In a daze, Miri headed back the way she’d come, as quietly as she could, hoping to meet no one. She tried to master her fears and think through a course of action. First, they needed to get out of here, both her and Russu, as soon as possible. Then they needed to get back to Tokolas and warn Lord Vaina. How would she do that? What could she say? Who would believe her? Perhaps she had misheard what the monks were talking about?
No, she was certain. This was an assassination plot, and she could guess why: punishment for the arch-governor’s closure of the monasteries. She knew the history of Shila quite well, even though she had denied it to Sandun when he had once asked her. Ladies of House Kirdar were taught the history of their clan—secretly—and taught to deny they had such knowledge when asked by men. In the violent century before House Tols had unified the country, many nobles and even some royalty had been killed by assassins pretending to be monks or priests. Sometimes the assassins were actual followers of Ekon and had set aside their vows of nonviolence. She did not know if this had ever occurred in Serica, but in her country, yes, monks would kill.
But why were monks from Shila here? If they knew or suspected Miri had overheard their talk or understood their words, they would not hesitate to strangle her and throw her body over the cliff. Perhaps she was already marked for death as the wife of Lord Vaina’s high advisor! Holy Ekon, protect me! She prayed silently; all theological doubts set aside as grave danger closed in around her.
Inside the main hall, a monk kneeling before a statue of Ekon looked up at her. Where had he come from? Miri bent her face down and placed her hand up to her mouth, a gesture common in Shila when a woman did not wish to talk to a man. Why had she done that? The monk looked at her with a question on his lips, but she hurried off to the women’s wing, straining her ears for the sound of the man getting to his feet. And there it was, the faint noise of flax robes rustling as he stood. Miri tried to keep an even pace, tried to show by her gait: All is normal. I’m just returning from praying before the sacred glass. Was the monk following her? She dared not look behind though she desperately wanted to.
As she turned a corner, she shot a glance back down the hall; the monk had stopped and was rubbing the stubble on his head. A characteristic of a new monk…or a man pretending to be a monk who had recently shaved his head! Her throat tightened, and she suddenly felt great thirst. She hadn’t said anything since she’d entered the temple, had she? No one knew her by sight, no one knew that she spoke the language of Shila. She and Russu were just two wealthy Serice women praying for healthy children, nothing more. Miri found her hands were trembling, and so she put them together as though she was praying while walking.
Please, Ekon, bring Russu back to her room right now. Her prayer was rewarded; a light was inside Russu’s room, and the princess opened the door when Miri tapped on it.
“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Russu smiled prettily, but her smile vanished as Miri took her friend’s face in her hands and whispered in her ear. Miri told Russu everything: what she had heard and what she guessed. The princess put her hands on her belly and said simply, “We are in peril. I was a fool to come here. The monks seek to kill Lord Vaina…why did I think they wouldn’t fight back against him? Never trust priests of Eston. They are the same in Serica as they are in Rakeved.”
Miri whispered, “We have to leave now, before someone recognizes us, before they decide to close the temple and prevent anyone from leaving.”
“Leave? Now? It’s night outside, and the gate was likely shut after the sun went down. How can we possibly get out? We have to wait till morning and then walk out like normal women do after a night of prayer.”
Miri pointed at the window. “I can climb. All we need do is make our way around the base of the temple till we reach the road and then walk to the guesthouse where the horsemen are staying. The moon will be up for two more hours.”
Russu went to her window and carefully unfastened the shutter. Raising it, she looked out. “It’s dark out, and the moon is behind the temple. Even if we could get down from this room, what you suggest is impossible for either of us.”
Miri also looked out; she remembered what the land below had looked like in the evening just a few hours ago. There had been a sort of path along the base of the temple wall, though she couldn’t see it now. Monks had to paint the exterior of the monastery and it wasn’t a sheer cliff, just very steep. Getting out of the window was a problem, but didn’t people tie knots into sheets, turning them into makeshift ropes? That was how women always escaped into the arms of their handsome but otherwise unsuitable lovers, wasn’t it?
“We can’t wait. A plot against the arch-governor is in motion. If it succeeds, will our husbands survive the ensuing struggle for power? Since they are not here, it falls to us to stop it. Yes, I’m just a woman, but the tradition in House Kirdar is that if the men are not around, the women must take up the flag. No matter the cost.”
Russu looked at her and then lowered her eyes. “I can do it, I think. But first, let me check. Maybe the gate isn’t shut just yet?”
Miri thought there was no chance of that, but she told Russu to go ahead and look. “Don’t attract any attention, understood?”
Miri was going to spend the next hour tying knots into the bedsheets and making sure they could hold her weight. Russu returned a quarter hour later and said that the gate had been closed; there was no getting out that way. For a few minutes, the princess helped Miri pull the knots tight on the improvised rope. Then she said, “Why not use the rope from under the bed? Help me move the mattress.”
Miri didn’t know what the princess was referring to, but she helped Russu pull the mattress off; to her surprise, a hemp rope held the mattress off the floor. It snaked its way from one end of the bed frame to the other. Miri had never seen such a thing before; the beds in Shila were not built in such a fashion.
