Hanani frowned. “Do you know him, Gatherer?”
“Yes, though I haven’t seen him for ten years. I assumed he’d fled into a pampered exile somewhere in the north.” He fell silent, studying the laborer’s face; his mouth twitched in a wry quirk. “But I should’ve guessed better. He’s his father’s son—and his uncle’s nephew.”
Hanani came over to peer at the man herself, curious. Now that she had the chance to examine him closely, it was easy to see that he was no laborer. He was tall and lean, with the classic narrow eyes and angular features of a highcaste, and coloring only a shade shy of shunha-black. Handsome, if it had not been for the tight-jawed scowl on his face. “Who is he?”
“No one of importance. Though he did risk himself trying to help you …” Nijiri folded his arms, thoughtful. “Perhaps his lineage is worth salvaging after all.”
“Gatherer, I don’t understand.”
“I know.” To Hanani’s shock, he threw her a wry, apologetic look. The expression, so startling after all his enigmatic solemnity, forced her perception of him to shift; abruptly she realized Nijiri had seen only a handful more floods than herself.
“You broke the interdiction,” he said, sobering. “That merchant: you healed him.”
Hanani caught her breath in realization. The interdiction had been the last thing on her mind in the wake of the soldiers, with the injured merchant groaning on the ground before her. Yet Nijiri was on the Council of Paths—neither of the senior Gatherers had the patience for it, rumor held—and so he would be well within his rights to judge her corrupt for violating Yehamwy’s interdiction. “Y-yes. But after such a beating, he could have had bleeding in the vitals, broken bones—” Belatedly it occurred to her that she was making excuses; she sighed and looked away. “Yes, I broke the interdiction.”
“You could have come to the Hetawa to fetch one of your pathbrothers, and brought him back to do the healing. That did not occur to you?”
It should have. “… No.”
“Of course not.” He didn’t seem displeased, to Hanani’s great relief. Indeed, there was a warm, approving look in his eyes that Hanani had never expected to see. “That merchant was in pain, and terrified. If he’d died in that state while you went to fetch help, his soul would’ve been damned to the shadowlands for all eternity.
You did what was right, with no thought of propriety or punishment—as a Servant of Hananja should.” He folded his arms and thought in silence for a long moment. Finally, coming to some decision, he nodded to himself and said, “Would you like to redeem yourself, Apprentice?”
Hanani frowned. “Pardon, Gatherer?”
Nijiri made a gesture and the city street melted away. A dreamscape of rolling dunes appeared in its place, spreading infinitely beneath a cloudless cobalt sky. She thought he intended it to calm her, but she had never been in the desert before. She found the dreamscape unnerving, and somehow lonely.
“You need a new apprenticeship trial,” he said. “Though it’s now obvious you had nothing to do with the deaths of Acolyte Dayuhotem or Merchant Bahenamin, there are those in the Hetawa who will never accept your innocence. They blame you because they fear you.”
“Fear—” Hanani stared at him. “Me?”
“And the changes you represent for the future, yes.” This made no more sense to her, but then, he was a Gatherer. They spoke in the language of dreams. “The only way to silence those voices is to undergo another trial—a trial so indisputably challenging that none of your detractors would ever willingly face it themselves. But if you succeed, no one will ever again question your right to wield magic in the Goddess’s name.”
He fell silent, watching her, and unbidden all the whispers she’d heard about him rose into Hanani’s mind. They said Nijiri had defeated a Reaper; that he had helped bring to justice Gujaareh’s last, mad Prince; that he had brokered the peaceful conquest of Gujaareh so that a minimum of lives were lost. And there were other rumors, less complimentary but more poignant. That he had been apprentice—and more—to the legendary Gatherer Ehiru; that he had Gathered Ehiru himself when the time came.
How does it feel to kill your lover? she wondered, staring at him across the desert his soul had conjured.
His eyes softened abruptly. “No one asked me,” he said, as though he’d heard her thoughts. He might have; such things were possible in dreaming. “I faced my own trial with no choice but to succeed or fail, with my brother’s soul in the balance. But you have a choice, Sharer-Apprentice Hanani. Will you accept the trial I have in mind?”
