A World Too Near (39 page)

Pai helped Johanna slip into her nightgown. At the door to her private rooms, she heard SuMing talking, turning a visitor away. Johanna had given instructions to admit no one. If SuMing was good for little else, at least she made a good gatekeeper.

“Mistress, talk to me,” Pai pleaded.

Johanna was done with talking. Time was, when it would have been a relief to talk to another woman. But no one could be her confidante. She had too many secrets, and some of them could kill.

Why did Morhab probe so keenly? Did he suspect that there was more fertile ground than she had yet revealed? Was he suspicious that she had been in touch with Titus? As to that, she couldn’t say whether she was or not. Had Titus ever received her message? Once, her faith had convinced her that God would have granted that, for the sake of all that would be lost. Now, she had grave doubts. God wasn’t keeping a special watch over her. He might be well meaning and sad at ugly things occurring, but He was powerless.

“Tell the lord that Morhab plagues you,” Pai whispered, pleading her cause. She couldn’t imagine that Lord Inweer might fail to solve every problem. She couldn’t imagine that Lord Inweer
was
the problem.

Johanna shook her head, letting Pai lead her to the bed, where, if she was supremely lucky, tonight she would sleep. She sat on her covers, murmuring. “Some subjects one can’t raise with the gracious lord. Leave it at that.”

As Pai dimmed the lights, Johanna said, “Bring me a sleeping powder, Pai.”

After a pause, Pai said, “No. You’ve been saving them.”

Johanna couldn’t see her servant’s face, and was glad for the darkness. “Don’t tell
anyone.”

“No.”

It felt like friendship, now that they shared a secret. Johanna hoarded her sleeping powders. In case she couldn’t bear things any longer. In case the lord discovered her intentions and tried to question her.

Pai continued, “But promise me you’ll give up your wish to take poisons.”

“I promise.”

There was a smile in Pai’s voice, indulgent and temporary. “Too easily said.”

“I won’t take my life, Pai, be assured. I wait for Titus, you see.”

The word
Titus
,
Titus
,
Titus
filled the room. Had she really mentioned his name?

At last Pai whispered, “You still hope for him to rescue you? But mistress, it has been many thousands of days. He will not come. Isn’t it best to make your happiness here, with the lord who favors you?”

The darkness gave permission for so much. Things that could be said. Things that could be done. “He may come, Pai.”

“That is high love indeed, mistress,” Pai said, wonder in her voice.

“No, not coming here for me. But for the engine.” She whispered, “I summoned him, Pai. Against the engine. He will come for that reason.”

What must her servant think of this revelation? Simple Pai, more used to gossip than plots. The woman sighed, giving vent to her confusion. “Such high matters, mistress. Surely we cannot be certain what men of power will do.”

“He knows why he must come.” She had said too much, and let the conversation lapse. It was deep into the ebb.

She crawled into bed, hearing the bedroom door close behind Pai.

To her surprise, the sharing of secrets left her unguarded and relaxed; she fell into a welcome sleep.

Late in the ebb, Johanna awoke to a shuffling noise. She couldn’t see in the pitch dark. “Pai?” she called out. Someone was in the room. A shadow.

Suddenly awake, she called out, “Pai?”

The voice came: “It is SuMing.”

Johanna shoved the covers aside, instantly wary. “What do you want?” Johanna swung her feet onto the floor. Did SuMing come to announce that Lord Inweer wished to see her? Had Morhab finally grown tired of her, and told the lord all?

But SuMing made no announcements. She crept closer to the bed, causing Johanna to wonder if her servant was armed. Come for revenge, at last. Johanna backed up, watching for the gleam of a weapon in SuMing’s hand, but the room was too dark.

SuMing stood at the foot of the bed now. Her voice was even and low: “Remember the day, Johanna, when, for your sake, the lord hung me from the great height?”

Alarmed, and still not able to see SuMing, Johanna thought quickly about what she might use to protect herself. Slowly, she took a small blanket from the bed to fend off a knife. “I remember, SuMing. The lord would have dropped you. But didn’t.”

“Yes. I can’t move my neck. It hurts.”

Johanna remembered that moment that Inweer told SuMing to jump, and the flash of his hand as he snatched her long braid, breaking her fall, and her neck.

“But,” SuMing continued, “I am alive. Because of you. Because you spoke for me, he let me go free.” She moved closer. “I goaded you and spied on you, mistress. For that I am sorry. Now I will make it right.” After a beat she said, “Pai is in Morhab’s chamber.”

