Sword of the Deceiver (30 page)

“Speak now, and speak the truth,” said Hamsa. “If you lie, I will know.”

Radana licked her lips. “King Kiet and Queen Sitara have sent their spymaster to make common cause with the chief of the Huni who inhabit the Pillar of Heaven foothills. It is their intent to bring them down the river to Sindhu to do what they will from there.”

Natharie’s heart constricted and her hand flew to her mouth. No. No. They had not done this. Not even Mother in all her rage would doom Sindhu in this way. Father would not permit it. Mother would not … would not bring Natharie’s death to her with such an act, because she would die, because she was hostage. Mother never would do this. This was a lie. But Hamsa stood before Radana completely silent. Not even the air stirred around them.

“So,” breathed the sorceress. “You do not care, then, Radana, that your mistress will die when this becomes known.”

Natharie choked on her own breath. She began to shake. Mother had done this. Father had done this. Her loving parents had condemned her to die, and Radana had come to carry the word that would bring them down, taking all of Sindhu down with them.

Radana lifted her chin. “I am loyal to the Pearl Throne.”

Hatred blazed hard and sudden in Natharie and in that moment she wished hard for Divakesh’s sword.

Hamsa was breathing hard and fast as if undergoing some great struggle. Natharie’s glance darted to the door. Could she run? Could she escape to the walls and the gardens, maybe find a way into the city?

Then, Hamsa swung her staff around, touching it to the spot over Radana’s heart. For a moment, the concubine stared at the sorceress, her eyes bulging with disbelief. Then, Radana’s eyes closed in complete and utter peacefulness, and she slumped to the floor.

Natharie could not believe what she saw. “Is she … did she lie? Is that what this is?”

Hamsa went down on her knees. Her hands were shaking, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “No. No. She sleeps, that is all.” She smiled a little. “Truth tellings are complex. They take hours to make. If you knew anything of the invisible workings you would know that. Sleep is much easier to weave, especially at night, especially when one is already tired.”

Natharie’s mind refused to encompass what was happening. “But you said …”

“I was the one who lied,” Hamsa told her sharply. “But she believed, just as you did.” Hamsa grimaced, and it came to Natharie that this working she spoke of was not finished. Hamsa by the force of will and soul that were the sorcerers’ blessing held this spell over Radana. “Listen to me, Natharie. I cannot leave her like this. This working is light and will not hold. You must go find the prince immediately. He must be the one to know this.”

“Yes … yes.” Natharie shook herself. It was too much. Her mind dipped and spun, but she knew Hamsa was right. Samudra was the only help Sindhu had.

The only help she had.

“Where is he?”

Hamsa reeled off a series of directions to take her through the soldiers’ tunnels into the gardens. Natharie forced herself to listen, and to repeat them, steadily and accurately, along with the passwords for the guards she would meet.

“What of Radana?” Natharie asked at last.

“I will take care of her.”

Natharie met the sorceress’s gaze. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Hamsa nodded once. Natharie took up her lamp again and opened the door onto a corridor as narrow and as dark as any of the servants’ ways. She looked sharply left and right and saw no one. Before she could forget the route Hamsa had given her, she ran ahead into darkness. For this moment, she needed only to worry about speed. For this blessed moment, she did not have to think about the message she carried.

Her heart breaking inside her, the princess of Sindhu ran on.

As soon as Princess Natharie left her, Hamsa turned to the nearest records shelf. Most of the aging tallies were written on scrolls, and most of those scrolls were bound with colored cord, blue, green, red, yellow, black, or white. Hamsa went through the shelves, cutting the knots with her small knife, harvesting the cords, and sneezing as she raised great clouds of dust. Scrolls slithered to the floor, piling up around her ankles to be kicked aside and trod on carelessly in her hunt for what she needed.

It didn’t matter. What mattered had already been done. Natharie carried the warning to Samudra. They would be able to escape ahead of the storm that was coming, and she would finally be able to obey her dream.

When she had a good handful of the silken strings, Hamsa sat cross-legged beside the fallen Radana. The sorceress was sweating, despite the fact that the room was quite cool. She could feel her working strain and begin to fray as Radana’s self struggled to reassert its freedom and wake. She must be swift.

Setting the cords on the floor in front of her, Hamsa closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, and another, and another. She focused her mind, forming the task and its boundaries. Sleep. Deep, restful sleep. All care, all urgency, all need to be bound away. Just sleep. Only sleep. She knew how to do this. It was one of the first spells she had learned for healing, for nothing healed so well as blessed, blessed sleep.

