by Kate Elliott
Gil had a hot temper and Sarai saw by the way he took a clipped step forward that he was boiling now. She pressed a hand on his sleeve and eased in front of him.
“I am so very ignorant of the palace, Lord Tyras. Can you please enlighten me as to why people might believe Gilaras’s family would champion this new captain?”
“Don’t you recognize the name of Captain Kellas, Gil?” Tyras demanded in a sneering tone that made Gil clench his jaw. “He’s the Black Wolf who was disgraced when he allowed your father to cast a spear into King Atani’s back.”
“The hells!” Gil staggered. Sarai gently guided him toward a cushion, where he sat with a thump. He pressed a hand to his forehead as if he had sprung a headache.
“You can see how that might look,” Tyras added helpfully. “Your family contracts an advantageous marriage and worms its way back into the palace. A man forced to retire from the Wolves because it couldn’t be proven he wasn’t party to the conspiracy is appointed as gatekeeper.”
“How kind of my brothers not to warn me about this.” Gil rubbed his brow.
“If they knew of the arrival of the captain, which they might not,” objected Sarai. “You cannot assume you see the whole of the beast when you have your face right up against its ass.”
For the space of three breaths their shock was like a ringing in her ears. How had that fallen out of her lips? It could never be unsaid now they had all heard it.
Gil began to laugh.
A moment later so did Tyras and the prince.
“A fair point,” said Tyras, wiping his eyes. “Just because it stinks doesn’t make it shit.”
“I do wonder why my father suddenly brings in a man suspected of being party to my grandfather’s death to guard my mother,” said Kasad.
“A mystery, indeed,” said Sarai. “Please let me pour tea. Our factor Welo makes the best savory buns.”
It went against her upbringing to eat with men but she sat and ate with them because that was what Gil was accustomed to and what she must learn to be comfortable with. She waited for them to comment on the teapot with its painting of spiky orange and yellow proudhorn, the flower traditionally associated with fertility among newlyweds. But they made no jokes.
The tea’s sharp aroma tingled in her nostrils as she listened to them discuss Captain Kellas. He was an old man now but in his youth had climbed the face of Law Rock and almost been executed for the crime, spared because of the exceptional nature of the feat. Stories about his career as a Black Wolf were legion: He was supposed to have uncovered numerous vile conspiracies to disturb the orderly peace of the Hundred and assassinated hundreds of men and women, all at the behest of King Anjihosh the Glorious Unifier in order to stamp out corrupt resistance to his righteous rule.
If the captain had been present when King Atani was murdered, might he know something about her mother? Her hand strayed to her cheek, and when Gil saw her touching the scar he shifted just enough so his knee touched hers, a tiny act of support that brought a smile to her lips.
“You two get along well,” said Tyras, who had not missed the gesture. “What odds on that? You’re very fortunate, Gil.”
Gil said nothing for so long that Sarai held her breath, wondering if Tyras’s words had offended him. But then he looked at her and smiled, and she had to look away as a blush spread hotly across her cheeks. Tyras laughed and Kasad hid his mouth behind a hand.
“I am more fortunate than I could ever have dreamed,” said Gil.
They chatted awhile longer.
The men’s departure left the room quiet and the cushions scattered. Sarai ate the last bun.
Gil paced. “I’m so glad this is the last day. This feels like a cage!”
“I feel trapped, too. Once we’re done with this ceremony can we travel everywhere, Gil? Out to the markets? To the countryside? Even maybe…” She chewed on her lower lip, struggling to get the words out. “My mother married the richest Ri Amarah man in the Hundred. His clan lives in Nessumara.” She gazed over the garden so as not to see his expression when she said the words. “What I didn’t tell you is that my mother’s husband is not my father. She got pregnant by her lover. A man who wasn’t Ri Amarah. Which anyone would know if they saw me standing amid a crowd of women of my own people.”
“Oh.” The sound was more exhaled breath than word. “That’s why you look a fair bit like ordinary Hundred folk. Is that why they let you marry me? Because your father isn’t one of them?”
