Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times
Page 31
She had not made him reach for the brazier, and he had enjoyed her pain under Ali’s lash. Those of his blood, of Araby blood, owed her people her mother’s life. Kyrin rubbed her throat. She had a feeling in the field that Umar thought of Ali’s whip. She would not drop Shema’s tea in front of Ali again for a taste of freedom. Kyrin slipped through the women’s gate.
But the sun had warmed her back in the field. There had been no Qadira to scold her, no kohl-ringed eyes to turn from her with whispers behind veils or hennaed hands. The men laughed with her while she dodged dark clods and strength surged inside her. Apple blossoms sweetened the air. It was a good thing, the planting.
Paul spoke of it when he spoke of the creator of all. The seed of barley swelled with water, left its hull to death, and thrust out roots into the dark, to raise green spears of fruit.
Ali’s voice cut across the front courtyard. Kyrin paused as she shook dirt from her hair. The lilies again, it must be. She could almost make out Ali’s complaint and the comforting bass mumble of his guest.
Her master hovered more over his rare plants than he did over Alaina when he ordered a new collar design for his best bisht. Over his gardener’s objection, Ali showed his precious roses and lilies from the mountains to every interested guest.
Ali’s gardener was a king in his own right, to Kyrin’s mind. Relieved of his red sash since Umar’s return, the old overseer had been relegated to rule Ali’s flowers. He praised Kyrin’s efforts with the pot herbs in the women’s court. In a waspish voice, he told her she was fast on the way to knowing every herb and its uses in Tae’s garden, though she trampled them so often. Querulous and demanding as Ali, he was kind beneath.
Kyrin tugged her fingers through a stiff snarl. So she might yet surpass Alaina in one thing. She dropped her hand. Was Ali’s guest the Baghdad teacher, come to train Alaina’s voice?
“You! Worthless one. Clean yourself and tell Nara I want her,” Ali barked.
Kyrin spun, one foot splashing into the pool, and almost tumbled in. Ali peered around the gatepost, frowning. Kyrin blushed and averted her gaze, and he withdrew. She shut her mouth tight, glad she had not begun taking off her thawb.
No man came here except Jachin and Ali—and never when any of the women bathed. And Ali had come less and less since Shema began to please him. Her mistress had gathered Ali’s attention now that her bones had flesh. Now that she took care, since Kyrin urged her to be the mistress she was, and let no one take that respect from her. Her hair was lustrous and her garments sweet with the mint she loved, and a hint of jasmine. Kyrin had suggested yarrow and sage blossom for their wild richness.
Kyrin snorted and kept her ears pricked for any step outside the gate, scrubbing hard and fast. Qadira had a tongue sharp as a brooch. She hid her wrinkles well under veils and scents and creams from lands near and far.
What did Ali want besides news, that he would send Alaina and Tae to court to tend the wazir? They must not let themselves become too valuable to Shema’s father. Serving the caliph they would lack nothing except freedom, and maybe, sometime, their heads. And what unpleasant tasks would Qadira and Umar find for her after they left? Nara could only do so much. And Alaina—Kyrin’s throat tightened.
She would miss the Alaina who had whispered with her in the caravan, who slept at her back, who loved Cicero. The last three days she had not seen Alaina but for meals, for she learned court ways under Umar.
Kyrin shrugged her serving thawb over her damp arms. Ali would have her head if she did not hurry. She went to the kitchen, where Nara scolded Nimah, who held a scorched rice pot before her as if to hold off the cook’s anger. Nara paused for breath, her bosom heaving, and Nimah rubbed tears on her sleeve. Kyrin gave the cook Ali’s message.
“Very well, I will come. But could you not tell me before?” Nara frowned and rushed across the breezeway into the storeroom, muttering about spring air and worthless heads of feathers.
Kyrin bit her lip, a hot spark growing inside her. She did not know Ali wanted Nara, how could she tell her earlier?
Nara huffed back into the kitchen. “Should your feet be forever heavy? Take this to Zoltan.” She shoved a dish of rice and meat scraps into Kyrin’s hands.
Kyrin’s breath came fast, and she bit her lip. It took all her will not to throw the dish on the floor. It was spring. She ought not to be here.