She opened her eyes and looked down at the cords. She picked up a red one and a blue one and with careful fingers began to knot them together. She drew her magics up from within and down from without. She breathed them out onto the cords she wove one into the other making a loosely netted collar for Radana’s pale throat.

Sleep. Healthful sleep. Sleep until the knots were undone and the spell was broken by the hand that wove it.

“Mothers give me strength to do this much, just this much,” she murmured as she laid the net against Radana’s skin.
Let it be strong enough to bring him here
.

“The Mothers may give you the strength, but you should have asked for time, little Hamsa.”

Hamsa’s head jerked up and the net she had woven so carefully slithered to the floor. Yamuna stood in front of her, three soldiers behind him, and the sorcerer Madhu in all his new finery, carrying the lamp for Yamuna and grinning to show all his dirty teeth.

Yamuna, however, only looked on her with scorn. “Did you think I would not know?” he asked, as he snatched the netting from the floor. “Did you think you could hide the least working from me?” He glanced as Radana where she lay and then turned to the soldiers. “Bring her. The emperor and the first of all queens need to hear what she has to say.” He smiled at Hamsa in terrible mock hospitality. “Come, little Hamsa, it is time for you also to serve your true master.”

Hamsa rose. She walked past him out in to the dark and narrow corridor. She did not look back. She did not want Yamuna to see her own tremulous smile.

Evening cast its long cloak over Samudra as he stood on the edge of the gardens, twisting his hunting spear restlessly in his hand.

It was the custom for the men of the imperial line from time to time to have some fearsome creature loosed in the gardens so they, and select intimates, could hunt. It was a good night for such sport. The air was warm, but dry and clear. Only a few stars lit up the sky, their brilliance making a setting for the white crescent moon that shone so brilliantly it was possible to see the new moon in its arms.

An omen
, he thought as he gazed up at it, leaning on his hunting spear.
But of what?

Out there, men waited beside a caged tiger, waiting for the signal to open that cage and retreat, leaving the garden empty for Samudra and Makul, and the others Makul brought with him. What would happen to the tiger tonight, Samudra could not say, but he would have his catch of men. Tonight, Chandra would understand the truth of his loyalty, and the loyalty of the others who would weaken the empire and drive brothers apart.

And Mother A-Kuha would understand that he honored her, but that he would remain Mother Indu’s son.

Behind him, Samudra’s groom held a restless Rupak, stroking the horse’s neck and murmuring to him. Neither was happy about being kept from his rest, nor were the young men who held the lamps, but all here served as they must.

At last, the hoofbeats sounded on the shell road and Makul came riding up the gentle slope. He was alone, without even a man servant to attend him. Samudra straightened, warning tolling in his heart. When Makul reached them, he dismounted and handed his reins to Samudra’s groom so that he could make his obeisance.

Samudra raised his teacher up and clasped his hand. “Thank you for coming, Makul,” he said, and he meant it. They both knew what must be done, but after a sleepless night Samudra had seen how he might spare Makul the worst. The Mothers were kind, even Mother Vimala. He would not have to betray his oldest and best friend to save his brother. “Come, let us stretch our legs a bit.”

“It is ever my pleasure to accompany my prince,” replied Makul evenly. Side by side they walked, two friends who had seen much together, moving out of range of the lanternlight, and out of the hearing of the servants.

“It is a beautiful night,” Makul murmured, looking up at the emerging stars.

“It is,” Samudra agreed. His ears were straining for the sound of other horses, but he heard nothing except the nighttime sounds of the garden tempered by a muted roar from the tiger waiting for its freedom and its death.

“The others are coming soon?” Samudra asked softly.

“No, my prince.”

Samudra stared at his teacher, and Makul returned his gaze with calm and ease. “I warned them. I told them you knew they wished you to take the Throne, and that you would not agree.” Makul folded his hands behind his back and lifted his face to the stars. “Four have fled. One, at least, has taken his own life. Another, I believe is making sacrifice to Indu and Jalaja and praying this all will pass over.” He gave a shrug and to show how likely he regarded that before he lowered his gaze to meet Samudra’s. “If you wish to take anyone to the emperor, it will be me.”

“No, Makul …” The unseen tiger roared. The night air felt suddenly close. Samudra couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. The world was filled with eyes watching and ears listening and knives everywhere, and Makul stood alone and unarmed before him.

