Spear of Heaven (32 page)

“Is that what’s happening in the palace?”

“It is what is going to happen soon. The new king has
ordered the palace to his satisfaction. His followers are free to pursue the
purposes for which they raised him to the throne.”

“And those are?”

“To drive out all foreigners. To destroy all taint of magic
in Su-Shaklan.”

Vanyi considered that. It was nothing surprising, nothing
unexpected. But to hear it spoken so baldly by this of all men—that brought it
home, and forcefully. “How far are they thinking to go?”

“Far,” he said. His hands, raising the cup to sip cooling
tea, were not quite steady. “They seek even to suppress some of the odder cults
and priesthoods among our own people: the exorcists, the spirit-speakers, the
counters of the dead, even some of the oracles and prophets and the holy ones
of the heights. All those, they say, are workers of magic.”

“Some of them probably are,” Vanyi observed.

“Only in the broadest sense,” he said. “Too broad, in my
mind. I mislike what it may lead to.”

“Indeed,” Vanyi said. “Broad interpretations can become very
broad, until they include anyone whom one doesn’t love, and any doctrine that
one disapproves of.”

The Minister of Protocol bobbed his head: Shurakani
agreement. “Yes. Yes, that is what I see. Already they make lists, name names,
reckon up their enemies and their unfriends.”

“Are you telling me,” Vanyi asked, “that I should get my
people out before the whole palace falls on us with fire and sword?”

“No, lady,” said the Minister of Protocol. “That would
destroy you certainly. The guards of the borders have been instructed to slay
you if they see you. In the city you are safe; in this house you are protected
still by the name of Janabundur. No one yet is willing to challenge it or those
who hold it.”

“But for how long?”

“Lady, I do not know.” A mighty admission, and a great
abdication of pride. “I know only that you, through your kinswoman, are now of
Janabundur, and Janabundur has great influence among those who might wish to
avert what comes.”

“The lord of the house is in seclusion,” Vanyi said, “till
the days of his wedding are over.”

“His lady mother is not. And his sisters. Nor are you
yourself.”

Vanyi poured tea, to give her hands something to do while
she pondered. His mind was as readable as ever—to the same point as ever,
neither deep nor shallow, but beneath was a darkness she could not penetrate.

Did he know that the queen was here? His thoughts were
innocent of such knowledge. They saw much amiss in the kingdom, a king whom he
reckoned more puppet than ruler, weak and vain, and puppetmasters without let
or scruple. They would trample the ancient orders and courtesies in the name of
the gods and the ban against magic.

She held great weapons, she thought, sipping tea that she
barely tasted. The queen. House Janabundur. Her own magery, and the power of
all her mages. The Olenyai, warriors in a mode that was unknown here. Even
Gates, if she could open them again.

But the palace ruled Shurakan. Its armed men might not be
equal, man for man, to any Olenyas, but there were hundreds of them to her nine
bred-warriors. Its power might—must—encompass a force that could break Gates.

Yes. It must. She had no proof, no certainty, but her bones
knew. Whatever had broken Gates, its wielders had slain the old king and given
the crown to one of its own.

The Minister of Protocol waited, silent, for her to finish
pondering. She spoke abruptly; he started. “I’ll speak to the Lady Nandi. More
than that I can’t promise.”

“It will help,” he said. “Not all of us in the palace are
bound to the new lords. Those of us who can will assist you. Come or send to us
discreetly, in my name. I will come at once, or my messenger if I am detained.”

“What do you want?” Vanyi demanded of him. “The new king
killed, his followers likewise? Yet another new order?”

“Lady,” he said. “Lady, he who is king is king. But he
should not permit his people to indulge in excess.”

“Ah,” said Vanyi. “You want us to sweep the rags and the
gutter-leavings out of your palace. What do we gain in return?”

“You will not be hunted,” he said, “nor expelled. And the
haters of what you are will be constrained as before by the bounds of law and
custom.”

“That’s not enough,” she said. “Give us freedom of the
kingdom—swear that we’ll not be made prey to the hatred of the ignorant. Or,”
she added, catching his eye, “of those who fancy themselves wise. Allow us full
status as ambassadors, with full respect and full privileges.”

