Diadem from the Stars

by Clayton, Jo;

  With a derisive grin Zavar touched her forehead in a mock shalikk and tilted her head to look up at her taller cousin. “Since when does our regal lady bother to talk to us lowly babes? But I think it’s a Khug. I saw her down by the waterfall poking around the mills about midthaw. And I kept seeing Nar Khugson drifting around there a lot at the same time. You know what he’s like.”

  Aleytys wrinkled her nose. “Huh! Think she’ll marry out?”

  “A Khug? Not a hope.” Zavar stood up and shook out her abba. “No, indeed. You know damn well her aim’s higher than that. Haven’t you seen her snuggling up to Vajd? Give her eyeteeth to be consort. It’s enough to give you sweetsickness to hear her talk to him.”

  The laughter washed out of Aleytys. Her stomach knotted into a cold hard lump. “What about him?” she asked as casually as she could.

  Zavar caught her hand and squeezed it warmly. “She’s got about as much hope as Qumri getting Azdar back in the sack. Vajd’s Zeb fast to her dumb Aab. He saw through her years ago.” She gnawed on her lower lip and gazed seriously at Aleytys. “Be careful, will you, Leyta? If she ever suspected …” When Aleytys said nothing, she smiled and dropped the subject. After stretching and groaning, she said, “I nearly forgot. You go on down, Leyta. I better roust out the little mother and tell her she had a dozen beds to make. How she’ll love me …” Trailing a laugh behind her, she danced away down the hall.

  Whistling cheerfully, Aleytys clattered down the stairs. The patio doors stood open to the warming morning air and the corridor was a highway for darting, busy figures. Two asiri brushed past her, huge bundles of dirty sheets balanced on their heads. Aleytys wrinkled her nose with distaste. Laundry, she thought. Hate those damn soggy sheets. She pulled the hood up over her head and sauntered into the patio.

  With affectionate gentleness she slid her hands up and down the silken silvery bark of the housetree, letting the life-pulse tingle into her fingertips. As she purred with pleasure, she lifted her head and looked up at the sky. It was curving into a vast crystalline bowl of translucent blue-purple. Horli’s crimson edge was just beginning to poke over the top of the steep roof. The clean clear sky showed no trace of last night’s violent eruption. Aleytys rubbed her feet over the grass and stared up at the secret sky, curiosity a small hot point burning under her heart. The nashta bell rang and she turned back into the house.

  3

  Aleytys poked at the steamy lye-sour water with the poundstick. “Ai-Aschla,” she muttered, putting muscles into shoving the sheets around in the boiling water. The humidity in the low-ceiled room turned her hair into damp strings that slid into her eyes and mouth.

  She leaned on the poundstick for a moment and watched the asiri laughing and gossiping, her mouth twisted in a bitter smile at the well-marked area of silence separating her from that happy camaraderie. She sniffed and pushed the soggy strands of hair out of her face.

  Across the room Urdag looked up and frowned. As Aleytys met the cold hostile gaze, rebellion flared in her. She jabbed viciously at the sheets, then set the stick down on the floor, wiped her face and hands on the sweat rag, and calmly walked out of the room, ignoring Urdag’s angry shout.

  As she left the shelter of the building, Hesh’s radiation hit her face. Hastily she twitched the hood over her head and tucked in the stray ends of her long hair. The square was hot and peaceful, with a few stray currents of air pouring down the roof to shift the housetree’s fronds lazily about, their papery rustle emphasizing the hush. She leaned against the tree and sighed as the minty fragrance from the fronds drifted gently around her. “Aziz … muklis …” she murmured, closing her tired eyes.

  A sudden burst of angry shouting jerked her onto her toes facing the door. I’m not about to wait for this, she decided. With a last wary glance in the direction of the growing clamor, she fled across the grass and plunged into the entranceway.

  As she passed the heavy planked doors, which were shut only in winter at the first snow, she slowed to a walk, breathing more easily now that she was out of the house. She ambled through the dappled shade from the twin rows of horans marching down each side of the roadway, scuffing her feet so that small explosive puffs of white sand spurted up in front of her sandal toes. The four-fingered horan leaves were curling into loose rolls now, with their smooth silver under-surfaces turned to the suns’ light, so that their shadows were flickering rectangles, long and narrow like thickened branches.

