Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3)

by Leona Wisoker

  Yuer pulled a small cloth bag from one of the folds of the heavy blanket and tossed it onto the table. It landed with a chittering thud and slid across the table to rest in front of Tank, neatly missing the box. A few small salt crystals jolted out to scatter across the table.

  “Your pay,” Yuer said. “Good day.” His grin widened, stretching drooping folds of skin into a savage leer.

  Tank slowly slid his belt knife back into the sheath. He stared at that grin for a few moments, then lunged forward.

  “What are you doing?” Yuer’s voice scaled to an unprecedented shrill peak.

  Tank dug his fingers into the salt; his fingers brushed cloth. Salt crystals cascaded from the box as he hooked and pulled, lifted out a velvet pouch smaller around than his palm, and tossed it on the table.

  “Is that salt?” he asked, staring straight into the old man’s eyes.

  Yuer was no longer smiling. He sat still as a statue, his black gaze emotionless and icy-cold. “No,” he said after a moment. “And you’ve ruined a good salt shipment as well by digging your dirty fingers into it.”

  He raised a hand. Tank didn’t move or take his gaze from Yuer’s face; the blonde girl came into the room, silently handed the bags of velvet and cloth to Yuer, picked up the box, then left without even glancing at Tank.

  “You’d have done better to walk out and let me think you fooled,” Yuer said.

  “What was in the bag?” Tank demanded, his throat tight. “Dasta?”

  “It’s not your concern,” Yuer said. “It could be dried oregano and you’d still have ruined a prime batch of my favorite salt.” He paused. “I wasn’t lying on that,” he added. “I generally avoid outright lying. It leads to endless complications.” He sighed. “You are a complication, Tanavin Aerthraim. More of one than I wanted.” He glanced at the teacups and shook his head. “Much more.”

  “You lied to Wian,” Tank said.

  “Did I?” Yuer’s gaze went hooded again. He looked amused.

  “She thought you were saving her from Seavorn. If she’d known—”

  “You weren’t here, Tanavin. You don’t know what I said or didn’t say. And Wian herself is a phenomenally accomplished liar. She’ll admit as much to your face and deliver a masterful lie in the next heartbeat.”

  “I believe her,” Tank said stubbornly.

  “Then you’re an astonishing fool,” Yuer retorted. “No doubt she told you about her dreadful childhood, and being forced into a life of whoredom, and you fell right into thinking of her as victim. Don’t make that mistake, Tanavin. She’s an extremely dangerous young woman. I know for fact she’s killed at least once for one of her previous masters. It would be safer for you to feel pity for a nest of blood ants.”

  Tank looked down at his hands, remembering Wian’s own words: I’ve earned these bruises and whippings ten times over. Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t try to help me. It’ll just get you killed, and that’s the first truth I’ve handed out for free in years.

  “You know I’m telling you the truth,” Yuer said. “As I said, I don’t lie often. It’s largely unnecessary when one holds the correct cards.”

  Tank shut his eyes for a long moment, then opened them to find Yuer watching him with a peculiar expression.

  “What now?” he said. “Are you going to kill me, or is that part of your reputation exaggerated?”

  “Rumor always expands on fact,” Yuer said. “One true fact to consider, in this case, is that I believe you’d be a very useful addition to my staff, for a number of reasons; one of which is currently snoring in my guest room.”

  Tank’s jaw tightened. He endured Yuer’s amused survey without flinching.

  “You’re very attached to Dasin,” Yuer murmured. “And he to you. Are you lovers?”

  “No!”

  “Ah.” Yuer’s eyes drooped nearly shut. “So sensitive over such a small matter. Well, I doubt the two of you can be parted, whatever your relationship. If you walk out that door on poor terms, or... disappear... I risk Dasin losing his focus, his edge, his usefulness as a potentially brilliant young merchant. He really is a genius, and Stai Aerthraim is no fool herself; to call him her star student means he is, truly, something exceptional. I want him on my side, handling my business, Tanavin. The Purge left me with a severely thin margin of resources. I need to build that back up, and quickly. I believe Dasin’s good enough to do so in short order, whatever his age; but I’m also beginning to see that he may not function properly without you by his side.”

