Shima glared at his master, who laughed. He ate the stew and fumed in silence. Easy enough for his master to say, “Do this thing,” and not face the consequences.
Which Shima was certain would include an angry fist when Raven found out that he would have to stay behind.
Grumbling, Shima laid the pyamah bundles on a tray woven from bundled maize leaves and took them outside to the beehive-shaped clay oven. The air above the smoke hole shimmered and danced, making all behind it as insubstantial as a dream. Shima squatted and carefully pulled aside the flat stone that served as the door to the oven’s firebox and peered inside. Glowing red embers greeted him.
“Are the coals ready?” Zhantse called from the doorway.
“Just right.”
Replacing that stone, Shima then slid the upper stone—that which served as the door to the oven proper—to one side along the narrow ledge that ran across the front of the oven. He pushed each leaf-wrapped bundle into the oven with a long stick. All the while he hummed one of his favorite planting songs; he enjoyed baking. In this he was truly his mother’s child, he thought.
When the pyamah loaves were arranged to his satisfaction, Shima replaced the stone. A thought came to him as he brushed away stray bits of leaf and twig from before the oven.
“Zhantse,” he said, “have you Seen yet how Maurynna is to accomplish this thing?”
The silence that answered him was so deep that Shima looked up in dread. His master suddenly looked old, as ancient and worn as the stones around them.
Shima went cold inside.
“Yes,” Zhantse answered at last. “This morning. It—it will be hard.” He paused; when he spoke again, his voice was the merest whisper of sorrow and pain. “I Saw what must be done. But, Spirits help me, I don’t see how she can do it.”
Lord Jhanun sat in his chamber in the inn at Rhampul. To one side sat Kwahsiu and Nalorih; before him, forehead touching the floor, knelt Baisha.
“You failed me,” Jhanun said to him.
“Lord, the creatures are in Jehanglan,” Baisha said, raising a desperate face. “We need only capture them—”
“Fool!” Jhanun roared. “The Zharmatians have them now—didn’t you hear the soldiers’ report? How did you let them get away? You should have had them.”
Baisha cringed and touched his forehead to the floor once more.
Jhanun seethed. Three of the creatures in the hands of the Zharmatians, and a warhost between him and the one Baisha said was the Hidden One. Baisha would pay for—
“Lord.”
The quiet voice broke into his thoughts. Surprised at the interruption, he snapped, “What is it, Kwahsiu?”
Kwahsiu fidgeted under his glare, but went on. For once he wasn’t smiling. “Lord, Nalorih and I saw what happened. It should have been easy to take the creatures; we even saw them standing together, talking. Then all of a sudden, they struck out like madmen, and their horses came for them. It was as if they’d been warned somehow, my lord. They knew something was wrong; I don’t know how, but they did.”
All during his partner’s sober recitation, Nalorih had nodded in confirmation. “Very well. The three of you, take the troops here and keep searching for the creatures. Perhaps they’ll evade the Zharmatians as—”
Once again he was interrupted, this time by a knocking at the door. “Enter!” Captain Tsuen entered. “This just came, my lord. The messenger apologizes for the delay. He barely evaded capture by the Zharmatians.”
Jhanun took the folded note and broke the seal. He read the message again and again, unable to believe it. At last he said, “Xiane Ma Jhi is dead—and that bitch has declared herself regent! She dared to sit upon the Phoenix Throne!”
Stunned silence greeted his words.
Unable to contain his fury, Jhanun ripped the note to shreds. “Kwahsiu, you take the troops and hunt for the werecreatures. Nalorih, you shall return with me, as will Baisha.” He fixed the outlander with a venomous glare. “Perhaps if you’re under my eye you’ll do better.” He rose from his chair.
Baisha rapped his forehead against the floor again and again.
“Enough. We ride for Mount Rivasha,” Jhanun said. “We’ll raise troops from the officers in the army who are members of the Four Tigers, and hold the holy city against that bitch. Get the horses.”
Forty-seven
As they sat outside the next day, enjoying the afternoon sun, Maurynna asked, “How many brothers and sisters do you have, Shima?”
