by Shannon Page
Sian looked up at the man, startled. “Certainly not. I see no arrest warrant here. I will compose my response and answer the complaint in the usual statutory time.” She glanced at Reikos and Pino, then took a confident step forward, moving to brush past the armed guards.
Four long pikes were raised to stop her.
“Has the lady not made herself clear?” Reikos growled. “You are outside the law.” He took a step toward Sian and two of the raised pikes were turned on him.
Before Sian could draw breath to object, Pino came hurtling past her with a cry of rage and, to her horror, a knife raised in his hand.
“No! Pino, stop!” she shouted.
To his credit, he got close enough to slash the forearm of one disbelieving pikeman before a second whirled to thrust his weapon into Pino’s side. The boy crumpled to the ground.
“Pino!” Sian screamed.
She lunged to touch him, but the sergeant grabbed her arm. Reikos pulled, of all things, a hand-cannon from underneath his coat and aimed it at the sergeant’s head.
“Are you serious?” asked the astonished sergeant. “You’re as likely to kill her as me with that reckless weapon. Or yourself.”
“I’ve had lots of practice with it, lad,” Reikos said. “Enough to take the chance, if you insist.”
“Stop it!” Sian said. “All of you! I will come with you, Sergeant. Reikos, put that stupid toy away, or I promise you, this is the last time we will ever speak. I mean it.”
Reikos gave her a desperate look, then seemed to wilt. No sooner had he lowered his weapon than two of the sergeant’s men rushed in to bind his hands behind his back.
“Sergeant, please. I must see to Pino,” Sian begged. Pino had begin to writhe and flail, clutching at his wound, his mouth stretched open in a cry of voiceless anguish.
Ennias did not release Sian’s arm. For all his effete clothing, the man’s grip seemed made of iron. “Is it true that you can heal, then?”
“Yes! Please let me help the boy. Look at how he suffers.”
“Heal my man first.” Ennias let go and shoved her forward, towards the wounded guard.
The man’s arm bled, but it still seemed just a cut. He stood there looking almost unconcerned, if slightly curious as she approached. It made her angry that she should be forced to waste her time on him when Pino’s wound was so clearly far more serious. Still, the faster it was done, the sooner she would be allowed to help Pino.
She placed her hands upon the pikeman’s arm, weaving her fingers through the slash in his pathetic, ceremonial leather grieve until her fingers touched his skin. She pressed the edges of his shallow laceration together as best she could, and willed it closed. The pain in her own forearm was sharp but brief, the smell of ginger almost too faint to detect. A very minor cut, as she had suspected. Pino had begin to moan aloud now.
The soldier looked down at his arm in wonder. “Gods and little fishes!” he exclaimed. “She did it!” He twisted his wrist to flex the arm experimentally. “I’m fit as ever, Sergeant.”
“Good,” Ennias said, seeming less surprised than most folk had thus far. “Let’s go.” He pulled a short span of rope off of his belt, and came to tie Sian’s hands.
“Wait!” she protested. “What about Pino?”
“The sooner we get where we’re going, without any further trouble,” he glared pointedly at Reikos, “the sooner you can see to him as well, my lady.”
“Bastard!” Reikos snarled.
“No! Sergeant, look at him! He cannot travel in such condition. Where are you —”
“Joreth, get the cart, please,” Ennias said dispassionately, then turned back to Sian. “I’ve spent time on lots of battlefields, my lady, and seen lots of wounds. The boy will live. He may not be very comfortable, but he should have thought of that before he rushed at my men with a knife.”
“Oh, Pino,” Sian moaned, twisting to look down at him. “Reckless boy. Don’t think of leaving me before I am allowed to touch you.” In the distance, she heard heavy wooden wheels rumbling toward them. “I will not forgive you if you die.”
Sian sat chained at wrists and ankles to the wall of the cramped and sooty cart. Pino was chained in front of her, tantalizingly out of reach, and mercifully unconscious for some time now. Reikos sat lashed to the opposite wall, staring into space as the cart rumbled along. Half a dozen more soldiers had joined the party after they had been apprehended — the first patrol Pino had spotted, Sian supposed.
