Beyond the heavy door that marked the end of the servants' quarters, the smoke was ominously thick. Through watering eyes and increased coughing, Sulun searched from room to room. The chambers were empty: no sign of the children, or their tutors or nurses, or Mistress Nanya, or Shibari himself. The clothespresses had been opened and ransacked, but to judge from the clothes scattered about, almost nothing had been taken. Perhaps this meant that Shibari and Nanya had had the sense—for once—to seize only the necessities: a few plain traveling clothes, jewelry, money, easily carried valuables. Maybe they'd already made their escape under the confusion of the fire.
But how could they have fled so fast?
Shibari was famous for doing everything with slow majesty and proper gravity, which always took irritating amounts of time. The man was addicted to Reputation, to the point of spending himself into debt rather than reducing the splendor of his household, which was how he'd backed himself into this wretched position in the first place. Had Mistress Nanya made plans for such an escape when the debts first began to soar? It was possible, but didn't seem like her; as far as any of the servants knew, which was much. Maintaining the household's appearance absorbed all her attention. Possibly one of the upper house servants, the butler or housekeeper or secretary, had made the contingency plans after a passing word from Shibari; the gods knew, the master quite often tossed ideas to his servants and then forgot them himself until presented with their accomplishment later. The problem was, both Shibari and Nanya resented being outthought by their servants, and often resented or rejected out of hand good advice and good projects offered by their underlings.
Sulun hitched his shoulders higher, remembering a few times that had happened to him. The steam powered engine, for example: Shibari had been delighted at the little model, its water-laden globe spitting steam from its four angled jets and spinning merrily on its axle above the brazier, making a grand impression on the dinner guests—but when Sulun later presented him with the list of costs for making a larger version, including a diagram for a small ship powered by the engine, and even some clever suggestions on how the money could be raised, Shibari promptly and sourly lost interest. (Sulun still couldn't understand that. Shibari made most of his money by shipping; why couldn't he see the value of building ships that could outrun any pirate craft, sail straight against the wind, and even drive through storms without the rowers collapsing from exhaustion?) The man's pride thoroughly outweighed his common sense, and in that respect his wife was worse.
So where had they gone so quickly? Not in the sewing room, the herbarium, the bath, the small dining room, the bedrooms, or the study—and the smoke was much thicker here. Sulun could hear the flames crackling now, mostly upstairs in the house servants' rooms, but some seeming closer. The fire must have started down here, in the front of the house, then spread directly upstairs by way of the drapes. How fast was it spreading on the ground floor? How close was it?
Sulun leaned on the study wall for a moment, and felt that it was hot.
On the other side of the wall, he remembered, lay the formal dining room. In it stood the family altar, the ranked busts and portraits of Shibari's ancestors, the canopied great-couch from which the master and his wife dined on such formal occasions as their wedding feast or the first-blessings of their newborn children. Of all the house, that was the room most completely dedicated to family pride.
And the fire was there.
"Oh, great gods!" All the details suddenly snapped into place, and the final picture was monstrous.
Sulun ran for the door, pausing only to feel it, making certain it wasn't hot, that he wouldn't open it to face a sheet of flame, and yanked it wide.
The fire was at the outside wall, a blazing sheet that engulfed the floor-to-ceiling tapestry, climbed the curtains to the window beams, and crawled across the ceiling. By its light, Sulun saw the great-couch, and its occupants.
Shibari lay to the left, his body formally arranged though dressed in ordinary clothes. His bloodless hands were folded neatly on the hilt of a short sword that protruded from his blood-soaked breast. He had, clearly, been dead for at least an hour.
Beside him, as precisely posed as an effigy on a tomb lid, was Nanya. Her hair was impeccably coiffed, as always, and she was dressed in her best formal dining gown and jewelry. Her stiffening hands clasped a small glass bottle.
Around the two of them, likewise dressed in their best, though sprawled in attitudes of natural sleep, lay their four children.
A blackened brazier, deliberately placed against the blazing tapestry, showed how the fire had started.
