Southern Fire ac-1

by Juliet E. McKenna

  He greeted Ulla Safar with every appearance of contentment. 'My lord, it is always a pleasure to visit your home.'

  'You are welcome at any and every season, Daish Kheda.' The warlord was reclining on a daybed claiming most of the shade within the octagonal summerhouse. It was built of the sandalwood that was one of the Ulla domain's valued trade commodities, with walls of fretwork panels that could be drawn back to accommodate a breeze from any direction. At the moment there was no wind at all, even at this highest point in the citadel, but at least the scent from the overblown rose bushes on all sides mitigated the stink from the river far below.

  'Janne Daish, a delight to see you once again. Do introduce me to your charming companion.' Ulla Safar raised himself on one elbow with a jingle of agate necklaces and smiled something perilously close to a leer at Itrac. A grossly fat man, nevertheless his bracelet-laden forearms still snowed the muscle that had maintained his position as eldest son before self-indulgence had let him run to seed as warlord. His huge belly strained the seams of his saffron-yellow tunic and his gold rings bit deep into puffy fingers. A full black beard disguised his jowls somewhat, laced through with golden chains that were looped back around his long hair to pull it off his face. His eyes were unusually pale for a man of such dark complexion.

  Eyes like a jungle cat, Safar, you and your son Orhan both.

  Kheda was about to introduce Itrac when Janne forestalled him.

  'You know Itrac Chazen,' she chided Safar playfully. 'Chazen Saril introduced her to us all at Redigal Coron's New Year celebrations.'

  'Of course,' Safar replied, his frank gaze examining Itrac with a lasciviousness that prompted identical scowls from Telouet and Birut. 'Forgive me,' he purred.

  'We all forget the most obvious things,' Janne went on soothingly. 'With the heat so late in the dry season such a sore trial.'

  Even with that none so subtle hint, no invitation to sit was forthcoming. Kheda turned to an arbour of climbing roses falling in a shower of blood-red blooms. 'Janne, do smell these. They are wonderful.'

  Janne joined him and sniffed, her expression delighted. 'Indeed. Their attar must be something quite special.' She lifted a velvety bloom with a careful hand and as it hid her mouth, spoke for Kheda's ears alone. 'Surely Safar won't be so discourteous as to keep us standing much longer?'

  'He does seem keen to show us our place from the outset.'

  Just what is that place, I wonder and do we need to work out an early escape route?

  As Kheda wondered, he heard voices echoing in the passage leading to this scented sanctuary. This time the lackey escorted the guests into the garden. 'Rits—'

  'I see we're not standing on ceremony, good.' Ritsem Caid spoke over the servant with broad good humour but Kheda saw the calculation in his eyes.

  What makes you so bold, that you re not about to let Safar make such distinctions between his guests?

  'Great lord.' Kheda held out both hands and Caid grasped them firmly. The two men were much of a height and similarly built, years of swordplay building adequate muscle over long bones. Caid wore his curly hair long and braided close to his scalp, his exuberant beard tamed in a single plait. His hazel eyes met Kheda's green ones for a moment and the silent pledge of alliance there warmed Kheda's heart.

  Dropping Kheda's hands, the Ritsem warlord turned to Janne and bowed low. 'My lady of Daish, beautiful as always.'

  Janne smiled sunnily at him and stretched a hand out to Itrac.

  'We need no introduction, do we, my lady of Chazen.' Ritsem Caid bowed almost as low as he had to Janne. 'I only wish we were meeting again under better stars. I offer my condolences and those of all of my wives.'

  Belatedly, Kheda realised that Caid had only his personal slave and a few servants in attendance. 'Are we not to have the pleasure of their company?'

  'Taisia is with me,' Caid answered easily, 'but the others felt it their duty to stay close to home in such uncertain times.' He smiled at Itrac before snapping his fingers to summon an armoured man from the knot of Ritsem retainers. 'Trya and Ri have sent you a gift though, in remembrance of Olkai who was their sister before she became yours. This is Jevin. Ganil speaks well of him.'

  The Ritsem warlord's personal slave smiled broadly. 'I'd let him serve any lady of our domain.'

  Itrac was struggling to find a suitable response so Janne spoke up brightly. 'How kind. Ulla Safar, since we're not standing on ceremony, I'll beg your indulgence and we'll go and thank Taisia.' She snapped her fingers at one of the sweating Ulla servants hovering by the summerhouse.

