The Lascar's Dagger (52 page)

He took up her hand and kissed her palm, before he strode from the room. Mathilda couldn’t see his face, but Sorrel could. His expression was a look of cold contempt.

She stayed where she was, still glamoured, afraid he might come back, or send someone else into the room. Mathilda staggered to her feet, reeling, her face pale and her neck still blotched with red fingerprints. She gasped, dragging air into her lungs as she lurched across the room to the door he had used. Once there, she shot the bolt.

Sorrel let her glamour fade and stepped away from the wall. They stared at one another in shock. It was Mathilda who spoke first. Her voice raw with emotion, she whispered, “A’Va – I saw A’Va in his eyes! Sorrel, he has been touched by A’Va. Such evil. I am so frightened. You must never leave me. I couldn’t bear it if you were to go.”

“We’ll think about all that later. Right now we have to consider what to do about your babies.”

“Is it possible, what he said? That a man can make a verbal agreement with A’Va that is so – so disgusting, and if he breaks it, he dies? Along with his children?”

She hesitated. “I think he believes it.”
I’m not sure I do.

“Which means he’ll kill his own twins in order to save himself.”

There’s a paradox in that. Vollendorn regals make the bargain to ensure that they, and their sons after them, will rule.
If Vilmar has to kill a twin son, then …
Her head reeled under all the implications and possibilities.
Maybe the twins are girls. Women don’t rule in Lowmeer.

“It’s hideous,” Mathilda said at last. “And wrong. I will
never
let him kill my babies. He is evil, and my children will live. One day my son will sit on the throne of Lowmeer. I swear that.”

But if you have a son – one of these twins, or another son from another birth – and he comes to sit on the Basalt Throne, he will have to make the same bargain with A’Va, or die.

Mathilda, however, wasn’t thinking that far ahead. She said, “And you, you have to use your glamour to kill that man before he slaughters his own offspring.”

Sorrel bit her lip in dismay. “Mathilda, it is not possible to use a witchery for evil, and murder is evil.”

“You killed your husband.”

“I did not do that in cold blood or with witchery. I was out of my mind with grief because I’d just learned that he had murdered our daughter.”

“Well, I am out of my mind at the thought that he will kill
my
children!”

“I will not do it, so put that thought right out of your head. The only way out of this is to hide the fact that you are having two babies. Either Aureen or I must spirit away the firstborn of the children. Let’s hope it’s a girl.”

There was a long pause while Mathilda continued to think things through. At last she whispered, “I’m going to give birth to one innocent baby and one vile spawn of A’Va, aren’t I? And we won’t know which is which until they are much, much older! Oh, Sorrel, I am so scared!” She leant her head on Sorrel’s shoulder and started crying silently.

Sorrel patted her on the back. Her sympathy was real. Mathilda, for possibly the first time in her life, was putting others – her children – before herself. “Maybe it’s not true,” she said. “Maybe it’s all just superstition. And why would A’Va not do anything to stop the death of his devil-kin as babies? Mathilda, look at your cousins in Ardrone! Neither of them is evil, right?”

“But he said it only applies to twins born in Lowmeer. Is there no way I can leave this wretched land?”

“Oh, Mathilda, can you risk telling him? And – and I’m not sure you’d get to Ardrone before they were born.”

“Maybe – maybe I ought to let them die. But I
can’t
! I can’t!” Mathilda clamped a hand over her mouth and began to sob in earnest. “T-t-tell me all this is not true!” she wailed.

Sorrel said finally, “I can’t believe a child is
born
evil.”

Mathilda raised her tear-stained face. “Imagine a devil-kin on the Basalt Throne. Think of the terrible things that could happen…”

“If a devil-kin doesn’t become a vassal of A’Va until they are grown, nothing will happen for maybe fourteen years or more. We have time to investigate. To stop it from happening.”

“How?”

She made up her mind. “I’ll take the first twin, girl or boy, to the Pontifect. This is a matter for the Faith to solve, not us.”

“Do you really think so? We – we wouldn’t be doing anything wicked if we saved both my babies?”

“Of course we wouldn’t. We will do it, you and I together. Aureen will have to know, but no one else. She will keep the secret and so will I. I’ll go and get her and the three of us will talk about this until we’ve worked out a way to do it.”

