Queen of Slaves (The Powers of Amur Book 4)

by J. S. Bangs

  Mandhi raised an eyebrow at her. “So long as it doesn’t bother us.”

  Shadle shrugged. “There’s signs, and Kaleg’s making none of them. We’ll be fine.”

  “Kalignas,” muttered Nakhur a few feet away. “From Kaleg. I had always wondered…”

  Shadle snickered at him. “Kalignas is what you Amurans call this place. We call it Adla, which just means ‘home.’”

  “Adla,” Nakhur repeated with some difficulty.

  “Or sometimes Tamb or Magros em Brau, or any number of other things. A place with just one name is a poor home. That’s why we don’t stay in Amur.”

  She moved away from the fir and looked down the path at the mercenaries strung out alongside the road. “The representatives are coming.”

  Mandhi jumped to her feet and brushed the crumbs from her sari. Aryaji and Nakhur joined her, and a moment later they saw Jauda climbing the path from the meadow with three Kaleksha men in tow and a half-dozen mercenaries with swords drawn. Though Mandhi didn’t see them, she knew that archers waited hidden in the trees alongside the path.

  “Here they are,” Jauda said as soon as they came in sight of Mandhi. He waved for the men to stop with three long paces between himself and Mandhi. “I searched them and confirmed they have no weapons. One of them can speak a little Amuran.”

  Nakhur stepped forward as they had planned. He pointed to Shadle. “Do you know this woman?”

  The leader of the os Tastl delegation grunted. “Labred of our clan met her in Mabeg. She said she will bring us allies against the vole.”

  “Against the vole?” Mandhi whispered.

  “They mean the os Dramab,” Shadle said, loud enough for them all to hear.

  “Yes, the os Dramab!” the man shouted. “Crooked, lying, without honor! Our hleg against them is very old. We will finally destroy them with your help.”

  “And you mean us no harm?” Nakhur said.

  The man shook his head vigorously. “We come, no weapons, show you we are true.”

  Mandhi looked at Jauda. “Captain, what do you think?”

  “If there was to be an ambush, they would have done it by now,” the captain replied. “And they knew Shadle, described her to me even before we came up here. I think they’re telling us the truth.”

  “Very well,” Mandhi said. A freshet of relief passed through her. Shadle had been so pleasant as their captive that it was hard to imagine her as a traitor, but it would be nice to have an actual ally that she could trust. “I say we unbind her and go with them. Nakhur?”

  “Let her out,” Nakhur said.

  Jauda grunted. He shouted an order, and the archers and warriors emerged from their hiding places, descending toward the road and completely surrounding the os Tastl delegation. Rather than showing fear, the men grinned and gestured madly together. They pointed to the mercenaries’ swords and smiled.

  Jauda moved to Shadle’s side and untied the leather thongs holding her hands together. “There you go,” he growled. “Now stay close to me.”

  Shadle rubbed her wrists. “Happy to oblige, Captain.” She spoke a few words to the os Tastl speaker, then translated. “He’ll walk with us at the head of the column so they know we’re friendly. A few hours to walk up to the head of the valley where the clanhome is, and we’ll be done.”

  Mandhi bowed to the os Tastl man to thank him for the guidance. He grinned and pounded his chest with a fist, saying something thunderous in Kaleksha to Shadle. Shadle laughed, then marched down the hill without translating.

  The walk to the clanhome was a pleasant stroll through the meadow. The path was only wide enough for one person, and the grass alongside was as tall as Mandhi’s waist, except in the few places where the sheep had recently grazed. Shepherd boys stood with their flocks on the shoulders of the hills and waved at them as they passed. Brawny men and broad women appeared out of the huts as they marched through the settlements, staring and smiling at Mandhi and her Amuran cohort.

  The sun was a few fingers above the ridge in the west when they finally approached the palisade and the clanhome itself. The palisade door was open and guarded by a handful of boys, but as soon as they saw the procession they jumped up shouting. The os Tastl guide bounded ahead of the group to meet their shouts, and in a moment Mandhi and the others were surrounded: boys with yellow hair and dirt-smeared cheeks, already as tall as Mandhi, running past them to see the mercenaries and their weapons, while girls with hair in long copper braids came alongside the path and stared at Mandhi and Aryaji with mouths agape; the big Kaleksha men clasped hands with their clanmates and showed their palms to Shadle, then waded in among the mercenaries bellowing oaths of friendship, while the clan’s women stood in the doors of their conical huts and watched them with eyes drawn close together and pursed lips.

