Children of Earth and Sky

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  “I need your help,” Danica said briskly.

  “Mine?”

  “I am speaking as a guard for the Djivo family. I have reason to believe there is danger, or there might be.” She was in a hurry to get back, had no time to make this easier.

  “For the Djivos? In here?”

  “I have reason to believe,” she repeated. “I am not allowed my weapons. I understand. But may I ask you to keep alert? You don’t want violence while you are on duty.”

  “Here?” he repeated. But he wasn’t a stupid man, and Danica saw that he had already glanced past her towards Marin, with Drago in his red cap standing in front of him watching the chamber—she hoped.

  She hesitated. “One more thing. A kindness. If . . . if they condemn me in here, put me in irons, I need you to kill my dog. He will go wild seeing that, there will be no way to stop him. People will be hurt. You’ll . . . need to do that for me. For him.”

  Is that necessary, Dani?

  Yes, she said shortly.

  The guard’s expression was odd. He looked outside to where Tico would be. Danica had stopped where her dog could not see her. This had become extremely difficult.

  “I will do that,” said the man named Jevic. He looked as if he’d say more, but people were approaching the doors.

  She’d been away long enough.

  “The galleries,” she said. “There are weapons up there.” She turned and started back.

  What followed happened extremely fast.

  You could go from nothing occurring to terrible danger in no time at all. It had happened on the ship, too.

  Danica!

  I see him!

  She was already running. A well-dressed man (a young one) had begun moving too quickly, grim-faced, with a directness not that of a man strolling across a council chamber to have a conversation before a session began.

  “Drago!” she cried.

  But Drago Ostaja was a fighting man himself, and he’d been warned. He’d seen this man as well. He backed up a stride, body between Marin and the one approaching. Marin was turning, having heard Danica’s cry. Leonora was a few steps away: too near, in fact, endangered, but you couldn’t position every piece on a gameboard. Or maybe you could, if you were better at this than Danica was? She didn’t know.

  She did know that the man heading for Marin carried a sword, which meant he was a councillor, allowed that honour. And yes, he was drawing it now—and quickening to a run. Someone turned, bemused, as he shouldered past. Someone spoke a name, startled.

  Drago, awkwardly holding Danica’s bow and quiver, could only stand between this one and Marin—who was also weaponless, being only a younger brother, not a member of the Rector’s Council.

  You could get a warning in the street, Danica thought, but you still had to be able to do something with it—or someone would die.

  She thrust her left arm up, on the run across the floor. Her tunic sleeve fell back. She claimed her third dagger from its thin sheath strapped to her inner arm and she threw it, running, and it buried itself (as if in ripening fruit on a tree outside Senjan) in the eye of the one who had drawn his sword.

  Men cried out, in horror.

  One man fell to a marble floor.

  I am, Danica Gradek thought—coming to a halt beside Drago, breathing hard—killing so many people this spring.

  None of them Osmanli. Not one. None of them any part of her life’s sworn purpose. Grief took many forms, was her thought.

  She glanced at Drago. She turned to speak to Marin.

  “Above!” she heard. Leonora Miucci, pointing up and across the way—at the gallery.

  Danica grabbed for her bow, knowing she was too late, that it would take her too long.

  “Down, Marin!” she screamed.

  She had the bow—Drago didn’t fight her for it. She had an arrow, she was turning, nocking, pulling, looking up—

  In time to see a crossbow fall between pillars to smash on the floor. A chip of stone cracked loose. And now—now there was a man falling, over the railing, both hands to his chest, making one slow turn in the air—to land on his back with a blunt, flat sound. Men scrabbled away in terror.

  There was an arrow in his chest, Danica saw.

  She turned, her own arrow still on the string of her bow.

  She saw the man named Jevic calmly scanning the overhead gallery, a second arrow slotted to his weapon, and he was winding it again.

  There was, given that this was a crowded room of frightened people, an extreme stillness.