For a moment Mathilda looked relieved. “Yes. We’ll let Va-Faith take care of it. And my real baby will survive, won’t it, even if the evil one dies?” Then her face changed again. “But what if the Regal finds out? What if you are caught? What if the one you leave with me is the devil-kin? What if the one you take is a boy and the one I’m left with is a girl? Oh Sorrel, what did I ever do to deserve this? I want to die! And what will I do if you aren’t here? I just want to go home!”

And once again she burst into tears.

“Listen. Once we tell this story to the Pontifect, the Faith will have to do something. How can a monarch who acquiesced in his family’s bargain with A’Va be tolerated on the Basalt Throne? He will be deposed. And you will become regent for the heir.”

“Oh! Then I can do what I like, can’t I?” The tears vanished. “Are you sure that’s what will happen?”

“Yes, of course,” said Sorrel, who hadn’t the faintest idea of the truth of her words and wasn’t about to point out the difficulty of keeping anyone in the Vollendorn family alive once the oath was not kept. “Unless you have girls, of course. Anyway, don’t worry about things so far in the future. Our worst concern at the moment is how to get enough money to take me safely to Vavala.”

“Oh, that’s easy. You’ll just have to steal some, using your glamour. After all, it will be in a good cause, won’t it?”

Va, help me. Help us all.

S
aker’s room on the first floor of the doss house was small and poky and smelled of smoke, fish and heated lard. Cooking odours from the kitchens beneath had permeated the wood of the building for so many years they were an integral part of the establishment. He’d survived much worse on his numerous travels; even so, he preferred to wait for Ardhi in the taproom below. Here the smells were fresher and more enticing.

He’ll come. I’m sure he’ll come.

Around him the conversation was lively. These days the docklands of Ustgrind buzzed with optimism; prosperity was on its way as never before, if the scruffy tapboys and the dockyard customers were to be believed. And the reason? The Lowmian Spicerie Trading Company’s monopoly over the spice trade was established and the city’s commercial pre-eminence guaranteed, all thanks to the Regal’s support. Other cities of Lowmeer had lost out, just as Ardrone and the Principalities had. The Ustgrind folk gloated.

“Things will be even better soon,” the doss house owner predicted with a gap-toothed grin directed Saker’s way. “We’ll be riding high here in Ustgrind! Why, there’s even a bit o’ polish on our future prosperity: an heir to the Basalt Throne on the way!”

“The baby might be a girl,” Saker pointed out, trying not to wince at the thought of Mathilda valued for her breeding ability like a brood mare.

The man winked. “Ah, but the Regal has proved he can still perform! And the Regala has showed she’s fertile. If this babe’s not a boy, there’ll be others.”

Saker felt an irrational desire to clobber the man with his fist in order to wipe the smirk from his face.

When there was a stir near the door, he was glad to have the fellow’s interest diverted elsewhere, and he could concentrate on his tankard of beer. A moment later, however, Ardhi slipped into the empty space next to him on the bench. A dagger was slapped down on the boards of the table in front of him. He recognised it immediately. Once, it had been his.

“Swap you this fine steel for my kris,” the lascar said. “My knife.”

“I know what a kris is. And I know yours is a Chenderawasi dagger.”

Ardhi raised a surprised eyebrow. “Aha! You show my kris to another man of the islands, eh?”

“I want some answers before I return it. I want to know why you threw it at me, why you were in that warehouse in the first place, why you stole the bambu, and what the Va-less hell that kris wants.”

A broad grin lit up the young man’s face. “Gives trouble, my blade, eh?” he asked. He tapped his forehead. “A Chenderawasi kris has mind. A will. It belongs to me. But its spirit? That has eaten the
sakti
of the Chenderawasi. That not mine.
Sakti,
the magic, the witchery, you understand? I not throw it at you, you know.”

“I
saw
you throw it.” There was something different about Ardhi, something more than his new maturity, and his increased familiarity with the language of the Va-cherished. An inner glow, but not one he could see. Rather something he
felt
. Something he’d seen in someone else, an elusive memory of – who? He dragged his thoughts back to the present.

