“You have been brought here to perform a task for me,” the lord said. “I think you will not find it onerous. Obey, and you will be treated like a prince.” He turned his head slightly and called, “Zuia!”
From another room came two women, one herding the other, younger, woman before her. Liasuhn’s heart pounded in fright when he saw the second. Brocade robes, pale skin, and soft hands that had never known harsh labor in the sun marked her as noble—and her face was uncovered. He, Liasuhn, commoner, had looked upon her. He could die for that.
Or, worse yet, lose his balls. Liasuhn moaned in terror.
But the lord called for neither his death nor his castration. Instead he motioned for the first woman—a servant by her dress—to bring her charge forward. She pushed the young noblewoman so that she was only a few feet from Liasuhn. When the girl tried to shield her face from his gaze, the servant slapped her hands down. Tears ran down the pale, pretty face.
The lord moved so that he stood off to one side between them. “This is my niece,” he said. “As you see, she is quite comely, so your duty will be a pleasant one. You will get her pregnant.”
The girl cried out in shock.
At the lord’s nod, the servant seized the shoulders of the girl’s robe and tore it from the young woman’s body. Only a silk loincloth now covered her nakedness. She sobbed piteously as she tried to cover her body with her hands.
Liasuhn’s jaw dropped. “Whaa—”
“You heard me.” The noble moved toward the door as he spoke. The others drifted after him. “Get her pregnant. You know how it’s done, of course, or my men would not have brought you here.
“And don’t think to play the virtuous hero. She is now a virgin. If she still is when Zuia returns in the morning, it will be very much the worse for you.” The quiet menace in his voice sent a shiver down Liasuhn’s spine.
With that warning, the noble left. The others followed.
The door shut; Liasuhn heard the key turn in the lock. The girl stared at him with wide, frightened eyes like a deer’s, her robe puddled around her feet. For a moment he considered disobeying, she looked so pathetic.
But he remembered the danger in her uncle’s voice, cold as steel, and knew what he had to do. Unfastening his robe, he let it fall to the floor. Next he loosened his breeches. They followed the robe.
She wailed and cowered back, one small hand raised to fend him off.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Then he reached for her.
Twenty-eight
The months that followed passed in a haze of activity. Almost every day, the troupe practiced either in the meadow, if the weather was good, or in the enormous covered riding ring. Sometimes Lleld declared a holiday, but they were few and far between. They all knew that they hadn’t much time.
“So how does a fire-breather breathe fire anyway, O Lady Mayhem?” Linden asked one day after Lleld and Jekkanadar flopped to the ground, tired from a few candlemarks of tumbling and ropewalking. “Were there any in your family’s troupe?”
“Eh? Ah, that’s right—we have to turn you into a fire-breather in this form. Pity you can’t just Change … . Yes, we had a fire-breather for a time. He would never tell anyone what he used; said it was a secret of his brotherhood.
“But this is how he’d start.” Lleld caught up the waterskin, took a small swig, then, moving away from the others, pursed her lips, and spat the water out in a fine spray. She pantomimed sticking a brand into the mist. When the water was gone, she wiped her chin—for some water had dribbled down it and onto her tunic—and said, “It was something like that. And even if Linden doesn’t get it quite right, it doesn’t matter. The fire won’t hurt him.”
“But if we don’t know what fire-breathers use for the spray, how—” Taren began.
Linden laughed. “I’m a Dragonlord, remember? If it can burn at all, I can make it burn hotter and faster.”
“Cooking oil, then?” Maurynna said.
“Feh,” Linden said, making a face. The thought of a mouthful of oil did not appeal to him. A pity he couldn’t make water burn, but that was beyond even a truedragon’s magic.
Raven jumped up. “I’ll get some from Cook,” he said, and whistled Stormwind over. He leaped up onto the Llysanyin’s bare back and galloped off.
“Hell of a rider,” Linden said in admiration, watching.
“If he doesn’t go to his aunt after all this is over, I’ll kick him,” Otter said, chewing on a grass stem.