To serve another Arab with an oily smile, fat-faced or thin, greedy merchant or heartless slaver, even a messenger: she could not bear it. Cruel, they but pursued gold and power. Their corruption touched even Nara.
She could almost catch the rank scent of red-and-black fur and hear the rumble of the tiger’s pleasure. Those of Araby bound one with chains forever. There was no escape. She could not breathe. Kyrin raised her hand to her neck pouch, whirled and stamped outside.
The outside air was freer. She drew a deep breath. If she hurried she would have time to feed Cicero before she must carry Ali’s first dishes to his table. Then she would drive the tiger from her by feathering her stuffed enemy with arrows and practicing the warrior’s way until her muscles shook. The closer she drew to mastering the first rank of the warrior’s way, the closer she was to studying the sword. And after the sword—home. If you may be made free. . . .
In the stable court Umar and Ali’s salukis crowded against the two woven pen walls, whining and licking their chops. Zoltan had gutted an oryx destined for Ali’s table. He waved the beast’s bloody guts on the end of his long dagger towards Alaina, laughing. Arabs.
Alaina skipped back with a startled noise.
That smell. Of death and darkness.
Daring, Zoltan slid the mess off with a flick and lunged at Alaina. Alaina stepped back, her eyes wide, sucking in her stomach, and the blade whispered past the breast of her thawb.
Blood and metal. Kyrin burst through the ice that held her even as Alaina took Zoltan’s dagger from him with a quick twist and a laugh.
“Witless—dog!” Kyrin grasped Zoltan’s throat, her other hand buried in his hair, yanking back and down, bowing him over her hip as she poised to take his legs from under him. “Do that again and I’ll break your legs!”
Zoltan’s mouth was slack with shock, his eyes wide.
“You will not run so easy with your noble ones then!” She spun him upright and shoved him toward the dead oryx.
He staggered back and glanced at Alaina, pulling his thawb into order. Alaina shrugged, shot a look of reproach at Kyrin, and wiped his dagger and gave it back. His hand closed around the haft, white-knuckled. His mouth was tight.
“Zoltan was only teasing,” Alaina protested, “he will soon wear the blade as a man.”
“Teasing?” Kyrin clenched her hands. “You want to tease death? To play with word-spinners in the house and be so worthy a scribe that Ali sends you to Baghdad to set the board to play for your life?”
“Why do you fear?” Zoltan cocked his head.
“I don’t mean so, Kyrin!” Alaina’s defense fell on the heels of his words.
“No! You don’t. Your wits sleep.” Kyrin’s voice was hoarse. She would never overcome the ice of a blade that was too near those she loved. If Zoltan had wanted Alaina’s life he could have taken it. “You don’t see the hard words and the sword that waits: you see lines of beautiful ink and soft tongues and herbs that flower where they are planted.”
Alaina’s chin quivered. She lifted her head despite her filling eyes. “Kyrin, I do see! I mean—I mean to gain a skill, to make something of myself! Why is that so wrong?”
“Do you remember Ali’s whip, when he gave me this gift?” Kyrin touched the black ring in her ear, heavy and smooth.
“Yes, but Shema is gentling him.”
“Oh, yes, when you give him gold or add worth to the house of Ali Ben Aidon, the master favors you. If not, who but the Master of the stars knows what he will do!”
“I am not blind!” Alaina cried after her.
In the house Kyrin slid her falcon through her blue sash and settled her veil with shaking fingers. She ought not to have said that to Alaina. Zoltan’s eyes had flickered from her stricken face to his blade, which her eyes could not leave. He knew.
Her mouth flattened again, grim. He had best not ask her of it. She rubbed at her sore shoulder and glided with measured steps into the Blue Flower room, carrying Ali’s roast sand hens overlaid with split almonds in honeyed curry sauce.
At the table, her master’s frown was sharp. The dark haired guest on his right turned his head. Sirius Abdasir, the caliph’s wolfish guardsman.
Kyrin fought not to stumble. She straightened and felt to be sure her hair wrap hid her black ring.