She swallowed. “What is the trial?”
“Free Gujaareh.”
She stared at him. He smiled.
“A plan is in place. My brothers and I had thought to use your mentor. He has the flexibility we need, but frankly, I was worried about that temper of his. Now, though … I think you would do better for the role we have in mind.”
“Wh—” She could not think. “What role?”
“That I can’t tell you—not yet, or you might play it badly. Suffice it to say, it requires leaving the city, and some danger. Then again, if this plan fails, our entire way of life is doomed. We must act now, or lose everything.” He sighed, gazing out over the rolling dunes. “You’ve proven yourself a healer, Hanani; this is not in question. But do you truly serve Her Law with all your flesh and soul? Will you risk yourself for peace, in waking as well as dreams? That is the test.”
A low, soughing wind blew over the dunes, spinning dust devils in response to the turmoil in Hanani’s mind. Had this been a healing dream she would have forced herself to calm, but with the dream securely in the Gatherer’s control, she was free to feel all the terror she wished. It was not a boon.
And yet she could not deny the truth in his words. She might find enough supporters in the Hetawa to have her trial declared successful, but rumors would always dog her. The healer who had killed. The woman, whose magic could not be trusted. For a moment her fear vanished beneath resentment: it was not fair that she had to face this. No man would have to face this.
But if the world were fair, she would still be a half-literate farm girl with no future beyond crops and keeping house.
So she looked up at him and swallowed. “I will face this new trial, Gatherer.”
He smiled, and for a fleeting moment she saw why Gatherer Ehiru had loved him. “Then come,” he said, and returned them to the waking realm.
But two days passed uneventfully, during which Hanani wondered if her second trial would ever begin. Then one late evening, after another day of pointless routine, a Sentinel appeared at the door of her cell to hand her a small scroll tied with a complex sealing-knot of fine indigo cord. Hanani didn’t recognize the knot—each high-caste family had its own distinct pattern, nothing she had ever learned—but the outer edge of the scroll bore the pictorals of Hanani’s name. Begging a knife from the Sentinel, Hanani cut the knots, unrolled the scroll, and read:
Sharer,
The nightmare has come to me now.
Danneh, Merchant, Wife of Bahenamin-in-dreams
8
Poison
Tiaanet was still awake when Wanahomen groaned and began to shift fitfully in his sleep. She had not slept; she never did when another person was in her bed. When she sat up and struck the lantern, Wanahomen cried out and opened his eyes. She waved a hand before his face, but he did not react. When she laid a hand on his chest, his heart thudded hard and fast against her palm before he twisted away.
Men did not like to be awakened from bad dreams; this Tiaanet understood instinctively. Among Gujaareen, loss of control in dreaming was taken as weakness—even more so for warriors and men of godly lineage. But when Wanahomen cried out a second time, his body arching as if in pain, Tiaanet began to worry that her father would hear. So she shook him once, then harder. Still he did not wake.
So she did the only other thing she could, and touched his dreaming mind with her own.
It worked as well as it somet
imes did with Tantufi. He caught his breath and started awake. “What—”
“A dream.” Tiaanet stroked the beads of sweat from his chest. “Just a dream.”
He frowned, sitting up and pushing one hand into the tumbled mass of his braids. “My father. I saw my father. He was on the steps of the Hetawa. Everything was gray, and the sky …” He swallowed; his free hand was trembling. “Something is wrong in this city.”
She took his hand and pulled it to her lips. It took a moment, but then his eyes drifted to her. She was surprised at the wary look in them, though that vanished as soon as she nibbled at one of his fingertips. A hungry, almost pained look replaced the wariness, and a moment later he reached for her.
“Shall I make you one of my wives when I rule?” As he spoke, he pushed her down onto the bed.
She stroked his hair while he kissed her, resisting the urge to sigh when he lifted his head. “You are the Sunset Prince,” she said. “Whatever you desire shall be yours.”
His eyes searched her face, disturbing in their sharpness. “Have you another lover?”
