by Lori Martin
He was pleased to report that his own men had arrested the criminal Nichos and his family at an obscure town in the southwest. They were being returned here, even now, in chains.
The Chamber rang with cheers. Haol was lauded on all sides for his quick action. Imagine, the excited Assembly members said to one another, Imagine what might have happened, if he had been less vigilant! How lucky we are, to have such a leader!
Haol held up his hand, modestly, and asked again for the Assembly’s attention. Remember, he reminded them solemnly, this relas himself, this Paither, still eludes us. We must find him, destroy him, mobilize all of Mendale against him if necessary. And it is imperative that we clamp down more firmly on Lindahne itself. The full force of the Oversettle must be brought to bear, to beat the lins down.
As he spoke, a quick thought of the archer Scayna flashed through his mind. She had requested a transfer back to her old Band, which was being sent to Lindahne. He had granted it. She was no longer of use, and if she remained she might be an embarrassment.
Meanwhile, his tongue rolled on. Flood the foothills with our brave soldiers, he cried. Send our sturdy Bands against these primitives! At his every pause, the members roared their approval. Second Tribune Rhonna writhed in her seat.
The relas was going to be difficult, that much was clear. He whirled back and forth, back and forth, from one end of the room to the other, planning a rescue aloud. Samalas, Mejalna, and Renasi sat glumly at the table, avoiding each other’s eyes.
They agreed they could rely on the information, which had come straight from Extos, the Defier who still passed as a bread baker in the Assemblage House. Extos’s role in the abduction had gone undetected; he had been safe in MenDas all through the attack on their headquarters and its aftermath. In fact, he had learned of the planned attack only hours before it began, but it had been too late to warn them. This time he reported an accomplished fact: Masters Nichos and Baili, Mistress Pillyn, and even a little girl had all been arrested. They were being kept at a holding-house outside of the city – locked in, it was said, with Queen Ayenna. Their fates were undecided. “Or at least,” Extos had written, “unannounced.”
“Their fate is with Mother Nialia,” Mejalna said meaningfully. Paither was in a determined temper, a willful anger that different companions – older Lindahnes – would have recognized as a royal rage. How much of it he directed at his own soul they couldn’t tell, nor had they found a way to calm it. He muttered, “A side assault would be better.” Samalas drummed his fingers.
Mejalna decided to try again. “Relas, please. We can’t storm a heavily protected holding-house. We’ve only got a handful of fighters left. And the very people we’d be trying to save would be killed before we could reach them.”
“If we could reach them,” Renasi said.
Paither paced past them, deaf.
“Relas. Relas, please, sit down a moment.” He paid no heed. She
burst out, “Paither! Please.” He gripped the arm of her chair, leaning over her. His breath was hot. “We’ll recall our Squads. There must be a way to –”
“There isn’t,” she said. “There isn’t.”
He straightened. His eyes flew across their frightened, stubborn faces. “And if the Mendales kill them?”
“Maybe they won’t.”
“And if they do?”
Samalas said flatly, “Then they’ll be dead.”
Paither advanced on him. His scar stood out white against his flushed cheeks. “I know you don’t care much for Mendales, or perhaps even their Lindahne kin. But what about the queen? You were willing to be daring on her behalf once before.”
“Not daring. Desperate.”
“And why not now?”
The other three exchanged looks, astonished. Renasi said, “But now we have you, relas.”
He laughed. It had a mean sound. “I see. One royal’s as good as another, is that it?”
“That remains to be seen,” Samalas fired back.
He walked away. His tread became heavier and slower. Finally he halted. “A ranfox.” They were silent. “Haven’t you ever seen one trapped in the spring? A good hunter can find the lair, and drag out the kits. The mother will come for them, you know, when she hears them crying. She’ll walk right into the trap.”
Samalas looked affronted, Renasi bewildered, but Mejalna began to understand. “You mean you feel –”
“Haol’s playing me for the ranfox. I realize it now. That’s why he’s imprisoned them all together, even with the queen, when you would think he’d split them up. He’s baiting me. He’s saying, ‘Come save them – and then I’ll have you.’ Name of Nialia, I’d almost forgotten how clever he is.” He added, “At least it means he’ll keep them alive.”
