It was improper for a woman of the shunha to greet guests when servants were available to manage that menial task. Arranging herself opposite the entrance of the greeting room, Tiaanet composed herself to wait and wondered what she would do if the Kisuati had discovered her father’s schemes. They would kill him in that event—probably in public, and slowly, in typically brutal Kisuati justice. The lineage would be hers to rule, then, and her mother and Tantufi would fall into her care. But that would happen only if the Kisuati did not judge her guilty along with her father, which they would do unless she pleaded ignorance well enough to convince them. If they had caught any other conspirators, such as the other lords and ladies who had discussed the plot in front of her, they would surely name Tiaanet along with her father. She would not plead ignorance then, but her father’s control. And if they pressed, she would show them Tantufi, and all the secrets would come out.
If Tiaanet had still been able to feel, she might have felt something very like anticipation.
But there was a commotion at the front of the house as the soldiers entered. She heard a servant’s voice rise in protest, followed by the sound of flesh striking flesh—she knew that sound well—and a surprised grunt of pain. Then the soldiers appeared in the greeting room, flanking their leader, and suddenly Tiaanet began to suspect that they had not come for her father after all.
The leader indeed carried a short-handled spear strapped across his back, as the servant girl had reported, in addition to the traditional curved sword at his hip. But the girl was servant-caste and ignorant; of course the spear was all she had noticed. Tiaanet noted entirely different things: like the fact that the man was shorter than most Kisuati, though lean and well-muscled, and there was more than a hint of westerner in his rounded features. He wore his hair loose, unlike most people of either Gujaareh or Kisua—slicked down into a neat oiled cap and cut blunt to the length of his ears. And in place of the loose cloth drape that most Kisuati captains wore about their shoulders, this man wore a thick black-furred pelt, held in place with an elaborate ivory clasp. The originator of that pelt had perhaps also been the former owner of the teeth that adorned the man’s necklace.
A hunter: a member of one of Kisua’s oldest and most honored castes, though their glory and numbers had dwindled in the past few centuries.
“You are the Lady Insurret, of shunha caste, out of the lineage of Insawe?” the man asked, then checked himself. His Sua accent was strong; even knowing the tongue herself, it took Tiaanet a breath to adjust to his choppy, oddly-inflected Gujaareen. “No, you are too young. You would be Lady Tiaanet, her daughter.”
“I am,” Tiaanet said, with a careful bow that acknowledged the man’s rank, and nothing more. “And you are?”
“Bibiki Seh Jofur,” he said. “A captain of Kisua, lately attached to the Protectorate in Gujaareh. Where is Insurret?”
“She is indisposed,” Tiaanet said. She had told that lie so often that it came easily to her lips, and it seemed safer than asking what had happened to her door-servant. “I’ve managed her affairs for some while now, with her and my father’s permission. May I convey a message to her on your behalf?”
“You may escort my men to her quarters,” he replied, “and then you may come along with us yourself.”
For a moment, Tiaanet was certain she had misheard him. “My mother is—”
“Now, please.” Bibiki smiled, all politeness. “We have far to go, and I would like to be back in the city by nightfall.”
“What is this?” Sanfi came into the room, indoor-shirted and still dabbing at his forehead with a cloth to wipe away the moisture from his bath. He looked frightened to Tiaanet’s experienced eyes, which meant that he acted belligerent and angry as he spoke to Bibiki. “Who are you? The servants tell me—”
“Ah, Lord Sanfi,” said Bibiki. “I’m pleased to meet you at last. I have heard a great deal about you.” With a flick of one hand he signaled the two soldiers on his right. They immediately crossed the room and passed Sanfi, heading into the house. Sanfi caught his breath and turned to protest, but they ignored him.
“What is this?” Sanfi demanded.
“A service requested of all the Gujaareen noble families by your Protectors.” Bibiki assumed a relaxed stance, his hands folded behind his back, a congenial look on his face that fooled no one. “It would appear that some of the Gujaareen nobility—we’re not certain which, alas—have begun to plot against our governance. I find that hard to believe, particularly in the case of families like yours that have striven so honorably to keep the ideals of our homeland. But until we’re able to single out the villains, I regret that your women must enjoy the hospitality of the Protectors for an indeterminate length of time.”
