Toads and Diamonds (15 page)

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and called to the caravan drivers. Once the wagons had passed, they'd dart into the road and fill their baskets with ox dung left behind, to be dried in pats on the village walls and burned for fuel. The only cart they left alone was a corpse wagon, carrying the dead to the cremation grounds outside the city. That driver commanded folded hands and respectful silence.

The shade trees along the road belonged to the emperor. It was forbidden to raise an ax against them, but dropped branches were free for the taking. As she walked, Tana met girls and boys collecting wood to burn and thin branches to repair shutter lattices. Many people asked for her blessing. She folded her hands and smiled. It was still early in the season for pilgrims, but she had seen a few other orange robes on the road. As long as Tana didn't speak, she blended in, one more traveler going about her business. With every step from Gurath, she felt freer.

The soft light of late afternoon gilded the treetops and cast the road in thick shadow when she reached a village she recognized. Tana had visited Piplia before with Ba Javerikh and Diribani. The headman was a master gem-cutter who had left Gurath to teach the trade to his extended family. They had built a nice well here, too, if she remembered correctly. A bath would soothe her aching legs. She'd stopped several times to rest, but her feet weren't yet used to walking all day.

Food first,
her stomach informed her. Tana made her way to the grove in the center of the village and sat down in the grass. She leaned against a tree trunk, scratching her back against the rough bark. A sweet smell made her look around, then up. She'd chosen a cork tree: Dangling clusters of long-throated white flowers had released their twilight fragrance. She sniffed with appreciation.

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Placing her begging bowl on the ground in front of her, she sat and waited.

Within moments, the first child spotted her. Curious eyes peered from behind a mango tree. Feet pattered in the grass, and then came the familiar shout: "Ma, there's a pilgrim." How many times had Tana heard Indu say exactly the same thing?

Soon a young girl brought her a cup of tea. A boy followed, bearing rice cakes spread with butter, and slices of dried mango. "There was soup earlier, but we ate it. Sorry, Mina-ji."

Tana smiled and folded her hands. She sipped and ate, enjoying the peaceful scene. Men and women were returning from the fields or the well, tired and dirty or laughing and clean, depending. A horse whinnied; a cow lowed in answer. Dogs barked from the courtyards they defended. As daylight faded, doves cooed sleepy songs in the branches above her. Tana heard the
rackety-rack
noise of grinders and cutters slow, then stop. In the workshop, artisans would be cleaning their tools, sweeping up the dust, and returning the gemstones to their marked pouches. Each one must be accounted for at every stage, from mine to finished ornament. The familiar sounds made her feel at home.

"Peace to you, pilgrim." The headman's wife appeared, resplendent in a melon-colored dress wrap. She carried a pot of spicy lentils. Ladling some into Tana's bowl, she leaned closer to study her face in the dim light. "Mina Tana?"

Tana rubbed her bald head. "I'm surprised you recognized me, Ma-ji." A green frog fell from her lips and hid, its color indistinguishable from the grass.

"Aaah!" The woman hugged her pot of lentils to her chest. "It's true, then, what we heard. You'll honor our house tonight, Mina

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Tana? My husband and his guest will want to hear the story from your own lips."

"Outside is better for talking," Tana said. "And I don't mean to burden you with more visitors."

"It's no trouble," the woman assured her. She eyed the snake at Tana's other side. "That ratter, is he spoken for? With the white-coats' bounty, it's difficult to get a healthy house naga."

Tana shook her head.

"Please excuse me." The woman hurried away. "Vilina," she called. "Vilina, bring the snake basket."

Tana ate her lentils. The snake stretched lazily, as if it found its new existence good. Tana watched it over her bowl. As long as a house naga appeared at least once in a conversation, it seemed that people would excuse Tana's other shortcomings.

But when the horse whinnied again, Tana stiffened. Dropping the begging bowl, she crept to the edge of the grove and peered around a tree at the headman's compound. Through the gate, a white shape was visible, ghostly in the twilight.

