Toads and Diamonds

by Heather Tomlinson

  Tana tied her scarf around her head. She panted, inhaling great gulps of fresh air as the tears ran down her cheeks. When she heard the creak of cart wheels, she ducked into the shelter of the doorway.

  Approaching the building was a pushcart covered with a heavy cloth. The cloth was dyed a green so dark it could be mistaken for black. The color of a serpent's hide at night, of deep water and death, the shade sacred to Naghali-ji. This would be the corpse cart, come to take the five bodies to the cremation ground. She glanced up. Her fingers closed hard on the splintery door frame, but she disregarded the pain.

  Thin as a skeleton, Kalyan strained between the cart's two handles. Step by slow, wavering step, he pushed the cart to the door. His gaze was fixed on the ground, as if he didn't trust his balance.

  Tana could hardly believe her eyes. Gone was the wealthy, carefree young trader. He'd been ill, seriously so. The rags of his once-fine clothes hung from his shoulders, and his halting gait made her bare feet curl in sympathy. Unlike Vilina, he didn't wear chains. If he'd been hobbled, Tana doubted he could have managed the cart. An overseer must have decided Kalyan was too weak to get far. Or else the white-coat didn't want to spare one of the estate's few healthy servants to deal with non-Believer dead.

  Kalyan's condition brought home to Tana the extent of the plague. As with the people inside, suffering had stamped his expression, adding a profound dignity to a face made for smiling.

  Not that he was likely to smile at Tana. Not when she and her sister were the cause of this pain.

  How he must hate her.

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  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Diribani

  WASPS drove Diribani into the Believers' prayer hall. The stinging insects had come out of their cool-season sleep and built nests all around the fort grounds. In response, Princess Ruqayya dispatched workers with long poles to detach the constructions from eaves and doorways. Much like the border uprising that had called Prince Zahid from Fanjandibad, the resulting skirmishes were brief, but fiercely fought.

  It was Diribani's bad luck to be passing the Hall of Public Audience when a servant knocked a large nest from a column. The papery comb landed on the ground and split like a melon, disgorging wasps like yellow-and-black-striped seeds.

  "Run, my lady!" Nissa darted ahead of Diribani and opened the door to the nearest shelter, which turned out to be the prayer hall. With Zeen hard on her heels, Diribani ran inside. A few wasps pursued them through the arched doorway, but Nissa grabbed Diribani's hand and tugged her to the left, around a lacy stone

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  screen. "The ladies' side," the maid whispered. "We leave our shoes here."

  Diribani stepped out of her silk slippers and looked around in curiosity, for she had never been inside a prayer hall before. It was an empty, light-filled room, the exact opposite of the temple groves she was used to. The home of the twelve was as lively as a marketplace. Between the sound of drums and the scent of incense, temple groves offered a feast for the senses. People decked the images of gods and goddesses with garlands of flowers and placed offerings of fruit and grain at their feet. Animals wandered freely through the trees, as welcome there as the worshipers, chanting priests, and dancing priestesses.

  But, just like their clothing, the white-coats' prayer hall was deliberately plain. Nissa and Zeen took a few steps into the room. Zeen pulled a length of fine muslin from her sleeve and draped it over her head. Both women knelt and closed their eyes.

  Diribani followed their example, though she peeked out from under her lashes. She felt twitchy. However did these people catch their god's attention? Where were worshipers supposed to direct their prayers? She didn't see any images or altars, or any priests to lead the worship. Plain blue and gold tiles alternated in the tall vault of the ceiling; white marble faced the walls and floors. The wasps' faint buzzing intensified the oppressive quiet of the place.

  Then, as she looked around, Diribani noticed the details. Bands of intricate cream-on-white geometrical designs surrounded the doorways and high arched windows. Light shone through the carved stone screen dividing the men's and women's areas. It cast delicate shadows of vines and flowers on the floor, almost like a temple grove's dappled shade.

