by Kate Elliott
“It is a duty fitted to men, as you and I have already discussed. The Talon Ceremony will become the tradition among all the reeve halls. Leaving reeveship to a chance meeting on the road is a disgrace. The reeve administrators should have implemented reforms long ago.”
She released his arm as the full glory of his plan unfolded in her mind’s eye. “You can’t cage every unjessed eagle. Some will continue to fly on their way and jess as they please. But each time you manage to cage one more and force it to choose from a selection of male candidates you set before it, the reeve halls will change. Fewer and fewer women. The tradition of eagles jessing as they wish will be lost and eventually considered just another tale of the ancient past. When children who are now babies are old, they will think the Talon Ceremony is how it has always been done.”
“And you will be dead, Lady Dannarah.” He straightened his shoulders and shook out his magnificent sleeves. “Your time is over.”
Bright sprang from the perch and knocked down the third candidate. Yet even so she pulled the rake of her talon. The man screamed as the claw slashed across his face. Staggering back, he fell, blood streaming. Bright retreated, huffing and chirping in distress. One young man toward the back of the line of hopeful talons stepped forward as if he felt the eagle’s distress, but it wasn’t his turn to go. The candidates were ranked in an order they were not allowed to break.
“I don’t see you down there offering yourself to the eagle, Tavahosh. You are a coward willing to risk other people’s lives but not your own.”
No point in waiting for his outraged reply. She pushed rudely past him and clattered down the final few tiers to the ground. As she strode toward the netting cage she whistled. Nesard and Ruri pushed out from the crowd of onlookers and hurried over to her. Reyad trotted after them like a stick caught in their wake.
“What are those whip marks on your face?” she asked Ruri.
“We had trouble when the prince’s people came. Feder fell from the cliff but we think he was pushed.”
“The hells!”
“Then afterward they said a crippled man wasn’t fit to be a reeve anyway, so it was best a whole man could now take command of his eagle. That’s when I slugged them.”
“Take that rebellious woman into custody!” Tavahosh shouted.
“Marshal,” said Reyad. “I have important information.”
“Not now.”
She strode up to the netting and ducked under it, Ruri at her side holding a length of leash. Now that they were inside none of Tavahosh’s strutting guards would dare follow. Nesard and Reyad helped the injured man out of the netting.
She whistled a calming tune; had they taught these candidates nothing about how to handle eagles?
Bright knew her and Ruri well enough to clumsily flap a pace backward but she was still big enough and angry enough to strike at a pigeon’s worth of provocation. Knowing death could fall in a flash of wings always comforted Dannarah; a quick killing by eagle would be far better than the ugly illness that had eaten away her beloved father for half a year before his raving, painful death.
Ruri worked his way around one side of Bright, who knew the fawkner well and somewhat anxiously ignored his coaxing whistles and gestures. Dannarah eased forward with arms outstretched to make herself look bigger. She was a great whistler; eagles liked her for it. Yet the raptor was bewildered, thwarted of the instinct to fly away to the mountains and there mourn in whatever way eagles did; this was a mystery unknown to humankind. It wasn’t right to make the raptors turn and turn about like beasts hitched to a wagon that they must pull until the day they dropped dead. No one really knew what eagles felt about their reeves but surely they, too, needed a period of rest and reflection, of freedom, to choose what to do next.
Some eagles never returned after the death of a reeve.
The right thing to do would be to pull up the netting and let Bright fly away. But she had a good idea of what carnage would happen if she tried to release Bright with them surrounded by Tavahosh’s soldiers and by the priests and officials who stood to gain prestige and riches from whatever they planned to turn the reeve halls into. Through Ulyar and Tavahosh, Queen Chorannah would control the army and the reeves. Nothing Dannarah had seen so far convinced her Jehosh had the skill or temperament to fight a war within the palace.
Bright huffed, feathers settling a little as she started to calm. Her golden gaze flashed right, toward the talons, and then back to Ruri. The fawkner halted.