  “I’m not that important to him,” Tank said thinly.

  Yuer sat back in his chair more deeply, his head tilting to one side.

  “I disagree,” he said at last. “And thus I offer you a compromise, rather than sending you to my guards for a brief discussion about proper manners. I do have a legitimate business to maintain. I do need honest merchants to carry my wares. So: I won’t ask you or Dasin to carry anything but spices. Everything in your wagon will be completely legal. You’ll handle the Bright Bay through Sandsplit run; if that goes well and I see I can trust you two, I’ll give you the Isata route in a few months. If you do well with that, I’ll let you develop the Assiasan route. Quite a lot of potential for good money there.”

  “What do you want in return for all this kindness?” Tank made no effort to hide the bitterness in his voice; he already knew what Yuer would ask.

  As expected, Yuer said, “You’ll keep your mouths shut about... this.” He lifted the small velvet pouch. “Not much to ask, is it?”

  “What’s inside that bag?”

  “Oregano,” Yuer said dryly. He tossed the cloth bag of coin back onto the table. “Not a bribe,” he added as Tank stiffened. “Advance wages.”

  Tank opened his mouth, not sure what to say, and found himself blurting: “Do you supply dasta to the katha villages?”

  The silence set in and stayed like hardening mud. Tank couldn’t believe he’d asked that aloud. By the expression on Yuer’s face, neither could he.

  “No,” Yuer said at last, his eyes like black flint. “Those places are obscene corruptions of an honorable tradition. Now get out. Go take a room at the Traveler’s Rest, and tell them to bill me. If you wish a meal, go across to the Black Horse Tavern—it’s near that inn your former employer booked rooms at— and tell them the same thing. I’ll send Dasin along when he wakes. You may return to me in the morning with your considered answer; until then, I don’t wish to see sight nor hear word of you. Get out.”

  Tank scooped up a double handful of saddlebags and packs, aimed one last long, emotionless stare at Yuer, and said, “Thank you for having that much decency—for not supporting the katha villages.”

  Yuer’s return stare could have set green wood on fire. “Out.”

  Tank nodded and left without another word.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The closest tavern turned out to be called the Black Horse; Idisio, remembering the glossy, noble beasts he and Scratha had ridden from Bright Bay to Sandsplit, found that name comforting. Remembering that, however, put him in mind of leaving those horses with Yuer; and he wondered whether, if he were to apply to the wrinkled old man very politely, he might gain those two horses back.

  Yuer always goes with his highest profit, Scratha had said. Glancing sideways at his mother, Idisio shuddered at the price the devious old man might ask of two ha’ra’hain. No: better to leave that nest unstirred, and go on foot.

  They settled at a corner table. The other patrons in the crowded room spared them only the mildest of curious glances before turning back to their own conversations and games.

  “Good hope-days to you,” the serving girl said as she reached Idisio’s table. She smiled with genuine cheer. A garland of pale flowers had been wound into her long dark hair, and bright blue paint streaked her cheeks in a swirling, intricate design. “First drink is on the house tonight, and the blessing-soup is free to all.”

  “Pardon, s’a,” Idisio said awkwardly, “I’m no
t familiar with your local customs.”

  At almost the same time, his mother said, “It’s that late in the year? I thought the Life Moon was overhead.”

  “No, s’a,” the girl said. “We’re under the Hope Moon.”

  “The weather’s going to be turning soon,” Ellemoa muttered. “We have to move faster, or we’ll be wading through snow. I don’t like snow.”

  The serving girl eyed her curiously. “From above the Hackerwood, then, are you, s’ieas?”

  “I don’t see how that’s your concern,” Ellemoa said icily, raking the girl with a severe glare.

  “What’s blessing soup?” Idisio interjected hastily as the serving girl bristled. It’s only polite conversation, he tried to tell his mother; found a black wall of harsh silence barring the attempt, and withdrew feeling slightly bruised.

