The Braided World (27 page)

“Sergeant,” Anton said. “I leave it to you what to say to them. You're in charge up there. But tell them I'm asking them to hold on.”

Yes, sir. But…

“Go ahead, Sergeant.”

Sorry, Captain, but they're giving you one week. Then they're firing up the ship and going home. Even if it's over my dead body, which it will be, by God.

Anton still held the mike, struggling with what to say. Then: “Thank you, Sergeant. Message received.”

Nick looked at Anton with the first surge of compassion he'd felt for the man in weeks. The crew deserved to be shot for treason.

But then, they were dying anyway.

Anton watched as Maypong expertly paddled the skiff
, navigating the hugely crowded Puldar, rife with barges, canoes, and skiffs, each one packed with Dassa and slaves. A light rain pitted the river, but rain would not keep the people from welcoming their king home from battle. Behind Anton, Bailey sat, wearing her hat which served her well for an umbrella.

Vidori's war canoes had come down the Sodesh early in the morning. In his wake, every boat in Lolo followed, heading to the palace river steps.

Maypong maneuvered around a skiff overloaded with young Dassa women, boisterous with the prospect of a palace gathering.

Anton hoped that he could get the king's ear for at least a moment. He hadn't spoken to him since the awful hunt, but Anton wanted to give Vidori the news himself, that he was going up-country. He was chasing shadows, perhaps. But here in the Olagong it was all shadows and submerged promises. And he had six days left. He hadn't much doubt that his desperate crew would abandon the mission.

In the distance, the palace bulked up against the sky, towering over the trees and the flat valley lands. Anton saw Vidori's quarters, the topmost level, decked with colored banners of his loyal viven, and nearby, the almost-as-high pavilion of Joon, hung with blue. He wondered if the lady was standing there, watching him approach.

She had pretended to be interested in the conditions of the hoda. To encourage Anton to expose his ideology, so that Oleel could use it against him, to accuse him of encouraging rebellion of the hoda, and their mass escapes to the Vol. If that was the lady's plan, he had sorely disappointed her.

Near the river stairs, the crowd of boats jostled as close to one another as paving bricks, but somehow the water craft managed to snug up, creating a narrow channel for his skiff to pass through. As he approached the stairs, Anton could see Vidori standing at the top of the steps, and there, as Maypong had led him to expect, stood Oleel as well. And Nirimol, although not Homish himself.

Anton clambered out of the boat to assist Bailey onto the river steps, where her jumpsuit got soaked to her knees.

She scolded Anton: “If you'd let us wear palace silks, it wouldn't take eight hours to dry off.”

“I could carry you,” he said, needling her. Bailey would certainly never make an entrance in that manner. Her sidelong stare only broadened his smile. He led Bailey up to the river room, with Maypong close behind. Or he thought that Maypong was close behind. Sensing her absence, he turned around, and found her pausing at the lower steps. She was looking at someone in the river room.

It was Gilar, standing among Oleel's attendants. Bailey said, “Oh dear. Anton, it's the girl again.”

Anton walked back down the steps toward Maypong, wanting to take her arm, or her hand. He caught her eye instead. She had grown very calm. Then, because Vidori was standing at the head of the stairs and had to be greeted, he and Maypong approached him. Vidori wore a fine uniform
of gray padded silk. Despite a deep-set fatigue around his eyes, his movements were confident, his smiles frequent. But when he glimpsed Anton his expression hardened, and Anton knew their rift was not forgotten.

“So,” Vidori said, nodding at him. “Your duties permit a visit, I see.”

“A visit
is
my duty, Vidori-rah, and my pleasure.” He turned to Oleel. “My respects, to the Second Dassa, and to the judipon,” he said, acknowledging Nirimol as well. Those were the two lines he'd memorized from Maypong, to get a start on the protocols. At his side, she ignored Gilar as best she could.

Vidori looked past him to Bailey. ‘Ah, the lady of the hats.”

Oleel's voice came like a deep gong. ‘And of the singing, so we have learned.”

