The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) (49 page)

             
Northerners would never have had such a night, either.  It was like a fusing of all the liveliest parts of what made the Rach, a distillation of their spirit—music wild as the desert, singing like the wind in the palms of the Don Eshaid, dancing like life would end tomorrow.  She laughed out loud at the stories, clapped like a native at the antics and acrobatics of the youngsters, and felt herself drawn more and more irresistibly into the wild, simple, star-studded, sand-strewn life snagging her into its embrace.

             
It had been days since she thought of horse prices, cuts of beef, copper, cobalt, coconut
or
salt.

             
Her fiscal drive didn’t improve any over the next few days, despite her well-meaning intentions otherwise.  Kyr just had so many plans, so much insight and vision and energy, that she found herself caught up in the whirl.  They thought the same, understood each other, though his ability to consider so many things at once made him appear erratic sometimes.  By the end of the second day, they were finishing each other’s sentences.  Every conversation seemed to end in laughter—she couldn’t remember when she’d so enjoyed someone’s company.

             
She joined him one night in the big, mostly decorative room just down the hall from her own, jumping as a big Sheelhound rose, growling, just inside the door.  Like the bloodhawks, these were not pets, their sole purpose in life being to guard the Ramparts.  They applied themselves admirably and still hadn’t stopped growling at her, no matter how many times Kyr made them sniff her.  She picked her hands up out of snack range and skirted around him.

             
They often met here after dinner, she and Kyr, in the huge, empty space that was open for yards to both north and south.  The setting sun and yawning vistas turned it into a strangely private hideaway, despite the fact that anyone could wander through at any time.  The expanse of the deserts on either side made it seem cozy, contained, as if the towering openings between floor and roof were ship’s portholes looking out over a shimmering, lush sea of vermillion and salmon and dusky orange and pinkish gold.

             
They could speak more privately here, too, out of earshot of a population very interested in how the monarchs were getting along.

             
“I don’t know how we grew so far apart,” Sable mused out loud after standing quietly next to Kyr for a few minutes.  They were watching the brilliant arc of incandescent sun slip breathlessly over the horizon, and she was leaning against one of the sandstone pillars that, along with a knee-high fretwork of the same, was all that kept them from the burnished sand three stories below.

             
“You forget, we were busy making war,” he said, a pillar away and teasing her atrociously.  He was a hundred times worse than Kore.

             
“But you’re right here—” she muttered.  It was incomprehensible.  Like knowing nothing about Addahites.

             
“I am,” he agreed devilishly.

             
“It would only take a couple weeks…I can’t believe not a single merchant was willing to brave the Eshaid or the Farae to establish at least a trade connection.  You have priceless copperware, coral, beautiful glasswork, SADDLERY.”

             
“You’re speaking Imperialese,” he informed her, finger tracing patterns in the sheeldust on the railing.  That was his way of saying she was wandering off on an uninteresting cultural tangent.

             
“My point is,” she persisted patiently, “the North knows absolutely nothing about the Ramparts.  You share a border and we haven’t a clue about your culture.”  For some reason, this was eating at her tonight…that there should be this gulf between their Realms.

             
“You’re chipped off a different piece of flint than most of the North, Sable,” he said wryly, watching her eyes flash in the fading light, watching the slenderness of her form sway tensely against the railing, watching the way her whole person seemed to resonate with purpose.  “I’m not sure the rest of your Realm
cares
about Aerach culture.”

             
“Well, that’s senseless,” she retorted smartly.

             
“No comment.”

             
“It’s the same with the Addahites,” she complained.  Instantly, his relaxed slouch turned into an alert, fixed stance, as if he was ready to set off north right then.  With less international topics, they often did set off right away—to see his new cistern project, or visit the new healing tent, or any of a dozen other energetic sojourns around the Hilt.

             
“They’re on our border—right on our border—and it’s such a rarity to see any of the Ranks of the Ram that some of my Council think they’re gone.  Don’t even exist.  It’s just sheep and sheepdogs and shepherds and...Shepherds up there.”  They glanced at each other.  Hid smiles.

             
“The Imperial Rulers of old used to fight side by side with the Addahites, live with them on campaign, raise their children shoulder to shoulder.  It’s in the Histories.  What happened?  How could so much change in such an otherwise productive time as these last centuries?” she demanded.

             
“The Peace happened,” he said dryly.  “And I think…I think the Empire grew afraid of Il.”

             
She stiffened, wishing that name didn’t keep popping up.  “They weren’t too scared of him when his people were keeping the Enemy off their backs,” she said tartly.  But even as the words left her mouth, she was thinking of her High Priest’s paranoia, of Karmine, who had to choose between her throne and her god…and who gave up a Realm for love of Il.

             
Kyr said nothing, watching the darkening light play over her beautiful face, watching the eyes snap and soften, frown and ponder, all in the space of seconds.  He could watch her forever.  Already there was a spot by his side that was never full unless she was in it.

“I don
’t understand,” she murmured, paying him no attention.  He was always looking at her.  “He’s just another god.  Why all this fuss and dissension over religion?  Who cares which god anybody worships?  I really think we’re BEYOND that by now.”

             
This made him grin and she ignored him with a vengeance.  “He does claim to be more than just another god…” he reminded her.

