The Jaguar Knights (28 page)

Finally the Jaguar held out a paw to an attendant, who unfolded a gold bracelet from his lord’s wrist and bent it around the visitor’s, probably a great honor. Lynx was now fully dressed, feeling much better. No one offered him shoes and he was content to go barefoot, walking on his toes.

Meanwhile the Jaguar himself had been robed in a splendid cloak of feathers and gold embroidery, topped off with a high plumed headdress. He took his leave of the eagle knight with an embrace and many mutual flowery compliments. Beckoning for Lynx to accompany him, he glided over to the stair with feline grace, and his entourage closed in behind them.

T
he jaguar knight did not deign to walk the streets like mere people. He sank onto plump cushions in a magnificent palanquin, ornamented with gold sequins, jade plaques, and a canopy of tall green feathers. Sprawled at his ease, he gestured for Lynx to join him. Then eight brawny men raised the litter shoulder high and set off at a fast walk. The bearers were not slaves, but some of the most adorned and bejeweled of his attendants, so this chore must be an honor. Lesser warriors stalked along before and aft as guards, while servants alongside whisked away flies. Harbingers blew on conches, warning spectators to touch their faces to the ground until the procession had passed.

Confident that he was being paid a great honor, Lynx reclined facing the rear. His host faced forward, leaving little room to spare, for he was at least as large as the Jaguar who had died at Quondam. His feet smelled faintly of cat, but Lynx must stink obscenely after a week aboard
Papillon.
He had great trouble believing any of the scenery was real, except that the city was too incredible to be a dream. In the dusk people were heading homeward. Canoes streamed like ants along the canals and the wide avenues were crowded, but to him they seemed to be paved with stationary human backs, mostly bare male backs, with some robed women among them. He saw no wheeled vehicles and no horses.

The warmth of the air amazed him. Was this summer, so his journey had lasted months, or just normal Thirdmoon weather in the Hence Lands? And how had he gotten from night to sunset—had he been unconscious for many hours, or had he moved fast enough to overtake the sun?

Guards saluted as the bearers passed in through the gates to a place of flowers and trees, an enclosure containing several buildings. Servants made obeisance to their returning lord—a man who wore gold could not be expected to live in a tenement. Dismounting, he led his guest to a pleasant hall with one side open to a flowered garden, and a strange absence of furniture, other than some works of art and a small mat, but
the Jaguar ordered another mat brought for his guest and remained standing until it arrived. Knowing the difficulty of injuring a Jaguar, Lynx decided that the stripling warriors guarding the doors were merely ornamental. The hazel-colored maidens who brought water to wash his feet and hands were much more so. They offered sweet drinks cooled in bowls of snow, and golden platters laden with honeyed treats and fruits. Somewhat hysterically, he decided he preferred this life to being thrown about in
Papillon
’s stinking hold. A jaguar knight lived better than King Athelgar.

A jaguar knight did not even feed himself. A winsome girl did that, popping morsels in his mouth, and holding a reed for him when he drank. She was obviously special, although even she did not look him in the eye. He purred at her sometimes, and stroked her cheek with the back of his paw, making her blush. Evidently his tastes did not run to she-jaguars.

Then a youth hurried in, flushed and sweating as if he had been summoned from a distance, and prostrated himself before his lord. He had the coloring of a
naturale,
but dark stubble on his chin and upper lip, as if he were of mixed race. The Distliards had been in the Hence Lands for forty years, after all.

The knight spoke. The newcomer passed on his words to Lynx’s knees in a language he had heard aboard
Papillon
and sometimes from Celeste when she was feeling bitchy.

“Distlish?” he said. “Don’t understand.
No entiendo.”

The interpreter looked worried.
“Isilondo?”

“Chivian.”

“Ah!” Beaming with relief, the boy explained to the knight that Lynx was
Chiviano
and what that involved. Celeste’s name was mentioned.

“Celeste?” Lynx repeated.

Nods and sign language informed him that she had been summoned. At that news some of his mental fog seemed to lift and he half-melted with relief. He had done the impossible. In a mere month he had traveled halfway around the world and found his ward. Never underestimate the power of an Ironhall binding!

