He Who Lifts the Skies (20 page)

“Two more,” Zehker insisted, allowing no argument.

To Keren’s relief, her lesson was interrupted by a clatter at the gate. One of the new guardsmen, Erek—the sly-faced young man who had spied Zehker on the day of her capture—went to answer the impatient summons. Seeing her unexpected guests, Keren nearly dropped her bow. “Neshar! Bachan! My own brothers!”

Stick thin, their hair still badly shorn, but clean now, and wearing their proud horsemen attire, Neshar and Bachan grinned at her. They were followed by the solemn Mattan and by the two brothers she had not met: Miyka and Kana, who were wide-eyed and obviously reluctant
to enter her courtyard. At Lawkham’s cheerful urging, the five men filed in to stand before her, bowing their heads respectfully, their hands folded before themselves as if greeting one of higher rank.

Keren detested their formality. She would have preferred to hug them all—an impulse she hastily controlled. She was so happy that she stammered as she spoke. “Pl-please, can you stay for the evening meal? It will be ready soon, and I’m sure we have enough for everyone. Na’ah always cooks too much.”

“If you wish, Lady,” Neshar answered, still formal, eyeing her new guards.

Lawkham apparently noticed Neshar’s open mistrust; he swept an imperious brown hand at Erek and the other new household guards. “Back away. In fact, go do something useful before our Lady
touches
you.”

Erek looked irritated, and some of the other guardsmen protested until Keren frowned at them menacingly—an act, but it was effective. They retreated, fearful that she might actually do as Lawkham had threatened. Miyka and Kana also seemed alarmed. To reassure them, Keren smiled, deliberately clasping her hands tightly before herself.

She led them to a row of grass mats—hastily produced by Alatah and the suspicious Gebruwrah, who had emerged from the house and were scrambling to bring cool drinks to welcome their lady’s horsemen-brothers. Revakhaw and Tsinnah swiftly arranged a separate mat for Keren, padding it with a heap of gleaming furs, allowing her to kneel comfortably, facing her guests.

Neshar and Bachan removed their rough, short fleece cloaks, spread them over their chosen mats, and sat down. Mattan, Miyka, and Kana followed their example, watching
Keren covertly. Unasked, Zehker brought a longspear and placed it between Keren and her brothers to serve as a visible reminder that her brothers were not exempt from the death order. She stared at the spear, understanding Zehker’s gesture, but disheartened by its necessity.

“Why should you be grieved by this?” the observant Neshar asked, suddenly every bit the older brother. “Be thankful, Lady. This death order is like a gift to you. It maintains your status and cultivates respect and obedience from those who would otherwise take advantage of you. Even Ra-Anan is not above this threat.”

“I hate it!” Keren told him fiercely. “I’m all the more an oddity—a freak—because of this command.” Tears started to her eyes. She had to pause, pressing her hands to her face to maintain her composure. At last, she wiped her eyes and smiled at the still-nervous Miyka and Kana; they seemed so shy. “You two look so much like our father, I’m amazed. I am so glad to see you, believe me.”

“We know you’ve been concerned for us, sister—Lady,” Bachan said, hurriedly amending his lapse in manners. “That’s why we’ve come today. We wanted to thank you for interceding on our behalf with Nimr-Rada. He sent for us yesterday and told us that it was only for your sake that we were released from laboring in the clay.”

“He decided to grant my pleas.”

“No thanks to Ra-Anan,” Mattan grumbled.

Keren frowned. “Tell me, please, what did you do to deserve such a terrible punishment?”

“We hid your existence from him, Lady,” Bachan told her. “For years.”

“Your existence and Sharah’s,” Mattan added. Fixing his gaze on Keren, he said, “Please forgive me, Lady. I’m the one who actually told Ra-Anan that you and our
no-color sister, Sharah, were alive. We were beginning to hear stories of your existence from other people. I knew that Ra-Anan would be even more furious with us—his own brothers—if some traveler told him first. I told him that you and Sharah were alive, and he told the Great King. It’s my fault that you were brought here.”

“My situation—and Sharah’s—is not your fault,” said Keren, forgiving him at once. “If others were talking about us, then everything that’s happened was inescapable. Sharah always has been eager to come to the Great City, and as covetous as she is, she wanted to become Nimr-Rada’s wife. We would have been brought here eventually.”

“We have been told to deny any stories that Sharah was married,” Mattan informed Keren beneath his breath, watching Keren’s attendants, who were retrieving more mats. “If we—or you—affirm that she was married, we’ll all be punished.”