“You were willing to sacrifice me when I was one of a handful, my prince, why not now?” Makul cocked his head toward Samudra. Then he went on more softly, and infinitely more sadly. “Or did you think to tell the emperor I aided you in your deception and so I should be spared while those who trusted me are gutted by Divakesh’s sword?”

Samudra turned his face away. There was nothing he could say to that.

“Yes, you should be ashamed, my prince,” said the old soldier harshly. “It was unworthy of you. You cannot be partially true to an oath.” He spread his hands. “I am a traitor. You know that. I believe you should be emperor, not your brother who leaves us at the mercy of Pravan’s idiocy and Divakesh’s fanaticism. If your loyalty is to Hastinapura and the emperor, why do you hesitate to bring me to the justice I deserve?”

“I wanted only …”

At this, Makul spat. “What do you want, Samudra? Do you even know?”

Samudra bowed his head. He could not look at his teacher any longer. He could not look at anything. He squeezed his eyes closed and in his mind’s eye he saw his brother. He saw the boys they had both been. He saw the fear in Chandra’s eyes as the imperial crown was settled at last on his head. “I wanted to save him, Makul. That was all.”

“You cannot. He has already doomed himself.”

Samudra’s head jerked up. What could he know of Chandra’s doom? The Makul who stood before him in the silver light and thick shadows looked suddenly strange, scarcely human. The whites of his eyes shone too brightly and his skin shimmered with celestial light. “Who are you?” Samudra croaked.

But Makul just spread his hands. “I am your teacher and I am your servant, my prince,” he said. “Who did you believe me to be?”

Samudra shook his head. “Nothing. I … she said she would come again when I was ready to speak from who I was. I thought for a moment …”

“What did you think?”

Samudra opened his mouth to tell him, but then, a sudden sound caught his ears. Someone ran toward them. Makul heard it too, and now they both saw a light carried by a figure in woman’s dress bobbing above the grass as its bearer ran as if for her life. Samudra’s mouth went suddenly dry. He might not know who stood with him, but he knew the tall form that raced toward him.

He thrust the hunting spear into Makul’s hand and ran toward Natharie, leaving his startled teacher to trail behind him. Samudra grasped Natharie’s arms to keep her from colliding with him and saw her eyes wide with fear beneath her plain veil.

“What is it?” he cried, half-afraid, half-despairing. How could she have left seclusion again,
again
. Would she never understand this could mean her death? What was she trying to do?

“Samudra …” she gasped, struggling for breath. “Word has … Radana … from my father …”

“Who is this?” hissed Makul, coming up behind them, the spear point lowered.

Natharie stared at the other man, the same question clearly in her own mind.

“This is Commander Makul, Natharie. He is my right arm.”
Even now
. Samudra took back the spear. “Tell me what’s happened.”

She mastered herself with the strength that he had always seen in her, and she told him what had happened, of the woman Radana, of Hamsa’s intervention, and the news of rebellion from the court of Sindhu.

“Mothers all,” whispered Makul.

A thousand different thoughts tumbled through Samudra’s mind, but one shone out clearly among all the others. Even if Hamsa managed to delay word of this rebellion reaching the emperor, Natharie could not return to the small domain. To send her back there was to condemn her to death.

“You must take the great princess to the docks,” he said to Makul. “Find a boat. She must go back to Sindhu and warn them what is coming.” Makul nodded, accepting these strange orders with a soldier’s discipline. “I will …”
What will I do? What can I do? Let her go and then go back and … and …

Hamsa. Hamsa is alone with this now
.

“I must go back inside.” He was already two steps back toward his horse, when Natharie stopped him with his name.

“Samudra. If you go back, you’ll … they’ll send you to Sindhu …”

He also had thought of this. If his plans were not discovered, he would remain in command of all the emperor’s forces. He would be sent to deal with the little rebellious Awakened protectorate as he had dealt with Lohit, and probably Divakesh would go with him. “Yes.”

Natharie drew back. The lamp in her hand trembled, making the light across her face flicker so badly he could not tell which was stronger in her, anger or betrayal. “You cannot mean you would do this.”

“Natharie, it must be me.”
Understand, please understand
. “If I lead the army, there is a chance this will not be a slaughter. There will be a chance for honor and surrender, and a just peace. If it is left to Pravan and Divakesh” —
and Chandra
— “what do you think will happen to your family and your people?”

She winced, turning her face away. He heard the tiger roar again in the distance, and his hands shifted the spear to a ready hold before he knew what he had done. If he was to save any of them, he must move quickly. But he could not go until he was certain Natharie trusted him. He would not part from her while she believed he would betray her. He could not. She looked into his eyes and nodded, clearly holding back too many feelings and too many thoughts. But still he could see that she did understand, and, more, she believed.