Well, at least he’d seen reason. But he had made up his own mind. Their words had hardly swayed him. Across the table Mejalna saw, with some sympathy, Samalas’s angry flush. After all, he had begun the Defiers, and he served them single-mindedly. He had never been deflected from his course. But here was their new relas, the heir they had always longed for, centering his own concern on a Mendale he insisted on claiming as kin.
And he’s only the relas because of me, she said to herself rebelliously. The thought shamed her. It was petty; moreover, it was impious, because Paither’s authority had been willed by the goddess.
Even so. If I hadn’t brought him here, he’d still be haunting the halls of the Assemblage House. He owes it to me. He owes it to Samalas, who acknowledged him to his own cost. And he turns our advice away like nothing.
Samalas said, “Then if you’ve decided against a rescue, relas, may we move on to other things?” Paither gave the faintest nod of consent. “We’ve been here over a moon with, as Mejalna says, just a handful left here. We’ve abandoned the other camps. Most of our people are living under Mendale identities or trying to head back to Lindahne. The unfortunate are in Mendale prisons. And as we should not forget, many more have been dragged off dead, and their corpses used for public sport.” He paused, to get control of his voice.
Renasi said, “We’ve survived. The Defiers have survived. We can go on.”
“So we all believe. But we’re at a crossroads.” He looked at Paither. “I for one would very much like to know, relas, what we’re going to do. You’ve said nothing. At least, you’ve said nothing to me.”
Mejalna looked fixedly at the table. The relas said, “We’ll discuss it in the morning. See if the sentries are in good order, please, Renasi, before you turn in for the evening.”
“Yes, relas.”
After a few tense moments, during which Mejalna made no movement, Samalas followed him out. The door closed.
She gave her familiar shrug, tossing back her long hair. Paither said, “I’m failing him again. My father – I mean the father of my childhood. It’s always happened this way, this has always been my portion. Do you think it could be a punishment from Nialia?”
“What crime do you think you committed to deserve it?”
“It was said my very conception was a crime.” He moved closer to her chair.
She touched his sleeve, without looking up. “You have to live up to your true parents, Paither. You mustn’t fail them. Are you going back to Lindahne?”
“How warm your hand is. I can feel it through the linen. Back? I’ve never been there... you know, the Defiers are only sun sparks on the surface water. Have you ever heard of the flying fish that leap up from the Sea? They skim above it, like ambassadors sent from the deep, then they splash down and disappear. And far below the water is teeming with unknown life. We haven’t yet sounded the depths of Lindahne.”
“Will you raise an army, then?”
“Yes. The raids and the hangings and the abductions are over. Samalas is right, we’re at a crossroads. The Mendales struck us one hard blow, but the war hasn’t even begun.”
The next day Paither and Samalas worked out the details together. Samalas greatly approved the new plans but was anno
yed not to have been consulted. He was somewhat mollified to see the relas accept his suggestions on certain tactics. Back in the early days he had developed ways of maintaining almost an army discipline among scattered Defiers; the relas adopted his methods.
They would keep a small force in Mendale. The Defiers who had successfully melted into Mendale life would be an important link later, when the fighting had begun.
“Renasi, you’ll stay in Mendale,” he said at their last meeting. They would all leave on the morrow. “We’ll need you to coordinate things here. It’s early yet to plan our full campaign, but it’s more than probable that we’ll want to attack in Lindahne and push from here simultaneously; you should keep everyone ready to go.”
Renasi, surprised, bowed and murmured his thanks. It was a high appointment, and he wasn’t quite sure if he deserved the honor. Evidently the relas was not holding a grudge over their earlier antagonism. But still – “Relas,” he blurted, “Samalas is your High Commander. Surely he –”
“We mustn’t question the relas’s judgment,” Samalas said, too sharply.
“I’ll need you with me in Lindahne,” Paither said to him. Samalas’s expression remained stony. Paither said quietly, “If I should fall in battle, or the Mendales should capture me, you would be needed to take my place.”
