The Land of Night

by Kirby Crow

  After a time, Scarlet managed to pretend that the hundreds of eyes on him did not exist. He narrowed his world down to the people at the table with him. By the time the meal was over and they could withdraw, he was growing sleepy. Scarlet had walked so far and stretched his mind so much to remember everything said to him that he felt as if he had done an honest day’s work for the first time in months. The feeling was welcome. If they stayed here very long, he would have to get Liall to set him to some task or other, just so he would not feel useless and idle.

  4.

  A Bit of Music

  It was customary in Rshan to stay until the host of the table, in this case the queen, retired. She remained longer than usual that night and when she rose, Liall did the same and put his arm out for Scarlet to take. As they filed out of the bright hall among the sound of clinking glasses and the mingled smells of food and incense, Scarlet flashed Liall a tired smile.

  “I hope we don’t have to repeat this any time soon,” he said lowly.

  “You did perfectly.”

  “I half expected someone would ask me how we met again.”

  Liall covered Scarlet’s hand on his arm with his fingers. “Not that I give a damn what they think, but you could always put forth something else, Scarlet.”

  “Lie?”

  “Maybe only a little,” Liall soothed, knowing the Hilurin dislike for falsehood.

  “Well, I could, and I did broaden the truth a little to Prince Eleferi when he prodded me for tales, but the queen was at the table.”

  “And?” They passed a large knot of courtiers and ladies at the far end of the hall who were chatting and drinking wine from long-stemmed glasses. They bowed to Liall and Scarlet.

  “And she has that ring,” Scarlet said.

  Liall frowned, his pace slowing.

  Scarlet looked up at him innocently. “What’s wrong?”

  “What ring?”

  “The ring your mother wears.”

  “My mother wears many rings.”

  “No,” Scarlet said impatiently, in sincere earnest. “The stone of truth.”

  Liall did a double-take, tried to hide what he felt, and failed.

  “Oh, I see.” Scarlet might be naïve, but he was never slow. “It’s not a magic ring. Is it?”

  Liall was chuckling openly now. “Do you believe in fairy spells and light o’the wisps, too?”

  “Liall.” A warning.

  “Honestly, love, magic?” They passed another group of diners nearer to the great arched doorway, all glimmering with crystal and brightly shining silk. They stared at the prince’s grinning face, openly interested.

  “Stop it,” Scarlet said from the corner of his mouth, his ink-dark eyes glittering, but Liall had the matter in his teeth and would not let go.

  “What about toadstool imps and nightflyers and goblins and— oof!”

  There was an audible and collective gasp from the watching courtiers, and ahead of them the queen turned to see what it was and found Liall nearly doubled up with laughter, holding his ribs where Scarlet had jammed his elbow quite hard, and the courtiers staring in absolute shock. No one struck a prince of Rshan, not even in jest.

  “Witches?” Liall inquired, still laughing a little. “Sprites? Dragons?”

  Scarlet thumped him on the shoulder, which drew more gasps as well as disapproving glares. Liall saw his mother on Cestimir’s arm, and the highly diverted look she had on her face. It was worth having Scarlet’s ire washing over him just to see how much she enjoyed the scene. Jochi was clearing his throat, attempting not to laugh, and the scandalized look of delight on Cestimir’s young face was priceless. Before Scarlet could discipline him again, Liall threw himself at Scarlet and wound his arms around the Scarlet’s slighter frame, immobilizing him before lifting him off his feet. Scarlet struggled, his expression outraged.

  “Rutting lunatic, put me down!”

  “No, you will chastise me again.”

  “Damn right I will if you don’t put me down!”

  “Mercy!” Liall begged.

  Someone tittered laughter. Scarlet was as red as a flame-flower but no longer struggling.

  “Nazheradei,” the queen called, her tone light, “if you are quite through pawing my dinner guests?”

  Liall set Scarlet on his feet. Scarlet jerked his clothing straight, not looking at Liall.

  “For now,” Liall said meaningfully, and there was more humor.

  Liall again offered Scarlet his arm. Scarlet took it, though it plainly galled him to do so. As they resumed their progress, Scarlet dug his fingers deep into Liall’s bicep, hoping it would give him a cramp.

  “You are in so much trouble,” he vowed under his breath.

  “I certainly hope so,” Liall murmured in return.

  ***

  Three days later, during a lull in the Baronial negotiations due to a Feast day, Liall returned to the apartment when twilit afternoon was wearing into twilit evening. Finding the common room and bedroom empty, he peered around the corner of the dining nook and into the kitchen. “T’aishka?” he called.

  Nenos appeared immediately, his bright blue tunic smudged with flour and his white hair pulled back from his face. “Jochi has escorted him to the library,” he informed Liall as he dried his hands on a towel.

  Liall’s heart sank. “The library. Why?”

  Nenos looked apologetic. “My Bizye has always been very terrible, but I believe your t’aishka made Jochi believe that if he did not take him out of the apartments today, he would leave on his own.”

