by J. S. Bangs
“And Navran,” Mandhi said, “we have to move quickly. We haven’t the food or the time to bring a woman of her age with us.”
“We have to,” Navran said. “You see how she lives. I’m amazed she’s not dead already.” Bhundi listened to this with no apparent reaction.
Mandhi shook her head. “You have greater responsibilities, now. You can save her later, if Ruyam doesn’t destroy us all first.”
“I can’t leave her again.”
“And where was this scruple when you left her for the first time?”
He clenched his mouth shut and took a step back. He glanced at his mother, who watched them with a guileless, indifferent expression. What Mandhi said was true, after all. I will stay here with her, he wanted to say, but that would be death for all of them. “Then we leave her what we can of our food. She might starve otherwise. We can make it to Virnas begging for Thikram’s blessing if we have to.”
Mandhi made a noise of disgust. “You’ll get me used to begging soon.”
“There are worse things.”
“Well, I admire your loyalty, but don’t forget that your true debt is to our father Cauratha in Virnas. You can come back for her when this is over. She’s not your real mother anyway.”
“What?” Bhundi said.
Mandhi bowed to Bhundi. “I do not mean to disparage your generosity, Bhundi. You did a good thing, taking Navran in when your husband found him, and I intend to honor you for it. But he is my brother, and right now he has other duties.”
Bhundi looked from Mandhi to Navran, then burst out laughing. “What has this woman told ye?”
The hair on Navran’s arms stood up. The room began to tilt around him.
Mandhi stepped forward. Her voice warbled in a note of panic. “Navran is the son of Cauratha. You raised him as a foundling. Isn’t that the case?”
“I birthed that boy on my knees as sure as any mother. Why think ye any other?”
Mandhi whirled and seized Navran’s hand, tearing the iron ring off of it and shoving it into his mother’s face. “This. This is the sign of the children of Cauratha. Where did Navran get it?”
“Oh, that thing. His pa brought it back from Virnas. He was selling thread then got trapped there when that wicked thikratta came out of Majasravi. He said he bought it. But I did not believe him, ye ken? He told me the truth in the end. A dead child, killed in the fighting with his mother, had it on him. He stole it and brought it back. It’s an ugly thing, aye, but finely etched. Pity it weren’t gold.” She looked at Navran with mild regret. “I never told ye. Never thought it could cause trouble.”
Navran felt as if he were drunk. The floor rocked, and his legs were water. He collapsed against the brick and felt Gocam’s hand on his shoulder. Mandhi stood before him, the ring still held aloft. Her knuckles were white where she clenched it. “Is that the truth?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Do you swear that’s the truth?”
“Aye, it be true.” Bhundi’s gaze skittered from Mandhi to Navran and back, unable to understand what she had said to provoke such a reaction.
Mandhi seized Navran by the collar of his kurta and heaved him to his feet. “Liar!” she screamed. “Pretender! Usurper!”
Before Navran could regain his balance, Mandhi dragged him to the door and hurled him through the curtain. He landed face-down in the flooded street, and before he could wipe the mud from his eyes Mandhi was on top of him, clawing at his neck and beating his head with her fists.
“Give it to me,” she said. “Give it to me!”
“Give what?”
Mandhi kicked him in the side until he rolled onto his back. A moment later she knelt on his chest, scrabbling at the cord around his neck that held the pouch with the other rings. Navran grabbed her wrists and pushed her off. She struck back, raked her fingernails across his face, and grabbed at the cord.
“Liar,” she screamed. “He died to get you back.”
“Mandhi,” Navran gasped. “Please.” He pushed her aside and tried to sit upright. The mud under his knees slipped and sent him pitching forward.
“I’ll have you cast out,” she said. She slapped at him and lunged. “I should have left you with Ruyam.”
Perhaps you should have, he thought. A wave of sickness passed over him, and he fell into the mud. Mandhi lunged at him, and he grabbed her wrists.
Then a voice like a thunderclap stopped them both. “Enough.”
Gocam stood over them. His eyes were storm clouds, his expression sharp enough to cut wool. “Get up, Mandhi.”
