Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  “What do you want?” she asked as she settled her shoulders against the tall rocks.

  The outlander raised his sharpened stave, his fingers tensing on the shaft, but he made no move to attack. His eyes seemed transfixed by the deep blue of her dress.

  “I have coin,” she said, “and jewelry—gold.” She raised her bangled arm.

  The outlander lowered the spear.

  “Is that what you want?” she asked as she slipped the gold from her wrist.

  He held out a hand to Merit, palm facing up, fingers extended, his face a mask of white chalk, impossible to read. He shook his hand to urge Merit forward.

  I have to stall, if only for a moment, she thought. I can’t die. Not now, when the whole world has just opened up to me. She cursed herself for being foolish enough to wander off alone when their situation was still so perilous.

  Her fingers brushed the outlander’s. She offered him the gold, but he wouldn’t take it.

  “What is it you want?” she asked again, though she knew he could not understand her. “What are you waiting for? Kill me or capture me,” she said, her eyes following her soldiers as they crept up the hill. Merit waited, counting the seconds. When the men were close, she threw herself out of the way. A Harkan spear whistled past the outlander, striking rock, sending sand into the air. Merit pushed forward, trying to sidestep the man, but the outlander was gone before she could act, scrambling silently through the tall rocks and vanishing.

  Merit was left alone at the top of the cliff, wondering what had just happened. Why had he hesitated? Why had he not struck when he had the chance? The outlanders had twice left her alive, once when they slaughtered the horses and again just now. She understood their earlier tactic—she knew the benefits of starving your enemies—but this man had no reason to hesitate. She was his to kill, but he had stretched out his hand to her. He had wanted something other than blood.

  “Queen Regent,” said Sevin as he arrived at her side. “Now that you’re done trying to get yourself killed, would you like to return to the camp?”

  Merit smirked and Sevin grumbled something about foolish women and the problems of protecting a queen regent who wasn’t anxious enough about her own head. Merit’s waiting woman was as pale as alabaster when she saw her at the base of the cliff.

  “It’s all right, Samia,” Merit said. “Get ahold of yourself, or they’ll hear you.” The girl settled back down on the hard sand, using her dress to wipe her face. Merit did her best to ignore Samia, but the man she had seen at the hilltop was clearly not alone. She heard animal cries echo across the canyon walls. Had her captors at last decided to advance?

  Darts whistled through the canyon, a soldier fell. Merit drew her sword. Her captain came to her side and raised his shield. Loud cries bounded through the canyons. Blackwood staves raised to the sky, the outlanders crowded near the canyon’s edge, approaching slowly, carefully making their way across the brown, hard-baked plains; through the scrub and the stones, they were coming.

  The Hykso held back their attack for a reason. The man on the hilltop, his outstretched hand, he wanted a ransom, not a kill.

  “We’re not fighting our way out of this, Sevin. There is no need.” Merit sheathed her mother’s sword. She turned to the last of her soldiers, her hands raised over her head. “Put down your weapons!” she shouted. They looked confused, glancing from her to Sevin, to Asher and back. “Now!” she commanded, and they did, reluctantly.

  Sevin sputtered. “You men, rearm yourselves,” he ordered, but before they could pick up their weapons, Merit stopped them. “My orders stand. You serve the queen regent of Harkana and no other.” The men lowered their weapons. The outlanders had not come for her head; she was certain of it—that was why the man had paused on the hilltop, why their darts had targeted the horses.

  Merit Hark-Wadi stood tall and patted her captain on the shoulder. “It’s all right, Sevin, Asher,” she said. “Trust me.” But her soldiers’ eyes followed her, their expressions tense, confused. Let them tremble, she thought. The men’s swords would not save them this time. They were outnumbered, trapped. If they fought they would perish, and Merit was not ready to die, not when she had just learned the secret behind the empire. She would rather bide her time as a captive than risk dying with her secret. So Merit strode to the edge of the camp, past Sevin, past the men hurrying to put on their armor, past the tents, past the little maidservant weeping into her hands that she didn’t want to die, she wasn’t ready to die, not today. Merit walked out beyond the stones toward the Hykso and held up her hands in supplication, in surrender. Her blue dress flapped in the wind behind her like a flag. What a sight she must have been to the fierce Hykso in their white ash, their mouths screaming for blood, to the Harkan soldiers sworn to protect her: a woman with long black locks surrendering herself to them, the queen regent of Harkana offering herself up as ransom.