  In the middle of the high wooden arch over the river, she stopped and leaned over the railing to gaze down into the crystal water tumbling past, pleased by the irregular shadow shapes of subtly varying shades of green and blue. In a kind of timeless trance she melted into the water going swhhsshsssswesshsshssh beneath her as the edges of the world drifted away, drowning in green and blue, drowning in the musical susurrus of the water’s voice.

  Aleytys … something … rippled, flowed, leaped, sensed the hard resistance of stone and the lesser barriers of the aging pilings, sensed the bending of the submerged grasses, and the tickling intrusion of scattered schools of fish. Far out at the edge of the expanding bubble of awareness that was-and-was-not-Aleytys, fugitive sparks of crimson caught at her, pulled her … it … whatever … and suddenly she was avid eyes fixed on a succulent worm crawling through sun-streaked shadow.

  Drifting … floating like an errant soap bubble … trickling back into herself.… Once again she felt the hot press of the suns on her neck and the glide of the railing under her hands. She slid her fingers over the rail in a delicate caress, delighting in the time-worn smoothness of the hard wood.

  Feeling warm, contented, at peace with herself temporarily at least, she moved on, the sand creaking cheerfully under her sandals. She lifted her head and smiled at the part of the Mari’fat she could see rising above its surrounding flounce of trees, its vivid eccentric splashes of orange, yellow, red, blue, and purple glowing in the quiet clarity of the morning light. She laughed with delight and kicked at the sand so that it flew up and sang in time with the joy beating in her veins.

  A path split off the main road, its mouth marked by tall thin Heshan daisies. She brushed her hand lightly across their blue-petaled heads, sending the heavy blooms dancing. The bell trees lining the path tinkled as the morning breezes shook their seedpods and the muted whisper of the river blended with the darting drones of shash, szuhm, and khasrat. Suddenly the gentle morning sound drowned in the rich harmonies of a barbat.

  Aleytys threw up her hands and danced exuberantly down the path, joy spurting like a fountain through her body, joy so intense she felt it exploding out of her, spraying the morning with its golden glory. The morning’s colors intensified, while her skin vibrated to sounds like the taut membrane of a drumhead. After a few more steps, her hood flipped back and her hair streamed out, each separate hair tingling with life.

  She rounded the last clump of zardagul bushes and saw the majestic old horan. Vajd was sitting on a huge smooth root, his back fitting into the curve of the trunk. Aleytys smiled tenderly at him, watching unseen as he danced music out of the barbat. He wore a dark blue and silver abba that fell in graceful folds around his lean strong body. The barbat he held was his favorite, an eccentric crescent of hand-oiled ballut inlaid with silver in the intricate naizeh patterns. As he let his fingers wander over the strings, he stared dream-caught into the water flowing past his feet. The gentle breeze drifting along the water ruffled through the fine black hair barred with streaks of white that straggled in shaggy curls around his thin sensitive face.

  “Vajd.”

  He looked up and saw her. “Leyta.” A warm smile lit his sunburned face. He patted the surface of the large flat rock that nestled against the root. “Come sit down. I’m working out a new song.”

  “Not working too hard, I see. Is it for a dream?” She knelt beside him.

  He chuckled. “It comes. A dream?” Humming lightly, he stroked the tips of his fingers over the back of her hand. “No. A marriage blessing.”
>
  Smiling, she rubbed his hand against her cheek. “Who is it? Do I know?”

  “Yara’s youngest daughter and Nilran Gavrinson.”

  “Oh.” Swinging her feet around, she dropped them over the edge of the rock and watched her dusty toes wiggle. She lowered her head and smiled at him from behind the curtain of her hair. “Coming here it happened again.”

  He set the barbat down and touched her forehead. “No heat. Strange.… When I started dreaming … I was younger, of course. What did you see?”

  “Well …” She stared dreamily into the water rushing past her feet. “I looked into the river and it was like … like I melted.… I felt a part of … of everything, trees, grass, water; then it broke.”