Johanna thought with dismay, Does he torment my ladies, too?

“Pai has met with the Gond before. They are friends.”

Johanna felt a pang in her chest. Friends?

“Yes, very good friends,” SuMing replied. “Now I will lead you to them. You will observe.”

Johanna followed SuMing from the room, her heart thudding, her mind frantic to forecast what would happen next. Johanna recalled her last conversation with Pai, how the woman had deftly drawn out her story, her most secret story.
Mother of God, what have I done?

They made their way to Morhab’s quarters, and peered into his den. All was quiet among the stunted trees. In her urgency to know the truth, Johanna left SuMing behind and crept toward the glow in Morhab’s favorite clearing. There she saw Pai speaking urgently with the Gond. Johanna couldn’t hear what they were saying. She didn’t need to.

Pai knew that Titus was coming to Ahnenhoon, and that was subject enough.

It was the middle of the ebb, a poor time to rouse Lord Inweer, much less ask him for favors.

A cold gust of air met Johanna when she entered his chamber. Across the room she saw him waiting for her on the balcony, the storm wall frowning behind him. His long coat whipped about his legs in the wind. He didn’t speak to her in welcome, and this made her watchful mood all the more cautious. Had Morhab come here already, whispering her crimes?

She crossed the room, forcing a lidded calm over her panic. She went past the sleeping platform—not disturbed, she noted—and through the wide arch onto the balcony.

“Good ebb to you, my lord,” she said, casually bowing, affecting the confidence she had once felt around the Tarig lord.

“Johanna.”

“A deep time of ebb, I know. I couldn’t sleep.” Despite the room’s glaring light, the porch fell into shadow from the dark dance of the nearby storm wall. She couldn’t see Inweer’s face clearly. “And you, my lord, working so late?”

“We always work, Johanna. To keep the realm.”

Against such enemies as she? Had Morhab come here to whisper Titus’s name?

Inweer turned away from her and gazed down the profound length of the storm wall, toward the tip of the primacy, where the storm walls from each side converged in the greatest seam in the universe. He appeared surrounded by chaotic, silent storms. The lord’s skin, shiny and bronze, made him look bloodless and unforgiving. How could she ever have loved him?

She moved closer to him, placing her hand on the railing overlooking the wasteland between the wall and the fortress. It was a blasted and muddy place, with no growing thing.

Inweer turned to her, gripping her chin in his long hand, and tilting her face to him. “Johanna. Do you love your husband of the Rose?”

She held herself steady. “No, my lord. Titus Quinn has faded from my heart.”

She could barely breathe. Morhab had been here. Inweer was just waiting for her to compound her lies.

And, in the next moment, relief: “The Nigh, Johanna. We noted, forty days ago, a perturbation in the storm walls. Something tried to come through. Perhaps it was Titus. Come for his daughter again.” Inweer moved his head imperceptibly forward, in that unnerving way he had of appearing ready to bite. “You are surprised?”

“Yes. He must know you would lie in wait for him there.”

“This time, we will kill him. Are you ready for this?”

She knew better than to give him the obvious answer. “He is my husband. If I don’t love him, at least I honor him. Would you ask me to condemn him?”

Not answering, Inweer strode away. He stood, back to her, looking in the other direction, along the storm wall.

Titus is back, she exulted. He has come back. She knew where he was bound. Not for Sydney. That was the past. For Ahnenhoon.

She heard Inweer say, “This lord wonders who the man loves more, his wife or his child.”

Johanna saw the direction of his thoughts. Inweer wondered if Titus would come here, to rescue her. She hoped he wouldn’t place the
fortress on tighter security. “I doubt he much remembers me.”

Inweer gazed at the storm wall as though expecting ships to appear, budding through from the Rose. He turned back to her. “But remembers a daughter?”

“Daughters do not fade.”

“Ah.”

She approached him, putting a hand on his arm. “He wouldn’t come here for the sake of an old marriage. Nor would I want him to.”

He was silent for a long time. Finally, he said, his deep voice nearly out of hearing, “You might have had your daughter, Johanna, had it been this lord’s decision to make.”

Don’t say things like that, Johanna thought. Don’t be kind. But it gave her the opening she needed to accomplish the night’s purpose.

“Thank you, my lord. She hasn’t faded from my mind.”

“Despite the fact that she does not favor you.”

“Yes. In fact, it would give me great pleasure to give Sydney a likeness of myself.”

“Likeness?”

“A moving image of myself. So that she might remember me more favorably. It couldn’t hurt, and it would put my mind at rest.”

