The Daylight War (63 page)

‘You never approved of
alagai’sharak
when it was Soli at risk,’ Inevera said. ‘Should we add our daughters to the fight as well as our sons?’

‘I hated
alagai’sharak
when it was a meaningless sacrifice of our men to the Andrah’s pride,’ Manvah said. ‘But have not your precious dice told you Ahmann is the Deliverer, sent by Everam to lead us through Sharak Ka?’

‘They said he
might
be,’ Inevera reminded her.

Manvah levelled a look at her. ‘You’d best pray he is, or you have wasted the last quarter century of your life. And did they not say Sharak Ka was coming in any event?
Alagai
kill women as well as men, daughter. Do not let the fact that allowing us to defend ourselves is a Northern notion blind you to its power. You remember Krisha and her ugly sister-wives beating your father. There are women built to fight. Let them. Nie,
encourage
them. Make the Northern custom your own and you will steal the fruit from this mistress of the Hollow’s tree.’

‘There will be uproar,’ Inevera said.

Manvah nodded. ‘There will be shouting in public, and cold anger in private. A handful of idiots with flaccid cocks will pick a few women at random to vent their rage upon. But none will dare oppose the Shar’Dama Ka publicly, and soon enough it will become accepted.’ She smirked. ‘As when you began baring your sex in public.’

Inevera feigned a shocked look, and Manvah winked at her. ‘But the women of Krasia worship you for it, even if they dare not admit it aloud. Give them this, and you will own their hearts forever.’

Inevera moved quickly through the bazaar after her meeting with her mother. She hated leaving Manvah. Each time it hurt anew, knowing it might be months before she could visit again. But she had been gone too long already, and did not wish to raise suspicion that might lead back here. Manvah and Kasaad were secrets even Ahmann was not privy to. Qeva might remember, but the dice had said the Kaji
Damaji’ting
would never betray her.

But then, in a coincidence so great it was hard to believe it occurred without the aid of her dice, she saw him, strutting her way through the bazaar in his familiar sleeveless robe and black steel breastplate with its sunburst of hammered gold.

Cashiv.

He looked no different than he had all those years ago, which said much for his prowess in battle. His face had the immortal look of the Spears of the Deliverer, so charged with magic each night that they moved a few hours back towards their prime, though their eyes and expressions remained those of older men. In the older warriors like Kaval it took longer for the signs to tell, but the younger ones moved quickly and stayed there. Cashiv was close to fifty, but he had the look of a man in his thirties, still strong and full of fight.

A step behind, he was flanked by two other
Sharum
, both young and beautiful of body and old of eye. Inevera recognized them both, and for a moment almost expected to see Soli among them.

It had been years since she had thought of the warrior. Dama Baden was a strong voice in the Deliverer’s court, but Inevera had not seen his favourite
kai’Sharum
since he had cursed her for sparing Kasaad’s life. Had he ever forgiven her?

She froze.
Inevera
was a common name, and she did not know if Cashiv even knew his dead lover’s sister was now the Damajah. But if he were to see her here …

Dama Baden was not a man she wanted to know where the Deliverer’s mother-in-law was hidden. He might not be foolish enough to threaten her openly, but it was a weakness Inevera could not afford.

I
will
have
to
kill
him
, she realized.
Quickly, before he can tell the others …

She readied herself, only to have Cashiv and the others pass by without taking the slightest notice of her. One of the warriors said something, and Cashiv brayed a laugh as they turned a corner.

Inevera blew out a breath. They had not seen her.

Of
course
not, idiot
, she realized.
You’re all in black.

Inevera waited in Ahmann’s bedchamber for his return. She wore her pillow dancing silks and jewellery, including a new circlet of white-gold coins, adding wards copied from Ahmann’s crown to protect her from a mind demon’s intrusion to those that gave her wardsight and enhanced senses. She could see the glow of magic as it drifted in whorls across the floor like sand devils, drawn by the many wardings around the room.

She had her own chambers, of course. Finest among all Ahmann’s wives, though each had her own private receiving rooms and a richly appointed pillow chamber for sleeping and entertaining the Deliverer, should whim take him to her door. All were freshly shaved and oiled at all times, ready in an instant for his pleasure.

The magic men absorbed during
alagai’sharak
– leached as they thrust their warded spears into demon flesh – did more than keep them young, more than give them night strength and heal their wounds. It awakened animal passion – to hunt, to kill, to breed. Even before he had tasted the magic, Ahmann had been a man of great lust. Now his desires were endless, and left many of his wives easing soreness in the bath under the massaging touch of the eunuchs.

But while each wife had fine rooms, none could match Ahmann’s own, and it was there he most often took his ease. His
Jiwah
Sen
took it in turns to await him there with bath and refreshment, clad in bright, diaphanous silk.

The schedule was managed by Inevera herself, one of her many duties as
Jiwah
Ka
. Occasionally she used the dice to adjust the schedule to ensure women were kept with child, but even that was at her discretion. Much like Kenevah’s Waxing Tea, Inevera used the schedule to show favour to those who most pleased her, and disfavour to those who did not.

