Toads and Diamonds

by Heather Tomlinson

  Her mother murmured a parting prayer before the household shrine. Silently, Tana followed suit. Naghali-ji, give me the strength to bear your gift with honor. She'd done the same upon first waking, when she discovered she was still speaking frogs and snakes. Diribani's jewels and flowers continued as well, she assumed. Given the distance opening wide between them, the reminder of their shared experience comforted her.

  Clang! Clang! Clang!

  "We're coming," Ma Hiral called across the courtyard. She opened the gate and recoiled as a dusty white-coated figure fell at her feet. "You! Haven't you caused enough heartbreak? Get out at once!"

  "Please, hear me," the girl panted.

  "Gulrang?" In her astonishment, Tana spoke. A toad plopped in the dirt. With an affronted-sounding croak, it took refuge in the shade of the well cover.

  Gulrang covered her mouth with her fist, as if toads were poisonous.

  "Get out, I say!" When Tana's mother reached for their visitor's coat, with the apparent intention of throwing her into the street, Tana put out a hand to stop her. Tears blotched Gulrang's face. Bits of hay stuck to her crumpled clothing, as if she'd slept in a barn and

  92

  then run all the way from the overseers' quarter to yank on their gate bell.

  "Who is it, Hiral-ji?" At the neighboring house, Indu's grandmother appeared at an upper window. "That one! Shall I have my son-in-law get rid of her?"

  Tana frowned and shook her head. "No, thank you, Nama-ji," Ma Hiral said.

  "It wasn't my fault," Gulrang said behind her hands.

  "Speak up, girl." Indu's grandmother rested her hip against the window frame. "What's happened to bring you here in such a state?"

  "My lady dismissed me yesterday evening," Gulrang said.

  Ma Hiral sniffed. "And you expect sympathy from us? After Diribani risked herself for your unworthy hide?"

  "I know." Gulrang bowed her head. Like a tent frame collapsing, the tall girl seemed to fold in on herself, her limbs a bundle of sticks. "My parents are weavers in a small village upriver, so I went to stay with my brother, a groom at the governor's stables. He was so angry. He and his friends had been drinking palm liquor. All night, they were drinking. And he said, he said--" She broke off, shuddering.

  The older woman leaned out of the window. "Are you going to tell us or not? These ladies aren't interested in hearing a girl complain about the curry she dished up for herself!"

  "My brother blamed Mina Diribani for my disgrace," Gulrang wailed. "He said she was a witch, a cursed witch. He said no true Believer would let her live."

  The two older women gasped.

  "Did he hurt her?" The bedding slid from Tana's shoulder to the ground. Her insides felt frozen. She was surprised that the

  93

  two pale-yellow frogs leaping from her lips didn't shatter like ice chips when they hit the ground.

  "I tried to stop him. I told him, over and over, that I'd been stupid, and then unlucky--it had nothing to do with her. But this morning he tied me up--his own sister--and left me in an empty stall. He had a knife." Gulrang started sobbing.

  "And Diribani?" Ma Hiral demanded. "What about her?"

  "I don't know!" Gulrang cried. "Nobody at the fort would tell me. One of my brother's friends cut me loose. He said my brother was dead. He said that I'd better run, or the soldiers would kill me, too."

  "Why did you come here?" Tana asked. A whip snake flexed its tail, dark brown against the courtyard's reddish ground.

  "To grind our hearts in the dirt, you wicked girl?" Ma Hiral would have slapped the kneeling Gulrang, but again Tana stayed her mother's hand.

  "No!" Gulrang said. "I came to tell Mina Tana. In case one of the others had the same idea about her."

  "Brother Akshath, protect us!" Ma Hiral folded her hands and lifted her face to the sky in prayer.

  As when she first saw Diribani speaking gems and flowers, Tana felt numb. How could someone have attacked her sister? Naghali-ji was no crow god. Unlike Brother Utsav, whose favor was as whimsical as the wind, the snake goddess dealt fairly with her worshipers. Diribani had gotten good fortune. Hadn't she? Like a wheel with jeweled spokes turning, the possibilities revolved in Tana's mind. Wisdom. Good fortune. Death.