Russu looked at the large knot that held one end of the rope in place and clicked her tongue. “That’s a tough knot. My knife is with my horse, and the horse is with our guards. I don’t suppose you have something that can cut this rope?”
Actually, Miri did. She carefully pulled her purity knife out from her inner robes and drew the cord over her neck. Her new purity knife was larger than the previous one, and just as sharp. The handle was not really suited for anything more than cutting her own throat, but the bright blade sawed through the rope with just a few strokes. As they pulled the rope through the holes that were drilled through the bed frame, Russu asked what the knife was.
“We call them purity knives. They’re to preserve our honor when there is no other alternative.”
Russu looked at her and said, “So that is not just a story we tell about the highborn women of Shila?”
“No. It’s not just a story,” Miri replied. “Quite real. We aren’t supposed to use them for mundane tasks, but most of us do. It’s handy to have a little knife to cut off loose pieces of thread or to cut a rose stem when no scissors are available. I never knew beds were built with ropes holding a mattress. Is this common in Serica?”
“Yes, rope beds are common. For some reason they are always used by monks and priests in Rakeved. I’m not surprised to find them here.”
With one end of the rope still anchored to the bed frame, they had more than two body lengths of rope, which they tied tightly to the bedsheets. Their improvised rope measured four body lengths total, with knots spaced two feet apart. Miri thought this should be plenty of distance. “I’ll go first,” she said.
Miri straddled the windowsill and then hesitated for a moment. Could she do this? Was she strong enough? Why should she risk her life to save Lord Vaina? She shook her head to drive away her fears and doubts. It had to be done. She had been sent to Tokolas to be Lord Vaina’s wife, and although he had rejected her, he had arranged her marriage to Sandun. Miri felt a sudden surge of confidence; her husband wou
ld approve. He had saved Lord Vaina’s life, and she could do the same.
Over she went. Her leather riding gloves slid down the rope, and for a moment she felt that she would not be able to stop. But her legs tightened around the knotted sheet as her hands stopped at a knot in the rope. Her knees banged painfully against the rough exterior wall, and she hissed like an angry snake. Looking down at the rope proved useless; it was completely shadowed from the faint starlight by her body. By feel alone, she used her hands and her legs to descend. She kept going down for what seemed like a very long time, her arms burning from effort. What if she had misjudged the height of the window from the ground? What would she do if she came to the end? Could she climb back up?
Miri gasped in surprise when her feet touched the ground, for she could see nothing but the wall in front of her face. She looked around nervously as the narrow dirt path at the base of the wall came into view.
“Miri? Are you all right?” This from Russu above.
“Yes, I’m safe. The rope is good. Just climb down, but don’t expect to see anything.”
Russu clambered out of the window and gingerly attempted to find some ledge to stand on, without success. “Eston’s mercy, I’m not a monkey!” Russu replied to Miri’s unspoken urging.
“You have to climb down,” Miri said. “They will kill you if you stay.”
With a groan, Russu began her descent. Halfway down, one hand slipped, and she gave a desperate cry before she halted her fall with her legs and both hands. Miri stayed by their improvised rope and silently willed Russu safely down. The princess made it the rest of way and clutched Miri with trembling arms.
“I don’t know how the men do this…they make it look so easy. I never want to do that again.”
Miri patted Russu’s hand but then looked up in alarm as someone shook the rope. Faintly she heard someone say, “What’s going on here?”
Taking Russu’s hand, Miri led her away from the rope, heading toward the gate. How long did they have? “Come on!” Miri whispered to the princess. “We must hurry.”
The path at the base of wall was even easier than she’d expected. By now, her eyes had partially adjusted to the darkness, and she could make out the pine trees that dotted the hillside around them. Only a few low limbs crossed over the path, but as she brushed them aside, the needles were sticky with resin and she hated that, knowing her fine riding gloves were going to be tacky until they were cleaned.
Miri worried that any moment a party of monks would appear around a corner with torches in their hands, blocking their escape. Could she scramble down the slope in the darkness without breaking her bones? Could the princess? She decided she would not be captured. She turned and spoke softly to Russu, “If monks come, we will leave the trail, scramble down, out of sight. They can’t possibly find us, if they don’t see where we have gone.”
Russu nodded, but she was taking short, rapid breaths. Miri wanted to tell her to calm down but then thought better of it. They were in terrible danger. Neither of them might live to see the dawn. The princess was justifiably afraid. As for herself, Miri’s fear had turned into anger. The idea that monks and priests of Eston had decided that Lord Vaina was a triatismas and deserved to be killed was utterly, infuriatingly, wrong.
Miri knew Jori Vaina well enough to know he was a good man: brave, charming, often kind. He knew everyone, and he cared about them. Right now, the arch-governor needed money, and the temples of Serica were rich. It did bother her that he was confiscating land and wealth from the temples and monasteries of Ekon while leaving the Red Swords and the Kulkasen temples alone, but in her own land, the shamans had no money, and the few Kulkasen were quite poor compared to the richly endowed followers of Ekon. Lord Vaina was taking money from the wealthy monasteries, which made a good deal of sense.
