The Golden Griffin (Book 3) (7 page)

“If I marry again,” Marialla continued, “I’ll choose an entirely different man. Perhaps one of your barbarians. What about Whelan’s older brother, Daniel? Although it is a pity that he is no longer king. It lessens his appeal.” She gave Kallia a sly smile. “But I’m in no hurry. I prefer my lovers. They know how to treat a woman.”

“There’s nothing I can do to persuade you?”

“You could compel me to marry the sultan, but I’d find a way to misbehave.”

“I won’t compel you.”

“I know.”

“I suppose I’ll have to send back the sultan’s son,” Kallia said.

“From what I hear, that will be a relief for all of Balsalom.”

The khalifa laughed. “Yes, he’s a troublesome man, with enormous appetites—much like his father. Did you know he brought fifty guards and slaves? They’re destroying my coffers.”

“See, I’m saving you money. It would probably be cheaper to simply bribe the nomads to go away.”

“If only that were the end of it,” Kallia said. “Sultan Mufashe boasts thirty thousand men-at-arms. Imagine Whelan with thirty thousand desert dwellers guarding his right flank. We could throw the enemy into the sea before Toth roused himself from the Dark Citadel.”

She made to climb out of the water.

“What’s the hurry?” Marialla said. “You only just arrived.”

“No time. I have an uncomfortable conversation with the sultan’s ambassador to face.”

“Now wait a moment,” Marialla said. “I didn’t say I couldn’t help you win the sultan’s trust. Only that I wouldn’t marry him.”

Marialla waded towards Kallia and gestured to her servants. They brought her towels and robes. She climbed from the water and lifted her arms over her head while they dried her. She slipped into her robes and removed the turtle-shell combs from her hair. It fell in waves that flowed halfway down her back. A girl brushed her hair, while another dabbed her neck and wrists with sweet-smelling oils.

“Now I’m the one who is intrigued,” Kallia said. “What do you have in mind?”

“The problem with your plan is that it relies on the sultan’s honor. What if he has none? What if he doesn’t want me for a wife? What if he’s heard that the khalifa of Balsalom is so sentimental that she’d risk herself for a beloved hostage?”

“To what end?”

“To the end of seizing Balsalom. For all we know he has an arrangement with the dark wizard. That when the battle for Veyre begins, his thirty thousand men will howl across the desert to attack our exposed underbelly.”

Kallia climbed from the water and was grateful when two of her sister’s servant girls gave her the same treatment they’d given their mistress.

“Then why send Hassan as hostage?” she asked.

Marialla shrugged. “The sultan has many sons. Not all of them honor their father equally.”

Now dressed, the two women moved away from the steam and took a seat on the benches by the colder water, away from the steam. Marialla sent the girls back to wait with the others on the far side of the pool, out of earshot.

Kallia considered. “Hassan is so much like his father that I’d assumed they were close allies. But perhaps they are too much alike.”

“Perhaps. But even if they get along, the bulk of Hassan’s guards and slaves are doubtless spies. They might even now be bribing their way through the palace.”

“Generally, I prefer the simple explanation,” Kallia said. “And that would be that the sultan is enamored of you. But these are unusual circumstances. What was that you said about winning the sultan’s trust?”

“I won’t marry Mufashe, but I can certainly pretend that I’ll marry him. Send me in a caravan—a luxurious caravan, as I have no intention of crossing the desert in squalor—and I’ll arrive in Marrabat as if this is my intention. If the situation grows difficult, I’ll see to it that he changes his mind and sends me away.”

“How will you do that?”

“I can turn off my charms as easily as I turn them on. You leave that detail to me. In the meantime, negotiate any treaties you’d like with the sultan and his son, and I’ll turn the marriage toward your other sister. That will buy time.”

“All our other sisters are married.”

“The sultan won’t know that. Father didn’t have as many children as the sultan does, but he had enough. There is no chance that Mufashe knows them all. I’ll present him with a beautiful, charming alternative.”

Kallia considered. The plan had merit, providing they could find someone to pretend she was a member of the Saffa family who could act the part. “Who did you have in mind?”

Her sister gestured over her shoulder at one of her servants, who were dressing themselves and gathering Marialla’s pillows and oils.