“Two sisters, one older, one younger, and a younger brother.”
Raven said, “Where are the others, and your father? Don’t they live here?”
“Keru, my younger sister, lives here as I do,” Shima said. “My father and other sister are with our sheep. My younger brother, Tefira, though …”
Seeing his worried look, Maurynna said, “Is something amiss? Where is he?”
Shima shrugged. “Fasting in an isolated hut. He’s Zhantse’s apprentice, and training to be the next shaman. Zhantse took him because, when Tefira was younger, he had visions—tittle things, for he was but a child, but true. Yet, since then, nothing.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the house, where they could hear Lark singing. “My mother’s worried about him.”
“I’m sorry,” Maurynna said.
Raven stood up, dusting the seat of his breeches. “So am I. I’m off to see to the horses, beanpole. Coming?”
Maurynna shook her head. “No,” she answered, blinking in the sun, “I think I’ll just enjoy sitting in one place for a while.” Then, moved by a sudden spirit of mischief, she added, “But why don’t you go, Shima? I know you’d like to see the Llysanyins again.”
Raven flashed her a sour look, but made no objection.
She watched them walk off together, settled back against the wall, and closed her eyes. In a little while she’d go for a walk of her own. But for now, the sun felt good on her face. All too soon she would be riding into the gods only knew what danger; she would enjoy this simple pleasure while she could.
The sun-baked brick lent a dry, dusty scent to the air. It was a good smell, warm and welcoming, singing of the little, everyday things that meant home.
Like hearing Linden’s breathing when I wake up at night. … She tried not to think about Linden, not to wonder if she could now Change. She would only drive herself to tears or madness.
Luckily Lark came out at that moment, her arms full of something that looked like long strips of some kind of leaf. A small basket dangled by its handle from one finger. She smiled when she saw Maurynna. “Mind if I join you here? This is my favorite place to work.”
“Of course not.” Maurynna shifted. Lark eased herself down and scooted back so that she also rested her back against the wall. Maurynna watched curiously as the Yerrin woman spread her leaves upon the blanket before her. “What are you doing?”
“Making a basket. It’s very soothing—once you know how,” Lark said dryly. She drew a bone needle with a large eye and some little bundles of dyed lacings from the the basket. The lacings, Maurynna saw, were narrow ribbons of flexible reed. After poking through them, Lark chose one of a soft blue and threaded a length of it through the eye of the needle.
Maurynna picked up one of the long strips of leaf and tugged it gently. Though dried, it was strong and flexible. “What are these?”
“Maize leaves. Makes wonderful coiled baskets. Watch.” Lark picked up three strips, bundled them together, and folded one end back upon itself. Taking up the needle, she wrapped the folded section tightly with the cord, careful to catch the loose end under the wrapping. “This is the center; from here I work in a spiral that the maize leaves form the core of.”
Maurynna watched, fascinated, as the other woman’s nimble fingers deftly wrapped the lacing around the leaf strips. Every couple of finger widths along the ever-growing spiral, the needle would slip into the inner row and out and around the working row once more to bind them together. When she reached the en
d of the leaves she worked with, Lark fanned them out and slipped three more in so that the ends overlapped. Then she wrapped them tightly and continued.
It looked easy enough. With a glance at Lark for permission, Maurynna picked up another needle and a length of lacing, and some strips of the core material. She settled herself to work.
Bundling the strips was easy; so was folding the end. Nothing very hard about this. But then came the lacing. Then somehow the narrow reeding went one way and the core another, the strips separating and fluttering gracefully to the ground like mocking butterflies.
Maurynna eyed them and the errant lacing. Hm; yes, this could be frustrating. And she, the gods knew, was frustrated enough. So she returned lacing, needle, and leaf strips, deciding to save her temper. She’d watch Lark.
The Yerrin woman’s deft fingers worked steadily. “The bottom’s big enough now,” Lark announced after a time that Maurynna lost herself in. “Time to change the angle so that the working row sits on the old one and begin the sides.”
