Dangerous Gifts (16 page)

“Let him speak,” Enthemmerlee said, very clear over the noise. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Oh, I will speak,” he said, his voice tight with pain. “Let these others stare and worship with their backs still bloody from Gudain whips; I know.
We
know.”

“You think I am a trick,” Enthemmerlee said. “But will you give me a chance to prove I am not?”

“Why should we? All these years of waiting and saying, maybe tomorrow, some justice, maybe tomorrow, you get to have what is yours. We will
take
what is ours. You cannot stop it.”

Enthemmerlee leaned forward, gripping one of the metal ornaments with one hand, while I swore silently to myself and tried to keep her covered. “And if you take what is yours,” she said, “by shedding blood; if you extract vengeance for every wrong, even against those who never harmed you, is that justice? Does that make things right? Or does that make you exactly like what you hate?” She gestured to herself. “This that I am now,” she said, “is what
we
are. One people, united in hope. Do not give in to hate, to fear, to those things which would divide us. Only together can we mend our country, only together can we heal our wounds. You look at me and you see Gudain, but I am not Gudain.” She raised her head and looked across the crowd. “I am not Gudain, and I am not Ikinchli. I am
Incandrese.
”

A murmur rolled across them like the wind across corn.

“I am not here to create further division, further hatred. Of that, there has been enough.”

There was another murmur. I kept my eye on the stone-flinger. I was pleased to see his captors showed no sign of letting him go. I tried to catch the captain’s eye, but he was staring rigid-faced at nothing.

The beasts, disturbed, snorted and swayed their heads.

Enthemmerlee was smiling, but the hand on the ornament was white-knuckled.

“Captain! Captain...” I said, trying to remember the useless idiot’s name.

“It’s Captain Tantris,” Enthemmerlee said, from the side of her mouth, still smiling at the crowd. “I don’t want that boy hurt.”

Boy! He was older than her by some years, if I was any judge. “Yes, well, if we leave him to the crowd, I think he will be.” All right, I was more concerned with her safety than his, but I wasn’t exactly lying, either.

“Very well.” She leaned forward again. “You, what’s your name?”

“Kankish.”

“Kankish. And you, holding him. Thank you, but please, let him go.”

Reluctantly, they did. He shrugged his shoulders, easing them. I watched his hands. Someone had taken his sling, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t something else about him.

“You have a choice, Kankish,” Enthemmerlee said. “You can be part of this. You can begin to build, with us, a new country. Or you can walk away.”

Surrounded as he was, he didn’t have much choice, and knew it. He looked at her, his face unreadable. Then he stepped onto the road, and turned away, towards the border and Calanesk Port. He started to walk.

Most of the crowd didn’t even turn to see him go. Of those that did, some hissed. A handful of mud splattered his shirt. He kept walking.

I saw Rikkinnet leaning out of the other carriage. I caught her eye.

She nodded, baring her teeth.

A would-be assassin, walking away. But without undermining Enthemmerlee’s authority in front of this crowd, there was nothing either of us could do.

If that captain had the worth of his shabby uniform, he’d do something about it, but I wasn’t making any bets.

“Enthemmerlee?” Selinecree’s voice wavered up from the carriage. “What’s happening? Are you all right? Do come back in, dear; you’ll get dreadfully wet.”

“In a moment, Aunt. I’m perfectly fine.” Though in fact she was beginning to shake, and her always-pale skin was the colour of a cold dawn sky.

We moved on, slowly, Enthemmerlee holding herself upright, and smiling. The rain formed a thousand fine, tiny drops on her scales and skin, making her look jewelled.

“Did I hurt you?” I said, keeping my voice down.

“Hurt me?”

“Your shoulder. You made a noise – I’m sorry if I grabbed too hard.”

“Oh, no!” She flushed. “I was just startled. We don’t... I mean, Gudain don’t... touch. Not in public.”

Damn. I’d forgotten. “Sorry.”

“I think actually it is more important to survive than to be always proper.” She managed a smile, though it obviously cost her something. “And for me, it is already too late for being proper.”

We passed into the defile. A few Ikinchli, mostly very young, were perched here and there on the rocks; but gradually, the whispering chorus faded behind us.

One of the guards, I couldn’t see which, spat, deliberately.

