As Kheda crossed the next bridge, he accepted further profuse congratulations with smiles and nods. He felt his smile becoming irretrievably fixed and crossed the final swaying walkway across the reef with carefully concealed relief. The slaves and servants of his personal household were gathered on the steps of the warlord's pavilion. There was one warrior in chain mail among the silk and cotton funics and dresses.
'Ridu.' Kheda nodded as the armoured youth came clown the steps.
'Congratulations, my lord.' Ridu bowed low.
'Thank you.' Kheda couldn't restrain a jaw-cracking yawn.
'You're tired,' Ridu observed unnecessarily.
'I'm also crumpled and stale,' Kheda said frankly. 'Have them fill me a bath while I visit the observatory.' He nodded towards the very last building on the chain of little islands. 'Then I'll sleep.'
Ridu bowed again. 'Do you want anything to eat, my lord?'
Kheda was already walking towards the observatory. 'Nothing special, just some steamed sailer grain and meat, perhaps some fruit.'
'Very good, my lord.' Ridu turned and clapped his hands at the attentive servants as Kheda continued on his way to the observatory.
For my guard captain, Ridu makes a competent personal attendant. Not that I'll convince Beyau it's acceptable to use him as such. Nor that the last thing I want is a body slave shackled to me and my fortunes ever again. He'll start pressing me on that again soon, especially now we can expect visits from all our neighbouring lords.
The long shadow of the observatory reached across the dusty ground. The tower rose three times the height of the single-storeyed building surrounding it whose half-circle
halls held the accumulated wisdom garnered by generations of Chazen's warlords. The topmost level of the tower was open to the sky.
How long do I have to stand up there to convince everyone I've studied the patterns of the clouds and the flight of birds, the ripples and shades of the sea, to determine what lies ahead for my new daughters? The whole household would wait patiently for days if I said I needed to read all the books within, searching out interpretations of every conjunction of the stars and the bright jewels that circle through the heavens, checking through the records left by each warlord interpreting the validity of each construction placed on the concatenations of signs and stars. Can I bring myself to dissemble like this for much longer?
He opened the solid wooden door. Ignoring the spiral stairs curling upwards through the core of the tower, he passed through the archway leading to the eastern-facing hall. Star circles in bronze and silver hung on the walls, glinting as shafts of sunlight piercing the oiled wooden shutters fingered them. The paths of every constellation were incised on each plate, heavenly jewels inlaid on the net of pierced metal overlaying the circles, a measuring bar precisely aligned across each one.
Kheda halted, taken quite by surprise. 'Risala?'
A young woman was sitting on a stool at one of the long tables set in the middle of the room. She had a small ivory circle before her, one of those marked out for reading the heavens as well as registering the path of the sun and taking directions for setting sail.
'I picked this up on a trading beach in the Tule domain.' She rotated the disc this way and that. 'I thought it would make a nice addition to the Chazen collection.'
Kheda surveyed the extensive array of stargazing apparatus. 'Chazen Saril's collection.'
Risala waved a thin hand at the euphoria still ringing
round the anchorage outside. 'You're the only person in this entire domain who still has qualms about your claiming dominion here. I've made it my business to be certain.' She stood up, brushing back a lock of unbound black hair that fell to her shoulders, and looked at Kheda with fond irritation. 'Do I have to remind you what Itrac's fate would have been if you hadn't offered her marriage? She would have fallen prey to some monster like Ulla Safar, ready to rape her and call that a wedding. What would have happened last year, even if Chazen Saril had still been alive? No one I've spoken to is under any illusion that he could have saved them from one dragon, let alone two.' She narrowed her sapphire-blue eyes at Kheda. 'So was it twins? Boys or girls or one of each?'
'Two girls.' Kheda scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to stave off his weariness. 'Each will be her own woman - they're not mirrored twins. They're small but strong and healthy. Itrac's exhausted but she suffered no damage in the birthing. There's every reason to believe she'll recover fully and fast.'