Samalas’s face suddently went slack, giving him a silly look. He said huskily, “I see. Thank you. Thank you, relas.”
No one spoke of what was to be Mejalna’s assignment. She sat wordlessly throughout the rest of the arrangements. She was ranked second to Samalas, above Renasi; it was really her right to direct the operations in Mendale. Instead, without explanation, it was clear she was to travel with the relas. Her eyes cut across Paither’s. They both looked away.
“As for this business of my sister,” Paither continued, “your people should keep an eye out for her, Renasi. Let’s not say who she really is right now, just give out that I want our escaped prisoner back.”
“It won’t be easy to find one enemy archer in all of Mendale.”
“No. Especially as she’s probably not here. But we have to try.”
“Probably not –?”
“Never mind, we can’t count on my hunches. As I keep being reminded, I’m hardly a Nialian.”
In another hour they were ready to go. The relas clapped Renasi’s shoulder and gave him a ceremonial kiss, wishing the gods’ blessings on him. “And you, relas,” Renasi said.
Mejalna kissed him, too. “May Nialia hold you beloved.”
“May her grace light your path. You take care of yourself, my girl. Samalas? Farewell to you. The gods’ luck.” He waved after them, feeling a little glum.
Find the relas’s sister! She could be anywhere.
Chapter 18
Scayna saddled up her army horse and went beyond the gates of MenDas in the new morning light. She had been returned to her former Band; Chilhi Bhanay had muttered a welcome and
looked away. Tomorrow they would begin the journey to Lindahne. The holding-house was an ancient building, constructed in the misty time of the infamous Shadow Tribune, who had tried to consolidate his power through murder, false arrests and unspeakable tortures. The many holding-houses he had left behind still stood, most still in use, though the chambers of pain had been sealed off.
The house was as famous now as its new prisoners, the former lin queen and the disgraced Tribune Nichos and his family. Curious groups stood here and there around the granite walls; occasionally they drew together to chant insults up at the narrow slanting windows high above.
Accustomed as she was to the three-storied artisan buildings of the capital, Scayna was taken aback by the structure’s height. It was a fortress of grey glaring rock. She could see it far down the approaching road, as she passed little knots of stragglers. These people were the kin of the house’s ordinary prisoners; they were permitted to bring small gifts or letters from time to time. Each parcel was opened and inspected by the gate guards, each letter read in full, and it was well known that half the gifts never made it to the intended recipients. Actual visits with the prisoners were forbidden.
She reined in her horse before the entry gate and watched the pathetic procession of kinfolk. A ragged bearded man stepped up and handed over his bundle. One of the guards stripped off the outer covering and shrugged: some sort of heavy clothing, which had evidently seen too much use to be of interest to him. The garment was flung on a growing pile; the next person was waved up. The ragged man stepped back, glancing up the rock face. He ran his fingers along the surrounding wall, feeling the stone. Another guard ordered him to be off.
She watched him limp down the road, wondering who he loved, and might never see again, in this twilight world. A burst of laughter went up from a group of curiosity-seekers; the regular visitors ignored them. Scayna glanced over. They were staging a cruel pantomime, a highly inaccurate re-enactment of Nichos’s arrest. The woman acting as his lin-wife fell into an elaborate, comical faint. The crowd roared again.
Her eyes shot up to the high windows. The holding-house brooded sightlessly, unmindful of the disrespect. It had been here before them. It would be here after.
She didn’t ask herself why she had come, and the ancient building did not question her either. She only wondered if the former queen was happier in her new surroundings – a strange thought, perhaps, until you considered the consuming loneliness of her previous confinement. And poor Tribune Nichos was imprisoned again, after such a short release; would the Mendale guards be as kind as the lins had been? She knew he would be dragging on his pipe in impatience; she almost wished she could go in and speak with him. And what would she say?
No visitors, no former contacts who could be a bad influence. At some time in her haphazard schooling, in one town or another, she and the other girls had been asked to admire the holding-house system. She clearly remembered the pride of their instructor, who pointed out how soft and silly the lin system was by comparison; in that country law-breakers were judged by their own Hill’s council – by people who knew them, in other words – and worked out their punishments by serving the loathsome lin temples. Even when the lins finally imprisoned someone, they would keep him in a holding-house near his own village; they would even let him be visited by friends.