Celeste swept in, cool and poised in a simple wrap of white cotton.
She wore no jewels, but her magnificent braids shone like copper and somehow she had managed to keep her milky skin from turning brown or exploding in freckles. Four young girls followed her in and knelt at the door to wait. She looked vastly better than she had a month before, much more her old confident self.

She kept her eyes lowered as she approached, but Lynx could not restrain himself. He sprang up to salute his ward. Celeste spared him the briefest of glances and continued on her way without missing a step. She had her faults, Amy Sprat, but she was as tough as a veteran warhorse.

She prostrated herself before the jaguar knight. He spoke. The half-breed interpreted.

Celeste rose to her knees and spoke to her Blade’s knees. “Lord Lizard-drumming welcomes you, Sir Lynx. I have been expecting you. Be very careful. He is dangerous.”

Lynx had already decided that. But so was Celeste. She could recognize power at a glance and was firmly of the opinion that the more of it a man possessed, the more he needed her in his bed. The cat-man would have had to be a lot less human than he looked for Celeste not to have taken him by then. If Lynx let himself be seen as a rival for her favors, he might glimpse a last, brief view of the city from the top of a pyramid.

The four of them held an awkward and protracted conversation, with questions going from Lord Lizard-drumming to the interpreter—whom Celeste addressed as Manuel—in Tlixilian, from Manuel to Celeste in Distlish, Celeste to Lynx in Chivian. Answers had to retrace that path and the opportunities for misunderstandings were legion. But Celeste was not merely tougher than boiled leather, she was sharp as a fresh obsidian flake. Lynx had no doubt she was amending his answers as required and she salted the questions with cues, keeping them brief so the jaguar would not suspect she was prompting him.

“Oh,
mighty conjurer,
the lord hopes you were not distressed by your ride on the Spirit Wind.”

“Only briefly. All better now. Er, tell him he has a nice place here.”

Translations…

“He hopes the floating tree you were riding will not suffer by your
absence. I don’t think he can truth-sound but he can probably stop you lying to him.”

“The floating tree is of no importance,” Lynx declared. “Um…Looking upon his glory is reward enough. Do you swive him?”

Celeste ignored that question. “The noble lord apologizes for killing your warriors and stealing your concubine, great conjurer. He was really after the brooch I was wearing, which was his father’s.”

“Um. He could have just asked nicely.” But if recovering Celeste’s pin had been worth scores of lives, how much was the one on Lynx’s chest worth? “I expect compensation. And we want to be sent home.”

Translation. “He gladly returns me to you, together with all the rest of your jewels and with many rich presents besides, begging you to forgive his error. He assures you that he has avoided quickening my womb so he could continue to enjoy me.”

This was the strangest day of Lynx’s life to date and growing stranger by the minute. “Bet you’re glad to hear that bit,” he said. “You might end up with quite a litter. Answer however you think best, but I’d suggest accepting his offer. Tell him it is urgent that I lie with you as soon as possible.”

“Keep hoping, Muscles.” She turned to the humble Manuel and reported whatever she thought the reply should be.

No expression showed on Lizard-drumming’s muzzle, of course, and Celeste frowned at the response. “He asks if you support the Hairy Ones who perform such terrible acts against his Emperor. I think Emperor is what they mean.”

Whatever the truth, there could be only one reply. “Say that the King of Chivial is very much against the Distliards and strongly supports the noble Emperor and people of wherever this is. When he sends us home we will tell our King the true story.”

“Don’t look so scrutable, Lynx! Be mighty. Kitty-cat is honored to have you as his guest. He’s hedging on sending us home.”

Lynx sensed that Celeste was hedging too, suddenly. Was her Blade a better bet than her present owner or wasn’t he?

“Tell him the first time you throw one of your tantrums he’ll get you straight back and welcome.”

She told Manuel something suitable. Lizard-drumming replied. Celeste queried the answer.

Eventually she said, “The great lord offers you rest and security for tonight. Tomorrow he will send word to the great family of Plumed-pillar, telling them that you have brought back his regalia. He thinks Plumed-pillar’s heir will load you with rich gifts in return. He’s fishing for something, but I don’t understand what!”