'So now you've come to read the signs in the skies and the earthly compass to be sure of that, and to see what lies ahead for the children.' There was an unmistakable note of command in Risala's voice as she came over to Kheda.
'You're here to make sure I do my duty?' The bitter mockery in his reply wasn't directed at her.
'We can see that as an omen, that I just happened to arrive on the day Itrac gives birth.' She slid her arms around his waist. 'You know what you have to do.'
'While you alone of this whole domain know that I think it's a wholly futile exercise.' Kheda clasped her narrow shoulders with his broad hands and looked at her.
You 're much the same age as Itrac, and as my lost eldest
daughter. And I love you with more passion than I ever thought possible.
'Do you plan on telling anyone else?' She stiffened in his embrace and stared up at him, her blue eyes clouding. 'No, I didn't think so.'
'Why do you still wear this?' Kheda stroked a finger along the chain of small silver-mounted shark's teeth around Risala's neck. 'Can you honestly tell me you still believe the portents we imagined were woven around it?'
She looked stubborn. 'I know it's a token of your faith in me. It tells me I can trust you with my life.'
'As I trust you with mine.' Kheda bent to kiss her.
Risala's lips were soft and eager, the flicker of her tongue prompting a spark of desire in him. A spark that faded and died as another yawn would not be denied, Kheda drew her close nonetheless. 'Everyone's eyes will be turned to Itrac for a good long while. We'll be able to find some time for ourselves.'
'As long as we're discreet,' Risala warned. 'The lords and ladies of Redigal and Ritsem will be visiting soon j enough. I'll be no more use as your confidential agent if | their spies hear gossip that I'm your concubine.'
'I won't have anyone visiting too soon.' Kheda stifled another yawn. 'Itrac needs time to regain her strength and the babies must build up theirs. I suppose I must consult the star circles for an auspicious conjunction of the heavenly compass for visits.' He scowled with distaste.
'Especially from the Daish domain,' Risala said neutrally.
Daish, where I was warlord until a malign succession of disasters convinced my formerly faithful wives that I was no longer fated to rule over them. There was no brooking their determination to see me driven out, short of taking up arms against my own son. Some thanks that was for risking my life to bring them some means of salvation from invaders who
had already laid waste to Chazen and slaughtered Itrac's sister-wives and their children.
When Kheda didn't answer her, Risala twisted in his arms to look back at the ivory star circle on the table. 'It's forty days until the new-year stars align. That would insure Itrac a generous recuperation.'
Kheda nodded reluctantly. 'I imagine I can read some lies into the sky to argue for such a delay.'
'Go and read the omens for your new daughters, for their sakes.' Risala rose up on her toes to kiss him. 'It's not their fault your faith in such signs is wavering.'
Kheda looked unblinkingly at her. 'The only signs I look for are hints on the wind or in the sea's currents that we're to be invaded by those wild men and their magic once again, or worse still, see another dragon land on Chazen soil.'
Risala shuddered involuntarily. 'Then look for those signs as well, as long as you read the sky for your daughters' births. Or do you want to scandalise the gossips around the island cookfires, and have them looking askance at the babies from their birt
h?' A new thought struck her. 'What are you going to call them?'
Kheda shrugged. 'Itrac said, if it proved to be twins and they were girls, she wanted to call them Olkai and Sekni.'
Olkai and Sekni who were so well loved and respected. That didn 't save them from death at the hands of the invaders who ravaged this domain for their own foul purposes. None of us saw any portent that presaged such disaster. With all she's seen since then, how can Risala wonder why I no longer have faith in the signs of the heavenly compass?
'That'll be popular among the islanders.' Risala was biting her lower lip absently. 'And it's news I can trade—'
Kheda frowned as he belatedly saw something else in Risala's expression. 'What is it? You didn't just come here
to make sure I didn't scandalise the domain and blight my daughters' lives by declaring my abandonment of portent.'
