The Stone in the Skull

by Elizabeth Bear

  Ata Akhimah interceded. “It is a custom of the Sarathani kingdoms to send a child with a message of intent to woo.”

  “And there has been another prophecy of marriage?”

  Mrithuri nodded, tight-lipped.

  The Gage spoke slowly. “It seems to me that there might be other interpretations. It’s said that maidens have given birth, from time to time. Although those children are usually plainly the offspring of gods.”

  “Great,” Mrithuri answered. “I’ll start hanging around in temples.”

  “No heir, great lady?” the Dead Man asked. Not taken aback at all, which made her very much like him. Even more so than she had already, and she knew she was taken with his charisma and his foreign courtliness.

  But Mrithuri knew that if she answered the question, she’d start treating the Dead Man as a friend. And that wouldn’t do, for a rajni, at all—to be taking foreign mercenaries as friends. No matter how peculiar and engaging they might be.

  “I assume you’ll wish your reward,” she said, instead, to the Gage. “And then the two of you will be continuing south with the caravan?”

  The Dead Man and the Gage traded a look. But neither one managed to speak before Ata Akhimah cleared her throat.

  “Nobody’s heading south,” the Wizard replied archly. “That’s what I came to tell you, Your Abundance. The word is in from the southern tiers. The border is sealed.”

  “Sealed?” said Mrithuri, feeling slow and stupid.

  “The armies of your cousin, Anuraja Raja … they are moving.” Her face said there was more to the message, but she would not say it in front of strangers. Even strangers trusted by the Eyeless One.

  Suddenly, Mrithuri couldn’t take the disappointment and the frustration anymore. So even the Eyeless One saw no way forward for her except that she marry … marry who? Marry Anuraja? And leave, as the prophecy suggested, her home?

  Dire, dire oracle. Why had she ever sent Julaba off, if this was all the result? She could not fight a war with a dragonglass marble no one knew the purpose of and a scrap of advice to marry.

  And why was this … gnomic horseshit always in the form of some kind of cryptic poem?

  She stood, balancing her headdress, her drapes trailing around her, and waited a moment for Syama to heave herself up and get out of the way. Mrithuri started forward, the bear-dog pacing click-nailed on her right. She stepped down off the dais and began unpinning her diadem.

  She looked at the Dead Man as she set the thing on the seat of her chair of estate. It was heavy and had left dents in her forehead. She fingered her serpent torc, but left it where it was. Her snakes were waiting for her, once this audience was done. She’d keep the reminder heavy at her throat for now.

  “I have a horrible cousin,” Mrithuri answered slowly. “But he’s from the wrong side of the family, and mostly seems to wish to marry me, not inherit from my death. So no, no heir exactly. I’d be in better shape politically if I managed one.”

  “Ah,” said the Gage. “And he’s the chief contender for your hand.”

  Mrithuri nodded.

  “I can see why you would find the Eyeless One’s response unsettling.”

  Ata Akhimah snorted. “Another gods-damned oracle. Well, let’s see what we can prize usefully out of this one.”

  “It’s not exactly troops and siege engines,” Mrithuri complained. She hadn’t expected either, not really. But she’d hoped. “See what you can find out about the bauble, too. Maybe it throws lightning bolts.”

  Well, if she had to buy peace for her people with her body … she might. Even if she’d never cared to be rajni. She unclasped her mask as well, and set that also on the throne. Yavashuri was going to have a fit about her stripping off her regalia in public. She was too tired to care.

  But was it likely that damned Anuraja would even give them that peace? Or would he just starve them with taxes once Mrithuri was his wife, and helpless to oppose his will?

  “Peace, Daughter of the Good Mother. That’s not all the Eyeless sent us,” Ata Akhimah soothed. “She did send us weapons. She sent us these two, after all.” She nodded to the Gage and the Dead Man rather than gesturing to them, because her hands were still laden with the scrap of silk and the tiny box with its radiant and apparently useless mystery.

  Despite herself, Mrithuri felt a flush of hopeful excitement. She glanced over at the Dead Man and the Gage, and rationed herself a thoughtful frown. “You are weapons fit for the hand,” she allowed.