“If you succeed,” he said, “that will be inevitable.”

“Swear to it.”

“By the gods and the goddess, and by the children of heaven,”
he said without hesitation. “Set us free of those who would run to mad
extremes, and you will be accorded the rank and respect of friends. You are
already possessed of privilege, as the kin of Janabundur.”

Vanyi inclined her head. “We’re allies, then. I’ll send to
you when I’ve spoken to Lady Nandi.”

Lady Nandi was carding wool as women did here, with her
daughters for company, and Borti with a spindle, spinning thread out of the
wool. They made Vanyi think, with unexpected poignancy, of women in a fishermen’s
hut on Seiun isle, waiting for the men to come back from the boats.

Odd to think that these were royal ladies, and one a queen.
Queens in the empire did not spin or weave. They led councils and commanded
armies, and held regencies when they did not rule in their own right. If they
indulged in any stolen leisure, they rode seneldi and hawked or hunted;
embroidered tapestries, or made music, or read from books. Weaving was a guild
and a craft, and not the province of a princess.

Here the women of the house, even if they were of high rank,
spun and wove and sewed, and dressed their kin and servants in their looms’
weaving. They did not weave rugs or embroider tapestries. That was an art, and
practiced in the temples, which seemed here to do duty for guilds.

Vanyi could remember how to spin, if she thought about it.
She had not done it in years out of count. She had never threaded a loom; that
had been her mother’s task, while her mother lived. After she died, Vanyi had
turned rebel and sought the sun-god’s temple and become a priestess. Novices of
Avaryan’s priesthood did what they were bidden to do; Vanyi’s tasks had been
the planting and harvesting of vegetables for the pot, and the mending of nets,
and long hours of study in the arts of magecraft, for that was and had always
been her great gift.

She sat on the stool that was nearest, while the women
carded and spun. Sun slanted through tall windows, warming the room, making
stronger the heavy scent of wool. Someone had begun to thread the loom, but
stopped halfway; the threads were a deep crimson, nearly black unless the sun
shone on it.

The wool that Borti spun was dyed a soft green. Vanyi
wondered if the two colors were meant to be woven together. It did not seem
likely, but with weavers one never knew.

It was peaceful here, even with her presence to make the
servants uneasy. The high ones were placid, unruffled, their hands deft in
their tasks. Borti spun a fine thread, Vanyi noticed, of even thickness; yet
she seemed hardly to be aware of what her hands were doing. Her eyes were on
the windows, her gaze full of sunlight, but under the brightness the shadow ran
deep.

She grieved for her brother and lover, her king who was
dead. They had not agreed on policy, they had quarreled often, but Vanyi knew
how little that could matter between two who were friends and lovers both. She
withdrew delicately from the other’s thoughts, save for the flicker of emotions
across the surface. “The Minister of Protocol wants an alliance,” she said.

The servants lowered their heads and made themselves
invisible. Lady Nandi said, “I thought he might.”

“Have you spoken with him?” Vanyi asked, a little sharply
perhaps.

“I know him,” Lady Nandi said. “He would hardly approve of
all that the new king’s counselors are doing. Does he wish us to appear in the
court and listen to what people are saying there?”

“Would you want to do that?”

“I had thought of it,” Lady Nandi said. “It might not be
excessively wise after what was done to my brother—and no one has come to me,
who am, in their knowledge, his only living kin, to offer me the death-scroll
and bid me fetch his body.”

“You might,” said Borti quietly, “go to the palace as one
who has the right, and ask for those things. They won’t harm you, I don’t
think. There’s another thing these hotheads, most of whom are young, hold as
truth revealed: that women are weak and must be indulged and protected.”

“And I am old,” said Lady Nandi, “and the old are weakest of
all.”

Surely, thought Vanyi. The lady was little smaller than her
son, and he was a big man, rock-solid and built to last. But a young male,
blinded by grey hair and a lined face, might be persuaded to see frailty where
there was none. Vanyi would exploit it herself if she had the chance; though
Nandi would do better in this, there was no denying.

