The Seven-Petaled Shield (24 page)

On the last day of travel, they passed through the outskirts of Aidon. Tsorreh had no idea the capital city extended so far nor how many villages lined the river itself. Most of what she could see were piers and landings, buildings of sun-bleached wood and beyond them, warehouses, barns, roads, and taverns. Strings of fish hung drying in the sun. The mud, red like rust or old blood, smelled like dead weeds.

In her heat-drenched sleep, motes of colored light roused from water and sky and riverbank. They drew near her, their motions hesitant and indirect, as if they were shy to approach. She felt their curiosity, and then realized what they were: tiny elemental spirits of land and air and water. The countryside was rich in magic, even as Meklavar was, but these were domestic spirits, each content with its own small domain. In their swirling bits of color, she sensed their pleasure in the humble shrines, the curl of aromatic incense, and the offerings of flowers or fruit or new-spun wool.

The closer she drew to Aidon itself, the fewer and weaker the spirits became. At first, Tsorreh thought the buildings along the bank damped the voices of the river, the fish and frogs and reeds. Then, in the long hours of daylight, when she had nothing to do but stare at the passing shores, she realized that the nature spirits were still there but hiding, as if cowed. Frightened?

A shadow crept over river and earth, at first very faint, like a colorless mist. The closer they got to Aidon, the darker it became, clotting into darkness below the pillars of the wharves and in the hidden places between the buildings, in the rotting felled trees.

Aidon itself swept all thought of nature spirits from Tsorreh’s mind. Its hugeness struck her like a wall of brass and granite, like the clangor of a thousand gongs. It rose into hills, revealing layer upon layer of white and gray and sand-colored stone, rows of lacy branched trees, towers of gleaming marble or painted wood, spires and shaded colonnades,
and high-rising arches. Flags and pennons trailed from balconies, ribbons intertwined with dangling ivy or massed blossoms of purple, yellow, and orange.

Meklavar had been Tsorreh’s world and the birthplace of her world, deep with the wearing of ages, of rock dust and books. This place, the heart of Gelon, was deep in a different way, with the weight of looted riches and the passionate energies of engineering and commerce.

They disembarked and joined several other parties heading into the center of the city. The officers rode standing in a chariot drawn by three dun onagers. The harness was studded with medallions of brass. Fringe covered the beasts’ faces, and their long, tapered ears had been painted blue.

Tsorreh walked behind them, along with the other captives, more than a dozen but no more than two or three from any single land. An Isarran man, gray-bearded and limping, was tied at his wrist to the knotted rope that joined them all, but he was too far along for her to speak with him. She recognized a Xian, naked to the waist, eyes impassive, tattoos covering face and scalp. A slash of crusted blood ran across his cheek, and one eye was swollen shut.

No one tried to speak. Several of the captives had made an attempt while being tied to the rope, and the guards had used their whips freely. Tsorreh did not think they had any language in common, save Gelone. A conqueror’s tongue now became a slave’s tongue as well.

Morning light splashed hard and brittle off the whiteness of the city and yet, as if her bones had grown eyes, Tsorreh saw shadows shifting beneath the brightness. Their weight pressed against her heart. She thought of how the priest in Gatacinne had probed her and how the
te-alvar
had hidden itself, throwing up a lesser truth as a shield.

They have me now, but they do not know what they have. They must never find out.

Her mouth went dry. She tried to think of Zevaron, to see him in her mind free and unhurt, on a Sand Lands horse, the one he had been so pleased with, racing through the
desert or into the fastness of the Var, or fighting among the free Isarrans. No images came to her, no fleeting comfort. She shuddered under the invisible density of the shadows. Something in them elongated, like articulated limbs.

“You there!” A voice lashed out in coarse Gelone. “Move along!”

The rope jerked. The loops binding her wrists dug into her already raw flesh. She lurched forward. The
te-alvar
lay quiescent, silent, yet something within her turned adamantine.

Tsorreh lifted her chin. The pain in her wrists and the cramping in her belly receded. She drew the ancient grandeur of Meklavar around her, a mantle woven of holy languages, of texts and light and prayers, of song and stone and blood. The shadows would not touch her.

They proceeded up from the harbor, past warehouses and shanties, to a broad avenue. Here they followed a mass of soldiers, accompanied by the sounds of flutes and drums. People watched from outside the buildings or on balconies. Their clothing gave them the aspect of gaudy birds in mating plumage, robes from shoulder to ankle, draperies and high-collared vests, garments that flowed or hugged the body in a riot of concatenated styles.

The crowd cheered and pointed at the captives, and tossed flower petals, bits of red paper, and apples. One went wild and hit Tsorreh on the shoulder. She tried to catch it, for she had been given no food that day, but it rolled free and she could not reach it with her bound hands.

A handful of half-grown boys in mud-colored tunics ran alongside the procession. Some hurled pebbles and hooted in glee as the black-skinned woman beside Tsorreh stumbled. One of the guards raised his whip, but he did not use it and only laughed. Tsorreh was close enough to reach out her hands to the other woman and steady her. Their eyes met in understanding.