The drums remained silent. The wind rumbled, and no one spoke.
In the eerie silence and under the glaring sun, Dannarah remembered being young, the day she had daringly asked her father about the Devouring temples, the ones dedicated to the goddess Ushara, She Who Rules Over Love, Death, and Desire. Of course at sixteen Dannarah had wanted to know if it was true that beyond the palace walls young people could just go to Ushara’s temple and meet with acolytes who might teach the shy and hesitant about sex, or rendezvous with their own chosen lovers in a safe place, not under their clan’s eye. Of course she had been curious. In answer her father had closed Ushara’s temples, first in Toskala and afterward in all the major cities. Children growing up in the cities now knew nothing of the Devourer except as an old superstition spoken of by their aged grandparents.
How had her father’s actions been different from what Tavahosh intended?
Could anyone ever go back to the way things had been before, once they had changed that much? That which is lost can never fully be recovered.
Bright’s golden eyes shifted again to the column of talons standing on the right side of the netting. While the other men stood in rigid lines, awaiting the prince’s order, that one young man she had noticed before trembled as if he felt the eagle’s distress. He had an ordinary face with a Sirni nose, he was fit and trim from training, and he had a scar on his shoulder. Broad hands. A shadow in his eye, like a cord of binding.
This mystery no one could explain. Some said there was only a single person fit for each individual eagle in every generation but Dannarah had never believed such a limiting tale. She believed there were people fitted for being reeves and somehow the eagles could find those people. Maybe it was similar to having a tuneful voice or a knack for embroidery, a space in your heart where the jess could hook.
She might be wrong about the young man, and she hated to the utter depths of her being to do anything that would make Tavahosh look good, but she was cursed if she would let Bright suffer.
The young man looked her way with an uneasy expression, as much plea as question. She nodded with the curt expectation of command. He ducked under the netting and murmured, “What must I do?” in Sirniakan.
“Copy the tune I am whistling. Do not signal the eagle to come. You must let her offer the jess. Wait for it.”
The lad took a step toward Bright. She puffed her wings, and he halted.
A low rumble as of distant thunder rolled through the air, the cursed drums at it again.
“Glory to the Shining One!” gasped the young man.
Bright tilted her head in curiosity, as if asking the name of a new friend.
Jessed.
“Walk forward slowly and take hold of her harness,” she said. “Ruri will show you how to hood the bird. Let Ruri teach you, lad. He knows Bright as well as any person alive.”
With a look akin to awe on his face, the lad did as she told him. The drumroll faded as a murmur of voices rose from the men surrounding Prince Tavahosh.
She backed up to where Reyad held up the net, Nesard hovering behind him, and ducked out of the cage. The moment she was outside of the netting she blew three quick blasts on her bone whistle in the low tone that fell outside human range: the call of distress to her eagle.
“Nesard, those who can weather this storm will have to stay behind to manage what they can. But get out the ones who are at risk, especially the women here and in Toskala. Send a reeve immediately to alert Tarnit at Palace Hall. She must be bac
k by now. Tell her to get all my people out of there at once.”
“Where can we shelter so many eagles? Who can we trust?”
She hesitated. With Ivo missing and likely murdered, Iron Hall was no longer safe. She dared not burden Goard in Gold Hall. Argent, Horn, and Copper Halls were already under Tavahosh’s thumb. That left Bronze Hall in Mar, with its odd relationship to Plum Blossom Clan in Salya. But even they had a new marshal they didn’t like.
“We can’t trust anyone. Fly west up the ridge of the Westhal Hills to Heaven’s Ridge.” She grasped for the first rendezvous point that came to mind in that vast wilderness. “There’s a Ri Amarah estate in the Elsharat Valley next to Demon’s Eye Peak. Send a reeve down there once a month. If I survive this I will drop a redheart wreath or basket of red-nut rice near the demon’s coil where it will be visible only to reeves. Go!”