“Undoubtedly,” Neshar agreed. “And I must add, Lady, that I had hoped that Ra-Anan would be loyal to us for the sake of our parents, but I was wrong. Therefore, I no longer consider him to be my brother.”

“Nor do I,” Bachan muttered, as the others nodded in silent accord. Changing the subject in deference to Keren’s new guardsmen, who were now moving to watch them from a more advantageous corner of the courtyard, Bachan smiled at Keren. His face was a masculine reflection of Chaciydah’s, slim and expressive. “I’m curious, Lady. Your leather armbands and front piece … very strange attire for a woman. Are you learning to use weapons?”

Glancing at Lawkham and Zehker, who had retreated to stand together at a discreet distance, Keren grimaced. “Yes. Orders,” she said, imitating Zehker’s abrupt explanation.
“I’m told that I’ll be hunting with Nimr-Rada. I’ve also been told that if I obey my ‘orders,’ you will be treated well.”

“Behave then,” Mattan begged, his face also a vivid reflection of their mother’s. They all laughed together, even Miyka and Kana, who were beginning to relax.

Keren grew somber, looking at her brothers in loving concern. “I will do everything—everything—within my power to be sure you aren’t punished again. But there is one thing I won’t do: I cannot bow to Nimr-Rada.”

“That’s because you’ve listened to the Ancient Ones all your life,” Neshar observed. “They believe that no man on earth should have such authority.”

“Only the Most High should have such authority in the hearts and minds of mankind,” Keren told them. To her dismay, they reacted like everyone else in this Great City at the mere mention of the Most High—they all made faces or looked away, as if in polite distaste. “Why do you despise Him?” Keren asked.

“Perhaps despise is too strong a word,” Mattan said. “Rather, we believe there are other ways beneath these heavens.”

“Your own ways? Or the ways of Ra-Anan and He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies?” Keren persisted quietly, unwilling to be deceived with light answers.

Neshar lifted a hand to silence Bachan, who was opening his mouth to respond.

“We shouldn’t argue tonight, Lady,” Neshar said, gentle again. “Why spoil what could be our last visit together? Listen: We are to be separated and sent in different directions at the command of He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies.”

“But … why?” Keren felt tears starting to her eyes again. “Is it because of me? Are you still being punished?”

“Not punished so much as prevented from creating the potential for a rebellion, Lady,” Miyka explained, daring to speak at last. He was indeed a younger image of their father, from the straightness of his black hair and long limbs down to the very turn of his mouth and the tone of his voice. Keren was homesick just listening to him.

Seated beside Miyka, Kana nodded. He could have been Miyka’s twin. “There are too many of our own family here, Lady,” he told Keren. “We are all sons of the same parents, brothers to the two highest ladies in these lands—and one sister is wife to the Great King himself. Perhaps it’s best for us to be separated. Otherwise we would be suspected of plotting against Ra-Anan or the Great King.”

But would you truly plot against them?
Keren wondered. She dared not ask. They all seemed loyal to Nimr-Rada, though not to Ra-Anan.

Their furtive conversation was cut short by Na’ah, Gebuwrah, and Alatah, who presented beaten copper trays and large wooden dishes of food. Cold spiced-honey roasted quails, lamb stewed with olives and aromatic herbs, salt-toasted nuts, fresh fruit, pungent vegetables preserved in vinegar, chilled fruit juice, and the ever-present heaps of flat bread, baked and softened with oil.

As they ate, Keren noticed that Neshar was frequently glancing just beyond her. Wondering, Keren looked over her shoulder. Revakhaw was there, eyeing Neshar, and she seemed unabashed that Keren had noticed their silent flirtation.

Leaning toward Keren, and shielding her face from Neshar’s view, Revakhaw whispered, “Lady, your brother there is as handsome as you are beautiful.”

“You insult my brother,” Keren said.

Revakhaw laughed and turned away, gathering emptied platters and bowls, while Neshar studied her every move. He
was
handsome, Keren decided, secretly proud of him—of all her brothers. It would please her if Neshar might someday request Revakhaw as his wife, for Revakhaw already seemed like a sister to Keren. But would Nimr-Rada allow Revakhaw—or any of Keren’s attendants—to leave her household to be married? Surely Nimr-Rada wouldn’t be so cruel as to deny this. She would have to ask Ra-Anan. Politely.