“Fashima. Come here.” A woman came around the pool to stand behind Marialla’s shoulder. “This is Fashima, the daughter of Vizier Youd.”

A storm of emotions swept over Kallia. She remembered drowning, fighting against the hands that forced her head under into the pool that day in the gardens. This woman had been chief among Kallia’s tormentors.

Fashima bowed her head. “I serve in your name, oh Jewel of the West.” Her voice trembled.

“Now is the time when you prove me right or wrong,” Marialla said, not to her servant girl, but to her sister.

Kallia said nothing. Her anger burned in some deep place that would be hard to quench.

“I assured Fashima that whatever history you had,” Marialla said, “you’d forgive her. Dismiss her indiscretions.”

“Do you have any idea what she did to me?”

“I do. I wouldn’t suggest Fashima, but she is my best servant. Intelligent and loyal—yes, loyal. She will serve you well, too.”

“This is true,” Fashima said in a near whisper. She was shaking visibly now. “Khalifa, may you live forever.”

“You know what Marialla intends for you?”

“Yes.”

“Then why agree? If you marry the sultan, you’ll be no better than his slave. It will take years to earn a higher place in his harem.”

“The dark wizard took my father to Veyre. My two brothers were captains of the guardsmen, imprisoned by Mol Khah. Your revolt freed them, and they march with the barbarians to war. I want nothing more than they do, but to serve Balsalom. To serve you, my khalifa.”

“Serve me?” Kallia’s tone turned sharp. “After what you did?”

“The stresses of the palace environment overwhelmed me.”

“Stresses? What stresses? You tried to kill me!”

Anguish clouded Fashima’s face.

“Let her explain,” Marialla said.

“I couldn’t stand the pressure,” Fashima said. “The etiquette teachers, the way everyone reminded me what a minor vizier my father was. That I was destined to be a servant of the rich and powerful. I thought to marry your brother and escape that fate, but he cast me aside.”

“I grew up in that same environment,” Kallia said. “I know the order they forced us into. It was a strange place, and we were only girls, barely older than children.”

She shook her head. “But I can’t excuse what you did. How do I know you’ve changed? This is the fate of Balsalom I’m putting into your hands.”

“I have changed. If only you’ll give me a chance, I’ll prove it. Please, I beg you.”

Kallia still felt uneasy. “Marialla, you must trust Fashima to recommend her to my service.”

“I do. I would trust her with my life.”

“I only wish to serve you,” Fashima said. “Please let me prove it.”

“Very well. You will have your opportunities. I truly hope you have changed.” She rested her hand briefly on Fashima’s arm. “The Spice Road will be long and the journey tiring. My sister could use a friend. Come, Marialla, the heat is exhausting me.”

Chapter Six

“I was very clear,” Daria told her mother. “I told you in no uncertain terms not to follow me.”

“And I told you if you didn’t come back before dark I was going to fly out looking for you.”

Palina Flockheart said this with her back turned. She was undressed and wading into the mountain stream. The stream coursed a steep path beneath fallen, moss-covered logs and spilled down cascades into little pools. When she found a spot of relative calm, she sat with a gasp and let the water flow over her.

Daria watched her mother bathe with her hands on her hips and her lips pinched together. Even after several hours of sleep beneath a griffin’s warm wing she was struggling to let go of her anger. At last she unlaced her jerkin and slipped out of her trousers and shirt. The warm sun mixed with the cold air to prick deliciously at her bare skin. It was bracing, yes, but she didn’t see how flatlanders could prefer their stifling rooms filled with smoke.

She waded into the stream, shivered at the icy water that swirled around her calves. Soon it came up to her knees. The current tugged at her feet, tried to drag her away. When she reached the calmer water near her mother, she sat down and leaned back until only her mouth and nose were above the surface. The brook swirled through her hair and over her body, washing away dirt and sweat and the thick odor of griffin that clung to her. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift away on the gurgle of the water that rushed past her ears.

When she rose, stiff and numb, but gloriously clean and refreshed, her mother was already on the riverbank, brushing her hair while the sun and breeze dried her body. When Daria regained the shore, Palina handed her the brush.