  The top of the hill was trampled red clay with huts huddled together closely, grass only surviving in tufts here and there. There was no pattern to the layout of the village that Mandhi could see, except for the peaked stone lodge in the center. All of the paths through the village returned to the lodge, like roots radiating away from a trunk. As they processed toward the center of the town the crowd grew.

  The shadow of the lodge’s pointed roof fell over them. Aryaji clasped Mandhi’s hand and hid her face in Mandhi’s shoulder.

  “Are you afraid?” Mandhi asked.

  “A little,” Aryaji whispered. “All these white faces….”

  “Don’t forget we have a whole band of mercenaries behind us.”

  “But they’re so big! Even the children.”

  “These os Tastl need our help. They’re not going to hurt us.”

  Aryaji nodded, but she didn’t seem comforted.

  Their procession reached the lodge. The lodge alone was made of stone, uncut rocks as big as Mandhi’s head fitted together into a wall as high as the tallest Kaleksha. There was no mortar holding the stones together that Mandhi could see, just a cunning choice construction of stones of the right shape and size to hold together. Atop the lower story of stone was a steep, pointed roof made out of beams of fir, crossed by a weaving of coppice poles and covered with thatch. There were no windows of any kind and only a single door: a wide gap in the stone with posts and lintels of polished pine, before which stood an old man and woman.

  The os Tastl guide stopped before the elders. He dropped to his knees, crawled forward, and kissed the old man’s hands, then kissed the woman’s as well. He said something in Kaleksha and pointed back at the company of mercenaries drawing up behind Mandhi.

  Shadle sidled close to Mandhi. “Do what I do,” she whispered, taking in Nakhur, Mandhi, and Aryaji each with her sharp gaze. “This could still go wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” Mandhi hissed.

  “The os Tastl invited us, but those were just the young men, those out in Mabeg. The elders of the clan still to bless us to sleep in the clanhome.”

  “Is there a chance they’ll refuse?

  Shadle shrugged. “Who knows what the elders think? Just do what I say. I’ll present Nakhur and Jauda first, then Mandhi, then Aryaji. Pay close attention. When I say your name, go onto your knees—but don’t go forward to kiss their hands. Only the clan-folk do that. Don’t get up until someone comes to you.”

  Mandhi nodded. Shadle’s eyes scanned the mercenaries forming up behind them. “Now where is Jauda?”

  She spotted the captain a moment later and repeated the message to him. Then she turned and stood mutely before the two elders, waiting for their guide to finish his explanation.

  A moment later Shadle bowed and knelt. Her speech to the elders seemed to Mandhi to be extremely long and meandering, especially in the sonorous clatter of the Kaleksha language. But eventually she got around to pointing to Jauda and saying his name, prompting the mercenary captain to drop to his knees. Nakhur followed, then another long bout of explanation before Mandhi and Aryaji were named. Each time, the elders nodded gravely and made a silent gesture over them.

&nbs
p; Shadle fell silent. A long quiet elapsed. Mandhi’s skin prickled with the gazes of the two elders and the thick crowd of Kaleksha on each side. Finally the old man rose to his feet and shuffled toward them. He muttered something to the os Tastl guide, who rose and followed. The elder went to Nakhur first, put his hands on Nakhur’s head, and said a few words. When he moved on, the os Tastl men helped Nakhur to his feet. He blessed Jauda in a similar manner, then returned to his previous place.

  Mandhi felt a moment of confusion and panic. Were she and Aryaji somehow excluded? But the old woman came forward and put her hands on Mandhi’s head. She had soft, fat palms, and she pinched Mandhi’s black hair for a moment between her fingers. Then she spoke the blessing, and Shadle pulled Mandhi to her feet.

  “You are allowed to enter the clan lodge now,” she whispered in Mandhi’s ear. Then she scurried off and passed the same message to Jauda, who turned and gave an order to the mercenaries.