Coughing furiously against the smoke, throwing silent curses and pleas at every god he could think of, Sulun ran to the couch and gripped Nanya's wrist. No pulse. He sniffed at the glass bottle, then turned away, sickened.
"Gods, not the children too . . ." Sulun poked among the small tumbled bodies, feeling at wrists and jaw hinges. The twin boys were still, lifeless. The pretty elder daughter was warm to the touch, but after a moment Sulun realized that was only because she lay closest to the fire.
The younger daughter was still breathing.
"Teigi . . ." Sulun whispered, dragging her off the couch.
Her body seemed too light. How old was she, anyway? Nine? Despite her small size, she'd always seemed older than that: always sneaking into the workshop, staring fascinated at the engines and workings, poking into the books and actually reading them. . . .
The child's eyes fluttered open. "Mama," she whimpered. "It tastes nasty. I don't want to—"
A shower of sparks brought Sulun's attention back to the fire. It was creeping across the ceiling panels, almost directly above them. The roof could fall in at any moment.
"Out!" Sulun coughed in a sudden gust of smoke. He pulled Teigi onto his shoulder and scrambled for the door.
Behind him, with a roar like Omis's forge, the fire caught the couch canopy.
"Mama!" Teigi shrieked, staring back.
Sulun ran down the corridor, heading for the back of the house and the still-safe exit. Above him he could hear the fire growling. There! The door to the servants' quarters—and some fool had shut it! He tugged furiously at the handle. Gods, the air was like an oven back here.
A sudden rending crash and flare of light filled the corridor behind him. Teigi screamed. Sulun half-turned and saw, horrified, that part of the corridor ceiling had come down, bearing a load of burning rubble with it.
Blinding smoke and a near solid wave of heat rolled toward him. A rain of sparks and small coals peppered his head and shoulders. Teigi howled again, batting at sparks caught in her clothing.
Sulun wrapped both hands around the handle of the heat-jammed door, and pulled like a madman.
With a sullen groan of protest, the door came loose and swung open. Sulun dived through it and ran down the main hallway of the servants' quarters, half blinded with smoke. There, the kitchen, and there, thank all the gods, the kitchen door. He plunged through it, missed the step, fell rolling. Teigi yelped at the impact, and went limp.
Sulun staggered to his feet and stumbled out into the kitchen garden. He could hear shouts and wails, but couldn't see anybody. From the outside front of the house he could hear, above the steady roar of the fire, Zeren's voice bellowing instructions to what seemed to be a quickly organized bucket brigade.
Either the fire or the creditors would be on them soon. Where the hell was the wall?
"Sulun!" A long hand grasped his wrist. Yanados. "This way, and fast. We got everyone over the wall except you. All the books, the notes, the diagrams, some of the tools, some of the models . . . Who's that?"
"Teigi," Sulun coughed. "She's the only one left. Shibari stabbed himself. Nanya poisoned herself and the children, and started the fire. Teigi didn't swallow enough—"
"Gods, we're patronless!"
"Teigi—"
"A child! And female. No property of her own, but she'll be liable for Shibari's debts, being the last of the f
amily. Gods help her if the creditors find her."
"Gods . . ." Sulun echoed. He hadn't thought of that. He was too tired to think of all that. "Hide her. Hide us. The lab by the river."
"Good enough. We can decide what to do tomorrow. Here's the wall." Yanados guided his fumbling hands to the climbing holds. "Can you manage, carrying her?"
"Think so."
He managed. Teigi lay like a grain bag on his shoulder, neither help nor obstruction, her small weight growing heavier with every step. By the time Sulun reached the top of the wall and flopped over it, he was as exhausted as he'd ever been in his life. Multiple hands pulled the child-burden off his shoulder and helped him down onto the shop roof below. He flopped among the piled bags and panted. Arizun wordlessly handed him a wineskin.
From beyond the wall came a vast roaring crash, and a soaring column of flame and sparks.
"There goes the roof," Omis mourned from the wall top. "No saving anything now."
"Let the damned creditors pick through the ashes," Vari sniffed. "Ah, gods, what to do now that we're patronless?"
"We go to the workshop by the river," Yanados reported. "We can all stay there tonight, at least."
