Spear of Heaven (28 page)

Borti had no such escape. Her brother-king was dead. The
people in the palace were hunting her. She was safest where she was, with a
hood hiding her face and a shadow hiding all of them, creeping along the wall
toward a gate that might, with the gods’ help, still be open and unguarded when
they got to it.

The seneldi came quietly, with a magery on them, but even
that could not keep them from rolling their eyes and snorting at the sudden
reek of death from inside the palace. Someone had opened a door and died in it.
Several other people ran out, looking for enemies to kill, but they saw nothing
but moonlight and darkness and an empty yard.

Borti stumbled. Kimeri kept her on her feet, using magery
when bodily strength was not enough. She kept trying to run inside, as if it
would do any good at all to die as her brother had. She was not thinking;
something in her had gone blank and blind. Mages would have to mend that when
they got to House Janabundur.

The gate had a guard, but Chakan killed him. It was almost
too quick to see: one moment he was alive, the next he was not. His soul hung
about, bewildered, till a gust of wind caught it and blew it away.

oOo

Once past the gate they mounted quickly. Rahai tossed
Kimeri into the saddle of the star-browed bay; she pulled Borti up behind her,
with Rahai pushing, not asking questions. He was a wise man, was Rahai. Borti
had no kind of seat on a senel, but she could balance herself, even tranced,
and she clung to Kimeri.

Bundur was riding, too. He rode well—he wanted to gallop
down the twisty street, but Daruya stopped him. There were people in the way.
The shadow would not hold if they went too fast or ran into anyone.

They had to walk, mostly, and trot in the few stretches
where it was level enough and empty enough. They were still faster than if they
had tried to go on foot, though Bundur did not like to admit it.

The city was quiet. It was only the palace that was in
uproar. The people would wait till it was over, then decide what to do. Kings
had died this way before, though not for a long while. Shurakan had got used to
peace, but it had never forgotten the scent of blood in the air.

House Janabundur waited for them. It was remarkably like
Kimeri’s earlier homecoming: the same warm welcome, the same barred gates, the
same gathering in the largest room.

But there were differences. The seneldi had to be put
somewhere and taken care of. The back garden did for that; Lady Nandi sighed
for her flowers, even after Kadin assured her that these seneldi were civilized
and would eat only what he gave them permission to eat. They liked having a
space to roam in, even one as small as that, and settled happily enough to
their fodder and the handful of grain that Kadin fed each one in turn.

oOo

He stayed with the seneldi. The rest of them went up to
the hall where they had dined on festival night. It was only yesterday, Kimeri
thought. It felt years gone.

They had to have tea and cakes—they could not be welcomed
without them. Everybody choked down a sip and a bite, even Hani creeping out of
bed to see what the commotion was. It seemed natural for him to set himself
beside Kimeri and keep quiet while Bundur told his mother that her brother was
dead.

Lady Nandi had expected it. “I knew,” she said, “when the
whispers grew so loud, and everyone so sure that he would yield. I knew he
never would.” Her eyes were dry, her voice steady. She kept all her tears
inside until she should have time to be alone. Then she would weep. “He
believed that the haters of foreigners were right, mind you, and that foreign
presence could only destroy what we have built here. But he was also the king.
The king is above the fears of simple men.”

But not the queen, Kimeri thought, with Borti gripping her
hand till it hurt, sitting on the other side of her from Hani. No one really
saw her yet, though the shadow was wearing thin. Kimeri was tired, even with
the Gate inside her to make her stronger.

The queen had been afraid, and was becoming afraid again as
she woke from the horror that had held her speechless. But she was brave, as
always. She fought her way through the fear.

Kimeri helped. She held the light where Borti could see it,
and guided her out of the dark place.

All the while she did that, the others talked. Kimeri’s
mother was being stubborn again. “Did I say I’d agreed to marry you?” she was
saying to Bundur. “Marry Vanyi. She’ll take you.”

“With all due respect to her ladyship,” said Bundur, “I don’t
want her. I want you.”

