Gard felt his cheeks blaze with anger. His hands clenched, nails digging into the palms.
“Execute him now!” shouted Bogatyl, “and send his body to Menelik!”
Jofar looked a little queasy at that. Vijay frowned. Yasmine’s eyes widened. Gard scrabbled in the mud at the bottom of his wits for some scathing rejoinder and came up empty.
“Be quiet, Bogatyl,” Rajinder said. “Prince Gard is guilty only of fulfilling our expectations. I have not encountered many princes who are capable of that.”
That shot went over Vijay’s head; the young man was much more concerned with puzzling out how Gard had suddenly become a prince. It was Gard who cringed.
Bogatyl turned and stalked away, the stiff planes of his back an unspoken insult. Jofar clanked forward. “Menelik did not send me to bring Gard-ji or Vijay-ji. He sent me to bring Lady Yasmine.”
“Take her,” said Rajinder.
“No,” Vijay said.
The brothers glared at each other, irresistible, immovable. Yasmine turned her face into Vijay’s chest, blushing charmingly at all the attention. Srivastava’s face appeared framed by silk; even features, huge dark eyes, lips curled by something very sour. Jofar saw her and gasped.
Oh no, Gard moaned, not another one struck by Kyphasia’s bolt. Lust or love, do not involve me! Sweat congealed on his brow. His face was stiff. It chipped as he spoke. What came out was a thread of sound he hardly recognized as his own voice. “May I go, Nazib?”
Rajinder turned away from Vijay. Vijay wobbled a bit, and Yasmine held him up. Srivastava, after staring at Jofar’s stare, dived flustered back into her sari. Jamshid burped, woke, looked around him uncertainly.
“May I go?” Gard repeated. Deva was slipping into the corridor, Deva would support him, Deva would probably hit him—but that was a nicely uncomplicated act.
Rajinder looked from side to side as if all the eyes on him were ravens spiraling in for the kill. “Now is not the time to discuss this,” he said very quietly. “Vijay, Jofar, Gard . . .” He stopped and swallowed. “Later.”
Aghast at how much it hurt to hear Rajinder’s voice crack beneath the weight of what he himself had done, Gard abandoned courtesy, turned and fled, the dragonet a lump of slag in his gut.
Chapter Seventeen
Gard tramped across the garden, his eyes watering as the sun assaulted them. The flower beds and trees were obliterated by the glare, so that he walked through a featureless luminescence not unlike that of his new nightmare. The whine of cicadas set his teeth on edge. I shall be damned before I scurry like a cockroach, he told himself. Even though I feel like one.
Now, too late, he thought of retorts for Bogatyl. My, he should have said, dripping sarcasm, where did someone so ignorant learn such big words? Ah, he should have said, feigning indifference, you are such an expert on the lives of others, when your time would be better spent guarding your back.
No, that was not adequate. Demon’s balls! If only his air of wounded dignity had stood the test of Bogatyl’s sanctimonious—
Inside the door of his and Deva’s room he gasped. The cubicle was like an oven. In two steps he was at the window, flinging it open, admitting a breath of thick and weedy air. Sanctimonious, self-righteous honesty, he told himself. That was what hurt. Bogatyl—and maybe Srivastava—were the only people in Ferangipur who correctly judged his merit.
He swept up the water jug and dashed it against the wall. The subsequent crash and clatter was most satisfying, doubly so because the jug was empty and he could vent his spleen without wasting water.
Gard pulled off his boots and sword, flung them away, plunked down on the bed. On the other hand, he did have a facility for surprising people . . .
The door opened. Deva stood looking at him. Her eyes were turquoise, blue with vexation, green with astonishment. The sapphire in her nose twinkled as if laughing, but her mouth was turned down, not up.
The dragonet offered her a salute part sickly, part jaunty. “Shout at me,” Gard ordered her. “Tell me I am a fool.”
“I find myself speechless,” she said mildly. She bent to pick up the pieces of the shattered pot. “The problem, Gard, is that there are so many paths this turn of events could take. For all I know, you were meant to bring Yasmine here, to suit some greater purpose of the gods.”
Gard lunged into a sitting position. “Do not begin that drivel about divine purposes. Vijay wanted her. Vijay brought her here.”
