Laldasa (43 page)

The Rani shrugged. “Both of them had a rare ability to see the difference between people and institutions; between people and their actions, even. A rare form of detachment. It kept your father's crusades from becoming vendettas. It also kept him from destroying treasured relationships.”

“I didn't understand that, either, then—the crusading.”

The Rani shrugged. “You were a boy. You had other things on your mind than fair wages for hard labor or the disposition of sonless widows and orphans.”

Jaya grimaced. “I wish I'd paid more attention. I might have learned something about how to conduct a crusade.”

“You could always consult his journals. He took notes on everything. There should be a plethora of material there on the how's and why's of being a successful crusader.”

“I think I understand the why's now,” Jaya said. He took a deep breath. “I'd better go set up our security arrangements for tomorrow.”

“You'll need my testimony, too, won't you?” It was more statement than question.

“Yes. Yes, I think we will.”

She nodded, resigned. “I believe I'll cancel my dinner plans and stay in this evening. I'm not sure it's safe to be a Sarojin in Kasi just now.” She shivered, touched by the chill of that thought. “I'll be glad when this is over.”

“So will I,” murmured Jaya. He turned and started for the door.

“Jaya.”

He paused in the doorway to her entry.

“When this is over, you're going to free her, aren't you?”

“Ana? Of course. Her family can easily produce id for her, once the danger to them is past. Removing that obscenity from her palm should just be a formality.”

“Remove it? Or do you have plans to replace it with another obscenity? Don't you mean to exchange that dascree for the Sarojin raicree?”

The aloof stranger had returned. “I don't think this is the time to discuss that. When this is over, I'll stop and I'll think.”

“I hope you'll make a point of thinking clearly.”

Now the dark eyes glittered with heat. “Meaning?”

“Meaning: You should think long and hard about marrying across caste boundaries.”

“I don't believe in caste boundaries.”

“No, but the world around you does. Think, for a moment, of what life would be like for her once everyone knows she's not a displaced Rani of the Saroj, but an just Avasan miner's daughter—a common, colorless, ore-digger.”

“She's not ‘just' anything, Mother. Least of all, common. And if I did marry her, she'd be a Rani of the Saroj, after all.”

“Not to them.” She jerked her head toward Kasi. “Not to me.”

“I care, very little-“

“Ah, now!” She rose and moved toward him, praying he would see reason. “Now, you care very little! But how much will you care when it begins to affect the way people look at you, speak to you, or speak about you behind your back? How much will you care when time passes and the pallor of her skin doesn't fade? When you realize it wasn't the climate that blanched it, but her ancestors. When she gives you children marked by the same heritage. She's Genda, Jaya—born from of the bowels of the world, a child of the creatures that live in darkness.”
 

“ That is the most ignorant, superstitious pack of nonsense I've ever heard you preach. Those are fairytales—legends. We're all products of earth. Every last one of us.”

She felt swift, certain denial. “There was a time,” she said, “when the Sarojin men were little less than gods. To the people around them, they were gods.”

“They were never gods. They were men. My father was a man. I'm a man. Ana is a woman. We're equals.”

“Equals! She's a Genda slave!”

Jaya held up his hand. “Stop. Ana is not my slave. Not in any real sense. And don't suggest that I make her a cunnidasa. I have no interest in it. None.”

She knew better than to believe that. “None? You've never thought about it? Never thought about walking through that unlocked door into her bed?”

Her son's face gave up secrets that were no secret to her.

She laughed. “The Crusader-Hypocrite? Come, Jaya, admit it. You have thought pleasantly about that pretty piece of property. And she is your property. Believe me, she could hope for no greater honor than to be a cunnidasa to the Sarojin. If I were in her position-“

“You're not in her position, Mother, and never could be. Oh, you might have been born to a poor house, even to the family of an Avasan miner. You might have found yourself enslaved and alone on a strange world full of strange people. But you could never, never be in her position, because to be in her position, you'd have to be honest and honorable and selfsacrificing, and I doubt you are any of those things.” His eyes spat rage at her from their depths.

She had to allow it was her own fault. A heavy weight pressed upon her heart and she pressed her hands over it as if they could lift the weight away.

She smiled wryly. “Well, I seem to have done it again. Forgive me. I realize it all sounds like bigoted nonsense to you, but the sanctity of a Taj line is something I was raised with—something I was taught to respect and believe in. Other men might corrupt themselves or pollute the stream of their heritage with lowlife marriages, but not men of the Taj. There are always human needs, physical desires. That's what makes men—even Sarojin men—less than gods. Those needs can be fed. But I was raised to believe that people of caste must marry to their station. How else is the quality of the line to be preserved?”

“Quality of the line? What quality? What quality of character does Ana lack that should keep her from being accepted as a Rani of the House Sarojin? She's passed well as one so far.”

“She has passed. That doesn't make it so.” The Rani shook her head. “This isn't her world, Jaya. It is foreign to her. You are foreign to her.”

His face flushed. “No. No, I'm not. This world may be foreign to her—is foreign to her. She's told me as much. But not me. That's part of my dilemma, Mother. I feel as if I've known her for centuries, and I know the feeling is shared.”

“You are part of this world. She is part of another. In a very literal sense, an alien.”

“I don't want to be part of this world, damn it! I never have! I exist in it, I glide through it. It never touches me. Nothing has touched me. Until now. Now, I've been touched. By her; by those people whose lives my world is shattering. All I want right now is to get to the end of this tangled yarn and find out whose hand holds the skein. I want to find Ana's ‘Lost Ones' and reunite them with their families and I want to dig the corruption out of Kasi. You talk to me about caste boundaries? Well, I want to shatter them. Every last one of them. They're stupid, artificial walls and I want them broken!”

