Toads and Diamonds (3 page)

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dreams of expanding the family's gemstone business. Trader Nikhat must have guessed she would need the most basic supplies to compose her report.

Now she uncapped the ink and sniffed, angry with herself for dwelling on what couldn't be changed. They'd saved their dowry bangles, hadn't they? In the worst case, the gold bracelets would enable Tana to hold her head high when she visited the marriage broker's garlanded tent. Diribani should have them all, of course. Beauty and good breeding were important, but everyone knew that a girl's dowry mattered. Even if Tana had no prospects, Diribani deserved a good husband, young and handsome and kind. Perhaps he wouldn't mind if her stepmother and unwed sister joined his household as well. Tana would work so hard, her new family wouldn't see them as a burden.

Meanwhile, if this job earned even a tiny commission from Trader Nikhat, Tana wouldn't have to sell her mother's one remaining treasure, an engraved silver pitcher, so they could eat. Assuming Diribani brought back the water for cooking before the day faded into night. What was keeping her?

Tana's stomach cramped. She ignored it. She'd gone hungry before, and would again, no doubt. The sooner she returned these sapphires to Trader Nikhat with an accurate report of weight, classification, and value, the sooner they might buy some garlic or onions to season their plain rice.

After dipping the pen into the ink jar, Tana drew a grid on the first page of the ledger. She labeled each square with the symbol embroidered on the carrying case's corresponding panel. The first sapphire could be cut to eliminate a flaw on one facet. She turned it over. Yes, a fraction off this side would improve the jewel's

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symmetry without dropping the weight below a half-rati. With quick strokes of the pen, Tana wrote down her recommendation. "Will that suit, my lovely?" she said under her breath.

The stone twinkled in response. Tana set it down and picked up the next. Absorbed in her work, she didn't notice her mother watching from the doorway, worry etched on her features.

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***

CHAPTER THREE Diribani

P-PEACE
to you, naga-ji," Diribani stammered.

The viper's triangular jaws opened. The forked tongue flicked in and out, as if the goddess's messenger could taste a girl's character from the air around her. Trapped in the clammy folds of her dress wrap, Diribani lowered her eyes to stare at the mud.

How would the naga judge her? If fifteen years was the allotted span for Diribani to enjoy a human girl's body, had she spent the time wisely? Unlike Believers, who feared a hell and prayed for a paradise that their one jealous god reserved for humans only, the followers of the twelve understood that the earth encompassed both. For all creatures, each lifetime's actions determined their condition in the next.

What had Diribani learned--or failed to learn--that might doom her to return as a lower being? She knew that laughing at Gulrang hadn't been very compassionate, but was it enough to make the gods send her back as a rat, say, or a scorpion?

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Her arms ached, and a muscle burned in her thigh. Diribani didn't dare shift position. Her nose itched. Mud dried in scales on her skin. Quiet as a temple statue, she waited. The green snake considered her, the tip of its tail vibrating.

Diribani worked so hard to keep still that she almost missed the moment when the snake uncoiled. Moving with abrupt decision, it swept past her, across the road to the field beyond.

So. Death was not her fate today. If the goddess was kind, perhaps wisdom or good fortune would mark Diribani's future. Now that she had one.

Diribani shuddered and pulled herself out of the mud. Her legs trembled. She put down the clay jar and stretched her arms to the sky until the gold bangles danced on her wrist. Relief bubbled up inside her, hot and sweet as strong tea. What a story she had to tell! She was almost tempted to run straight home. Duty dragged the pot back onto her head and started her feet toward the well. The naga might regret sparing Diribani if she acted like the lazy girl the piltreet had called her.

Within a grove of mango and pinkfruit trees, the well's entrance pavilion beckoned. On either side of the biggest stone archway, two oil lamps burned in their niches, adding their small flames to the day's brightness. Diribani ducked between the carved pillars. Dim light soothed her eyes; cool air refreshed her skin. Diribani washed her feet and legs in a large clay basin. She poured the dirty water into the waste channel and refilled the basin with clear water for the next visitor. After straightening her blouse and twitching her skirts into order, she paid her respects to the goddess's shrine with extra gratitude. Then she carried the jar along the covered walkway to the stepwell proper.