  “We are not much against an army,” the Gage said.

  “Two armies,” the Dead Man said, looking down.

  “Oh, right,” the Gage said.

  “Two armies?”

  “Your Abundance. Begging your pardon. The caravan came through Chandranath.”

  “Oh,” Mrithuri said. She began plucking her fingerstalls off and setting them beside the diadem. Her hair, disarrayed, was slithering out of its pins. She didn’t care. “Himadra too, I take it? Signs of massing?”

  “And raiding on your northern borders,” the Gage said. “For both conscripts and food. And we saw his troops with some I assume might have been those of Anuraja in the city proper. Himadra, his colors are red and so on?”

  “Yes.”

  “The other man looked like a wine-tun, and his troops wore orange and blue.”

  Mrithuri rested her forehead against her fingers. Would they come and take her by force, then? Good Mother, she’d prefer Himadra, if it came down to it.

  “The wine-tun is probably Anuraja,” she confirmed.

  “They seem allied.”

  Mrithuri held her breath until her chest ached. Then, she sighed.

  “Well. I suppose it’s just flood after rainstorm.” Mrithuri could not believe how level, how resigned her own voice sounded. “We’ll think of something.”

  The Dead Man looked at the Gage. The Gage nodded. The Dead Man said, “I might as well starve in a siege as on a road after the troops requisition everything I’m carrying. Or press me into their conquering army.”

  “You’re in?” Ata Akhimah asked them.

  The Gage rattled slightly. “I guess we’re in.”

  * * *

  Yavashuri, as predicted, had a fit at Mrithuri as soon as Mrithuri returned to her dressing room. It was a quiet, contained sort of fit, involving mostly pursed lips and the phrase, “Let me find you a new headdress, Your Abundance.” But a fit it was nonetheless, and Mrithuri almost managed to summon the humility to feel a little guilty.

  Guilt made her snappy, a character trait of which she was not proud. Today, however, while Yavashuri was pinning her hair back up and fussing with a thankfully much lighter diadem, she lost her temper and snapped, “What is taking Chaeri so long? And when were your agents going to discover that my esteemed cousin is raiding the northern border? Why do I have to rely on caravan guards to bring me this intelligence?”

  Yavashuri tugged a lock of Mrithuri’s hair into place just sharply enough for it to serve as a correction, without losing the element of deniability. “I learned it when you did, Your Abundance.” Tug. “I believe your caravan guards managed a faster trip downriver than any of my agents might have. Assuming that any survived the raid and remained unconscripted. We’ll know by morning, if they did.” Tug. “As for Chaeri, she has managed to boss a locksmith and a sorcerer into opening Mahadijia’s rooms, and is preserving those rooms until we can inspect them. Apparently the real problem was locating the suite. Mahadijia had gotten a Song Wizard to rearrange the world so the door was not findable. Or so that nobody without a key would notice it. Chaeri’s description was confused.”

  “I can imagine,” Mrithuri answered dryly. Her head still ached, but the hair dressing, savage though it was, was comforting. Yavashuri had tugged her hair in just this very way when she was a child. “Is it safe to enter?”

  “The locksmith believes he’s disarmed the booby traps. Also, what do you want me to do with the rest of that caravan? The master is that same Druja
who has done some work for us in the past, but they’re scheduled to pass on to the Laeish port next, and—”

  “Give them shelter,” Mrithuri said tiredly. “It’s not us that closed the border. And maybe some of them can fight.”

  “There are acrobats,” Yavashuri said. “And a couple of annoying noble types.”

  “Acrobats sound more pleasing.” Mrithuri glanced at her repaired visage in the small mirror Yavashuri held up, and then turned to see her profile in the large one. “Pay them for a performance.”

  “Your Abundance,” Yavashuri said, and bowed low. Exactly as if Mrithuri had a mind of her own, and was not just stamping and sealing decisions Yavashuri had already made for her.

  Mrithuri braced her hands on the curved arms of the square, uncomfortable chair. She stood, balancing her headdress carefully. Her drape was creased, but she imagined that overseeing the tossing of a dead man’s apartments was likely to get one at least a little untidy, so it didn’t matter. She’d just have to change again for the coming meal if she let Yavashuri fuss over her now.

