Sword of the Deceiver (4 page)

“Great Queen, it is my charge to see that your daughter arrives safely at my home, and on my honor, it will be done.”

My home
. He’d placed the emphasis on those words. Natharie thought he meant to remove some of the fear the thought of the place brought down. He failed, though. She could not accept the Palace of the Pearl Throne as a place where people laughed and lived their daily lives and grew old together. This was the place she would be hostage and property and guarantor of peace for her land, her people. This was the place where strangers would put her to use, or would shut her up in a casket like a jewel, as they chose.

The moment the Hastinapurans had left, Mother had given full vent to her feelings. Though Natharie belived nothing could be done, Queen Sitara clearly did not agree. She would not dishonor her daughter’s sacrifice, but neither would she accept the Hastinapurans’ right to take her away. Natharie learned from whispers overheard between the palace lords and secretaries that the queen dispensed many bribes, promises, and threats, but none came to anything. There was simply no time. There was barely enough time to gather and dispatch a delegation to Natharie’s intended husband in Lohit informing him that the marriage could not be completed. Natharie included a politely worded letter of regret written in her best hand, even though it took hours to get that hand to stop shaking, and returned the gold disk on which his image had been hammered. She wondered what he would think of her for this, and whether she would ever find out. She thought on the few words Prince Samudra had spoken of him. She wondered what they had talked about, how they had looked and acted side by side, and what it would have been like to be a queen in her own court, receiving the prince from her place at her husband’s right hand.

Fortunately, she would not have much time to brood over it. The messenger from the sacrificial procession arrived twenty-two days after the Hastinapurans had departed, saying his masters were only a day behind.

That final night was hot, thick, and starless. Natharie could not sleep. She tried to be proud. She tried to meditate and to tell her beads, but fear kept returning. In an instant she would forget what her hands were doing and only be able to kneel and shake, feeling that the priests with their long knives were directly behind her, grinning the possessive grins she had seen on their faces in the audience chamber.

She alternately walked onto her terrace to look for the stars and lay in her bed, watching the darkness and listening to the familiar night sounds all around, trying to memorize each one to carry in her heart to her new place. Eventually, she could do nothing but sink to her knees on the terrace then, staring at the distant, golden blur that was the coming dawn.

A soft step made Natharie spin on her knees to see Mother gently enter her room. Natharie gaped, and the tears she had fought back so hard sprang into her eyes.

Mother knelt before her. She took up Natharie’s hands and pressed them between her own. She did not speak for a long time. They just sat together like that, each drawing what cold comfort they could from the other.

When she could no longer bear the silence, she said, “I’m sorry, Mother.” Perhaps it was as she had feared in her heart, that Mother’s anger was at her, not for her. She had broken promises, jeopardized their standing with their allies in Lohit, made a fool of the royal house before the Hastinapurans.

“Do not be,” Mother answered softly. Her voice was hoarse, and as thick as the darkness that waited outside. “You have done a brave thing, and a great thing for our land. It was my weakness that kept me away. Weakness and fear, for now …” She stopped, and Natharie felt herself choke. “Now I must ask you to do an even greater thing.”

Mother straightened, her voice softened and strengthened all at once. “This thing came upon us because we did not know enough about Hastinapura, about the ways and workings of the new emperor. We have no friend in the Palace of the Pearl Throne who can warn us of how they mean to work upon the destiny of our land.” Natharie realized she was breathing hard. “It has fallen to you to become that friend now. You are now the eyes and ears of Sindhu among our … our rulers. Can you do this?”

Natharie swallowed. For the first time since sunset, her mind felt clear. The idea that she might be able to do something for herself, for her family, lent Natharie a strength that nothing else could have.

“Yes, Mother. I will.”

Mother pressed Natharie’s hands again and kissed her brow. “Then rest now, my child. I will stay.”

With that, Natharie was able to lie down and close her eyes. Her mother began to sing softly, a lullaby Natharie had not heard since she was a child, but that she remembered deep in her heart. With her mother’s hand softly stroking her shoulder, Natharie drifted into sleep.

