Toads and Diamonds (6 page)

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The woman sat on the edge of a raised basin. "Will you drink?" she repeated, and dipped her hand in the water.

"No, my lady," Tana protested. A collar of carved jade beads decorated the moss-green silk robe. The stranger's black skin was flawless, her bearing regal. She must be one of the princesses traveling with Prince Zahid, although Tana had thought him her own age and still unmarried. An aunt, perhaps, or an elder sister.

Tana struggled to meet the penetrating gaze. Was it a language problem, and did the woman want a drink herself? She spoke slowly and clearly. "Where are the maids attending you, my lady? I'd serve you"--she hefted the pitcher--"but, for all it's so pretty, this pitcher drips. It would streak that gorgeous silk, and they'd cut off my hand. If Prince Zahid didn't have me killed anyway, for presuming to look at you." Didn't the prince's relatives usually go veiled in public? Unless it was only men who weren't supposed to see their faces, and commoner girls didn't matter.

"Plainspoken, aren't you?" The woman's voice was slow and smooth. Tana's language slipped from the woman's tongue in languid syllables, as if it had been invented for her to speak. "Such candor deserves a gift. What is your soul's desire, my daughter?"

It was too much. The question struck Tana as absurd, and once she started laughing, she couldn't stop. She had to put down the pitcher and lean against a pillar or she would have toppled, fully dressed, back into the bathing pool. The sobbing breaths made her ribs ache. "My desire?" she choked out. "I'm nobody. Why would a foreign princess care about my soul's desire?" Besides, it didn't matter what she wanted. Diribani's jewels would pay for the greatest wish of Tana's heart: to protect her family.

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The stranger smiled, displaying sharp white teeth. She gestured at Tana. "Come."

As helpless as a leashed dog, Tana obeyed the command. The woman laid her hand on Tana's hair. "I see a capable nature," the mellifluous voice said. The words seemed to come from the depths of the earth, where rock flowed like water. A strong thumb pressed Tana's forehead between the eyebrows. "A warrior spirit and loyal heart, worthy of reward."

The words reverberated throughout the pavilion. Waves of sound engulfed Tana, thrumming from her head to her feet. Her skull felt assaulted by the noise. Like a swimmer battered by surf, she tumbled over and over inside her own body. Noise overwhelmed her; she would drown in it.

And then it stopped. Tana opened her eyes and blinked in the dimness, surprised to find herself still standing, her hands pressed over her ears. Her head rang. The stranger had vanished.

The holy ones don't wait about for us to show an interest,
Ma Hiral had said. Slowly, Tana's knees buckled. She crouched, drumming her hands against her skull, hard slaps meant to hurt. Belated awareness sickened her. The goddess had invited Tana to drink, and she had--oh, so stupid, so thoughtless--she had refused! And not even politely. She had said insulting things, called Naghali-ji a foreigner and a liar, implied the goddess didn't care about her followers. What kind of punishment did such blasphemy deserve?

The noise had shaken all Tana's lies from their places of concealment and exposed her soul as a poor, shriveled thing. Born plain of feature, unlikely to inspire a man's desire, but ambitious for worldly gain--Tana could never be content with her fate. Deep

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down, she had wanted what Diribani had: compassion, beauty, a divine regard blessing her, too. The goddess had known it. Thus was jealousy added to the toll of Tana's sins.

Like diamond-tipped drills, regrets pierced her heart. She had failed the test by refusing the goddess's request. She had wasted this life, sought her reckoning too soon, and now it would end. Diribani would be so disappointed, and Tana's mother... Would Ma Hiral even be surprised that her headstrong daughter had insulted Naghali-ji? Maybe one of the twelve would have pity and send her back as an ox, to walk in endless circles, driving an oil press or sugarcane crusher. At least then she'd be useful to someone and no danger to herself.

Dully, Tana picked up the pitcher. Her mother and Diribani were waiting for the drinking water. She could only hope the goddess's mercy extended to keeping the viper from smiting Tana until after she had said good-bye to her family.