Nesard hurried away not a moment too soon, for Tavahosh approached the cage at the head of his soldiers. Judging by the furious sneer in his face, Dannarah guessed her intervention had given him the justification he needed to arrest her. That he would make an excuse to have her executed she did not doubt. Good luck to the poor lads who tried to jess Terror.
She grabbed Reyad’s arm as if to detain him.
He spoke in a rush. “I found out two things. Hetta thought something terrible was happening to the women but I didn’t really believe it. Now I know it’s true. At Argent Hall they didn’t transfer the last of the women reeves to other halls. They imprisoned them to save their eagles for Talon Ceremonies.”
The terrible words did not even surprise her. She was already a blade in motion. “What’s the other thing? Be quick.”
“Most of the reeves are missing from Argent Hall and no one would tell me where they’d gone. Then they got suspicious of my questions. I crawled under the marshal’s cote and I heard them plotting to arrest me. From what they were saying, I think they are part of a plot to overthrow the king. I got out only by a pinfeather.”
An eagle’s giant shadow glided over them. She did not glance up.
“You must pretend you are not my ally.” She held Reyad’s gaze, searching his face. He had such a pleasant visage it was difficult to imagine he had cold-bloodedly sliced Slip’s jesses and Auri’s harness. But people didn’t necessarily show their deepest nature on the surface. Unlike demons, she could not see into his heart, only judge based on what she knew he had done. “Listen carefully, Reyad. Tavahosh will destroy the reeve halls if he is not stopped. Everything that went on at Argent Hall will happen in all the halls, if Tavahosh is not stopped. Do you understand me?”
He blinked. “Aui!”
“Take refuge with your clan afterward. I’ll find you there.”
Mouth tight, he said, “Yes, Marshal.”
“I beg your pardon, I mean nothing by it, but this is the easiest story to make Tavahosh believe you dislike me.” She pulled him close and kissed him on the mouth. He was so surprised he recoiled exactly as she would have wished. Taking her cue from Hasibal’s players, she slapped him. As from down a long distance she heard men sniggering at the sight of an old woman pressing her suit on a handsome young man, just as she hoped. But it was the creak of a crossbow being wound back that grabbed her attention.
The shadow descended. Men shouted and scattered as Terror thumped down between her and the prince. Tavahosh was no coward but he hesitated as any prudent man would with Terror eyeing Tavahosh’s cowering retinue as if deciding which one to snack on first.
“Arrest her!” cried Tavahosh.
Not one man moved in on the eagle. That wasn’t cowardice; that was wisdom.
She scanned their numbers to see who had the crossbow. Men willing to kill Feder would delight in ridding the world of her but they would want to spare the eagle. She whistled. Terror walked forward with her swaying, awkward gait although there was nothing comic about the way the raptor loomed above Dannarah like the shadow of death. The expressions of enthralled panic on the arrogant faces of Tavahosh and his retinue diverted her for just long enough that she could not resist a final scratch.
“Prince Tavahosh. Nephew! Have you ever even been harnessed to an eagle? Been aloft? Show me your courage. Come with me now and see the land as reeves see it.”
He wavered. Almost he leaped for the bait, seeing so many men around him watching him. Maybe he even dreamed of being offered an eagle’s jess and the chance to prove himself as a reeve, as she had. Instead, he raised the bronze baton of his office as if to strike her with it.
“I strip you of your rank as marshal. You are nothing more than an old woman who should never have been allowed to be a reeve.”
“Old I may be, but I am a reeve, Tavahosh, and you never will be one.” She held out her hands in mocking supplication. “I invite you to arrest me with your own hands, right here with my eagle at my back.”
His hesitation gave her the sliver of space she needed to step back under Terror. The harness slapped her shoulders. With the ease of long practice she swiftly hooked in, pressed the bone whistle to her lips, and blew the signal to fly.
48
When a woman returned from her sojourn in the menses courtyard, Queen Chorannah received her formally back into her court with a poem and a tray of sweet delicacies.