Lady Nandi had no magery to read Vanyi’s thoughts, but her
wits were quick. She smiled at Vanyi. It was a wicked smile, much younger than
the face it shone on; she had been a hoyden in her youth, or Vanyi was no judge
of women. It might not be so surprising after all that the woman had let her
beloved and only son take a wife as wild as Daruya.

“I think,” Lady Nandi said, “that I may be driven to stumble
to the palace on my ancient feet and beg weeping for my brother’s remains. My
daughters will follow, of course, with loosened hair and distraught faces. And
servants with a bier.”

“Pity is a powerful ally,” Borti observed. “Our brother
would laugh. He did love a scene well played.”

Nandi bobbed her head. “Oh, he did indeed. Will you come? A
servant’s coat, a properly humble bearing . . . no one will know
you.”

“No,” said Borti. Her voice was harsh; she softened it with
a perceptible effort. “No, it’s too chancy. If even one servant recognizes me,
I’ve lost us everything.”

“I would trust you not to be indiscreet,” Nandi said.

Borti’s hands faltered in their spinning. Her face was calm,
even cold. “I thank you. Trust is no easy thing to earn. But I won’t risk it.
When you bring him back, with all such news as you can gather, and goodwill in
the court, too, I’ll perform the rites with you. If, of course, you permit.”

“I permit it,” said Nandi with formal precision. “I wish it.”

“Make them pity you greatly,” Borti said. “Win their hearts
for us.”

oOo

Before the Lady Nandi could risk herself on such an
errand, before she could even finish preparing to go, a guest was brought to
Vanyi as she tried to read in the library that was next to the hall. She never
remembered afterward which book it had been, or even what kind of book it was.

The man who stumbled and fell at her feet was a preposterous
creature, naked but for festoons of charms and amulets; his face and body were
painted, often garishly, but the bright scarlet and the livid blue were blood
and bruises. He had been beaten, and badly; it was a wonder he was walking, let
alone running ahead of the servant.

Vanyi abandoned her book with open relief and knelt to turn
the fallen man onto his back. Her hands were as gentle as they could be. Even
at that, he groaned and struggled, but stilled as he understood that she meant
him no harm.

As she had expected, it was the odd creature who had helped
to bring Uruan back from the house of the Gate: the exorcist, who appeared to
have no name, or none that his sect would let him confess to. There was a scent
of magery on him, weak but distinct.

His eyes opened in the bruised and swollen face. Much of the
paint had rubbed away; the features under it were unremarkable except where
they were swollen out of their wonted shape. His nose was broken, Vanyi noted,
and he had lost a tooth or two.

“You were lucky,” she said, “that they didn’t break anything
more vital.”

He blinked at her, struggling to make sense of her. His
magery, as ill-trained and twisted as it was, recognized hers, but he did not
know what he was seeing; only that she seemed more real than the world about
her.

She made no effort to soften the effect. He would learn what
it was that made him see her so; or he would not.

“Tell me why you came here,” she said when he kept staring,
blinking, poised on a thin edge of pain and panic. “Why here, and to me in
particular?”

Her voice anchored him as she had hoped it would. “I ask you
for sanctuary, lady of the mages,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because,” he said, “I’ll be killed else. They’ve stripped
my temple bare and burned it. They’ve beaten or killed the priests. They’re
doing it all through the city, wherever the whim strikes them. They say—” He
had to stop and swallow bile. “They say that they’re cleansing the city and the
kingdom. Of—of—”

“Of evil magic?”

His head bobbed assent, unwisely: he gasped with pain and
dizziness, and retched. But his stomach was empty. Those who beat him had seen
to that.

“Why did you come here?” Vanyi asked. “You don’t know us.”

“You are—that. What they said we were.”

“What, mages? We’re no more evil than any other mortals.”

“Mages,” he said. “M—mages. And strong. And they said—I
heard them say—they can’t touch you, not while Janabundur speaks for you.”

“Not yet,” Vanyi said.

“So I came to you,” he said. “You can fight. You have light
and dark in your hands like swords, and demons at your call. And gods; and the
little goddess.”

“What—” Vanyi laughed, but not with mirth. “I suppose you
could call the imp that.”

“I want to fight with you,” he said. “I want to see them
fall as my temple fell, in bloody ruin.”