by Sarah Zettel
Now I will show you my power, thought Bridget toward Kalami.
“See!” Bridget raised her arm and pointed straight at Kalami. “See! My father, Avanasy. He searches the hall. See how he stares into each and every face.”
At the foot of the dais, Kalami went white. Around the hall, the courtiers huddled in on themselves, touched their own cheeks, or tried to hide their faces behind fans.
“Grand Majesty, is this true?” demanded Sakra, the keeper, his wand gripped tight in both hands. “Is she Avanasy’s daughter?”
Bridget blessed him silently. He was going to make Medeoan say it out loud. He was going to give her the standing she needed before these people, the standing that would give weight and credit to her accusations and innuendo.
The dowager finally seemed to notice her own undignified position on the floor and she rose. Her hand dropped to Bridget’s head. Doubtlessly, Bridget looked helpless, and right now that suited. Bridget kept her eyes on Kalami, but his gaze was all for the dowager.
“Yes,” said the dowager. “She is the Avanasidoch.”
The dowager’s words staggered the entire room. Some people reverenced. Some clutched their neighbors. Some merely stood, mute with disbelief at what they heard. Sakra, the keeper, leaned heavily on his carved staff. “Blessed daughter.” He raised a hand in a gesture of benediction to Bridget. “You see your father?”
“Now, he stands beside Valin Kalami.” Bridget climbed to her feet. “He speaks, but I cannot hear.” She reached out one hand, pleading. “Oh, Father, what do you mean to say?”
“Grand Majesty,” said Kalami. “What means this?”
Around him spiraled dozens of other voices, swamping his words. “She is.” “Can it be true?” A mother scooped a child into her arms and pointed at Bridget. “See? She’s come in our hour of need, as was told.”
She had them. Lies and truth, all bundled together, bound her to them now. “Avanasy’s face is grave. He walks on. He speaks, but, oh, why can I not hear?” Bridget made her eyes go wide and staring, as if looking at a ghost past Kalami’s shoulder. Never in a thousand years would she have believed she would bless the day she had gone to see Aunt Grace’s sham of a séance, but she did so now. She walked down the dais steps to stand face-to-face with Kalami.
You have a liking for lies and traps, she thought as her eyes met his. How well do you like mine?
“Majesty,” said Kalami again. His voice was low with warning, but his face betrayed fear.
Forgive me, Poppa. “Why does my father stand so long next to you, Lord Sorcerer? What does he say that I cannot hear?”
The sound of heavy cloth dragging on carpet broke Bridget’s concentration. Ananda at last had moved. The empress walked slowly down the dais and the crowds parted for her, reverencing and whispering, filling the room with the rush of cloth and voices.
“Lord Sorcerer?” Barely controlled anger filled the empress’s voice. “Is it possible that you know something of this plot against your emperor?”
Kalami opened his mouth, but he was spared the necessity of answer. The great doors at the back of the hall banged open and the captain and his men marched inside. Inside the square made by their bodies and axes stumbled the three men from Bridget’s vision. Captain Chadek carried in his arms a heap of linen sheets. Bridget saw he had donned gloves to carry them.
Captain Chadek knelt before the dais. “Majesty Imperial, Grand Majesty.” He laid a heap of cloth upon the floor. “We found these three men in the emperor’s chamber, as it was told we would. They were laying these sheets upon the emperor’s bed. This one” — he pushed forward a man who had gone nearly bald with age — “is Finon, servant to the lord sorcerer.”
Empress Ananda hesitated only one second. She crossed to the mound of sheets, pinched a fold of cloth between her fingers and dropped it immediately as if she had been stung. She was a very good actress, Bridget thought, but then, the poor girl had a lot of practice.
“Poison,” the empress said, backing away. “It is as the Avanasidoch said. The sheets are poisoned.” She straightened herself up to her full height, and even the crown on her head seemed to blaze with the strength of her fury. “Traitor!” She leveled her accusing finger at Kalami. “You betray all your empire!”