No ratter could excuse Tana's stupidity. What else could she call it? Lulled by the day's lack of event, the stroll through a peaceful countryside, Tana had jeopardized her entire plan to slip unnoticed out of Gurath. Like a fool, she had stopped at a village where she was likely to be recognized. She had spoken. She had even disregarded Jasmine's familiar whinnying. How many people rode white horses to a gem-cutters' village? She couldn't bear another argument with him, or, worse, uncomfortable constraint.

Tana slipped between the trees and made for the well. Unlike Gurath's large open tank, this one was a single shaft dug deep into the earth. A small pavilion marked the flight of steps leading down.

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Lamps glowed in their niches, illuminating the snake curves painted over the doorway. As Tana remembered, a decorative stone border surmounted the pavilion. Flowering vines wound up the pillars and spilled across the roof. Through the years, the stems had grown thick and woody, strong enough to support her weight.

Grateful for the concealing darkness, Tana climbed up to the roof and wormed her way under the vines. Generations of children had played here, leaving nests lined with mango pits, empty nutshells, cracked clay cups. Birds twittered at Tana's intrusion, but soon quieted.

She'd been just quick enough. A lantern glowed by the headman's gate. It bobbed through the grove to the flowering cork tree. To judge by the voices, the ratter had been secured, and Tana's begging bowl discovered. She recognized the headman's voice, and his wife's. But the person calling her name most loudly was Kalyan.

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***

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Diribani

DIRIBANI
opened the tent flap and turned her face to the morning light. Briskly, she rubbed her arms, bare under the iris-banded dress wrap. The cool season had stolen upon them, or perhaps it was the increasing elevation. Over the last few days, they'd climbed out of desert scrub and wound their way upward to this high plateau. The fort of Fanjandibad waited at the far edge, where, Nissa had told her, the landscape changed again. Soon she would see it. Surely then she would know why Naghali-ji had sent her so far from home.

"Your slippers, my lady."

"Thank you, Nissa. I keep forgetting." Shoes looked odd under a traditional dress wrap, especially one as splendid as this. Diribani missed the reassurance of earth under her feet, but in the thorny countryside she had been persuaded to adopt the custom.

"And your scarf."

Diribani shook her head. "Oh, I think I'll be warm enough inside the howdah."

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Still, Nissa held out the length of fine white cotton. "Your
head
scarf, my lady."

"My what?" Two narcissus flowers and a large emerald bounced off the tent flap. Standing just outside the opening, the guard Zeen reached out and caught the stone.

"For our arrival in Fanjandibad," Nissa said. "The riding animals are stabled inside the first gate, so we have to dismount and walk through the fort grounds to the palace. Four hundred steps, from the outer wall to the ladies' court! It always seems like the longest part of the journey. I can show you how to wrap the scarf now; or, later, perhaps one of the other ladies..." Nissa's voice trailed away as she read Diribani's expression.

"I'd rather not cover my face with that scarf," Diribani said distinctly. "Thank you."

Nissa looked at Zeen, as if for support.

The guard's impassive face didn't change. She bent and picked up three small bloodstones, entered them in her ledger, and handed them to her partner, Mahan, who carried the locked box.

"But, my lady," Nissa persisted, "we all veil in Fanjandibad when we're outside the ladies' court. It's the custom."

"Not my people's custom," Diribani said. A spray of jasmine added its perfume to the chilly air.

Nissa held her ground. "Her Highness said you should have it."

"Then I had better discuss it with her." Gingerly, as if it were a venomous snake, Diribani took the length of white cloth. Tana had worn the Believer coat and trousers, which made sense for riding. But this! Surely her sister would be as disgusted as Diribani by the suggestion that she cover her face. And she'd not hesitate to make that clear to her host, princess or no.

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Diribani shouldered her way outside the tent, past Zeen and Mahan. The guards fell into step behind her. Nissa followed them. Marching the short distance to the royal tent, Diribani might have felt ridiculous about her entourage. Anger didn't leave much room for embarrassment.

As was usual in the morning, the red cloth door panels still hung undisturbed to the ground. Diribani hesitated, then sat a polite distance from the entry. The guards stood to one side. Nissa hovered, wringing her hands.