  “A bit of everything ready for harvest this time of year,” the girl said, eyeing Ellemoa with dawning disapproval. “I go by an old custom, and keep a soup simmering from birth to full of the Hope Moon to feed the field workers; we add to it day by day. Right now it’s got chicken, eel, apples, peas, rosemary, onions, garlic, and greens. Tomorrow there’s oysters going in, and a stack of shucked corn. Not everyone offers blessing-soup these days, but I like to hold to some of the old ways, myself, and I haven’t heard no complaints.” She dimpled a bit.

  “That sounds wonderful,” Idisio said. “Two bowls of that, please.”

  “I don’t want any,” his mother said flatly. “It sounds vile.”

  “Something else, then, s’a?” the serving girl said with a noticeable chill in her tone and expression.

  “Not here,” Ellemoa said, glancing around in a way that placed her objection squarely on the tavern itself.

  As the girl began to bristle, Idisio said loudly, “Thank you, s’a, the soup will be welcome for me. It’s been a long walk today.” He caught her eye and twitched an eyebrow. “We’re both tired,” he added in a lower voice, pitching it to her ears alone. “Forgive and forget the lack of manners, please.”

  Her cheeks tinted in the lantern-light, and a smile washed across her face. “No trouble at all,” she said, then hurried into the kitchen.

  Idisio blinked, a dull sense of dread settling into his chest: remembering Deiq and a servant with an adoring grin. Had he influenced this servant into forgetting his mother’s rudeness?

  “Of course you did,” his mother said. “You see? You’re not above getting what you want from humans, when it matters to you. Although why her good regard should matter I can’t understand.”

  “I was just keeping things simple,” he said, and heard it fall flat.

  “Really?” she said. “And if she comes back and asks you to take a walk with her, you’ll refuse? Do you really think any human would be interested in you except to gratify their own needs, if they knew what you are?”

  “That’s not—” Idisio shook his head, frustrated, feeling the conversation slipping off track and at a loss for how to bring it back around. “There’s no reason to be rude to her,” he said finally.

  “What’s rude?” Ellemoa asked. “What’s polite? Why do you keep measuring such matters by human standards?”

  “It’s all I know,” he said through his teeth.

  “Obviously. Here’s our politeness, son: they don’t ask after our business and we don’t interfere with theirs. They give us what we want when we ask, and we don’t hurt them in the taking of it. They can ask us for aid—after helping us with what we need.”

  “That’s—” Idisio searched for words to express his reaction to that. “That’s very—arrogant on our part, isn’t it?”

  “Arrogant? They’re insects,” she said, leaning forward. “You keep missing that point. They’re barely sentient, most of them, and blind to the secrets of the world. Why should it matter if they think us arrogant or rude?”

  “Well, they outnumber us, for one,” he said dryly.

  She gestured with one hand, dismissing that statement. “No more than a colony of ants does the average human,” she said. “It’s all easily kicked over and destroyed by one person, son. The two of us could destroy this entire town, if we so chose, before the morning light.”

  He felt lightheaded for a moment. The taste of blood, hot and copper, ran along the inside of his cheeks; his hands tightened into fists, and somewhere distant there was a whispering....

  “No,” he said, as much to the whisper as to her statement. “That’s not right. That’s not right. They deserve better than that. They haven’t done anything to hurt us.”

  “Neither did the ants a human kicked aside to till his fields,” she retorted. “It’s all a question of whether it benefits us to bother. At the moment, it doesn’t. Tomorrow, it might. You must grasp this, son. Whether you like the lesson or not, it’s the truth: the moment you need or want something badly enough, you’ll find justification to take it, whatever the cost to the humans. Better to face that at the front and learn to persuade instead of force, especially if you’re going to be this squeamish over necessity.”

  He stared at her with a grey disquiet. “I don’t believe that,” he said. “I don’t. I won’t be like that.”