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Mostly open to the sky, the sides of the large tank were faced with stone blocks and divided by many flights of steps. The stairs descended deep into the ground, separating the wide expanse of the well into areas for bathing and washing. Strung along the edge of the stepwell like pearls on a necklace, pavilions offered shelter from both rain and sun. During the dry season, the water level inside the tank might drop eight or nine or twenty levels, but it was always accessible from the flights of steps.

The recent rains had filled the well to the brim. Water lapped the top stairs and spilled into canals that irrigated the fruit trees surrounding the tank. Unusually, the only other visitor was a goatherd, driving his animals up the livestock ramp at the far end of the stepwell. That didn't make it quiet; monkeys quarreled, and birds whistled in the trees.

Diribani stopped in the shade of a pavilion and set her clay jar next to a pillar. She splashed a handful of cool water on her neck, dabbling her fingers at two fish in the pool. One darted away, a sliver of gold and green. The other didn't.

Curious, she reached down to touch it again. The unmoving fish had been chiseled from one of the submerged stone steps. Diribani smiled at the mason's whimsy. She had enjoyed discovering such carvings around the well before, fish and shrimp, lucky frogs and Sister Naghali's snakes.

As the water stilled, the reflections of the pillars shimmered around her hand, inviting her into a shadowy world. Looking into the water, Diribani felt like a cloud spirit surveying the earth below, or perhaps a sea nymph waving from the waves at her celestial sister. Light played across the surface of the pool, blurring the boundary between the submerged depths and the limitless sky. Diribani

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flicked the water again. Diamond-bright drops splashed, their ripples dissolving into the stepwell's vast peace. A distant parrot squawked, then quieted.

In the drowsy calm, hope surfaced like the little darting fish. Tana's transaction with Trader Nikhat should succeed.
A diamond in the rough,
Diribani's father had called Tana.
Hiral, my fiery ruby; Diribani, my unmatched pearl.
She blinked away tears at the memory. How happy she had been when her father's remarriage had blessed her with a mother and sister both. Without them, how could she have endured his loss? Together, they would survive it. And if Tana could work on a regular if secret basis, perhaps their fortunes were less dismal than Ma Hiral predicted.

Diribani dipped her jar into the pool. Full, its weight stretched her tired arms. Girls like Chihra and Gulrang, who'd been fetching water since childhood, could squat, hoist a pot onto their heads, and stand without spilling a drop. This task was new to Diribani. When her father was alive, servants had fetched their water. She had gotten stronger with practice, although she still needed to hold a full jar with both hands. Grunting with the effort required to lift it above her shoulders, she settled the water jar onto the cloth ring that kept it steady on her head.

Tana would be the first to remind her that poor girls earned their every meal or they didn't eat. Diribani's lips twisted in a wry smile. Perhaps she wasn't as skilled as her stepsister, but she could strive to work as hard.

Leaving the pavilion's shade, Diribani almost tripped over a pile of rags. She stopped with a squeak of surprise when the strips of cloth parted, revealing two wrinkled hands and a disease-ravaged face. Inside the torn garments, a woman hunched on the stone

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walkway. Praying? Asleep? A traveler weakened by her struggle through the road's thick mud? Diribani didn't recognize her.

"Give me a drink, Mina?" The words were slurred, the voice cracked with age.

"Certainly, Ma-ji." Diribani lowered her jar and stepped forward to pour water over the outstretched claws.

The stranger slurped the water, dribbling it over Diribani's feet. Diribani pretended not to notice. The poor thing couldn't help her infirmity. Bony, sore-pocked legs stuck out from her ragged garment. She must be as weak as a baby bird if she couldn't manage the few paces to the pavilion's shelter.

"More water, Ma-ji?" Diribani asked.

"No, no." A deep cough shook the thin body.

Diribani hugged the jar to her chest and winced in sympathy. "May I help you to the pavilion?"