  For either sister, or both? Tana had nothing; she didn't want to die. So she would have to be wise. "Thank you for the warning, Gulrang," she said. "Will you do me one more service?"

  94

  The girl averted her eyes from the two sand boas writhing on the ground. One twined around the other in a living knot. She wiped her wet face on her sleeve and faced Tana squarely. "Yes."

  "Trade clothes with me," Tana said.

  "Very good thinking," Nama-ji approved from her window seat. "No one will expect to see our snake girl dressed in a white coat."

  Gulrang looked uncertain. It struck Tana that the two of them had quite a lot in common: cast from their homes, their work taken away, pursued by those who wished them ill. Not surprising if Gulrang hesitated to give up the last thing she could call her own.

  Slowly, the girl nodded. "If Mina Diribani hadn't stood up for me, those soldiers would have ripped the clothes from my back and offered nothing but shame in return." Her chin lifted with the arrogance that had marked the Gulrang of old. "You people call us flesh-eaters. But our religion also condemns the murder of an innocent person. If my brother succeeded, he will suffer in hell forever. I pray that God will know the regret in my heart and judge me accordingly."

  "Yes, yes. Change dresses now, justify yourself later." Ma Hiral shooed both young women into the empty house.

  Tana took a clean blouse and red dress wrap out of her bag. It had been her idea, but she wasn't looking forward to trading with Gulrang. Traditional clothing was so much more practical than the invading white-coats' tailored things.

  Prettier, too. The rich crimson shade of Tana's blouse flattered Gulrang's dark skin. Once Ma Hiral had helped her into it, the dress wrap's graceful drape disguised the girl's lankiness. She looked womanly, as elegant as a swan.

  Until she walked across the room. Her long stride stretched the

  95

  pleats around her waist. When she stepped on the skirt hem, the whole length came unwound and puddled at her feet. Gulrang flushed with embarrassment. "How do you keep it on?"

  Ma Hiral tutted. "Small steps." She picked up the fabric rectangle and started over. "Tuck this end here, then pleat like so."

  Tana, meanwhile, was swimming in her borrowed clothes. Gulrang's coat was far too broad in the shoulders; the sleeves dripped over her wrists. She sat on the floor, rolling the trouser legs so she wouldn't trip over them.

  "Not like that," Gulrang corrected her. "Bunch the fabric around your ankles." She knelt and rearranged Tana's pant legs. "The idea is to keep your skin covered, not show it like a--" She glanced at her own bare arms and belly, and blushed deeply. "The shoulder laces adjust this way."

  Tana held still as Gulrang tightened yellow ribbons over her arms and down the coat's side seams. She had thought the ribbons were just decoration. Had she ever really looked at a white-coat except with suspicion? Or cared about one? Wisdom, she reminded herself. If she and her sister wished to cheat death, they needed to pay more attention to the world around them. Tana ventured a few steps. The clothing felt tight against her skin, invisible hands squeezing her arms and legs.

  "It's big on you, but not too bad," Gulrang said. "Try walking like you have an important errand and your lady will beat you for tardiness." She glanced apologetically at Tana's mother. "I know it's not what she's used to, but she looks silly, mincing along."

  Ma Hiral snorted. "If stomping like a pregnant elephant gets her to safety, so be it."

  Tana opened her mouth, then closed it again. When her mother

  96

  looked at her, she shrugged. Big steps. She only had to wear these uncomfortable clothes for a little while.

  Gulrang, too, was managing to walk without tripping over herself
or unwrapping the garment. Tana pointed at the door. "You'd both better be going," her mother said with a sigh. "We'll send Indu to the temple grove with news of Diribani. The moment we know."

  Tana nodded, her throat tight. She folded her hands to Gulrang.

  Before the girl could leave them, Ma Hiral fumbled at her waistband, then pressed something small into Gulrang's hand. "For your voyage home," she said. "No, no. You take it. We'll be fine."

  "Thank you." Gulrang bowed and walked away without a backward glance.

  Tana hugged her mother fiercely.