At an unseen signal from Bibiki, one of the remaining soldiers came to stand near Tiaanet.
“This is ridiculous.” Sanfi looked at the soldier near Tiaanet, then down the corridor where the other two had gone, then at Bibiki again. He was trembling with anger, barely in control of himself. “You’re taking them hostage? We’ve served Kisua faithfully—”
“Yes, yes,” said Bibiki, and now his voice held an edge that made Tiaanet tense, though he maintained his polite smile. “Faithfully, without a doubt. By the way, we won’t have any trouble from your household soldiers, will we? I didn’t notice any, coming in across your fields. How do you defend yourselves against the Banbarra and other raiders?”
Sanfi fell silent, his expression swiftly turning to calculation. The estate’s hired soldiers had left the day before, to join the army gathering in the foothills. Bibiki had already known this, Tiaanet realized; otherwise he wouldn’t have come with only an eight of soldiers. Sanfi knew it now too.
“Captain,” called one of the soldiers in Sua, from the back of the house. Then and only then did Tiaanet realize the true danger. Since their return from the city the night before, Tantufi had been ensconced temporarily in a storage room until they could move her to the field house, which Tiaanet had planned to have the servants do after nightfall. But if the soldiers were searching the house—
“No,” Tiaanet whispered. Bibiki glanced at her speculatively, and then glided around them and headed into the house to see what his men had found. Tiaanet heard murmured voices, and then a few moments later the men emerged. One of the soldiers guided Insurret by the arm. The other soldier carried Tantufi.
Tantufi could not walk. Years of being chained to the floor had done their work on her body: her legs were spindly, the muscles atrophied to uselessness. Despite the sleep she had been permitted in Gujaareh, the toll of years without proper rest still showed in her slack, prematurely aged face; in her gaunt limbs, thin hair, and dull skin; and most of all in her huge, mad eyes. The soldier had her in his arms, resting her against one hip; her head lolled back. “Mama Mama Mama Mama,” she whispered. The chain that the soldiers must have broken to get her free—Sanfi kept the key hidden from Tiaanet—dangled from one ankle.
Tiaanet immediately stepped toward Tantufi, but the soldier who’d taken up position near her caught Tiaanet’s arm and pulled her back. Insurret, who had been shuffling docilely along in the soldier’s grip, flinched at the sound of Tantufi’s voice. “What is that doing here?”
Sanfi stepped toward Bibiki. “You cannot—” Another soldier pointed a sword at Sanfi before he could get close; Sanfi stopped at once.
“Lord Sanfi,” Bibiki said reproachfully. He stared at Tantufi in frank curiosity. “I was told you had only the daughter, and your wife.”
“Please,” Sanfi said. “My wife is ill. And that child—” He looked at Tantufi and away. “You can see she’s ill too. Please, let them go, and my Tiaanet.”
In another life, under other circumstances, Tiaanet might have smiled. Her father would never have pleaded for either Insurret or Tantufi by herself.
“What’s wrong with them?” Bibiki cupped and lifted Tantufi’s head with surprising gentleness, peering into her rolling eyes. Tiaanet’s belly unknott
ed a little as he took such obvious care not to hurt the girl.
“A longtime complaint,” Sanfi said. “It afflicts some women of the lineage. They need constant care.”
Bibiki gave him a mild look. “They can have constant care in the city.”
Tiaanet stepped forward again, though not so far that her soldier jerked her back. “Respectfully, sir, my father and I, and our servants, know best how to care for them. In the city—”
“I won’t take them to the Hetawa for healing, if that’s what you fear. Naturally we hunters, like you of the shunha, could never condone such a thing.” Bibiki nodded to the soldier, indicating that he should cup Tantufi’s head himself, which the man did. Then Bibiki gestured for both men to leave with Tantufi and Insurret.
In a flash, Insurret went wild, lunging at Tantufi with hands like claws. “Get that monster out of my sight! Drown it—burn it—beat it—kill it, get it away, get it out of my head, get it out of this world!”