  “You’ve been doing the exercises?” He caught hold of her arm and pressed his fingers over the pulse. “You’re too excited, Leyta. Calm yourself. Can you?”

  Aleytys sucked in a long quivering breath, then let it trickle out again, concentrating on the soothing rhythms of the water until her body slowed, breathing deepened and slowed, heartbeat slowed, and she felt calm and tranquil. “Yes,” she said softly. “Every day at the beginning of khakutah.”

  “Have they helped?”

  Aleytys lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “Some,” she said slowly. “I think so. The … the experiences are coming more often now, but I’m not afraid anymore.”

  He gently brushed the hair back and turned her face toward him. “You’re gifted, Leyta. I don’t promise peace or happiness; you, know that. But your horizons will spread far beyond the narrow limits of the ordinary. Don’t ever be afraid to use your gifts, Leyta.” Suddenly he frowned and measured the height of Hesh. “It’s not khaladkar yet. Aren’t you supposed to be in the laundry now? You said yesterday you had …” He held her facing him when she tried to pull away.

  “I walked out.”

  “Tell me,” he said grimly.

  “I just got fed up.” A faint irritation stirring in her, she jerked away from his hand. “That’s all.” His hand dropped limply onto his knee. “Leyta, Leyta,” he said wearily. “You know better.”

  “What can they do to me? Beat me?” She shrugged. “What’s new about that? No matter what I do, Qumri manages to find something wrong, so why should I try?”

  He was silent, his face grimly troubled.

  “You tell me, my love. If nothing I do can ever please, why should I try?”

  “Leyta … ah, Madar! You just don’t understand.”

  “Understand?” she said tightly. “How can I? I don’t know … there’s nothing more I can do. Look.” She spread out her hands. “I work harder than the asiri. All the creams I can beg … beg! A daughter of the house and I have to beg for hand cream, for … oh, everything. Thanks to the kindness of a few … I can count them on the fingers of one hand. And this morning Jorchi … a baby … he cursed me … called me red bitch. I know I live here on sufferance. But why? Why? Tell me, Vajd.”

  “Leyta.” He looked harried and unsure of himself. “I … don’t ask me. I am forbid. The shura’…”

  She shifted impatiently. “Even you. Even you.”

  “Leyta …”

  Her mouth twisted bitterly. “You slept with me. Aren’t you forbid to do that too? But of course that was secret.”

  “Leyta …”

  Stubbornly she ignored him and kicked her heels against the rock.

  “All right, aziz.” Capitulating suddenly, spreading his hands out palms up, he said, “With the fireball stirring up old hate and old fears you should know what you’re facing.”

  She slanted a glance at him past the curtain of her hair. “The fireball? She frowned. “Last night Qumri called me whore-daughter.”

  Vajd caught hold of her shoulder and swung her around. “Why? What did you do?”

  “I went outside to look at the sky.” She wriggled under his bruising grip. “You’re hurting me.”

  “At night?”

  “Vajd, you’re hurting me.”

  “Answer me.”

  “I wanted to see the fireball, or at least …” She pushed at his hand. “Vajd …”

  He closed his eyes and let her free her shoulder. “Aleytys.”

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this.”

  “No wonder, aziza-mi.” He smiled at her and touched her cheek. “It’s a long troubled story.”

  “Vajd, stop it. What’s so bad you keep putting off telling me?” She beat her fist impatiently on her thigh. “Tell me! Tell me why Qumri hates me so much she goes crazy whenever she sees me? And why am I the only one in the valley with red hair? Why did the shura’ shut me off from love until even you don’t dare touch me out of shadow? And Azdar … only time he’ll stay in the same room with me is mealtime. Why?”

  He stroked her shining hair gently, running his fingers through the springy red-gold mass. Stray tendrils blew around his wrist and curled into a bright bracelet. Aleytys slowly relaxed and leaned back against his shoulder. “There’s not time now, muklis,” he said softly. “Someone could come along any minute and see us.”

  “Well?” She closed her eyes, her body purring with pleasure as he continued to caress her.

  “Tonight. We might as well take double care. Come here. Thirty hour. Can you?”

  “If I have to jump off the roof.”