             
“But the things he claims,” she said stridently, “are perfectly productive to a well-ordered society.  His ‘laws’ are hardly revolutionary; they’re at the foundation of any regulated civil society—no thieving, no lying, no cheating or stealing, sleep in your own bed, don’t spill blood except to keep order…
justice.  Honesty.  Taking care of each other!
  How are these things disruptive?!  What offense is there in any of them?”

             
He grinned disarmingly, charmed at her fieriness, and she gave him a growly look.  She was well aware he was an Illian—most Rach were, and that was fine for them.  Their culture was simple, its ideology heartfelt and based on intangibles like honor and self-sacrifice.  But, to be fair, it was also rather primitive—superstitious, even.  Illianism just wasn’t going to succeed as the theology for a material-based culture like the Empire’s.

             
“I doubt your Marekite Priesthood is concerned about people becoming more honest,” he suggested, eyes bright with suppressed laughter.

             
“That’s very astute of you.”  She was still tart.  “Tell me, why is it that religion—a completely personal decision—seems to be of so much concern to those in politics, economics, and government???”

             
“Power is a bewitching thing,” he answered, falling into eloquence with that unsettling lack of warning so typical of the Rach.  “It’s like a pet animal that grows despite your intentions otherwise, that can end up numbing you to all things honorable.  Il wishes only to rule in His people’s hearts…but to those who think ruling can happen only in the Realms of this world, He is no doubt a threat.”

             
“Hearts are where he belongs,” she said moodily, arms crossed.

             
“Yes, they are.” He stared at her pointedly.  She gave him a sharp look and his broad shoulders and black brows rose with matching innocence.

              She chatted idly with Krysta later as she reluctantly prepared for bed.  She was sure she was far too restless to sleep, though the reason for it eluded her.

             
“What is that?” Sable asked, after tripping for the third time on a blackened groove in the stone flagging.

             
Not even looking up from her duties, Krysta remarked casually, “That was from the firespear that killed Relle and the boys.”

             
Sable stared at the slim, busy back in horror, a thousand images crowding through her overactive brain.  “This…these are Kyr’s wife’s rooms?”

             
Krysta tossed her a smile.  “Rach men don’t live apart from their women.”

             
That wasn’t precisely what she’d meant.  She looked around shrinkingly.  She was staying in the same room Kyr and his wife had lived and slept and fought and made up, where they’d probably broke their fast in the morning and trained their children in table manners at night.  The very scene of his family’s horrendous murder…

             
“Though,” Krysta said thoughtfully, “he always was a little different that way.”  She’d finished with the flowers, which like the fish from some far-distant ocean arrived fresh every day from some far-distant garden.

             
“How so?” Sable said faintly, not sure she wanted any more information on this particular subject tonight.  She tottered over to her favorite pile of cushions, placed before an arched window that looked out over the changing face of the Sheel, and sank rather bonelessly into them.  They’d been killed, right here.  Maybe the furniture had been moved to cover bloodstains…how was she supposed to sleep in here now?

             
“It’s just that most boys his age were busy courting, you know, making up love songs, quoting poetry, crooning at windows.  My eyes have been compared to moonbeams so many times, they’re starting to cross,” she said dryly, rolling them at Sable.  Sable blinked.  She couldn’t picture any Northern boy in her entire range of experience that had done even one of those things.  At any age.               

             
“Kyr had to be reminded to choose a mate,” she continued.  “Because he was the Rach and needed sons and had to set an example, you know.”  She shook her head, half affectionately, as if at the antics of a little brother.  “He was just thinking of other things.”

             
“How old was he?”  Sable asked.  He had had two sons, she knew.

             
“Oh, Kyr was Banded as soon as he turned fourteen and Rode Out—Rach Koorel was killed in that same engagement.”

             
‘Rode Out,’ Sable had already discovered, was the euphemism for risking your life outside the Rampart walls, seeing your friends and horses die, and impaling other humans with your blade.  She thought it was a horribly inadequate way to describe what combat must really be like.

             
“Fourteen.  He hadn’t fallen in love and had the girl of his dreams picked out at fourteen?” she asked sarcastically.

             
“No,” Krysta said conspiratorially, as if they were in incomplete understanding and weren’t men the
oddest
things.

             
There was a silence as Sable pictured the Rach boy Kyr, probably as full of dreams and plans and ideas as the Rach man.

             
“I’m sure he was devastated at her death,” Sable said a little wistfully, holding a cushion to her.  “—their deaths.  His sons, too.  I mean, all of them.”

             
Krysta grunted unconvincingly, plumping pillows.

             
“He did love her, didn’t he?” Sable pressed.  Rach men were conspicuously and demonstratively enamored with their wives, from what she’d seen.

             
But Krysta was still noncommittal.  “No one knows what’s in another’s heart,” she side-stepped neatly, “but their wedding night there was an attack.  He rode out, taking half the Hilt, and didn’t return for three weeks.”

             
“He’s the Rach,” Sable spoke up swiftly.  “It’s his duty to lead his people in war, and certainly he’s admirable for pursuing the Enemy.”  She couldn’t believe even one Rach would gainsay that.

             
Krysta shot her an even look.  “He forgot her name.”

             
Sable stared at her aghast, and winced.

             
“No one ever told her—she loved him desperately—but Kore had to remind him who he’d married.”

             
“I’m sure things were different by the time this happened,” Sable said weakly, gesturing at the long, scorched gouge in the floor.