And there at last was common ground firm enough to stand on. “Me too,” Día said, warmly and without hesitation. “I’m just sorry the circumstances weren’t better.”
Penten nodded and smoothed the lap of her dress. “So am I. Hopefully your next visit will be a happier one.”
Which implied that there would be a next visit, and perhaps that this one was nearing its end. Día groped for a polite way to ask. “Was there anything else I should take home with me?”
Penten smiled and rose smoothly to her feet. “Some of our chokecherry wine, I think, and as much honey-cake as I can persuade you to carry. I’ll have it brought to you directly.”
Día returned the smile and accepted her host’s proffered hand. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure the Dog Lady won’t mind helping me bring them home. Have you seen her, by the way?” U’ru’s mind had faded out of Día’s awareness almost as soon as she was out of sight yesterday, but that was apparently an expected consequence of their presence here at the heart of another god’s domain.
Penten’s expression faltered as she helped Día to her feet. “Ah... I think she’s already gone. I saw her walking down the eastern slope with her mereau friend a couple of hours ago. Were you waiting for her?”
Día had been sitting too long, or else stood up too quickly.
Mother Dog? Do you hear me?
No... of course not. How could that be a surprise? U’ru would have gone after Elim again. He was her real ‘puppy’, the one whose first surfacing was reason enough to leave Día to drown. And as for Miss du Chenne... well, she’d walked off twelve years ago, and Día was more than old enough to know never to count on that terrible old witch for anything.
“No,” she said, countering the sickening lightness of her bare head with a hand on the wall. “No, I suppose not. But if you could... if you would be so kind as to direct me, on how best to get back to Island Town...” ... because I seem to have been stranded out here.
That must have been written all over her face. Certainly it was reflected in Penten’s eyes. “Of course,” Marhuk’s daughter said. “We’ll get you a horse and supplies – everything you need.”
“Thank you,” Día said, bringing her entire short lifetime’s worth of social conditioning to bear as she formed each word. “I’m so much in your debt.”
And all philosophical differences aside, she did owe Penten considerably: for her kindness and patience, her compassion and professionalism, and now, apparently, for an expensive array of parting gifts as well. But Día was most profoundly grateful for the way Marhuk’s daughter neglected to let go of her hand as the two of them started back down the path... not because she feared a fall, but because her next dizzy glance down at the sprawling verdant valley below assured Día that she no longer had mass enough to hit the ground.
OREKUT CHEATED AT dice. This was known.
And Sakat would have done well to remember that last night. But as the saying went, every backward glance was a mirror – and now it was too late. Sakat had lost the bet, and so he was going to have to do the dirty work.
And oh, was it ever.
He could smell it as he made his way down the hall – a sour bouquet of body odor and fermented cherry vomit that only grew stronger as he approached the door at the end of the corridor.
Still, the quiet was unnerving. There was no weeping now, no screaming or sobbing or stupefied alcoholic snoring – an eerie silence that prickled Sakat’s neck-hairs as he approached.
What if the disgraced wastrel had actually done it? What if he’d decided to redeem himself by following his atodak in feeding the crows?
Probably for the best. A waste, to be sure, but not much of one.
Still, it took Sakat a moment to steady himself, mentally preparing for whatever he might find as he took a last silent footstep and peered through the half-open door.
But no, there was no body on the floor, none hanging from the beams. There was only that same swaying drunkard standing there on the far side of the room, his back to the door, a bowl of water on the table – and a knife in his hand.
Sakat swallowed. This was a more difficult thing. He couldn’t stand here and watch like an eavesdropping woman while a child of Marhuk emptied his veins... and yet he didn’t relish the idea of disturbing a wine-soaked madman with a weapon.
But even as Sakat stared, the prince’s free hand gathered up the long unwashed tangles of his hair, holding them in a fist at the back of his neck. He pulled his hair tight, making a taut, greasy black ribbon. He held the knife against it, as one would press a blade against a hostage’s throat.