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  The longer Diribani sat there, the calmer she became. It was like sitting inside a giant pearl. In time, the silence took on the same quality she had noticed at Gurath's well, the morning she met Naghali-ji there. As if someone were listening, the prayer hall's peace invited confidences, coaxing Diribani's worries to the surface of her mind. Foremost was the fact that she'd had no word from her dear ones-- Ma Hiral, Tana, or Zahid. She knew there was nothing she could do but wait, so she had tried to ignore her fear. In this quiet, light-filled room, it welled up like water and spilled out of her. But not, she thought, into nothing.

  She closed her eyes and sensed an invisible force flowing around her, as if the Believers' prayers ran together in a river, and carried her heartfelt wishes for her family's and the prince's well-being along with the rest. The river didn't judge her. She was present; her silent voice, too, would be heard.

  Opening her eyes, Diribani felt lighter, as if her water jar of worries had tipped over and spilled its contents into the current, where they had been washed away. How odd, that she could almost feel Naghali-ji's hand on her head in the middle of the white-coats' prayer hall.

  Next to her, Nissa sighed deeply, as if she, too, had been relieved of a burden. Diribani glanced over and met the maid's inquiring look. They both stood. A few other women had come in, bare feet soundless on the marble floor, and knelt some distance away. Quietly, Diribani and Zeen followed Nissa to the entry and retrieved their slippers. As she passed the screen, Diribani peeked into the men's section. As far as she could tell, it was the same as the women's, with white floors and walls saturated with the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows.

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  What had she expected? That the men would get carpets and cushions while the women knelt on stone? No, the two sections were equally plain. Like their clothes, she realized with a start. As they emerged from the prayer hall and started up the steps to the palace, Diribani turned to Nissa. "Why do you all wear white coats and trousers?"

  "To match the marble, you mean?" Her maid giggled. "Not exactly, my lady. In the poorer neighborhoods, prayer halls are built of mud brick, like everything else."

  "But the custom is based on religious teaching," Zeen said behind them.

  Diribani and Nissa both spun around. Zeen hardly ever volunteered information; it was as if a stone column had spoken. The guard straightened, dropping a ruby and topaz into the bag at her belt. "It's to remind us that all souls are the same in God's eyes," she explained.

  "But Princess Ruqayya wears white brocade, and you--" Diribani bit her lip, afraid to insult them.

  "Wear white cotton?" Zeen finished dryly. "If we were all perfect, we'd be walking in God's garden already."

  "There'd better not be four hundred steps to God's garden," Nissa muttered. Then her eyes widened and her shoulders hunched, as if she were expecting a blow. Zeen snorted, but didn't comment.

  Diribani dropped the subject of religion, in case she'd made Nissa uncomfortable. But as Cow Month ambled along, she found herself returning often to the prayer hall. She did ask Ladli about it, at a noon meal after the wasp incident.

  "Mind?" Ladli's brows arched in surprise. "Why should we mind? As long as you don't wear shoes inside, or"--her eyes narrowed with mischief--"bring any animals with you."

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  "The wasps followed us on their own," Diribani protested.

  The young noblewoman selected a piece of milk fudge from a silver tray. "So I heard," she said.

  "But should I ask Princess Ruqayya's permission?" Diribani glanced down the table, over the carnations scattered around her plate.

  As she often did these days, the princess was eating alone, barricaded behind a pile of papers, her inkstand, pens, wax, and s
eal. Behind her stood three maids, head scarves draped over their shoulders, waiting to carry her messages to every corner of the fort.

  Ladli tapped her fingers on the table. "I wouldn't bother her. She's doing both Steward Ghiyas's job and her brother's. The more prayers for their success, the better."

  Diribani's soup slopped in her bowl. She set it down and licked dry lips. "Is there bad news from the border?"

  "Oh, the usual." Ladli sipped her tea. "My brother reports their progress as slow but steady, with bloody fighting in pockets. He thinks they'll be home for the prince's birthday."

  Diribani shredded a marigold. "That's weeks away."

  "Mm, about when it's getting too hot to keep fighting," Ladli said. "One way or the other, they'll be back."

  "Oh, I hope so," another girl said from across the table. "We can't have the Mina Bazaar without His Highness."