A parcel of the courtiers surged forward, as if they meant to seize on Kalami where he stood.
“Hold!” called out the dowager. “Hold them!”
Led by their captain, the soldiers sprang into action, pushing the crowd back with the shafts of their axes, creating a living fence to keep Kalami and the three accused poisoners untouched.
Slowly, the dowager descended the dais steps. She seemed to glide forward as she walked toward the poisoned cloth. Even from where she stood, Bridget could see Kalami’s chest heave with the strength of his emotion. Two of the poisoners knelt. The old man named Finon did not. Neither did Kalami.
The dowager bent down. She picked up the embroidered edge of one of the sheets and ran it through her gloved fingers, bending her head close to see the design.
All attention was fastened on the dowager and her examination of the linens. Bridget eased up beside Sakra. Through her right eye, he was the keeper of the god house, old and bearded. Through her left, he was himself, dark, intense and infinitely welcome to her.
“So, did the crows carry you here?” she breathed, moving past him so it might appear as if she was just trying to get a better view of the dowager.
She heard him suck in a breath, even though he held himself as still as she did. Now he knew she recognized him, but surely he also knew she was a free woman. Now, all depended on what the dowager said next. If she exposed Bridget’s lie, Bridget was done for.
The dowager lifted her head. “They are poisoned.” She let them fall in a heap at her feet as she turned herself minutely so that she faced Kalami fully. “You who are my guard, take up these creatures. Lord Sorcerer, as one of these traitors is your servant, I must ask you to meet me in the council rooms so that you may be questioned on this matter.”
Bridget expected some outburst of denial or rage, but Kalami was utterly silent despite the voices raised around him. At the captain’s direction, five men surrounded the liveried poisoners, driving them from the hall with the tips of their axes. The courtiers whistled, jeered and booed as they stumbled through the doors. Ignoring all this noise, Captain Chadek signaled to two more of his men, who came and flanked their lord sorcerer.
Kalami was no longer looking at the dowager. His attention was all for Bridget and it took all her strength to stand before the rage and hatred that filled his black eyes. How dare you, he seemed to say. How dare you act against me. I will see you pay, and you cannot begin to imagine the price.
“My mother imperial,” began Ananda. “Surely, his servant cannot have acted without his knowledge. He belongs in the cell with his fellow poisoners.”
“The lord sorcerer is mine,” replied the dowager crisply, and loud enough for the entire room to hear. “It is to me he made his bond and it is still for me to determine how his actions are to be judged.”
“What else do you see?” murmured Sakra’s voice in Bridget’s ear.
The attention of the court was riveted on the imperial pair. For this one instant, no one noticed Bridget.
“What you want is tied around the emperor’s waist,” she replied, quietly. “His mother put it there.”
She felt him freeze, and then he closed his eyes, murmuring something under his breath.
“It is the empire he has betrayed, and it is the empire who must judge him,” Ananda said to the dowager.
The dowager, however, was not about to let Ananda forget who held the power here. “No specific accusations had yet been made against him by either the living or the dead,” she said. “And you are not yet the empire embodied. Until my son is free of his illness of spirit, that task remains with me.”
Their eyes remained locked for another breath, and then the Empress Ananda reverence
d. “Of course, my mother imperial.” She straightened up.
“This is a night of deep plots and treachery,” said the dowager, her voice full of tender concern. “I fear for you, my daughter imperial. Let the house guard take you back to your chamber and keep you safe there.”
“I am grateful for your concern, my mother imperial,” said Ananda, lifting her chin. “But surely no man should be spared from guarding Kalami and keeping the emperor safe.”
She does not want to be confined, thought Bridget. An escort of the dowager’s men will keep her penned up tonight when she has a chance to make her move. But there was nothing Bridget could do to help. Another outburst at this point would surely strain her credibility to the breaking point. That could bring her plans, such as they were, crashing down. She had done all she could. If Sakra and Ananda could free the emperor tonight, Kalami and the dowager’s power would be broken, and Bridget would be safe. If not, and if Kalami could worm his way past the dowager and her council … then she was lost.