  It didn’t last. Noise exploded like a fired cannon.

  I don’t believe there will be a third, granddaughter.

  Why? Why not? She was trying to be calm.

  I think the second was in the event the first one failed.

  He did fail.

  That was, her zadek said quietly, in her head, a very good knife throw.

  I would have been too late to stop the one above.

  Maybe. Djivo was shielded. By you, by the captain.

  So one of us would have died? Then him?

  Maybe, he said again. The room was so loud now. She saw Marin’s father hurrying over, his face a book in which to read anger and fear. Her grandfather said, We can’t defend everyone, child.

  And she knew he was remembering the same fires she did, awake or asleep. When he called her child he was often back in their village on the night the hadjuks came.

  —

  HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN KNOWN as the clever son, if wayward. His brother has never appeared to resent this, although it is possible he does. Perhaps you need to be clever yourself, or value it, to be resentful. His father swings like a pendulum, even now, between a growing trust in Marin’s judgment in business and suspicion of his views and behaviour in other matters.

  But if you are thought to be intelligent—and feel that way about yourself—it can be disturbing to realize that you’d been unaware the target this morning was you, and that others had known it, or deduced it, which is the reason you are still alive.

  There are two dead men in the Rector’s Palace. There is chaos. Marin sees his father hurrying towards him. His face might have been diverting at another time: it conveys fear and anger and confusion, chasing each other. His brother, standing back, shows only the last of these.

  He tries to school his features. He looks at Drago, and then at Danica Gradek. She’s in front of him, bow to hand now, scanning the tumult of the chamber like—well, like a raider, or a guard. Both of which she is. She’s the one who just saved his life, it seems. In his mind, that thrown knife is still flying.

  He is pleased to discover that his breathing appears normal enough. He has faced down danger before. But all the other times he had known a threat was present. Abroad alone one night in Khatib, recklessly. In Seressa among the bridges and canals, also after dark. Three times on a raider-boarded ship (just a few days ago, one of those). Other nights, fleeing a room where he ought not to have been.

  This morning, walking here, he had been oblivious to everything, missed any threat entirely. He’d thought the Senjani woman might be a target, though had decided it was unlikely before the council judged her. Why kill someone who might soon be hanged?

  Belatedly, he understands why the two women had turned back on the Straden and walked off with Kata Matko. Something women would know first, before the men? And now he considers the fact that it was the oldest son of Vlatko Orsat who just rushed across the floor, drawing a sword and snarling Marin’s name.

  He believes that when they identify the man who has fallen from the gallery he will be a guardsman of the Orsat family, who slipped in among the other guards up there. He thinks, Someone will be punished for allowing that. He thinks . . . he is having difficulty arranging his thoughts.

  Vudrag Orsat, lying with a knife blade in his eye (in his eye!
), had been a friend since childhood. And he had been coming to kill Marin just now. There is no avoiding it. The sword lies beside him.

  He looks towards the guard by the door—who has just killed the man in the gallery—and he now recalls Danica walking back that way as well. The man is still alert, another crossbow arrow slotted and wound back. All the guards bristle. Swords are drawn.

  Men have been killed, with the rector and much of the nobility of the republic present. Alertness seems called for, yes, on the whole.

  “I think it is over,” Danica Gradek says, over the noise, though she continues to face forward, her back to him. “I think it is all right.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Marin says.

  And steps forward from behind her, because now Vlatko Orsat is also approaching, catching up to Marin’s father, and those two have known each other all their lives and this is not going to be all right in any great hurry.

  “You killed my son!” the elder Orsat cries. His face is purple with rage—and grief, one must assume. He looks from Danica to Marin.

  “Our guard did so, yes,” Marin says. He is pleased to be controlling his voice, but he feels a growing fear. Not for himself. “He was coming for me, sword drawn. You can see it there. Gospodar, why would Vudrag do that?”

  There is no answer. Which means no denial.