  "And His Highness's friends." The girl next to her split a pinkfruit into segments. She winked at Diribani. "Including a certain--"

  "Sh!" her neighbor hissed. Jeweled fingers flew up to cover the speaker's mouth. "Do you want my mother to hear?"

  "What's the Mina Bazaar?" Diribani asked.

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  "A palace tradition," Ladli explained. "On the princes' birthdays, their sisters and their friends set up stalls in the garden. The boys have to bargain for the things they want."

  "When the princes are young, we offer toys and sweets," the girl eating the pinkfruit said. "For someone Prince Zahid's age, it's armor, jewels, paintings."

  "And sweets," the other girl said.

  They all laughed. "Boys are never too old for sweets," Ladli agreed.

  At the end of the table, Ruqayya glanced up from the letter she was reading, but didn't ask them to share the joke.

  Despite the princess's earlier assurance that Diribani would get used to life in the ladies' court, her loneliness intensified. The only good thing about Zahid's continued absence was that Ruqayya had given Diribani permission to install her birthday gift in the prince's suite. As promised, Nissa's father had executed one of Diribani's flower drawings in a large panel of white marble and colored stone. Diribani had been pleased with the effect, and hoped the prince would enjoy having a garden vista from his room no matter what the season.

  It was supposed to be a surprise, but many of the servants had stolen inside to see it. Their descriptions inspired some palace ladies to decorate their rooms in a similar fashion.

  When construction noise and dust enveloped the palace, Diribani escaped outside. In the fleeting cool of the morning, she wandered the fort grounds. Followed by her maid and guards, she visited the library and prayer hall, artists' workshop and marketplace. Beyond Fanjandibad's walls, a golden blanket of mustard

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  flowers spread across the plateau. Cereal crops ripened and were cut, husked by tramping cattle, and winnowed with the help of the blustery winds that heralded the hot season's arrival. As if the birds felt that burning breath on their necks, flocks gathered to fly north.

  During the increasingly sultry afternoons, when workers set aside their chisels and hammers so the palace ladies could rest, Diribani paced the covered galleries, as restless as a hunting cheetah on a jeweled leash. She watched the birds, wishing she could fly, too. But, rather than following them northward, she would go northwest to Gurath's temple grove and Tana. Or east to the border, and see what was happening with her own eyes.

  One day, Ladli caught her at it. Taking advantage of Diribani's preoccupation, the older girl walked up behind her and tapped Diribani's shoulder.

  Diribani whirled, but Ladli danced out of reach, her feet moving in a familiar pattern. "You should have caught me," she teased. "Out of practice, teacher."

  "Don't expect me to dance without drums," Diribani said.

  "Hah," Ladli scoffed. "You don't need musicians for this. It's all the outward show with you people."

  "What do you mean?" Despite her initial protest, Diribani rearranged her yellow dress wrap for dancing. The gallery was wide enough, and empty.

  The other girl thumped her chest. "Heart drum, spirit drum. They're inside you, silly. Only listen."

  Challenged, Diribani matched her steps with Ladli's. The palace drowsed around them, with most of the ladies escaping the heat in the shady garden or the bathing room's cool pools. As in the prayer

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  hall that first time, the silence felt awkward. Diribani wished she had the drums' help to keep her feet moving steadily. Sweat gathered under her arms and behind her knees.

  Ladli's left hand swept out. Diribani missed seeing it, and took a glancing blow on her elbow. Her dance partner's mocking expression goaded her to keep going.

  What would Tana say if she knew a pampered palace beauty had mastered dancing without drums? If Ladli could do it after a few months' practice, Diribani would, too. She listened as hard as she could, trying to hear what the other girl heard. In the garden, a peacock screamed. Down a corridor, a woman scolded her maid with equal harshness. Closer, Diribani's feet struck the floor. Her breath hitched in her throat. Under those noises, a thread of sound reached her ear. Soft, but steady. She almost--There.

  Her heartbeat.

  Heart drum. Heartbeat. Diribani flushed with chagrin. How had a white-coat understood this mystery before she did?

  When Ladli laughed, Diribani realized she had said the thought aloud. "Because you people don't shut up," the other girl said cheerfully. "You talk and sing and dance and carry on. Listening is our practice." Again, Ladli thumped her chest. "Why do you think prayer halls are silent?"