Too soon, the impromptu feast ended. The sun was setting, and Alatah and Tsinnah were bringing out the tallow-filled lamps of clay, trimming the plaited grass wicks, and lighting them carefully. Noticing that her brothers were becoming restless, Keren stood. Her legs and feet tingled uncomfortably, half numb from kneeling for such a long time.

“We leave before dawn, Lady,” Neshar said, apologizing for their departure.

“Tell me that I’ll see you again,” Keren begged, aware of Revakhaw lingering nearby.

“Perhaps you will.” Neshar’s expression was circumspect now, all thoughts of Revakhaw apparently, necessarily, disregarded. He stepped nearer, an arm’s length away. In a barely audible whisper, he said, “We may be parted for years. Listen, my sister: Learn to use your weapons. And judge everything coldly. I know you detest what I’m saying, but for your own sake you must protect yourself. Trust no one. And treasure your isolation. If you manage everything respectfully, I don’t believe Nimr-Rada would kill you. However, he and Ra-Anan will have you enmeshed in countless maddening plots.”

Suddenly, he looked very much like Eliyshama, young and worried. Keren watched him intently, trying to hear his every word. He hesitated, then said softly, “I don’t wish to see you enslaved here forever, but if our father arrives in the Great City, don’t let him try to take you away. Quiet as he is, you know he has a temper, and it won’t go well with him if he threatens He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies. You must make our father leave you here willingly. For his life, my own sister, I beg you to weigh every word you say in our father’s presence.”

Keren’s mouth went dry. She hadn’t considered this possibility. “Do you think our father would actually come here?”

“Yes.” Neshar’s face hardened, older now. “Remembering our father, he will try to save you from this place. And from He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies. Again, I beg you, if you cherish our father, you must make him leave you here. Reject him.”

If Neshar had beaten her, he could not have upset her so badly. She turned away, feeling ill. When her brothers finally left, Keren lingered in the darkening courtyard, desolate as an abandoned child. Reject her father?

“I can’t,” she whispered to no one. “I can’t.”

Twelve

“TELL ME WHAT my brothers say of me,” Ra-Anan commanded, as Keren knelt before him beneath a shading canopy in his courtyard.

Keren folded her hands in her lap, hoping she appeared tranquil, though she was sweating in the midday heat. Ra-Anan’s servants had brought her nothing to drink, which was good; today Ra-Anan would not detain her to point out all her failings in a long lesson of manners. He simply wanted information.

She refused politely. “What can I tell you about our brothers that you do not already know, O Master Ra-Anan?”

“Very little.” Ra-Anan leaned forward, aggravated, his deep-set eyes narrowing as he spoke. “And I am sure that is all you intend to tell me: very little.”

When she remained silent, merely staring down at her fingers plaited together in her lap, he said, “Neshar and
the others have caused you nothing but trouble. Why should you protect them?”

“They are my own brothers—the sons of my father and mother. And whatever troubles they’ve unintentionally caused, at least I know they care for me.”

“Hence all their warnings against me,” Ra-Anan observed darkly.

She wondered at his tone. He sounded as if his brothers had—by their warnings—opened a festering wound. “Are you surprised by this?”

“Not at all. I expected that they would disown me. But you, my sister, have you disowned me as well?”

Keren hesitated, then decided to be blunt. “If I disown you as my brother, Ra-Anan, it will be a decision you have made for me by your own actions.”

“And, likewise, my sister, if I turn against you, it will be a decision you have made for me by your own actions.”

Trading him stare for stare, Keren said, “I don’t pretend to understand you, Master Ra-Anan, but I don’t consider myself your enemy.”

“Indeed?” He was contemptuous, making Keren grit her teeth as he sneered. “You resist my every suggestion. You ignore my advice. You listen to those who hate me. Dear sister, I am
glad
you are not my enemy.”

Infuriated, she burst out, “I resist your advice because you give it in your own best interests, not mine! You’re just like Sharah!” To her satisfaction, he looked shocked by the comparison. “I wish you would tell me why you’ve brought me to the Great City. Why should you endure me when I’m unwilling to be here? It’s not because you feel any sense of duty or loyalty or love toward me—because I know you don’t. So it can only be that I’m useful to you somehow, being such an oddity.”

“You are right, of course,” he agreed, his face settling into its usual cold mask. “Why else would I trouble myself with such a boring, rebellious
child
such as yourself? Whether you like it or not, you are useful to me, so I will keep you here and you will accept that fact. Sadly, you are not as intelligent as I thought; I am amazed that it took you weeks to reach such an obvious conclusion.”