Nessaket wished she had given birth to girls instead of boys. Her life would have followed a different path, and all her children would still be alive. She would not be counting pika seeds. She would be combing hair, giving advice, living in a softer world.
Had she never counted Mesema as a daughter? Over time she had come to find the horsegirl tolerable, but Mesema was too hard around the edges, too clever and wilful. On her first day in Nooria she had walked into the temple of Herzu, bold as a lion, and laid a hand upon the god-statue. She’d enraptured Beyon before Nessaket had even had a chance to speak with her or guide her; she remembered he came into the women’s wing, nearly frantic that he couldn’t find her.
She’d enraptured Beyon. Why had Nessaket never considered that before? Mesema had been with Beyon in the desert. Had they made love there, out on the sands?
It was possible—more than possible. And if Pelar was Beyon’s son, then he, not Sarmin, was the emperor.
The shock of it put Nessaket on her feet. If it were true, then Mesema needed only to tell someone—Govnan, Azeem, Dinar—and the emperor Sarmin and his young brother would both be dead. Mesema would become the empire mother, and in controlling Pelar control the world.
And yet she took no advantage. Was she biding her time, waiting for some signal from her people or their Hidden God? It was difficult to know what to make of Mesema; she played by inscrutable rules, born in high grass, drawn from the wind with sky-washed eyes.
Nessaket replaced the seeds in the pouch. Whatever Mesema’s intentions, she had been faithful to their alliance thus far. She deserved a warning about this concubine.
Nessaket checked Daveed’s blankets. Lately she had become afraid that scorpions or fire-dust hid in the folds. There were many ways to kill a child and Nessaket could imagine all of them. She checked the balcony where the dead snake had earlier been laid out, and where a guard remained as proof against further attacks, and glanced to the roof, where Siri’s garden lay dead. The concubine traitor would have dropped the snake from there, a violation to her old friend’s memory, but also a mistake. If the woman had stood there, looking down at this balcony, there might be witnesses, or a clue. Once Nessaket knew who the traitor was then she would decide what to do with her. She ordered the guards to set watch over Daveed and headed into the corridor.
Nessaket was exhausted. It was not the kind of tiredness that led to deep and restful sleep, but the kind that tore at her, pulled her down. The last time Nessaket had felt happy was with Arigu, and before that, when Siri was alive, when they spent long days on that roof garden, Sarmin running, little Amile laughing, every one of them trying to keep up with their beloved brother Beyon.
Half of Nessaket’s men rushed to make a circle around her as she walked to Mesema’s Tree Room. The other half stayed with Daveed. Once there she pushed past Pelar’s dozen guards to where Mesema sat with her books at a new, shining table. Sarmin had taught her to read after they were married; Nessaket thought it a mistake. “You should not read, my empress,” she said, “You’ll ruin your eyes and get ugly creases on your forehead.” Was it because her son was the true emperor that she did not care how she looked?
The empress shut her book and put it aside with a smile. “There are worlds in books, whole nations beyond our reach, with new gods and songs and stories. The only way to know them is to read of them, for we can never get there if it takes us our entire lives. I always wondered why Banreh loved his scratchings so. Now I understand.” Banreh was the new Windreader Chief. She spoke as if she were fond of him, and yet she pushed for peace—surely against his wishes. The girl was made of contradictions.
Nessaket motioned to the door. “Come.” They made a parade through the women’s wing, Nessaket and her half-dozen well-armed men, followed by Mesema, Pelar, and their own guards. They passed slaves and concubines, a confusion of faces to which she could give no names. Which one? Which one of you?
The only way to the garden was through the room of Old Wife Farra, a corner room, large and well-appointed, if in an older style. The door stood ajar, ready for visitors, though it was akin to putting bowls of bitter nut on the dinner table; nobody was interested. Most of those who had known and loved Farra were dead or gone. Her sons had fought Tahal for the throne, and lost; her daughters had married away. Most days she sat in her gilded rocking chair, lost in memories, rising only for meals. Dread turned Nessaket’s stomach. Here was a woman whose life had shrunk to almost nothing. How long before my life is the same? Ten years? Twenty?