“Is this your god’s path we are on?” Reikos sighed.
Tears stung Sian’s eyes. “How am I to know? Maybe I am being brought to heal the Factor’s son.”
“In chains?” Reikos shook his head, and looked away again. “I am sorry, Sian. I have failed you terribly.”
“How? This is in no way your doing.”
“If I had not pulled that damned hand-cannon out, well …” A rueful little smile came, and vanished. “I would still have it, for one thing. And I might still be a free man now, able to help you and Pino somehow. Instead of being chained up like a worthless sack of meat in here.”
“Hush,” said Sian. “If anyone’s at fault, it is the woman who refused to flee when you and Pino told her to.” She blinked away her tears and looked at Pino. His wound looked ugly: dark, sluggish blood now saturated patches of his light canvas pants and jacket. He gasped for breath in his unnatural sleep — when he seemed to breathe at all. “They will let me touch you soon,” she whispered. I hope.
“I will still get us out of this,” said Reikos.
“How?”
He turned to gaze out at the dark street receding behind them. “Somehow.”
She followed his gaze, trying to calculate how much longer it might take them to reach the Factorate House. Then she looked again more closely. Weren’t they going in the wrong direction? Instead of heading toward the bridge to Hither, on their way to Home, the cart seemed pointed back toward the center of Cutter’s. “Where are they taking us?”
Her question was answered not ten minutes later, as they pulled through the lavishly scrolled and gilded ironwork gates of the Census Hall’s gardens and up the long crushed-shell driveway, finally rumbling to a halt in its paved forecourt. The building’s imposing, continental architecture loomed ghostly above them against the moonlit sky, seeming, for all its size and grandeur, somehow huddled nonetheless against the even darker jungle towering around it.
“They’ve brought us to my cousin Escotte’s home,” she said, bewildered.
“The Census Taker?” Reikos asked.
She nodded.
Prefect-Sergeant Ennias appeared at the back of their cart, climbing in with keys in hand. “All right then, come along.” He bent to unlock Sian’s chains from the cart wall.
“May I heal Pino now?”
“Soon enough,” he said, as a second guard climbed into the cart to stand over Reikos. “We’ll bring him to you just as soon as you’re inside with no more trouble, understood?”
“What about me?” Reikos asked.
“You’re fine where you are, for now,” the sergeant said.
“You told us you were from the Factorate,” said Sian.
“Did I?” The sergeant straightened, pulling Sian up beside him. “Let’s get going now.”
Sian was helped out of the wagon by two more soldiers, much less roughly than she had been loaded in, and marched off toward the elegant hall’s wide marble steps, flanked by the sergeant and three other men, rubbing at her chain-chafed wrists.
“If you had simply come with us as asked, my lady,” the sergeant told her, sounding abashed now for some reason, “all that could have been avoided. You’re not actually in any trouble, I don’t think.”
“What?” She gaped at him.
“Your arrest was just for show, in case anyone was watching.” He shook his head and glanced back at the wagon. “Damn shame about the boy. What a stupid thing. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much I can do for either of them now. They did threaten and assau
lt a Factorate embassy. But I will try, my lady.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Sian demanded. “This was some kind of ruse? And yet you will not let me heal Pino? What insanity is this?”
“Sian! My darling cousin!” She whirled about to see Escotte Alkattha, Alizar’s second most powerful official after only the Factor himself, beaming down at her from atop the flight of stairs. He’d come to greet her dressed as if for a formal ball, in falls of purple silk shot through with silver thread. The fabric glimmered in the darkness as he started down with arms spread wide in welcome. The elegant effect was somewhat undermined by the golden squirrel monkey perched on his left shoulder, wrapping its tail around his neck as though to strangle him.
Steps away, Escotte stopped, his smile fading. “You look simply wretched.”
Sian looked down to discover that her dress had gotten soiled and ripped somewhere during their transport here, probably as she’d been helped into or out of that filthy wagon. Another of her best silks ruined. She must stop over-dressing for these beatings.
