Libyrinth

by Pearl North

  “Two out of three,” said Jolaz.

  “Agreed,” said Selene. The combatants circled each other again. Jolaz lunged and Selene dropped and rolled into a somersault, coming back to her feet behind Jolaz, who turned and cast a handful of sand in Selene’s eyes.

  Selene backed up reflexively. Her heel connected with the outer wall and she stopped, blinking.

  Jolaz closed in and raked Selene’s ribs with an arcing slash. Selene gasped and whirled, grasping Jolaz’s knife arm. She kicked Jolaz’s legs out from under her. Jolaz fell, but on the way down she did something with her left leg and her free arm and suddenly, Selene was on her back in the sand with Jolaz’s knife at her throat.

  “End of match,” called Vorain.

  Jolaz stood and sheathed her knife. She looked down at Selene with a faint smile, and offered her hand to help her up.

  Selene, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed, glared back, ignored the hand, and got to her feet on her own. They shook hands. “Another match?” said Selene.

  Jolaz shook her head. “I must attend upon Her Majesty,” she said. Clauda tried to discern disdain or smugness in her tone, but could detect neither.

  Selene clearly did, however. Her hands clenched into fists as she watched Jolaz walk placidly to her pile of clothes and start dressing.

  Blood dripped from the slash across Selene’s ribs. Clauda started toward her, but Vorain held her back. “You’d better let me see to her. She seems upset with you for some reason.” Vorain’s look was both bland and penetrating. “There’s a feast this afternoon and you’ll want to get ready for that. . . .” She wrinkled her brow. “Why are you in a bathrobe, anyway?”

  Clauda returned to her room, where she was fitted for garments—a knee-length, belted tunic of moss green trimmed with brown—and then Adept Ykobos arrived with her assistants. The kinesiologist frowned and clucked her tongue as she examined Clauda. “You need to practice your meditation and avoid stress,” she said. “There is ample opportunity for you to meet our gracious monarch at the feast this afternoon. No need to go gallivanting about the palace in your bathrobe at the crack of dawn. Now much of the work we did yesterday has been undone.”

  “I feel fine,” said Clauda.

  Ymin nodded. “You do now. But here . . .” She took Clauda’s elbow between her index finger and thumb, lifted it to shoulder height, and then reached down and brushed her fingertips over the top of Clauda’s opposite knee. Hot pain flared up, shooting from the elbow, up her shoulder, down her spine, and into the knee. “Ow!” Clauda gasped.

  “You see,” said Ymin. “You are out of balance. The goal of kinesiology is integration. That is what we must all strive for, but you more than most.”

  “Integration?” said Clauda.

  Ymin nodded. “The state of harmony between body and mind, when all energy pathways flow without restriction to and from the core, thus making communication between the mind, the heart, and body instantaneous. It is a state few achieve and almost none maintain on a permanent basis—”

  “Then what’s the point?”

  “The point is, the closer we come to it, the more in balance we become and the better our bodies and minds function. For someone like you, who has experienced a severe interference of the energy pathways, such training is essential. Now, lie on your stomach and close your eyes. Helene, Po, take her arms.”

  After Ykobos left Clauda sweating and sore, the chamber servant Scio came to prepare her bath. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” said Clauda, sitting waist deep in steaming water. The round tub was hammered copper, and almost twice her length in diameter. Clauda took the sponge, foaming with lavender-scented soap, from the girl’s hands. “I can wash myself. Honest.”

  Scio shrugged and put another pitcher of water on the glow warmer. “Steward Sopopholis has assigned me to be your body servant for the duration of your stay. I’m to attend you in all things.”

  And watch her, and keep her out of trouble. Anger threatened to stiffen Clauda’s jaw, and she deliberately hid it. This was Selene’s doing, no doubt, to prevent any further embarrassing incidents—or to keep her from upstaging Selene in front of her mother. What a selfish brat! The plan she and Queen Thela had come up with together was a good one.