  Marin continues, keeping his voice low. “And a man of yours was about to fire a crossbow when he was killed by one of the rector’s guards. The doctor’s widow cried a warning. She may have saved my life. Did you also notice that, gospodar? He’s lying right there. Beside his weapon. Look.”

  A slight risk, that a man of yours, but Orsat isn’t denying this either.

  “What happened?” his father gasps, visibly bewildered. “What can this mean? Vlatko, what did . . . ?”

  Marin is gazing at Vlatko Orsat, the big, grey-bearded, familiar face distorted by emotion. He remembers when that beard was black.

  “Yes,” Marin says, “what can this possibly mean, gospodar?” Then adds, “You might keep your voice quiet when you tell us.” Because he believes he knows the answer to the question.

  “Keep quiet? Why would I do that?” Orsat snaps.

  Marin shrugs. “You will do what you like. It was a suggestion.”

  “With my son dead?” Vudrag is—was—the principal heir. Already a member of the council. Which is why he’d had a sword.

  No, this is not over.

  “Your son was about to commit murder,” Marin says, his own voice still low. There is someone to protect, he is thinking. But it may be too late.

  He realizes that Danica and Drago have positioned themselves to give the three of them space, not let anyone near. The guard from the doors has also come over. The noise is beginning to subside.

  “You cannot prove that!” Orsat says.

  “You deny it, Vlatko?” Marin’s father seems to almost want a denial. Marin can understand that. Andrij Djivo is looking at the sword by the dead man.

  But Vlatko Orsat, after a moment, says only, “Sometimes honour demands we do certain things. Children die, we die.”

  And so Marin’s fear becomes sorrow.

  “What does that mean?” his father says, clearly lost.

  “Yes,” Marin says. He is not lost. “What does it mean?” Out of the corner of his eye he sees Leonora Miucci listening closely. Her face is pale. He adds, “Tell us, gospodar. Say what it means.”

  Orsat’s blue eyes are cold. He says, “A man of our class has life-and-death control over his children.”

  “What? Who says that?” Marin rasps. His heart is pounding now. “Are we in Rhodias a thousand years ago?”

  “I know exactly where and when we live,” Vlatko Orsat says. A man Marin has known all his life. “As I know the value I place on our family’s honour.”

  “I think,” says Andrij Djivo, “that you may be called to account as to that honour, Vlatko. What have you done?”

  But he’s asked the last question of his son, not the grey-bearded man beside them.

  Marin ignores the question, which he doesn’t often do with his father. He is staring at Orsat. He says, almost whispering, “No. What have you done, Gospodar Orsat?” And then he says it: “Please. Is she all right?”

  The room has grown quiet as men become aware of this confrontation. So Marin hears the small sound Leonora Miucci makes.

  “My children are entirely within my disposition, Marin. You have no right to ask questions.”

  No right to ask questions.

  “Where is Elena?” Marin hears his voice crack.

  He wants to kill now, but carries no sword. He is not a member of the council. This man is. Vudrag was. His father and brother are. He is only a younger son. He is heart-poundingly afraid.

  Then he hears Vlatko Orsat say, with surprise, “Elena? In the street with her mother, likely buying things.”

  Marin closes his eyes.

  He opens them. Pain and sorrow and fury, and now an image of Iulia Orsat comes to him. Elena’s sister. Dark eyes, dark hair—whom he scarcely knows, and never has.

  He says, snarling it, “You are a great and savage fool. You have betrayed your family, not defended them. Just what is it you think I did?”

  Something in his voice arrests the other man. Orsat’s expression changes. He glances away, at his dead son. Blood is bright on the marble by Vudrag’s head. A knife is in his eye. He had been alive, vibrant, young in this chamber moments ago.

  Vlatko Orsat turns back to Marin. He clears his throat. He whispers, “You were seen! Climbing down our wall at night in winter. More than once, I was told. And three days ago Iulia confessed to me that she was . . . she told us . . .”