“Yes, of course.” Deva rose and set the pieces of the pot on the table. The cicadas hummed outside the window, blotting out all other noise. They hummed inside Gard’s skull. Perhaps it was the dragonet, singing tunelessly as Narayan had sung, summoning a cobra to shade him with destiny . . . Drivel, it was all drivel.
Deva lay down her bag of fortune-telling bones and contemplated them. “And have your toys told you anything in my absence?” Gard asked.
“Only ambiguities. It is as if the gods do not want me to know their plans.”
“Very good, Deva. Now try counting to ten upon your fingers.”
Her eyes, blue-green beacons, flashed over her shoulder. “Gard!”
He shrugged an apology, to her, not to the gods. He was, after all, speaking without greeting, without preliminary explanation, as though she had been with him and Vijay on their expedition. And so she had—interfering bitch, relentlessly forgiving queen, blessedly percipient lover . . . She fingered the pottery shards, considering, perhaps, whether it would fly in the face of some celestial decree if she put the pot together again. Her back was stiff, her head drooping, in contradictory poses.
“Deva,” he said, opening his arms. “Deva. Come here.”
She came. The air was warm, the bed was warm, her body radiated heat. Still he enfolded her and set his face against her neck. The dragonet’s nostrils flared. Ah, jasmine and a tart hint of patchouli. No roses. Her lips moved against his ear, sending frissons of delight and power down his spine. The pentacle burbled sweet nothings between them. Gard was in no mood for sweet nothings.
Neither was she. “So,” she said, “Bhai made the pomegranate the goddesses were arguing over.”
“They had enough magic in themselves that there needed to be none in the artifact itself.”
“And did Raman throw it down to them, wanting to stir up trouble?”
“That would be the easiest explanation.”
Easy? What was easy? Gard tugged at her sari. She lay absently stroking his back, offering no help. Something crumpled—Andrion’s letter, still wadded behind his sash. He pulled it out and threw it on the floor.
“So now they know your true name,” Deva said.
“As usual my name palls in comparison with events.”
“But it proves that not all prophecies are valid.”
“You mean that if I had been sacrificed as the Fool, as Jamshid and Srivastava thought necessary, none of this, pomegranate and goddesses and Vijay’s passion for Yasmine, would have happened?”
“Perhaps,” she replied. “Perhaps not.”
With an irritated but affectionate epithet, he rose to his knees and with one heave unwound her garment from her body.
Deva, roused from contemplation, laughed as she spun across the bed. Good—if he had her attention, she could laugh at him all she liked. She pulled Gard down beside her and divested him of his own clothing. “I suppose you have forgotten the particulars of Amathe’s and Tarek’s prophecies?”
“Not now, Deva.” He feasted upon her lips for what seemed an hour. The dragonet drummed its tail against his ribs. So he was still capable. That was encouraging. If they sounded like water buffaloes, well, such beasts had their place in the scheme of things.
When he came up for air, Deva murmured doggedly, “Amathe warned Menelik that of two children born in Apsurakand on the day of the Sun’s Awakening, one would bring glory to the Alliance, and one death to the Shah himself.” Her fingertips sketched circles and stars upon Gard’s back so that skin and bone lilted. �
��Persis asked Tarek to confirm Amathe’s words, since Amathe was a priestess of Saavedra. It was Tarek who advised the massacre. Poor Amathe, she was never as strong as everyone hoped and feared.”
“Story of my life,” Gard said acidly. “I do not suppose the prophecy mentioned a fire-demon coming from the east?”
“Not that I know of. Tarek might have had an intimation of your coming, though . . .”
He stopped her words with another kiss. “Vultures take Tarek,” he said against her mouth.
Deva shrugged, a delectable wriggle against Gard’s chest and belly. The dragonet smacked its lips. “He is convinced that Jofar, being a warrior, will bring glory to the Alliance. But does he believe that I am the other child of the prophecy? Or has he decided upon Srivastava as that baby, in fine divine irony?”
“I fail to see how either of you could work much damage on warrior-infested Apsurakand.”
Deva shook her head. “I serve Saavedra. I must go to Apsurakand.”