  48

  Kepi startled when the door opened, the dress she held nearly falling to the floor. For a moment she had thought it was Dagrun. She had not seen the king since she left him in the tent filled with manuscripts. A week had passed since that day, but she still wasn’t certain what had happened in the tent, why she had frozen in place when Dagrun held out his hand. Perhaps it was his generosity that startled her. She guessed that was why she had recoiled. No, it was something more. Something she could not admit to herself just yet. She had believed his gifts to be false tokens, a pretense of affection, but now, days later, Kepi wondered if she had it wrong. Perhaps he had put a bit of consideration into his offering, but she hadn’t recognized it.

  Dammit. Everything here was so foreign; she didn’t know what to think.

  Dalla entered with a crock of amber and cakes of bread for Kepi’s morning meal. The girl kept her eyes properly lowered, but her presence was unnerving. Kepi had spent weeks in Rifka, her wedding was a fortnight past, but she was still getting used to her surroundings. She took the vessel from the girl and poured herself a cup, gulping it down, then took another. “Thank you. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was.”

  Though indeed blind in one eye, Dalla’s gaze was fixed on the floor. “Mistress,” she said, “the king has made you some armor. You’ll find it in that trunk over there.”

  Armor?

  Kepi knelt and opened the trunk under the window. Near the bottom, she discovered a well-made set of leather breeches, a tunic, and a leather breastplate embossed with the tree of Feren in the center. All new, all done in her size. Kepi took them out of the trunk, pressed them to her breasts.

  Sparring clothes. Dagrun had had his seamstresses make her a set of sparring clothes, so that she could practice in the ring.

  In all her life, no one had ever understood how much she enjoyed the thrill of a sharp blade and the chafe of hard leather on her skin, how much it meant to her that she could hold her own in the ring against anyone, man or woman. Her sister had always discouraged Kepi’s interests, and her father had always seemed amused and baffled that his youngest daughter was such a brute, wondering why she did not prefer needlework and dancing and other such girlish silliness the way Merit had.

  But now here was her new husband, the man she had questioned above all others, presenting her with a set of sparring clothes, actually encouraging her to continue her swordplay after their marriage. Odd, she thought, of all the people in the world, it is Dagrun who understands what I need. Or is he simply playing to my weakness? Kepi could not be certain, but she thought she knew the answer.

  “Mistress?” said Dalla, looking confused. “Are you all right?”

  Kepi laughed. “I am,” she said. “I’ve never been better.”

  Dalla helped her dress, though the servant was clumsy with the mannish clothes and had to be instructed how to properly tie the breastplate on, how to adjust the straps, and how to pull Kepi’s hair away from her face so that it would not interfere in the ring. When she was dressed, Kepi looked down at herself clad in leather, feeling how soft the materia
l was, how well worked. It all fit her too. With an imaginary sword in her hand she feinted and riposted. It was perfect.

  Dalla smiled. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?”

  “For the boy, your master-at-arms. He asked to see you for a training session.”

  Kepi’s face darkened. She had no desire to see Seth. “He did? Where?”

  “Outside in the yard. Mistress? Are you okay?”

  “I think I will be, Dalla. Thank you for your help.”

  “It’s all right. I hope … I mean, you are not like us. It’s good. I’d like it if we could be friends.”

  Kepi smiled and patted the girl’s arm. “We are.” Like her father, Kepi had a way of making people trust her, making them loyal to her, simply by appreciating the kindness they wanted to give her. The girl gave her a quick squeeze and went back out of the room.

