by Sarah Zettel
Sakra rubbed his eyes. There was no question in his mind that the dream had been a true one, but why had the crow’s stepchild chosen to show him a stranger instead of Valin Kalami?
Unless the stranger was the reason for Kalami’s voyage. After all, had not help come to Medeoan from across the Silent Lands before? Had she sent her servant to find such help again?
Was it possible Kalami had found the Avanasidoch?
Before Sakra could pursue that thought any further the barn door opened a crack, letting in a blast of the icy morning air. The men cursed and shouted on all sides, and even the mules brayed in protest.
“Come you slugabeds!” roared Misha Sumilosyn Mishavin as he kicked the door shut with his heel and rubbed his hands together. “It’s a beautiful morning! You should be up and about, not burrowing in the hay like pigs!”
Groans and a few choice curses rose from the troupe. Inando, first among the acrobats, splashed a handful of water from the barrel in Misha’s direction. “Master Misha, if you do not tell us that the reason for your good cheer is that we get to stay here the winter, I’ll throw you back to your own mother!” The popular tale among the troupe was that Misha’s massive frame came from the fact that his mother was not a woman, but the dancing bear his father had led across Isavalta for a score of years.
“Then, alas, my mother must go hungry.” A broad grin split Misha’s beard. “Our lord master and his chief steward are most pleased with us. Beds for the winter, my lads! Beds, and three meals to fill those rapacious bellies of yours every day!”
A general cheer went up with men slapping each other on the backs and handfuls of hay tossed into the air. Sakra smiled, but to himself he wondered what Lord Master Hraban really had in mind for this troupe. Considering that the lord master was planning a rebellion, it might be that he needed messengers who were both unknown and innocuous. He wondered if Misha had already agreed to perform such services from time to time, driven by his love of money and hunger for patronage.
Not that Sakra could complain of either trait. Both had already served him well.
While the rest of the troupe were busy congratulating each other, Sakra took his turn at the water barrel, dipping his hands into the frigid water and scrubbing them across his face.
A hearty hand clapped itself across his back. “You should be especially pleased, master,” announced Misha as Sakra straightened up and pasted a cheery grin across his face. “So recently begging for work, and now so snugly set up.” Then his voice dropped. “Your sea captain has agreed to meet you in the stablemaster’s quarters, but only if you hurry.”
“My thanks, master.” Sakra clasped the man’s massive forearm as was the custom among the troupe. Despite the admonition to hurry, he strolled back to his bundle and casually pulled on his wide-skirted outer kaftan and fleece mittens.
“And where you off to?” asked tiny Fiviash, who played most of the mischievous spirit parts that the troupe’s mummings called for.
“There’s a dairymaid winked at me yesterday,” replied Sakra with a wink of his own. “It might please her to know she’ll have a chance to do a little more.”
That brought him a sly chuckle and freedom from further explanation. Before anyone else had a chance to engage him in idle conversation, Sakra slipped out the door.
The morning outside was as cold and hard as glass. Its brightness dazzled his eyes. Serfs and servants tromped or scurried across the courtyard, hurrying in and out of the buildings’ knife-edged shadows about their own business. Sakra joined the bustle, becoming just one more person wrapped against the cold trying to get back indoors as quickly as possible.
The stables were warmer than the barn and much better kept. They smelled sweet with fresh hay and straw, with only the rich odor of clean animals as an accompaniment. Sakra caught a glimpse of the stablemaster, a stout man with a frame to rival Misha’s, among the polished horse boxes, directing his boys in the arts of brushing coats, cleaning stalls and arranging blankets on the precious animals. Sakra’s passage caught the man’s eye, but he only nodded at the sorcerer, and Sakra strode past without pause.
The stablemaster lived in constant sight of his charges. His corner of the stables boasted carpets, a good fire in a tile stove and furniture built bravely enough to accommodate such a man in comfort. Captain Nisula stood in front of the stove, contemplating something Sakra could not see, while the plump, young maid swept the floors around him, humming cheerfully, perhaps because she hoped the handsome captain would notice her, perhaps merely because it was, by the standards of this cold land, a fine morning.