  "I don't know," Diribani said humbly. She kicked a couple of rough diamonds out of the way. Honeysuckle perfumed the air.

  "We pray quietly so we can hear God answer. This isn't so different. When you listen with your body and mind, not just your ears, you can hear what your partner is about to do."

  As she danced, and listened, Diribani fancied she could hear

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  what Ladli was thinking. Beyond the mischief in her voice, beyond the rhythm of their feet striking the floor, Diribani caught an echo of intent. Her hand flew up and met Ladli's, palm to palm.

  "Better, flower girl," Ladli teased.

  "Thank you, knife girl." Diribani picked up the pace. Her partner matched her. They whirled like twin dust-clouds, hands flashing out to meet each other in flight. Dancing, Diribani had no room in her mind to worry about the continuing silence from Prince Zahid.

  And Tana.

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  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Tana

  PUSHING the corpse cart, Kalyan trudged toward her. Tana's feet stuck to the ground. She couldn't move, trapped between the wretched villagers inside and the man who knew-- who better?--that their hardship was partly her fault. Tana steeled herself for the scorn, the disgust, that must follow when Kalyan looked up and recognized her. He shuffled forward. With every dragging step, her anguish increased. How thin he'd become!

  Naghali-ji would have done better to kill her that day at the well, before the taint of death could spread to others. What purpose had her dark gift served, except to make others pay for Tana's failings?

  A few paces from the doorway, Kalyan wheeled the pushcart in a half-circle and came to a stop. His back to her, he bent across the cart. Slowly, he folded the dark-green cloth, furling it over the sides. Then he stood for a while. He might have been praying. He might have been gathering his strength for the grim task ahead. Finally, he straightened, turned, and saw Tana.

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  She didn't expect his reaction. She certainly didn't deserve it.

  Without hesitation, Kalyan opened his arms wide. Tana fell into them. He staggered back, into a mango tree, and slid slowly down the trunk without letting go of her. They sat together in the dirt.

  She had intended to be dignified. Instead, she wept into his shoulder. Crying didn't bring toads and snakes, as long as she didn't speak words. So Tana choked and sobbed for the d
isaster she had caused. She'd imagined that, with Diribani's help, she could lead the people away in a glorious rescue, make all right again, like a princess in a tale. The reality was uglier. By the time Tana walked to the palace in Fanjandibad and told her sister, these sick people might all be dead.

  And she was a fool. So stupid, to be happy in the arms of a man she couldn't have. Even if, thank Manali-ji the love goddess, he didn't seem disgusted by her presence. Tana's scarf had slipped to her shoulders, and Kalyan was stroking her short hair. If only she could talk to him!

  Well, and why not? Tana's common sense asserted itself. They were alone among the trees. If Tana could speak anywhere on the estate, this was the place. And inside her, beneath the crying, disordered mess of a girl, a plan was taking shape, like a jewel forming in the burning heart of the earth. Even as she wept, Tana considered its many facets. Wisdom, good fortune, death: It needed all the goddess's attributes. If Naghali-ji withheld one, the plan would fail.

  And Tana wasn't going to worry about that. If Kalyan had a better plan, he would tell her. Reluctantly, she extricated herself from his arms. She had to assume that the biggest obstacle between them still existed. Who knew what kind of creatures would follow her explanation?

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  She didn't go far, kneeling in the dirt next to him. "I'm so sorry, Kalyan-ji."

  "You found us! I can't imagine how." Kalyan touched the lucky frog that had landed on his knee. Dark eyes searched Tana's. "But you mustn't blame yourself. Are you responsible for the soldiers' actions? Or for the fever? The twelve guide our fates."

  "Alwar's men followed me to Piplia." A whip snake slithered on the ground between them.

  "Maybe," Kalyan said. "But they would have come sooner or later. The governor's been trying to disband the artisan guilds since the day he was appointed. Weavers, ironworkers, dyers--there have been rumors of other villages gone missing. Before the guild masters could denounce him, they needed proof."