Farra sat up in her chair and squinted about the room when all of them entered, a confusion of men inside the soft room and then Nessaket and Mesema, in the middle. “Who is there?” she called out in a quavering voice. Her body slave, nearly as old as Farra herself, had been dozing on a long couch, but soon fell to the floor and made a clumsy obeisance.
“It is I, Nessaket, with your empress.” She walked forwards to where the woman could at least see the outline of her form. Looking down she saw withered scalp, whisks of white hair.
“Nessaket, Majesty.” Farra lifted her eyebrows. “What brings you?” The Old Wife did not so much as look at Mesema.
“Blessings of the day,” Nessaket said. “Farra, has anyone been up to the garden recently?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see… can’t see much these days.” Farra sighed again, her thin shoulders drawing up like the wings of a bird.
“Where is the key?”
“Yes,” said Farra, folding one shaking hand over the other, “you need the key.”
Nessaket sighed in frustration and looked to the slave. “Where is the key?”
The slave stood, and with slow, shuffling steps she moved to a mahogany dresser with brass pulls. Mesema cast a questioning look at Nessaket. Of course she had not known about the roof. At last the old woman opened a drawer and pulled out a long and rusted key. “It is here, Your Majesty.”
“Has anyone else asked you for it?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Bring it,” said Nessaket, feeling a buzzing along her skin that overwhelmed even her annoyance. She was about to climb those stairs again, see the old garden. The last time she stood there, it was to look down upon Siri’s broken body in the courtyard. The day before that Siri had wrapped Kashim in his burial linens, and Beyon was given his crown. They had loved one another, she and Siri, but not after that. And then Siri had jumped. Nessaket allowed herself to feel the emotion, just for a moment, and realized it was no longer anger.
The woman handed her the key and she turned it in her hand, feeling the old weight of it. Already she was lost in memories, like Farra. She opened the door for herself, the first time she had done so in years. The key made a grinding sound in the lock. She heard the mechanism tumble and turned the knob. She turned to the men who crowded the entryway. “Wait here.”
The stairs rose up, into the night. Nessaket climbed them, breathing in the open air, Mesema and Pelar close behind. Pelar made a sound of joy when he saw the starry sky above him. The stone lay cool beneath Nessaket’s sandals. Statues of Mirra and Pomegra bracketed long, flat flowerbeds set in a square around benches and a dried-up pool. The beds no longer contained flowers, not even dead ones. Nessaket poked at the cracked dirt. Siri used to carry up the water by the basin-full, never asking the slaves to do it for her. She had always said that watering the flowers made her feel at peace. That peace had been broken long ago, but the attack on Daveed was nevertheless an attack on its memory.
A guard lifted his lantern and as the light ran across the roof-stone Nessaket caught a gleam of metal along the low wall. She pushed aside stacked clay pots and lifted a long-handled snake hook. It had been put out of sight, but not hidden. She would give it to Govnan, see if the spirits of stone and fire could tell who had held it. It was something, but she had hoped for more. She called for more light and searched for a lost earring, a scrap of silk, a hair-tie—but she found nothing. In sudden anger she threw a pot against the bench. I
t shattered, making a sudden, sharp noise in the gloom.
Nessaket said what she had come to say. “There is a concubine working against us. She has pika seeds and means to use them, to kill one of us and blame the other.” She did not say who was to die and who was to be blamed.
Mesema frowned. “And the snake?”
“Her work.”
“Hm,” Mesema said, looking more thoughtful than frightened, “Which one?” Perhaps fighting the Pattern Master had left her so brave that the threat of assassination did not alarm her. Or perhaps she had already known.
“If I knew who they were, I would have told you.” Nessaket turned back to the pots, turning them upside down and shaking them.
But Mesema moaned and stumbled forwards, her free hand extended over the low wall as she sought for balance. Nessaket jumped up and grabbed Pelar just in time to keep him from going over the edge. Perhaps the news had been too much for her, after all. Putting a hand on Mesema’s elbow she said, “It’s too soon since the birth. You should not have climbed—”
The empress waved a hand. “The Hidden God has shown me something… no. Nothing. He has shown me nothing. And such nothing…” She straightened, but she remained shaken. “I am well. But what I saw… such a thing that is impossible to see. I do not understand it.”