“Now,” retorted Gard, “is hardly the time for me to take you to Apsurakand. As soon as Jofar returns with what he learned at the durbar today they will snatch the welcoming carpet from beneath my feet, imperial name or no. So much for my plans to move freely about the Mohan.”
“You could disguise yourself as a monkey; I could lead you upon a leash and feed you peanuts.” At Gard’s exasperated expression she smiled disarmingly. Her caress was assured and intimate. “No, you would not be nearly so interesting as a monkey.”
The dragonet caroled Gard’s joy for a woman who did not play games. Skin slid damply against skin, repeating the friction of bellows-pumped air upon coals. Deva. Goddess, demoness. Sanctuary in her body, in her mind. The daemon fell spiraling through Gard’s consciousness and landed sprawled upon Deva’s breast. Pentacle and sapphire sparked as one, enveloping them both in the soft violet glow of an underwater grotto, an under-mind cavern, not a frightening labyrinth, but an inspiringly intricate sacred maze.
His spine coiled like a snake. Power, in him, in her, together more than the sum of its parts. Power sucking him down into depths of her thought, buoying him on the top of his own.
He was melted in his own fire, consumed, plunged into the pool of her being. Steam hissed upward. Fire bubbled in the midst of water, a fiery island rose from the midst of the ocean, Minras and yet not Minras, because Minras had been evil and he, Gard, could choose.
How easy it was to yield to her. How quiet. No trumpets, no pits opening, no blades descending. It was like the serene slide into death of the old who were at peace with the world. Except he was not at all at peace with the world, only with her.
Gard lay tracing the line of the tattoo upon her breast. The scar on his arm, where Senmut had cut him with the silver scythe, glowed pinkly against the mark on her skin. The pentacle, seasoned with blood from that wound, rang. The dragonet lay pillowed upon Deva’s belly, limbs outstretched upon her dark flesh, grinning in triumph as she scratched its chin.
She smiled, not complacent but pleased. Any other woman would entangle him even tighter in her humid limbs, demanding avowals of love and loyalty, haltering him with her own oaths. Yasmine entangled Vijay in just that way. But Deva said nothing. Her hands slipped from his shoulders, her legs opened; he could move away if he wanted. He could leave her. He did not.
The dragonet giggled contentedly as it withdrew into Gard’s flesh, casting a coy glance upward. Somehow Gard was not surprised that it no longer had his clear gray eyes. Its eyes reflected sapphire blue, starred with violet like the stone in Deva’s nostril. Traitor, he said to it, but he chuckled, too comfortably drowsy to be disconcerted. A zephyr whispered in the window, bringing a breath of coolness.
One question remained. “Did Bogatyl, er, annoy you while I was gone?”
Deva stretched, skin taut over rippling muscles, sable hair dancing upon her shoulders. Odd, he had not even noticed whether she was wearing her beautiful face or not. “No,” she said. “Whether he was afraid of me, you, or Rajinder, or whether he had other plots more important, I do not know.”
Gard set his fingertips on her lips. She kissed them. “Never mind. Sufficient that you are . . .”
“Yours?” Deva asked when he did not finish. “Yours alone?”
Was this love? Gard had once called inane starry-eyed raptures, love. This was different, a poem chanted by an entire chorus rather than mouthed by a simpering jester; this was not fun, but it was immeasurably pleasant . . . “Yes,” he said hoarsely, while the dragonet blinked its grave and beautiful eyes at him.
Clearing his throat he leaned from the bed to scrabble through his discarded clothing. There. The parchment inscribed in the brisk, firm hand of Andrion, Emperor, King of Sardis. “Gard ed Minras . . .” Of course Andrion would anticipate his pseudonym. “. . . Ferangipur or beyond.”
He half expected the letter to contain stern exhortations to excellence in something—battle or scrivening or merchanting or even sport; Andrion’s prescience had not extended so far as to predict Gard’s magical development, whether excellent or repellent. But the letter was only affectionate inquiry and assurance of support. It crumpled in Gard’s hand. He knows me. He no longer expects anything of me. Who does, now? Only Deva?
He remembered Andrion’s voice—years ago, leagues ago—saying, “Yes, let us blame the gods for the mingled dark and light in our own souls, and then we shall not have to choose which to follow.” Andrion was right, he was always right—unless he was wrong . . .