  “Oh, Jad! She was with child, and confided in her father, in trust. Did you kill her, you barbarian? Did you do that?”

  It is Leonora Miucci. She is weeping, but her hands are clenched as if she, too, could commit murder now.

  “How dare you speak to me that way!”

  “No. I believe you need to answer her, Vlatko.” Marin’s father, his voice grave. “Or answer me, because I am now asking the same question.”

  “Wait,” Marin says.

  He draws another breath and says slowly, “Vlatko Orsat, I swear it by the god and on my family’s honour—if I lie may all our ships go to the bottom of the sea—I have never been with your daughter Iulia. I am innocent of her and she of me. Holy Jad, man, why did you not find the man and marry them to each other? That is what we do!”

  Vlatko Orsat’s eyes are different now. But he shakes his head again, stubbornly. He says, “Whatever your Jad-denying generation believes, my family’s pride is still mine to defend.”

  It is suddenly too much. Marin steps forward and slaps the older man across the face. There are cries of shock in the room. He snaps, “Good, then! Defend your god-cursed pride! Challenge me. Now! Choose anyone you like to fight for you!”

  “You think that is how—?”

  “Fight me!” He is trembling. He forces his voice lower. “I never touched Iulia in my life. Did you just kill your daughter—as well as your son?”

  Beside him Leonora Miucci is still weeping, which he doesn’t entirely understand. Danica hasn’t looked around, neither has Drago. They are watching the room. Marin hears his father say, “This was entirely wrong, Vlatko. You shame the republic.”

  “I do? You, who bring a Senjani killer into this chamber and—”

  And amid all of this, there is laughter.

  Danica Gradek, who is the one laughing, finally turns. She says to Vlatko Orsat, “No one brought me. I came of my own choice to bring a message to your rector and council. The man I killed on the Blessed Ingacia was one of our own. It seems you have done the same.” There is contempt in her eyes.

  Marin’s father also has a different look now, one his son
knows. He has proceeded from confusion to an understanding—by his own lights—of what needs to happen.

  He raises his deep voice to carry. “Rector, I wish to lay formal charges before the council against this man. I want him judged.”

  “How dare you! I have every right to deal with my own family—”

  “No, Vlatko! I charge you with trying to have my son killed. Or do you forget?”

  “You say this to a man whose son lies murdered by a Senjani!”

  Marin’s palm is stinging. Orsat’s cheek is red. Marin is trying to picture Iulia Orsat—whom he really does scarcely know—Elena’s younger sister.

  “Your son is here. Where,” says Leonora Miucci, “is your daughter?”

  A painful silence.

  “Yes,” says Marin’s father. “Vlatko, what have you done?”

  And finally they hear, “She is on Gjadina. Our estates on the island. I . . . I would not kill her. I would never do that. He . . . Andrij, your son was seen climbing down our wall!”

  Marin’s father looks at him. Marin says, “I did so, yes. Many nights this winter.” There is relief in him now. The girl is not dead. Orsat would not lie about this. “Gospodar, you have erred at terrible cost. I was bedding your wife’s new maidservant. Forgive me for that grave sin against your family honour.”

  “Her servant?”

  “Her servant, gospodar. Is it a killing offence? Shall I go across to the sanctuary and beg forgiveness of Jad? If so, what forgiveness will you seek?”

  “I believe,” comes a different voice, “that it begins with the council’s and the Djivo family’s forgiveness for what has happened here. And it will not be inexpensive.”

  “Rector,” says Andrij Djivo.

  He bows. Marin does the same. He sees Vlatko Orsat hesitate—actually, it is less a hesitation than what seems an inability to move normally—before he also bows to the rector.

  “He will buy his way free of this?”

  It is Danica Gradek. Her face under the wide hat seems genuinely shocked.

  “That is what we do here,” says the rector of Dubrava, speaking gravely, leaning on his stick, and Marin hears his own words to Orsat echo back to him.