“You must go now. You can trust Makul,” he added to Natharie. “I owe him my life a hundred times over.”
And perhaps one day he will forgive me for what I meant to do
.

But this time, it was Makul who hesitated. “My prince, it is dangerous for you to return.”

Samudra felt a small smile forming.
My right arm. Even now
. “Hamsa is still inside, Makul. I cannot leave her to face this alone.”

As Makul moved to her side, Samudra saw Natharie still watching him. There was fear in her eyes, for herself, but also for him, and some perverse part of himself found strength in that fear.

“Go with care, Natharie.” It was nothing like what he wished to say, but he would not leave her with promises he might never be able to fulfill.

She nodded and let Makul lead her to the road that showed faint and grey in the starlight. Samudra did not stand to watch them vanish. Instead, he ran back to the grooms and his horse.

“Give the signal to start the hunt.” He threw himself into Rupak’s saddle.

The groom hesitated, and for a moment Samudra thought the man might break all discipline and question him. But no, he just turned to his junior, who thrust a bundle of reeds into the lamp he tended and when it kindled, raised it high, waving it back and forth.

Samudra sent Rupak cantering down the road a little ways before turning the horse’s head toward the tiger’s roar. The cage was open by now and the beast was free in the darkness. How had things come to such a pass that the great predator was the least of his worries? He gripped his spear tightly. When he could no longer see the grooms’ lamps, he turned Rupak hard to the left, doubling back toward the palace. The horse was skittish underneath him, fearing what he scented on the wind.

So do I, old friend. So do I
.

Samudra circled the palace as widely as he could, keeping always to the shadows and heading for the practice yard. Natharie had gotten out of the palace proper through the garrison tunnels; he would reenter it the same way. He would find Hamsa, and then return, gather up his grooms, and hunt down the tiger to keep his ruse whole. It would not last long, but it would give him time to question this woman Radana and decide what was best to do.

It would give him time to master his anger against the king and queen of Sindhu. How could they endanger their daughter who loved them so well that she had already given her life for the peace of her land?

Did they truly believe death would be better for her than life in the small domain?

Then, Samudra remembered the bright, contemptuous eyes of the king of Lohit when the man spoke of Hastinapura and the corruption of its priests and its soldiers.

Yes. Yes, they do believe that. We are so tightly walled in here in all our absolute purity and power that those we rule believe the worst of us
.

Samudra cantered along the road at the edge of the practice yard. He raised his spear in salute to the men on the walls who could not help but see a form on horseback. He reined up Rupak in front of the stables. Leading the horse to an empty stall, he loosened the bridle and made sure there was hay. The grooms and their master snored in their lofts overhead, and Samudra made a note to reprimand the man for not keeping better watch, and to light incense to the Mothers as penance for allowing such a lapse.

Kindling a lamp from the coals banked in the stove, Samudra lifted the trapdoor and climbed down the ladder, blessing the ones who had realized that if trouble ever came to the palace, there should be a way to get to the horses. More than one prince had used this low, dirt-scented tunnel as an escape route to adventure out beyond the walls. He himself had done so often enough in his youth. He tried to remember if Chandra had ever come out with him, and found to his shock he could not.

The stable tunnel joined up with the broader, brighter network beneath the walls. It was mostly storerooms down here, but there were always guards stationed in the ancient chambers and patrolling the corridors. He heard voices, and the steady tread of men’s feet. He had one more reason to thank his teacher. Makul had insisted that young Samudra know the tunnels and their routine as he knew the corridors of the small domain, and Samudra now marched through them keeping just around the corner and just far enough ahead of the patrols to keep from being seen clearly.

As soon as he was underneath the palace proper, he found one of the servants’ doors and raced up the winding stairs. When Hamsa had done what was needful with Radana, she would return to his rooms, as she had the night he met Mother A-Kuha. He was certain of that.

Samudra reached the seventh ring. He turned down one of the curving corridors that led into its heart. He held his lamp up high so he could pick out the faded symbols scratched on the stained and splintery doors. Here was a window, meaning this door opened on the viewing chamber, and here was a star, meaning he had found the chamber of the first prince.

Samudra pushed the door gently open. Light spilled through, but no sound accompanied it. He peered through the door and saw his attendant Amandad kneeling on the floor, his head in both hands. Fresh fear touched him and Samudra eased himself through the door, closing it carefully behind him.