“Stop that,” said Vanyi, so sharp and so sudden that they
started and fell silent. “That will be enough out of you, Daruyani. You will do
as your heart is bidding you do, so loud even I can hear it, and that will be
that.”

“Not tonight,” Daruya said, obstinate still. “At least give
me time to think about it.”

“Time for the palace to discover and stop you? I think not.”
Vanyi was on her feet. She was not a tall woman and not usually imposing, but
when she wanted to she could stand as tall as the mountain that guarded
Shurakan.

Daruya stayed where she was, sitting at the table, but
somehow she was as tall as Vanyi.

They all waited for Vanyi to say something devastating,
something that would break Daruya down and trample on the shards. But Vanyi
said nothing at all. Simply stared at her, long and long. Then turned her back
on her in profound contempt.

The silence was deafening. Lady Nandi thought for a moment,
then stood as Vanyi had, and turned her back, too. So did Chakan.

That cut Daruya to the bone: Kimeri heard her gasp of shock.
After Chakan, the rest followed. They did not understand Shurakani, but they
understood what had been happening, and this was what they thought of it. Even
they, who should never have cared to wed their lady to a foreigner.

That left Kimeri and Hani, and Borti by now visible but
ignored, and Bundur. Kimeri got up slowly, turned even more slowly. It hurt; it
wrenched at the place where the Gate was. But she had to do it.

Behind her she heard her mother’s breath catch. “Not you,
too?”

Bundur did not say anything. He was too much in love to be
contemptuous, but he was hurt, hurt enough to want to wound. And he let her see
it.

Daruya’s anger was like a breath of fire, sudden and whitely
hot. “Damn you! Damn you all! I’ll do it!”

The worst betrayal, absolutely the worst of all, was Chakan’s.
He tried to slip out of Daruya’s sight, but she caught him and dragged him with
her into the room she was given to dress for her wedding, and shut the door in
the face of everyone who tried to follow. She did not notice what kind of room
it was, except that it was small, lamplit, and seemed to lead to another, which
would be a bath from the scent of warmed water and herbs that came from it.

She backed Chakan against the wall, well aware that he could
have escaped if he had put his mind to it. He eyes were not contrite at all;
they were laughing as they had not since he came to Shurakan.

“Why?” she demanded of him. “Why you? You were the one who
warned me against him!”

“The emperor wants you to marry him,” Chakan said.

His laughter, she realized, was as much at himself as at
her. “You’re not his slave,” she snapped.

“I serve him,” he said. “And he approves this match.”

“Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters profoundly.”

He looked away, which was not easy as close as they were,
eye to blazing golden eye. “You need this marriage to keep you safe. Your
grandfather and the Guildmaster approve it. Whatever I may think, you have to
marry this man or endanger the embassy.”

“I don’t matter to you, do I? Except as the heir to the
throne you serve.”

He would not look at her even then, even at such a blow. His
voice was soft, without expression. “I was bred to serve. I can do no other.”

“
Chakan
!”

The pain in her voice rocked him. She saw it. She also saw
that his eyes were fixed on the floor beside her foot, and that his face, what
she could see of it, was rigid.

She spun away. Her throat was tight, but she had no tears to
shed. She never did for the things that truly hurt. “Go,” she said.

He did not pause; did not speak. He simply went.

oOo

For a little while then she was alone. He did that—damn
his hide, he told the others to let her be.

She turned slowly. It was a small room indeed, very small,
little more than a closet. There was a clothing-stand, and garments spread over
it. Her eyes avoided them. Beyond, in a room no larger, was a basin full of
water, steaming gently, and all the appurtenances of the bath.

Her anger was gone. It had left with Chakan. She took off
what she was wearing, dropped it where it fell, lowered herself into the water.
It was hot—almost too hot. She welcomed its nearness to pain.

She was wallowing. She knew that perfectly well. Her
grandfather would have taxed her with it if he had been there. Her grandmother,
too. Haliya had great compassion, but not for young things who, in her mind,
were taking their fits of temper altogether too far.