The soldier who held her was so startled that he almost lost his grip. That was enough for Insurret to get her hands on Tantufi’s sparse curls. She gave the girl’s head a savage yank, plainly trying to break her neck. Her face was a rictus of glee, her voice a screech. “Drown it burn it beat it—”
“No!” Tiaanet grabbed her mother’s arm before she could give Tantufi another yank. “Mother, no!”
The soldier got hold of Insurret again and hauled her back, but Insurret clung to Tantufi’s hair like a leech, snarling incoherent violence now. Of them all, only Tantufi was silent—and calm, even as Insurret managed to give her head another tug. Sanfi stepped forward, scowling; Bibiki reached for his short spear; but Tiaanet had had enough.
She put her face right in front of Insurret’s manic one, forcing her mother to look at her. “This is why he hates you,” she said.
Insurret flinched back from her. She stopped struggling; her arm went slack. “Wh-what?”
“Look at you.” Tiaanet filled her voice with contempt. It was not difficult. “A selfish, hate-filled beast, blind to the pain of your own flesh and blood, so spiteful you would even kill a child. Why would any man want you?”
Insurret’s eyes filled with tears. “But, but—” Her face twisted. She let go of Tantufi’s hair and covered her face with that hand. “You don’t understand what it was like. Carrying you, your dreams always whispering at me, pushing and pulling at my soul—” But then her mood changed again, dream-swift, and she glared at Tiaanet from between her fingers. “Ah, but I forget. You do know what it’s like, don’t you? Betraying whore.”
She drew back her head and would have spat on Tiaanet, but Tiaanet slapped her so hard that her head turned aside. Insurret blinked, looking startled. Tiaanet turned to Bibiki.
“As you can see, sir, my father was correct.” She tried to keep her tone flat and could not; she was too angry, actually angry, at what Insurret had done to Tantufi. Her voice reverberated with the force of her fury. “Only he and I can care for these family members properly.”
But Bibiki was staring at her. He looked at Tantufi, then at Tiaanet again, and narrowed his hunter’s eyes. “I see,” he said softly. “The child is your daughter, not your sister.”
Tiaanet said nothing, though inwardly a great knot of tension unraveled. Was that relief? She thought perhaps it was. It took everything she had not to smile at Bibiki. Go on, she thought—hungered, pleaded. You see so much so well, hunter. See the rest, will you? Say it aloud.
Sanfi went stiff beside her, though he put on a smile.
“You guess correctly, sir,” Sanfi said. He put just the right touch of embarrassment into his voice: the respectable nobleman, forced to admit a shameful but minor family secret. Tiaanet wondered if he had been practicing those words in his mind for the past six years. “We sent her to live with relatives in Kisua for a year when we learned of her condition. Some local boy, not at all suitable; we had to keep her marriage prospects clear. Surely you understand, if you’re a family man yourself.”
“I am not, as yet,” Bibiki said, and threw him a look of cool contempt. “But if I were, I doubt I would be so depraved as to impregnate my own daughter.”
Tiaanet closed her eyes for a moment, savoring the feeling of being without secrets. She could love this Bibiki, if she were still capable of love for anyone but Tantufi.
Sanfi flinched at that, truly thrown for the first time in Tiaanet’s memory. “I—” he said. He opened his mouth once or twice more, but in the end fell silent. Perhaps he had not practiced that particular response.
Bibiki nodded to himself. “Well. It seems you have many things to contemplate, Lord Sanfi.” He turned then, gesturing for the soldiers to fall in behind him. The one who had come to stand near Tiaanet reached for her arm to pull her along. Tiaanet walked forward before he could touch her.
“Tiaanet—” Sanfi’s voice was anguished. Tiaanet turned back to gaze at him; he stepped forward. “Tiaanet, I never meant—It wasn’t—You understand, don’t you?”
She had never understood. In all the years since he had first climbed into her bed, and all the cruelties since, she had never understood what drove him to do the things he did. After a time she had ceased to care, for what did it matter why he did them? Yet the habit of obeying her father, pleasing him, was too ingrained for Tiaanet to ignore, even now.