Gard threw the heavy wad of parchment across the room, scoring a hit upon the broken pot. Paper and clay together subsided with a crinkle and a thunk. Gard subsided into the sweet pool of Deva’s arms, and made no more assumptions.
* * * * *
Every day Gard thought the sun could grow no more vicious, and every day it did. Near Apsurakand, the Mohan must be only a trickle of scum; here, at its mouth, it slipped as painfully over its mud flats and out to sea as a crippled beggar searching for nourishment. Those gharials that had not retreated to the swamps lay like logs as the current oozed around them.
Gard turned from the glinting ribbon of the river into the garden. The marigolds were brittle and the lilacs were only bare branches. He retreated farther, into the shade of a portico, away from the bleached sky and the open wound of the sun. The dragonet dozed, twitching, at the base of his spine.
Vijay had tried to reward Gard for his success with Yasmine. Bemusedly, Gard had refused. He would have preferred Vijay’s happy-go-lucky presence, sliding in the mud, chasing village women, to the cold beauty of any artifact, no matter how valuable. But Vijay was otherwise occupied these days.
The dragonet muttered and thrashed. Gard considered waking it, then decided he did not want to face those percipient eyes that shaded from azure to gray and back. He tried a few perfunctory exercises. Always a good time to exercise. Keep the power strong and the pentacle humming.
As had happened the last time he had exercised, and the time before that, the air shimmered about him, grass expired and burned beneath his feet, bricks splintered where his elbow brushed them. He stopped. Even the simplest magical movements produced devastating effects. Unnerving, that Deva had roused such power in him. That he had let her rouse it. Passion and power could be mingled, it seemed, but not exactly controlled. The dragonet moaned but still did not wake.
Soon now, the heat of the afternoon would ebb and human beings would come creeping like slugs from their shady spots. Tonight would be the full moon of the summer solstice. The Ferangi paid little heed to the cycles of the moon. Saavedra’s lamp, they called it; nothing important. Here it was the sun, Vaiswanara, that ruled. The solstice itself, the Day of the Sun’s Retreat, would bring yet another festival to the streets of Ferangipur.
Deva, however, promised celebration tonight. Even now she was liberating a carafe of Dulcamara wine from the chamberlain, tasting it, letting its fragile sweetness linger upon her tongue—he shivered, caught in her perceptions. When had he sto
pped being free? More importantly, when had he stopped wanting freedom?
Gard slouched around a corner, past an ornate zenana screen, and collided with a body. “Excuse me, I did not . . .” It was Rajinder.
The prince’s face was gaunt, pared with uncertainty; his movements were as taut as the stretched string of a zamtak reverberating on a note too fine to fully comprehend. “Ah, Gard-ji,” he responded. “I was looking for you. Would you like to spar with me, here in the shade?” His manners, at least, were not trimmed and dried. But then, even when he had thought Gard was no one he had always asked, never ordered.
“I would be honored, Raj-ji.” Gard doffed his turban, accepted the wooden sword, and saluted. Lunge, strike, parry. His posturing was embarrassingly jerky, abrupt shudders of his body serving to return Rajinder’s blows. If he released his full fluid grace, he would kill the man, wooden sword or no . . . The dragonet surged up from its dream, panting, eyes staring.
Step, stutter, lurch. Rajinder’s sword thwacked his ribs.
Gard asked himself, wincing: Does the prince want to kill me? My service has been ambiguous, to say the least.
Raj muttered an apology. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow. Step, parry, lunge, jerk and stumble. The translucent shadow of the portico smeared and ran as the sun burned its way to the horizon. Light poured under the overhang, trapping the men’s feet. The interstices of the zenana screen beside them stood out in sudden relief, shadow sketched upon glare.
Raj lowered his sword. Gard did likewise. The dragonet did not relax. “Rajinder-ji, would you like for me to leave the city?”
“No, you must not leave before the end of the play.”
“Is it a tragedy or a comedy of errors?”
“Probably a little of each, as is most human life.” Rajinder sighed and tapped his sword against his leg. “How long has the Shah been planning and plotting war, waiting as patiently as a spider for Jamshid to fail and for us to make a mistake?”
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