  “Acceptable,” she said to her mirror. Ignoring her maid of honor’s patent but silent disapproval, she added, “Please bring me the Eremite box.”

  * * *

  Chaeri stood by the open door of Mahadijia’s suite, twisting a corkscrew curl around one slender finger. She had bitten the stain from her lip and nibbled as well at the skin. She started when Mrithuri approached her as if startled from deep worry or consideration.

  The rajni walked flanked by Hnarisha on her left and Yavashuri on her right. Ata Akhimah followed, and Mrithuri shortened her steps to make the older women’s progress easier. She knew Ata Akhimah and Yavashuri were aware of the politeness, even if there was no way under courtesy that they could acknowledge it.

  Chaeri remembered herself and bowed low as Mrithuri approached her.

  “You have preserved this place untouched?”

  The girl did not raise her head. “I am sorry, Your Abundance—”

  Mother River, what now? Mrithuri leveled a voice that wanted to sharpen. Frightening the girl would just drive her into uselessness. “What has happened?”

  No blame in her voice, no irritation. Just a dulcet invitation to share information.

  Miserably, Chaeri said, “I thought I would please you, Your Abundance, and save you time.” She fell silent, and Mrithuri sighed inwardly, but forced herself to wait. Ata Akhimah, who was only sometimes patient, started forward, but Mrithuri restrained her with a raised hand. Chaeri gathered herself and continued, “But I found nothing. I am afraid I might have triggered a trap of some sort, though.”

  “Are you hurt?” Yavashuri asked.

  Chaeri shook her head. “I smelled something … burning.”

  Ata Akhimah muttered something and slipped past Mrithuri into Mahadijia’s vacant room. A moment later, and she cursed briefly in her native tongue, a sound Mrithuri remembered from childhood and so, perversely, found comforting.

  The rajni slipped past her head-bowed maid, sweeping Yavashuri and Hnarisha in her wake, pausing only to dismiss the girl. The Aezin Wizard was standing beside Mahadijia’s desk. “The document box,” she said. “The contents have immolated.”

  “Magically or mechanically?” Hnarisha asked, stepping forward to inspect the damage. Below Ata Akhimah’s hovering hands, a lacquer box sat on the desk. Its finely decorated surface was blistered with the internal heat, and the desk beneath it showed marks of char.

  “They’re not that different,” the Wizard said. “I question how the inside burned with no air to fuel it, though.” She drew on a pair of thin leather gloves, then touched and fiddled until the box sprang open. A silver needle with a discolored tip smacked forth from the lockplate, but her hands were well clear of its arc. Gingerly, she pressed the thing back in with the end of a brush until it clicked and vanished into the scrollwork. She pointed the box away from them when she opened it, but nothing dangerous emerged beyond a wisp of smoke and some curls of crisped paper.

  Hnarisha bent over to peer inside and said, “Ah.”

  He held out his own hand and gently cupped it. Something tiny floated from within the box and hovered by his hand—a small, flat disk. “This was the trap,” he said. “Looks like a coin, until you arm it by pulling out a film that keeps the two powders within from mingling. Once that happens, it burns hot and fierce within a couple of moments, even underwater. No sign of a triggering mechanism, but it could have been consumed by the fire.”

  “It’s floating,” Ata Akhimah observed.

  “So it is.”

  “I had not known you studied Wizardry.”

  He smiled at her. “I learned a few things from the Cho-tse. This is the most dramatic, and I cannot use it for anything much heavier than a brush or a couple of coins.” He shrugged. “The powders in the incendiary—well, I don’t know if it means anything, but they’re a device manufactured mostly by the Wizards of Tsarepheth. My own people use them occasionally for sabotage, for starting fires, but they have a number of legitimate uses and are not hard to come by.”

  “Dead end?”

  “Maybe.” He looked at Yavashuri.

  She raised a shoulder as if shrugging a slipping blouse back into place. “Mahadijia cared enough about these papers to make sure they were destroyed after his death.”

  “Or someone else did.” Mrithuri drew herself up. “All right, find me a way to figure out what was in them. Who he was corresponding with. Whatever you can.”