When Raven returned, Linden took the small flask of oil from him and, catching up a twig from the ground, went to stand a few feet away. He took a small mouthful of the oil, then, with a silent command, set the end of the twig alight. Mimicking Lleld, he spat oil and air out in as fine a spray as he could, and at the same time he touched the twig to the mist, he ordered the oily mist to burn.
The results were spectacular, even from where he stood. From the delighted shrieks, he thought it must look even better from the audience. Some of the oil dribbled down his chin, but no harm done, he thought.
Then the wind shifted, and the fire burned back toward him. A moment later, the oil upon his chin caught fire and dripped down onto his tunic, setting it aflame as well. He ordered the fire to cease, but it was too late. He looked ruefully down at his ruined tunic. Next time, he’d try it barechested.
From the sidelines, Lleld remarked thoughtfully, “I think this needs a bit of work, Linden.”
Near the end of the winter, Maurynna took her place in the raised seats in the riding ring with Linden, Lleld, Jekkanadar, and Taren. Finally, she thought, Linden, Otter, Raven, and the Llysanyins were about to reveal what they’d worked so hard on all this time. “Where are Otter and Raven?” she asked.
“Down there,” Linden said, pointing to the far end of the ring.
Sure enough, both men stood on either side of the open doors to the stable, Otter with a Yerrin taeresan and its beater, Raven with an Assantikkan zamla, its gaudy strap bright across his chest.
Then Otter began a beat. Maurynna thought it sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until Raven came in with the complicated counterbeat that she recognized it.
“The Dance of the Red Ghost!” she said at the same time Jekkanadar cried, “Takka nih Bahari! I haven’t heard that in far too many years!”
Then she forgot all else as Nightsong, Shan, Hillel, and Jhem entered the ring at a slow, controlled canter. They circled the ring, then, as the beat changed, turned into the circle, met in the center, reared up and reversed direction.
She gaped in wonder as the Llysanyins danced, obeying no orders, just the beating of the drums. From time to time she was aware that Linden whispered to her.
“That slow trot with the pauses between each step is the shallinn; if they stayed in place, it would be called a verallinn.”
At one point the Llysanyins wove a daisy chain, passing back and forth in a slow canter. “Look! They’re skipping!” she said.
Muffling his laughter, Linden replied, “They’re changing leads with every step.”
“I don’t care what it is, it’s beautiful. All of it’s beautiful.”
“Let’s hope the Jehangli think so as well.”
All too soon the spectacle came to an end. The four Llysanyins lined up to face them; as a drum roll signalled the end of the song, they sank down upon their haunches, their forefeet raised. Maurynna recognized it as the menacing pose Shan had adopted last summer when a Cassorin noble had threatened Otter with flogging. They held the not-quite rear—“Nilurn,” Linden whispered—then, as the Dance of the Red Ghost ended with the traditional four measured drumbeats, the Llysanyins jumped forward with each beat, their forefeet lashing out but never touching the ground.
Then it was over, and they were horses once more. Shan came to the seats. Linden tossed him an apple from his belt pouch.
“For once, crowbait, you deserve it. That was perfect.” He turned to Taren. “How do you think the Jehangli will like it?”
Taren
shook his head, his eyes still wide with wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like it. My lord, be prepared to fend off offers of cartloads of gold for them.”
Linden laughed. “We’ll fend those off if they come; as long as it opens doors for us, we should do well.”
Maurynna saw Lleld climb over the railing and drop down. “Where are you going?” she called as the little Dragonlord trotted to the stables.
“My turn,” Lleld called back, “mine and Miki’s. Watch.”
Maurynna sat back in her seat and took Linden’s hand.
“This should be fun,” she said.
“More likely terrifying,” Linden grunted. “You’ve never seen Lady Mayhem’s act, have you? If she ever slips …” He shook his head.
He was not, Maurynna decided a little later, exaggerating. She hoped the Jehangli were not faint of heart. Then she hid her eyes again.
Spring was in the air, in the red buds sprouting on the maple tree outside the riding ring. It was time to move on to Assantik. Maurynna sent word to her kin in Tanlyton to arrange a ship for them. When it was ready, Jekkanadar Changed, and flew to Assantik to remind the Dawn Emperor of his agreement.
