Toads and Diamonds (19 page)

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gates. Separate from the palace on top of the hill, and the military and administrative buildings that occupied the middle section, the lower part of the fort was as busy as a small city, with residences, shops, inns, and prayer halls. Unlike Tenth Province's, Eighteenth Province's administration didn't offer a bounty on dead snakes, so she was spared that grisly sight. But, like an ear of ripe wheat in a cotton field, Diribani's gold dress wrap stood out from the white coats. As she had promised Zahid and Ruqayya, she had thrown a lightweight wool shawl over her hair and across her chin when she left the palace. Still, people stared.

When she returned to her room, she questioned Nissa. "The vendors all acted as if I planned to steal from them. Other court women paint--it's not so unusual."

"Oh, my lady." Her maid was still catching her breath from the climb up the hill. "Half of them think you're a witch."

"And the rest?"

"They'd as soon see you talk flowers and jewels and make up their own minds." Nissa arranged the jars of pigment in a niche. "Why
don't
you ever speak in town?"

Diribani smoothed the sheets of paper. "It's bad enough having Zeen and Mahan follow me everywhere. Can you imagine if they started walking on either side, one hand stuck under my mouth so no jewels were lost in the street? Or maybe"--Diribani snorted, struck by the absurdity--"I should hang a bucket around my neck to catch them."

Nissa giggled. "How about a silk feedbag? We could match the colors to your dress wraps, and set a new fashion. All the court ladies will want their own."

"Lady Yisha can carry fennel seeds in hers." Diribani brandished

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a bunch of wood violets at her maid. It felt good to laugh, safe in her peaceful room, away from the townsfolk's suspicion and the court ladies' indifference. She sat at the low table under the window, heaped violets and carnations and poppies in a bowl, and sketched.

"Very pretty." Nissa clasped her hands. "My father works in colored stone, did I tell you, my lady? If you wanted one of your drawings inlaid in white marble, he could do it."

"Hm." With a fine brush, Diribani applied pigments to the paper. She looked again, trying to capture the delicate grades of color. The poppy needed a darker orange along the edge of the petal, where it shaded to red. "Thank you, Nissa. This design might suit a silk panel, too, don't you think? Princess Ruqayya suggested I decorate the rooms, but I hadn't really..." Her voice trailed off.
Thought I could bear to live so far from my family
was the way she felt. "Decided how," she finished, more diplomatically. The truth, if not all of it.

"Yes, my lady." Nissa seemed to understand what her mistress wasn't saying.

A rapping noise startled them both. Ladli stood at the door, her face animated. "Come out with us," she said. "The miners found a big diamond. A hundred ratis, my maid said."

"A hundred?" Diribani measured it with her fingers. "That's the size of a duck's egg!"

"Her Highness says we can attend the presentation if we hurry. Get your riding gear and meet us at the stables. Hurry!" Ladli repeated. She disappeared, and soon thereafter they could hear her fist banging on the next door.

"Presentation?" Diribani asked. Nissa bustled around the room, collecting trousers, long-sleeved tunic, flared coat, and shawl. The

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court tailors had made a riding costume especially for Diribani. It was the same cut that the other women wore, but in pale shades of yellow and green so she wouldn't be mistaken for a Believer. A few girls had looked enviously at the results. So far, none had dyed her own white coat.

"Any diamond over ten ratis is presented to the emperor. Prince Zahid will accept on his father's behalf," Nissa explained. "The finders get a big bonus, and, no matter which of them came up with it, all the workers get a feast to celebrate, and a paid day off at the emperor's expense."

"Doesn't he usually pay their wages?" Diribani changed her clothes. "I thought the mines belonged to the crown."

"Yes, of course." Nissa held out her coat. "But the actual work is done by your people. Merchants lease plots, hire the workers, and return a tithe of the value mined. Plus any stone over ten ratis, like I said. The emperor pays fair value for it, but it can't be offered to anyone else."