  Pleasure warmed her as she remembered Queen Thela Tadamos smiling at her, Clauda the pot girl, because she’d matched wits with her. Why couldn’t Selene see that Clauda had talents to offer the situation? At home, she’d been both reviled and courted as an inveterate gossip. She always knew who was mad at whom, who was sleeping with whom, who owed whom a favor and why. She loved knowing. People were interesting—people and the things they did and their reasons for doing them, both true and convenient.

  She’d always thought of it as sort of a hobby, but now she had a chance to really do something with it. She couldn’t just let herself be shepherded around enjoying luxuries while Haly was in trouble. And even though Selene was a hothead with no appreciation for Clauda as anything other than an unwanted burden, she was right about one thing: Queen Thela was, well, a queen, and they could trust her about as much as the Goat trusts the Lion. No matter how good a plan they had, there was no guarantee that Thela would adhere to it.

  “Are you well, mistress? Shall I call Adept Ykobos back?”

  Clauda realized she’d been standing stock-still, staring at the sponge in her hand as her thoughts ran their course. “No. I feel fine, thank you. But there’s been a mistake. I’m a servant myself. A servant can’t have a servant,” said Clauda, hoping to appeal to Scio’s sense of status.

  Scio perched on the edge of the bath and dipped her feet in. “Fine, then. I could use a bath, too,” she said. She removed her tunic, slid into the water, and submerged herself.

  Lifelong communal living had somehow failed to inure Clauda to this sight. The flush on her skin deepened, although it was already warm and pink from the heat of the bath. Clauda leaned back and slitted her eyes, pretending to be in deep contemplation of her toes while in fact observing Scio in the water.

  She was beautiful. Like Selene, she had dark hair and pale skin. Her hair fanned out around her in the water and her smooth skin gleamed like moonlight. She had a waist like the curve of a swan’s neck and small breasts with dark rose tips that reminded Clauda of those berries Selene had been eating.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d felt this way. Since she was twelve she’d had a pretty good idea what Libyrarian Lital had been trying to teach them in biology. The idea of kissing someone other than her mother or father no longer seemed weird and outlandish to her, and she was glad that she lived at the Libyrinth, where the fact that she liked girls was a matter of no consequence to anyone but herself.

  But somehow the whole thing had taken on a new significance since she’d arrived in Ilysies. First the groom girl and now Scio . . . What was it that was so distracting about the women here?

  Resurfacing, blowing water, Scio said, “But I have to stay by you just the same. This is my big chance to prove to Steward Sopopholis that I can handle responsibility. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life carrying trays and changing bedding. I want to be a steward myself one day—either here, or maybe at the summer palace. When you’re the steward, you hear all the best gossip. Nobody ever tells me anything good because I’m just a chamber servant.”

  Scio’s other charms were forgotten as Clauda studied the gleam in the girl’s eyes. Could it be that she’d found her Ilysian counterpart—an ambitious servant with a taste for gossip? Clauda thought about that. Maybe she shouldn’t get rid of her. Maybe she could use her.

  Scio soaped up her hair and piled it in snaky ringlets on top of her head. “For instance, I bet the steward knows why your mistress has come home. Nobody else does.” Scio lifted her eyes to Clauda’s and blinked slowly, boldly, and falsely guileless.

  Clauda could not suppress a grin. “I’m sure a great many people would like to know that,” she admitted. “But I would never do anything to put my
mistress at a disadvantage, even if she is a stubborn fool.”

  “She was angry with you this morning, wasn’t she?” asked Scio.

  Clauda shrugged and nodded.

  “Don’t you hate it when the people you work for don’t appreciate you?” said Scio.

  Clauda looked at her. Scio gazed at her matter-of-factly. Clauda hesitated, then gave Scio a small smile and a nod.

  “I know,” said Scio, leaning her head back against the tub in exasperation. “I’m always trying to convince Steward Sopopholis that I’m ready to be one of the queen’s personal servants, but she just ignores me. She thinks I’m too young.” She stuck out her tongue.

  Clauda sank lower in the water. “Selene thinks I’m totally useless,” she complained. It felt good to complain. “I could help her, but she won’t let me.”