Nessaket frowned. If the girl had seen nothing, how did it count as a vision? “A deception,” she offered. “Prophecy is unreliable.”
“Yes, that must be it,” Mesema agreed, putting a comforting hand on Nessaket’s arm. The kindness of the gesture made Nessaket uncomfortable, as if Mesema knew some truth, and pitied her for it. She looked to the statue of Mirra, where the moon reflected off the marble with a soft glow, and felt there was something she had missed. She sat on the wall of a flowerbed and her guards took their places around her, silent, faithful.
Pelar lay quiet in her arms, another child for another garden. She should have honoured Siri by keeping it alive. She had been away from it too long, forgotten its purpose. Mirra honoured the children, the flowers and everything soft and dying in the palace. Siri had known it. It had not saved her, but she had found comfort here. Priest Dinar had always said a person must save herself and it was true; but maybe Mirra could give one the strength to do it. She thought once more of Marke Kavic.
Could I kill again?
A cloud slid past the moon, casting shadows across the face of the goddess, and looking at those carved features for a moment Nessaket felt that Mirra’s eyes moved in the darkness to settle upon her. She had never put much faith in Her, had seen her prayers go unanswered time and time again, but this once she felt she had received an answer.
No.
Dinar would not forgive her. Nor would Arigu, she suspected, should he ever return. She could not trust her son the emperor, nor his snake of a vizier, Azeem, who must naturally put Pelar first. The courtiers—those satraps, merchant princes, governors and generals—would sooner kill Daveed than speak his name. That left her with just one ally: the empress, Mesema.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SARMIN
Sarmin walked the corridors of the women’s wing, treading a carpet of whispers. Dark-eyed girls from desert tribes watched him from alcoves, the olive of their skin inked black by nomad needles in patterns that were old before Helmar ever worked his magics. Pale women like Jenni from across the Jagged Sea, grey-eyed beauties, reed girls from the Blessing’s delta, and more, more than he could know or name or want, some intent, staring, some languid, glances sliding from him to the sleekmuscled sword-sons tight about him as he went. Past the empty rooms where Beyon’s wives had lived, still vacant, all save one, though concubines lay elbow to elbow in the nooks and chambers of the harem. Such richness of colour and flesh could only feed the emptiness of his brother’s tomb; it could not survive it.
Ta-Sann rapped lightly upon the door to the Forest Room with the hilt of his hachirah. In time a servant girl opened it, just a hand span, not looking out but glancing over her shoulder, brow furrowed with impatience. “I’ve told you—” She registered Ta-Sann’s towering, muscled presence, the glimmer of his yard-long scimitar. “Oh.” And seeing past him to the royal purple of Sarmin’s silks, she fell into her obeisance so fast he feared she might injure herself.
“I would see my wife and son.” Sarmin waved the girl up though she could see only floor. “Rise. Rise.”
“My emperor! The empress is visiting the royal stables with Old Wife Lana to see her— The empress is absent, my emperor!”
“I’ll see my son, then, and perhaps Mesema will return whilst he and I are talking.” He hoped so; he could count on one hand the number of times he had seen her since the presentation of Pelar. A few short weeks ago he and Mesema had spent their days together, but now he allowed the Fryth negotiations to explain his absence. In truth forcing peace upon the lords and generals no longer seemed so great a challenge. They had used the last few days to launch a flurry of demands, but nevertheless it would be a simple task compared to countering the threat from within Beyon’s tomb. The servant stepped aside and Sarmin followed Ta-Sann into the muted greens of the Forest Room. Tree trunks rose in greys and browns along each wall, picked out in startling detail. By some artifice of the artist’s craft the painted ceiling carried those rising trunks to dizzying heights before exploding into branches and more branches, each thick with emerald leaves through which a painted sun threw dappled light.