The dowager was shaking her head and raising one hand. “I will not rest easily until both you and my son are safe.” For the first time, her voice quavered, and given all she had seen, Bridget could not help wondering if that was on purpose. It seemed to be having a good effect, for the court was murmuring in approval. “Until we know the extent of this treason, we cannot endanger Isavalta by allowing what conspirators may still be at large access to the persons of our imperial family.”
“Then, Grand Majesty,” Sakra, the keeper, said, moving forward, “let me escort the empress to her chambers. I see for the gods, and none will dare lift a hand when there are such witnesses.”
Even Bridget could see it was a neat move. How could the dowager refuse such a request? The noises of assent from the glittering audience grew louder. Good. Good. Let Sakra go with the empress. Let him tell Ananda what he knew, and what Bridget had done. She swallowed. Maybe, maybe she could get out of this with a whole skin after all. Every second that passed seemed to shore up her chances. Or was that just wishful thinking? Bridget had no way to tell. She could not read what was going on behind the dowager’s eyes, and the dowager still held the vast majority of the power here. If Sakra and Ananda could not free the emperor, that was the way it would stay. The idea made Bridget’s heart beat painfully hard.
“You have my thanks, good keeper,” announced the dowager, pitching her voice so the entire court could hear. They responded at once by sighing their approval. What were they thinking, wondered Bridget, behind their fans and fancy clothes? Were they planning already? How many of them were siding with the dowager? How many of them were thinking to preserve the advantages she had surely brought them?
And there was nothing she could do about any of it. Everything depended on Sakra and Ananda. She saw again the hatred burning in Kalami’s eyes as he was taken away. Her throat closed. So much could still go wrong. Her thoughts flitted to poor Richikha, wherever she lay. Was the girl even still alive?
“Grand Majesty.” Sakra reverenced. “Come, blessed daughter,” he said to Ananda, and he led her and her retinue through the crowd.
The dowager nodded to another member of the guard, who wore a golden belt around his waist. This must have been the special escort, because at a nod from him, no less than six of the house guard and three servants marched forward to take charge of the emperor and lead him to whichever box the dowager kept him in. The entire court reverenced as he was marched away like the prisoner he was.
It will be my turn next.
The dowager turned toward her court and raised both her hands, in blessing perhaps, or in warning. “Let all return to their chambers, and none go forth until morning without true good reason.”
That pronouncement finished, the dowager faced Bridget. “You too should have an escort, Bridget Avanasidoch. It was your voice that spoke out against this treachery, and there may be those who would silence it.”
Bridget folded her hands and dropped her gaze. “I will, of course, do whatever you think best, Grand Majesty.”
The dowager sent one of her lackeys running for Bridget’s ladies with a gesture, even as she stepped close to Bridget. “In your father’s name, I beg you keep your own counsel of any other visions until we may speak again. There is much here yet that you do not understand, and a careless word may ruin all.”
Grand Majesty, a truer word was never spoken, thought Bridget as she reverenced.
A trio of house guards formed up with Gali and Iadviga, and in that new captivity, Bridget meekly let herself be led away.
• • •
A naked willow tree drooped beside the canal, its whiplike branches brushing the black ice. A single crow, heedless of the darkness, sat in a crook of the tree. His eyes glittered in the moonlight as he watched the walls of the palace on the other side of the ice.
“King.”
The crow turned one eye to the black shape on the ground. It flapped its wings once, and dropped onto the snow before the filthy, battered mortar.
“Old Witch,” he said, bobbing his head three times.
The wind fluttered Baba Yaga’s tattered black cloak. “What do you see inside?” She pointed the end of her stained pestle toward the palace.
“Much,” croaked the crow. “And little. They rush back and forth and all plan to tumble over the others so they might be the one left standing.”