“He may be threatening—I admitted to killing one of his buddies. Just tell him his generosity outshines the sun and the stars and can we go to bed now, please?” Lechery was not Lynx’s only aim, or even his main one, for fatigue sat on him like a cartload of rocks.

Celeste spoke to Manuel. Whatever she said worked. Their host gave them leave to retire. He saluted his guest by touching the floor before him and then kissing his paw. Lynx responded in kind, and then demonstrated a courtly bow. Lizard-drumming purred in amusement and gave him one, graceful as a cat for all his size. Everything was very genteel and elegant, and a dozen torchbearers lighted the guests’ way through the grounds. Lynx walked on his toes.

They arrived at a small guest house, containing a single sumptuous bedchamber, decorated with multicolored murals, but furnished sparsely, with mats and some baskets. Attendants were already laying out food. Celeste chased them all away, demonstrating that she had already learned a little Tlixilian. They closed the door behind them and Lynx flopped down on a mat, deathly tired. That Spirit Wind traveling really took it out of a man! He did not even want to eat.

She said, “Where is this?” just as he said, “What in flames is going on?”

He reached a hand for her. She stepped away.

“Talk first!”

And love later, he hoped. Once in Ironhall, long ago. Never at Court. Since then, five years of close-quarter longing. Celeste dulled the appetite for all other women, as Athelgar had been heard to admit more than once. He got over her eventually, but Lynx was forever bound and never would.

“This is El Dorado.” He explained what little he knew of the geography.

Unimpressed, she tossed her head. “Why was I brought here?”

He explained about her brooch. She pouted when she heard how her other Blades had died in her defense, but did not give way to emotion. Celeste never did. Even her tantrums were staged.

“That’s ridiculous! Now tell me how you’re going to get me out of here.”

“No, you tell me what that overgrown mouser thinks is going on.”

The result was a roaring row, but no ward had ever quarreled with her Blades as often or as fiercely as Celeste did, and she had always picked on Lynx more than on the other two. They had fought every day at Quondam. He was too weary to go stamping around the room as she did, but he could yell louder. If Lizard-drumming had posted guards outside, they would surely be amazed to hear a handmaiden shouting at her mighty conjurer lord.

Celeste could be utterly unreasonable. “Of course you will get me out of here! You’re my Blade. That’s what you’re for. I have been waiting a whole month for you to turn up and rescue me!”

“Then show me a map. Bring me some horses. Tell me which way the sea is and how we get over those mountains—Food? Port? Ships?” They could not even speak the language.

She howled that he was useless, Blades were useless. He repeated that two had died for her. She would not listen. She would not look at his scars or hear how he had crossed half the world to reach her.

“What’s wrong with your ears?” she demanded.

He told her what his plaque had been up to.

“Take it off! Now! This instant! I will not have you turning into another monster. Can you imagine what I’ve been through? He has a tongue like a wood rasp and those claws…! I’ve seen him rip a bed apart with his feet when he’s worked up. And the teeth…!”

“I can’t take it off. It’s like
Ratter
now, part of me. And you’re just mad because you made a mistake. You backed the wrong horse tonight.”

A hit! Celeste screamed even louder, because she would never admit a mistake. She should have spurned the penniless castaway and stayed with the power-wielder, Lizard-drumming. Believing Lynx had come to rescue her, she had chosen the wrong man for the first time in her life.

Lynx was too tired for more argument, and he had a bad toothache. He shed his cloak and loincloth, rolled himself in a blanket, and pretended to go to sleep. He knew Celeste, though. He was not surprised when she jabbed him in the ribs a few moments later.

“You’re not fooling me, Muscles,” she said. “Say please.”

F
orget the Emperor. He was ruled by the Great Council and the Great Council could do nothing without the knights. The Eagles and Jaguars were the real power in the Empire, the cream of the nobility, owners of great estates, and their personal troops were the Empire’s army. Every knight was a superlative warrior himself, trained from childhood, proven in battle. Only knights possessed spiritual power. They gained that virtue by sacrificing prisoners and used it to bless their warrior followers with special abilities, keeping them loyal and making them better fighters. Better fighters took more prisoners, which they turned over to their lords for sacrifice. It was a delicious circle, and no one understood it better than the third most senior Jaguar, old Basket-fox.