'I picked up something else in Tule waters besides that ivory compass.' She wouldn't meet his eye, looking down. 'I got a message from Velindre.'
Kheda's blood ran suddenly cold. 'What did she say?'
Has that strange barbarian woman seen some sign that fire and magic and death are about to overturn all our lives once again?
'Nothing to send us running for the boats and fleeing the domain.' Risala laid her cheek against Kheda's chest, her hands linked in the small of his back. 'She wants to meet me on the most northerly of the Endit domain's trading beaches, on either of the days bracketing the Ruby's passing into the arc of wealth.'
'She's been brushing up on her stargazing,' Kheda commented cynically. 'What do you suppose she wants?'
'There's only one way to find out,' Risala said ruefully. 'I'll take the Reteul and visit the other main trading beaches on my way to see what news is being bought and sold along with word of Itrac's new daughters. I can get there and back before the new year if the winds stay in my favour. Which would be an omen,' she added lightly.
'For those fool enough to put their trust in such things.' Kheda allowed himself a moment's comfort as her body j pressed against his. 'Still, the trip will certainly be a chance to read moods in the domains you pass through.'
'Such as Ulla waters. You can't avoid inviting Ulla Safar to celebrate Chazen's good fortune,' Risala warned,
Kheda sighed. 'Not when the venomous slug can snap his fingers to summon more armed men than any two other domains could muster from all their islands.'
'Not when his ill will would close so many sea lanes to stifle Chazen's trade,' Risala pointed out more prosaically.
'Let's hope he'll content himself with finding spiteful portents in his reading of the heavens over Chazen's new daughters' births.' Kheda reluctantly released Risala. 'I supposed I had better go and see what's to be seen, if only to confound his malice.'
To match Ulla Safar 's undoubted lies with lies of my own. What does that make me?
Risala reached up to take his face in her hands. 'I need no signs to tell me those girls couldn't wish for a better father.' She drew him down to kiss him soundly.
'That remains to be seen,' he said tersely. 'All right, I'll go and see what I can make out. Wait for me here.'
Heaving a weary sigh, he left the room with its myriad star circles and climbed the spiral stair to the open observatory with leaden feet.
Do my other children still think I have been a good father to them? How do they judge me, forced to abandon them I hanks to my own choices and those of their mothers? I won't be able to avoid inviting Sirket, any more than I can shun (Ilia Safar. Daish Sirket, my son, my firstborn, forced to assume rule of the Daish domain when he's barely older than llrac. But if I hadn't allowed everyone to believe me dead, so I could forswear all I held true and bring a wizard to fight the invaders' magic, Sirket and everyone else in Daish would have suffered the same slaughter as Chazen. Does he know that? Has Janne told him? What exactly has she told him?
Kheda squinted as he emerged onto the open observatory level. The sun was growing hotter and the black and ochre tiles dividing the floor with the cardinal lines of the compass were warm beneath his bare feet. He turned and looked to the north, where the Daish domain lay hidden far beyond the horizon.
Will Janne or Rekha come with Sirket? Will they deign to tell me if Dau is married yet, without my knowledge or consent? How much will Mesil or Efi and Vida have grown? Would I
even recognise Mie or Noi, barely more than babies the last time I saw them? I've never even seen Yasi, Sain's firstborn, and he'll be walking by now.
He walked slowly around the waist-high wall, one finger tracing the carvings on the wooden rail that delineated aspects of the particular omens to be read in each third of the quadrant. He paused at the curling script marking out the arc of marriage.
What would Sain Daish say of me as a husband? Does she still trust in omens? Fearful as she was, she came to marry me trusting in the portents that I and her brother saw promising her a long and successful marriage. Look how that turned out. But everyone will be expecting me to tell them how the portents promise a long and happy life for each of my newest daughters. Risala is right about that.
He sighed and returned to the centre of the open floor, fixing his attention on the south and east where the successive arcs denoting the fates of children, parents and siblings ran round the compass towards the west. A steady breeze blew in from the open ocean.