They faced each other in silence for a moment then while the wind whispered around them, catching up dustings of snow to spread out like delicate veils on the air.
“Do you see one in there bearing the title Agnidh?” inquired Baba Yaga.
“I do,” admitted the crow.
The witch planted her mortar in the snow. The motion raised a carrion scent. “He is in debt to you.”
The crow did not answer.
The witch bared her iron teeth to the cold and the moonlight. “He will need to leave the palace before long. He will need to walk the worlds. You may prevent him from this.”
The crow cocked his head. “And in so doing, I would risk the anger of the Vixen. This is her game.” He croaked once. “But it is your game as well, is it not?”
The witch gnashed her teeth, a discordant ringing sound. “She interfered with what is mine. Now, I will interfere with what is hers.”
“No.” The crow shook its feathers, fluffing them out against the cold. “You will have me interfere, and risk her wrath against myself and my people. Why would I do this?”
Baba Yaga reached one crabbed hand into her ragged robe. When she brought it out again, it held the delicate ivory skull of a baby bird.
“You believe your wife to be with child,” she said. “But it is weak within her. It is indeed already mine.” Outraged, the crow spread its wings and stabbed its beak forward, cawing harshly, challenging the words. But it did not attack. Too much truth hung in the air between them.
Baba Yaga held the skull out. “Do as I ask, and I will give your child back to you.”
The crow stretched its neck up, beating the air with its wings. “Old Witch, you ask too much!”
Baba Yaga simply shrugged, and her hand moved to secret the tiny skull again.
“Wait!” cried the crow, and Baba Yaga stilled her hand. The crow shifted its weight back and forth, and then leapt into the air. Its black claws snagged the skull as it flew past the witch. Calling out its discontent, the crow vanished into the darkness.
Baba Yaga hunched down into her mortar and grinned her iron grin. She thumped the pestle twice against the ground, and she too was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Ananda walked before her ladies, Keeper Bakhar pacing solemnly at her side. The glittering ornamentation that bedecked the corridors for the holy day still sparkled as they passed, even in the dim light. Courtiers, hurrying to obey the dowager’s orders to return to their rooms, reverenced to her she passed, and many a lord or lady tried to catch her eye. She heeded none of them. Her mind was too caught up in trying to understand what s
he had witnessed. Had Avanasy’s spirit truly appeared? Or had the sorceress Bridget dissembled? If so, Ananda could not fault her, as she appeared to have put Kalami and the dowager at odds with each other, and that bought Ananda time. Maybe, while the Council of Lords and the dowager questioned Kalami, she could pull back the search for Sakra. Possibly she could get a message to Lord Master Peshek, to inform him what had happened, and gain his insights. If the dowager could be severed from Kalami the dynamic of power within the palace could be upset, and with a few sound allies, Ananda could surely turn that to her advantage.
She could all but hear the whispers passing like drafts through the corridor. There were not enough guards to keep everyone in their rooms this night, and even now, bets as to how the power would shift were being laid. She must get her hand into that game. She must …
“You look grave, Princess,” murmured Keeper Bakhar.
“It is nothing, good keeper …” Ananda stopped, clapping her mouth shut. The question had been spoken in the court language of her home, and she had answered in the same without thinking.
“Sorcerer?” she asked to avoid saying Sakra’s name aloud, because it would be recognized in any language.
“Ever ready to serve the Moon’s Daughter,” he murmured, glancing left and right. The ladies and pages surrounding them kept their eyes rigidly ahead, pretending not to hear any sound coming from their mistress imperial or the keeper. They passed from the Amber Music Room to Iakshim’s Gallery. Her apartments were moments away.
“Know you what it was we witnessed in the Great Hall?” whispered Ananda swiftly.
“The Avanasidoch gambling for her life,” Sakra answered her, keeping his head gravely bowed, as befitted the good keeper. “She has done us good service.”
Fear and hope together tipped Ananda’s heart. “How?”
“She has seen that the source of the emperor’s enchantment is a girdle around his waist.”