“No one I want.” Tiaanet reached up to stroke his face. “But you hardly know me, Prince.”
Something even more startling appeared in his face then: loneliness. She had ceased to feel that or anything else years ago, but she saw it in Tantufi’s eyes often enough that she could still recognize it. For that alone, she felt a flicker of sympathy for Wanahomen.
“My father hardly knew my mother when he married her,” he said. “It took him fifteen years to win her love and bed; she was almost past childbearing by the time I was born.” He gave her a half-joking smile. “I’m not as patient as he, but for you, I could try to be.”
“It’s too soon to discuss some things, Prince.” She reached down between them then, which he had not expected; his eyes widened and turned smoky with desire while she stroked him. “But there are other things we might do in the meantime.”
He nodded, mute to the force of his own need, and thankfully said nothing further about love.
The morning had grown late by the time Tiaanet rose and donned a robe. Wanahomen, who had slept more peacefully this time, opened his eyes the moment she moved. “Damnation,” he said, and sat up. “I never meant to stay in the city this long.”
She inclined her head. “May I at least prepare you a bath and a meal before you go?”
He smiled, bemused, and nodded. “Women of the Banbarra are nothing like you,” he said. “They act like queens, expecting men to please them—or else they’re like herders eying breeding stock. I had forgotten what Gujaareen women could be like.”
“I’m not like most Gujaareen women, my Prince.”
He looked abashed, ducking his eyes. “Of course, you are a lady of the shunha. Forgive me; I meant no offense.”
That had not at all been what she’d meant, but she nodded nevertheless.
When the bath was drawn, Tiaanet brought him oils and other toiletries and once again apologized for their lack of servants. Wanahomen assured her that the bath alone was more luxury than he usually enjoyed, and proceeded into the bathroom on his own. She liked that he made no assumptions or crude suggestions that she attend him herself. She could not bring herself to like him, however—for in the end he had used her, the same as her father, and it meant little that he was more considerate about it.
And there could be nothing between them regardless, for someday he would know she was his enemy.
When Tiaanet went into the kitchen to prepare Wanahomen’s meal, her father sat at the table, eating fish and crunchy dates. He lifted an eyebrow as she came in.
“I trust the night went well?” He spoke lightly, but Tiaanet was not fooled. There was a shadow of jealousy in his eyes. Even though the plan for Tiaanet to seduce Wanahomen had been his, he had never liked sharing.
“As well as can be expected,” she said. Moving past him to check the stove, she added more wood and began to warm slices of cured meat for Wanahomen’s meal. “He slept poorly. Bad dreams.”
When she turned, her father had grown tense. “Bad dreams.”
“Tantufi is not here,” she reminded him. In the background she could hear sounds of water from the bathing chamber, which meant that Wanahomen would not overhear.
To her surprise, the reassurance did not calm her father. “I’m told,” he said softly, “that four of the guests who attended Khanwer’s funeral are now dead. The zhinha Zanem and her soldier husband; your mother’s cousin Lord Tun; and a merchant, Bahenamin.”
Tiaanet said nothing to this, frowning as she remembered the people he’d named. Tun had been elderly and married but not above a leering glance at Tiaanet. Zanem and her husband had been cool in their politeness, but that was to be expected from zhinha. Bahenamin, though …
“The last one, the merchant, died in the Hetawa itself,” Sanfi said, “trying to rid himself of a bad dream. The Hetawa boy who tried to take it from him died as well.” He folded his hands, watching her with cold eyes. “Have you any idea how this might have happened, Daughter?”
She thought as fast as she could. “Bahenamin,” she said. “He was the one who wore no wig over his bald spot, wasn’t he? He arrived earlier than all the others.” Yes, now she remembered him. So many of the people who’d come to Khanwer’s funeral had done so only to rub shoulders with their fellow elite. Bahenamin had wept, genuinely mourning a lost friend. “I had Tantufi moved to the field house at midday, but I showed Bahenamin to his quarters before that. He was distraught; he must have lain down to rest despite the hour.”
“And the other three?”