"A hundred ratis! How my sister would love to see such a gem." When Diribani thought of Tana, her pleasure in the outing dimmed. Her sister hadn't answered any of her recent letters. The prince's couriers had taken jewels to Gurath every few weeks. So far, they had returned with bland communications from the governor, assuring them that Tana remained in seclusion at the temple grove. A small house was going up by the stepwell. None of the couriers had seen Tana or her mother there. But, Diribani told herself, it wasn't likely a Believer would visit a temple grove, so she needn't read anything sinister into her sister's silence.

"And there's fireworks," Nissa went on, not noticing Diribani's distraction. "We'll be back at the palace by then, and can watch from

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the terrace. The show won't be quite as good as the prince's birthday." She separated Diribani's hair into sections and began braiding it. "Almost, though."

Diribani brushed poppies off her lap. "So when may we look forward to the really excellent fireworks?" she teased.

"Prince Zahid's birthday? Just when the weather's turning from bearable to too hot. That would be your"--Nissa counted on her fingers--"Moonbird Month. Not too very long from now: We're halfway through the cool season already."

"Really?" Diribani twisted to look out the window. "I was waiting for it to get colder."

"Not in Eighteenth Province," Nissa said. "You're ready. Oh, boots! Here. You go down with Mahan and Zeen--I'll meet you at the stables. Have the grooms give you a poky horse, my lady. You want a plodder, not one of Lady Ladli's fire-breathers. The road is steep."

The trail dropped so precipitously that Diribani clung to her horse's mane, afraid she would pitch forward between the animal's ears. She might not have agreed to such a rough ride only for the sake of seeing a big diamond, since small ones fell from her lips every day. But for a chance to watch Zahid, even at a distance... At last Diribani understood how Tana felt about Kalyan. The hours between their meetings seemed endless, and yet, in his presence, confusion often tied her tongue. Then she'd spend days thinking of the brilliant things she should have said---to make him laugh, to make him notice her--while not sure exactly what he felt in return. She knew it for foolishness, but that didn't change her body's response.

The horse stumbled, pulling Diribani's attention to her immediate surroundings. When she felt safe enough to steal glimpses

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at the countryside, the contrast amazed her. Thickly forested hills descended in ranks from the flank of the plateau. The gorges between were so steep it looked as if a basket of giant serpents had fallen to earth, then thrashed their way toward the sea, cleaving the earth in their wake.

Not serpents, Diribani corrected herself. Streams. Water ran deep in the valleys, showing glints of green through the dusty foliage. Ruqayya's party, with servants and armed escort, claimed the narrow trail; women carrying jars on their heads stood aside. Partway down, when Diribani's thighs were aching from the effort to stay on her horse, they turned off the trail to traverse the side of a hill. The trees opened up, giving Diribani her first glimpse of a diamond mine.

It looked like a giant latrine pit, was her first thought. Ugly, barren, and swarming with flies. No--those were people, their skin burned dark by the sun, and coated with dust. Before she had traveled much farther, Diribani felt the grit settling on her, too. She licked her dry lips.

Nissa couldn't have seen the motion under Diribani's loosely draped shawl, but the maid kneed her horse over to hand Diribani a water pouch. "See the banners?" Nissa pointed. "Workers will have roped off an area for us, and set up tents for shade."

Gratefully, Diribani sipped the water. "How do they find the diamonds?" Honeysuckle sifted into her shawl. Lacking the threatened feedbag, she had tucked her head covering into her coat collar. This way, she could retrieve any gems she spoke and put them in her saddlebag for Zeen to collect later. The flowers she stuck in her horse's mane. "There's dirt everywhere."

As they picked their way through piles of stone and swarms of

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people, Nissa explained: "Each team has a digging spot. The men break up chunks of rock with their pickaxes. Women and children carry the baskets of rubble to a clay-lined pit. They flood the pit, drain it, and winnow out the sand. Then they rake what's left, and pound it smaller."

"With those wooden mallets?"

"Exactly. Then they rinse it again. They may have to repeat the steps a few times. Finally, they go over the gravel, looking for diamonds."