Those selected would wait upon her as well, and have the Shar’Dama Ka’s touch only when she allowed it, which was seldom. Inevera suffered other women to touch Ahmann for the good of her people – that his ties to each tribe remain strong, and his lust be sated when there were other matters for her to attend – but she took him to the pillows personally more than all his other wives combined. Her near-constant use of
hora
magic had kept her body young and strong, and her own passions were formidable. Ahmann could seldom relax without a woman to put him down, and she, too, felt her patience thinning when it had been too long since she had taken her pleasure. The other women had her leavings, and thanked Everam for them.

But none of his wives had serviced the Shar’Dama Ka since he took Leesha Paper to bed. Inevera had refused to see him in her ire, and his other wives had been turned away as a man with a new stallion will turn down a ride on camelback.

Despite her mother’s words, Inevera still had to fight to hold her centre at the thought of the Northern whore. When she threw the dice for Ahmann’s first trip to Deliverer’s Hollow and the bones told her he would fall in love with a
chin
woman and get a child on her, she had scarcely believed them. It was the first time in years she had doubted a throw. Not since the coming of the Par’chin.

Inevera prayed nightly while he was gone that her husband’s heart would hold true, for the dice told only what might be, and not necessarily what would.

But her mother spoke true. Ahmann had not forgotten the Andrah. Killing the man had brought him little peace. She hadn’t touched another since, not even her
Jiwah
Sen
, but it did not matter. She could sense the distrust in her husband like a gap in her wards.

Bedding Leesha Paper and shaming his
Jiwah
Ka
would prove no better balm, but that was something Ahmann would have to
learn for himself. Surely the man who allowed Hasik to live – to
wed his sister, even – could learn to forgive his First Wife.

Everything
has
its
price
,
the Evejah’ting taught. Ahmann needed her to win Sharak Ka, and she needed him to give her the powers to do it. As Damajah, she could seize advantages for him that would otherwise be beyond her reach. They must reconcile, and quickly, before the schism became insurmountable.

It was because of that she waited for him this night.

That, and not the ache in her heart.

There was a soft vibration in one of her many rings, and she knew the outer doors to her husband’s chambers had opened. She’d left orders not to be disturbed, so it could be none other than Ahmann himself who approached.

Inevera felt the wind of fear. Would he turn her away as he had the others? Even Qasha and Belina, his previous favourite
Jiwah
Sen
in the pillows, had been cast aside in favour of the greenland woman. Was he bewitched by white flesh as Melan and Asavi had warned? What would become of their people’s unity if it were so? The
Damaji
and
Damaji’ting
might suffer his taking a
chin
woman as a well prize and pillow wife, but to put her on his dais would enrage them beyond reason. Her
Jiwah
Sen
would look to her for a solution, and if Inevera had none, their respect and her power would dissolve like smoke.

But fear had no place in the decisions of an ordered mind. She bent and let it pass over her, falling into her breath and finding her centre. She would confront the problem and repair the damage now, before it was too late.

The doors opened, and Ahmann entered. His breathing was even, but there was the scent of sweat and blood on him, as well as the stink of demon ichor. It was the scent of a man returning from
alagai’sharak
, and she knew her husband had been at the front of the line, leading men where other leaders commanded from safely behind.

The smell intoxicated her. Countless times he had taken her like that, his lust roaring with the magic that flowed in his veins. She would dance for him, and he would forget bath or sweat room until he had bent her over the nearest bit of furniture and had his way. The memory sent a shiver through her.

All about the room items of
hora
magic glowed dimly, their power contained by the metal shells that protected their demon bone cores from light. There were wards as well, glowing to heat the water in the bath, to cool the summer air, and to protect the chamber from intrusion and spying.

None of it glowed as brightly as Ahmann himself. The ward scars she had cut into his skin shone with the power he had absorbed in the night’s battle, his crown flared even brighter, and the Spear of Kaji shone like the sun itself.

But for all that he was brimming with power, Ahmann’s shoulders slumped as if weary of a burden.

Inevera waved her hand, activating a ruby ring on her littlest finger that contained a tiny bit of flame demon bone. Candles flared to life around the room, and his favourite incense began to burn.

It was then Ahmann noticed her. He sighed, setting his shoulders and straightening his back, eyeing her warily. ‘I did not expect to see you tonight, wife.’

‘I am your
Jiwah
Ka
, Ahmann,’ Inevera said. ‘This is my place.’

Ahmann nodded, not relaxing at all. ‘It is also your place to facilitate my acquisition of new brides. Yet you made no effort to come to a term with Leesha Paper, despite her obvious value.’

‘I serve Everam and Sharak Ka before you, husband,’ Inevera replied. ‘As should you before me. Whether you choose to see it or not, half your
Damaji
would have been enraged had you named Leesha Paper your
Jiwah
Ka
of the North.’

‘Let them rage,’ Ahmann said. ‘I am Shar’Dama Ka. I do not need their love, only their loyalty.’

‘You
might
be Shar’Dama Ka.’ Inevera made the word a lash. ‘Or you might be only what I have made of you. And yet you would halve my power as casually as you tear a loaf of bread, all for a woman you know nothing of. The dice told me to seize you every advantage, but I cannot do that for a fool who pisses on those who would die for him and showers his enemies with gold.’