Fingers shaking, she worked faster at the remaining two straps on her immobilized arm, first with care, then with ever more frantic movements. When she touched the restraint around her wrist, her hand and arm flared with so much pain she mewled like a child while pulling at the leather, but she didn’t let it stop her. I will not lie here and let him take my arm!
Finally her wrist was free. She managed to pull herself up to a sitting position, cradle her arm, and work at the straps on her legs. Only her ankles were strapped down, and they were both loose enough that she managed to undo them in little time. Even so, she was drenched in sweat by the time it was all done, and her ears had begun to ring.
She was wearing a white thawb with yellow dye worked into the cuffs of the sleeves and hem of the skirt. The right sleeve had been rolled up to expose her arm, but she rolled it gently down to cover the bandages and the sickening blue color of her skin.
There was a metallic clank to her right. As she turned to look, seeing a staircase for the first time, her head swam.
Footsteps scraping over stone. A yellow light shone down, wavering so badly it made her sick to her stomach.
“Hello?” came a gravelly voice.
It certainly wasn’t Dardzada. Who the man might be she had no idea, but one thing was certain: No good could come of staying here.
She took up one of the sharpest and longest of the implements on the table. It wasn’t a proper fighting knife, but it would do. Then she shuffled with drunken steps and flattened herself against the wall near the archway leading to the stairs.
“Hello? Are you awake, girl?”
The light grew brighter, waving over the floor of the room. Çeda leaned more heavily into the wall behind her and fought back the wave of dizziness and nausea threatening to upend her. Into the room, holding a lantern in one hand, walked a crooked old man with a scraggly beard and round spectacles.
Çeda lurched forward waving the knife before her. “Get back!” She swiped it once, twice.
The old man’s eyes widened and he stepped away in fright. “Stop it! Stop it!”
“I’m—” She was so bloody dizzy, and the ringing in her ears was growing. She swiped again with the knife. “Stay away from me!”
The man backed further away toward the strange table, his spectacles accentuating his fear-widened eyes. “You mustn’t leave.”
Çeda backed into the stairway passage.
The man set his lamp down on the table with the gleaming instruments and moved toward her. “You mustn’t leave, girl. Dardzada’s gone to the speak to the Matron—”
He said more, but Çeda could no longer discern his words. Her ears were ringing so badly all she could hear was her heart pounding and the sound of her constricted throat swallowing over and over.
They were lies in any case. Dardzada’s gone to the speak to the Matron. He’d done no such thing. And she was proven right when the old man tried to rush her. She swiped the blade viciously across the path of his upraised hands. She felt little resistance, but suddenly blood was cascading down his arms. He gripped one hand tightly, where a deep cut split his palm. She might have seen bone, but couldn’t be sure. She was concentrating on backing away, stepping slowly up the stairs.
The light from below dwindled as she climbed, wary of his trying to stop her again, but he never did. She saw only shadows flickering, grasping for her, and thought she might have heard screams of pain mingling with the ringing in her ears. Her mother’s screams? She couldn’t be sure.
She stumbled from the staircase into a small shop filled with a thousand thousand bottles—green and blue and red, some filled with liquid, some with powders, one massive glass jar teeming with blue leeches.
She staggered through a door and into the city. People watched her with worried glances. She hid the knife up her left sleeve and wandered quickly away, with no real idea where she was. The buildings looked affluent, but she could tell no more than that.
She soon found the Trough, though. Horses and carts clattered along by the dozen, some with crates and amphorae headed to the bazaar, others with strings of animals headed to the slaughterhouses and meat markets, yet more with ivory-skinned barbarians headed to the slave blocks. Most were on foot, however—hundreds, thousands of people, some wearing the thawbs and kaftans of the desert, others wearing the oppressive coats and long trousers of the southern kingdom, others still wearing little more than loincloths and sandals and bright jewelry around their necks and wrists and ankles.