Sakat swallowed, transfixed. A man might lose his plaits if he were defeated in war, and an enemy cut them away for trophies, or if he were convicted of treason and cast out – permanently unrecognized. But no sane man would willingly take a knife to his own hair. He might as well be saying he wasn’t a’Krah.
The prince stood, swaying, looking down into his reflection in the water-bowl, his body tensing with intoxicated resolve.
Then, with a furious, frustrated cry, he hurled the knife away with such force that he lost his balance and toppled to the floor, the thud of his body punctuated by the discarded clatter of the blade. He groped on all fours, weeping like a day-old widow, pawing through the gourds and bottles littering the floor until he found one with some substance left, and tipped it straight up to stopper his mouth, stanching his hysterical grief for the length of five frantic swallows.
Sakat let out his breath. Back to business as usual, then.
So he announced himself with a loud shuffling of his feet, and turned his wrists out into the ashet as he entered the disgusting room. Best to get this over with.
“Pardon me, marka,” he said, careful to skim the contempt from his voice. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. Our reverend To’taka Marhuk sent me with a message.”
The prince turned with a slow, clumsy effort, struggling to prop himself up on one hand as he met Sakat’s gaze in a sickly, dull-eyed stupor.
When it seemed there would not be a reply, Sakat continued. “He says that Dulei’s atodak has taken the craven path, and fled to exile. He says that he has decided to make this an opportunity for you. He says that if you care to find Echep, and if he will serve you, his death-obligation will be excused. He may continue to live in honor, as your own atodak.” As one selfish coward in service to another.
The prince stared at Sakat in silence for a long moment: his stained shirt shifting with every heavy breath, his lip quivering over a dribble of wine, his eyes bright with glazed, glittering hate.
Then he pitched forward and began to retch.
Sakat flinched, scarcely able to conceal his revulsion as he stood there in the wasted remains of a room more splendid than any his family would ever know. Priceless plush rugs stained red with drink, and now filling with streams of hot vomit. A luxurious bed of down feathers and master-woven wool, now a piss-reeking rumpled heap. Broken crockery, spilled wine, spoiled food and ruined clothes – a festering midden of luxuries mindlessly swallowed and then joylessly disgorged.
Sakat stayed long enough to see that the prince did not choke or black out. He stayed longer than that, even – until the prince resumed his hands-and-knees hunt for liquid solace, having either forgotten about Sakat or elected to ignore him.
When it was clear that there would be no answer, Sakat made the ashet again. “It will be as you have said, marka.” Then he excused himself, all too glad to leave the spoiled, crying child crawling in squalor through a mess of his own making.
DÍA WOULD BE fine. Everything would be fine. She was by herself, a hundred miles from home, and barely knew how to sit a horse, but she would be all right... somehow.
It wasn’t so hot now, for one thing, and she would take something to shield her from the sun. Even if the horse ran off, she could still walk home, as long as she had enough food and water.
Even with the drought.
Even despite the thieves, and t
hose monstrous things she’d stopped with the fire, and whoever had sunk those corpses in the oasis at Yaga Chini.
No, she’d just... well, she would just take it one step at a time, that was all. She would just put one foot in front of the other until she was all the way back in her papá’s arms.
Yes, that was it. Día forced away all thought of Halfwick and Weisei and the Azahi, pushed aside her doubts, and aligned the needle of her moral compass with Fours. He loved her. He was missing her. He would be desperately worried about her, and no-one here could say anything to the contrary. She had cleared away all the rest of her obligations, and now her only task was to return safely to him.
By the time the knock came, Día was ready to go. She answered the door with questions prepared for Penten or whoever she’d sent in her place, ready to secure everything she would need to have or know or do to help herself make it home alive.
She was not prepared for Winshin Marhuk.