She stared at her hands. “It isn’t my scar that is the mark of my mother’s shameful behavior.”
He took her hands in his. “I understand that to some people it would be unforgivable. But I don’t care. My grandmother married an outlander. By marrying General Sengel, Grandmama tied her family to King Anjihosh, and meanwhile Grandpapa got ties into the local council and her clan’s wealth and influence. Her son was half Qin thereby, and as I mentioned my mother was also born to a Qin soldier and a local woman. That’s why I look the way I do, not quite Hundred-born, not quite Qin. That’s what people do, isn’t it? Set roots wherever they find themselves.”
“Not among my people.”
He shrugged as if her words didn’t make sense. “If your mother and her husband had some manner of contract that specified sexual exclusivity or his assurance that any children she gave birth to were sired by him, then that would have been a matter to be negotiated between the families, would it not? Nothing to blame you for! But why do you want to go to Nessumara if it is a place your mother ran away from?”
The shame had been thrown against her all her life. But he didn’t care. It was like an infested wound draining away.
“I have an older brother named Aram whom I have never been allowed to see although we have corresponded all my life. Uncle Abrisho has made it clear I’ll never be allowed into any Ri Amarah compound again. If we were able to go to Nessumara maybe Aram could visit us wherever we were staying.”
He gathered her closer. “As it happens, my darling Sarai-ya, my grandmother’s people are a well-to-do Nessumara clan. I can easily go visit my cousins, if they will accept a visit from the likes of me. Which they will because Grandmama did favor me before she died. And because they will be madly curious to meet you. So we can easily travel to Nessumara. There is one more thing.”
“What?”
“I know where there is a demon’s coil outside Nessumara just isolated enough for us to visit. Be patient and you shall soon have what you desire.”
“Gil!” She embraced him.
Downstairs the bell was rung. The man who announced himself was a clerk from the upper palace: Queen Chorannah commanded their attendance in her audience hall tomorrow morning.
Gil frowned as he studied the plain token polished to a shine. “She knows Kas came.”
A shiver of apprehension rushed through her. “What does this mean?”
“You and I are being thrown into the boiling pot and they will milk us for every dribble of influence they can get.” He put an arm around her, and they held each other. This she trusted in: His heart beat surely and loyally. “It means we have had our seven nights of peace. Now my family and yours will get what they paid for.”
29
The next day they rose before dawn. As they left the lower palace, Gil examined the porch overlooking the palace gatehouse for signs of an elderly soldier who might be the legendary Captain Kellas, but he only saw young men on guard. Law Rock was a vast bulk still in shadow as he and Sarai waited on Guardian Bridge to begin the ascent. The Thousand Steps were cut into the rock back and forth along the cliff face, making a jagged pattern all the way to the top. Each landing on the switchback was lit by lamps. Iadit and Parad carried a change of clothes, perfume, and a parasol. Gil had insisted they hide a stash of coin under their court clothes for “sweetening the path.”
So many courtiers and officials and couriers were making the climb that Gil braced himself for boredom, knowing the climb would go at a tortoise’s pace. Bu
t Sarai was so delighted by the way the light of the rising sun spun shifting patterns across the towering promontory that he began to enjoy her astonishment. Sun glinted on crystals embedded in the stone. Here and there sprays of flowers bloomed on ledges.
Under cover of a hand she whispered, “It does look as if it is a giant spear of stone broken off at the top, just as it says in the tale.”
He squeezed her hand, too nervous to reply. Sarai had such an incisive way of drawing connections between things in ways he had never considered that it was easy to forget she was entirely unprepared for the palace. His brothers had tried to teach him, but he had thrown off their attention like discarded clothing. Mocking their tendentious lectures had made him feel strong but now he was beginning to fear it had made him weak.