“Come here, come here. What’s happened to you?” Escotte frowned down at the sergeant as Sian came up to stand beside him. The monkey bared its teeth at her and retreated to the opposite shoulder. “Explain her condition, Sergeant.”
“There was unexpected trouble, sir.” The sergeant stared calmly at nothing as he spoke. He didn’t even seem to sweat, despite the sultry night. “We found your cousin in the company of two male companions who mistook our intentions and attacked our men.” Escotte put his hands against his hips and tisked in apparent exasperation, though whether with the sergeant or with Sian’s companions, she was uncertain. “It was necessary to restrain all three of them, sir — to get them here without further risk.”
“You restrained my cousin?” Escotte gasped, incredulous.
“It doesn’t matter, Escotte,” Sian said. “It was clearly just a great misunderstanding, as he has said. But one of my friends is badly injured, and the sergeant …” She aborted what she’d been about to say, hopeful that the man might really try to help Reikos and Pino if she didn’t antagonize him further now. “I have had no chance to heal him yet. May I do so now? Please?”
“Heal him?” Escotte said. “So these dreadful rumors I have heard are true, my dear?” He studied her, then grinned. “How fascinating.” He turned back to Ennias. “You heard her, Sergeant. Bring the man to us immediately.”
The officer gave Escotte a stiff nod, and went to do as ordered.
“Oh, thank you, cousin,” Sian said, washed in relief.
“For what?” he asked, all graciousness again. “This is quite convenient, really. I have been hoping to see a demonstration of this … new talent you are credited with. Now it will not be necessary to have someone injured.” He tittered briefly at her shocked expression. “It would not have been a serious injury, of course. We have known each other all our lives, Sian! You cannot think me such a monster. A pricked finger. Something trivial. That is all I meant.” He glanced off toward the forecourt, where several soldiers were hoisting Pino’s limp body from the cart. “Oh, he does not look well, though, does he.”
“Escotte, what is going on here?” Sian struggled to control her resurging anger. “The sergeant says that my arrest was just a ruse. Why would you do such a thing? We were frightened out of our minds. My friends would never have attacked your men if we had simply known that you had sent them!”
“Oh, dear cousin!” He threw his arms into the air and rolled his eyes. The monkey hissed and scrabbled onto his back, clutching at his fine robe. “You can have no idea what a wasps’ nest you have stumbled into! None at all. I will explain it all to you, of course. But that will take some time, and they are coming with your friend now.” He patted her shoulder and drew back to watch as the guardsmen arrived to lay Pino’s body on the steps at Sian’s feet. His pallor was ghastly. She could not tell if he was breathing anymore at all.
She fell to her knees, shoving both hands down onto the awful gash at one side of his stomach, steeling herself for the —
Even braced for it as she was, the pain was astonishing. It was all she could do to keep her hands in place and still hold onto consciousness. An involuntary moan escaped her lips, as if the injured boy were moaning through her, like some carnival ventriloquist. As the stench of ginger became stifling, all strength fled Sian’s body, leaving her to sprawl face down across Pino’s torso. Her only remaining thought was for keeping her hands on his wound.
“Domina …?” Pino groaned, squinting down at her, then up at all the others, clearly trying to make sense of where he was, and what was happening. “My lady … what …”
“Amazing!” Escotte cried, rushing in to take a closer look. Dark, congealed blood still clung to Pino’s clothes and skin, but the wound itself had knit back together as if stitched by expert chirurgeons. Already, just a small white scar remained to mark the spot. “I must admit that I did not believe what I was hearing — but it’s true!” He beamed down at Sian, who was only just recovering enough to raise her head again. “Cousin, we have so much to catch up on. And I’m sure you have at least as much to tell me as I have to share with you. Come, come. Oh. Are you unable to rise?” He looked impatiently at all the men still staring down in awe at Pino. “Don’t just stand there, you louts! Help my cousin up! She cannot be left here in a pile on my front steps after such a feat. We must take her to her quarters to revive in comfort. Hurry!” Two soldiers came to grasp Sian beneath the arms, and prop her on her feet as best they could. “Sergeant, please find my cousin’s two companions suitable quarters as well. I believe you know the ones I mean.”