Then, there was only the sound of the wheels, and the boots of the soldiers, and the padding feet of the beasts. I eased my aching shoulders and hoped we didn’t have much farther to go.

CHAPTER

NINE

I
PERSUADED
E
NTHEMMERLEE
back inside the carriage before we got to Lincacheni.

The city seemed barely awake. Great houses and public buildings turned shuttered faces to the wide, sweeping streets. The rain called out subtle colours from the buildings, deep soft greens and plummy reds and blue-greys; the overall effect was oddly dreamlike. Yet it was an uneasy dream. Many of the stately old buildings had closed shutters, crumbling under beards of grey-green moss, and here and there small trees grew in the guttering.

There were smaller, more recent-looking buildings too, of pallid grey stone the rain did not flatter. These seemed to be inhabited mainly by Ikinchli; handsome, long-jawed faces watched from windows hung with ragged cloth. A few children scrambled about on the narrow unrailed stone stairs that ran up the sides of the buildings, stopping to stare at the coach with wide gold eyes. I’d got used to seeing them in Scalentine, but never so many at once. I was struck again by what a beautiful race they were. Their main scales varied from deep bronze to the green of ferns growing in shade, while the softer, smaller scales that covered throat and chest and belly were every blend of amber and cream.

The few people on the streets, too, were mostly Ikinchli. I saw a few Gudain, some with Ikinchli servants in tow, and one Gudain woman followed by a young Ikinchli girl laden with parcels. The girl caught sight of the symbol on the carriage and gasped, dropping one of the parcels and immediately falling to her knees to scrabble for it. The Gudain woman grabbed the girl by the back of her shirt, hauled her to her feet and slapped her, the sound sharp enough to be heard over the boots of the guard and the rumble of carriage-wheels.

The woman strode away, chin up. The girl trudged along behind her, eyes carefully on her parcels.

The other Ikinchli watched this with utterly expressionless faces, but you didn’t need to read faces to see the number of crests that were up, the number of tails flicking. Some noticed the symbol on the coach; those who looked twice glanced away quickly. I wondered why, until I spotted the two Gudain in the bulky brown uniforms and low helmets, looking over the passing figures. Fenac. Otherwise known, though not aloud, as
guak,
or ‘the shits.’ They had a tough, narrow-eyed glare and a bullish stance, but their hands were hovering an inch from their hilts and their shoulders were hunched. Arrogant, but nervous. Not a good combination.

We went through what looked like a market area, where a few people were setting up trestles and benches in a space big enough for many more, and past one old building that, unlike many of its fellows, was in fine condition. Deep red spiralling pillars held up a roof tiled in red and green. The carved oxblood doors stood open. An old man, a Gudain, swept the forecourt with careful pride.

It wasn’t until later I realised that he was the only Gudain I would see at any such task.

The rain was still falling, not cold, but persistent. The smell of damp and that odd alchemical taint clung to everything.

As we turned uphill, I caught a glimpse of the main road out of the other end of the town. A wide, straight, well-kept road; I could glimpse the tail end of a caravan train heading into the city. No way of telling what the cargo was from here.

I wondered where they stopped. There are usually places that cater for that sort of traffic, but with the Gudain being so suspicious of foreigners, maybe not.

Still, people who dislike foreigners are often amazingly willing to make money off them.

The buildings of the Ten Families were set high on a hill at the centre of the city. As we approached, we moved up away from the clatter of commerce into sculpted parkland. Thin, upright trees with silvery bark shivered with thousands of narrow leaves that whispered and hissed together in the breeze. Gravelled paths swept in elegant curves, streams chattered, tumbling among rocks thick with brilliantly-coloured mosses: scarlet, viridian, bright pale yellow.

Mansions stood among the trees. Elegant, no doubt, with their softly-coloured stone, but they looked oddly dumpy, to me. Their roofs, like flattened cones, were somehow too low and wide for the buildings. Admittedly, the Red Lantern would have fitted into most of them five or six times over.

Right at the top of the hill, dominating all the other buildings, was the Palace. Its long-gone architect had decided that the subtle tones of the local stonework were insufficient for the glory of the royals; they needed something more colourful to show them off.

