"Sirana..."
"Oh, stop calling me that!"
"Mirabar." He crouched down, trying to see her face. "What's wrong?"
She put her head in her hands and rocked back and forth. "No, it's foolish."
He doubted that. He wished Josarian were here; his brother seemed to have a rapport with this girl. However, Tansen would do what he could.
"Is it something from the Otherworld?" he probed. "Visions? Proph—"
"No, no."
She shook her head, face still covered by her dark, fine-boned hands. He saw a healing scar, like a burn mark. Evidently she was not always impervious to fire. He didn't try to touch her, sensing that she would bolt. Besides, he privately admitted to a certain reluctance to touch her; superstitious, yes, but genuine.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
She made a terrible sound in her throat.
"Injured?" he persisted.
She lowered her hands. Her eyes were closed. She tilted her head back and took a huge breath, trying to smother her sobs.
"No," she said at last, sounding unbearably weary. "I am not injured."
She looked at him now, her eyes flashing brightly. He remained impassive, but their gazes locked. He suddenly recalled the first time he had ever seen her: his backward step, his unconcealed revulsion. The memory was in her eyes, too, and also in the breath she released on a watery sigh.
"I let... Srijan..." She shook her head. "I let him upset me."
"Srijan?"
She laughed shakily at his contemptuous tone. "You see? I told you it was foolish."
He frowned. "Did he attack you, sir... Mirabar?" Srijan was about as subtle as an earthquake when he approached a woman, and he was growing restless and impatient as they all awaited Elelar in this isolated spot.
"No. I am in no danger of that from him." She looked away, her complexion darkening. "He said that... it was too bad I am so strange-looking, because I am not so ugly otherwise, and some man might have wanted me if not for the curse Dar laid upon me in the womb."
Tansen drew breath through his teeth, disgusted by Srijan's casual cruelty, sorry for Mirabar, and, above all, ashamed that he and Srijan could have similar thoughts about something.
Mirabar looked down at her hands. "You get used to people shying away. You get used to them... not wanting to meet your gaze. Not wanting to touch you. Being afraid of you. You get used to the looks and the stares and the whispers... You never get used to them stoning you and chasing you and wanting to kill you, of course..." She sighed. "I did not choose to be what I am. I am, however, used to it. I understand it as the price I pay for the power I was given. In another time, in a long-ago era..." She made an impatient sound and scrubbed again at her face. "I only weep when I think of what might have been."
"Everyone does that, Mirabar." He, too, could cry like a woman if he let himself dwell on what might have been.
She ground her teeth together. "And I... I am a fool to do so. I might have been born like other women, paying for my food and shelter by serving my husband, rather than by Calling shades of the dead. I might have had the privilege of dying in a river of blood and pain, trying to bear him a child..." Her eyes shimmered with tears as she added more truthfully, "I might have been loved by my mother, my father, by... some man, someday..."
"You're still young," he pointed out. "And prejudice, like enmity, can change into acceptance. With time."
She looked at him knowingly. "Enough for that? When even the warrior I am destined to serve backs away from me in disgust?"
He shrugged, a casual denial. "I was startled." He lifted one brow. "Anyone would have been startled. That was quite an entrance you made that night."
"It was me, not my entrance, that you protected the torena from. I saw you."
It was true. He nodded. He would not insult her again with false denials. "I was born to a violent, superstitious people. Some things are reflexes, even though I know better."
Her eyes narrowed. "You are still backing away, Tansen."
He avoided her gaze, but he would not lie to her. "I'm sorry, Mirabar."
"Reflex." After a moment, she added in a voice that sounded bitterly amused, "Well. At least I shall never have the torena's problems."
He felt his face flush with embarrassment, a reaction that few people could evoke in him. Judging it time to change the subject, he said, "I must go back to the clearing and watch for her arrival. She doesn't know how to find the Sanctuary."
She rose to her feet. "While you wait..."
"Yes?" he asked uneasily.
"I know that you were in the east with Cheylan. I was wondering..."