The departure morning was as hot and hazy as the night had been. The sacred river lay sluggish and brown at the foot of the dock where Natharie stood. The Hastinapuran barges were little more than shadows, but they could be easily heard: a great drumbeat pounded and the oars clacked and creaked in their locks in perfect time as the shadow drew closer, and closer yet.

Natharie had dressed carefully in her finest silks and gold, her crown on her head. Her parents and siblings all stood behind her, all the shining symbols of royalty glimmering in the morning haze. Natharie repeatedly touched her beads where they hung from her gold belt, trying to find a way to still her chaotic thoughts as the barge approached. Her mind could not focus on what was to come, let alone relax into any true meditation. Instead, her thoughts kept straying back to the things her mother had said to her. She would not be a passive prize or treasure piece. She still had work and duty to perform. She was not made completely unmade.

Natharie and her family all held themselves straight, calm and correct. The great drum stilled as the boat glided to the dock. The bargemen leapt onto the boards, shouting at their fellows. Ropes were thrown, the boat made fast. Natharie shook. She felt small and weak and despite the presence of her family, terribly, terribly alone.

When the barges were secured, three figures emerged from the boats. They were the Prince Samudra and his sorceress, and looming over them both, the great priest Divakesh.

Natharie could not wait any longer. There had been so much time in the recent days to imagine this man coming for her that she could no longer keep still. He would not see her cower or hang back from the path she herself had chosen. Natharie walked forward. She met the prince’s eyes, and she bowed, not low, but respectfully: a greeting for equals.

In return, Prince Samudra bowed in the fashion of Hastinapura, placing his hands over his face as he did so. The salute of trust they called it.

When he straightened, he said to her parents, “Great King, Great Queen, your gift honors the Pearl Throne beyond measure. Your daughter comes now to my house, and she will be treated as a daughter should. My honor rests on this.”

“Thank you, Prince Samudra,” replied Father. Those were the first words she had heard him speak the whole morning. Natharie risked turning toward him, and she saw how his eyes shone diamond-bright. Behind him, tears ran freely down Anun’s stony face. Mother alone stood impassive, but Natharie saw how she pressed the palms of her correctly folded hands together until her arms trembled.

Answering tears pricked behind her eyes.
Take me out of here
, she wished desperately.
Let me leave before we shame ourselves
.

She did not say farewell, not even to Malai or Bailo. She could not bear it. She had left presents and letters for all her siblings with her waiting women. Anun had her own farewell message waiting. That would have to suffice. If she said even one word now, she would break in two.

It seemed to her that Samudra understood. “Please escort Princess Natharie to her barge,” he said to Hamsa.

Hamsa bowed, first to him and then to Natharie. Natharie moved slowly, making each step carefully. She would not stumble. She would not falter. She would be as poised as a temple statue even as she passed beneath the gaze of the priest Divakesh.

The deck of the barge rocked as she stepped onto it. Well used to boats, she absorbed the motion and was able to walk a straight line down its length to the curtained house that would shelter her during the trip. The sorceress held open the gauzy green fabric. Natharie stepped in, and knelt on the nest of cushions that waited there.

The sorceress let the curtain fall, and made no attempt to follow, for which Natharie was grateful. It was all she could do to sit and breathe. After a time, the bargemen began to shout and she heard the rush and thump of ropes. The drum began to beat again, and the oars creaked and strained. The sacred river’s water cradled the boat, and the rhythm of the oars carried it away.

She took one, long, shuddering breath, and then another. In that moment, the curtain was jerked aside and the watery light blocked by Di-vakesh’s silhouette.

Natharie cringed. She could not stop herself. For the first time she saw his face close to hers. He was hawk-nosed and iron-eyed with thin lips that stretched tight over his teeth as he frowned at her. She was barely able to note that Hamsa stood behind him. But the sorceress did not move and Natharie shrank back further. There was nowhere to run and nothing she could do.

He lunged, and Natharie shrieked, and Hamsa held up one useless hand. Divakesh jerked the string of beads from Natharie’s belt with one painful pull.

