“I don’t care about the man,” she said, “but if your soldier doesn’t take his hands off the Lesser Tazminera I’ll slit him navel to neck and you’ll be next.”
That’s right, Jakinda! You tell him. Relief flooded me. Now that Jakinda was here they’d realize it was a mistake.
“We didn’t know she was a Tazminera,” the Captain said, nodding to the soldier. The pressure left my arms and I stumbled forwards. One of my guards caught my arm and steadied me, and then I was being passed from one guard to another to shelter behind Jakinda. “She was kissing our fugitive when we caught him so we thought she was a common whore.”
I blushed and scowled.
“A common—” I began, outraged, but one of my guards put a hand over my mouth. I struggled against his iron grip. What was he doing? The man had insulted me!
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, Captain,” Jakinda said in a low tone. “Because an insult to our Tazminera is an insult to us and we take our honor very seriously. These hands have killed five men for lesser insults.”
Had she really killed people? For insulting me? Did I know her at all?
I bit the hand around my mouth, but it only pressed tighter while the other hand gripped my shoulders. I couldn’t see anything. They had me too surrounded and too far back. All I saw were the backs of my guards. What had happened to him? Were they going to kill him? Was this why he hadn’t told me his name? Because he was a fugitive?
“My apologies,” the Captain said. “I defer to your position and ask for mercy.”
“You have it,” Jakinda agreed. No! Make them pay, Jakinda. They can’t have him. “As General Komorodi said in The Dance of Daggers, ‘Mercy to your foe is the greatest victory. There is no greater way to turn him than to steal his heart.’ And on that word, I will depart with my Tazminera and leave you to the justice you are here to serve.”
There was a sound like meat being hit with a mallet and a low groan. Was that him? And then I was slung up over a shoulder and jostled terribly. My belly! Did they know how much this hurts? The guard’s shoulder dug into me. And what were they doing to him? Something worse than carrying him over a shoulder, no doubt.
“Slay you and your guards, Jakinda. Let me down!” I yelled, but no one listened. The jostling became worse. I could see nothing but the leather back of the man carrying me and it took all my strength to keep my nose from being smashed against his spine with every jolting step. They were all going to pay.
The world grew brighter eventually and I thought I saw cobblestones and the sound of a creaking door and muffled hushing and then wooden steps and lantern light on a wood plank floor and then another door being opened and then I was flung down from the back of the guard. I squealed and threw out my limbs to break my fall. It wasn’t necessary. He had tossed me into my unmade bed at the Blue Feather.
Jakinda stood in the middle of the room, puffing, her face black with anger. One of my guards - I needed to learn their names—was lighting a lantern, while another barred the door and a third closed the heavy curtains on the window. There were ten of them in the room with me.
“She was kidnapped, whether she knew it or not,” Jakinda said, scowling as she looked at me but spoke to them.
Kidnapped? I’d gone willingly. He’d never hurt me or taken me anywhere I didn’t want to go.
“He must have thought he could ransom her.”
“Who did?” I asked.
“We’ll take it in shifts. Two guards in the room at all times. Buhari, you take the window. Conteh, the door. Toure and Sesay outside the door. The rest of you get some sleep. Your shift will be here soon,” she said, as my grizzled armsmen found their places with the practiced movements of those conditioned to obey.
Jakinda’s eyes never left mine. I refused to look away. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I only wanted a little fun. And I was never in danger.
“I wasn’t kidnapped,” I said, standing up.
Jakinda sighed and ran a hand over her face.
“He lured you away from us,” she said softly. “Do you even know who he is?”
“He travelled with us in the caravan.” Did she know that I didn’t even know his name? She’d think I was a fool if she did.
Jakinda’s jaw flexed and she took a long breath and let it out slowly before saying, “He’s the Prince of Hawks.”
My eyebrows knitted together. Did I know who that was? It was not a title of our lands. I concentrated. I must know. We had studied the royalty of every nation and land in the Silken Gardens.
“It’s a new title,” Jakinda said quietly. “From the Kosad Plains.”
I gasped. From where my mother was killed. He was from there?
“He must have kidnapped you in hopes that he could ransom you in exchange for his family,” Jakinda said. “Rumor is that the army has seized all the surviving royals of the conflict. Unless payment is made for their lives in two weeks’ time, they will be executed one by one on the steps of the Ivory Palace for the pleasure of the High Tazmin.”
I gasped. I was remembering how he refused to tell me his name. How he led me slowly through the city, but seemed so nervous. The bridge he’d taken me to was right beside the city walls. Had he planned to take me through that gate and ransom me for the lives of his family?
What kind of fool was I to think he was charming? To go with him? I sat down hard.
“There’s more,” Jakinda said.
I glanced at my guards. Buhari, Conteh, Toure and Sesay. If I remembered their names would that make me a less foolish person? Were they listening to Jakinda teach me what a foolish girl I was? I put my face in my hands.
“Could anything be worse than what you’ve already told me?” I asked.
Jakinda sighed.