"Thank you, Mina." Spittle flecked the cracked lips.

Before Diribani could put down the jar to assist, claw hands closed over Diribani's elbows, and the old woman pulled herself upright. Either the coughing or the abrupt upward movement must have cleared an obstruction from her throat. Strangely, the crone's voice emerged as sweet as a flute's. "Such kindness merits a gift. What is your soul's desire, my daughter?"

"Pardon, Ma-ji?" Diribani said, confused by the woman's transformation from beggar to benefactor. She would have stepped back, but the woman held her arms in a firm grip. As they stood face to face, with only the width of the water jar between them, Diribani met the stranger's eyes.

A deep green color, they reflected Diribani's gaze into eternity, two pools as liquid and profound as the well where they stood. Awe

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closed Diribani's throat. This was no ordinary old woman; her question demanded the absolute truth.
Beauty
was the answer that rose to Diribani's lips, but she had no breath to shape the word.

"Ah," the stranger said, as if she could read stunned silence as easily as speech. Her voice started on a low note and swelled into unbearable richness, a temple bell echoing in the well. "Your sweet nature, kind heart, and hopeful spirit are worthy of reward."

Like nectar, the rich voice filled Diribani with an emotion too intense to contain. The clay jar slipped from her arms and smashed into pieces on the ground. A shard sliced her ankle, but that slight pain wasn't what caused Diribani to clap her hands over her face and sob as if her heart, too, had been shattered.

Joy brought the tears: a rush of gladness greater than any she had ever experienced. Washing over her in an irresistible wave, the goddess's regard bathed Diribani in a beauty like sunrise. Or music.

Or the strong, sure line of a green snake, writing a girl's fate in the sand.

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***

CHAPTER FOUR Tana

THE
courtyard gate slammed. Tana stamped her heel on the loose stone to level the floor over the box's hiding place. She was putting the jeweler's scale on its shelf when Diribani pushed aside the door cloth and stumbled into the house.

"What's wrong?" Tana caught Diribani's arm, guiding her to sit on the floor. The free end of Diribani's pink dress wrap hid her face, but the mud splattering her skirts and the long hair tangled around her heaving shoulders conveyed distress as clearly as words. Tana had rarely seen her gazelle-graceful sister in such a state. And... "You're bleeding!"

Ma Hiral scuttled in from the kitchen. "Bandits?" she quavered. "She'll be fine," Tana reassured her mother. She knelt and wiped Diribani's ankle clean with the black cloth she still held. "Just a shallow cut, more mud than blood, see?"

"Where's the water jar?" Ma Hiral asked.

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The bloodstained fabric crumpled in Tana's hand. "Did they bother you again, those flesh-eater girls?"

"Language, Tana!" her mother snapped.

"Sorry, Ma. White-coats, I meant." Tana dabbed the cloth at Diribani's other leg and found only mud, not blood. If someone had pushed Diribani or taken her jar, it was partly Tana's fault for not accompanying her to the well. At midday this early in the season, the road must have been deserted. Nobody would accost a Gurath girl when others were watching, but if someone caught her alone... And the servants from the overseers' quarter were so touchy, quick to take offense when none was offered. Tana tried again. "Was there an accident?"

"You broke the jar!" Ma Hiral wailed.

"No, Ma. You don't understand." From behind the veiling fold of Diribani's dress wrap, two tiny pebbles and a red peony fell to the floor.

"Bountiful goddess!" Ma Hiral sank to her knees. She plucked the stones from the floor and brought them to her eyes, then creaked to her feet and took them to the window. She opened the shutter a crack, staring intently into her palm.

Tana looked from the peony to her sister's shaking shoulders. She slid the dress wrap's free end away from Diribani's face. Tears glittered in the doe-brown eyes. But instead of the terror or embarrassment--or bruises--Tana had feared, her sister's face shone with joy, lovely as a rainbow under a waterfall. Tana's heart opened in answering delight before clenching, hard. "You met a man."

Diribani gulped a sob and nodded. Then, at Tana's expression, she shook her head. She touched her fingers to her lips.