Another woman alit beside her. This one was taller and slimmer. She touched the first—on the shoulder, some said; others said the back—who turned slowly to face the gate. She gestured, leaned close to the taller woman to say something. The taller woman climbed back into the carriage. And so it was that Zemiya, moabe of Belakao, walked alone into Sarsenay City in the rain and the wind and the thunder, her eyes only on the road, and not on the people who lined it.
“Haldrin, King of Sarsenay, I present to you Zemiya, Princess of Belakao.” The Belakaoan herald’s words rang, but he looked terribly uncomfortable—as wet as the rest of his party was, his hands clutching his spear as if he was afraid they might shake.
“I welcome you,” King Haldrin said to Zemiya, “as moabe of your own land, and as future queen of this one.”
He was standing at the foot of the dais. Zemiya was just inside the doors. She already looks like a queen, I thought from my own place beside Lord Derris. She was beautiful, and stood as if she did not notice the water dripping from her dress and fingertips, onto the flower petals on the floor.
“I thank you, Lord King,” she said. Her voice was just as rich as Teldaru had said it was.
The king stepped forward and I smelled the flower petals, stirred and bruised. “Zemiya,” he said, and I felt a rush of surprise and something else that I did not want to name, hearing him say this word. “You should have dried yourselves, taken more time. . . .”
“No,” Zemiya said. When she shook her head the jewels in her hair sparkled. Crimson and clear, I saw. Blue and yellow and green. “I preferred to come immediately.”
The herald took two paces and brought his spear down on the floor with a crack. “And I also announce—”
“Neluja,” Zemiya said to Haldrin. “Yes—you remember her? My family’s representative at this blessed time, for my brother the moabu did not see fit to come himself.” I sucked in my breath at the bitterness that throbbed beneath the smoothness and the small, white smile.
Neluja walked to stand beside her sister. She was not quite as wet; I saw that her dress was orange, patterned with white circles. The cloth that hid her hair was a darker colour—green, perhaps, or brown. Her eyes were all black except for pinprick white centres. “King Haldrin,” she said in a higher, cooler voice than her sister’s.
“Ispa Neluja,” he replied. “I am glad that you have come.”
“I had to,” Neluja said. She stepped closer to the king, but her eyes seemed to be on Teldaru. “For I had to tell you myself: this marriage should not happen.”
Lord Derris gasped and the herald started and the king frowned, but it was Teldaru I looked at, my heartbeat heavy and uneven in my chest. I knew his smile; the hungry one that showed only the tips of his perfect teeth. “I was looking forward to greeting you both,” he said to Neluja, “but now instead I must ask you, Ispa, what you mean, and why you seek to mar the joy of this occasion.”
“Master Teldaru,” Haldrin said, holding up a hand, “Ispa Neluja—let us not talk of this yet. Go and rest, and—”
“No,” Zemiya said. “Haldrin, let us talk of this now.”
They all waited, for a moment. I noticed, as my heart continued to thud, that there was a lizard perched on Neluja’s upper arm. It was small and bright red, and its eyes looked like tiny faceted amber domes.
“The isparra has shown me,” Neluja said at last. “I have seen images of future time.”
“As have I.” Teldaru’s gaze slid to me. “Mistress Nola has, as well. She Othersaw for a Belakaoan merchant, months and months ago, and she saw precisely what I had before her: a shared path of abundance and joy.”
“Is that so?” Neluja said. The lizard’s eyes began to swivel, around and around, sickeningly fast. Its tail looped and tightened around her arm, just above the elbow. “For my own visions have been dark.”
Teldaru shrugged a little. “But if, in your country, no one Path is more likely than another, such visions should not trouble you.”
“In my country we speak of tides and currents, water that flows in ways we anticipate and ways we cannot. I have searched the water many times, and all I have seen is darkness.” She turned again to Haldrin. “I have not come to try to stop this marriage myself. We would not have come at all, either of us, if we sought to escape it. But I hoped . . .” She swallowed, and the lizard cocked its head toward hers. “I hope that you will think on what I have seen, King Haldrin. My brother refuses to do so, but perhaps you will.”
