Like a forgery of herself.
Don’t be silly, Mrithuri, said a voice inside her head. It might have been the voice of the Mother. It might have been the voice of her own common sense. If you were an illusion, you would have vanished when the Godmade sounded its chime.
It was a more comforting piece of logic, somehow, than it ought to have been.
Chaeri drew up short before her and dropped a curtsy, sniffling, head bowed and one knee to the ground. She composed her torn skirt about her scratched ankles. “Rajni…?”
“Where have you been?” If Mrithuri’s voice trembled, it was not for lack of effort to keep it serene. She was aware of her people drawn up around her and Chaeri like a silent ring of stones.
“Rajni, in the garden.”
“You’ve torn your dress.”
“I ran into a thicket following a songbird.” Chaeri’s laugh was fluttery and self-dismissive. She looked from one of Mrithuri’s advisors to the next. Her gaze did not linger, except perhaps on Yavashuri. And on the corpse that was Nizhvashiti, standing like a plinth. “Mother of us all, may I speak to you alone?”
The Dead Man shot her a glance. Does he think I need his interference at every crossroads?
“I am as alone as I need to be.” Mrithuri’s own words surprised her. “These friends can hear what passes between us.”
And she suddenly did not want to be alone with Chaeri at all.
Chaeri would have protested, Mrithuri thought, but she snuck a glance at Mrithuri’s face and whatever expression she saw there stopped her. She had begun weeping, tears speckling her hands as she bent over them.
The door to the room opened again, and Ata Akhimah walked in. “I felt a spell bre—oh.”
Mrithuri was cold. A kind of fury took her, a rage at her own foggy thoughts and limited mind. At how lacking her intellect was without the venom, and how she could feel her own flawed, heavy, painful body dragging at her. Maybe this was what had driven Nizhvashiti to that ultimate mortification of the flesh, to make itself as light and powerful as possible, a husk animated by a burning mind.
“I sent for you to bring my serpents, Chaeri. A long time ago.”
Chaeri sobbed.
Mrithuri’s veins burned. Her thoughts were wrapped in cotton wool. This is farcical, she thought. She is not even hearing me.
She would have liked to be a husk just then.
“What?”
It was one word, and it held all the weight of the frustrated wrath inside her.
Wordlessly, Chaeri pulled a crumpled, blood-spotted, folded sheaf of paper from her blouse. Sobs fluttered its edges.
Mrithuri stooped and took it from her. It was damp with sour-scented sweat. In her own hand, it trembled slightly as well, but that was just because she was missing the steadying influence of snakebite.
“What is this?”
Chaeri shook her head, still sobbing. Sighing, Mrithuri held out her hand to her other maid.
Yavashuri unwound a shawl from her own plump shoulders and put it in Mrithuri’s hand. Mrithuri draped it over Chaeri, then unfolded the thing in her hand.
The nuns began their chant within the walls. The Cauled Sun was setting.
The room brightened, the heat of the day fading. It would have been nearly time to arise, in the usual manner of things. But what was usual during war?
Chaeri’s sobs slowed. It was too dark to read the letter here, though that was rapidly ameliorating. She took the letter to the window.
It was in plain text, not a cipher, and showed the marks of much abuse. But it was written in ink that would not feather in the damp, and addressed to herself: Mrithuri Rajni, with all her dignities appended. It was in the late ambassador’s hand.
Your Abundance—
I write to you, my lady, in pleading. I know I have not conducted myself with dignity and rationality these days. I have made myself unwelcome in your presence with my disruptions. I regret this deeply.
I could not send this message by another’s hand. I must speak to you directly because there is a spy in your inner circle, and I know not who.
I have been acting out of fear, Your Abundance. In full terror for my life. Because my loyalty to Anuraja is insufficient before his demand.
I have been directed to die in order to provide an excuse for war between our kingdoms. I have been directed to die.
And I find I do not wish to.