Upon his return, he mindcalled Lleld. The troupe gathered together in the field for the last time to await his coming.
“What word?” Lleld asked as soon as her soultwin had landed and Changed once more to human form.
“All is arranged,” Jekkanadar said quietly. “As soon as we reach Nen dra Kove, the ship will sail for Jehanglan.”
Twenty-nine
“Gilly!”
The shout pulled Gilliad al zefa’ Mimdallek from the mental calculations that occupied her mind as she walked. In a bemused way, she noticed she’d passed the tea seller’s. She really must pay more attention when she walked.
Then the matter of hearing her name came back to her. She paused, certain she’d imagined it, as the throngs of Nen dra Kove swarmed past her. Then, louder, this time desperate: “Gilliad!”
She turned. One of her cousins, Mossuran al zef Mimdallek, pushed through the crowded street after her, heedless of whom he elbowed aside. She blinked in surprise; that was not like this particular cousin. Neither was the frown that darkened his chubby face.
He wasn’t supposed to be in Nen dra Kove; his place was as House Third in the capital city of Zarkorum. Judging by his evident exhaustion and dust-streaked clothes, Mossuran must have ridden almost nonstop from there. Something was very wrong.
Her former pleasant distraction evaporated. Gilliad fought her way against the river of bodies that flowed in the opposite direction. “Mossuran—what is it?” she called.
When he caught up to her he said nothing, just grabbed her elbow and angled her off to the side. She saw he was making for a tekeral, one of the tiny pockets of parkland that dotted Nen dra Kove, an oasis of green in the overwhelming heat.
This one was empty save for two old men sitting on a bench beneath a huge jasmine bush. A battered game board lay between them. They didn’t even look up from their game of goats and jackals as Gilliad and Mossuran cast fleeting shadows across it.
Mossuran led her to another bench, this one under a stately date palm. He collapsed rather than sat, breathing heavily. His dark skin was a sickly shade of grey. “That damned madman’s back,” he said without preamble. “He’s in Zarkorum.”
It took Gilliad the space of a few heartbeats to understand him.
“What!” She felt sick. What in the ninety hells of Udasah was that Kelnethi madman doing back in Assantik? In Zarkorum especially? Had he come to tell House Mhakkan that she traded with Jehanglan in defiance of the Dawn Emperor’s grant?
If he did, then that was the end of House Mimdallek. That was not a thing she would allow, even if she spent the rest of eternity beneath Danashkar’s poisoned claws.
In her fright she must have spoken the last aloud, for Mossuran shook his head.
“I don’t think you have to worry about Danashkar any more, Gilliad—if indeed you ever did. I saw Taren Olmeins myself, and he looked as sane as any man that ever I saw.”
“You think then—” She couldn’t finish.
He met her eyes, and nodded. “He was shamming before. He knew, cousin; he knew what strings to tug, just as if we were shadow puppets and he the puppet master. I don’t know how he managed the frothy spittle and the bloodshot eyes, but I’m now certain that they were faked. The man is no more mad than you or I.” Mossuran drew a deep breath. He turned pleading eyes upon her; his voice quavered as he asked, “So now what do we do?”
She wished for a partner with a little more steel in his backbone than Mossuran, but he was all she had. She explained with a patience that barely hid her own fear, “If he’s here to inform on us, we’ll have to send the next shipment out as quickly as possible. That will do two things: get rid of the evidence, and get Afrani and his crew out of the reach of the emperor’s torturers. Get word to them; tell them to sail north to Thalnia after they’ve delivered this shipment and bide there for a while.”
She was not afraid of the emperor’s torturers for herself or Mossuran; their rank within House Mimdallek would protect them against one outlander’s word if there was no evidence to be found. But the sailors and farmers were another tale … . She did not betray her quietly mounting fear; that would only panic Mossuran. Best to pretend she’d prepared for such a contingency.
“But the hold isn’t full yet,” Mossuran objected. “And there are more on the way; we weren’t supposed to send the ship out for another tenday.” His voice was steadier; as she’d known he would, Mossuran took strength from her calmness.