“You do not hope to bring it to the sway yourself.” His tone made clear there was no chance of that.

“No, my lord. Send it to her as you deem best. But I would like this image created tonight. It is the day of her birthday,” she lied, “making this an auspicious time to create the image.” It was of the utmost importance that it be tonight. Everything must happen tonight.

“Johanna, we are beset with large matters. Yet you talk of presents.”

“Is it a difficult undertaking?

“Not difficult.”

She waited.

“Do you require the image at this instant?”

“Make it this ebb, if you will indulge me, my lord. All I need is time to change into a suitable gown. You could send someone to my apartments this ebb. I will be ready.”

He waved a hand at her. “Yes, then.”

“Also, I would like to have a device to view my image.”

He nodded. “I will send someone.”

“This ebb.”

A sharpness came into his voice. “Yes, this ebb.”

She glanced down, to deflect his irritation.

Then Inweer took her hands in his, and gazed at her as though trying to discern her thoughts. “Johanna. This lord may soon need your whole loyalty. Do we have it all? Do we have the devotion you once gave a husband, even if we can be no such thing to you?”

Standing near the soaring storm wall made it so much easier to lie to him. The storm could not stand up without devouring the Rose.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I promise you.”

It wasn’t like him to embrace her, but he did. She clung to him for a moment, hardening her heart. All the while she watched the door to Inweer’s chamber, and listened for Morhab’s sled.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

In the realm of existence, only the All.
In the practice of war, only Ahnenhoon.

—a saying

L
ATE IN THE EBB, Mo Ti stood at the edge of the crowd of travelers, resting his hand on Distanir’s forehorn. A cry went up as someone spotted a transport vessel on the Nigh, causing a general surge forward.

Now it begins, Mo Ti thought. My separation from her. Leaving her in the company of the she-Gond, the river spider. . . . He would never call her Helice. However, he would do Sydney’s bidding. It was his mission, to obey her in small things and large. When he came back to the sway, he would bring Helice down, one way or another. Her reckless ambition endangered all that Sydney had worked for. The spider had her web, and Sydney was ensnared. The web was a grand scheme the spider called
renewal
or
renaissance
.
A bad plan
, he had told Sydney.
It will doom us. No
, Sydney had said,
it will
save us.

He hefted his travel bag and watched as the ship sped toward the bank.

Gathered at the forlorn river outpost were a few dozen travelers, mostly Jout and a knot of Hirrin godders. The Long Gaze of Fire claimed two sways, the Inyx and the Jout, bloth lightly populated, allowing an isolation the Inyx savored. Few navitars plied the Nigh hereabouts, and finding one after only one day’s wait was luck indeed. The vessel neared the shore, pushing a mercurial wave ahead of it while at the same time taking the river matter into the funnel on the prow.

It was time to go.

At Mo Ti’s side, Distanir looked anxiously at the ship. He distrusted the Nigh. It allowed strangers too near the roamlands. The Inyx considered the whole primacy as their territory. The Jout held a different opinion, but the vast primacy comfortably held both.

Mo Ti moved forward as sentients gave way before his bulk and that of his mount.

The Chalin ship keeper straddled the bow of the ship. “Where bound?” he shouted, looking over the prospective passengers.

“Ahnenhoon,” Mo Ti called out. Around him, a clutch of Hirrin godmen flattened their ears. The Chalin man would have priority. He was bound for soldiering. These Hirrin had hopes of traveling together, but this monster and his Inyx companion would take up three berths, at least. Worse, an Ahnenhoon destination would divert the transport to the wrong primacy.

The ship keeper directed Mo Ti and Distanir aft of the passenger cabin to the baggage hold, a compartment large enough for an Inyx. Having the mount out of sight mollified the passengers, who resented having an Inyx nearby snatching thoughts. However, Mo Ti doubted that Distanir would care to browse in the hearts of Jouts and godmen, especially given Distanir’s general agitation. Mo Ti steadied his mount as best he could by being steady himself. Mo Ti had no fear of the river or the binds, no more than he feared Paion onslaughts or the strutting Tarig. He had lived past fear. Now he lived for devotion. For Sydney. No one who knew him in former days would believe that Mo Ti the Horrible could have such tenderness in him. Since his twisted, muscular childhood, he had been dour and immovable. His mother foreswore her ugly child, taking her life by means of the four-minute ride from an outer balcony of the bright city. Ever after, his fellow clerks in the Magisterium had called him Son of the Falling Stone. But never to his face.