  "May blessed Khochari keep you safe between her palms until her will brings us together again." Ma Hiral dashed tears from her eyes. "What am I saying? The grove's not so far that these feet can't make the journey. We'll be together very soon, I'm sure." She led the way to the gate. "Don't forget your clothes or bedroll, daughter."

  Tana hugged her mother, then picked up her belongings and waved to the neighbor. "Good-bye, Nama-ji."

  "Safe travels, Tana." The gray-haired woman leaned out from her window and peered into the courtyard with professional interest. "That's a new ratter, isn't it? Eyo, grandson!" she called into the house. "Go down and open the gate for Hiral-ji, please. And collect that house naga, Indu. Your auntie was saying just the other day..."

  With a final embrace, Tana left her mother at the neighbors' house and strode down the street. At any moment, she imagined fingers would point and voices shout "Impostor!" Maybe the jealous white-coat god would strike her for disguising herself as a Believer.

  97

  But no one seemed to take particular notice of her. A pushcart vendor spat at her feet; another berated her for blocking his way. At the next intersection, she didn't hesitate but turned east, toward Cow Gate, instead of south, to Horse Gate and the road to the temple grove.

  Not wanting to argue and spoil their newfound harmony, Tana had let her mother think she would seek safety immediately with the priests and priestesses. In truth, she had no intention of leaving Gurath until she knew what had happened to her sister. Prince Zahid had promised to treat Diribani with honor. If he had failed that trust, he would answer for it.

  98

  ***

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Diribani

  GURATH looked smaller, seen from atop an elephant.

  A little shaky still, but clean, fed, and dressed in borrowed finery, Diribani knelt in a corner of the howdah's curtained platform, among a group of older women. She lifted the gauze drapery just enough to peek out, hoping to distract her thoughts from what had almost happened back in the garden. And what had happened: a man's death. And its aftermath, upsetting in a different way, given Zahid's fury, Alwar's excuses, and Ruqayya's cool voice insisting that the regrettable incident not delay their departure. Diribani had searched her soul: Could she have done anything to prevent the man's death? She didn't think so, but the violence weighed on her.

  She tightened her hold on the waist-high railing and forced her attention to the scene below. The fort receded, the ladies' quarter invisible beyond tall walls, the cannons so many dark twigs poking out of stone parapets. Gurath's customs house, marketplace, and warehouses, the oceangoing ships with their tall masts...all

  99

  dwindled. The twisted length of the river San shone a dull green, like a basking snake.

  Tana. Where was she, this sunny afternoon? In the short time they'd been parted, Diribani had stored up a hundred things to share with her sister. As the royal procession wound through the merchant quarter, Diribani searched the crowd of upturned faces. From up here, the people looked tiny, their cheers and shouts rising from little puppet throats. She couldn't distinguish her home from the anonymous-walls facing the street. That tall pinkfruit tree might be the one growing in Trader Nikhat's courtyard, but it was gone in a roll of the elephant's broad shoulders.

  The platform's motion, rising up and down, then tilting from side to side like the deck of a ship, made Diribani queasy. She leaned her elbows on a bolster and closed her eyes. When she opened them at the trumpets' brazen blare, the head of their long procession had already reached the parklike area just inside Gurath's easternmost gate. Cow Gate, dedicated to Mother Gaari, earth goddess, protector of the poor and helpless. The governor's escort would leave them here.

  Diribani felt a moment of shock when the trumpeters rode straight through the gate without stopping. Of course, the white-coats didn't worship the twelve. But it felt wrong, to pass a goddess's shrine without offering even a flower. She parted the gauze curtains. Ignoring the older ladies' cries of consternation, Diribani folded her hands. "Please bless our party, Gaari-ji," she said softly. Several sprays of wheat stalks, heavy with grain, fell from her lips.

  The she-elephant shivered at the kernels bouncing like hail off her gray hide. The mahout soothed her, and the enormous animal lumbered on.

  100

  "Safe travel, Mina Diribani!" A young man on a white mare waved at her. Diribani recognized Kalyan and Jasmine. She leaned out and waved in return.

  Alerted to her presence, other townsfolk, too, folded their hands, smiling and calling their farewells. "Eyo, Mina Diribani."