Sulun pulled himself to his feet and tottered up to the rest of the party—himself and his apprentices, he noted; Omis and his wife and their children, and Teigi. Vari was crouched over the unconscious child, carefully rubbing her face with a wet cloth.
"How is she?" he asked. "Can she travel?"
"There's no injury I can find," Vari murmured, patting over the girl's head. "I think it's just smoke and fright."
"And a touch of tincture-of-poppy juice," Sulun added gloomily. "Well if need be, Omis can carry her. Doshi can carry your boy, and you take the baby. The rest of us can manage the bundles."
Vari nodded agreement. "We'd best go soon, while everyone's busy with the fire. We don't want to be caught by patrols looking for Shibari's runaway slaves."
"No fear of that," Arizun put in from the top of the wall. "Look: Zeren's got them all busy putting out the fire. I think they might save the back part of the house, our workshop, the forge—"
"And the creditors will seize it all," Omis groaned. "How will I make a living without my forge?"
"And what will we do without the big workshop?" Doshi added. "We couldn't get everything out, had to leave most of the models. Without those, how do we make a good enough impression to get a new patron?"
"Tomorrow," Sulun snapped, impatient with fatigue. "We'll deal with that tomorrow. For now, let's get to the river workshop and get what rest we can. Omis, can you carry Teigi that far?"
Before the blacksmith could answer, the child woke up—and howled. "Mama! Mama, no! Not fire!" She struggled out of Vari's startled grip and crawled blindly across the roof. "Where are you? Where?"
Omis caught her before she'd gone more than a few steps. "Hush, you're safe," he said, swinging her up in his burly arms. "We're on the roof of the house next door. I'm your papa's blacksmith, remember? We're all your papa's people, and you're safe."
"Mama." Teigi sobbed, refusing comfort. "Where's Mama?"
The adults looked at each other, wondering what to say.
"She's dead," little Tamiri cut in brutally. "She was in the house, and it's all burned up."
"Who asked you?" Vari snapped, aiming an outraged swat.
"She did," Tamiri chirped, ducking the swinging hand. "The house is all burned up. You can see it from the top of the wall."
"Let me see! Let me see!" Teigi struggled in Omis's grip.
"You may as well let her look," Vari sighed. "Go ahead, lift her up."
Omis shook his head, but lifted Teigi up where she could see over the wall. Firelight reflected off her face as she watched the flames, the smoke, the fire-brigade working below—and the collapsed, burned-out front of the house. She watched until Omis's arms grew tired, very quiet and still.
"There now," Omis said gently, putting her down. "Your mama and papa are gone, but we'll take care of you. We'll take you to a new house. Do you think you could walk a ways?"
Teigi said nothing, only shook her head.
"Well, that's no trouble. I'll carry you." Omis picked her up again.
"Best cover her with a cloak, too," Arizun pointed out. "In those fancy clothes she doesn't look like a blacksmith's child. We don't want to draw attention."
"Good thought." Vari dug among the clothing bundles for a cloak.
"How fast can we leave?" Sulun asked, eager to be gone. "Let's get out of here before the patrols start searching."
The rest of the group caught the mood, and began picking up various bundles and children.
"The models gone, the forge, the workshop," Doshi muttered, trying to manage Omis's two-year-old and a bundle as well. "How will we make a living?"
"Cheer up," Yanados offered. "It could have been worse."
"Oh? How?"
"Well, what if we'd kept the firepowder in there?"
"Oh."
Doshi cheered up considerably, or at least pretended to, and the small caravan cautiously made its way down the stairs.
Chapter Four
The little workshop had never been more crowded. Vari marshalled the apprentices to clear and sweep the floors, hunt up and spread a modicum of straw, and finally stretch out the salvaged bedding. Omis tended the children, trying to get a smile or at least a few words out of Teigi. Sulun gloomily inspected the salvage from the house and tried to imagine how to make a living from it.
"It'll be crowded, but there's bedding for all of us," said Vari, inspecting her finished work. "Is there any food in the house?"
"Some bread, I think." Arizun padded off to the cupboard.