His shoulders wider than some, Sirius wore black with blue trim and a white sash this night. He passed pleasantries with Ali and snapped at his slave who stood at his elbow. The slave moved back, his mouth sullen, his hair the color of sunburned corn tassels.
Sirius had not yet noticed her, but she had her thin half-veil and her hair covering. She had not liked his teasing touch her first night in her master’s house, as if he owned her. And Ali had spoken of their martial skill pleasing the caliph. If she kept her eyes down, the caliph’s guardsman might forget he’d ever seen her.
It was no secret the caliph favored Ali through Sirius, though Ali’s neighbors counted her master less than a believer because he kept a shamed cook who went bare faced and allowed foreign slaves and customs to flourish in his house. But the neighbors’ curiosity, Ali’s lavish table, and Sirius’s presence compelled them to accept Ali’s invitations.
Ali beckoned Kyrin, and she knelt and offered the sand hen, extending her arms, head down. The guardsman paid her no mind, frowning at the table while Ali cut him a choice leg. Sirius’s slave watched her under thick brows.
He had a lighter complexion, but somehow his intent gaze reminded her of Faisal. Kyrin felt her lips curve and lowered her eyes. The edge of the veil itched across her nose. She rubbed at it and risked a glance at Alaina, waiting inside the curtains with a fluted platter of rice. Alaina met her eyes, calm, and smiled.
Kyrin swallowed, and some of the tightness left her shoulders. When Alaina passed her on the way to the table the rice did not smell burnt. It lay smothered in peppery gravy on a bed of mint. Nara, always ready—but poor Nimah.
Sirius Abdasir’s slave moved closer to his master’s back, ignoring Alaina, forcing her to walk around him as she served. Alaina did so with the barest shrug. The small quirk of the slave’s lips dissolved his sullen look.
Kyrin cocked her head. It had been a long time since she saw someone with such pale skin. He would not quite pass for a wind-browned shepherd on her father’s moors, though he was as silent. Did he come from Britannia’s shore?
When Ali and Sirius finished with the last dish and washed their hands, Ali ordered the table cleared and dismissed Alaina. He sent Kyrin for sweet cakes and tea, and she returned, eyes down, her feet quiet on rug and mosaic flower.
“A slave is but a slave—”
“But I must say in your ear, O my guest, a slave wears the subtle mark of his master’s hand to any with eyes to see! As one who commands many, surely you have seen the greatest jewels and those who are less worthy than a grain of sand.” Ali gestured widely.
Kyrin grimaced under her veil. With the pitcher of tea, she stepped back beside the pillar on Ali’s right hand. She might have a long wait.
The pitcher was warm and heavy, the rug welcome to her sore feet. A length behind her a green enameled vase of brilliant peacock feathers rested on the stone. On the other side, Sirius’s slave extended his foot, idly dragging his toes on the floor, back and forth, back and forth. Gracing the air between them, the feathers sprang over the wide lip of the vase, crowning his hair with blue-green splendor.
Sirius touched his near empty cup, and Kyrin moved to the table to pour for him. The guardsman made no other sign and with relief she turned toward her place.
The sole of the guardsman’s foot faced Ali below the table edge. He wiggled and stretched his slippered toes a long, luxurious moment—and slid his foot into courteous position again beneath him. Sirius’s dark eyes on her were purposeful. He knew her.
Kyrin lifted her pitcher and put her back to the pillar, cool through her robe. Sirius could insult her master all he wanted.
“O my host,” Sirius’ smooth, interested voice continued the debate. “How do you value your slaves so highly? I have given less for a girl of more worth than yours.” He indicated Kyrin. “My slave’s voice is a dove’s in the morning, her walk graceful as a gazelle. Her skin is smooth, pure as camel’s milk.”
Through her veil Kyrin touched her throat and the leaping fish.
“You compare my slaves, taught at my table, to the muck bartered in the stalls of the souk, beside baskets of lentils and the crushed pits of dates?” Ali straightened, his mouth turning down. “How does a jewel compare to dung!” He threw out his hands.
Sirius leaned forward. “How does a jewel compare to gold?”
The guardsman’s slave began to play the fool behind the debaters. He mimicked Ali, shaking his head in silent mourning that one could so misjudge a slave. Kyrin stared at him. He dared beard Ali?