Watching the very lifeblood of Sharakhai pass her by, she wondered where she could go. How had she got here? She failed to recall even the smallest of details. She looked down and found a bloody knife in her left hand, and wondered if she’d cut herself. She didn’t recognize the knife, so she dropped it, and it fell with a thump to the street. She headed along the busy street to another she recognized as the Spear.
The Maidens, she realized. She had wanted to reach the Maidens. That was what she’d been trying to do these past weeks, wasn’t it?
She walked steadily east along the Spear, cradling her right arm as she walked, watching her path ahead carefully to ensure no one accidentally collided with her. The day had brought rare summer showers, and the humid air reminded her of a dank basement with wicked instruments—perhaps a dream she’d recently had.
Reach the Maidens. Reach the Maidens. It was the only thought that kept her feet moving despite the oppressive heat.
The thought was still circling—reach the Maidens—when a strange silence settled over the street, and she looked up and saw them: a troop of Blade Maidens riding along the Spear on horseback.
In one moment she was utterly relieved, and the next the blood was draining from her face. The ringing in her ears faded, and was replaced by a hollow feeling that opened up inside her and yawned wide as the desert’s maw. She’d been wrong. She hadn’t wanted to go to the Maidens. Not like this. If they found her on their own, they would know what she’d done, and they would kill her.
She’d made a better plan, hadn’t she? She was sure she had, but she could no longer remember what it was.
The Maidens rode their black horses at an easy pace, ten of them riding two by two. Traffic stopped. Carts pulled aside. People crowded the edges of the street and bowed their heads as the Maidens passed. Even a pair of city guardsmen in their conical helms and mail hauberks stood to the side and held their spears tight, bowing their heads as low as anyone else.
Çeda wanted to run, but that was just her fear surging up, trying to make her act. This was just like the pits. She could not show her fear. She stepped to the side of the street like everyone else, slipping in ox dung as she did. She was careful to duck behind a cart and then stand behind several other women. Though her bandaged right hand was swollen grossly and the sleeve of her left arm was marked with fresh blood, she bowed her head and crossed her arms over her chest.
The black horses came closer. Two passed, then two more. Çeda dared not look up, but the urge was so overpowering she caught herself glancing at the hooves of the horses, stopping just shy of looking up at the nearest Maiden.
When men whispered over their wine, they said that the Maidens moved slowly so they could peer into the minds of those they passed, but Çeda was doubtful. Had they been able to peer into her mind, they would have known of her treks into the desert, would have learned of her days shading packages for Osman. Then again, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d stood beneath their gaze; maybe she’d simply been beneath their notice, or been one of so many that they hadn’t been able to detect her sins. Perhaps now that one of them had fought her in the desert, they’d be able to find her. By the desert’s hot breath, maybe they’d be drawn to her.
Gods, she was so infernally dizzy. She raised her good hand to steady herself on the woman before her, but managed to stop herself, to breathe deeply. More black horses passed unt
il two remained. They slowed and came to a halt. The Maidens ahead paused as well, perhaps at some unseen signal from those at the rear.
There was silence along the Spear. The nearest Maiden’s horse pulled at its bridle, silver tack jingling. The horse stamped its forehooves and stepped closer, the sound against the cobbles like hammers on stone.
Could one of these Maidens be the very same one she’d crossed blades with?
“You.”
Çeda shivered. She couldn’t look up. She wouldn’t.
“You there!”
No choice now. If the Maiden was looking at her, and she refused to respond, she’d be killed on the spot.
Çeda lifted her head.
The Maiden sat astride her horse, her back straight as a glaive. She held the horse’s reins easily in one hand. Her sword hung by her side. Henna tattoos marked the backs of her hands, which was the only skin Çeda could see besides her startling, kohl-rimmed eyes.
Çeda’s fears waned when she realized the Maiden was staring not at her but at the driver of the nearby cart.
“Follow me,” the Maiden said.