  * * *

  Mrithuri found the Dead Man looking at the river. The calm and the fire of snakebite soothed her mind and burned in her blood. Her wit felt charged with cleverness.

  She had changed into a tunic and trousers, bleached cotton hemmed and trimmed with gold but otherwise plain. Only a simple chain and a streak of vermilion weighted the part of her hair, and her fingers were blessedly naked. She stroked the warm metal scales of her necklet and sighed with pleasure.

  In the rainy season, unexpected guests were a good excuse for unexpected hospitality. They had a Ctesifoni noblewoman to entertain, after all, and Good Mother help them, the Song prince. Also, the elegantly starveling dark-skinned cleric whose gender was indeterminate enough that Mrithuri had decided to use neuter pronouns and wait to be corrected—one did not, in polite society, question such things.

  The afternoon rain was over, and the evening sky was dawning bright and starry. The Dead Man leaned over the golden stone railing, watching the crowds below. He had found a place on a high, broad balcony, above the tiered and stacked plazas of the pleasure garden, far enough from the musicians and the refreshments both that it had remained otherwise uninhabited. At least, until Mrithuri had arrived there.

  She found him leaning on the garden wall, elbows among her marigolds. She stood silently not too far behind him, looking down over the terraces and gardens intermingled below. It pleased her that she had slipped up on this warrior without being noticed.

  Those gathered on the plaza tiers were mostly her own courtiers, though the great and small both of the caravan had been invited. They moved in unchoreographed swirls of color and conversation that she found she much preferred to all the pomp and ritual of the throne room. Here, she could be—

  Well, no. There was nowhere she could be Mrithuri. Just Mrithuri, and not the rajni. She wasn’t even sure, she admitted wryly to herself, that she knew who a Mrithuri who was neither rajni nor princess might be.

  She observed that the Dead Man was garbed in clean, possibly new shirt and trews, a gauzy indigo wrap studded with spangles, and that his red coat had been brushed. So she was reasonably confident of the answer when she asked him, “Has Hnarisha seen to your purses?”

  He jumped, the party scarf turned veil fluttering, and sketched a shaky bow. This was not a man accustomed to or comfortable with being surprised. As he turned away from the railing to do her courtesy, she saw that he had a deep cup of chased silver in his hand. The red wine within lapped the rim, but
even startled he balanced it well enough that it did not seep over.

  “We are not formal out of court,” she told him. “That is entirely too deep a courtesy.”

  “My lady is most generous,” the Dead Man murmured. “And Druja has seen out his debt to us as well, since this is as far as we were contracted.”

  She studied the backs of her hands. A rajni should never show uncertainty. Perhaps it would be taken for thoughtfulness. Anything, she hoped, but vulnerability. She said, “You look like a man with some military experience.”

  He chuckled, but his gaze stayed wary. Here he was alone with a foreign noblewoman who might be just about any species of man-eater. And he was Uthman, of some stripe, if you could still use the word, and he wore the veils affected by some men and most women who worshipped the Uthman Scholar-God.

  They had had some peculiar ideas about relations between the sexes in the Caliphate, from what Mrithuri had heard.

  He glanced down at the serving tables some distance away. “Would Your … Your Abundance care for some wine?”

  It would only dull the sweet slither of the snakebite along every vein, as if she were a harp wind-strummed. “I am well, thank you. But I would like to talk with you about logistics.”

  “Logistics?” His relief was palpable in every line of his frame. Mrithuri would have thought the veil would render him inscrutable, but even his fingers were more relaxed on the cup when he raised it and slipped it under the spangles.

  “I’d like to know about your history,” she said. “Yours and your friend’s. The military parts, at least. How do you fight. Where have you fought? Who and what have you commanded? How much experience do you have, the both of you? And what are your weaknesses as well, an honest self-assessment?”

  He paused again, head tilted, and she thought he might be bracing himself to attempt just that. You couldn’t trust the ones that were too confident, because they were rarely as good as they thought. But the ones who excoriated their own every move were no better—they’d either paralyze themselves with self-recrimination, or they’d react in a panic rather than acting to an improvisation, or a plan.