“No impure thing is allowed beneath the shadow of the Pearl Throne.” His voice was hoarse with his triumph as he clenched the beads in his great fist.

“Then why are you taking me there?” Natharie inquired.

For a moment she thought he was going to strike her. She steeled herself for the blow. Behind him, Hamsa raised her staff, her face and knuckles white.

“It does not matter what you say,” Divakesh told Natharie with awful certainty. “You belong to the Mothers now. It is the Mothers who will decide your fate, and it is I who wield the Mother’s sword.”

Divakesh stepped back, letting the curtain fall between them. The gauze, however, was not opaque enough to prevent Natharie from seeing him throw her beads — the beads her mother had given her, which had not left her side a single day for nine years — into the sacred river. She heard the splash, even over the noise of the drums and the oars, and she saw how the sorceress just stood there as the priest resumed his seat beneath the umbrellas.

Only when she was sure his back was to her did Natharie permit herself, silently, to begin to cry.

After a long time, her tears spent themselves, and the rocking of the sacred waters lulled her to sleep.

Natharie dreamed.

She walked the rooms of her home, but they were empty. Not even the furnishings or the mats remained. She could not remember where her parents, or her brothers and sisters, had gone, or why she was not with them. She came to the audience hall, and it too was empty. Throne, statues, teakwood sitting platforms, all were gone. In the middle of the broad expanse of its polished floor stood a small, old man in a robe the color of the dust-filled sky. He looked up at her with eyes as dark as midnight.

“Please,” she said, her voice trembling. “Where are my parents? Where is my family?”

“How can you be alone?” he asked. “It is only the closed and empty heart that is alone.”

“They took my beads. They threw them in the river, and she swallowed them.”

The old man spread his hands, and at first Natharie thought she saw between them a string of beautiful beads, carved of precious woods and jasper, but then the old man smiled and they dissolved, leaving not even a glimmer behind. “They took nothing at all.”

She awoke in the afternoon sunlight that filtered through the gauze curtains and the sound of the rowers. She could clearly see Divakesh’s black silhouette outside, but for a long moment, there was no fear, only stillness.

As the daylight dimmed toward twilight, the barge was moored to an unfamiliar bank. Thick forest filled the rolling hills on either side. The voices of the animals, great and small, rang on the sultry wind. The mosquitoes, awakened early by the dry wind, hummed joyfully at the prospect of food. The great mountain that was the Pillar of Heaven glowed white and gold in the light of the setting sun that rose above the darkened treetops. The sight of it through the gap in the curtains gave Natharie an anchor for her yearning heart.

A round-faced and silent servant came and brought her a meal on a lacquered tray: rice, vegetables cooked to various colored pastes, overripe fruit, and some desiccated substance that it took Natharie a moment to realize was meat. She picked up that dish, thrust her hand through the curtains, and upended the bowl over the river. Anidita taught against the eating of flesh, and she did not feel the need to be polite, or subtle.

As she picked at the remaining food, someone rapped on the side of the housing. The curtains parted again, this time to admit Hamsa.

She made a polite obeisance. “Great Princess, I will not bother asking if you are comfortable,” said the sorceress, in excellent Sindishi. “I know you are not. But my master Prince Samudra sent me to you to see if there is anything that can be done to ease the burden of your heart at this time.”

A dozen replies flashed through Natharie’s mind, but she remembered pride over all. “Where is your master?”

“High Priest Divakesh determined that it was necessary for Prince Samudra to travel separately.”

“But not you?”

Her smile was weak. “I am a person of much lesser importance.”

“What does the high priest fear I will do? Attack? Leap overboard and swim for the shore?” The thought had occurred to her. They were not yet too far from the land she knew. She might be able to walk home, or hail a passing boatman.

Hamsa shook her head. “No.”

“Then what?”

The sorceress hesitated and looked down at her hands. They were callused hands, much like her master’s, with splayed fingers and patches of discoloration. One nail had been torn away and regrown battered and grey. They were a working woman’s hands. “Great Princess, of your courtesy, do not make me answer that question. It will do my errand no honor.”