You aren’t cruel enough, she thought, looking up. You aren’t a cruel enough people. But cruelty was not strength. There had been a finer courage that day in the queen, defenseless and aging as she was, than Chilhi Bhanay had possessed with all the might of the Assembly behind her. That young man, the one they were calling relas, he had had it, too. A child falling into the heart of the fire and not crying out...
Perhaps that was what the Lindahnes meant by “royal.” Compare that to Tribune Haol and his selfish scheming. How dare we know better? And the Lindahnes claim it all comes from their gods – one goddess, wasn’t it, in particular?
“Goddess,” she said aloud, and then thought to lower her voice. “Goddess of the Lindahnes, I’m to be brought into your country to work against your people. But –” she paused. “But I don’t wish to spill Lindahne blood. If you do exist, spare me that. Grant me that, for the sake of your own, if not for mine.” It was her first prayer. Perhaps it was why she had come, for when she had finished she turned the horse’s head, and rode away.
Sitting at one of the high windows above, Mistress Pillyn did not remark her; she was staring down in disgust at the pantomime. “If they see you,” Nichos said, “they’ll only go on.”
She turned back into the room. Queen Ayenna was embroidering in the tiny alcove Nichos had curtained off for her. The drape was open; she looked up occasionally to smile over at little Calli, who was playing on the floor with the grey cat. When they had come for her, Ayenna had demanded, imperiously, that the cat go with her; the soldiers, who were ashamed to jail a harmless old woman, had obeyed her.
Nichos paced up and down in long slow strides. He had more room here than in the Defiers’ hut.
On his last look-in the guard had taken pleasure in informing them that a new Third Tribune had been installed in office. Haol’s candidate.
As he brushed by Baili murmured, “So now they can pronounce sentence on the queen, if they still wish.” “Why would Haol bother? It’s Paither he wants now.” They both looked over at Ayenna. Her hands had stilled; she was in pain again. Nichos whispered, “In any case, I don’t think it’s going to matter soon.” Their eyes met in understanding. Nichos went back to pacing.
Pillyn brought the queen a goblet of wine and settled beside her. Ayenna’s hand shook. She waved the wine away with a brief smile of gratitude. Her eyes closed; her lips paled to white. The tips of her fingers were blue.
“My queen, you should lie down,” Pillyn said with alarm. Ayenna shook her head silently, and held up one hand to say, It will pass in a moment. After a time she took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “There, that’s better. It’s only a weakness in my chest. Don’t look so worried, my dear.”
As Scayna had guessed, the queen was happier than she had been in years. She had never expected release; she had lived for news of her grandson. And what news! He was acknowledged by the Defiers as her daughter’s heir, and he would return finally to his people, to live out the fate Nialia had weaved for him. And now they knew the girl-child had also been spared, a blessing she had never even thought to pray for. Firedust hair, Pillyn had said, just like Dalleena’s (which had been enough to convince Ayenna that the archer she had met was the same girl). Two children of her daughter’s blood, of her husband’s blood. If only Raynii... no, she would not harbor regrets. Her own time must be coming. The pains were harder than they had ever been and lasted longer. The change to damp quarters – not to mention the holding-house’s appalling food – had given her a bad turn. But the goddess had been kind: her loneliness had been eased, here at the end. She smiled into Pillyn’s worried eyes and patted her hand. “I wonder what they’ll say in Lindahne,” she said.
The oppressed have ways of speaking across official silences to one another. As the Mendales trumpeted news of the smashing of the rebel headquarters, the people of Lindahne drew together and waited for real information. The bodies of the Defiers had finally been flung into mass graves outside MenDas; the unknown dead would not be returning to their kin. But if the Mendales could give no identity to the fallen, or place names or families to these lost young faces, there were those among the Five Hills who could. From the First Hill to the shores of the Sea, the Lindahnes waited to learn whose homes had been touched by death.