More followed. An offer to join her service with such intelligence as he could provide, including code books and the like. An offer to enlighten her as to the nature of Anuraja’s pet sorcerer—or, as Mahadijia seemed to have thought, the sorcerer who kept Anuraja as a sort of pet.
At the bottom was Mahadijia’s personal chop, impressed in wax of brilliant green.
Mrithuri finished the letter before she realized she was not breathing. The pain under her breastbone felt physical, as if she had been struck in the chest.
She read the letter again, lingering over the phrasing. She knew the hand, and it did indeed sound like Mahadijia. She left it unfolded and handed it to Ata Akhimah. She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingertips and said, “Oh, Chaeri. Get up, would you?”
Silently, Chaeri obeyed her, still hiding behind her draggled hair.
Mrithuri looked out the window. “You have done the enemy’s work for him. And then some.”
Akhimah was a quick reader, and despite the letter’s length she made short work of it. She sighed, in her turn, and held it out.
The Dead Man moved next to take it.
What a pack of fools we look. Standing around taking polite turns with a document that reveals how we could have saved our lives.
The Dead Man held the letter at arm’s length, squinting at it.
Ata Akhimah grinned at him. “I will make you reading glasses.”
“In time of war?”
The Wizard scoffed. “When have you more need to read your orders?”
“Do not feel so bad, Captain,” said Lady Golbahar. “It is only maturity.”
The Dead Man glanced over at her. “That is a kind way of putting it.”
The lady, head bowed, only smiled.
Mrithuri knew what they were doing. That they were playing a game to take the edge of the tension off. To make everything seem a little less terrible and lost. She glanced over her shoulder and said, “Read it aloud.”
The Dead Man handed it back to Akhimah with a look of relief. They stood, and listened. Mrithuri watched all the faces change except Chaeri’s, which was as miserable and still as if it were carved on a temple to give a face to mourning.
“You hid this,” Mrithuri said to Chaeri, when Akhimah was done.
Chaeri nodded. “Yes.”
“Why?”
The maid of the bedchamber sobbed once, and seemed to steel herself. “I thought you would blame me.”
“I do,” Mrithuri said.
It was petty but it felt good. Sometimes you take your pleasures where you can. And it was better than slapping the girl, though that, at this point, would have been even more satisfying. Mrithuri stepped away from the window. She strode past Chaeri, into the center of the room, enjoying the freedom of movement her trousers and tunic offered. Assuming they won the war, she might almost miss it when it was over. If just for the comfortable clothing.
Maybe I was never meant to be a queen.
Maybe. But she was good at ruling. She was good at law-giving. She was good at all the things that came with the mantle of rajni.
And they were her job. They were her duty.
She could tolerate the inconveniences of fingerstalls and coifs and masks and stiff embroidered drapes to perform them.
“He had his knife in his hand,” Chaeri said tearfully. “His knife! How was I to know?”
Mrithuri jumped in surprise as the Dead Man rounded on her handmaiden. She had never seen him display temper before, or any emotion more dramatic than anxiety, or a world-weary amusement that she found strangely comfortin
g.
Now, without warning, he roared. “How are we to believe you that this is so? Your word is worth nothing!”
Chaeri surprised her, flaring up in self-defense. “Why would I have come to tell you about this letter if I were a murderer?”
“No one said you were a murderer,” the Dead Man answered silkily.
Yavashuri and Hnarisha turned their heads from side to side, watching the outrage as if it were some lawn sport. Akhimah moved to put her body between Mrithuri and the combatants. Syama growled low and confusedly in her throat. These are pack, her distress seemed to say. Which do I support?
“You certainly implied it, if you did not exactly speak the words.” Chaeri crossed her arms.
“This man you killed thought there was a spy in your midst.” The Dead Man took a step back, his heel clicking on tile. “In order to keep that information from us … it would be a good reason for a spy to kill him.”
“Someone got into his room and burned his papers.” Chaeri glared at Ata Akhimah. “That had to be somebody with magic, didn’t it? No one else could have gotten through his spell.”