The man bowed his head to the Maiden and said, “For the honor of the Kings,” the only response now left to him. When the Maiden who’d spoke began heading back up the Spear at a brisk pace, Çeda could see the disheartened look on the merchant’s face. He snapped his reins and guided the cart in a half-circle, splashing through a large puddle before following the Maiden toward the House of Kings. The other Blade Maidens continued on, wheeling onto the Trough and heading north.
Çeda began to breathe again. Traffic resumed, and the sound rose until one would never know the Maidens had passed. She continued walking, step after painful step, weaving through the city, skirting the hill on her left where the palaces of the Kings hunched over the city. She walked into someone, and her right arm flared with pain. It felt as if she’d dipped it in gold, so intense was the agony. But then it faded, almost to nothing, which seemed to be a greater cause for concern than the pain.
The sounds of the city faded. Someone was speaking to her, but she couldn’t make out the words. The street before her, dark with freshly fallen rain, went white until all she could see were bright outlines of people and buildings, horses and carts; mere hints among the alabaster landscape before her, as if she were looking back on her life while standing in the doorway to the next.
She felt a hand at her back. She was being led somewhere. Where, she had no idea. She had only the vaguest sense of alarm, a sense that she was supposed to be somewhere else, and now she might be too late. Though who she was supposed to see, and why, she couldn’t recall.
She thought she saw her mother among the crowd, her face so bright it was nearly blinding. “Memma?” she called, but her mother only stared with a horror-stricken look as she passed.
She was led into a place that was darker than the brightness of the street. She was set in a chair. There were wooden shelves around her, and cabinets with hundreds of tiny drawers. Why anyone would ever need so many drawers, she couldn’t guess, and for a moment it struck her as funny. She began to laugh as her arm was placed on a table. Again the dull ache returned.
She had bandages on her arm. Someone was cutting them away to reveal a forearm so swollen it looked like a strange, misshapen fruit. And the color of it! A dark blue, almost black. It reminded her of the very heart of the adichara blooms.
A fat man with heavy jowls sat opposite her. He stared at her hand, eyes wide, mouth slack, a pair of scissors held loosely in one hand. His throat convulsed over and over and over as tears welled in his eyes. In a moment of clarity, she realized that the man was seeing a poison so advanced there was no hope left. She was going to die.
The realization only added to the hilarity, which deepened her laughs. Her body shook from it, forcing the man to take note of her rather than her hand. His reddened eyes shed tears freely. He shook his head vigorously, wiping his tears on one sleeve, then another, apparently lost in his misery. And then he burst into motion. He went to one of the many, many drawers, took out a phial, and tipped out its contents onto a piece of white cloth. He held it beneath her nose, even as she fought to free herself from the acrid smell.
Her eyes rolled up in her head.
The next thing she knew she was lying on something hard and unforgiving, being led through the city on the bed of a dray, the man leading a mule. He was wearing a set of strange silver-and-bronze robes, clothes she’d rarely seen in the limits of Sharakhai, the garb of a monk from distant lands who came from time to time to the Amber City to spread the word of their god. He spoke soft words to her, touching her shoulder or stroking her hair or her cheek, but she had no idea what he was saying. The city was still bright, but not so bright as before. She could actually look upon it without having to shut her eyes. The dray jolted, and the brightness swept over her.
When she woke again, she was deeper into the city. She could tell because Tauriyat now loomed over her. She was as close as she’d come to it since her mother’s death.
Was she being taken to the House of Kings? Did they wish to speak with her?
Again the brightness swept in.
She woke a third time, and this time the cart was still. The mule was there, but the man was gone. To her right, she could see a high wall. The tall doors set into it were groaning open, and women strode out and into the street. There were only a few at first, but then more. One of them, an old woman with a regal brow, sad eyes, and tattoos on her cheeks and chin and forehead, looked carefully at Çeda’s arm.