  The elderly woman returned to her counterpart’s side in front of the door to the lodge. They said a brief word and ducked into the doorway.

  “Follow us in,” Shadle said. “You’ll eat with the matriarch tonight. She’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  * * *

  They were cocooned in a crowd of women and girls near the stone fire-circle in the center of the lodge. Aryaji sat among the Kaleksha girls, who pulled at her coarse black hair and pressed their thumbs against Aryaji’s cheek to see if her brown color could be smudged off. Aryaji bore up under the assault bravely, clasping hands with a quiet copper-haired girl of about four years that had planted herself in Aryaji’s lap without asking. She gave Mandhi a look of desperation as the curious children undid her neatly tied bun, but Mandhi could only shrug.

  Mandhi was wedged into a circle of the Kaleksha mothers, which was only mildly less alarming than the men. The Kaleksha women had the same broad shoulders and wide hips as the men, less bulky with muscle, but with meaty hands, thick forearms, and heavy breasts. A stray swipe from any of them might break her in half.

  The clan matriarch sat across from Mandhi in the circle. She told a story with great gestures of her hands and stormy expressions of vexation and joy, which Shadle translated, scrambling to keep up with the woman’s rapid pace and Mandhi’s questions.

  “My cousins had gone into the Dramab looking for mushrooms—” Shadle translated.

  “Is that allowed?” Mandhi broke in.

  “Yes, so long as you don’t get caught. But three os Dramab shepherds saw them in the woods. They started throwing rocks, and one of the rocks hit our boy and gave him a gash above his eye. They ran back to to clanhome to get aid, but that night a dozen of the os Dramab crossed the ridge into the Tastl and stole two sheep in retaliation for our trespassing.”

  “So it’s not allowed.”

  “I said,” Shadle hissed, “that you aren’t supposed to get caught. Now listen—”

  She broke off and had the matriarch repeat something which she had missed due to Mandhi’s questioning, then resumed faster than ever. “We sent two dozen against the vole—”

  “You mean the os Dramab?”

  “Yes. Their clan totem is the vole.”

  “And what is a vole?”

  Shadle grunted in frustration. “A kind of forest mouse. Now listen: the next night, we drove off the shepherd boys with stones and arrows, and took back our own two sheep plus a few hands more, which we brought into our flocks in the Tastl. Now then the os Dramab matriarch sent a message to my grandmother, who was matriarch at the time, and she said she’d bring us before the clanmoot for trespassing without a hleg—as if we didn’t already have a hleg against the os Dramab—but grandmother called her a liar, because they had started it by attacking our boys.”

  “But the mushrooms—” Mandhi began.

  Shadle ignored her and continued translating. “All our men slept in the fields for a month to guard the flocks on the north side of the valley, and the os Dramab did nothing. But they were clever, because they sent six men up the side of Kaleg, to circle around to the southeast side of the valley without being detected. There they came on a couple of ewes who were lambing and killed them with their lambs. Didn’t even try to steal them, just killed them. But we caught them as they were leaving, chased them into the woods, and managed to kill one.”

  The matriarch finished her tale and leaned back. A muttering of approval sounded around the circle, while Shadle panted to catch her breath.

  Mandhi was confused. The stories all ended something like this: a never-ending chain of petty grievances, sometimes started by one clan, sometimes by the other. They escalated into general raiding, murder, and occasionally something like a full war, only to be quelled when the sides either withdrew to lick their wounds or took their complaints to the clanmoot.

  Mandhi was unclear on the actual functions and powers of the clanmoot. She would have to ask Shadle later. But now another woman was speaking, and Shadle began to translate again.

  “That was the last time there was blood between us? Yes, the mother says, yes, but they’ve been growing bolder for many years with raiding and theft, and Hlereb was drowned sailing to Amur, which we know was due to the os Dramab man in his boat even if they deny it. But now they’re without a father and can’t complain to the clanmoot, so we can finally carry out our hleg without interference.”

  The other women in the circle suddenly burst in over the matriarch’s talking, a welter of argument which Shadle observed with despair. She leaned close Mandhi and said, “Well, you got the idea.”

  “I did,” Mandhi said. “What did she mean when she said that they ‘don’t have a father?’”