It looked to Diribani like hot, backbreaking work. "There must be thousands of people here. They don't travel from Fanjandibad every morning. Where do they all live?"

"The villages are that way, I think." Nissa gestured. "The merchants are responsible for the workers' huts and food."

"And water?" Diribani saw young women and girls trudging along the edge of the clearing. They carried large clay jars on their heads. Their backs were straight, so as not to spill the water, but thin shoulders slumped, and dusty arms hung fatigue-limp at their sides. Diribani's neck ached in sympathy. Most of them were her age, or younger.

"They must bring it up from the river." Nissa stood in her stirrups. "Can you ride a little faster, my lady? We don't want to be late."

"The river at the bottom of the gorge?" Diribani said. The note of horror in her voice brought Zeen at a trot. When the guard saw nothing amiss, she eased her horse back. "The trip must take half a day. Why don't they have a stepwell, closer?"

"Too expensive, surely, when people can walk to the river for nothing." Nissa dismissed the idea. "The ground's so hard up here; only diamonds pay for the digging."

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The words echoed in Diribani's ears.
Only diamonds pay for the digging.
Obviously, the miners couldn't afford to build a stepwell, and their merchant employers didn't choose to. Why should rich men care how many hours of labor were added to a poor girl's lot before she could perform the simplest of household tasks? Bathing an infant, cooking lentils, brewing a pot of tea to warm a cold morning--all required clean water. Diribani knew; she had hauled enough for her own family. And a stepwell was more than a water supply; it was a chance to meet with friends or just take a quiet breath in a long day of chores.

The merchants might not care, but Diribani did. And, thanks to the goddess's gift, she had access to plenty of diamonds, enough to build the empire's most expensive stepwell. Diribani sat straighter on her horse. Now she knew why Naghali-ji had sent her here.

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***

CHAPTER TWENTY Tana

AT
last, the estate's hiring clerk sent Tana to the mare barns. Far grander in design than the cow barns, they were built of stone instead of mud brick, with a stall for each animal. Tana fought to keep her expression blank when she saw a red-and-white-striped saddlecloth hanging on a stall door. This must be a regular courier way station, and the property owner an important--as well as wealthy--individual. Whoever he was, he kept his horses in elegance. Trees graced the central courtyard, along with banks of hardy flowers that reminded Tana of Diribani, and a fountain that overflowed into two shallow canals. But even though they were much fancier, the horse barns smelled the same as the cow barns, and attracted as many flies.

Tana gathered that dung sweepers weren't permitted to touch the valuable mares; stablemen were supposed to lead them outside while the stalls were cleaned. This morning there was only one groom, a Believer boy of twelve or thirteen. He kept her and the

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other workers waiting in the main aisle while he returned a mare to her stall.

"Why are these women standing about?" A booming voice made Tana jump.

"Sir, sorry, sir." The groom closed the stall door and rushed past the clump of women leaning on their shovels, heads bent. He bowed to the overseer, a barrel-chested, bandy-legged older man with a whip tucked into his belt. "The rest of the fellows are still in quarters, sick as dogs. My lady sent her own physician. Putrid fever, he said."

The sweepers sidled away from the groom, their shovels clinking on the floor. Behind their backs, free hands cupped like lotus flowers, invoking Sister Payoja, goddess of healing.

The overseer fingered his whip handle. "All of 'em?"

"Yes, sir. He dosed them, but meanwhile there's just me."

"And you are?"

"Atbeg, sir."

The overseer grunted in annoyance. "Well, Atbeg, show me the new girl."

Alarmed, Tana peeked up through her lashes. Her racing heartbeat slowed down when she realized that the white-coat wasn't talking about her.

The groom hurried to a door at the far end of the row and stepped inside the stall. Hooves thunked on the floor, and Atbeg could be heard soothing the stall's restless occupant. "Come here, pretty. Little pearl, little snow blossom. Mind your manners, Mina; you know me."

The mare might have known Atbeg, but she liked Tana better.