  'Tell your mistress Mirrel that we'll attend her just as soon as she sends word she's ready to receive us.' Skirts fluttering about her gold-ringed ankles, Janne swept Itrac out of the garden, Birut and the newcomer Jevin following shoulder to shoulder and in emphatic step.

  Janne, my love, you had a hand in that or I am a roof lizard.

  Kheda watched them go with a neutral expression to balance Caid's wide grin and Safar's unconcealed glower.

  'I do hope the rains come soon. This heat's getting unbearable.' Caid moved into the shade of the summer-house and unbidden sat on a cushion. 'I'm not surprised your guard couldn't tolerate it long enough to do full honour to the Daish domain. You'll forgive them, won't you, Kheda?'

  'I assumed they were being ordered to their barracks once their commanders realised just how hot the day was.'

  Do I wait for an invitation to sit? No, that's just playing into your fat hands.

  Kheda sat opposite Caid; the two of them now flanking Safar on his ochre-brocaded daybed. 'We need every fighting man we can muster, so we don't want half of Ulla's forces prostrate with sunstroke.'

  'We have a serious matter before us,' Caid began. He was wearing a blue tunic patterned with hummingbirds, the green of their wings mimicking the emeralds set in his profusion of gold rings and bracelets.

  A good omen, that we're both wearing blue.

  Kheda took a breath, about to speak, but Safar forestalled him.

  'Serious or not, it will have to wait. Redigal Coron has yet to join us.' He didn't sound concerned.

  'That surprises me. When he has the least journey of any of us?' Kheda queried mildly.

  The mud worm's delaying at Safar's orders of course.

  'When is he expected?' Caid didn't hide his displeasure.

  'This evening, tomorrow morning perhaps.' Safar waved a casual hand.

  'What shall we do in the meantime?' Kheda enquired with studied calm.

  Besides finding a quiet moment to hint that you baiting Safar is exactly what I don't need, Caid.

  'Improve our acquaintance with each other,' replied Safar with a jovial laugh.

  'As you wish.' Caid sounded sceptical. He looked around the summerhouse and the garden. 'Will Orhan be joining us?'

  'Orhan?' Safar was surprised. 'Why should he?'

  'The education of your heir is your concern, my lord of Ulla.' Caid looked over at Kheda. 'I take it Sirket commands in your absence?'

  'With Rekha Daish to guide him,' Kheda confirmed. 'They will relay any word from Chazen Saril. The sooner we know where our enemies lie, the sooner we can plan their destruction.'

  'It's a blessing to have a son one can rely on.' The Ritsem warlord seemed intent on other concerns. 'Zorat will be receiving guests from the Endit domain in my stead. Your summons was so urgent I didn't have time to rearrange their visit.'

  'It's too hot out here.' Safar snapped his fingers at his body slave, who stepped up to haul the warlord grace-lessly to his feet. 'We'll discuss this uneasiness of yours when Redigal Coron arrives.' He lumbered away and out of the garden, sparing a casual blow for a slave who was a little too slow getting out of his path.

  Kheda looked at Caid. 'Don't twist his ears too much. We need him and his men if we're to meet this menace from the south.'

  'Maybe, maybe not.' Caid grinned, unrepentant. 'The Ritsem domain can summon doughty warriors.'

  'That I don't doubt, but not in the nu
mbers we need, not when all your islands could fit inside this one. Besides, swordsmen need swords, so we need Ulla steel. You've no ironstone.' Then Kheda caught the glint in Caid's eye.

  'But we have, my friend.' Caid's grin grew still broader, his even teeth white in the shade.

  'Since when?' gaped Kheda.

  'Since an enterprising lad went exploring caves in an otherwise useless lump of an island.' Caid turned his head to stare at a humble gardener tending a pink-kissed spray of yellow roses. 'Shall we go and look for some refreshment, given our host is being so unusually remiss in his attentions to us?'

  And that spying servant will dutifully carry back that insult. So what else would we like Ulla Safar to chew over?

  'Come and take your ease with me and Janne,' Kheda suggested. 'She'll be delighted to see you.'

  'Gladly.' Caid sprang to his feet. 'I'd like to talk to her about Endit Fel.'