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***

CHAPTER SEVEN Diribani

TRUMPET
notes floated in the air.
Ta-ra-rah, ta-ra-ra-lay.
Like a twig poked into a termite nest, the noise stirred Gurath's merchant quarter into a frenzy. Diribani heard it from her seat on the floor, where she braided flowers into garlands and waited for Tana to return. Up and down the street, shutters banged. Voices called; pushcarts creaked and rattled over packed dirt. She moved closer to the door and tugged at the curtain until she could peek out. She didn't expect anything interesting to happen in the empty courtyard, but it made her feel closer to the activity outside.

"Eyo, Mina Diribani, Mina Tana!" The neighbor boy climbed out of his second-floor window. Agile as a lizard, he hung briefly by his hands, then dropped from the sill to run along their shared wall. "Do you hear the trumpets? Come see, come see!"

Motioning Diribani to keep out of view, her stepmother ventured into the courtyard. "What is it, Indu?"

"Prince Zahid and Governor Alwar, back from the hunt. They're

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coming this way." Indu sighted along an imaginary barrel. "Maybe the prince shot a tiger!"

Ma Hiral made the sign to avert careless words. "By Sister Bhagiya's chariot, let us hope not! Eating animal flesh is indecent enough, but to kill a sacred beast for pride only? Those white-coats will have much to answer for in their next lives."

"But what if the tiger was a man-eater?" Indu straddled the wall facing the street. Mud-brick smudges joined the assortment of stripes and smears that masked the original color of his drawstring pants. His bare feet kicked the bricks. "Wouldn't Bhagiya-ji agree that shooting a man-eater before it killed more people was a worthy deed?"

Ma Hiral snorted. "That's a question for the priests at the temple grove, not for this ignorant woman."

"I'd like to see a tiger. Even a dead one," Indu said, so plaintively that Diribani chuckled.

"Grandson!" Fanning herself with the end of her blue dress wrap, a gray-haired woman leaned out the window through which Indu had exited. "Where'd that boy-- Oh, peace, Hiral-ji." Then, more sternly, "Indu, your mother told you to go upstairs. Did you not hear her?"

Indu folded his hands. "Nama-ji, she said she didn't want to see my face within two floors of the milk fudge, and that I should meditate on the sin of gluttony until Sister Payoja granted her prayers and blessed me with some manners."

"Then why do I find you outside bothering this lady with your squirrel chatter?"

Diribani watched as the boy turned big brown eyes on her stepmother. Ma Hiral came to his rescue, as Diribani had known she would.

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"No bother," she said. "In fact, the boy offered to describe the prince's party for us. Better he watches safely off the street, eh?"

"I'll tell you everything!" Indu promised. He shaded his eyes with his hand. "War elephants at Lotus Gate! Two lines of them, with shiny armor. The men on their backs carry spears."

"Brother Akshath shield us!" his grandmother exclaimed, but Diribani noticed that she had rested a hip on the windowsill and settled in to listen. "On no account are you to leave that spot, except to return to this room. Is that clear, grandson?"

"Yes, Nama-ji." Indu wriggled with excitement. "There are squads of soldiers, the governor's and the prince's both, by the flags. Next are the horsemen, the hunting cheetahs and their minders, pack camels, ranks of riflemen, and more soldiers on foot."

Sitting inside, the garlands forgotten in her lap, Diribani listened as Indu described the procession winding through their neighborhood. She heard the sounds: the tramp of feet, the musical notes of horns and the louder trumpeting of elephants, people cheering, and pushcart vendors shouting their wares.

Dealers in luxury goods like jewels and fine fabrics received customers at the market tents or were invited to call on their patrons with a selection of merchandise. A festive occasion like the return of a royal hunting party would attract a different class of vendor, selling treats or colorful trinkets to the crowd gathered to enjoy the free spectacle. On any other afternoon, Diribani would have been eager to see it for herself. Her stepmother's concern had affected her more than she wanted to admit. It seemed...fitting to wait for Tana. Her sister would help Diribani steer a course between Ma Hiral's warnings and the certainty Diribani felt in her heart that Naghali-ji meant her largesse to be shared.

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And then, mixed with the trumpets and the shouts of "charms for luck" and "fine ripe melons," came the sound of a woman screaming.

The wild shrieks brought Diribani to her feet, fists clenched around a finished garland. Not Tana, please the goddess!