The slave fell into soundless laughter, perfect resemblance to Ali’s loud, empty pleasure. The slave grinned, and his eyes sparkled. Kyrin covered her laugh. He examined her from veil to toes and looked so long in her eyes she shifted her pitcher, glanced into it and sniffed. A cap with bells would not become this jester.
He turned to darker things, miming drawing his finger as a blade across his throat, and tied a strangling cord about his neck, tilting his head to one side, his eyes rolling up. He forced his tongue between his lips, blue with his held breath. He gave her grisly executions: hands cut off, hot pokers in the back, the live skinning, and the blood-seeking, glazed eyes of panting salukis. Their hot mouths closed and their teeth tore, with no one to call them off.
Kyrin asked him to stop with a small gesture. He could not be of Britainnia. No, he could—a lord’s son—mayhap of Esther or Jorn’s house. The slave tossed his hair back from his face—and began over again.
Ali sniffed. “It is the path of wisdom to instruct oxen with a stick and a gift. So I train my slaves, of ten times an ox’s knowledge!”
Training oxen. At least that did not make her skin crawl, though her Master of the stars was the one who gave her heart to serve Ali his meat. Tae was right, and she would serve, and wait. She would not look aside and give this Arab the satisfaction of fear. Kyrin glared at Sirius’s slave.
Sirius smiled slightly. “My praise and fitting gifts have rewarded my patience with those who serve me a thousand times over. My oxen, my men and women would pull the moon to the stars’ end at my word.”
Kyrin scratched one ankle with her foot.
If Sirius would only get to the news. If he said nothing of Britannia, would she dare ask his slave? Tae or Zoltan would get more news from such a one than she. They would.
Her hands were damp against the pitcher, and she wiped them on her thawb. The steam smelled light and flowery. If some were left, Nara might give her a sip; she had never tasted such tea, famous from the western sea to its growing place in the East. It smelled of a new land.
Something pulled on her feet. The rug jerked away, and she sprawled on her back, just missing the vase with one wild, flailing arm. Honeyed tea flooded her. The vase rocked then crashed to the floor, shattering across her.
Sirius turned and stared, and A
li gaped like an angry eel.
Gasping, Kyrin scrambled to her knees with the empty pitcher. It was whole. She wrapped her arms around it, waiting for Ali’s blow.
His glance scorched her and slid beyond, to the slave. Ali’s mouth tightened. He turned to Sirius with a lift of his chin. “There! It is as I said, O illuminated one, oxen and slaves do not recognize a pure hand! Beast-like, they understand a gift or swift mastery.”
“It was the laugh,” Sirius said lightly. “What man or slave can bear a woman’s laugh?”
Kyrin gripped her pitcher, her heart thundering. Sirius’s slave stared at the floor. His mouth twitched.
So. The rug did not grow legs on its own. Treacherous Arab!
Ali’s eyes smoldered. The slave ducked his head. Ali said, “My worthless one is not a gazelle’s tender fawn. My guest, take a most lowly merchant’s knowledge bought by torturous years. Seek devoted slaves, shape and use their milk-white flesh against them: so they will become jeweled blades to fit your hand. Your Seliam has less temper than her steel.”
“She? Stronger than Seli?” Sirius said in astonishment, raising his brows. “Not if she crossed a hundred deserts!” His tone hardened. “When I raise my hand to instruct, the sword falls. My slaves know that. Does your hakeem know your sword?” He smiled.
Ali glanced aside, his lips thinning. “He has known my displeasure, and tastes the sword of his loves. A spirit pierced by shame dies slowly, with more pain.”
The grey mouth of the pitcher was sticky. Heat spread from the warm clay to Kyrin’s chill hands.
“That is truth, my host. But it has come to my ears the hakeem has a shield.”
Shahin of the Aneza. Kyrin hardly breathed. Ali slammed his cup on the table. “More tea, slow one! This is cooled!”
Holding her pitcher carefully in front of her, Kyrin glanced over her shoulder at Seliam’s smug mouth. I could beat you into a sack pudding. If you bring trouble to us, Arab—I will.