“He might have had some talisman on his person that allowed him to find his way back,” Akhimah said, in the voice of one merely making conversation. “His killer would be the one most likely to have taken such a thing away.”
“By the River of the World, just stop it,” Mrithuri snapped. They fell silent so abruptly that she realized she was half-surprised to be listened to. Weren’t you just musing on what an effectual ruler you are?
Chaeri turned appealing eyes to Mrithuri. “Rajni, you have trusted me in every extreme. We have known each other our whole lives. When would I have found the time to betray you?”
Mrithuri would have glared, if she had not been so tired it was all she could do not to reach out and balance with her hand against the wall. She needed venom, or rest. She needed peace and calm. “All of you.”
Chaeri took a step back.
The door … opened again. And this time, the person who walked in was the middle-aged matriarch of the troupe of acrobats who had arrived in the same caravan as the Dead Man and the Gage, and Golbahar. Her name, if Mrithuri recollected, was Ritu.
Mrithuri could not have said who she might have expected less, except perhaps for her own dead grandfather.
“Your Abundance,” the woman said, sweeping an elegant bow. “I was looking for you.”
“Is this a farce?” Mrithuri wondered. “Or now that this room is found, does it have some mystic connection to the highway?”
“Rajni?”
“Make an appointment.” She pointed rudely to Hnarisha. “There is my secretary.”
Mrithuri looked around her. She knew she was scowling, the regal mask of placidity slipped utterly askew. “I am going to my rooms,” she said, when she had gathered herself sufficiently that her voice might not shake. “Chaeri, you will attend me.”
The Dead Man made a noise. Mrithuri turned her glare on him, and he fell silent.
But she could not quite bring herself to punish him by risking herself. Even in the depths of her craving and irritation, she knew that would be foolhardy. She hooked a hand. “Ata, you too. Unless the walls are right now falling?”
The acrobat drew back against the wall next to the door and shook her head.
“Good,” Mrithuri said, and swept out, trailing her ragtag entourage of three, counting a confused and unhappy Syama.
* * *
Ritu stayed pinned by the wall for a moment after Mrithuri left, for all the world as if the rajni had glued her there. Her gaze sought the Dead Man’s. He wondered if she could tell just from his eyes above the veil how stricken he was.
Lady Golbahar definitely could, however. The three of them stood staring at each other until Hnarisha cleared his throat, and they all remembered he and Yavashuri were still there. They startled collectively.
It was Ritu who broke the awkwardness. “What was that all about?” she asked, looking at Golbahar.
“The queen’s handmaiden is probably a murderess,” Golbahar said, with her own very precise air of deadpan succinctness.
“And definitely a killer,” the Dead Man added, feeling it was the sort of distinction that needed pointing up. “I’m sorry,” he said aside to Hnarisha. “I know she is an old acquaintance.”
The little man made a face. “What are your theories about that little drama?”
“She likes attention,” said Golbahar.
“That she does,” Hnarisha admitted. He leaned back against the wall beside the window with a sigh. He lowered his voice. “Would you recruit her as an agent?”
The Dead Man said, “She has the queen’s—”
“Rajni’s.”
“Rajni’s, sorry. She has the rajni’s ear. And affection. If not entirely her trust anymore.”
Hnarisha said, “She obviously meant to distract us from searching here. And that distraction was, perhaps, important enough to anger my rajni a little. More than a little.”
“The confession about the letter was dramatic,” Golbahar agreed.
Ritu bit the nail on her thumb. “This place is important, then?”
“Pardon,” Hnarisha said. “I do not know you well—”
“I will give her my parole,” said the Dead Man. “I know, you do not know me well either—”
Hnarisha shook his head. “That hole in your jacket says I know you well enough.” He frowned at Ritu. “These are the rooms of the ambassador who was killed a little after you arrived. By the rajni’s handmaiden, Chaeri. She claimed, at the time, in defense of the rajni.”
Ritu said, “And you are concerned that the rajni’s handmaiden’s reasons are not as provided?”
Hnarisha, judiciously, moved his chin up, and down.