"What happened?" Ma Hiral cried, as if she, too, was remembering that her daughter had not yet returned.

"I can't see." Teetering on the balls of his feet, Indu leaned out over the street.

"Grandson!" his grandmother called.

"Oh. Don't worry. It's only a white-coat, not one of our girls, arguing with a soldier." Indu dropped down to sit on his haunches. "I hope it's Gulrang," he said. "She kicked a lucky frog I was chasing at the well yesterday, when I almost had it! Maybe the soldier will give her a bloody nose."

"Indu," the two older women chorused in scolding voices, but the look they exchanged held relief.

Diribani didn't share their feeling. The cries continued, sharper and more frantic. Even if it was a white-coat who needed help-- especially Gulrang--this seemed a clear test of faith. Thanks to the goddess, Diribani had the means to bribe any man short of Emperor Minaz himself into letting go of an unwilling girl. Did she have the courage to brave the crowd for a person who might despise her?

What if it had been Tana? Or, if their situations were reversed, would Tana sit idle while another girl suffered?

The instant Diribani's mind posed the question, her body answered it. Fingers grabbed a handful of rubies to go with the garland she still held; feet carried her at a run out the door, across the courtyard, and through the gate. Like their house naga after a rat,

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Diribani tracked the scent of fear through the crowded streets. She ducked around pushcarts and between clumps of townsfolk, not caring that Ma Hiral chased her.

With quiet determination, Diribani elbowed her way through a wall of white-coats. Servant-quality coats made of inferior fabric, these were patched and stained and trimmed with colored ribbons. Young women screamed insults, tears of rage streaking their faces. A group of boys had locked arms to keep the girls away from the squad marching past. In the middle of the soldiers, a spitting, howling Gulrang was being passed from hand to hand. Each man in turn smacked a kiss on her lips or took a punch in the face, depending on whether the servant girl had managed to jerk her wrists free. The whole company, even those men she hit, treated her distress as a great jest. Each time her flailing fists connected with flesh, they roared with laughter.

Diribani ducked under a white sleeve and ran to the soldier with the most gold trim on his coat. She sketched a bow and walked beside him, offering the garland to show her goodwill. When he reached out, she dropped the uncut rubies into his palm. Then she gestured at Gulrang and folded her hands respectfully, begging with her eyes that he end the shameful treatment and return the girl to her friends.

Instead, the man stepped on the garland and scattered the gemstones onto the ground. A heavy hand slapped Diribani's cheek. "Cow," he said loudly. "Flowers and rocks don't buy the emperor's men."

Diribani stifled a cry of pain. Face throbbing, she backed into the crowd. The onlookers were packed so tightly that she couldn't escape. She could only watch as the ranks of soldiers passed. Their interest felt like beetles crawling over her skin.

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Townsfolk who hadn't protested the white-coat girl's treatment by another Believer muttered angrily at the disrespect shown Diribani. Commoners weren't allowed to carry weapons, but dung pats had been known to stain white coats. In the wake of the procession's elephants, horses, and camels, steaming lumps of fresh ammunition littered the road.

Gulrang had stopped fighting. Arms and legs and neck limp, she let herself be passed from man to man. Closed eyes didn't contain the tears that trickled from under her lids.

The last soldier in that row might have tired of the game, or noticed how the mood of the crowd had changed. He shoved the weeping Gulrang at Diribani. "Take her. If she covered her face like a decent woman, she wouldn't be mistaken for a slut."

Diribani kept her mouth closed, though she wanted to answer. How like a white-coat, to blame a woman for his bad behavior.

"Sh, shh." Ma Hiral had found them. One arm held Diribani; the other wrapped around Gulrang's waist and supported her like another daughter.

A soldier in a subsequent row, more observant or just more curious than his fellows, picked up one of the rubies his leader had rejected. His eyes widened. After a sharp sideways glance at Diribani, the man closed his fingers around the prize and marched on, eyes straight ahead.

Many other people had also witnessed the exchange between Diribani and Gold-trim. More than a few knew who she was, and who her father had been. "Javerikh's daughter," one man said to another. "You remember, the gem dealer." Her name was whispered from ear to ear. A hush followed the whispers. The last few rows of soldiers hastened their steps to get through the crowd of too-quiet