Haldrin looked from Neluja to Zemiya. The moabe was smiling very, very slightly; a challenge, a promise, a question—I could not tell.
“Teldaru.” The king turned and faced him. “Look again, now.” He turned once more, to me. “And you too, Nola. Both of you: look, and tell me what my Pattern will be.”
Thunder cracked directly above us—around us, it seemed, in a great, descending wave. When its reverberations had faded, Lord Derris cried, “My lord!” His already breathy voice was strained almost to nothing.
He is happy, I realized. Overjoyed. I knew that the king usually asked for Otherseeing only when custom dictated; that he preferred his own ideas to sacred visions of the Otherworld—and I knew that this had always frustrated Lord Derris. So now he wheezed his delight into the Great Hall as I walked over to Teldaru, thinking, No, no; not this . . .
“We will,” Teldaru said quietly.
“And you, Neluja—would you join them?”
She shook her head. “I know what I have seen. I have no need to look again. But he will help”—and the lizard skittered down her arm and dropped to the floor.
“An intriguing creature,” said Teldaru.
Neluja nodded. “Indeed. He found me after I lost my bird, Uja—perhaps you remember her?”
“Uja bit him,” Zemiya said. “Several times. I am certain he remembers her.”
It was all intolerable to me, suddenly: the weight of the air and the knowledge that Bardrem was beneath it too, so close; the smiles I did not understand; the rich, clear voices and the words they were speaking. The way I knelt, cursed and helpless, and watched the lizard’s legs and tail make paths in the petals while Haldrin said again, “Tell me what will come” and Teldaru touched my hand, lightly. The way the Otherworld rose to meet me. My desire and my dread.
Haldrin. Just him, kneeling on dry, cracked earth. His shoulders are trembling, and so is the long, curved line of his back. I whisper his name. He raises his head and I see that there are tears on his cheeks, and that he sees me. He smiles at me, and the ground beneath him sprouts grass and ivy and shoots that coil outward, trailing tiny flowers. He lifts his hands and takes off his circlet (which is a deep, dark red, not gold). Sets it on the ground, where the ivy loops around it until it disappears. His tears make deep green furrows in his cheeks.
I was leaning forward on my closed fists when the real world returned. I strained for breath, found it, made it slow and even. I raised my head and saw Teldaru staring up past the king. Teldaru’s eyes were still and clear with Otherseeing. Haldrin glanced from him to me and back again. Everyone else was distant, to me; smudged, featureless, obscured by black spots.
Teldaru bowed his head. When he looked up his gaze was focused and bright.
“Well, Daru?” Haldrin said.
“I . . .” Teldaru began. He smiled at the king, at me, at Zemiya and Neluja. He reached out and stroked the lizard, and he chuckled when it nipped his finger. “I saw the ocean at rest. I saw new land rising from it, so gently that the waters hardly moved. It was beautiful, Haldrin. My king.”
“And Nola?” Haldrin said. He spoke more lightly than he had before. “What did you see?”
You, and myself too; I don’t know how I would describe it, even if I could. “Gems,” I said, “spilling like fire from the mouth of a volcano. Where they land, stones grow, more and more of them, until there is a monument—like Ranior’s, only taller and lovelier.” I could not look at Neluja, or indeed at anyone. I bowed my head as Teldaru had.
“Thank you,” Haldrin said. “Ispa Neluja, for telling me of your visions, and Teldaru and Nola, for telling me of yours. They will give me much to think on.” He walked over to Zemiya. “And now,” he said, “please, Zemiya: let me show you to your rooms.”
She did not smile at him, and there was a distance in her dark eyes, but she raised her hand and laid it lightly on his arm. “Yes,” she said. “It seems that it is time.”
Teldaru slipped his hand into mine and stroked my palm with his thumb, and I felt his trembling and my own and could not pull away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I wonder sometimes at the certainty of words. At how real they make the past look, and how precise. “Selera wore a white dress with ivy patterns stitched in Belakaoan gems”—and even if I’m nearly sure she did, the words, once they’re written, make it true.