“You do not kneel and touch your head to the floor to show your gratitude to her sublime highness, Lady Sarai,” remarked the translator with the false honey of a poisoned flower.
“Ri Amarah are enjoined to bow our heads before no one except our Creator, Your Highness.” Sarai stood stubbornly, aware of how everyone seated in the queen’s claustrophobic circle stared with interest. What their hopes were she could not tell: Did they plan to ingratiate themselves with Tavahosh’s new bride or find ways to claw her until she bled?
Queen Chorannah said nothing.
The translator went on. “According to the report you took the book with you into the courtyard. Thus, it must now be burned.”
She clutched the book in its leather case against her chest. “Burned? Why?”
“When a woman purifies herself through bleeding, all that she touches during that time is invested with a holy power dangerous to ordinary life.”
“That is not the teaching of the Ri Amarah. A woman keeps a Book of Accounts throughout her life as her reckoning to the god, as her duty to the clan, and as a reminder of all the stages she makes on her own journey.”
“But you are now betrothed to Prince Tavahosh.”
“I am still Ri Amarah.”
“Your people gave you to me in exchange for preferment,” said Chorannah suddenly. “You are to become the wife of an exalted priest of Beltak who is also my son, a prince of kingly blood. His fate guides yours now. Your behavior is unseemly. Let the book be burned.”
“No.”
Every person in the hall leaned forward as the queen sucked in a sharp breath. Tension snapped. On an exhale, the queen drew the whip from her sash and handed it to Tayum.
Sarai trembled. She had grown up as a prisoner of shame imposed on her by others. Now she had become a vessel through which coin and connections might flow for the benefit of others. Physical pain had not been part of her life, and she did not know how well she could endure it; if she would scream, faint, beg, or otherwise humiliate herself. She feared that the trauma of a whipping might dislodge the pregnancy. But if she handed over her book she would become the shadow she feared above all else: mute flesh with a disgraced spirit too beaten down to dream.
She had not given in to shame and she would not give in to fear.
“Then whip me,” she said in a calm voice. “I am sure Prince Tavahosh will be pleased to know his mother feels free to discipline his wife rather than leaving such a decision to him. I will let him know that you have called his judgment and his manhood into question.”
A flash of anger contorted the queen’s face, quickly succeeded by a brief tease of a crooked smile like vexed respect. “You displease me, Lady Sarai. What this rebell
ious nature portends I cannot say, but you are correct that my son must have first crack at you.”
The ominous phrase did not soothe Sarai’s uneasy heart.
The queen went on. “You are forbidden the garden. Until Tavahosh’s return you will stay in my sight, or be confined to your closet. That is all.”
A servant withdrew the tray of delicacies without allowing Sarai a single one, but she didn’t care. She had bought herself a few more days.
That evening after supper servants cleared away the tables and arranged all the couches at one end of the hall, leaving the other end open. Sarai tucked herself into the back corner by the servants’ door, planning to stay still and silent and overlooked as she considered potential plans of attack. Tavahosh’s arrogance was malleable. She had to convince him to allow her to correspond with Tsania. If she could do that then Tsania would figure out a way to help her.
The queen clapped her hands to draw their attention. “This evening comes a rare and exotic performance. King Jehosh has engaged a troupe of Hasibal’s players to entertain the court. He has sent over the women players to play for us. I do not approve this childish manner of storytelling, but let us be polite.”
Startled, Sarai looked up. Around her the court women whispered with delighted and possibly scandalized interest, then went still as a woman wearing a long robe and with a shawl wrapped over her hair appeared in an open door and paused there, awaiting their notice. She held a lamp in her hand to mark her as the “lantern” who would guide them through the story.
The queen nodded permission, and the woman entered the hall. Two musicians followed her, one with a seven-stringed zither and the other with a hand drum and rattle. The “lantern” sang the traditional melody, “Let it be known, let it be told,” in an inviting voice. Sarai clasped her hands together. Her heart ached for remembering how paradisiacal those years with Elit had been, blossoming into shared womanhood, although she could only see that now.