“So that boy was your flatlander,” Palina said as she dressed. “What’s his name again?”

“Darik. Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

“I suppose so, if you like that look. There’s something funny about their eyes, don’t you think?”

“I like his eyes. They’re pretty.”

“I thought you said he wanted you.”

“I thought he did,” Daria said.

The encounter atop the tower keep had confused her. Daria had no talent in reading people, and was so clumsy when it came to such matters that she had only just refrained from leaping into his arms. The last time she’d seen Darik she’d as good as told him that she wanted to throw him to the ground and take him. He had not seemed uninterested.

So why had he been so reserved this time? Was she wrong about his feelings? He’d promised they’d raise griffins together. There was no way to misinterpret that. In some families that was as good as a betrothal.

Maybe it was her lie to Darik, that silly bit about Palina trying to mate a white-crowned griffin with one of its wild cousins. The truth was, Daria hadn’t wanted to explain her mother’s absence, not just from Father’s tower, but from the battles in the Free Kingdoms. And, if Daria was honest with herself, she hadn’t trusted her mother to behave around a young man from the flatlands. With good reason, as it turned out.

“They’re different people,” her mother said. “Especially the ones from the khalifates. They are accustomed to cities and crowds and noise. And the people of the plains and valleys have thin, hot blood. He wouldn’t last long in the mountains.”

“Then I’ll live with him in the lowlands.”

Palina laughed. “You would melt like an icicle in spring, my daughter.”

Daria handed back the brush with a scowl, then pulled on her clothes. She laced her boots, still feeling grumpy. And yet she was afraid that her mother was right.

By the time the two women returned to the clearing where they’d nested for the evening, Joffa and Yuli were squawking with hunger and tugging at the tethers that kept them tied to a thick maple tree. They could easily break or tear the leather straps, but knew this would earn them a scolding.

The women turned the pair loose while they ate a cold breakfast of dried berries and deer jerky. The griffins returned about twenty minutes later quarreling over what turned out to be a goat with a bell around its neck, eviscerated by dagger-sharp talons.

“Joffa,” Daria said sternly. “I told you not to do that. And Yuli, aren’t you old enough to know better? I’m disappointed in both of you.”

Joffa looked momentarily ashamed, but quickly returned to squabbling with Yuli over the raw meat. They tore it limb from limb and gulped down legs, innards, even head and horns.

“Really? You can’t even act guilty about it?”

“They’re hunters,” Palina said. “You can’t deny them meat.”

“They don’t need to pluck it from someone’s herd, terrifying the poor shepherd at the same time.”

“It’s a small price for them to pay. We keep their skies clear of enemies. Besides, it might have taken all morning to hunt for venison. We don’t have the time.”

Palina was watching the griffins eat. Suddenly, she cocked her head, raptor-like, then snatched a steaming chunk of raw meat before the griffins could gulp it all. She bit off a piece and smacked her lips as she chewed.

“Now you’re just making a point,” Daria said. “Fine, give me some.”

When they were done and the griffins had settled down, Daria checked her swords, a pair of light, graceful blades, their edges and points sharp enough to pierce the armor of a dragon wasp. She checked tethers and knots, then dressed in her fur cloak and gloves.

Soon, the two griffins and their riders were aloft. Daria led, allowing Joffa to stretch his wings as they climbed the side of the mountain. They soared over meadows and a glimmering mountain lake, scattering a flock of ducks that had settled for a break on their southern migration.

They flew over the crest of the mountains, where it was so cold that Daria’s breath coalesced into ice crystals around the edge of her hood. Coming down the other side, they passed over the remains of an ancient hill kingdom, its ruined castles and overgrown roads only visible from the air. The Swansins had aeries hidden in this area. They were an extended family of a dozen or so adults, plus their children and griffins. They would fly out in an emergency—had fought over Eriscoba, in fact—but otherwise kept to themselves. The Swansins lived so far north that the forests beyond their lands were broken only by rocky hills and the towering thrust of the massif above and to the left.

Autumn stained the north country with brilliant hues of gold and red. Above the hardwood forests, the middle altitudes were the rich green of pine and fir, while snow topped the highest peaks.

Daria’s mother flew alongside and made a series of hand signals. Look up and to the left.