At each landing they had to pause to get permission for the next ladder of stairs, smoothed by slipping coins to the guards. He started savoring the wait because everything interested her: Trying to plot the climbing route the infamous Captain Kellas might have taken up the cliff; admiring the scenes painted on parasols unfurled by people around them; recognizing people who had come on the visiting days. Making up stories about the people she had never before seen.
The city sprawled below offered endless fascination. The two wide rivers shone, brilliant and powerful, as their water streamed southeast. The many docks with ships and boats and barges tied up or sheltered in wharves revealed a city bustling with activity. The jumbled character of the buildings and streets in Wolf and Stone Quarters stood in stark contrast with the straight avenues and open squares of Bell and Flag Quarters. Sarai pointed out how, in the sprawl of the city into Fifth Quarter and on to the fields barely discernible in the distance, you could see how the city grew outward along the two main roads and then filled in between them.
He squinted up to the white gate shining above them, its lintel freshly painted with the empty throne of the god Beltak. A fire-wreathed crown surmounted the throne, and above it shone the sun, moon, and stars. The unseen god’s throne was flanked by a pair of exalted priests with their elaborate headdresses and decorated capes and by the six officers of his court, who were depicted as a man with a fish tail, one with the body of a scorpion, an ape-headed man, a stocky short man with claws for digging and shovels for feet, a man half in and half out of a fire, and a man with the body of a winged serpent.
Sarai stared like a child too innocent to know to disguise its wonderment. “Doesn’t it remind you a bit of the stories of the eight children of the Hundred? If you count the two priests as human and demon?”
He stepped on her foot. “Don’t say that kind of thing where people can hear you!”
“I’ll stop,” she whispered behind her hand.
At the top of the steps a steward wearing the crossed-spears tabard of the palace beckoned them up the last flight of steps. Sarai tucked her scarf across her lower face. Past the gate the passageway divided into three corridors. Taking their token, a steward sent them on their way with an escort. They were led down a series of streets and thence through a section of roofed corridors and at last into a partitioned room. There they were given leave to change into the voluminous court clothes required in the upper palace. He had never had privacy growing up and didn’t miss it but he didn’t like the sneaking suspicion that they were being watched through hidden spy-holes. Parad opened the entry door a crack so he could keep an eye on the corridor. Iadit stood by the opposite door, which was latched closed from the other side.
Gil dredged into the unused depths of his memory to recall things Usi had told him. “We must absolutely follow every protocol to its tiniest instance. Queen Chorannah insists on the protocol she was raised with in Sirniaka. We will be ushered into the Queen’s Audience Hall. We will be told where to stand, men on one side, women on the other. We are not allowed to speak. The queen remains seated behind a screen the entire time and never speaks. Our names are announced to what seems empty air and then we are escorted out. That’s all. An audience is a means to prove she has the power to make us wait. I’ve only been called once. It was frightful, hot, and tedious.”
“How near to the locked Assizes Tower is the Queen’s Audience Hall?”
“The hells!” He stalked a circumference of the chamber, hoping no spy listened from the walls. Glowering, he halted in front of her. “You promised you wouldn’t do anything reckless.”
“I’m just curious. If the tower has been closed off, then who controls access to it?”
“I suppose the Spears guard it. They serve King Jehosh.”
“Do they? Didn’t their supreme captain demand a bribe in exchange for not arresting you? Does he serve the king or his own greed? Or someone else?”
He tangled his fingers through hers. “We don’t want to get involved in this, Sarai.”
“We already are involved. We have to figure out the architecture of the palace’s factions if we want to use it to our advantage. Why are you frowning?”
“You’re enjoying this.”
A steward appeared. They were taken down a corridor and up a flight of stairs to a large chamber where a balcony overlooked a garden.
Sarai walked onto the balcony and Gil followed. She leaned on the railing, checking to make sure no one lurked in the colonnade beneath, and gestured the sign empty. She had learned the hand-talk from her lover Elit. Yet another thing to thank the woman for if he ever met her.
The garden had an ornamental pool and lovely flower beds. At one end stood a round pavilion near a wall with a closed gate. Beyond the wall rose a white tower four stories high.