He smiled, relieved. "He asks about you, too."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tansen had already noticed the way Zimran watched Elelar, and he didn't like it. He also noticed that Basimar didn't like it, either. Zimran shared the Sister's bed while they were all camped here at the Sanctuary, but Tansen suspected that he dreamed about the torena. Srijan watched Elelar, too, of course, but he was so uncouth that Tansen paid him no heed. Zimran, though... He was a man who knew what women wanted, what they liked; he knew how to please them. He knew far better than any other man present—or any other man Tansen could recall—how to offer a woman a subtle compliment, a thoughtful gesture, a private smile. He exercised his skills on every woman, young or old, plain or pretty, available or not.
Like most things, Tansen thought wryly, it takes practice.
Basimar was obviously enamored of Zimran. Mirabar tolerated him without much interest, but even she seemed to appreciate the gestures of man-to-woman courtesy he showed her. Elelar had undoubtedly known too many artful seducers to fail to recognize this one for what he was; but there was enough invitation in the smiles she shared with Zimran to make Tansen's belly clench with unwanted jealousy.
With their plans now in place, their resources committed, and their duties assigned, the allies would break camp the following morning to set in motion the ambitious scheme they had first discussed in Zilar. Tansen was glad. The season for planning had come to a close; the season for action was upon them. And Tansen would also be glad to see distance come between Zimran and Elelar now. He didn't like the way he felt when they were near each other. Nor did he like suspecting that Mirabar somehow knew how he felt.
"You're even quieter than usual tonight," Josarian chided, coming to sit beside him at some distance from the fire.
"I'm thinking." He avoided Josarian's gaze, expertly running one of his cherished honing stones along the blade of one of his swords.
"Thinking?"
"Focusing. Preparing." The stone whispered over the blade. "Soon we will face our enemies. We must be ready."
"Our enemies?" Josarian laughed softly and gestured to some of the people who had gathered here for this meeting. Speaking only loud enough for Tansen to hear, he said, "Look at our allies. Torena Elelar, who dislikes me and who betrayed you. Najdan the assassin, who went to Dalishar to kill you. Mirabar, a Guardian whom most people take for a demon. Srijan, who dreams of murdering us both, but who may be respectful enough to let his waterlord father do it instead. Falian, who perhaps still secretly hates me for ruining his life. And the others... No, Tan, I'm not worried about the Valdani." Josarian looked back at his bloodbrother. Even in the dark, Tansen could see something fierce glittering in his eyes as he concluded, "I can take care of my enemies, but Dar shield me from my friends."
Tansen nodded. "I suppose it is a little like mating with a Widow Beast."
"A what?"
"Never mind," said Tansen. "I'll be watching your back."
"Ah, but then who will watch yours?"
"Luckily, shatai are trained to watch their own backs. I'd have died during training if I hadn't learned how."
Tansen escorted Elelar and her servants for part of their journey the following day. This was bandit country. Of course, all the bandits in Sileria were now part of Josarian's army, but they didn't know that Elelar was, in he
r way, one of them. Even if they knew, they still might not care—not enough to forego robbing her if she were unprotected. Kiloran had brought Sileria's many bandits (who routinely paid him a percentage of their booty, as tradition demanded) into the rebellion, but he hadn't exactly tamed them. However, they knew Tansen by now—who had slain twenty Moorlanders with a single blow, after all—and so they would grant the torena immunity while the shatai rode with her.
"The Imperial Advisor has asked me to marry him," she announced suddenly as they rode side by side through the morning sunshine.
He frowned. "Don't you already have a husband?"
"A minor impediment which he intends to eliminate." Her voice was flat.
"Divorce?" It was anathema in a clannish society where blood-ties and loyalty mattered more than wealth, but Tansen supposed that the Imperial Advisor didn't concern himself overmuch with Silerian tradition—especially not if it interfered with his plans.
Elelar cleared her throat. "Divorce is the possibility he specifically mentioned."