Bailey made a curtsy. “A bad reputation is better than none at all, Oleel-rah.”

Servants brought a plate of food for the king, and Oleel took a morsel from it, and then the viven were helping themselves, and soon the plate was handed down the steps, making the rounds of the commoners gathered there. Anton waited until Oleel's attention was diverted elsewhere, then moved through the viven to the king's side.

“Vidori-rah, a brief moment, if you will walk a pace or two with me.”

The king murmured, “I will find you later.” Anton nodded and retreated, but as he did so, he found Gilar blocking his way

She looked at Maypong, standing next to Anton. Her eyes raked over her mother, intensely enough to leave scratches. Then she raised her eyes to Anton, a clear look of such yearning that Anton's heart contracted.

At that moment, Oleel's voice, unmistakably strong, rang out: “Your pardon, Anton, that this hoda blocks you.” Oleel was rounding on the girl. “Still no deportment, despite my lessons.”

Gilar bent low. Seeing the fire in Oleel's eyes, she went further: She went to her knees, and then onto all fours like a dog.

Oleel stood before them, next to Gilar. She was taller than Anton by a few centimeters, and must have weighed a good bit more, though she wasn't obese. Her bearing was one of a warrior who knew her strength.

Maypong jumped in, “No offense is taken, Oleel-rah. Please allow us to celebrate this day further.”

“Yes,” Oleel said, “celebrate that the king has returned safely from the wars now waged by hoda with spears. We do celebrate. And grieve. Do you not grieve, Maypong-rah?”

Maypong's voice swam through the clotted air. “I celebrate today, for the king's sake.”

Oleel paid no attention to this answer, but called an uldia to her side, whispering. In another moment, the assistant left, then returned with a basket. A wire basket.

“Gilar,” Oleel said, “you see how the hoda Bailey wears a hat. You will also wear a hat today.” She thrust the cage down to Gilar. “Put it on.”

Gilar stared at the basket. People turned to watch the incident unfold, freezing the river room in a tableau of nobles, colors, and Powers—with a young girl on her hands and knees staring at a wire cage.

Anton felt the heat rise in his chest and face. He locked his muscles, his body into place with great effort.

Gilar held out her hand and took the cage from Oleel. She raised it up and slowly brought it down over her head.

“Now,” Oleel said, “insert the mouth funnel.”

Again, Gilar paused.

“Young hoda,” Maypong said, “do not shame your training.” Her face was calm, waiting for Gilar to be obedient.

The mouthpiece went in. The little knife was no danger, because her tongue was not thrust through the flange, there being no tongue to do the duty.

Anton met Oleel's eyes. Perhaps she hoped he would do something foolish. Perhaps the viven also hoped that he would. Their eyes were greedy; but he would give them
nothing. That light in their eyes alerted him not to indulge himself—by taking the basket and pulling it over Oleel's head.

He found himself crouching down next to the girl. The face in the cage regarded him with clear, amber eyes. “Gilar,” he whispered to her, “forgive me.” He didn't know what he meant, or what he hoped Gilar would take from his words. It was little; it was nothing. She looked at him with a strange and even fearful intensity. He hoped it wasn't hate. But he didn't blame her if it was.

He stood tall again, and forced himself to walk away. The party resumed as though nothing had happened. Gilar faded into the crowd.

Maypong stood at Anton's side. Composed, accepting. “Do not be distressed, Anton,” she said. “The viven watch you.”

Anton gazed at the palace nobles, hating them, hating their world.

In the king's river room, the celebration was still under way. Gilar faded into the background, and then—knowing the palace so well—she took the back corridors and side ramps, having cast the wire cage in the river.

The king's roof was slippery in the rain. Gilar flattened herself out and dragged herself toward the top, one handhold after another, slowly, slowly. She must make no noise, not yet.

Trickles of water streamed through the thatch before her eyes, separating into strands, then combining in larger channels. Keeping her face down, she scuttled upward, determined not to fall from the steep incline, not to die that inglorious way, by falling into the courtyard.