Navran let go of her wrists. She rose and stared at Gocam with the furious, defiant look of a scolded child.
“The rings are not his,” she said. “He is not my brother. He defiles them by touching them.”
“Are you the Heir?” Gocam asked.
“No.”
“The rings belong to the Heir, and the thikratta of Ternas kept them in trust. I have given them to Navran until the Heir can claim them. They are not yours.”
“Fine,” she spat. “But the ring he wears—”
“The ring was a gift from his father, just as yours was a gift from your father. On what grounds will you take it from him?”
“It belongs to the children of the Heir!” Her chest heaved with the fury of her accusation.
“And when we reach the Heir, we’ll ask him what his judgement is.”
“But Taleg!” And suddenly she began to sob, great fat tears running down her face like monsoon floods. “We went to Majasravi for him, for this slob, this drunkard, this thief. For nothing!”
Gocam stepped forward and put his hands on her checks. “My child,” he said quietly. He kissed her forehead. “We should be alone. Navran, wait for us here.”
He took her by the hand and led her behind the house into the shade of a dripping banyan. Bhundi stood in the door of the house, her eyes wide, watching Gocam and Mandhi leave. Navran staggered up and wiped the mud from his clothes.
“The Heir?” Bhundi asked. “What does that woman talk about?”
“I can’t explain,” Navran said. “Mandhi should do it, when they get back.” His knees were shaking, and his thoughts churned like floodwaters.
For the first time the cold bitterness of her face seemed to melt a little. “My boy,” she said, “ye done a hard time, too, it seems. Come inside.”
* * *
Mandhi’s eyes were harrowed with tears when she and Gocam returned. She glanced once at Navran, then closed her eyes and sat on the mat near the wall. She hung her head between her knees and did not look up. Navran swallowed the shame in his throat. A trickle of pity for her ran down his chest.
“We have things to tell you,” Gocam said to Bhundi as he sat on the reed mat by the door. “Whether by design or by chance, you and Navran are caught up in this now. I will be honest but brief.”
And so he was, beginning with Cauratha the Heir of Manjur, Navran’s adoption into the house at Virnas, the kidnapping in Jaitha, his captivity with Ruyam, and their flight from Ternas. Sometime during the story the rain resumed. His mother seemed at first to disbelieve, with her brows furrowed and lips pursed. But as the story went on her eyes widened, and her jaw relaxed. When Gocam finished her face held only amazement.
“But,” Gocam said at the end, “you say he’s the child of your flesh.”
Bhundi nodded. “As sure as I live. I’m sorry ye didn’t ken, if it caused so much trouble.”
“Do not apologize. No one sought to ask you, and you owe us nothing. But I will speak to Navran now.”
Navran raised his head. “What else can I ruin?”
Gocam silenced him with his upraised palm. “You said that you wanted to be free. To be free of the obligations and debts of the Heir-to-be.”
His blood thundered in his chest. “Yes.”
“Then hear the conditions of your freedom. You will go to Jaitha with us then return to Virnas as planned. As far as the old city you are responsible for the Heir’s inheritance, the Heir�
��s rings, and the Heir’s daughter.”
“Mandhi? She would do better without me.”
“Doubtlessly. She is your charge not because she needs it, but because you owe it. With your last breath you will ensure that she arrives safely in Virnas, where you will make obeisance to Cauratha and return what is his. And then you will be released.”
“And if Cauratha refuses?”
“I doubt that he will. Especially after Mandhi speaks to him.”
A terrible fear moldered in his throat. His freedom was promised, on conditions so mild and bearable. And he couldn’t take it. “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t return to Virnas.”
“Why not?”
He glanced at Mandhi, who had not stirred. She would hear what he was about to say. Did it matter? The promise of liberation loomed over him and beckoned to his courage. She would despise him—she had every right to—but the truth might set him free. This was his only chance.
“If I go to Virnas, I will destroy the Heir. Let me tell you of my last days with Ruyam.”