“No, you saw wrong. I hanging on the beam outside warehouse, one hand only. Kris in other hand. I want put it away so I can climb on roof. Understand? Instead, it flies out of my hand, towards you. It chooses. You, me, we just servants of Chenderawasi kris. It plays with men. I look for you, but kris doesn’t want. So I wait. I think maybe one day it come back, I know. And it has!”

He snorted. “After, what, almost two years?”

“Men are impatient. Not the kris. It bides its time. Now time comes. You and I, we dance its song.”

Saker was silent, remembering all the dagger had done.

“You see now, eh?”

“Who or what does it serve?”

“The Chenderawasi.”

Saker sighed in surrender. “I give up.” He drew the kris out of its sheath and placed it beside his own.

Once again, it chose its own path. It spun across the tabletop and Ardhi just caught it before it dropped into his lap. “Wise decision, mynster. It knows where it wants to be.”

Saker guessed the use of the honorific was ironic, rather than polite. Justifiably or not, Ardhi exuded the confidence of a man who knew himself to be an equal. He remembered how the lascar had subtly mocked Kesleer.
I’ll be beggared. What manner of man is he?
He glanced at him, noting that although he was still dressed in the garb of a clerk, he was bare-footed again.

Ardhi stroked the hilt of the kris, and his lips curled in a smile. “Thank you for bringing it back. What is your name, mynster?”

“Reed Heron.”

The kris flipped in his hand. “Ah. The blade says you lie.”

“That’s the name I am using right now. It will do. And you are Ardhi?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a family name?”

“Where I come from, one name is enough.”

Saker said, “Tell me about the kris. Why would it have an interest in me in the first place?”

Ardhi shrugged. “I not know. Perhaps it leaves me because I fail.” With a fingertip, he pushed at a pool of spilt liquid on the tabletop, obviously not really seeing it.

“Fail?”

“I fail my task. I steal the bambu, but find it empty.”

“Are you trying to say the kris
threw itself
at me because you failed to steal something?”

“Yes. Something precious. Belongs to my people.” He struggled for a moment, perhaps because he was having trouble finding the right words. “You speak Pashali, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We speak Pashali.” He switched languages. “The kris was made for me by the metalworker to the Raja, crafted especially for this task.”

Saker blinked. With those few words, Ardhi had turned his own preconceptions on their head. The lascar spoke perfect, accentless Pashali, much better than his own. “Wait,” he said, using the same language. “What – who – is a raja? Your ruler?”

“Yes. The Pashali use the word sultan. You would say regal. We say raja. Very few people are granted a kris like this one, certainly no one as young as I. It is a grave responsibility.”

Saker struggled with the language, uncomfortably reminded how rusty his Pashali had become with disuse. “So you were given a Chenderawasi kris for this special task?”

“Do you understand the word you use? Chenderawasi?”

“Not – not really. The lascar I met said something about magic. And control.”
He who holds Chenderawasi kris, he serves the Chenderawasi.

There was a long silence. Saker remained quiet, while Ardhi considered what to say next. Finally he made a decision and said, “Chenderawasi is the name of my
pulauan.”

When Saker looked blank, he translated the word into Pashali, but Saker didn’t know that word either. He hazarded a guess. “Island group?”

“Yes. And it is
not
the Spicerie.”

“And you were jerking Kesleer’s leash. You’re a braver man than I, Ardhi.”

He grinned. “Chenderawasi Islands are further away from Pashalin than the Spicerie. Pashali traders not go there.” He glanced around in a worried fashion to make sure no one was listening. His presence had aroused interest and there were many stares, some bright with interest, others frowning as if they disapproved of him on principle. No one was close enough to overhear their conversation.

“I am not Lowmian, you know,” Saker said. “I was born in Ardrone.” A secret for a secret.

That surprised him. “You
sound
Lowmian.”

“A disadvantage in Ustgrind, to be Ardronese. I’m a good mimic of accents.”

“Your Pashali accent is low-class. You learned the tongue from ill-educated Pashali caravanners?”

And university men from the Principalities, but he let that pass. Ardhi grinned yet again. Did the fellow ever just
smile
? “So,” he said, now horribly conscious of his accent, “let’s return to the kris. It was made for you because you must steal the thing inside the bambu?”