepping closer to Mandhi. “But a month has passed since you went into their lodge, and you and your mercenaries still wait there keeping their infant patriarch safe. You are going back on your word.”

  Mandhi drew herself up straight, though her face barely reached the man’s chest. “The child is mine and I’ll do with him as I see fit.”

  “Faithless friends,” the man growled. “If people hear that you Amurans brought arms into Kalignas only to betray your allies, you will have no shortage of enemies.”

  Mandhi stared the man in the eye for a while. Three more stood behind her and Aryaji. There was no way out. She lowered her gaze and assumed a chastened look. “Yes, of course. We’re only discussing what plunder we could get from the os Dramab before we leave them.”

  “We’ll finish our hleg one way or another,” the man said. “Decide quickly which side of it you’ll be on.”

  The man stepped off the path. Mandhi and Aryaji turned quickly to the east and crossed the border stones back into the Dramab. She glanced back once and saw the men watching them dappled in the shadows of the aspens.

  “How did they find us?” Mandhi wondered.

  “They were watching us from the trees from the moment we left the palisade,” Aryaji said.

  “You saw them?”

  “I know.”

  Mandhi fell quiet. They crossed through the wheat fields again and listened to the whispers of their movement. The first huts of the outermost village approached.

  “We have to talk to Jauda,” she said quietly.

  “The os Dramab are ready,” Aryaji said with strange confidence. “The time is right.”

  * * *

  They managed to keep most of the os Dramab out of the lodge this time, though Mandhi could hear them muttering in a mass outside the stone walls, the gossip and growling rattling against the wooden door. They pulled one of the heavy tables next to the fire ring and sat across from each other with only the hearth fire to light them. Four Amurans on one side: Mandhi, Aryaji, Jauda, and Nakhur, with four Kaleksha on the other: Hrenge, Kest, Shadle, and Glanod.

  “The os Tastl want to finish their hleg,” Jauda said first. “You heard Mandhi’s story today, and it matches what my sentries have seen. They’re skulking in the woods, waiting for a moment to strike.”

  “You have arms to stop them,” Glanod said. “Don’t you?”

  “As long as it’s just them,” Jauda said, “we do. But if they find other allies…”

  For a moment the three os Dramab murmured together. Mandhi heard the words os Tastl many times. Shadle spoke up.

  “There are other clans the os Tastl could call on as allies. Even if you never swore any oath with the os Tastl, many would see it as treachery if your men tried to defend the os Dramab.”

  “But my child is one of the os Dramab,” Mandhi said.

  “They want you to take your child away and leave us as clanless,” Glanod said. “Obviously.”

  “And if Kest and I married?”

  They quieted. This was the true point of the meeting. A heavy silence filled the air like the moment after a monsoon thunderclap. In the orange light of the fire, the faces of the Amurans were nearly black, while the Kaleksha’s had a strange copper cast, like temple idols come to life.

  “I have talked to my mother and the other men of the clan,” Kest said at last. Shadle whispered his words in Kaleksha for Hrenge’s benefit. “I will do my part to save the clan. The only problem is the worship of Ulaur.”

  “That is not negotiable,” Mandhi said. “I will not have an unclean marriage.”

  “And we won’t have a clan divided,” Glanod said, his voice as sharp and hard as a bronze knife. He took a heavy breath and looked down at his hands. “So we decided. If Kest must join your cult, we all will.”

  Mandhi drew her breath in sharply. She glanced over at Nakhur, whose eyes were wide. He looked from Glanod to Kest to Hrenge, struggling to form words.

  “I won’t require that of you—” he began.

  “Don’t tell me what you require,” Glanod said. His hand clenched into a fist. “You know next to nothing of the os Dramab and the Kaleksha. Do you even understand what the clan means?”

  Nakhur closed his eyes and bowed his head. “I apologize,” he said after a moment. “I don’t understand.”

  “The clan is everything,” Glanod rumbled. “We won’t give one of our brothers to a strange cult by himself, making him pay the price for our lives alone.”

  “
One of your brothers already joined our cult,” Mandhi pointed out.

  “You think we don’t know that?” Kest said. His voice dropped to a whisper draped over a hard core of anger. “It was a cruel, selfish thing that Taleg did. Leaving the clan without a word, joining a strange cult, marrying a foreign woman. But he did it, and I will take your word that Taleg was good and honorable with you, and that he died for the sake of his wife, your brother, and your people.”

  His voice cracked, the anger melting into sadness. His lips began to tremble. “I have to believe my brother was not a fool. If he did this, he must have seen something of great value in you and your ways. I’m willing to join you because I believe his word that you and your people were worth leaving the clan for. And it’s worthwhile for us to take you back in.”

  Silence over the table. Kest bowed his head and let out a single sob. Glanod wrapped his meaty arm around Kest’s shoulders and pressed his cheek against his cousin’s.

  “Aryaji told me,” Mandhi said softly.

  Nakhur turned to Mandhi, an eyebrow raised. “Told you what?”

  “Graft a new branch onto the ever-blooming tree. The amashi gave the words to her.”

  Hrenge spoke up, Shadle translating. “I heard the words. I did not know what they meant then, but I fear the judgement of the Powers.”

  She looked Mandhi in the eyes, her bright green eyes shining within wrinkled folds of pale flesh. “We have long lived under the protection of our clan guardians, the vole and the rabbit. They are kind guardians, mindful of humans, clever and wild. We have hidden from the faces of the great Powers who wreck mountains and move in the deep waters. But you say that the Power you worship is good. My son Taleg served him. So we will as well. I submit.”

  Nakhur looked up to the roof and traced a pentacle with his fingers. “Ulaur above, I did not expect this when I sailed to Kalignas.”

  “Take it,” Jauda said. “It’s the cleanest solution we’ve got to this whole mess.”

  “We still won’t be returning to Amur until spring,” Mandhi said.