She pulled harder, hoisting herself ever closer to the lightning rod.

Eventually, Vidori approached Anton. Vidori, the monarch who presided over it all.

They gazed at each other, Vidori's light brown eyes against Anton's black. “Vidori-rah,” Anton said, “my mission takes me into upland country tomorrow. I leave with Maypong at dawn, to see if there is anything to be learned in the canyons.”

“There is nothing but canyons in the canyons.”

“Still, as strangers, we may see what others miss, after long acquaintance.”

Vidori nodded, his face smeared from his journey, but still royal, somehow. “Go armed, then.”

“I will, rahi.”

Vidori made to turn back to his retinue, but paused. “That is all you have to say?”

Anton thought of several things that might be said, such as,
There are those in the braided lands in need of your devotion.

Vidori seemed to hope for something from him, and not a rebuke, either. Perhaps he wanted some sign that Anton regretted leaving the pavilion.

But Anton answered that
no
, he had nothing more to say.

And on that note, Vidori turned away. Until the clamor began.

Tearing her tunic into nice long strips, Gilar set about binding herself to the rod. Even if they shot her, they'd have to come up to get her. She thought these things with calm resolve. Once you were ready to die, the penalty lost its terror. When she'd been inside the wire basket in the river room, her vision had cleared. She saw that the big woman had wanted the captain to intervene, to seem to be against the kingdom. Gilar had gone to her knees, hoping to mollify her tormentor, but still, the cage came down. Inside the mask, she saw that Oleel controlled her utterly, prodding her to ruin the human captain.

But then he could never take her to Erth. As he wanted to do.

I'm sorry
, he'd said. Maypong had stood by his side, the one who should have said those words, but who would never be forgiven, never, so long as the river ran. Maypong had her palace duties, her chancellorship to the Erth captain. She had her tongue. Gilar, sold for six coins, was no longer her daughter. So the captain was her only hope.

She tightened the knots.

From below the roofline came a voice, calling her. Someone was on the lower story.

Gilar, sang the voice.

It was Bahn.

Go away.

Gilar, come down, I beg you.

The voice seemed to come from another world. It had no body no reality. There was another world below, a world of people with simple happiness. But it was another country, not Gilar's country. She tied another strip around herself and the rod.

Oh sister, they will kill you.

Leave. Before you die, too.

Gilar, they will punish all of us. This is so wrong, and will bring us suffering. Is that what you want?

Yes. Perhaps it was even true. Perhaps it would shut Bahn up.

After a very long pause, Bahn sang, Then you are no sister to me.

Wasn't the hoda gone yet? From below, she heard Bahn's noisy descent. Gilar sang, Find yourself a lightning rod, Bahn.

With Bahn's retreat, the other world faded. From her perch Gilar could see over the palace, over the plaza, now empty in the rain. She could see over the Puldar River, and into the foggy distance. Above her, but hidden, were the stars. This might be the closest she ever came to them.

She began to sing.

Anton, Bailey, and Maypong hurried along an outside walkway and down a ramp, rushing to the plaza along with other palace denizens, Dassa and hoda alike.

As they emerged onto the covered lower gallery that looked out onto the plaza, they found Vidori standing with Shim and other viven.

Anton went to the king, murmuring something. Then he turned back to Maypong. “It's Gilar,” he said, his voice gentle. “She's bound herself to the lightning rod.”

Bailey looked at Maypong. She was the
mother
, she should
do
something. But the woman's face was blank as she gazed toward the roof.

Then Bailey heard it. A strain of melody… a familiar five notes… of Mozart. In an instant, she had the piece— yes, it was “Vedrai, carino.” Eerily, the song seemed to come from heaven, from a distance, yet close to hand. The child was singing opera on the king's roof.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
Now they would shoot her for Mozart's sake. And Bailey was complicit, somehow.
Oh dear God …ifl had kept my mouth shut, for once.