Ennias nodded once again, though Sian thought he looked quite unhappy. Was that because Reikos and Pino weren’t to be arrested after all? She could not focus on the question long enough to wonder further. It was all she could do to navigate the spacious marble steps ahead of her — even with two strong men doing more than half the work. “You will … take good care of them,” she managed to tell Escotte as she was carried past him. “Won’t you?”
“Please don’t concern yourself, my dear,” Escotte offered her an absent wave. “You will all be quite safe now.”
Safe, she thought. At last. What a blessed word.
This late at night, the grand receiving room and public offices of the Census Hall were dark, though Sian was unable to pay much attention to her surroundings. They passed through a few more gilded rooms, and several stairways, the first few grander than the later ones. There were glimpses of crystal and flashes of mirror, and soft voices, and soft hands. Somewhere along the way, the scent and stiffness of leather armor and brass studs had been replaced by the swirl and swish of silk dresses trimmed in lace. Finally, the blessed softness of a mattress stuffed with down. The smooth, cool weight of linen sheets. She wanted to thank the people helping her, but she had such trouble keeping her eyes open anymore.
Safe, she thought again as sleep pressed her further into the delightful bedding. What threat could touch her now, tucked safely inside her cousin’s home? A man even more powerful than the Mishrah-Khote’s highest priests. And all at once the young priest’s words came back to her. She would have laughed if she’d possessed the strength to. She had stopped running, just as he’d instructed, and been led straight into the highest circles of Alizar’s elite, just as he’d predicted. How clever that boy was. How modest, really. Now, she wondered, whatever will this message I am bearing prove to be …?
Sian awakened in a lovely room, all spun sugar, cream, and gleaming gold. Even the light glowing from beyond the foot of her bed seemed to have a golden cast. And what a delightful bed it was.
Tap tap tap.
Sian raised her head just far enough to glance about. She saw a gilded door. That was what had awakened her; someone knocking at her door. But where was this? Not home; not her townhouse. Then she remembered.
Escotte! She was … “Come in?” Sian drew the covers up around her modestly.
&nbs
p; The door cracked gently open, just far enough to admit a pretty face framed in lustrous dark hair pulled back in pearls, and a shoulder draped in pale blue silk. “Domina Kattë? Good morning. I am Cleone, your maid. Would you prefer to sleep a while longer?”
“I … What time is it?”
“Too late for breakfast, and too early for lunch.” The woman smiled impishly. “Though I can bring either to your bedside if you wish.”
Food! What a wonderful idea. “I will have both, I think.” Sian gave the maid an impish smile of her own. “If you don’t mind.”
The maid blinked at her. “Both, my lady?”
“Breakfast and lunch, please. I’m feeling … rather peckish.”
The young woman brought a graceful hand up to her mouth and giggled, then gave Sian a nod and disappeared again, pulling the door closed without a sound behind her.
Sian grinned in pure delight, stretched luxuriously, then threw back her covers to find herself wrapped in a white silk nightgown woven out of air itself, if she was any judge. And who would be a better judge of fabric than she? She stood up and looked around for the dress she had arrived in. It was nowhere to be seen, which was not surprising, she supposed, given its condition by the time she’d gotten here.
She wandered to the room’s great, delicately partitioned windows, and gazed down at a garden full of gorgeous orchids and hibiscus. There was a marble fountain filled with flowering lilies, a graceful stand of carefully manicured date palms, and, in another corner of the courtyard, a fig tree heavy with ripe fruit. Luridly blooming bougainvillea crawled up the opposite wall, almost too bright to look at. A large frilled lizard clung to the wall as well, several stories up.
Safe, she thought again, and sighed.
The gentle tapping came again.
“Come in.” She took no care to cover herself this time.
It was the maid, as she’d suspected.
“Would my lady like to dress before her meal, or eat first?”
“I seem to have no clothes,” Sian said, gesturing around the room.