Sakra moved into the shadow of a support beam and rapped his knuckles against it. Nisula lifted his head and turned toward the noise, seeing that someone was there, but not who.
“You may see to your other duties now,” he said to the maid, who bobbed a reverence and swept out, her broom held like a talisman in front of her.
Sakra stepped out of the shadows and watched delighted recognition flood Nisula’s face.
“Agnidh Sakra.” The captain pressed his palm to his eyes in the salute of trust as Sakra came to stand with him in front of the stove. “I hoped it was you I would meet here.”
“Good Captain Nisula.” Sakra returned the salute. “You will forgive me for not being more plain. The less definite the rumors can be here, the better off we are.” He pulled his mittens off and held his hands out to the warmth of the stove, luxuriating in the heat that bathed him. Five years he had lived in Isavalta and still he had learned only to tolerate the cold as one must tolerate what one could not overcome. He had never learned to ignore it as the natives seemed to.
Nisula frowned, watching the flicker of the flames behind the stove’s narrow grating. “So, you do not believe Hraban is truly an ally of the empress’s?”
“We do not know what he is.” Sakra shook his head. “We know he prefers the idea of her on the throne rather than the dowager, but we don’t yet know why. It may be because he believes that a frightened young woman will be more amenable to his advancement than a shrewd old witch such as Medeoan.”
Nisula nodded. “It may indeed be. The man wears a sycophant’s mask, but there’s too much going on behind his eyes for me to speak with him in comfort.” Nisula knocked on the edge of the stove, an old gesture to call forth luck and ward off evil.
“I’ve had word that you have come here after carrying the new ambassador from the Pearl Throne to the Heart of the World in Hung-Tse.” Sakra sat in the chair nearest the stove, and tossed his mittens on the hearth to warm.
“A stormy crossing if ever there was.” Nisula seated himself down across from Sakra, with one leg stretched forward onto the hearth and one arm resting on the back of the chair.
“And what news have you from there?”
Nisula shook his head, his face grim. “I was not permitted into the council chamber, of course, but the ambassador had much to say about what went on there.” Nisula stopped, and Sakra waited for him to find his words. Nisula first regarded the stove, and then glanced away to the horse stalls, perhaps to see if the master was returning, or perhaps he only wanted to put off having to speak a moment longer.
“Delay, obsfucation and some fairly blatant lies,” he said at last. “We came with gifts, and a written offer from the Pearl Throne to enter into treaty negotiations. There was even a hint that the Throne might be willing to cede some of the Eastern Isles back to the Heart, but, I am told, the emperor and the elders sat like sated men after a feast and could not be tempted by even this choicest dainty.”
Despite the warmth bathing his skin from the stove, Sakra felt a fresh chill steal over him. “Who was sent as ambassador?”
“Taksaka. His mother was from Hung-Tse and he speaks the language fluently. Do you know him?”
It was Sakra’s turn to nod. “A statesman of great skill. I have heard him speak.” Memory showed him a slender young man in the red and blue draperies of a scholar, standing before the Pearl Throne, his voic
e full of passion, and yet his arguments full of reason. “He could not move them?”
“Apparently not.” Nisula’s palm tapped against the chair arm. “He has remained there, as ambassador.” Nisula paused. “And as hostage.”
“Hostage?” The word made Sakra sit up straighter.
“To help ensure that the Pearl Throne is sincere in its offer,” said Nisula dryly. “Not that those were the words they used. I’d repeat what they actually said, but it would take half an hour to get through the whole speech.” Sakra waved the idea away. “The Nine Elders seem to be collecting hostage guests,” Nisula went on. “The ambassador said there’s a party there from the Peninsula, and another from the Western Islands.”
“The Heart is so afraid?”