Sure enough, as the wrapping and stitching continued their magic, row by slow row the sides of the basket spiraled gracefully up. Twice Lark changed the color of the cord, using a green one for a while, then switching back to the blue.
“It’s beautiful,” Maurynna marveled. “Can you use anything else for the core of the spiral?”
“Oh, yes—long pine needles or grass, any sort of flexible plant stalks, I would imagine. Spice grass makes a wonderfully fragrant basket; a bride-to-be makes spice grass baskets for her future husband’s mother, grandmother, and sisters as tokens of respect and affection.”
Her voice grew wistful. “I wish that sweet woodruff grew here in Jehanglan; I’ve always thought that it would be as nice as sweet grass for a basket. It grew all around the cottage where I grew up; I still remember the lovely fresh hay scent of my old mattress. My mother had stuffed it with sweet woodruff for me, and the scent grew stronger as the woodruff dried. I used to think it was magic of some sort.”
Maurynna wished there were some way Lark could go back to Yerrih. Maybe she should suggest the woman return with them when the ship returned. But would Lark leave the life she had made in Jehanglan? Maurynna thought not.
“How did you come here?” she asked. “And where are you from in Yerrih?”
“I came from near Gull Rock Port in the north. My family were farmers, but the first time I went into the port and heard the crying of the gulls, I knew the sea was for me.”
A warm feeling of kinship glowed in Maurynna’s breast. This was talk she could understand. She nodded at Lark to go on.
“When I was old enough, I signed on as ship’s cook on board the White Seal’s Dream, a trim little cog out of Gull Rock Port. I was happy on her; she was a good ship with a good captain, old Skua Hareson who could smell a storm coming three days off, and we saw the world.
“But one ill-omened day we took on a new man in Tanlyton, a Kelnethi who said that he’d gone a-traveling after his girl cast him off, and was now down on his luck and would work for passage. Skua took pity on him, and that was the beginning of our troubles.”
Ater his girl cast him off … . That joggled a memory Maurynna couldn’t quite place—but one that bothered her. Annoyed because she couldn’t remember, she tugged a strand of her hair as if that would drag the memory out from its hiding place in her head. “What do you mean?”
“The man had a soul blacker than the pits of hell, and a tongue that mixed truth and lies with every breath until you didn’t know which was which. Gave us the name his mother called him, not the one he grew up with, and told us he was Kelnethi. Oh, he spoke the language like one born there, I’ll grant you that. Looked like one, too; took after his mam who was from near Bylith. But for all that, he was a Yerrin born to Eagle clan.” Lark’s voice vibrated with hate.
Confused, Maurynna said, “But surely you saw the clan braid—”
Lark shook her head. “Cut off; he was parna, outcast. Without it, he was indistinguishable from any man from the other kingdoms. May the gods curse the day that scum lied his way on board the Dream!
“For he hadn’t been ‘cast aside’—not he. The girl he’d wanted was his half brother’s betrothed. When she wouldn’t change her mind, and his brother caught him trying to rape her, he killed them both.”
Here Lark shuddered, her eyes full of old ghosts, and Maurynna couldn’t blame her. A kinslayer was a vile thing in any of the kingdoms. But to the Yerrins, who held the ties of blood sacred, they were a special abhorrence. The worst torments in Gifnu’s hells were for kinslayers and killers of children. To give such a one hearth-room, even unknowingly, could well bring down the wrath of the gods.
Despite the pain of old memories that rang in her voice, Lark went on like a ship plowing through a storm. “He was to be hanged after being outcast, of course, but somehow his mother drugged the guards and freed him. The boy slain hadn’t been her child, after all,” Lark said bitterly.
“To make a long story short, after we took that filth on board, a madness seized Skua. He had an ancient rutter his great-granda won off a drunken, broken-down old pilot. Skua kept it only as a curiosity; he had his own. But in the other was a chart that claimed to show a safe route here. And that was how the gods chose to punish us.”
“Skua tried it?” Maurynna asked, appalled. To trust one’s ship to a book of charts unknown and unproven! The gods had been angered indeed to muddle the captain’s wits so.