“So we must search all the more,” Ritu said.
There were still too many people in the room, even if one of them was the unmoving corpse of Nizhvashiti. It was hot and airless. The Dead Man picked his veil away from the sweat on his face to let his skin breathe.
“She will need more ladies of the chamber,” Yavashuri said suddenly. “She has done with me, and Chaeri. Chaeri cannot be alone with her. She will need women who can counsel and protect her. And she will … she will resist. She does not like the cosseting and the fuss. And she does not like her … privacy…”
“Interrupted?” the Dead Man said, the word freighted with meaning.
Yavashuri turned her head as if she did not hear. “You, Lady Golbahar—”
“I am not a fighter,” Golbahar said.
“I am,” said Ritu. “It is not the first time I have been a bodyguard.”
The Dead Man looked at her muscled arms. He remembered the sword-dance he had seen her family perform. No, he would warrant not.
And he did trust her—and Lady Golbahar. They had traveled long and hard together, and both had had plenty of chances to sell the caravan, whose master was spying for Mrithuri in foreign lands, out to Himadra and her other enemies if they had wanted.
“Talk to the rajni,” he told Yavashuri. “I am afraid she is angry with me.”
“She is angry at anyone who comes between her and her solace,” Yavashuri said. The Dead Man thought it almost as good a euphemism as “maturity.” “I will suggest that she take Ritu into service. I will complain that my old hands ache too much to hold a comb.” She glanced suspiciously at Ritu. “You can ply a comb?”
For answer, Ritu held out her oil-sleek braid.
Yavashuri’s wrinkled little mouth surprised the Dead Man by smiling. She said, “Now let us search these rooms, as we have been instructed. Perhaps we can find something that is not burnt.”
They stepped apart, moving to investigate all the apartment’s furnishings and corners. This seemed likely to take some time. The Dead Man suspected he should, while it was happening, get himself back to the war.
But as he walked out, he contrived to pass close by Ritu. “We’re fucked,” the Dead Man said softly t
o the acrobat.
“I know,” Ritu answered. “Don’t tell the rajni, though. I like her and she might as well have what comfort she can, for now.”
“Your sword is straight and mine is curved,” he murmured. “So between them we have a fit for any foe.”
“Actually,” she whispered, turning away, “mine is as curved as yours is.”
* * *
The Dead Man went briefly to his chambers. He couldn’t remember, exactly, when he had last set foot in them. When he’d bathed after the unpleasant incident in the cellars, he thought. He shut the door and leaned against the wall, alone.
“I could have a new coat made for you,” Mrithuri had said, so diffidently he might have forgotten she was a queen.
The Dead Man’s first response had been horrified denial: to spurn her offered gift. His mouth was open beneath the veil to rebut when he gentled himself, took a breath, snatched the words back. She would not understand why he spurned her gift: she would take it as a rejection, if he was not careful.
But how did you explain that the blood of your family had soaked into this coat? That the ashes of your former home were ground between the fibers and into the lanolin on the wool?
How could you say such things to a young woman who was the queen of a city under siege?
And yet, protecting her from the truth did her no favors.
Oh, of course, she could surrender. She could give up her kingdom, her body, and her life to her vile cousin. It would not be good for her loyal men and women if she did, the Dead Man suspected. Anuraja would find the means to separate Mrithuri from anyone who might put her before him.
It was in the nature of conquest to subvert as many among those you would conquer as possible, and then to set the conquered against one another. To divide, segregate, exploit such chasms and divisions as there already were.
The Dead Man fingered his threadbare sleeve. The wool had faded over the decades, like slaked turmeric left in the sun. The city of his birth had burned around the time he was born; he had always imagined that that was how he had found himself orphaned in the first place, though he had been too young to recall. Orphaned, he had been adopted by the new caliph to be raised as a Dead Man, the ancient tribe of utterly loyal warriors who owed their caliph everything.
The Red-Stained Wings--The Lotus Kingdoms, Book Two Page 20