  She found Seth waiting for her near the practice yard, weighing swords not far from the grove where she had joined hands with Dagrun to become his wife. It did not seem that long ago, and yet in many ways it was already a lifetime. In the distance she heard saws and hammers, the workers building the Queen’s Chamber, the bed, the furniture, and the roomful of books that would all soon be hers. If only she would accept them as such. She shook her head again. The world was strange, and she was a stranger in it—new, even to herself.

  When he saw her in the new clothes, the leathers and tunic, Seth was confused.

  “Where’d you get that armor?” he asked.

  “It is not your concern,” she said. She would have him replaced, she decided. It was too dangerous for him to be so intimate with her.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Not now,” she said. She had avoided Seth with nearly the same vigor with which she had avoided the king of the Ferens. He was no longer quite a friend, she realized, and he had never been her lover. Though she had wanted to love him once, she had told herself she loved him, but that seemed foolish now, almost childish.

  “Very well then, mistress,” he said, his voice dull with hurt. Seth tossed her a wooden blade. “Shall we begin?”

  She stood back and waited. He advanced slowly, kicking up a little dust. He tipped his blade at the last moment, feinting right, but not convincingly. The blade turned at the last moment, his arm too limp to make an effective strike at her. She parried, beating his sword into the dirt.

  “Good work,” he said, though she knew he could not tell good work from bad—his poor upbringing was showing. He wiped the dust from his blade. “Again.”

  She advanced, legs bent, back straight, feet perpendicular—right leg first, left leg trailing. She kept her practice sword low, her left hand held out for balance. He took her patience for sluggishness and lunged crudely. She stepped backward, and he missed. He recovered, took a step back and scowled, then started again, advancing with his sword held level. Seth feinted, but Kepi watched the direction of his eyes rather than his arm, anticipating the move, and countered in the opposite direction, touching him on the back of his thigh. He tried to parry, but Kepi stepped back, and when he lost his balance she caught him in the middle of his chest. “You’re dead,” she said.

  His face reddened. “Again,” he said, taking a deep breath and frowning.

  Soldiers stopped to watch, and the slaves too paused at the field’s edge—they had an audience. Seth appeared to take notice, his knees trembling when they bent. He steeled himself on his back foot and lunged at her. He was angry, embarrassed, not paying attention to what he was doing but determined to land a blow, to prove that he could. A moment before he touched her she stepped to her right, and Seth, hitting nothing but air, fell on his knees into the Feren mud.

  Quiet laughter rang through the court. She pitied the boy and offered him her hand, but he would not take it.

  “Once more,” he told her as he pushed himself up with the wooden blade. He lifted his back foot as if to retreat but lunged forward instead. A clever trick—an advance disguised as a retreat—but he had forgotten that she had taught him the move. His blow struck her shoulder, but it landed too late: She had tapped him on the chest while his feet were still deciding which direction to take.

  She heard a hoot, and then a round of chuckles. One soldier clapped, and the other slapped his friend on the back. “You are making a scene of yourself, Seth. Stop this,” she said with a sigh. She did not want to humiliate him.

  He shook his head. “Just once more. It’s okay, I’m just having fun.”

  His face turned ugly. He was not having fun at all—he was competing with her.

  He came at her with blade held high. His hand wavering, his grip loose. He was taller than she was, his arm longer, and he used his reach to his advantage, thrusting his sword at her from a distance. The dull edge caught her on the shoulder, the same spot as the last hit. The blow stung. Kepi beat the flat edge of his sword with hers, knocking the weapon from his grip.

  From the edge of the yard a soldier came toward them, but Kepi gestured to stop him, “No cause for alarm,” she told the man. “We like to play it rough.”

  “I see.” The man snickered as he walked off the field. Their observers had doubled. In a moment half the guard would be watching. She hoped Seth was smart enough to keep quiet. She waited while he caught his breath, stood idle while he bent to pick up his sword.

  “All right then?” she asked.

  “All right?” he answered, his voice high like a young boy’s. “What was that?”

  “Sparring.” She wanted it to end.