He noticed how strained she looked. "You're afraid your husband might refuse, and Borell will resort to more brutal measures?" When she nodded, he asked, "But why? Surely a Valdan will divorce you. They have no—"
"He's half-Silerian." She briefly explained her husband's lineage and background.
"So," he surmised, "you married him for his money and his Valdani connections."
"And because he was so unlikely to find out about my work in the Alliance," she added.
He frowned. "Why?"
"Because he's a drunkard and a fool."
Tansen almost winced at the open contempt in her voice. He rather pitied her husband, married without love or respect, and now openly cuckolded. Indeed, Tansen supposed there had been other men besides Borell, and perhaps Toren Ronall, though a "fool," suspected it, too.
"Was he a drunkard before he married you?" he asked. There were times when, desire notwithstanding, he recognized that living with Elelar would probably be worse than living without her.
She glared at him but didn't respond to the insult. "I do not seek my husband's death."
"Why not? You sought mine, after all." He could feel his temper starting to rise.
She kept hers under control. "Nor do I seek marriage to the Advisor."
That surprised him. "Why not? I would have thought—"
"Do men ever think?" she asked bitterly. "As the wife of a shiftless half-wit, I go where I please and do what I want. My house is a haven for our allies and for fugitive rebels. I can conduct much of the Alliance's business there."
He was starting to understand. "But the Advisor's wife would live at Santorell Palace, meaning you'd need an excuse every time you went to your house, a property which he'd probably pressure you to give up anyhow."
She nodded. "The wife of the Imperial Advisor would be under constant supervision. My time would be completely taken up by ceremonial duties and assisting my husband in politics. My privacy would be compromised by my husband's servants. All my activities and behavior would be subjected to the continual scrutiny of courtiers. It would be a nightmare for any intelligent woman, and a disaster for one connected to the Alliance. Besides..."
"There's more?"
She made a sound of impatience. "He's from Valda. This is just a political posting, not his home. He hopes to be given a seat in the Imperial Council in a few more years."
"Ah. And he will take his wife with him when he leaves Sileria."
"Forever," she acknowledged bleakly.
"What are you going to do?"
She shook her head. The knotted cords of her headdress, which she had tucked away from her face, fell over her eyes. She brushed them away. "I don't know. I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with a plan. He's made it quite clear that he doesn't need Ronall's cooperation in order to marry me."
"I don't suppose you can just refuse his proposal?" Tansen ventured.
"I'm the one who made him fall in love with me," she said irritably. "I made him trust me, rely on me, and believe in my love."
Tansen shrugged. "You could reject him. Give him up. Break it off. I know he's been valuable to the Alliance, to us all, but if you've got to—"
"He thinks I'm in love with him, too." She made another impatient sound. "I've given him ample cause to think so. So how can I explain spurning him?"
"You're a woman. And the one thing that men everywhere can all agree on is that we don't understand women. If you leave him, he'll be bewildered at first, but then..." Tansen shrugged.
"That's it?" she asked doubtfully.
"Well... Angry, hurt, confused... But he will know he's not the first man ever abandoned by the woman he loved, or the first to wonder why."
"I don't know... He might still try to eliminate Ronall, thinking my husband has threatened me or forced me to give him up. Or he might attack me out of wounded vanity. His power is absolute in Shaljir. No one could help or defend me if I... If he..." She made a vague gesture.
"Stall him until after Alizar, then," Tansen suggested. "If we succeed there, then there will be war. He's the Advisor, after all, and he'll have a disaster on his hands. He may well forget, at least for a while, his personal concerns."
"Stall him..." She let out a long, shaky breath. "Stall him..." She straightened up suddenly. "I know! I'll tell him I won't feel worthy to be his wife until we know for sure that I can conceive his child. He's positively fixated on impregnating me."
Tansen didn't want to hear this and didn't want to see the visions that her comment brought vividly to life. "That's a good plan," he said briefly. "Stick to it." He kicked his horse and rode ahead to check for an ambush in the pass they were approaching.