  'I don't know that she'll tell you much you don't already know.' Kheda rose and smoothed his tunic. 'She'd only been wed half a year when Endit Cai died and she was his fifth wife at that.'

  'I'll still be interested in anything she recalls about Fel's likes or dislikes,' Caid assured him.

  'You've got Ulla islands all too close to the sea-lane between you and the Endit domain,' Kheda reminded Caid discreetly once they were out of earshot of the gardener. 'Provoke our fat friend too much and he might just decide to squat in your path.'

  'And offend Endit Fel like that, now he'll have a choice of where to trade for iron?' countered Caid gleefully. 'Oh, I am looking forward to sticking a few pins in Safar's fat arse.'

  And obviously to a new accommodation between the Ritsem domain and Endit Fel. What are you hoping to get out of that? When am I going to find a chance to ask? Not walking Derasulla's corridors, not when any number of listening ears could be hiding in these honeycombed walls.

  As Kheda thought this, the ingratiating servant appeared from nowhere, bowing and dry-washing his hands. 'My lords, may I escort you to your quarters.'

  'Take us to my lady Janne.'

  The two warlords walked in silence as the beardless servant bobbed and bowed before them, his meaningless compliments for themselves as ceaseless as his praise for his master. Kheda heard Caid's man Ganil matching Telouet step for step, chainmail jingling softly.

  'How much lower in the citadel are we going?' Ritsem Caid asked sharply as their walk continued.

  'Here we are.' The slave led them around a corner and gestured at a door. 'My lady Janne Daish's apartments. Your accommodations are just along the corridor, great lord.' The slave struggled to bow and point at the same time.

  'I will see that everything is as we require.' Telouet headed for the door, face promising comprehensive retaliation if everything was not exactly to the standard befitting his master.

  'You may go.' Kheda dismissed the fawning slave and knocked on Janne's door.

  Birut opened it a hand's width with a forbidding scowl. 'My lord.' Face clearing, he flung the door open. 'And my lord Ritsem Caid, my ladies.'

  Janne was seated with Itrac on a midnight-blue carpet patterned with stars and ringed with a bank of luxuriantly stuffed cushions. Intricately carved sandalwood side tables bore silver incense burners in the form of questing hounds and shallow bowls of cobalt ceramic were piled high with yellow rose petals. Half sunk into the earth of the original river island, the room was broad with an airy feel thanks to the white marble lining its walls where tall vases of alabaster stood full of fresh vizail sprays filling the room with their heady scent. By contrast, the floor was brilliant with tiles making an intricate interlace of green and blue. The windows high in the north-facing wall were shaded with awnings as was the flight of steps leading up and out into a private garden where Kheda could hear the soothing plash of a fountain and smell the shady promise of perfume trees.

  'Do these rooms suffice, my wife?' Kheda asked with a faint note of displeasure. 'They are rather small.'

  'They are adequate, my husband, and cooler than any suite on the heights. Doubtless Mirrel Ulla had the sense to realise we'd be more concerned with our comfort than our consequence at such a time of trial. Birut, drinks for our lord and our honoured guest.' Janne nodded to the slave, who picked up a splendid set of ewer and goblets in gleaming Jahal ware from a side table.

  Kheda took the cup Birut offered and sniffed it cautiously.

  'Lilla juice and spring water.' Janne nodded to the Daish musician sat in one corner of the room with more modest rug and cushions. He had been plucking a soothing lilt from his circular lyre. Picking up his bow, he started a livelier tune with a loud flourish.

  'At least he's not trying to poison us with river water.' Kheda shrugged and drank.

  'It will be nice to have a change from lilla fruit, when the rains come,' Itrac ventured unexpectedly.

  Ritsem Caid had emptied his goblet and was holding it out for a refill. 'Where are you housed, Itrac Chazen?'

  'She's sharing these apartments with me,' Janne answered for her, a glint in her eye.

  'Mirrel Ulla offered me a room among her own household,' said Itrac uncertainly. 'Since I am here with no retinue of my own.'

  Caid snorted. 'You're here with Janne Daish, celebrated first wife and her husband an honoured guest. She just wanted you locked up with the rest of Safar's women, so we could all get used to the notion.'

  'That's what I suspected,' agreed Janne.

  'I take it you're ready to marry without delay?' Caid looked sharply at Kheda and then to Itrac. 'If you hear the worst from Chazen.'