“That is the Assizes Tower,” he whispered. “In the old days before the Hundred had a king, the assizes were the only courts of law. Reeves would bring in criminals to local assizes. The local archon or town council would pass judgment. Difficult cases were held for the Guardians or brought here.”
“The Guardians?”
“The demons who wear the cloaks called demon’s skin used to be called Guardians.”
“There were nine of them, isn’t that right?”
“Yes. They were judges who rode a circuit of the land. Each had a territory they would cover. They looked into the hearts of the accused to discover the truth. But in the end they were corrupted by their own magic and dragged the Hundred into a terrible war.”
“Being able to see into the hearts of people would be a dreadful power.” Sarai pressed a hand to her right hip where, he knew, she carried her mother’s old mirror like a talisman. “How could you resist using what you learned to benefit yourself or your clan? How could you bear to be intimate with someone whose every thought was unfolded before you? And how could you ever trust someone who could tear aside all the secrets you keep and the unpleasant thoughts you never act on? Didn’t King Anjihosh command that all the Guardians be put to death?”
“He commanded it but cloaked demons can take horrible injuries and survive. To kill a demon you have to cut off its skin.”
She winced.
“His Wolves were never able to kill them all. Some still roam the Hundred eating out the hearts of the unwary, although mostly they hide.”
She rubbed her forehead.
“Are you well, Sarai? Just a little longer and we’ll be free to go back to our rooms.”
“Just a slight headache. Do you ever recall snatches of dreams? People you never actually saw but who are so vivid in your mind you feel you must have met them?”
“No. Usually I’m too drunk to remember my dreams.”
His bad joke made her smile, as he had hoped it would. “So is the demon’s coil inside the tower? I thought the coil must be embedded in rock.”
“Before the Thousand Steps were carved only reeves could reach the top of Law Rock, by flying. They found the coil already here, in the rock. After the Thousand Steps were carved, the Assizes Tower was built over the coil to protect it because everyone knows people cannot walk on the coil, only demons can.”
“What do you think the coils do?”
she asked. “Why do the demons need them?”
They both went still as a group of men emerged from a portico opposite them and strode across the garden. The men wore sumptuous fabrics appropriate to court, and they were laughing and talking together. A few glanced up, seeing them. Sarai checked to make sure she still had her scarf pulled across her face. Then the men vanished into the building to the right.
“That was the king,” murmured Gil, gripping her hand. “And my uncle Lord Vanas. He hates me. Never trust him.”
“Was there never any question of your uncle Vanas being involved with your father in the king’s murder? Often family members conspire together.”
The words spoken so baldly made him feel he was a demon, skin flayed, bleeding out. “Vanas was a Black Wolf then. He was actually there and saw it happen. He tried to stop my father—his own brother!—from throwing the spear that hit the king in the back. The way he tells the story, when he saw he’d been too late and that the king was dead, he killed his own brother in a rage. Everyone loved King Atani.”
“Hush. Someone’s coming.”
To his horror a door opened and his cursed uncle walked in with King Jehosh beside him.
“Gilaras Herelian.” Jehosh spoke in the Hundred-speech, not Sirni. “And the Ri Amarah girl.”
“My wife, Your Highness,” said Gil, then cursed himself for the snap in his voice.
Every man there heard its disrespect.
“Are you protecting her beauty or her coin?” said the king, walking right up to Sarai.
She held her ground, resting a hand on her hip where her mirror hung hidden beneath the outer layer of enveloping robe. The way the scarf draped made a mystery of her eyes, and she had beautiful eyes regardless, shining now as she struggled to decide whether to choose prudent Ri Amarah modesty or defiant pride. He already knew her that well.
“And a rotten heap of stinking coin it is, so the rumor goes,” said Lord Vanas with a curl of lip that marked him as Gil’s enemy, always and ever. The worst of it was, they looked enough alike that anyone would guess them to be related.