“Before I tell you, I think I should make one thing clear,” she said. I didn’t look up, but I heard a falter in her voice, as if some great emotion was stirring her. “We, your guards and I, are sworn to you. And tomorrow at your binding, we will swear again. Our fates will rest in yours. Your glory is ours and we will join you one day in your death. You know this. You know that none of your mother’s guards survived her.” She sighed again. “Please consider us before you follow a stranger into the night ... and please consider that we may be allies. Not just pieces of furniture that get in the way of your desires.”
I peeked up through my hands. The lines of her face stood out more strongly tonight than I’d ever seen them before. What had she sacrificed to be my Captain of Guards? A home and family? The chance to sneak off into the night and go dancing?
“Please, promise me,” she said.
“I promise,” I whispered.
We were silent for a long time. A rooster crowed somewhere outside my window. It was almost morning. Jakinda started to walk to the door between our rooms.
“You said there was something else,” I said.
She hesitated with her hand on the handle before turning and looking me right in the eye. Her words were like an electric shock.
“I received word today with news from the High Tazmin. He felt you should be told about the circumstances on the Kosad Plains,” she hesitated again and then spoke in a hard voice. “The Prince of Hawks was there when your mother died. His nation has been razed to the ground and he will be held responsible for her death.”
Chapter Thirteen: Ra’shara
He was there? That meant he hadn’t stopped it. Had he approved? I felt sick, like I might vomit. I stumbled to the bed and lay down, clutching my head in my hands. They felt cool. Thank goodness. The room was spinning and pain blossomed in my head. I’d kissed an enemy. I’d run off into the night and danced with him and made puppy eyes at him and I’d even thought I might be falling in love with him. Oh, sweet Penspray, what was I thinking? My face was wet. I was crying, or laughing, or both, and I didn’t know what else to do.
Fortunately, Jakinda and my guards didn’t interfere so I could steep in complete despair all on my own. I slept eventually,
and when I woke there was food and the guards had changed. I ate and slept again. When I woke the second time I combed my hair, washed my face and went to open the door. Toure moved sharply to block my path, holding his fist to his chest in his salute of allegiance.
“My apologies, Tazminera, but Captain Jakinda has requested that you remain in your quarters until we can establish your safety.”
I sniffed and looked around the room before smiling winningly. “It seems fairly safe, don’t you think, Toure?”
Toure’s face looked like it was chiselled from granite and he said nothing, simply looking over my head and straight forward without moving. I sighed and went to the window. If I couldn’t go out, maybe I could look out. Light glowed from around the edges of the thick curtains and the lighter more flowy layer behind them swayed in the breeze. The sound of haggling, shouting, laughter, clopping hooves, and moving carts were dulled but still audible from the streets beyond. I thought I even heard the echo of the words ‘High Tazminera.’ Whoever said it should watch out. Amandera could probably feel you speak about her the way ghosts can.
I reached for the curtain and Buhari blocked my path, fist over heart. With a slight bow, he said, “Apologies, Tazminera, but Captain Jakinda,” he said her name with an unexpected warmth, “has requested that you do not open the curtains as your safety is our top concern.”
I wanted to scream and rage, and I would have if it was a few days ago, instead I blushed. The reason I was locked in my room instead of enjoying the sights and smells of Al’Karida was because of my own poor judgement. I had trusted a snake. My judgment was flawed. A tear spilled down my cheek and I wiped it away hurriedly.
Toure coughed and my attention was drawn to a tiny folded cloth in his hand. He held it out to me and I went to him and took the small green package. I unfolded it to find three yellow sweets inside. He smiled conspiratorially at me. With a sigh, I popped one in my mouth letting the lemon dissolve on my tongue while he smiled and nodded. Really? I was supposed to be calmed by sweets? Like a child? I tried to give the sweets back, but he waved me away, still smiling like a kind uncle.
I tucked them into my sarette and looked around the room. What exactly can a girl do in a small suite? Take a bath? That would mean being naked in front of my guards. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that—especially now that Toure was treating me like a little girl. I straightened the bedding and then sat in the bed in the lotus positon. Perhaps if I meditated I could pass the time constructively.
I entered the meditation world easily. An’alepp was there already, arms crossed over her chest, singing her same strange song:
“Ring around the heavens,
Can see it in a thick lens,
Falling, falling, under the snow.”
I cleared my throat, but she kept singing.
“Ring around the mountains,
It baffles all the high plans,
Falling, falling, under the falls.
Ring around the God’s Teeth,
Shaped like a thick wreath,
Falling, falling, under your nose.
Ring for when the earth bends,
Ring for when the mother ends,
Follow, follow, follow it home.”
“Are you about ready to stop singing?” I asked. The tune felt so familiar, like I could place it if I just concentrated. Had my mother sung it to me when I was small? Before I came to the Silken Gardens? I remembered a flash of yellow and something warm, but then it was gone again.
The landscape of my meditation changed so abruptly that I struggled to regain my balance. We were on a beach with waving trees along the shoreline and white sand stretching for miles in either direction. Behind An’alepp, the sea was blue and still as glass. She held a large spade.
“Yesterday you managed to maintain the meditation while watching what was happening in front of you,” An’alepp said.
“You saw that?”
“So today we will work on that. You will work hard, here in Ra’shara—”
“What’s Ra’shara?” I interrupted.