  So you spared some thought for the complications of the Chazen situation, in between gloating over your new opportunities and making plans to ally with Endit Fel. That's a relief.

  'I was thinking it might be less of a slap in the face for Safar if she married Sirket.' Kheda smiled reassuringly at Itrac. 'But let's hope it doesn't come to that.'

  'What do you mean?' Itrac stared at the two warlords, plainly confused.

  'I hadn't thought it appropriate to discuss the delicate issue of her status with Itrac' Janne rebuked both men with a minatory look. 'Not while she still mourns Olkai Chazen's death.'

  'If Saril is killed,' Itrac said, eyes dark with pain, 'I'll just go to the Thelus domain. My father would welcome me back.'

  'Your father is far from here.' Janne forbore to rebuke such naivety with some effort. 'With Olkai dead and Sekni's fate unknown, you are senior wife to the Chazen domain and as such, you would hold considerable power, should we hear that Chazen Saril is dead.'

  Itrac hid her face in shaking hands, the jaunty music of the lyre at cruel odds with her distress. A piper joined the tune, in an attempt to cover the rising voices in the room.

  Janne gathered her close in comforting arms but her voice was gently implacable. 'There is no Chazen child yet of an age of reason. Even if there were, the domain would still be vulnerable without a strong regent. That would be Olkai's duty but with her dead, you must take up the challenge.'

  'It's your duty to the domain to wed a man strong enough to rule as warlord until one of Saril's children is of the age of discretion,' Caid agreed soberly.

  'Which is why I thought of Sirket,' explained Kheda. 'With his own inheritance waiting, he wouldn't disinherit Saril's children in favour of his own.'

  Not while I'm alive to tan his hide for trying, anyway.

  'Safar won't back down for anyone less than another warlord.' Caid shook his head emphatically. 'Anyway, Sirket's not here. You must be wed inside the day some message bird brings word of Saril's death, Itrac, if you're to safeguard your domain. You should have brought Sirket with you if that was your plan, Kheda.'

  'I wasn't prepared to bring him into this kind of danger, any more than you were about to risk Zorat,' Kheda retorted.

  'Zorat is needed in the Ritsem isles,' declared Caid.

  'If either of them was here, Safar would just be taunting them to provoke some rudeness or argument to give him an excuse to ignore the real c
oncerns before us,' Janne said curtly. 'We cannot afford to indulge his nonsense when all our safety is at stake. If we do not stand together against magic, we'll all be lost!'

  The mention of magic silenced everyone, even the sweeping lyre and piping flutes of the musicians. Janne snapped furious fingers at them and they hastily resumed their tune.

  The music barely covered Itrac's sudden sobs. 'Why are we talking like this? You're talking as if Saril's already dead. Maybe he is. How will we ever know? Who's ever going to hold the Chazen islands anyway, plagued with magic and monsters, and anyway, everyone's going to be dead, Saril and Sekni and all the children, just like poor Olkai, burning in agonies and—'

  'Birut, the door,' Janne snapped, gesturing at the entrance to the sleeping quarters. 'Get her up.' Finding the hysterical girl unable to stand, Jevin deftly swung her up into his arms. 'Kheda, get something to soothe these vapours or she'll be in no fit state to deal with Mirrel whenever that bitch deigns to receive us.'

  'Of course.' Kheda turned and hurried to his own apartments, Caid at his elbow. 'Telouet, my small physic chest.' He reached beneath his tunic for the key chain around his waist as Telouet held out a small coffer of silver-bound satinwood.

  'I'm sorry, I assumed you'd all discussed her future.' Caid fell silent.

  'No,' Kheda said shortly. He sorted through tightly sealed glass jars until he found the one he wanted. 'She's barely over the shock of everything that's happened. Telouet, get a mouthful of water, no juice.'

  'Silvernet?' Caid watched Kheda shake a greyish-white pulp into the cup the slave handed him. 'You don't think she'll need something stronger?'

  'It'll calm her without dulling her wits.' Kheda swirled the water around, watching it grow cloudy. 'We all need our wits about us here.'

  'I was sure you'd have talked the options through with her,' Caid apologised again.

  'Give this to Janne.' Kheda handed Telouet the cup and waved him away. For the first time he noticed the room. As plushly appointed as the apartments Janne had been given, it had the same white marble walls and a cream- and red-tiled floor.