Below the horizon at this season, the stars of the Winged Snake writhe in the arc for children. Its restless nature is said to bring hidden things into the light, as well as being token of courage. Shall I tell everyone I saw a rainbow there, to be certain that all possible positive interpretations can draw the sting from whatever signs village soothsayers claim for this day?
Kheda gazed out over the ocean. Where the green and gold of the waters around the reefs faded to mysterious blue, a puff of spray caught his eye. He saw another, then another, at odds with the ruffles of white rising and falling.
Whales. A sign of vitality and of determination, also of mystery and an unknown fate. Though the whale is always read as a positive sign by the sages of Chazen. This is the only domain where men are brave enough, or sufficiently foolhardy,
to take to their boats to pursue the great beasts. Will they try to catch up with those I see and drive some laggard into the shallows where meat for a birthing festival can be harvested along with fat and bone? The whale's a sign of plenty in this domain, isn't it? I can tell Itrac that our elder daughter is born to the expectation of her resolute rule bringing fruitful times for Chazen. She'11 be happy to hear that and I won't be telling her an outright lie.
That didn't particularly relieve the heaviness weighing clown his spirits.
There's no earthly omen in the arc of parenthood. That's no great concern. The heavenly conjunction of Amethyst, Diamond and Opal will keep the soothsayers hunched over their books of lore until the rains come. And the Horned Fish's stars swim there. Those beasts have been known to succour drowning mariners if the books in the libraries here are to be believed. I can tell Itrac that augurs well for our care of these babies.
He looked past the point of due south marked on the observatory's tiled floor to the next arc.
The Net's myriad stars shine in the arc of siblings. If I stress the aspects of unity and cooperation, Itrac can hope our daughters' life together will be harmonious. Though nets can entangle and subdue. How difficult will it be for this second daughter when she realises she isn't the heir, when the two of them are so nearly of an age? Will she fret over whatever twist of fate held her back to be born second? Girls born when both moons are waxing are said to be precocious.
An unexpected flash of white caught the warlord's eye. This time it wasn't on the sea but rising into the far blue sky. A zaise spread long white wings with a span as wide as a tall man as it soared above the boundless ocean, spurning the land.
All white birds are a sign of beauty and fertility. I can claim that as well as the zaise's stamina and constancy for
the younger girl. An
d mariners say the bird is an omen of returning safe to harbour, even if it's rarely seen to rest on the waters and never known to land on solid ground. Some even say it builds a nest that floats on the waters beyond the outermost islands.
I suppose there will be those who would say that was a valid omen for a girl who must fly away to some other domain to fulfil her destiny. Still, with a bird portent for the younger one, and the whale omen for her elder sister, I can argue that each girl should be treated as an individual from the outset, not as two halves of some whole. And both omens carry an element of mystery, so perhaps I can protect them from the burden of false expectations wrenched from the heavens.
Abruptly weighed down with weariness, Kheda turned away from the vast sweep of the southern horizon to go back down the stairs.
That's sufficient nonsense for the soothsayers and everyone to debate over their cookfires. I just want some sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
A won't be able to escape inviting these noble warlords to share my observatory. How will they read these new-year stars? I'd better not give any of them reason to suspect I no longer share their trust in portents plucked from the heavens. Though there should be plenty of distractions. I haven't seen the anchorage so crowded since the day little Olkai and Sekni were born.
Kheda stood on the steps of his personal pavilion where the wide eaves cast welcome shade from the hot afternoon sun. He looked out across waters thronged with the undecked shallow galleys that came and went between the islands of the domain. After dutifully obeying his decree securing an extended respite for Itrac, it looked as if half the loyal populace had seized this opportunity at the turn of the year to bring gifts to their warlord, his lady, the domain's new heir and her sister.
And everyone, rulers and ruled, slave and free, expects to see me in all the elegance of my position.
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