  Scio nodded. “The only good thing about being disregarded,” she said, getting out of the tub, “is that people tend not to pay much attention to what you’re doing.” She dried herself off and then held up a towel for Clauda. Their eyes met. Neither said another word, but Clauda knew she had found an ally.

  The feast for the return of the daughter was held in the Arena of the Bull. Couches and low tables provided seating on the deep, shallow steps surrounding the playing field. Clauda sat at Selene’s side, to the left of the queen, on the uppermost step. Behind them a pillared colonnade led to the Court of the Mother, where she and Selene had waited that morning. The stately figure of the Ilysian goddess gazed enigmatically at the queen’s back.

  Jolaz sat on Thela Tadamos’s other side, placidly nibbling sugared almonds and making casual observations to the queen. When they first sat down, Jolaz had offered Selene warm greetings and polite comments on the delight of having Ilysia’s daughter among them once more. Selene accepted her civilities with tightly held formality, and now sat stiffly beside her mother, responding to the queen’s remarks with strained goodwill.

  Jolaz made no further attempt to converse with Selene, and Selene said nothing to her. And Selene’s conversation with the queen was on the order of, “Have you seen the rose garden?” and “The new barracks yard is most impressive.”

  It was like sitting on the other side of a brick wall. If Selene would just swallow her pride and make conversation with Jolaz, they might learn something useful. But no, of course not. Any awkwardness Clauda might have felt at being among such exalted company was swallowed by her frustration at seeing this opportunity squandered.

  The feast, however, was like something out of a dream—new lambs roast with spices, quail served with apricots and mushrooms, asparagus with pine nuts, mint and lemon ices, pitchers of wine, breads so light they felt like a cloud upon the tongue—and it went on and on for hours, it seemed. People ate leisurely, distracted by conversation and by the entertainers who performed on the lawn. Acrobats and dancers and musicians followed one after another, so that the whole was a succession of increasingly improbable miracles, starting with the sugared almonds and culminating in the bull dance.

  This last was heralded by skirling trumpets and a lull in the talk. Young men and women dressed in tight-fitting white breeches—the same grooms who had greeted their arrival in the palace yard the day before—trotted out and took up stations at the four corners of the lawn. Among them Clauda spotted the girl who had taken her horse. The trumpets rose to a crescendo, and two little girls no more than six years old, with garlands of flowers around their necks and in their hair, came out of a set of large double doors directly opposite the queen. They led a roan red bull, which also wore flowers about its neck and horns. One of the children untied the length of silk with which it was tethered, and then she and her cohort disappeared through the doors once more.

  From somewhere, drums beat. The grooms stamped their feet in anticipation. The bull pawed the ground and lowered its head. Its horns, tipped with silver, gleamed in the sunlight. The whole courtyard was silent now, breathless.

  One of the grooms ran from his station straight at the bull, which snorted and sprang to meet him, hooves flinging sod in its wake. Still the youth ran at the bull and Clauda was wondering what sort of deluded barbarity this was, when the boy grasped the beast’s horns and executed a flip over the animal’s back, landing unscathed behind it.

  This incredible feat was greeted only by polite applause. Outraged on behalf of this amazing athlete, Clauda clapped loudly, and was just raising her fingers to whistle when Selene stayed her with a cool hand. “They’re just getting started,” she said.

  Over the course of the next hour Clauda saw those dancers repeat the youth’s feat over and over again, each time embellishing it with some added bit of daring, such as leaping back on the animal’s rump after landing, or two grooms leaping over the bull’s back crosswise. It all culminated when the groom who had taken her horse—her groom of the almond eyes—won the day by riding the bull standing between its shoulders, then leaning forward and plucking the garland from its horns. The girl straightened and executed a backflip to land, sure-footed and beaming, on the green field of glory.

  Clauda forgot to clap. She stared witless at the shining figure on the field, and it struck her that she beheld a god—a shining example of youth and exuberance, beauty and daring. All too quickly, this new-formed deity received her reward—a silver circlet for her hair—gave her salute to the queen, and exited through the double doors.