They’d got it. Every single ashlar had been faced with marble.
Different
marble. Black marble swirled with white. Plum marble blotched with violet. Forest green marble. Butter yellow marble. Even in the rain, it looked like a giant gaming-board; in sunlight it probably hurt the eyes. Its wide, low roof swept up to points at intervals. The overall effect was somehow both squat and fussy, like a plump, overdressed child. Behind it was a slope of green hill, and at the top, a small, plain structure that was not much more than columns and a roof. That was where the Patinarai would take place.

Enthemmerlee’s family home proved to have a wall, though only about a foot taller than I was, so not much of a defence. It was pierced by a pair of rather fine wrought-iron gates, in a pattern of twining vines and little running lizards, but from the greenery growing lushly around the posts, it didn’t look as though anyone had closed them for a long time. That would need dealing with. There was a small stone guard-house, and two Gudain standing either side of the gate. They peered at the carriage, nudging each other. Sloppy. That would need dealing with, too.

We passed onto a paved driveway of a soft rust colour; the large central building was of deep green stone, with a sprawling litter of outbuildings. Standing off by itself was a smaller version of the red-pillared, mosaic-roofed building down in the city where the old man had been sweeping.

“That is our family chapel, where we take
privaiya
,” Selinecree said. “The oldest part of the estate, going back at least ten generations. The Entaire family was the first to have a private chapel, you know. Until then, we worshipped at the Palace with everyone else.”

“Really?” I said, trying to sound suitably awestruck.

I was, in fact, more depressed than impressed. The place had enough outbuildings, statues, fountains and decorative shrubbery to hide a hundred assassins. And everywhere faces peered, mostly Ikinchli: the family servants, wanting to catch a glimpse of Enthemmerlee.

Several servants were heading towards us, following a middle-aged Ikinchli male with a little belly rounding the front of his dark-blue livery, who moved with a curious un-Ikinchli-like rigidity that made me wonder if he had something wrong with his spine.

“Thranishalak, we have one extra guest,” Selinecree said, as he handed her out of the carriage. “This is Mr Fain, a very important gentleman from Scalentine. I hope you can find somewhere to suit him?”

“I believe the western suite is free, Madam,” Thranishalak said.

“I hope you will find it adequate, Mr Fain.”

“I’m sure I will,” Fain said.

Enthemmerlee, stepping down behind me, smiled. “Thranishalak. Oh, it is good to be home!”

Thranishalak, seeing her for the first time, blinked. Once. Then he bowed, and said, “Welcome home, Ma’am.”

He was good; his voice hardly wavered at all.

“Madam Steel I believe is next to me?” Enthemmerlee said. “And the honoured Scholar is across the corridor.”

A flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye. My sword was out, my shield up, and I was staring at a Gudain girl-child, with the pearly, ethereal looks I remembered Enthemmerlee having before her transformation, who skittered to a halt, staring at me.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “And why are you hiding that person?”

“I’m here to protect her,” I said. “In case anyone wants to hurt her.” I hoped everyone was listening; I could feel the shocked looks.

The child, at least, seemed unbothered. “Oh. Where’s my Aunt Emmlee?”

Enthemmerlee moved my shield out of the way. “Here, darling,” she said. “It’s me.”

The girl looked at her, and said, “
You’re
not my aunt.”

“Yes, I am. I just look different now,” Enthemmerlee said. “Selinecree. You were supposed to have warned her.”

“I did,” Selinecree said. “Chitherlee, sweet, I
told
you your aunt was going to be different when she came home. You remember.”

Enthemmerlee knelt down on the stone pathway, and said, “Chitherlee,
itni,
it’s me. Truly. Come and look close.”

“
You’re
not my
aunt!
” The girl’s mouth drew down in a trembling bow. “I want my
Aunt Emmleeee!
”

“Now, now, that’s no way to go on,” Malleay said, striding forward. “That’s not the way my sunshine girl behaves, is it?”

“Mally!” The girl sobbed in that unashamed, open-mouthed way of small children. “She in’t Emmlee! She in’t! Make her go away!”

Malleay knelt down and produced a handkerchief. “Come, come, shhhh.”

He produced a necklace from his pocket and tried to get her to play with it, but did not put his arms around her. No one touched the child until an Ikinchli woman hurried up, scattering apologies, and scooped her into her arms. The girl buried her head in the curve of the woman’s neck. The woman stroked and patted her back, with the unconscious automatic motions of someone who’s spent her life looking after children, while she stared at Enthemmerlee.