20
Navran was drunk out of his mind when Kirshta poured cold water on his face. He jolted upright, spraying water across the sheets of his bedroll and spitting beery bile from his mouth. “Goat piss,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
“Prepare yourself,” Kirshta said. “Ruyam will see you soon. Vapathi?”
Vapathi appeared behind Kirshta, holding a ewer and towel. “Will you get up?”
“No.”
“Yes you will,” Kirshta said. “Don’t make Ruyam angrier than he is. This is your chance.”
He tried to glare at Kirshta, but the boy appeared as a bronze-colored blur haloed in gold, and his bleary eyes began to water and smart by the time he got them halfway open. “My chance to what?”
“To free yourself,” Kirshta said. “Choose your words carefully when you go to him.”
Vapathi’s hand was on his shoulder, and she offered him a cup filled with rose water and honey. He drank. The smell and the sweetness did a little to clear his mind. “Get up,” she whispered. “I will wash and dress you. You need to be ready, and soon.”
“What time is it?” he asked. He didn’t dare add what day is it? Time since his return from the temple had become a miserable, indistinguishable blur of drunkenness and sleep.
“Midday,” Vapathi said. “Come to the table where I have water and your clothing.”
Navran expected Kirshta to leave, but he didn’t. Vapathi stripped Navran, wiped away the vomit and sweat from his face and chest, perfumed him with myrrh and sandalwood, and dressed him again in the Ushpanditya’s silks. Kirshta watched with his arms folded, silently evaluating Navran. When Vapathi was nearly done, he said, “He will offer you something.”
“What?”
“Have you understood anything the whole time that you’ve been here?”
Navran grunted. Evidently not.
“Ruyam wants to strike against the Uluriya, and he wants your help. Do not help him. Lie if you have to. Don’t give him what he wants.”
He squinted at Kirshta. “And what do you want?”
“Me? I want Ruyam to live, and if he goes against the Uluriya he will fail.”
“How do you know that?”
Kirshta studied Navran for a long moment, his eyes carefully taking in the lines of Navran’s nose and his trimmed, Uluriya beard. “There are things that Ruyam can’t see. He has farsight, but he also has power, and his power renders him unable to see some things. But I have no power, and I can see clearly.”
The elements of the puzzle clicked together. “You also have farsight,” Navran said. He felt awake and alert for the first time in many days. “Does Ruyam know?”
“I am one of the things that Ruyam cannot see. He’s been teaching me, though he doesn’t realize it. We have kept the same discipline for years. When he meditates, I meditate. When he fasts, I fast. He doesn’t know. A slave must know when his master fasts, but does the master notice if the slave fasts?”
“You’re a thikratta.”
Kirshta shrugged. “If you want to call me that. Like Ruyam, I eschew titles. What is important is what I foresee. Ruyam will not destroy the Uluriya. And so he must not try.”
That seemed far from certain to Navran, farsight or not. And he didn’t understand what game Kirshta was playing. Did he protect Ruyam out of loyalty? Or to prolong his quiet apprenticeship? This was a jaha board, but Navran was unsure of the rules and could not perceive the strategy. But Kirshta seemed to be playing the game well.
“I wouldn’t help him anyway,” Navran mumbled.
“If you actually hold out.”
“He’s ready,” Vapathi said, tucking the last folds of the dhoti into place and smoothing the silk kurta over it.
Kirshta sniffed. “We’ll see. Come with me.”
They descended the Emperor’s tower into the main body of the Ushpanditya and crossed through the Horned Gate into the Dhigvaditya, where a soldier at arms nodded to Kirshta. “He’s in the captain’s chamber, the empty one,” the soldier said, and Kirshta nodded. They crossed the inner courtyard to a barred wooden door guarded by two soldiers, who nodded to Kirshta and opened the door. Kirshta made Navran enter first.
The interior was a large, spartan bedroom, with only a bedroll, a table, some stools, and a tall narrow window that looked out across the moat and the eastern quarter of Majasravi. Ruyam stood at the window with his arms crossed, and a woman that Navran had never seen sat on one of the stools.
“You’re here,” Ruyam said. “Kirshta, what was the delay?”