  Shadle hesitated, bit the tip of her tongue, then shrugged. “Don’t know. Some detail of their feud.”

  The Kaleksha women were still arguing, though the matriarch had fallen silent and sat with her hands folded in her lap. Mandhi reached over and put a hand on Aryaji’s shoulder. “Want to come outside with me? So long as Shadle says it wouldn’t be too rude.”

  Shadle shook her head. “Go and get some air. I’ll let them know.”

  Mandhi stood. Shouts of protest sounded around the women’s circle, but Shadle raised her voice and calmed them down. Mandhi pulled Aryaji to her feet, and with multiple bows of thanksgiving they slipped out the front door of the lodge.

  The brisk night air cleansed Mandhi’s nose of the sweat, smoke, and pine smell of the Kaleksha lodge. Aryaji clasped her hand and lay her head on Mandhi’s shoulder.

  “What horrible people,” the girl muttered.

  “Which ones? The os Tastl or the os Dramab?”

  “The Kaleksha,” Aryaji said.

  Mandhi shook her head. “Not so bad. Remember, the os Tastl are the ones who will bring Jhumitu back to us.” Mandhi pressed her hand against her breast, now dry of milk. It had been too long. The os Dramab had brought a woman with them to nurse Jhumitu, though by now… she realized with chagrin that he would be nearly old enough to wean, if they must. They could bring him over on the boat feeding him with pap. Or she’d have to let him nurse with one of the Amuran whores which the os Dramab brought over. She shuddered.

  “Let’s sit down,” she said to Aryaji.

  Around the entrance to the lodge were some rickety benches of willow branches and pine. Mandhi sat down on one, and Aryaji collapsed onto it next to her. The clouds had cleared from the night sky, and a crescent moon hung above the pines to the east, giving a dim gray outline to their points. The stars speckled the sky with light.

  Aryaji looked to the south. The Serpent hung low over the horizon with a bright drop of blood in its heart. The girl’s mouth moved silently as she watched the red star.

  “Not now,” Mandhi said quietly. She turned Aryaji away from the omen. “No need to hurt yourself.”

  “It doesn’t hurt me,” Aryaji said. Her voice was quiet and determined. “If Ulaur has sent an amashi to speak to me, I’ll listen to it.”

  Mandhi was quiet. She wasn’
t sure how their Kaleksha hosts would take to that. Nakhur and Jauda barely suffered it. “Still, not right now,” she said. “Look to the north—light of Ulaur, what is that?”

  A pale green curtain of light hung in the heavens, drawn over the stars like a gauzy veil. It turned slowly, like a ribbon in a soft wind, streaming out of its source in the north and gently wrapping around a handful of stars. Another ribbon of pink climbed to visibility near the green curtain. They danced together in quiet, slow waves, stirred by an invisible breath, rippling over the ebony of the night sky.

  “An omen?” Aryaji asked. She squeezed Mandhi’s hand.

  A quiet laugh sounded beside them. Shadle had emerged from the lodge and stood with her fists on her hips. “That’s no omen. You’ve never seen that before?”

  “Never,” Mandhi said.

  Shadle chuckled. “We call them… how should I say it in Amuran? The Night Ladies. No, that’s not right.” She bit her tongue for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know. This is late in the year for it. They’re brightest in the winter.”

  “What does it mean?” Aryaji asked.

  “Mean? It means that the Night Ladies came out to dance for the moon. That’s all.”

  Aryaji stared at the slowly shifting green lights. “It’s beautiful,” she said at last.

  “Yes,” Shadle said. She stood with the Amuran girls for a moment, watching the northern horizon change colors with them. “The matriarch sent me to find you,” she said at last. “Wanted to be sure you were okay.”

  “We’re fine,” Mandhi said. “I wanted a chance to try and understand what the matriarch told me.” She took a sharp breath and arranged her words in her mind. “Are… are all the clans like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Constantly bickering with their neighbors. Nursing wounds that go back generations. Running a low-level war for decades.”

  Shadle gave Mandhi a strange look. “What are the clans in Amur like?”

  “In Amur we don’t have clans.”

  Shadle’s eyes widened. “No clans! Where do people live?”