The a’Krah woman might have been drinking. She had certainly been crying. But compared to yesterday, she was a marvel of composure: her hair neatly braided, her makeup fresh and unspoiled, her sharp features innocent of everything but sincerity as she gathered her outer-robe in her hands – and curtseyed.
“Ambassador. Forgive me for disturbing you – I heard you were leaving soon, and I wanted to come by to apologize.”
Día could not have been more astonished if a cougar had rubbed up against her legs and mewed. “Oh, you don’t... really, that’s not necessary,” she said, struggling to gather her wits. Had Penten put her up to this?
If she had, Winshin didn’t let on. She dipped her head in polite disagreement. “No, it is. Yesterday was – it was one of the worst days of my life, and I would hate for that to be your only impression of me. I’m so sorry.”
Her Marín was as smooth as her youthful features, and Día had to remind herself that she was speaking with a woman old enough to have an adult son – old enough to have fought in wars that had ended before Día was even born, and perhaps to have negotiated a peace or two.
Día would try to keep up. “So am I,” she said, and had no trouble meaning it. “About your son, I mean. I see how much you love him.”
Winshin glanced down, but not before Día saw the fresh well of pain in her reddened eyes. “Thank you,” she said, her voice just a little thicker. “It’s... he was my only one.”
And what was Día doing, keeping a grieving mother standing here at the door? She ought to invite her in, give the poor woman some relief... even if she was the same person who had made a bloody applesauce of Halfwick’s torso yesterday. Día glanced down, noticing how Winshin’s hands were hidden in her over-robe. “I can’t imagine how much you must miss him,” she said, racked and stalling with indecision.
Marhuk’s daughter looked up. “Do you have any children?”
Día flushed. “Oh, no. I’m – I’ve sworn myself to chastity.” Hang it all, this was no conversation for an open door. “Wouldn’t you like to come in?” She stepped aside, acutely aware that she had just invited the other woman across the literal threshold.
Winshin followed her in, though there wasn’t really anywhere to sit, or room for comfortable conversation: just the table and the cold fire-pit and the plush pile of bedding on the floor. Was it appropriate to offer that as a seat? Would Día look hopelessly vulgar if she tried?
“Chastity? That’s very selfless of you,” Winshin said, her tired eyes innocent of suggestion. “But why would you do that?”
Out. Definitely should have invited her out. Día clasped her hands awkwardly, squelching the urge to tug on dreadlocks she didn’t have. “Well, so that I may better serve my god. As a grave bride, I –”
Winshin made a peculiar clucking noise. “Oh! I’m sorry – I wasn’t clear. I do understand your occupation. What I mean is, why would your god want you?”
Día froze.
She searched Winshin’s face for maliciousness, any hint of understanding for what an appallingly tasteless question that was. But the a’Krah woman’s expression wore nothing but a look of the most serious inquiry, as if Día were some sort of newly-discovered paradox. And it would not do to accuse a daughter of Marhuk of deliberate insult – not when Día was a lone foreigner among the a’Krah, begging charity enough to get home with.
“... why wouldn’t he?”
Winshin lifted her eyebrows in surprise. “Why, for the same reason He wouldn’t want me either. We are marked as inferior.”
Oh, thank goodness. Día had heard that one before. “Actually, that’s not quite accurate. The word maculata doesn’t refer to dark skin – it simply means something impure. So the people of Tam Shen –”
“Yes,” Winshin said, the very portrait of a serious student, “but I wasn’t referring to Tam Shen. As you know, the Curse of Misraim condemned his children to wander the desert as ‘servants of servants’, and the sun blackened them –”
“But that was a curse laid by his father, not by God,” Día gently interjected, “which means it can last no more than seven generations.” Even if people had been using it to justify making slaves of the Afriti for far longer.
Winshin frowned. “Then how do you account for the Blood Prohibition?”
Día blinked. “I’m sorry?”