Of course they were all perfectly right. This marriage would
save the embassy, if only for a little while—long enough to find other
expedients. It would confuse the faction that had killed the king, and confront
it not with a defenseless party of foreigners but with a powerful, indeed
royal, house and all its allies and dependents. It was supremely practical and
quite devastating.

If she were the proper obedient creature that Chakan was,
she would swallow her objections and submit. What difference did it make, after
all? She would leave when she wished to leave. She did not have to take her
husband with her, or even remember that he existed, except as a convenience, a
name of respectability. Lovers would find it an added spice to bed another man’s
wife.

She sank down till the water lapped her chin. The trouble
with all of that cold practicality was quite simple and quite inescapable and
quite substantial. Bundur himself. He was not the kind of man one could forget.
He had somehow, without her knowing precisely how, crept in under her skin and
set up residence there.

No man had ever done this to her before. Those who adored
her, worshipped her, fell breathless at her feet, she had always dealt with as
gently as she could, and sent toward women who would indulge their follies.
Those who had the sense to regard bed-play as the game it was, she took to her
bed when she wished, eluded gracefully when she did not. She had never been
thrown into such confusion, never so lost her temper with anyone except—god and
goddess help her—her grandfather.

“Does that mean I love him?” she asked the ceiling. The
ceiling, plain plastered surface, returned no answer. She slid completely
beneath the water and stayed there, counting the heartbeats, till she had to
breathe or burst.

oOo

People were staring at her. Some looked ready to bolt for
help. Others—Vanyi foremost—knew her too well to think that she would ever take
her life in such ignominious fashion. She stood up in the basin, water sheeting
from her, and reached for a drying-cloth. Some of the people staring were servants;
they scrambled to serve her.

They were all women, she noticed. Two of them were Bundur’s
sisters. They tried to pretend that they were not staring at her, how strange
she was, the color of pale honey all over, and curly golden patches under her arms
and between her thighs as well as on her head. She was thinner than they liked
to see, lithe like a boy, with training scars that she had never tried to hide,
and a real scar taken in battle: the deep gouge of an arrow in her hip.

“It wouldn’t have scarred,” she said with careful
amiability, “if I’d let the healers at it; but I had to keep riding, you see,
and fighting, and being too brave for belief.”

The sisters regarded her without comprehension. She tried a
smile. They did not smile back.

They disliked her, and no wonder. This, soul-bound to their
beautiful brother. This, accepting him with the strident opposite of grace,
needing to be dragged kicking and struggling into the arms of a prince who
could have had, willing, any Shurakani bride he chose.

Daruya could have asked why he had not taken one of those
willing brides, except that she already had, and had been answered. He wanted
her. He had a strong streak of the contrary in him, too.

“In that,” said Vanyi, “the two of you are beautifully
matched.”

Daruya’s smile was very, very sweet. “Aren’t we?”

“Ah, child,” Vanyi said sighing. “Times are when I’m glad
your grandfather is as long-lived as he looks to be. You’ll need all those
years to grow out of your crotchets.”

That stung. Daruya kept her smile, but with an effort. “Maybe
I wasn’t meant to inherit.”

“You’re not that fortunate,” Vanyi said. She took the ivory
comb from the hand of the servant who wielded it, struggling with hair that
curled in most unnatural and lively fashion. She did not make undue effort to
be gentle, but neither was she baffled by all the sudden knots and tangles. She
made order out of them as competently as she did all else, and with dispatch,
too.

There was no time for braids. A cap had to do, of deep blue
silk embroidered with golden beads in a pattern much like the Sun in her hand.
The garments that went with it were of like color and kind, fashion of her own
country for once, but close to what the women wore here. Soft plain shirt of
raw silk tucked into loose trousers the color of the sky at evening, but
brocaded all over with golden suns. Shoes for her feet, silken slippers such as
a lady would wear in her palace, deep blue, golden suns. And over them the
coat, blue silk, brocaded suns round the edges, but sleeves and coat proper
sewn of panels of silk the color of bronze and copper and gold, and each,
again, sun-brocaded. She had not even known that Vanyi carried such a thing in
her baggage, or that it would have been cut to Daruya’s height and slimness.