Teigi began crying again, very softly.
"Ah, there now, dear . . ." Vari rummaged in one of the opened bundles. "Are those burns paining you? Here, they're not very big. Let me put some salve on them."
The little girl kept crying, not noticing her blisters or Vari's ministrations.
Sulun vividly remembered that last look backward at Shibari and his family, and the flames devouring the canopy of the couch. Gods, yes, that would be pure hell for a child to remember. He sidled closer, and draped a cautious arm around Teigi's shoulders.
"They were already dead," he said quietly. "They died of the poppy-juice tincture, long before the flames reached them. They never felt an instant's pain; it was just like going to sleep."
Teigi sobbed louder. "It tasted nasty. I spat it out." She rubbed a grubby fist across her eyes. "She turned her back, and I spat it out."
"Good thing you did, or you would have died too."
"I should have!" Her sudden howl echoed off the walls. "I should have gone with them!"
The others looked up, startled.
"Whatever for?" Doshi asked. "What good would that have done?"
"Honor," Teigi hiccupped.
Arizun made a rude noise. "What sort of honor kills little children? Destroys whole families? Leaves the servants to run or be burned to death? Ha! Honor's a slaughterer, no different from the Armu barbarians—don't they do the same?"
Teigi only shook her head and cried.
"Now hush that silliness," Vari said, slathering on the burn ointment. "I'll tell you what your real honor is, child. You're the last of your family now, the last of Shibari's ancient and honorable blood. That's why the gods spared you, you understand?"
Gods nothing, Sulun grumbled to himself, I dragged you out of there—and only in hopes of keeping a patron. And, admit it, because I like the little girl. And because I wouldn't leave anyone to a death like that. Gods? Well, if the gods are no more than human greed and human pity, then I suppose Vari could be right.
Teigi was sobbing a little less, and listening closely.
"Now what you must do," Vari went on, artfully pouring out a spoonful of hemp-seed syrup from her supplies, "is hide your true name until, hmm, the omens are better. Then, when you're old enough to marry, you will refound the family of Shibar
i. You must live to have children of your own, do you see?"
Sulun raised an eyebrow at the elegance of that argument. Vari held out the spoon and neatly fed its contents to the girl.
Teigi swallowed, then protested, "Papa's creditors . . ."
"She has a nice grip on essentials," Yanados murmured.
"Don't worry, they won't find you." Vari put the spoon and bottle away. "We'll hide you among our own children. Hmmm, we'll have to give you a new name. . . ." She looked around for suggestions.
"Male or female?" asked Yanados. "If we're going to hide her from Shibari's creditors, best to disguise her sex as well."
"Good thought," Omis rumbled. "As a boy, she could pose as an apprentice. Hmm, but I don't suppose, child, you have the muscle to work as a blacksmith. . . ."
"Sulun." Teigi turned tear-wet and disconcertingly bright eyes to him. "I could be his apprentice."
"Wait a minute—" Sulun gulped.
"Of course she could." Vari clapped a firm hand to his shoulder, leaned close, and whispered fiercely in his ear. "Don't discourage her. The child needs some hope to live for, and my silly story won't support hope very long."
"Uh, yes—yes," Sulun stammered, feeling as if the floor were sliding out from under him. "I can always use another apprentice."
Yanados and Arizun smothered explosive snickers. Doshi only looked pained.
"It would look strange if a blacksmith's son were apprenticed to anyone but his father. Er, I'll say you're a cousin of mine." Sulun looked around wildly for inspiration. "What'll we call her—him? What's a good name?"
"Aziya," Teigi piped up. "I used to have a puppy named 'Ziya, but he ran away. . . ." The rest of her tale was smothered in a yawn.
"Hmm, Ziya it is then," Vari soothed. "Come lie down—Ziya."
"Now that we have that matter settled," said Arizun, handing the scant bread around, "what shall we do about making our living, now that our patron's gone?"
Instant silence fell.
Sulun heaved a sigh of fatigue and impatience. "Come, come. Someone must have some ideas. Suggestions?"
A Dirge for Sabis Page 4