  “If you say so.” He gripped his sword, then threw it into the dirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this.” He came up close so that only she could hear and breathed out his excitement. “I only wanted to meet to tell you I found us a way to escape. We can be gone by nightfall, Kepi. We don’t have to stay here another moment.”

  “Maintain your distance, Seth.” There were eyes wherever she looked.

  His nose nearly touched hers and his breath was hot. “You think I care what Dagrun’s soldiers think of us?” Seth whispered. “There are people here who will help us. Not everyone is fond of the king. It has something to do with the Waking Rite. He never completed the rite. His people don’t accept him, not all of them. The master physician, Gallach, he’s one of them and he wants to help us. They are planning something. They think Barrin’s heir is alive and Dagrun is not the rightful king.” Seth spoke so fast he was stuttering. “Kepi—”

  “Don’t address me by my first name. I’m the queen of the Ferens now.” She took a step back, straightening her breastplate. What was he talking about? What was Seth planning with these people? She wanted nothing to do with it—these people were traitors, men loyal to the old king. Dagrun’s men had routed a contingent of soldiers at Catal, but there were still men who did not accept her husband, who would never accept Dagrun. Dagrun’s men had found a cache of weapons the day before, and that same evening they had arrested a band of slaves who had tried to steal swords from the armory. There were traitors everywhere. Kepi eyed the guards, who were all watching this exchange. If they tell Dagrun, Seth will lose his head. Be quiet, or you’ll get yourself killed.

  Seth’s face darkened. He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “It was only to save us, Kepi. You have to know that.”

  “Hush now,” she told him. “If you know what is good for you, do not speak any more of this.”

  But he continued. “The Ferens would have killed me if I hadn’t led them to you. But you can’t seem to forgive me for that.”

  “I have forgiven you,” she said softly. It was true. But what he did not understand was that while she had forgiven him, she no longer loved him, and she told him so.

  “No—no. You are lying. You love me. You’ve always loved me.”

  “Leaving is not the answer, it never was. Not for us. We never had a future. It is time you accepted that as I have, Seth.”

  “Kepi, no—”

  “We wanted to believe that
such things were possible. But in my heart—in my heart—I knew I would never do it. I could not forsake my family or my name. Forget your plots against Dagrun.”

  She turned to leave, then came back around and stood next to him. Her heart broke for him. He had loved her, in his way. It was a foolish love, a boy’s love, but she knew he had meant it. For consideration of that love, she decided to be gentle. “You go on, go ahead. Find your freedom, find your way someplace where you will be free. I release you from my service, Seth. Good luck to you, but I need to find my own way.”

  49

  The outlanders took Merit on horseback, leading her with a goat-hide rope tied around her hands, the Harkan soldiers following on foot behind her horse. Sevin kept a strong face—he was stout-necked and accustomed to desert survival—but his soldiers had spent two days gnawing on leathery hides for nourishment and no longer had the strength to walk. One man collapsed on the road, stumbling into the dust, trying weakly to stand. The Hykso made no effort to assist the boy, and willing to make an example for their captives of what might happen if they walked too slowly or tried to resist, one of the outlanders slashed the boy’s back, opening the wound to the sun and soaking the air with the smell of blood. The scent drew black-winged birds; they gathered upon the boy’s back, pecking at the wound, undeterred by his cries as the riders moved off.

  “Kill him,” Merit said, craning her neck to look behind her. “For pity’s sake, don’t leave him like that!” But the outlanders paid her no mind, riding on as if they had not heard a thing. “Kill him,” she cried again, angry and disgusted.

  The sun beat down ceaselessly, the taste of sand in her mouth. Fearing she would join the fallen boy, Merit raised her bound hands, curving them into the shape of a cup to ask for water. A man with wrinkled skin and a twitching eye caught sight of the gesture, tracing the shape of her arms, the flow of her dress across her body. He shook his head—he would give her nothing. “Gods,” Merit cried. She cupped her hands again. “If you want me alive, give me something.”