Sarmin walked past Ta-Sann to the gold-leafed cradle where his son lay blinking. “You know, Ta-Sann, I have never seen a tree. Nor has the empress. Sand and grass we know between us.” For a moment though he saw a forest, with rain falling in curtains in the gloom between the trees and dark shapes hanging from branches. Sarmin shivered, shaking off the memory.
He reached into the cot and lifted Pelar beneath the arms, marvelling at the softness and warmth of the child. “So tiny…” He shook his head. “Are trees truly so tall, Ta-Sann?”
“On the islands trees grow taller than these, my emperor, wider too, and more wild.” Ta-Sann’s low voice held a wistful note.
“Taller?” Sarmin addressed the comment to his baby and smiled, jiggling the child to find his smile’s echo. “Will you climb such trees, Pelar?
You have a good start with a room like this.” He carried his son to one of the couches nearby and sat, cradling him on his lap. Little Pelar cooed to himself, looking about, wide eyed, dribbling onto Sarmin’s purple silks.
With index finger and thumb Sarmin unclenched one of Pelar’s fists and let it close again upon his smallest finger.
“What a grip!” He watched the baby’s face. “Do you see, Ta-Sann? An iron grip! Will he be a warrior, do you think?” May I give him the chance to
live that long.
“I cannot say, my emperor.”
Sarmin let Pelar’s questing mouth fasten upon his knuckle. The baby gummed it wetly, the strength of his bite surprising. Sarmin-emperor sat watching his brother’s son, swirling a finger across his forehead to make dark curls of his hair. “There’s a magic here.” He said it to no one in particular and no one answered.
The child shifted slightly in Sarmin’s lap and in that moment Pelar’s face turned towards him, his gaze unfocused, the dark and liquid eyes of innocence, Beyon’s eyes, Mesema’s eyes, and something quivered in the air between them, the ancient magic of blood and bone, father and son, so deep that beside it all of patterning seemed crude scratching on the surface of things.
Long moments and no words, only Pelar’s sucking and occasional growl of complaint at not being rewarded with milk. Sarmin sat in the dim coolness of the Forest Room and understood a new thing, a thing not written in his books.
“Would you die to protect me, Ta-Sann?”
“I would, my emperor.” Ta-Sann laid a long-fingered hand on the hilt of his hachirah.
“Why?”
“I was raised to protect the emperor. If you were to die and I still lived then my life would have had no mean
ing, my purpose would be spent.” “You’ve told me this before, Ta-Sann,” Sarmin said. “Today I understand it.”
Afternoon found him shuffling through the parchments brought by the priestess. Helmar had written something about a stone, precious to Meksha, in the foundation of the palace. Sarmin frowned, knowing he had read something about the stone before, or been told it, but the memory eluded him, fluttering away. He looked at his hand, cupped, as if it remembered the weight of such a stone. It might be a clue, a path to follow, to stop the palace from falling through the world like water through a torn skin. The bottom of his lantern held ashes but he did not remember burning anything there. Was there something the Many did not want him to know? He laid a hand on the Knife, the one that had killed the Pattern Master, and looked down at Helmar’s parchments. You are gone, Helmar, but you left so much behind.
But one of these parchments had not been left by Helmar. Lightly coloured and supple against his fingers, it matched his own supply from inside the drawer. Sarmin turned it towards the light from the window, the writing on its surface making no sense to him at first, an unpractised scrawl where he was accustomed to seeing a scribe’s smooth lettering or Helmar’s careful, looping cursive. When he recognized the words he dropped the parchment with a hiss of fear.
YOU are not the emperor.
It was written by the same man who had destroyed his Histories—but in truth Sarmin’s own hands had done both, driven by another man’s rage and another man’s will, just as another man’s lust had been spent in Jenni. Who was this man, and what did he want? A darkness welled in his mind. The Pattern Master had made Grada kill his guards and drive a knife between his ribs. How much harm might his own body do before he could wake to himself? He had woken Grada but there was no-one to wake him. He ran his fingers across the scar she had left. Grada. Where are you? He longed to hear her mind’s voice, but he had broken that bond, the last bond he’d had with any of the Many still alive. At times it felt as if he had cut off his own right hand.
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