  He laughed and tilted her head so that she was looking up into his face. With a warm affectionate smile lighting his eyes, he said, “Will you bless the Madar with me this night, muklis, mashuq?” Without waiting for an answer his mouth was warm against hers, his hands moving over her back. Then he shoved her onto her feet and jumped up. “Go on, Leyta. Get out of here.”

  4

  Aleytys dawdled down the roadway, moving slower and slower as she neared the black rectangle of the entranceway with its huge plank doors angled out like clumsy wings. She edged cautiously up to the opening and peered inside.

  The tunnel looked empty. Aleytys suddenly realized she was holding her breath and let the air out in an explosive puff. She darted into the tunnel and ran as fast as she could toward the patio.

  The air whooshed out of her as she slammed into the elastic resistance of a body. She bounced off and stumbled back against the wall. When her eyes cleared, her stomach muscles twisted painfully. “Qumri,” she whispered.

  “Bitch.” The word hissed malevolently. “Bitch in heat. Who were you with today? I told him …” Her face contorted into an ugly mask as the poisonous rage seethed inside her while she quivered all over so that her abba fluttered like a horan in a winter gale. “I told him it wouldn’t work. I should have strangled you the day you were born. Rusvai … Haya … slacking taklif, sneaking out.… You dare … you … after last night.…” The low venom-filled words stumbled out from her writhing lips with spattering drops of spit.

  Aleytys felt sick and disgusted. She pressed her hands against the wall finding a kind of comfort in the cold rough solidity of the stone.

  “I told him.…” The whisper went on. “I told him … he couldn’t keep your legs shut … like your mother … aaaahhhh!” She shrieked and leaped at Aleytys.

  Frozen for just a minute too long, Aleytys tried to duck away but felt fingers sink like claws into the flesh of her shoulder. Qumri shook her until tears squeezed out of her eyes.

  “Like your mother … filthy beast witch-woman … whose man did you take … who’d you poison so he wouldn’t look at me … at her again … like your mother … with that hell-fire hair.… Haya!”

  Aleytys twisted away from the hot breath stirring in her face. Her paralysis shattered and she fought until she broke away. Ducking under Qumri’s whirling arms she fled out into the patio, halting by the housetree.

  Hands opening and closing spasmodically, her pale gold face flushed an ugly mottled red, Qumri stalked out of the entranceway. Her eyes fixed on the object of her hatred, she demanded again, “Rusvai, who is he?” Each step she took toward Aleytys she spit out another phrase. “Who
woke the curse … who breaks our house? Curse … you … your bitch mother.…”

  “Salkurdeh khatu!” The man’s deep voice broke into the ugly scene, startling Aleytys so that she bumped her head hard against the tree as she whipped around toward him. “Ahai, Ziraki!” She blinked and shook her head to clear it. Then she looked at Qumri and gasped. The angry woman’s body wilted and the color drained from her face. She looked back at Ziraki. His face was as red as if the color had leaped from Qumri to him. Frown lines ran in tier on tier of wrinkles from the corners of his eyes to his nose, from his nose to the corners of his mouth, from his mouth down under his pointed chin.

  “Come here,” he snapped, crooking his finger at her.

  Puzzled and a little apprehensive, she edged over to him, still watching Qumri out of the corners of her eyes.

  “You. Qumri.” She lowered her hooded eyes and wouldn’t look at him. “You’ve said too much already, woman. Taklif waits for your hands. Azdar may want to see you later.”

  Walking like a tired old mundarik Qumri plodded across the grass and vanished into the house.

  Aleytys scrubbed the end of her sleeve across her sweaty face. “Thanks, Ziraki.”

  “Follow me,” he said in a colorless voice. He turned and strode for the nearest door. Inside the house he stopped in front of the records room. “Go in and sit down.”

  She hurried past him and stood beside the long table.

  “Sit down.” He watched her from the doorway.

  Nervously she pulled out the chair and dropped into it. She glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes, then set shaking hands on the table, folding them together.

  “Aleytys.” He said her name sharply, spitting it out as if he found the syllables upsetting.

  “Yes?” She kept her eyes on her hands.

  “The shura’ have called a mulaqat in the finjan Topaz.”

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not to go.”

  She jerked around and stared at him in astonishment. “What?”