  “Son,” she said, “you are like that.”

  The girl returned with a large bowl of soup and placed it in front of Idisio. “Anything else, s’e?” she asked. She didn’t even look at Ellemoa.

  “No, thank you,” Idisio said, without trying to be nice this time, and watched lines of disappointment briefly etch the skin around her eyes. She flashed him a quick, uncertain smile, and went to tend to another table’s requests, glancing back twice.

  “If you’d smiled at her the way you did the first time,” Ellemoa murmured, “she’d have asked you to take her for a walk after dinner.”

  He put his gaze on the food and didn’t answer. He didn’t want to think about her words right now. He was hungry. He focused on being hungry, on the mingling of rosemary and chicken, the sharp bite of garlic and the creamy slickness of shredded greens, the meaty coarseness of red beans, until the bowl was empty.

  Sitting back, he belched with unapologetic satisfaction. “Ought to settle in along the Coast Road,” he said. “These taverns serve the best food I’ve ever eaten. Excepting Kybeach, of course.” He laughed a little.

  His mother said nothing, her gaze on the flickering of the triple-wick lamp on the table.

  “I’m sure it’s very good in Arason,” he added hastily, wiping a sleeve across his mouth. “Didn’t mean anything by that.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, not looking up. “I haven’t been there in a long time. And I never ate with the humans the way you’ll do.” She lifted a shadowed stare to his face. “You know how to get along with humans. I never did. I never understood them. Not even the few who were kind to me. They all seem like strange, brutal animals to me, son, who lie to one another and hurt one another for no good reason.”

  “You had no reason to hurt those men in the alley,” Idisio said sharply. This latest switch in temper alarmed him more than most of the others: instinct warned that the apparent weakness masked something dangerous.

  “No reason you knew about,” she returned. “You don’t understand the half of what you see yet, son.”

  He opened his mouth, then shut it; her observation was too close to Deiq’s own accusation. “So what am I missing, then?” he said finally.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that you still don’t trust me. You still don’t understand that I know far more than you do.”

  “From where I’m sitting,” he said, “you’re not explaining a whole lot to help me understand that you have reasons for what you’re doing.”

  “Why must I explain?” she said irritably. “I’m your mother. I know more than you. I see more than you. I understand more than you. That’s simple fact: your business is to listen to me, and mind what I say. Understanding the why of things comes later, once you’ve grown into your shoes a bit.”r />
  “But—”

  His mother shook her head and stood. “Time to go, son,” she said. “No need for an inn. I’m tired of coddling you. We need to reach Arason before the cold weather sets in. We won’t stop again until we’re home.”

  And the dangerous bit emerges. “What happened to not ordering me around?” he said. “I thought you weren’t going to force me to do anything anymore.”

  She stared at him, her eyes a dark, muddled grey color. “What happened to trusting me?” she shot back. “What happened to hearing my side and being my son? You’re treating me like a monster again, son, and I don’t much appreciate that, after all I’ve been through.”

  He bit his lip, fighting to hold on to a fading certainty. “I—didn’t mean it that way,” he said. “I just—those men—you would have—”

  “I would have done less to them than they’ve done to others,” she said. “They were vicious, brutal men who enjoy causing pain to others. If you’d seen them, truly seen them, you’d understand why removing them from the world would be a blessing to every creature in existence. But you don’t have that sight yet. You haven’t grown into it yet. You’re still fighting what you are, fighting what you can do, and I don’t have patience for that. Either walk with me, son, or go your own way; but stop refusing to believe the truth because it’s unpleasant to your ears.”

  She turned away and walked to the door; paused there, looking back, and made an imperious gesture for him to follow.

  I’ll meet my father... I’ll be respected... I’ll be... I’ll be loved. She cares. I mustn’t forget that. She really cares. And what if she’s right? What if those men were the monsters, and I just didn’t see it?

  She’s not saying anything all that different from what Deiq said, after all.

  Idisio rose, dropped a coin on the table without checking to see its color, and followed his mother out of the tavern.