“If they were afraid, they would have entered into treaty negotiations at once.” Nisula got to his feet as if he could not bear to sit still anymore and paced across the master’s corner from the stove to the much-scrubbed dining table. “A treaty with the Pearl Throne would eliminate at least the southern half of Hung-Tse’s fears, would it not?” Sakra nodded in agreement with this statement. Nisula did not turn around to see him, but went on, “Something hidden stirs in the Heart, of that the ambassador is certain, and they are trying to fix as many games in their favor as possible.” He picked up the brass cup that had been left on the table, inspected its bottom to see that it was empty and then tilted it so that he could see the engraving on the side, eyeing it as a man who knew very well what such things were worth. “There is a thing I am hesitant to tell you, Agnidh, because I neither saw nor heard anything definite myself.”
Another thing, you mean, good captain. Sakra spread his hands. “Tell me and perhaps together we may judge its value.”
“Perhaps.” Nisula turned the cup around so he could see its opposite side. “Or perhaps I will only raise your hopes.”
“Now then, Captain,” said Sakra, chiding him. “You must tell me after that.”
“I suppose I must. Very well.” He set the cup down with a click against the wooden table, as if that was an audible sign of his decision. “The day before I was to leave the Heart of the World, the ambassador came to me and said that he had heard word that there was a hostage guest in the palace from Isavalta.”
The words startled Sakra into silence. The soft, random noises of the horses and their keepers seemed suddenly very loud. “From Isavalta?” Sakra repeated. “Why would the dowager send Hung-Tse a hostage guest? She has the strongest of all holds over them.”
Nisula faced him again, his eyebrows cocked as if to say, “Doesn’t she, though?” “What was even stranger was that he had heard that this hostage was housed in the women’s palace.”
“A woman?” said Sakra before he could stop himself. This made no sense at all.
“That was what the ambassador had heard.” Nisula shrugged. “It was servants’ gossip, the chatter of some body slaves who had not yet learned how well their new master could understand them.”
“Was there nothing more?” There had to be more. Neither Taksaka nor Nisula would attach such importance to gossip.
Nisula looked away again, and Sakra thought he saw a spot of color on the man’s windburned cheek. “The ambassador asked if I could find out more from a lady whose acquaintance I had made.”
Sakra felt one corner of his mouth lift into a smile. “You are favored with access to one of the Heart’s ladies?”
“I have friends in the outer court. It is one of the reasons my ship was chosen to take the ambassador.” For a moment, Sakra thought the captain was actually going to shuffle his feet, and had to suppress a smile. Nisula was an old friend, yet Sakra had never before realized the man had a side to himself that was bashful. It was not a trait for which sailors were much noted.
“And what did your lady say?” asked Sakra soberly.
His gravity seemed to restore the captain’s comfort and the color faded from Nisula’s face. “She said it was true and that if I wished she would show me.”
“How?”
“She was one of those ladies who did not find much time for improvement of her mind, and she longed for a bit of adventure.” As a man who had seen perhaps too much adventure, Nisula rolled his eyes at this folly. “She dressed me in the armor of one of their female bodyguards and took me into the women’s palace.”
Sakra said nothing. On the face of it, it sounded amusing, a piece of mummers’ farce, but they both knew that had Nisula been discovered there he would have been killed before he could have spoken a word in his own defense.
“We walked along a wall overlooking one of the gardens,” Nisula continued, pacing back to the stove and rapping it again. “She showed me a little girl, perhaps seven, perhaps eight years old, being given lessons by an ancient scholar.”
Sakra felt his jaw fall open. He looked right, then left, as if he thought to see the world around him overturned. His thoughts raced ahead without clear direction. “I do not believe it,” was all he could manage to say. “The dowager has no child to send.”
“That child was not of High Isavalta. Her hair was as black as yours, and her skin almost as brown.”
“Then who?”
Nisula licked his lips. “She might have been Tuukosov.”
In a land of rebellious provinces, Tuukos was a legend. Its people, they said, had never been conquered in their hearts. According to those who knew such things, there had been a great outcry when Valin Kalami had been elevated to lord sorcerer for that very reason. The Tuukosov had strong traditions of magic of their own, and the evil and blackness of it were a byword in the legends of High Isavalta. Despite all that, the island had produced many a famous artisan, and a single lord sorcerer.