Dear God, he was shaking! The Rani applauded, laughing. “Oh, wonderful speech, Nathu Rai Sarojin! Well spoken! And with such admirable passion. If that's all you want—Ji!—the purging of Kasi; the destruction of age old custom? A mere wave of your hand should suffice.”

She advanced on him suddenly, anger leaping like black flame in her heart. “Do you have any idea how long your father struggled to accomplish just that? Do you have any conception of how many nights I slept alone because he was at the vicom, or skulking in some alley, or interviewing some lowlife in an attempt to dig the corruption out of Kasi? Can you imagine your father, the Nathu Rai Bhaktasu Sarojin, on his knees, weeping into my skirts because one of his yevetha informants had been killed or because he could not produce the proof of labor abuses he knew were occurring?

“You-you pup! You upstart! You have no idea what it is to be a mahesa. You speak of crusades and justice and honor and you've only just discovered they exist! You are a poor mirror of your father's light. A poor copy of the original!”

Jaya stood motionless, staring at her. In a moment, he managed to find his voice. “I'm not trying to imitate Father, Mata. I'm not a copy of him—poor or otherwise. I am myself. I am Jaya Sarojin and that makes me the mirror of both my father's light and yours.”

Melantha shrunk away from him, folded in on herself. “Ah, now that's a poor heritage. Half god and half Niraya-jinn. It's no wonder you're confused about your role in life.”

Jaya's expression softened. “I'm beginning to sort through the confusion, Mother. You could help by not throwing such conflicting signals at me. I swear, for the past five years I've been the most confused over who you are.”

“Well, so have I. If I throw conflicting signals at you, it's only because I am in conflict. I loved your father, Jaya. I loved him with a passion I swear few people are privileged to know. And he returned that love, every last grain of it. I worshipped him and he ennobled me. I admired the crusader in him as much as I begrudged it the time it took from me. Whenever he was able to bring justice out of chaos, I was the first one to adore him for it. But when he died ... out on one of his crusades ... ”

She dug her fingernails into her palms, seeking composure through physical pain, but it was an ineffective discipline against inner agony and she cried, sounding pathetic even to her own ears. “By God, Jaya, you're all I have of him! If I lose you-“

He reached for her, folded her into his arms. She recalled both Paradise and Hell in that embrace. Her son was hers again, for a moment, but Bhaktasu was lost to her for the rest of her life. And at the end of that fleeting dance, could she honestly hope for reunion? She realized that in the past five years she had forgotten how to pray.

“Don't leave me, Jaya,” she begged him. “Don't leave me alone.”

“I won't, Mata,” he promised.

oOo

Ana yawned and stretched, trying to bring her eyes back into focus on the detailed floor plan of the Badan-Devaki. She closed them and discovered that the picture was imprinted on her retinas. She chuckled. That would be great if it would last until she was finished with this bit of espionage, but already the image was fading.

One thing remained fixed in her memory—the small, black square drawn into the alley wall that represented admittance to the sub-levels of the building. It was listed in the architect's index as an “inspection access” and was intended to afford the City Development Corps a commanding view of pipes and conduits and any structural weakness of the sub-flooring. To Ana it was just another dark shaft, and since she had virtually grown up in dark shafts, she greeted it with almost a sense of welcome. That, at least, was her element.

From that entry way, there were several trap-door routes up into the dalali. One opened into a kitchen storage area, another into a long rectangular room with no particular designation. From its lay, Anala figured it ran behind the staging areas of the two premier floor public Salons. She pondered it for a moment, then decided it correlated to the wardrobe/dressing area she had seen during her processing.

She checked the time. It was getting close to dinner. She printed a copy of the floor plan, then bundled it up with the list of names, the schedule of deliveries, and some notes she had taken from Govi's sagacious input. Considering herself prepared, she folded the flimsies away into a pocket and hurried upstairs to store them in a safe place.

Later, she would plan her entry route and look over her notes. Then, she would just have to pray she was ready.

oOo

The journal hadn't been easy to find. In the end he'd asked the Rani for clues as to where his father had kept it.

Old Recipes from Vatapur, the faded, hide-bound cover said, but when Jaya opened it, the book was hollow, and in the carefully cut hole was a hand-sized com-journal. He powered it up, then sat down with it and scanned the entries. There were some files with cryptic names, others merely carried dates.

One of the named files had the initials “KNC” in the title; he tried to open it. The file was locked.

“Enter id,” the machine told him, and a small red light came on above an oval depression in its black face. He didn't know where his father's leaf was, so he used his own, pressing the crystal face down into the depression.

“Access granted,” said the journal, and proceeded to open the file. He began to read.

Ana slipped, silent, into the dim hallway—cautious, but not surreptitious. Her dark robes murmured silkily; barely loud enough to be heard above the rapid beating of her heart. She was sure that would bring the walls down. At the bottom of the staircase, she glanced away up the broad hallway. The flat panel of light squeezing beneath the door of Jaya's study confirmed that his meeting with Mall Gar was still in progress. She continued on her way, exiting the back of the house and heading for the long, two-story stable.

In that darkened building, she stopped to let her eyes grow accustomed to the gloom and listened to the soft midnight whispers of the horses in their boxes. She moved down the rows of stalls to the area where the carriages were kept.

She had just laid her hands on the tongue of the bike she'd targeted as an appropriate vehicle when a sharp sound from behind froze her. Common sense told her it was one of the horses rattling the door of its luxurious cell. Common sense told her she was being paranoid. Still, she listened to the dark stable the way a gaur-witch listens to a new mine shaft—all senses pointing outward.