The a’Krah woman cast her gaze up to the low stone ceiling, as if bringing the words down from the attic of her memory. “‘Defile no holy office with the slave woman’s son, nor any of his issue: no, not for a score of a score of generations; a single drop of bonded blood bars him.’ –That’s the Third Order of Meniah, but I’d have to look up the verse.”
Día had never heard of Meniah. That sounded like something from the Lex Rubia – a part of the Verses she didn’t have. She swallowed, loathe to admit the extent of her ignorance, especially in her present company. “Your command of the scriptures is impressive,” she said. “Where did you study them?”
Winshin eyed her, but did not remark on this convenient shift of subject. “Marhuk tasks us to learn the ways of our enemies,” she said. “I spent my youth studying your god’s word, so that I would understand how to destroy him. But since we aren’t enemies anymore, I have no more need of this –”
She stepped forward, her hands moving under her robe, and Día instinctively flinched back –
– as Winshin withdrew a beautifully bound gold-edged book.
But one look at her face promised that Día’s recoil had not gone unnoticed, and the a’Krah woman’s expression cooled on the spot.
“I’m sorry,” Día said. “You just startled me. I didn’t –”
Winshin tossed the book on the bed, reached into her robe again, and brought out her knife. “Was this what you expected?”
Día’s eyes darted from the blade to the book, frantic to excuse herself. “Oh, certainly not. Is that a copy of the Verses? It’s beautiful.”
“It’s yours,” Winshin said, her voice dead of warmth.
“I couldn’t possibly,” Día said, not least because she’d just managed to insult the giver. “It’s far too dear, and I don’t have anything to give you in return.”
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Winshin said, tossing the knife in her hand, watching the glint of the metal as it spun, catching it expertly each time.
Día would not let herself cringe again – but she wouldn’t ignore the weapon either. She swallowed. “I’m sure I can find something. Could you – would you mind putting that away?”
Winshin’s gaze slid back over to Día’s face. She caught the knife, the hilt meeting her hand with a solid thap, and did not toss it again. “Why, ambassador, what do you have to fear from me?”
“Nothing,” Día hurried to assure her. “Nothing, of course, but if it accidentally slipped –”
Winshin folded her arms, fixing Día with a heavy-lidded stare. “‘Fear not the sword nor the lash nor the arrows of the infidel, for nothing may touch you who walk under the grace of heaven.’”
Día kne
w the verse. And now she understood the game. Winshin meant to slip that knife between Día and her devotion, prise her out from her professions of faith like a thief working a jewel out of a monument’s eye.
Well, let her try. Día’s lips pressed to a hard line; she lifted her chin and straightened, her bare feet warming the floor. “‘Look fast to your weapons, faithful men of God, and pray no help until you have exhausted your own right arm.’”
Some of yesterday’s anger rekindled in Winshin’s eyes; she took a step forward, the knife bright at her side. “‘Hypocrites, pretenders, affectors of piety, martyrs in word and liars in deed – quit My sight, ye cursed; I turn my face away.’”
“I am no hypocrite!” Día cried. “I am a faithful servant of God!”
And Winshin smirked. “A pity, then, that your great faith didn’t encompass the reading of your own holy book. I made up that last verse.”
Día took a step back, the hem of her cassock brushing the wall behind her, her face burning in anger and shame. “A blessing, then, that your son didn’t live to see his mother’s capacity for wickedness.”
That hit home. Winshin’s eyes widened; her jaw tensed. “And what do you know of my wickedness?” she hissed, pressing forward, brandishing the knife, forcing Día to the corner.
But Día would not give her the satisfaction of seeing her fear. She stuffed it all down in her stomach, keeping her gaze on the other woman’s face and her voice steady with the weight of conviction. “Only that you will be called to answer for it.”
“Will I!” Winshin barked. “And will you be rewarded for your righteousness? If I drive this knife into your gut right now, will God restore you, as he restored the Northman boy?”
Dreams of the Eaten Page 40