She spoke—asked questions, perhaps—but she might as well have been speaking the tongue of the dead, for Çeda understood not a single word. The woman stared deeply into Çeda’s eyes, and for a fleeting moment it felt as if the two of them were the same, linked by blood in some unknowable way. And then, like a burial shroud being lifted, the feeling was gone.
The woman seemed unsure of something, for she looked from Çeda to the other women several times. But then she nodded and pointed toward the tall doors. As she was led inside, Çeda finally recognized these women with their dark dresses and steely gazes. Blade Maidens.
They were Blade Maidens, and she was being taken into their house.
THE SMELL OF THE INFIRMARY was unpleasant. Ihsan the Honey-tongued King had always found them so, even those that had been free of the sick and the dying and the dead for years. He wasn’t sure whether it was the taint of the dead he sensed—some lingering remnant of their dark passage from this world to the next. Or the blood and sickness. Perhaps it was everything. Are the worlds not connected in ways even the gods do not understand?
The infirmary was empty save for one lone bed halfway along its considerable length. A woman afflicted by the poison of the adichara lay there, sleeping fitfully.
Footsteps echoed behind Ihsan.
Zeheb, King of Whispers, he of heavy tread, came to stand by him. Zeheb had been thin once, almost too thin, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him now. He, like all of the Kings, had changed much since Beht Ihman. He had a strained look to him, his eyes shifty and half-lidded, as if he were listening even now to the whispers that plagued him.
“Are you with us?” Ihsan said, snapping his fingers in front of Zeheb’s face.
Zeheb swallowed, then seemed to forcibly pull himself to this place—the infirmary inside the walls of the Maidens’ house. If he was embarrassed by his inability to focus, he made no mention of it.
“This is our little lost dove?” he said, striding forward.
Ihsan fell into step alongside him. “Apparently.”
They walked between the two rows of beds and arrived at the young woman’s. Her right arm was wrapped, and the stink of a poultice filled the air—one, Ihsan had been told, that would bring the swelling down until the Matrons could work on controlling the poison. Assuming the Kings willed it.
Ihsa
n had been summoned by Zeheb mere moments before the note came from the House of Maidens, both reporting the same tale—that a woman apparently poisoned by the adichara had been left before the gates of Tauriyat, one would assume in hopes of the Matrons or the Kings saving her. She’d been left on a cart by some priest, a man unknown to those along the Spear who’d been questioned. Normally such a tale would have been met with laughter, followed by a short but sweet interrogation and a quick end to the unfortunate woman’s life. But the Matron had apparently seen something in her, and she wanted Ihsan to verify it.
The girl thrashed for a moment, her face flushed. Her fingers looked as though they were rotting from the inside out.
She was very pretty, in a rough and tumble sort of way. And cleaned up, she would be a jewel indeed. Her presence here was no real surprise. Though they had not understood it at the time, this was the outcome of the Jade-eyed King’s vision, of their decision in the desert. As Ihsan had agreed, he’d sent Azad out to the blooming fields, and wearing his former skin had indeed crossed blades with this girl. And now here she was, in the very midst of the Kings.
There was something terribly familiar about her, and it took him long moments to remember where he’d seen the like. “In the streets,” Ihsan mused, “it is said the King of Whispers never forgets the words he hears, nor the faces he sees. Is it so?”
“You know it is not, and if there’s something you wish to ask, stop prancing about and ask it.”
“She looks familiar.”
“To me as well. The assassin had a child, then.”
Ihsan thought back to that day, eleven years ago now, when they’d caught a woman with the blood of Kings upon her hands. She’d been given to their confessor, cruel King Cahil, to learn what she knew, and she’d remained improbably silent. She’d given the Kings’ confessor nothing. Nothing whatsoever. She had been little more than a blank slate, brought on, no doubt, from a draught of white acacia, or perhaps even hangman’s vine, two rare distillations that could bring on such a state. And there was no doubt this girl bore a resemblance to that woman.
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai Page 34