  Clauda sighed and took a sip of watered wine, then looked around. The feast was breaking up at last. Selene, nodding at her mother’s parting words, stood up and hailed Vorain. “How about a game of father’s bluff?”

  The big soldier nodded and grinned. “ ’Bout time I got to win back some of what I lost to you at your farewell party.”

  Selene, suddenly full of solicitude, put a hand to Clauda’s shoulder and leaned over her. “Are you tired? Would you like to retire? Scio could escort you back to your chamber, or,” she added as Clauda began to shake her head, “you can come and play cards with Vorain and me. I’ll lend you some coins.”

  Well, there was no way Clauda was going straight to bed. At the same time, saddling herself with a gossip wasteland like Selene would be criminally perverse and negligent. Just as she was mulling this over, Scio appeared at the top of the steps. Clauda gave a feeble sigh and let her head droop. “I do need some sleep,” she pretended to admit. “If my sore muscles will allow it. We must hope for Haly’s sake that the Eradicants do not possess the art of kinesiology.”

  Selene nodded and gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Rest well, then. With the Mother’s blessing, you will mend soon.”

  Once they left the Arena of the Bull, Scio grabbed Clauda’s hand and pulled her into an alcove graced with a small statue of an extremely distracting nature. “Do you truly wish to retire?” asked Scio.

  Clauda, trying not to stare at the tiny clay figures with their vivid paint and delighted expressions, shook her head. “No, of course not.”

  Scio smiled and arched her neck, her chin bent down coyly. “Good. ’Cause I can show you something that would impress your mistress.” Her voice fell to a whisper and she squeezed both of Clauda’s hands. “Hardly anybody knows about it.”

  Clauda forgot all about the statue in the thrill that went though her at those words. “What is it?”

  Scio raised her head and stood back, releasing Clauda’s hands. “That, you’ll have to see for yourself.”

  The Song

  After her interview with Siblea, Haly was escorted by a youth in brown robes to a luxuriously appointed chamber with a large canopied bed. The floor was covered with fine rugs and the walls were hung with tapestries. There were lights like the ones in Siblea’s office, and like Siblea’s office, it was warm here, though there was no fire. The youth showed her how to turn the lights on and off by a switch near the door, then left her and locked the door behind him.

  She stumbled to the bed and fell upon it, welcoming the black tide of exhaustion that overwhelmed her and obliterated al
l thought.

  She awoke to light streaming in through the windows of the room. She stretched experimentally and winced. Her body ached everywhere. Lying still and staring up at the red-and-yellow spiral pattern in the canopy above the bed seemed like a good thing to do. She thought over her interview with Siblea. So he thought she was this Redeemer of theirs, and evidently that had won her release from the prison.

  Good so far, and yet, if the Eradicants ever came into possession of The Book of the Night, they would force her to translate it for them, and then there would be nothing to stop them from destroying the Libyrinth. But they didn’t have The Book of the Night. Selene had it. Perhaps it was already safe in Ilysies. She clung to that thought.

  When she at last roused herself, she discovered a basin of steaming water on a table in the center of the room. Beside it sat a washcloth, soap, fresh smallclothes, and a neatly folded clean brown robe. She had just finished washing and dressing when a key turned in the lock on her door and the same brown-robed boy from the night before entered with a tray. Breakfast. The smells issuing from the tray awakened her hunger. She sat down in a chair on the other side of the table.

  As the youth approached her with the tray she eyed his robes. They were brown, like her clerk’s robes. The Eradicants wore black, like the Libyrarians did. She thought of Siblea’s tale about Iscarion, but by then the tray had been set before her: smoked fish, bread, barley porridge with honey and cream, a steaming mug of coffee, and a dish of sliced . . . oranges? Yes, oranges. She’d seen them only once before, among the tribute sent from Ilysies in return for the invention of palm-glow.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, poised to devour it all. She glanced up. “What’s your name?”

  The boy, who couldn’t be much older than her, blinked in surprise, and then said, “Gyneth.”