“Bahenamin spent the night with us after the funeral. If Tantufi’s dream was already in him, then anyone who slept in the rooms adjoining his would have been vulnerable.” Never daring to allow accusation to enter her voice or eyes she added, “I was occupied that night, and could not walk the halls to stop any dreaming. And Mother was of course under guard in her room.” Insurret too could chase away bad dreams, if she was so inclined.
Sanfi’s lips twitched; after a moment he stood and began to pace in the tight confines of the kitchen. “Your mother. I never should have married her, beautiful or not. I saw the first signs of her madness even while I courted her, but I needed her wealth …” He stopped and sighed, his fists clenching. “And Tantufi. Every day I wonder why I did not strangle that creature at birth.”
Tiaanet watched him, reading the signs and not liking what she saw. He would brood, she knew. It was what he did whenever his plans were thwarted. He would brood and seethe all the way back to their estate in the greenlands, and when they got there his anger would seek an outlet in Tantufi. She needed to distract him. But how?
“Father?” She pretended to concentrate on grating a shia nut as she spoke. “Does the Hetawa know of these deaths? Have they realized all four visited our house?”
“Not yet.” He sounded even more displeased now. She struggled to think of something else to catch his interest. “Though if the dream spreads beyond those four—”
He paused suddenly, fell silent. Tiaanet poured sweetwine into a cup, set that and the plate on a tray, then lifted the tray. “I must see to our guest, Father.”
“Yes,” he said absently. His eyes were fixed on the table, thoughts racing behind them. She turned to leave, but paused as he called her name.
“Yes, Father?”
“Tantufi,” he said. “If she were brought into the city, how fast would her dream spread?”
So that was the direction of his thoughts. She was not surprised at his cruelty, only at the method he’d chosen. He loathed Tantufi.
“I don’t know, Father,” she said honestly. “But among so many people, living so close to one another, it would probably go quickly.”
He nodded, his eyes lighting as his thoughts progressed. “The Hetawa is a threat to our plans,” he said. “They support the Kisuati these days. But Tantufi’s dream should distract them, should it not?” He smiled at her. “Eventually th
ey’ll cure it, but until then …”
In her mind’s eye, Tiaanet saw Tantufi’s face. The child would weep to be the cause of such suffering. But she would do it, and spread her magic like a poison through the city’s veins, because she could not help herself. And Father would be pleased to see Tantufi’s curse at last put to good use.
“Yes, Father,” Tiaanet said. “I’ll send for her, if you wish.”
“Such a good child you are,” he said. “Do it as soon as our guest leaves.”
9
Courtship
The journey from Gujaareh to the desert was lengthy and boring. To thwart possible pursuers, Wanahomen chose not to go west immediately, instead heading south to one of the upriver towns, where he treated himself to one last hot bath and Gujaareen meal before trading his horse and workman’s guise for his camel and desert robes. Not the veil, of course, or any of the other tribal markers of a Banbarra; he’d even removed all of Laye-ka’s telltale tack and ornaments before leaving for the journey, and stabling her in the town. While he was in the Gujaareen Territories, he was simply a desertman from one of the dozens of small tribes that made their living in Gujaareh’s shadow. Only when Wanahomen reached the foothills, which marked the border between the Blood river valley and the desert, did he adopt the final layers of his Banbarra self: the veil, the looping headcloth, the indigo-and-tan robes.
He spent the journey through the hills in a kind of meditation, his thoughts pressed inward by the rhythm of Laye-ka’s sure gait and the monotonous scenery of sun-seared rock. He had conceived a hundred plans along the journey in, but on this trip his thoughts were occupied by something altogether different.
Did you enjoy that, my Prince? Let me show you more.
Tiaanet. Gods, what a woman. He would marry her, of course. That had been Sanfi’s intention, as obvious as the day was bright, and Wanahomen meant to oblige him. Despite the heat of the day he shivered at the memory of her lips, of her hands working magic on his flesh, of her patience in drawing out his release until he thought he might die of pleasure. How had she learned such skill? It didn’t matter. He had to have her again, and if that meant making Sanfi grandsire to the next royal heir, then so be it.
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