I’m usually fairly certain about images—both the ones from my visions and the others. Things like Selera’s dresses, and whether all the eagle’s talons were bloodied, or just a few. Other things are more difficult to remember. How soon after a particular event did another event happen? A week, a month? Is it true that he asked me a question and that I answered in such-and-such a way? And if I’m not sure, should I not leave that part out entirely, or write, “I cannot remember precisely, but perhaps this is how it happened”?
Except then it would not be a story. And I need to tell a story. Something whole and certain.
Sometimes it’s the images that help me call up the rest; the colours and light and textures that start the words again. Times like this. For Selera’s dress was long and white and stitched with gems. The dress she wore when she went away.
Grasni found me on a bench by the main courtyard stage. It was the bench furthest away from the performers; from it I could see the king and Zemiya, in the raised viewing area that had been erected for them, and all the other benches too, as well as the space around them. I had been sitting here for over an hour, and so far I had seen four dancers (three excellent and one so terrible that even Haldrin had looked uncomfortable), two acrobats and an actor who had attempted to transform himself into an erupting volcano using red silk scarves and an armful of very large stones. I had not seen Bardrem, though my eyes darted all the time, seeking him, expecting him.
“No wonder the princess looks so forlorn,” Grasni said as she slipped into the space beside me. “Look at him, all tangled up in his scarves, trying not to cry because he’s just crushed his toe with a rock. I wonder why the king was so eager to show her what fools Sarsenayans can be.”
“She’s not forlorn,” I said, lightly enough to hide my surprise at Grasni’s presence. “She’s smiling a little. And maybe that’s what he wanted.”
“Is that a smile? I’m not sure. . . .”
But it was—I, at least, was sure of it, as I squinted into the morning sunlight.
“Let’s get closer,” I said. “It’s crowded, but Borl will help us make a path.” He craned his head up when he heard his name and I scratched him between the ears.
“No.” Grasni eyed him and then me. I thought that she might ask a question I would not be able to answer; something like, “Why is he so attached to you now, when he only ever tried to bite your fingers off before?” She said nothing else, though, so I continued, “Or let’s leave—we could go see if Dellena will let us taste some of the recipes she’s created for the wedding. Or”—I spoke faster because Grasni was no longer looking at me, and because she was tugging at the ends of her hair in a way I recognized—“we could just go to your room, or mine, and talk about things, because we won’t be able to do that for much longer. Because soon—”
“Not soon,” she said quietly, and suddenly she was looking at me. “Now. Master Teldaru’s just told us: we’re to leave later on today. Selera and I.”
“Today?” I said. “But he told Selera it would be after the wedding. She . . . Where is she?”
“In her room. She refuses to come out. I even offered to let her cut my hair.”
I stood up. “He can’t do this.”
“Of course he can. Apparently our new employers are growing impatient; they’ve written to ask for our presence immediately.”
“And did he show you these letters?”
“No—Nola, what’s wrong?”
He’s lying again and he’s plotting something again; I know—I know and I can’t bear knowing, can’t bear any more of anything, and now you’re leaving. “You’re leaving,” I said, “and I can’t bear it.”
We walked up to our courtyard without speaking. Borl kept nudging at my hand, and I thought, How perfect: the only one who truly understands me is a dog I brought back from the dead.
We stood outside Selera’s door and I called to her, but she did not come, and there was no sound from within. Dren brought us bread and cheese. We walked by the pool; Grasni said, “I’m excited to be going, but I’ll miss everything here, even the heat and Dellena’s Mysterious Hard Bits Soup.” We both tried to laugh, and we both failed. I thought suddenly of the guard—Sildio, the one she loved—and I wanted to mention him, to show I remembered and was thinking of her, but I did not.
We were sitting by Selera’s door when Teldaru came. “Surely she’ll have to come out to use the latrine,” Grasni said, and then we saw him striding out of the trees. He was smiling.