  "Remember us in Fanjandibad, Mina-ji!"

  "Come back soon, diamond girl."

  Most of the white-coats pretended they hadn't noticed her, but one girl stepped out from the shade of a rose arbor to blow kisses at Diribani's elephant.

  Diribani's lips shaped Tana's name. But before Diribani could be certain she had really seen her sister dressed in overseer white, one of her companions hauled her inside and twitched the curtains together.

  A ring of outraged faces confronted her. "Perhaps it escaped your notice that none of us are veiled?" one of the ladies said in an icy tone. "The curtains stay closed."

  "Please excuse me, Lady Yisha," Diribani said.

  "It mustn't happen again."

  As the women murmured among themselves about the lilies and rubies at Diribani's feet, she settled back against the bolster. Had Utsav the crow god tricked her eyes? She had wanted so badly to see her sister one last time before what could be a long separation. She might have imagined the familiar features, the smile brilliant with affection--and relief, too, now that she thought about it. No, that had definitely been Tana, wearing a white coat. She had been standing a little way beyond Kalyan and Jasmine. Maybe the trader was teaching her to ride? That was the most likely explanation.

  How did Tana feel, wearing the costume brought to Gurath

  101

  with the invaders? Diribani glanced down at her own borrowed dress wrap. Ruqayya must have sent one of her ladies to the marketplace, unless she traveled with a store of garments from each of the Hundred Kingdoms. The blouse was fine cotton, light as air against Diribani's skin. Embroidered irises in a maze of gold ribbon-work banded the dress wrap's length of butter-yellow silk. She felt a fraud in it, but her new maid's horrified expression when Diribani had suggested she return it to Princess Ruqayya and ask for a plainer one had convinced Diribani to wear it. The princess hadn't struck her as a frightening figure, but Diribani's circumstances were different from her maid's.

  It didn't matter, since only these severe ladies would see her in it. Diribani hadn't decided whether their disapproval stemmed from her being a non-Believer, a commoner daring to wear a queen's dress, or a conjurer spouting flowers and jewels. They tended to ignore her, so she returned her attention to the countryside. Which, in its own way, was less than satisfying.

  The howdah consisted of a platform with a tent built over it, the frame's four corners rising to a peak in the center. The thin fabric that covered it prevented people from seeing the unveiled ladies within, but also obscured the view out. The travelers passed through a misty landscape of shrouded fields and forest.

  While admitting some air and light, the enclosure concentrated the mingled scents of sandalwood hair oil, the lilies and carnations Diribani had spoken, and a strong odor of garlic from the bread served at the meal just before their de
parture. It had tasted delicious, hot and puffy from the fort kitchen's brick ovens, then slathered with melted butter and herbs. The garlic, alas, lingered on the breath.

  102

  Lady Yisha smelled it, too. Her aristocratic nose wrinkled in disgust.

  As Diribani watched, the courtier opened a wooden box on the carpet beside her. It unfolded into a portable desk, complete with paper, pen, inkstand, and flat leather-covered surface for writing. Lady Yisha composed a short note and tucked it into a purse whose long strap ended in a metal clip. One jeweled hand reached outside the howdah and clipped the pouch to the elephant's harness. "Eyo, driver," she called.

  The mahout riding on the elephant's neck, below the platform, reached up for the pouch. He whistled. One of the servant girls riding alongside them guided her horse closer and caught the pouch the driver threw her. At least, Diribani assumed it was a servant; a scarf covered her hair and lower face. The royal party were more particular than Gurath white-coats about women veiling themselves. Even the servants covered their faces in public.

  Not caring if it was low-class to admit her curiosity, Diribani put her face against the gauze fabric to see what was happening. The girl opened the pouch and read the note. She rummaged in her saddlebags, but didn't find what she was looking for. Diribani admired how the servant kept her balance on the moving horse, holding on with her legs and guiding the animal with just one hand on the reins. The white-coats' costume made sense, she had to admit, for riding astride. Perhaps she'd ask the princess whether someone could teach her. If Kalyan had given Tana lessons, Diribani could ride with her the next time they were together.