  Liall sighed and thanked him and paced off through the long hallways and corridors of the palace. The library. Nadei and he had played there endlessly as boys. He remembered they used to hide behind an enormous bookcase incised with the heads of wolves, snickering behind their hands as servants poked in the corners, looking for them. It was not a place he wanted to see again.

  Liall paused at the entryway of the library, hearing many voices issuing from the large, vaulted room.

  A royal library is not a small, cozy affair, but an imposing and opulent theater where the plays being acted out by the occupants are ones of intellectual snobbery and hubris. Liall could not imagine why Scarlet had wanted to visit it, and he quailed at entering and stirring up all those old memories. Shikhoza’s voice, issuing in a silky stream from the room, made him go still as a hare. Liall listened, half hidden by a solid wall of heavy, brocaded black tapestry placed near the entrance.

  “I am no judge of Byzan literature, to know what might appeal, but you might enjoy this.” Shikhoza held out a little gilt-edged piece of parchment to Scarlet.

  Liall saw that Nenos had dressed Scarlet in muted tones today, gray boots, dark blue breeches, and a simple knee-length virca that had touches of both, with only a plain necklace of milky blue topaz for adornment. He looked small and interesting among all those pale giants, a little dark bird from the south.

  “It’s an old Rshani poem, from a very large and popular volume. It’s in Bizye, ser Keriss. I had it translated for you.”

  Scarlet accepted the poem from Shikhoza, though all could see it nettled him. Then he looked at her and –Liall supposed– saw the avid way she scrutinized his response, like a cat about to pounce on the interloping bird. Her satisfaction was evident even from Liall’s hidden vantage point. She was confident Scarlet would fail, would be humiliated and shown up for the peasant upstart he was. Liall’s hand gripped the tapestry tighter and he began to move forward, wanting to spare Scarlet.

  Then, Scarlet smiled. It was a careless, easy grin that lit up his features. He shrugged and offered the poem back to her. “It might as well be in turtle or snow bear, for I can’t read it.”

  Scarlet, you are too honest.

  Shikhoza’s face went deliberately bland, pretending she had made an unforgivable blunder.

  “Oh. I see. My deepest apologies.” She turned, holding the parchment out to Jochi. “Jochi, please recite this poem to ser Keriss. Apparently, he
cannot read it.”

  Jochi came forward, tense and discomfited. “Lady Shikhoza, please.”

  Scarlet saved him. “Please do, Jochi. I’d like to hear it.”

  The look Jochi gave Scarlet warmed Liall’s heart: sad and admiring at the same time, and plain anger at Shikhoza’s perfidy. Jochi recited the thing, a convoluted poem, elegant and complex with plays upon words that only a master would be able to decipher fully. Comparing it to Byzan poetry would be like comparing a paper boat to a galleon. Perhaps insulting Byzan arts was also part of her plan, but Scarlet made no comment other than to thank Jochi politely.

  “My apologies, ser Keriss,” Jochi said.

  Scarlet laughed, perhaps a little too brightly, but Liall could not tell. “Whatever for? It’s not your fault I can’t read. Nor mine.”

  Jochi bowed rather lower than he needed to, and moved away from the knot of courtiers who had begun to close in on Scarlet.

  A dandy courtier in a virca of yellow silk –was it Tesk the painter?– cleared his throat and leaned close. “Your parents... did not insist?”

  Scarlet turned to look up at him and smiled again, rather too charmingly, and Liall felt a little twinge of jealousy when he saw the way it affected Tesk, how the man straightened his clothing and tried to appear taller than he was.

  Ah, careful, Scarlet, Liall thought. Too many desire you already and Tesk is on the list of spies that I need to cultivate. Having him fall in love with my t’aishka will not do.

  Scarlet gave a short, honest laugh. “What, that I learn to read? Who was I going to read to, a horse? Any lass who had a lick of sense would have thought me daft for spending my time with a book when there was work to be done, and she would have been right. You can’t eat a book, after all. It doesn’t help you survive or keep you warm or get crops in on time. I’m afraid none of my people read, or very few. My mother could, but she believed it brought her bad luck and she would not teach it to us.”

  Scarlet looked down as if embarrassed at so many words coming out of him at once, lowering his eyes. “Still,” he said hesitantly, his voice very wistful, and (little minx!) looking up at Tesk through his dark lashes. “Still... it seems to me a wondrous thing, to have all those words just waiting for you, all that beauty, and you can reach for it anytime you want. It’s like magic, isn’t it?” Then he looked embarrassed again and waved his hand as if chasing away the words. “Don’t mind me, I’m being a fool.”

  Tesk was highly affected. “No,” he said after a moment. “That you are not.”

  Now their curiosity was engaged and they were on the scent. Another hesitant courtier, one whose name Liall did not know, sketched a little bow to get Scarlet’s attention.

  “Ser Keriss, it is said... it is said you were a traveling pedlar, before you left Byzantur.”

  “I’m still a redbird – that is what we call a pedlar back home – for I’m going back to Byzantur.” There was some stir at that. “One day,” he amended. “It’s for Prince Nazheradei to say.”