“You missed an extraordinarily talented musician,” he said when he had reached us. “I’ve never heard the knee-harp played so well.” He was speaking very quickly, bobbing a bit on the balls of his feet. I felt a familiar cold seeping into my belly and wrapped my arms around myself as if this would warm me.
“Grasni, go and fetch your things. The carriages are waiting.”
I watched her rush to her room, her long, shapeless dress puffing up after her like a cloud of orange-ish dust. “What are you planning?” I said. My voice trembled a bit.
“Nola!” he exclaimed. I did not turn to him, but I could imagine his arched brows and wide, twinkling eyes. “Whatever do you mean?”
She was coming back already, stooping beneath the weight of a bag on her back and clutching a leather case in both hands. “It cannot be her,” I said, very quietly. “Whatever you’re planning, it cannot have anything to do with her.”
“Silly, suspicious girl,” he murmured, and stepped forward to take the case from her. He set it on the ground, and the bag beside it, and rapped on Selera’s door. “Selera. You’ve been listening; you know it’s time. Come out, please.”
Silence.
“Selera.” A little more firmly.
Mistress Ket was coming, I saw, clacking her way along the path. Dren was walking with her and the other students were behind them. A farewell procession. I swallowed sudden tears and looked back at the door.
“Dearest.” A new tone, one I’d never heard before. “Come out to me.”
I took Grasni’s hand and pulled her away, to where the procession had halted. I watched him say something else, his forehead against the door, both hands splayed as if he would draw her out through the wood with them.
The door opened slowly, and Selera emerged slowly, and Teldaru fell back a few steps, also slowly; perhaps time itself had forgotten to breathe, seeing her.
“Oh!” a little girl beside me gasped. “She’s more beautiful than ever!” And she was. I had never seen this white dress before—the one with the jewelled coils of ivy. I had never seen her hair done so intricately, in whorls and loops, pinned by gold and yet more jewels. Her slippers were golden too, with heels that made her taller.
“Ah,” Grasni muttered, “so she would make him regret what he’s done.”
Perhaps he does, I thought as I watched him watch her. Perhaps, right at this moment, he does.
She did not look at him once. She walked over to us, bent to kiss the children and the top of Mistress Ket’s head. Mistress Ket was weeping. “Child,” she said, “you will make us so proud. They will love you as we do.”
Selera did
not glance at Grasni or me either, not even when Teldaru said, “It is too crowded for you and the children, Mistress Ket; only Nola will accompany us to the gate.” It must have been difficult to avoid glancing at her only three companions, but Selera managed it. She walked slightly ahead of us, holding her dress up in her hands. She was moving quite quickly, now; the guards carrying the cases struggled to keep up. We followed her through the keep and down the steps to the main courtyard; we followed her among the tents and around the largest stage, where a girl was playing a viol. Only when Selera reached the castle gate and the two carriages waiting just inside it did she slow.
Teldaru stepped past her and turned to us. “Come here to me, you two,” he said to the others. They went to stand with him; all three faced me, though only Teldaru and Grasni actually looked at me. “Nola,” he said, “perhaps after you have said your farewells you would like to watch from the gatehouse tower.”
“Just me?” I said. “What about you? Would you not like to wave them away, too?”
He was touching each of them: Grasni on the elbow, Selera on the smooth, pale skin of her back—just above her shoulder blade, I guessed. “I will be accompanying them,” he said. Now Selera did look at him, her mouth that small, perfect “o” it always made when she was surprised.
“You’re leaving?” I could hardly hear my own words above the sudden clamour of my heart.
He smiled at me. “I will escort them a very short ways. You will hardly notice I’m gone.” He removed his hand from Grasni’s elbow and wagged a finger at me. “Don’t get into any trouble, now,” he said brightly, “or there may be dire consequences.”
Will there? I thought dizzily. What happens if you leave me? Does that part of the curse stop working? If it does, you have no way of hurting Bardrem because he’s here and you don’t know it—I could find him and we could go together and there would be nothing you could do.
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