Harjan's death was a loss that Captain Myrell felt deeply. The tailor had been a good source of information, saving the Empire lives and money on more than one occasion, and leading to the death or capture of numerous rebels. It was Harjan who had first advised Myrell that a torena often stopped at the inn on the outskirts of Zilar when traveling between Shaljir and her estates. There was nothing remarkable about this, of course, since the inn was a very fine one and many of Sileria's wealthier citizens broke their journeys there for a night.
But Harjan had grown bold and greedy enough to break a silence that no other informant was willing to violate: He whispered to Myrell about the Society, a subject which most shallaheen never discussed with outsiders, no matter what inducements were offered or what punishment was threatened. Lirtahar, and the brutal methods by which the assassins enforced it, ruled the mountains. Employing his own viciously brutal measures, Myrell had been unsuccessful in convincing anyone to talk about the Society, even in those rare instances where they would talk about Josarian.
Harjan, alas, had been the one man greedy enough for gold and confident enough of his own cleverness to risk the Society's wrath by speaking about its business to a Valdan. Not that a tailor from Zilar knew anything important about their business, of course. He did, however, observe various details and events that eventually proved to be the threads of a much larger tapestry. Although Harjan was dead, he had given Myrell the tools with which to start unraveling the fabric.
Harjan had always aspired to more than the miserable poverty of a shallah, and so he had patronized the fine inn at the edge of town, despite the high prices the keeper charged for food and wine there. A man of mediocre talents, Harjan had harbored the fruitless hope that he might acquire a few wealthy or aristocratic clients if he haunted the luxurious inn's public rooms. This explained how he knew that twice during the past year, the torena in question had stayed at the inn on the very same night as an assassin.
It was surprising enough that a lone torena would risk a second visit to an establishment frequented by an assassin. It was even more surprising that, on that second occasion, one of the public rooms was closed because—as Harjan had learned after creating a scene—the torena was dining privately in there with the assassin.
Since Myrell
paid him for any news whatsoever about the Society, Harjan had related this startling news to the Valdan at one of their meetings. It was a surprising announcement in any event, for the toreni were well aware of the risk of abduction and usually took pains to avoid the assassins. However, a man and woman might well meet for many reasons, after all. Apart from the possibility that the assassin was the torena's lover, Myrell could conceive of a variety of possible explanations for the discreet assignation: the assassin might be blackmailing the woman; she might have petitioned him about a bloodvow, something that was beneath no one in Sileria, despite the airs the toreni gave themselves; or, yes, they might even be resolving an abduction or threatened abduction, that barbaric custom which Silerians treated like ordinary business.
Indeed, with so much work and so many worries to occupy him, Myrell might have completely disregarded Harjan's brief tale, except for one thing—the identity of the woman: Torena Elelar. He knew that Koroll had some contact with the Imperial Advisor's mistress by virtue of his position as Commander of Shaljir, so he had brought the information to his attention. Koroll would have the means to determine if there was anything in this tale which concerned them. Such a possibility seemed so improbable that Myrell had almost felt embarrassed to report the incident; but Koroll had pounced like a mountain cat and congratulated him for uncovering it. The Society was now allied to Josarian, and the Advisor's mistress was meeting with a Society assassin. Whether the Outlookers discovered a link between Elelar and Josarian, or merely collected enough information to discredit the torena, Koroll found this news worthy of serious attention.
Harjan had been publicly executed by the rebels only a day after reporting to Myrell that Josarian was planning to abduct a toren—Elelar's own husband, in fact. The abduction had never taken place. Had it been a ruse? Or had Josarian called off the plan upon realizing he'd been betrayed?
Myrell had argued with Koroll afterwards, pointing out that the torena was unlikely to ally herself to a shallah planning to abduct her own husband. Even if she loathed Toren Ronall, surely not even a woman would be foolish enough to beggar herself paying ransom to her own accomplice. Even if Josarian returned the money to her, which she'd be a fool to expect, what would be the point of such a laborious exercise?
In Legend Born Page 42