“I do, Father,” she said. His face lit at once with relief and joy.
“Don’t worry,” he said, his expression fierce. “I’ll go to the Protectors themselves, if I must, to get you free. Don’t worry.”
She was not worried. She did not care what happened to her, or to him or Insurret for that matter. She did not care what the Kisuati, who had never done her harm, thought of her bearing a child by her father. They had already shown more kindness and attention to Tantufi than her own family had. Nothing they did to her could be worse than what she’d already been through.
But Tiaanet inclined her head to her father. He could still be useful to her, after all. Then she stepped closer to Tantufi.
Bibiki regarded her contemplatively throughout this exchange, as if he had guessed her chain of thought. Perhaps he had; she had never made much of an effort to conceal such things. (She’d never needed to. Sanfi saw what he wanted to see.) When Bibiki inclined his head to her in a gesture that might have been one of respect, or simple courtesy, she nodded back. He could be useful to her too. That was the most important lesson her father had taught her, long ago: anyone could be used. No one could be trusted.
The Kisuati marched out, leading Tiaanet, her mother, and her daughter away.
39
The War Begins
Hanani woke to the sound of a hand slapping at the walls of her tent. “Wake, little mouse,” said Yanassa’s voice through the camel hide. “I know that fool gave you no time to sleep, but you have much to do.”
Blinking away grogginess, Hanani sat up, finding herself covered by a light cloth. The space among the cushions where Wanahomen had lain was empty, and he had left the tent-flaps untied on his way out.
“Enter,” she said absently in Chakti. Yanassa poked her head in, then slipped inside.
“He would have left before dawn,” Yanassa said gently, reading Hanani’s confusion. She came over and knelt beside Hanani, peremptorily reaching up to begin untwisting Hanani’s hair. “Many preparations to be made before the army rides out. Ah, he gave it to you!” Hanani’s leg had slipped free of the blanket; Yanassa pointed at the amber anklet.
Hanani felt her cheeks heat, though she resisted the urge to hide her ankle; there was no point now that Yanassa had already seen it. “Yes.”
Yanassa patted Hanani on the shoulder. “He should have given it to you at once, of course, but don’t think less of him. He was never taught proper male behavior. Now, you understand how things must go between you?” She got Hanani’s hair loose and rose to fetch new hair ornaments from the nearby jewelry box.
“Go?” Puzzled, Hanani reached for her breast-wrap
pings and began searching for the knotted end. After Mni-inh’s death, Yanassa had come to offer comfort—and apologies, for her harsh words in the matter of the Shadoun woman. In Gujaareh Yanassa would have been required to offer apologies to the Goddess as well, for her unpeaceful willingness to see another person murdered in such a horrific fashion. The Gatherers might have gotten involved, evaluating her soul for signs of corruption; she would almost certainly have had to pay an extra tithe, and undergo ritual purification at the Hetawa or a satellite temple, at the very least. But here in the desert, the matter was settled by the apology alone, and Yanassa had resumed their friendship as if the incident had never occurred. Hanani was still struggling to catch up.
“You may not lie with another man for one full month, or until your blood next comes, whichever happens first,” Yanassa said, finger-combing Hanani’s hair. The twists had left it in tangled curls, which fortunately Yanassa seemed to know how to handle. “A man deserves at least that much of a chance to prove his value before you discard him. Now, obviously you’ve seen that you need not make your invitation in public again. You may also visit his tent, if the mood takes you and the mistress of his an-sherrat is agreeable—” Abruptly she sighed. “Though with this war business, knowing Wana, he may refuse you. He never allows himself a luxury when his men do without.”
Abandoning the effort to dress with dignity, Hanani drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them while Yanassa tended her hair. Wanahomen had spent hours on her the night before, massaging and caressing her long after their first passion was spent. I want you to miss me when you return to the Hetawa, he had told her, while doing things that had left her breathless and needful again. If you must face punishment for lying with me, then I should at least give you pleasure worth the price, shouldn’t I? Then he had given her more, and more still, until she’d at last fallen into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.
The Shadowed Sun: Dreamblood: Book 2 Page 36