“Captain, you do not suggest that the child is Kalami’s?”
“I do not know.”
Now it was Sakra who could not bear to sit still. He heaved himself to his feet and walked to the edge of the master’s quarters, his mind juggling all the pieces of court intrigue he had collected over the years, trying to make them fit into the new picture Nisula had given him.
“It makes no sense,” he said, pounding his fist once against the beam that had hidden him moments before. “Any such hostage would have to be sent as part of an imperial treaty and there has been none, not even in secret. The princess or her ladies would have found it out.”
Nisula cleared his throat, glancing down the line of horses. Sakra felt his face flush. This was not the palace of his homeland. There were no bindings of silence here and he could not forget that again. He returned to the stove and made himself sit back down, but the warmth brought him no comfort.
“It may be,” said Nisula, folding his hands behind himself, “that this secret was fathered out of wedlock.”
Sakra felt the slow sensation of change settle over his thoughts. “Kalami deals with a double agent from Hung-Tse. We knew that. But what messages we have been able to hear …” Sakra stared at the captain. “Kalami works against his mistress imperial?”
Nisula shrugged irritably, but Sakra knew his agitation was with his own inability to give clear answers to Sakra’s questions. “I do not know. I saw a foreign child in the Heart of the World. I have the word of one of the less auspicious concubines that the child is a hostage guest of Isavalta, but her coloring says she is from farther north than any who willingly call themselves Isavaltan. That is all.”
“And now, Kalami has gone to fetch a woman from beyond the ends of the world.” Sakra’s hands grappled with the empty air. “How am I to hold all these threads?”
“I wish I could tell you, Agnidh.”
Sakra ran one hand across his braided hair, touching the ends as if he were suddenly afraid one had come loose.
Could it be? Could Kalami be plotting against the dowager? Why? It was through her that he gained all his power. If she fell, so would he. If she fell before the Emperor Mikkel regained his mind and thus Ananda gained her legitimacy, the empire itself would crumble.
/> Unless that was what he wanted.
Did Kalami bargain with Hung-Tse for the freedom of Tuukos? Was he truly on a mission for the dowager, or did he seek help for his own schemes beyond the Silent Lands?
Sakra stood. “Friend Nisula, can you arrange to take your leave today? I would be grateful if you could help me speed through the Foxwood. Your news tells me plainly there is much that I must soon discover.”
“Of course, Agnidh,” said Nisula at once. “I will say I have had word from my ship. I was to leave tomorrow in any case.”
“Thank you.” Sakra once more gave Nisula the salute of trust. He had to find the answers to all these new questions, and swiftly. For if he could lay in Ananda’s hands the proof that Kalami played the dowager false, she would have an ax that could finally cleave her own danger in two. Her position would then be secure enough that they would be able to bend all their attention and all their skill to freeing her husband and assuring her throne.
Sakra suddenly found himself wishing with every fiber of his spirit that Ananda had guessed correctly when she spoke of Mikkel’s binding being in his ring. Perhaps last night Ananda reached Mikkel’s side and pulled the chain of his confinement from his hand. Perhaps a messenger already rode like the wind from Vyshtavos to Sparavatan to tell him he was to return and witness the emperor’s reinvestiture. For then all would already be done, and he would not have to fear failure anymore.
• • •
In the time since Sakra had been banished from Medeoan’s court, he had lived in many places: the halls of the lord masters who harbored worries over what their dowager had become, a reaper’s hut out in the fields with Grandfather and Grandmother sleeping on the stove, a river barge, a god house, a library, wherever he thought he could gain information or advantage for Ananda.
But the place that had become home waited on the outskirts of the gloom and mystery of the Foxwood. A house of stone with a single tower attached to it. When he first saw it, Sakra thought it was some garrison outpost that had fallen into disuse. Inquiry among the foresters told him, though, that it was haunted. A widow who had lost her husband in some long-ago skirmish had gone mad with grief, and after she had died, the tower had appeared so that her ghost might stand on its ramparts and look out for her husband to come home.