The camp bustled with the usual routine of meals and washing and exercise, the shouts of soldiers drilling, the smell of millet porridge and horse, the clang of pots, and the bellowing of hungry oxen. Today the familiar sounds seemed infused with a fresh energy. If all went well, this time tomorrow they'd be waking up in Fanjandibad. First Camp might be there already.

The prince's caravan traveled in grand style. There were actually two of everything: royal tents, cook tents, wash tents, teams of draft oxen and pack elephants, cooks and soldiers and laborers. The royal party traveled short days so the camps could leapfrog each other. While one packed up behind them, the other prepared for their arrival. This was Second Camp. First Camp would have hurried past them in the night, to alert the fort's resident staff that the prince was on his way.

As the sun climbed, Diribani attracted her share of curious glances and amused comments. Ruqayya's manner, though never less than regally courteous, tended to crispness in the morning hours. People with questions or requests usually waited until later in the day to address her. Meanwhile, the princess's maids came and went, slipping inside the red tent with basins of water and steaming

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cups of tea. One of them must have told her mistress about the petitioner outside.

"Come," an imperious voice called.

Diribani's stiff knees popped audibly as she got up, but she waved away Nissa's offered arm.

Ladli, returning from the direction of the latrine pits, beat an imaginary drum on her thigh. "Pa-pum, pa-pum." She lowered her head scarf to grin at Diribani. "Braving the lioness in her den? Remember, mindfulness is all."

Diribani returned a rueful smile, hearing her own instructions quoted back at her. In the dancing the previous night, Ladli had bested her three times, and Ruqayya once. These white-coat girls were so quick, they had risen to the limit of Diribani's ability to teach. Ladli's teasing reminder was useful, though. Matching wits--or wills--with Ruqayya was like facing a steel blade, not the usual wooden practice ones. Diribani stepped into the tent and waited for her eyes to adjust to the rosy light inside.

Ruqayya sat on a bolster while a maid arranged her curly hair into a braid for riding. A white brocade coat hung over her shoulders; the long rope of pearls had reappeared, looped several times around her neck. She held a clay cup between her palms. Chin lowered, she breathed in the fragrant steam. "Yes?"

"Peace to you, Your Highness." Diribani folded her hands. "I've come about the head scarf."

"What about it?" Ruqayya said. "Assuming your head's the usual size, the scarf I gave Nissa should fit."

Diribani squared her shoulders. She set the scarf on a cushion. "Thank you, but it won't be necessary."

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"Necessary?" The princess gulped her tea and shoved the cup at a maid. "What about respectful? What about prudent?"

When Diribani didn't answer, Ruqayya twitched loose from the woman braiding her hair to prowl up and down the carpet. "Fanjandibad is a small island of Believers in a sea of your folk. Within its walls, our people take religion very seriously. Outside her home, an unveiled woman risks public shaming. Do you want to be called names? Spat upon?"

"No." Diribani looked the princess in the eye. "But I will endure it before I'll cover my face." Chunks of turquoise thumped onto the roses and irises scattered across the carpet.

"Why so stubborn, flower girl?" Ruqayya chided. "We don't force you to renounce your idols or eat our meat. Humor me in this one thing. Bend a little for the sake of harmony, as you're so fond of telling us."

Again, Diribani's own words taunted her. How could she make the princess understand? "When your brother invited me to Fanjandibad, he promised my stepmother I would live in comfort and honor. As to comfort"--Diribani gestured at the luxurious tent, the plates of food on Ruqayya's table, her own silk dress wrap-- "you couldn't have been more generous. And honor? All these weeks, not a single person in your party has accosted me for a jewel. But even to repay your kindness, I cannot dishonor the twelve."

"Can't or won't?" Ruqayya snapped.

Diribani answered gently, but firmly: "Won't."

"Must I spell it out for you?" the princess growled. "You're our guest. Anyone insulting you will be punished."

"I'm not asking," Diribani began, but Ruqayya overrode her.