Gilliad sighed, playing her part to the utmost. “Mossuran, it’s not as if there will never be more silkworms and mulberry trees. The Tah’nehsieh will understand. I will ride to intercept whatever is on its way from the farms to the secret cove. I will burn it myself if necessary, and tell the farmers to hide in the hill country. If we play this round well, this is merely a setback; we can still destroy House Mhakkan’s stranglehold on Jehanglan.”
Mossuran nodded. “Very well, then. But what about Taren Olmeins?”
That surprised her. “You have to ask?” she demanded. “He dies.”
Her cousin threw his hands into the air. “That’s just it, Gilly; there’s no way to get to him! I saw him come off a Thalnian ship—one of House Erdon’s—myself. He was with a group of people. Three Yerrin men, two young, one much older; a small woman or girl, I couldn’t tell which from that distance; an Assantikkan man; and another woman who looked like an Erdon—tall, black hair, with that heart-shaped face so many of them have.
“They were met at the dock by a group of men and spirited away. I recognized one of the men in that group, even out of uniform; it was Barduun al zef Kisharrek—a captain in Chakkarin’s personal guard!”
Gilliad swayed. Taren Olmeins under the Dawn Emperor’s protection? House Mimdallek was doomed indeed! She caught herself, knew she’d come close to fainting, dug her fingernails into her legs to ward such weakness off.
So much for the Tah’nehsieh shaman’s assurances, she thought, that no ill would befall my House from this. What would Zhantse predict now? The same? Bitterness filled her, tasting like bile on her tongue.
She stared at the designs painted in henna on the backs of her hands, not really seeing them. One moment they were blurs before her eyes; the next they snapped back into focus. If the worst was come upon House Mimdallek, revenge was all she had.
And she could not have it. But she would do all she could to save her House. She got to her feet.
“Come. There’s much to do, and not much time to do it, cousin.”
The Phoenix Lord hunted this day.
Xiane Ma Jhi drew the bow back and sighted. An instant later the string slid off the thumb ring he wore and flew toward its target. He reined in his horse.
The arrow took the buck just behind the left foreleg. It sprang into the air and cried out, then crumpled to the ground.
/> The other hunters pulled up around him and whooped in congratulations; Xiane smiled at the honest praise. If only he could spend all his time riding through the pine forests like this! There were no lies in the hunt.
“Well done, Majesty!” Yesuin called. He rode up, wineskin in hand, and held it out with a grin. “As sweet a shot as I’ve ever seen.”
The others, from grizzled general to the tracker’s apprentice, all nodded. Their murmurs echoed Yesuin’s words. “Well done, indeed!” “Damn nice shot!” “A prize buck!” “Good shooting!”
Xiane took the skin and let cherry wine slide down his throat in a long, bloodred stream. He wiped his chin and handed the wineskin back. “Thanks to you, cousin,” he said. “That trick you showed me worked. For once, the string slid off the thumb ring smoothly. The arrow didn’t jerk up when it left the bow as it usually does.”
Old General V’Choun pulled his long white mustache. “Best get it bled,” he said. He motioned to the tracker and his young apprentice.
They bowed and trotted across the clearing, leaping fallen tree trunks. Xiane set his horse to amble after them; the others followed.
Suddenly, when the two servants were only a few vri from the fallen buck, the man’s head jerked to the left. For a long moment he stared into the thick woods there. Then he screamed in terror, grabbed his apprentice, and ran back. Xiane stopped in astonishment.
“Phoenix help us! Majesty, get back!” the tracker shouted.
Surprise dulled Xiane’s wits. “Wha—” he began.
Then he saw it.
A huge green serpent glided from the thick underbrush and flowed across the ground to the buck. Nearly twenty vri long, its body was as thick as a man’s waist; Xiane had never heard of a snake so large. Once, twice, three times it circled the dead animal. The buck glowed with a golden light; the light flared, hurting Xiane’s eyes, and died. Then the snake slid over the carcass and, coiling, settled itself as if on a throne. It stared at the men. A forked tongue flicked from between its scaled jaws, and blood dripped onto the buck.
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