But it raised a question that had bothered her since hearing of House Mimdallek’s “enterprises.” She asked, “How do ships travel here safely? For those of House Mhakkan and certain … others do. The Straits are said to be impassable because of magic. How do they get through?”
“Magic that the priestmages say doesn’t exist.” Lark snorted. “They call it the Will of the Phoenix, but magic it is, pure and simple.
“There’s a safe course through their wizardry; it twists and turns and, worse yet, changes from time to time. I’m told the ships from House Mhakkan each carry a small image of the Phoenix given to them by the priestmages. It floats within a globe of crystal mounted by the ship’s wheel and points out the safe route.”
Ah, yes—that must be what she’d seen on the ship they’d taken from Assantik.
“That’s one way. Another is to use a magic sniffer,” said Lark. “I suspect that’s how—” She clamped her lips shut on whatever she was about to say.
Maurynna didn’t pursue the slip. Instead she said, “A magic sni—? Oh, of course! Someone whose ‘little talent’ is sensing magic.” So that was how the House Mimdallek ship got through … .
The other woman went on. “Some ships have made it through by sheer luck or by following sailing directions that another smuggler used and was willing to share for whatever reason. Of course, once the course changes …” Lark’s shoulders hunched against remembered pain.
“That’s how you were caught.”
“Aye, caught we were, in a magestorm spawned in hell,” Lark said heavily. She passed a hand over her eyes. “One moment all was clear; the next—That storm was sent for us. I know it. Dream was stout and strong, but even she couldn’t weather the savage beating she took; I’ve never seen anything like the fury of that blow, and I’ve ridden out many a winter’s gale in the northern seas. We fought it for candlemarks. Then in one mighty blast, wind and wave picked our poor ship up and cast her upon the rocks as a man might throw down a stick. She broke her back and spilled us into the water like beans from a jar.
“Those that didn’t drown right away clung to the wreckage and tried to ride it out. But one by one I watched my shipmates go under until there were but five of us left clinging to the mast: myself, Skua, Raene Sailmaker, Corby, Skua’s little grandson and our cabin boy—and the kinslayer.”
A tear slid down Lark’s cheek. “Corby lost his hold and drifted away. His grandfather went after him. I saw them both sink beneath one giant wave, that hellstorm’s final blow. It was lik
e a thing alive, that wave; it knew we were there and wanted us dead.
“But Raene, the kinslayer, and I—we all held on, more dead than alive, and me with a broken arm. We were washed ashore and found by one of the tribes that live on the fringes of Jehanglan proper. We were taken as slaves.” Her lips shut in a grim line upon the last words.
It was a line Maurynna knew better than to cross. So she asked, “How do you know all this about the kinslayer? Surely he didn’t tell you while on board the ship—Skua would have tossed him overboard.” For she certainly would have, or faced a mutiny. No sailor would risk the ill luck one so cursed might bring to ship and crew.
Lark shook her head. “Raene and I only found out later when we nursed him through a fever and he began raving. Even delirious, he sounded quite pleased with himself.
“When we heard the tale and understood why our fate had befallen us, why our comrades had died, Raene tried to smother him. The guards pulled her off before she could finish and took her away. I never saw her again. And the kinslayer—” She laughed bitterly. “The last I ever heard was that the filth had found a master to match him. He became a favorite of Lord Jhanun, another with treachery in his heart. They were well-matched.” A long sigh. “If only he’d died of that illness; but no, the shaking sickness torments you but it doesn’t kill. So he continues to hide his foulness under that sweet smile of his and wreaks the gods only know what misery upon innocent folk.”
Sweet smile … The unease that had been prodding at Maurynna since Lark began her story crashed down upon her like a mountain of ice. A sweet smile. The shaking sickness. She remembered where she’d heard of the tale of a man cast aside by a woman … .
It was hard to breathe. “Lark,” she said, “what was the kinslayer’s name?”
The Yerrin woman began indignantly, “One does not name a—” Their eyes met; Lark broke off. “His true name,” she said quietly, “was Lynx Willowson.”
There’s still a chance … .
“But—”
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