“Your guest slept and was in no condition to come when first I found him.”
“As I thought.”
The woman at the stool turned and looked at Navran. She was dressed in noble attire and wore an expression of deliberate calm, but her eyes, when they met Navran’s, brimmed with terror. Navran looked away.
“Parthani-kha,” Ruyam said, “this is the man whose whereabouts you turned over to my enemies.”
“Ah,” the woman said, with indifference that was a little too practiced.
“He’s a worthless man. An Uluriya by birth, but a drunkard and an apostate. He will be a curse to his companions when they recover him.”
“How unfortunate.”
“So then what did you think to gain by collaborating with his companions, my enemies? Their gratitude? As if the Uluriya have ever been grateful to those outside their sect.”
“I didn’t think they were your enemies.”
Navran’s hair rose. He had “companions” here in Majasravi? Had Mandhi and Taleg come after him? Or someone else?
“You knew enough,” Ruyam said. “I suspect you were trying to curry favor with someone else, but I won’t speculate on that now. I’ll have time enough later. Instead, I am going to make a demonstration.”
The woman folded her hands calmly and glanced from Ruyam to Navran. The composure of her face was at the edge of shattering. “Demonstration of what?”
“The nobles of Majasravi know that I was a thikratta. Did they think that it meant I was a harmless ascetic atop a mountain or a scholar living in the woods? Have you forgotten the other arts which the thikratta know?”
“I don’t know,” the woman said, and her hands began to tremble. Only for a moment.
“They will remember after this.”
Ruyam reached out his hand like a cobra striking and seized her by the throat. She screamed and bolted to her feet. Ruyam lifted her into the air. The knuckles of his fingers whitened. The scream was choked out, and she began to claw at his grip, her eyes wide with terror, then—
Fire bloomed from Ruyam’s hand. Flames licked up the woman’s face and set her hair alight, and the skin of her throat turned black under Ruyam’s fingers. Her cheeks began to blister, peel away, and burn. For a moment Ruyam held her like that, her face like a torch in his hands, her fingers scrabbling at Ruyam’s fingers and her choked-off screams gurgling in her throat. Then the fire leapt d
own from her head, pouring like water down her clothes and wrapping itself around her legs and belly with serpentine hunger. Her skin sizzled and cracked. She kicked and flailed, beating fists against Ruyam’s arms and striking the ground with burning heels, but Ruyam was like a stone. There was no sound other than the crackling of flames. A moment later Ruyam threw her to the floor under the window and stepped back. For a few moments she burned like an oil-soaked rag, flames fluttering out the open window, blistering Navran’s face with the heat. Then Ruyam held out his palm, and the flame leapt into it. He closed his hand into a fist, and it was gone.
The room was silent.
Ruyam turned, his face held rigid, his eyes wide and unmoving, as if they held back an immense reservoir of rage. He put his hand on Navran’s chest. It was as hot as a stone pulled from a fire, and it scalded Navran’s chest through his shirt. He pushed until Navran bumped into Kirshta behind him.
“Now,” Ruyam growled, putting his face an inch from Navran’s. “You’ll submit. You’ve tasted the darkness and the debauchery. This is the end of my patience. You know what I want.”
Sweat beaded down Navran’s temples. His hands shook. Kirshta’s hands brushed against Navran’s forearms and closed around his wrists. The slave leaned forward and whispered into Navran’s ear, “Resist.”
He couldn’t. He had resisted in the dungeon. What had it proven? As soon as he returned to the light, his nature had reappeared, as surely as a fish rots in the sun. He was a drunkard, a glutton, a gambler, a liar. A betrayer. He wet his lips with his tongue.
“The Heir of Manjur is Cauratha of Virnas,” he said. “You can find him in the house of the merchant Veshta.”
Kirshta’s hand tightened around Navran’s wrist. Ruyam began to laugh. “Is that all? I want more than that from you. I could turn Virnas upside-down looking for a man of that name, but I’ve done that once before. The Power that protects your people is too strong for that.”
Navran’s breath came in stuttering gasps. “What do you want?”
“Take my mark to the Heir.”