She wondered why Lord Vaina hadn’t seized the wealth of the rich merchants in Tokolas, but she trusted that he knew what he was doing. And, after all, he wasn’t closing all of the monasteries. So far, most of the temples in Tokolas and the other large cities were being left alone. Again, her mind circled back to the fact the monks had called Lord Vaina a triatismas. Such a terrible thing to say! Such an absolute judgment—either you were right, or you yourself were the agent of evil. Since Miri was certain Lord Vaina was not pure evil, it meant that the monks had fallen into the clutches of demons.
Miri and Russu were now close to the gate and the road that headed down the hill. Likely, this was where the monks would be on the lookout for the women. Miri halted and opened her ears. This early in the year, the cicadas were not yet hatched. The nightjars, which she’d loved to listen to in Birumaz, were kept in cages by bird lovers in Tokolas but not found in the countryside around here, and so the air was silent. She was about to continue on the path when she heard a man’s voice, speaking in her native language.
“… go find them?”
Miri caught her breath and held still. There was a reply, but she could not make out the words. She looked down to her right; the hillside was quite steep here, and she did not want to risk going down that slope in the night, not unless there was no other choice.
Russu took Miri’s left arm and tugged on it, indicating that she wanted to withdraw the way they had come. Lacking any better idea, Miri turned and followed the princess back a dozen paces.
“I have an idea,” Russu said. “We can make noises as though we have tried to go down the hill and have slipped and fallen. The monks may go down the slope to investigate, and then we can get past them.” She smiled anxiously, and her teeth flashed in the night.
“I don’t like that idea,” Miri replied. “Many monks will come, and we will never get past all of them.”
“What choice do we have?” Russu said. “We can’t kill them and can’t outrun them. Are you just going to wait and hope they fall asleep in a few hours?”
“No, you are right. We do need some sort of distraction.” Miri thought for a moment. “How about if we throw stones down onto the slopes below? One at a time, like we were expert climbers?”
“What if we do?” Russu frowned. “Oh…you think they will go to examine the noise, but they won’t summon all the other monks?”
“Yes. Exactly. It will be a mystery. They don’t know anything about us. Perhaps we are acrobat assassins, like in the old stories.” Miri smiled briefly at the thought. “If they split up, I might be able to kill just one.” Miri had practiced some close attacks; Jay and Ven had trained her during their five-month journey from Pomoz to Kunhalvar. But she really, really didn’t want to put that training into practice.
Miri bent down and managed to pull a few rocks from the path. She lifted one and heaved it down into a stand of trees below. The rock made a satisfying crash into a tangle of branches, very much as if someone had grabbed one to avoid falling. Russu threw a rock that landed a bit farther down the slope; it made a soft thud and then rolled into a shrub.
“Down there,” one of the men near the gate said. But this statement was met with silence. Miri couldn’t tell if any of the men had left their positions. Even though she listened intently, if the men were moving, the sound was not carrying over to her. Miri restrained her impatience and resolved to wait a bit longer.
Suddenly a moving shadow appeared on the path, and Miri’s heart sank. This wasn’t supposed to happen! The monks weren’t supposed to come along the path they were on! As he approached, she heard him muttering: “…such a fuss over two strange women. If they want to climb down the hill at night, let them, I say. Much good will come of it.”
The monk was coming toward the two women slowly, but soon he would discover them. Lacking any better idea, Miri threw the stone in her hand farther down the slope, aiming for a clump of trees. Thanks to luck or to her years of practice throwing snowballs in Birumaz, her stone flew true and made a soft noise as it passed through some branches.
The monk halted and lo
oked downhill. “Hah! They’re far down the slope now. Let those mad monks from Shila chase them down. I’ll not risk my neck.” With that, the monk turned and walked back the way he’d come.
Miri found she was clutching her purity knife in her left hand, so she unwrapped her fingers from the hilt of the knife and sheathed it. After waiting for what seemed like a hundred heartbeats, she followed the monk. She hoped to find a path beside the road going down to the guesthouses below the monastery. Whether there was a path, Miri didn’t know, but most roads had footpaths alongside the carriageway. Also, the road had gone back and forth up the hill like a snake. A footpath could go straight down, saving walkers time—if it existed.
The monastery gate came into view, and there she saw a line of white stones standing out from the grass—a path leading down. Indistinct sounds came from the gate, but so far, she could see only a wavering light from a candle or a small oil lamp. She pointed down the path, and Russu nodded. Miri’s heart was pounding as she tried to avoid making the least sound so close to the guards. Her riding boots were less than ideal for going downhill on a rocky path, but at least she could see something, as the moon had come into view and was illuminating the slope.
What if they met one or both of the Shila monks who had gone in search of them? Outrunning them seemed unlikely, but Miri thought she might be able to kill one if she had surprise. She said, “If we meet someone, you talk to them in your language, and I’ll try to get close enough for a killing blow.”
Russu’s eyes widened in the pale light, but she nodded in agreement. “I have a steel hairpin. I was taught to aim for the heart.”
The Flame Iris Temple Page 33