  Liall nearly snorted out loud. Dub me the master to my back and fight me tooth and nail on everything else to my face? Oh, little one, you are learning far too fast.

  “But how can you find your way on the road if you cannot read?”

  Scarlet dug in his pocket and produced the little glass and metal compass. “In need, I use this, but I don’t need it often. The routes were well known by the pedlar before me, and he taught me them.”

  “Routes?”

  “The roads between Omara and Ankar.”

  Tesk could not hide his astonishment. “What, all of them? But how, since you do not read?”

  “He spoke them to me, and I memorized them.”

  “Impossible,” Shikhoza said. Her voice was too tense, for several heads turned to her, and one lady tittered behind her jeweled hand. There would be fresh gossip tonight, of poems and pedlars, and bitter court ladies with spoiled plans.

  Scarlet called her on it. “Excuse me, lady?” Scarlet asked, meeting her gaze. “I’m ‘fraid I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said impossible. There must be hundreds of roads in the region you speak of. No one could memorize them all.”

  “You could if you had to,” Scarlet said. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? What a body has to do instead of just wanting?”

  Did he intend it the way she took it? It did not matter, for the court gossips would take it and run with it and by tomorrow the story would be that Shikhoza had cursed and spat and Scarlet danced a jig naked on the table. Shikhoza’s lips thinned unpleasantly and the look she gave Scarlet chilled Liall’s heart. But she did not get the chance to cut Scarlet to ribbons, for Tesk was motioning to Scarlet from the tall bookcase by the window, the one with the carved wolves that had so fascinated Liall as a boy.

  Scarlet bowed slightly to Shikhoza and joined Tesk. A servant brought down a large, rolled map, the leather kind taken on campaigns, and unrolled it across the wide table with a flourish.

  “Show me,” Tesk said.

  Scarlet looked at it, but frowned. “Do you have one without writing on it? One with just the land?”

  Tesk snapped his fingers and another map was produced. “We call this a topographic map, ser Keriss,” he informed gently.

  Scarlet grinned. “We just call it a common map.”

  Tesk shrugged, smiling. “Your way is less of a mouthful.”

  Someone quite near Liall’s place of concealment whispered – ... wager he’d like to make a mouthful of him – and Liall gritted his teeth.

  Scarlet placed his finger on the map directly where Khurelen would have been written in. “This is Khurelen.” His index finger sketched lines east and west. “From here there are nine routes to the sea, fourteen to Omara, six back to Lysia and beyond, and four across the mountains to Morturii and Minh, but of those four only two are open in the winter months. This road here,” he pointed above Khurelen “is one I travel often. It’s called the Snakepath, or the North Road, from Khurelen to Lysia. There are eight small settlements on the road. Just steadings really, groups of families living off one farm. They often need small things like needles and cloth and soap and such, and can’t spare the time to get to Khurelen to fetch it on their own. That’s where I come in.”

  “Needles?” a pretty girl laughed, her Bizye heavily accented.

  Scarlet laughed with her. “You’d be surprised what you can charge for a needle to a farm wife who hasn’t got one.”

  There was a round of good-natured laughter.

  “How long is the road?” asked Tesk, clearly interested.

  “The north road, from here to here, is eighteen leagues. Four days on foot. (On foot! some whispered) From here, fifteen leagues to the junction of the east fork and the south road to the sea, but I wouldn’t take the Sea Road in spring. Mosquitoes the size of rabbits!”

  More amusement. Oh, they were entertained, they were. And not in the mean, spiteful way that Shikhoza had intended. Liall stepped from behind the concealing tapestry and entered the library casually. There were turns and bows and the inevitable greetings, but Liall’s eyes were all for Scarlet.

  “Keriss,” he called softly, the court name they knew him by.

  Scarlet saw him and grinned, almost forgetting to bow, not that Liall cared. Liall strolled over to Scarlet and deliberately took his hand.

  “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Very much. Your people are wonderful.”

  “We think the same of you, ser Keriss,” Tesk said. Liall briefly courted the mental image of flattening Tesk’s nose, and then decided that would be impolite.

  “Well, I think you are wonderful, too,” Liall said, pitching his voice low. “And I am lonely, so come have dinner with me.”

  There were several murmurs of protest around us. “But, we were just...”

  “No, no,” Liall said, looking around him. “You have had him long enough. It is my turn. There are sacrifices I will gladly make for Rshan, but not tonight!”

 
Clean laughter washed over them, and over it Liall met Shikhoza’s livid eyes. Liall put his arm around Scarlet. “Say goodnight, ser.”

  Scarlet bade them good evening with perfect manners, and they left the library that held so many bad memories for Liall.

  ***

  The corridor leading to Liall’s apartments was nearly empty. They took their time getting back, strolling arm in arm and gazing at the paintings that lined the walls. Liall answered Scarlet’s many inquiries as best he could, amused at how interested Scarlet was in everything. The paintings, ancestors all, had been there before Liall was born, and it had been part of his schooling to remember dates and facts about all of them. He related these facts to Scarlet and recited from rote, not really listening to himself or to Scarlet’s responses.