An’alepp frowned. “This world. This dream.”
“The meditation?”
“If you like,” she agreed before thrusting the spade at me. “You’ll dig a hole here until you find a red rock I have buried on this beach. As you dig in Ra’shara you will not lose focus on the world your body inhabits. When you are done, I would like a report on what went on outside Ra’shara.”
I took the shovel.
“Begin,” she said.
“Wait. Where does the power to tap into the Common come from? Why do some of us have it and not others?”
“Who knows?” An’alepp said. “Why were you born royalty? Why were you born a woman? You might as well question that. It simply is.”
“But why are some more powerful than others? Will Amandera always be powerful until she dies, or is there a limit?”
An’alepp laughed. “Amandera, is it? That is why you want to know. Your power has limits. How much of it you have, and the penalty for drawing too much is set. You just won’t really know where it is set at.”
“Why not?”
“Because how much you have and where your limit is set depends on the ancestor who chooses you. Amandera’s ancestor had great power. I doubt she’ll drain her dry any time soon.”
My eyes widened. An’alepp seemed to have adopted me. And she was more ancient than any of them. How quickly would I drain a dusty old corpse like her? “Will you dry up quickly? Should I be careful? Or will another ancestor adopt me when you’re used up?”
“Have you heard of the word hubris, girl? I think it might be carved on your bones. Who said anything about me adopting you? Now get to work before you see how much hurt I can cause even in this place.”
I began to dig. I pushed the spade into the sand, focussing on my work but that made me lose track of the real world. Once I focussed again on Ra’shara, or whatever she called this place, I looked down and my spade had not touched the sand yet. By the time I finally had a shovelful of sand moved,my breakfast had been brought and left for me by Sesay. I was so distracted by the scent of it that I lost the meditation entirely and by the time I found it again the hole was gone.
I cursed violently and threw the shovel as far as I could. This wasn’t worth it. Besides, An’alepp hadn’t even adopted me. I might have the talent for this, but without an ancestor I’d be weak as an hour-old lamb.
“Are you starting to think it’s not worth your trouble?” An’alepp asked from behind me. I spun and saw her sitting on a rock that hadn’t been there before, weaving a basket.
“You could tell? What gave it away? Throwing the shovel?”
“All fools and children give up. I assumed you would, too,” she said, not looking up from the basket.
“I haven’t given up,” I said acidly and went to retrieve the shovel. Here’s hoping I drained all her life out of her quickly. I could use a kinder ancestor in my court.
She thought I was a fool. A child. I’d show her. By the time the hole was dug to my knees, Jakinda had come and gone twice. The other guards had reported to her on my behavior. Why did Buhari’s voice seem to speed up when she was near? Why were his movements less fluid?
By the time the hole was waist deep, the night sky was dark and the guards had changed. I didn’t know the names of these ones. One was a woman I’d never seen before.
“I’ll never find this red stone!” I said throwing the shovel down. “This is impossible!”
“You’ll keep looking. You will come back every chance you get and dig or I will teach you nothing else,” An’alepp said, crossing her arms and sniffing loudly. “It’s only through exercises like this that you—”
Her words were cut off and I lost the meditation as the door of my room slammed open. My guard at the door sprang into a fighting stance, drawing his sword, but quickly changed his stance to one of attention and replaced the wide arced sword back into its scabbard.
Throu
gh the door, an array of guards marched in, fanning out and then standing at attention around the room. They wore the High Tazminera’s livery and she was not far behind.
Dressed in a flowing pink sarette, studded with thousands of sparkling crystals, she looked like she was dressed for a fancy ball, not for breaking down doors. Her hair was arranged elaborately, and she held a large white bird with yellow crest feathers. Its beak was tied shut with a scarlet ribbon.
Amandera stood tall and straight in the center of the room as if we were all there to watch her perform something. Maybe we were. Was her whole life a pageant and was I just a side act in it?
“I was hard at work reminding Al’Karida that, despite being a minor city in our great nation, she still owes all her glory to our great High Tazmin. Work like that is not easy. I did not welcome an interruption informing me of your antics. Getting yourself kidnapped by a fugitive? You are an embarrassment, Tylira.”
I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand.
“I don’t want to hear it. You can’t be bound soon enough as far as I am concerned. I’d like to see it done and over so that I can concentrate on other matters. Fortunately for me, General Komorodi agreed and will meet us before dawn on the Cliffs of Canderabai. We ride immediately to meet him. Get dressed—try to wear something a little dignified—and we’ll be off.”
Dignity? As if I was dressed like a beggar all the time instead of the daughter of the High Tazmin. Amandera should talk. She probably wore the next thing to rags before she married into our dynasty—but here she was parading about as if she were full blood royalty in Canderabai.
I sniffed, about to spit out a response. Crooning quietly to her bird, Amandera turned on her heels and marched out of the room, surrounded by her entourage. I was left gasping like a koi outside the pond. The binding. As if things could get any worse. The very last thing I wanted was to be bound to a fallen general. And I would have to submit to the pomp and ceremony involved with it as if I were pleased.
Teeth of the Gods Page 8