The road led up, curving between the two nearest, lowest hills. Beyond them rose a third hill, flat-topped, that commanded a view of the harbor in one direction and the city
in another. Wide, terraced gardens striped its slopes, interrupting the sweep of buildings. Tsorreh, gathering herself for the climb, tried to establish landmarks, but the city was too dense, too strange. The entire
meklat
could have fit on one hill.

As they went on, Tsorreh saw that they were headed to a palace of columned silver-white stone. Each corner supported a huge bronze statue, and she wondered who or what they represented. Figurative sculpture was rare in Meklavar, but she had seen many examples in Isarre. She had no chance to examine them as the chariot pulled up at the wide step. The soldiers shifted their formation, and the rope was untied and the captives separated, their hands still bound. They went up the steps, each pair between two guards with drawn swords.

By the time Tsorreh arrived at what was clearly a chamber of audience, she was thoroughly disoriented. The size of the entrance hall, the riotous color and strange shapes of the furnishings—statuary, tapestries, pillars—battered her already saturated senses. Her ears caught snatches of a dozen different languages; some she recognized from a word or two, but in others, she heard only strangeness.

The lesser halls and corridors were filled with people, some standing in groups talking, and some on raised platforms, perhaps performing rites or orations, she could not tell. Others stood in attendance or hurried about their business. As before, some wore the familiar armor of Gelonian soldiers, others loosely flowing robes, yet many more were in outland garb.

Tsorreh’s vision blurred as she tried to take it all in. Moment by moment, she felt herself retreating into the inner sanctuary of her own prayer.

Silently, Tsorreh chanted the ancient words until their rhythm matched the beating of her own heart. The thought came to her, as if in answer to her prayer, that these same words had been spoken by her ancestors, loudly or in whispers, over more years than a man could count. Her father had prayed in this way, as had her grandfather and the grandmother she had never known, perhaps even Khored of Blessed Memory. Her trembling eased, and her vision cleared. Calmly, she looked about her at the courtiers and the king seated at the far end of the hall.

The procession came to a halt, followed by a good deal of ceremony, most of which made no sense to Tsorreh. She and the other captives were left standing toward the back of the room. At the front, men and women in ornate dress, some holding what looked like instruments of office, sat in a half-circle.

At the center, raised above the others, a man in robes of pristine white, edged with blue and purple, glared down at the assembly. Like the other Gelon, he was pale-skinned and clean-shaven. His red-and-gray hair had been cropped short. The sleeves of the robe had fallen back, to reveal large, thick-fingered hands and muscular forearms. He was a tall, well-made man, broad in the shoulders and now run a little to fat, but he radiated a power beyond the strength of his physical body. Although he wore no crown, he could be none other than Ar-Cinath-Gelon.

Of the others, she was not so sure. Several of the men seemed to bear a resemblance in their features, although she could not be certain.

One man in particular attracted her notice, but not for the richness of his apparel or the arrogance of his features. Subtly unlike the others, this man wore the long courtly
robe of white edged with only the thinnest bands of blue and purple, and no jeweled chain or other ornament. Only a single ring circled one of his swollen fingers, and that bore a small, dark-red stone. His face was as puffy as his fingers, and his distended belly stretched the fine fabric of his robe. Lines, as if from unremitting pain, were etched into his misshapen face. Tsorreh observed the awkwardness of his posture and the crutch resting against the back of his chair. He frowned and shifted in his seat, looking very much as if he wished he were elsewhere.

One by one, the captives were brought forward, and one of the officers presented each to the court, describing their origin. They were trying to impress the Ar-King with their value, Tsorreh thought.

Cinath listened with an expression of grave attention but no other visible emotion. He waved away the first few, and they were taken away by their guards, back the way they had come. Tsorreh had no idea what would become of them, except for the Xian, who was to be trained for some sort of combat spectacle.

The black-skinned woman was next, and her guard told a long, elaborate story of her capture. She was from one of the tribes along the Fever Lands border, known for their savagery in combat, and had been taken on board a pirate ship off the coast of Verenzza. Apparently, this one woman had killed three Gelonian soldiers. The rest of the pirates had been summarily executed.

As the tale unfolded, the entire assembly, the court on the dais and the audience below, came alert. Eyes shone, and the murmur and rustle died down. Several of the men leaned forward from their seats. Cinath did not shift his posture, but his eyes narrowed. One of his hands clenched into a fist.

The officer finished the story by shoving the woman forward and then tripping her so that she fell on her face in front of the throne. She caught herself with her bound hands and scrambled to her feet, to the sound of raucous laughter.

Cinath straightened on his throne as the noise died
down. Something in the intensity of his gaze alerted Tsorreh. Here was a man who would never question his own opinions or the rightness of his actions. His mouth twisted into a sneer. “So this
person
has dared to threaten the peace of my provinces? To lift her hand against my own sworn men?”

The woman stood, posture erect, face impassive, giving no sign that she understood him.

“What shall answer such insolence? How shall we set an example to any who dare follow?” Cinath paused dramatically.

“Give her to the Xian for entertainment at dinner tonight,” one of the younger men called out. He had the same pale skin and ruddy hair as Cinath and wore a robe of blue edged with gold.

Tsorreh recoiled, but the reaction of the audience was the opposite. One of the ladies clapped her hands. There were scattered hoots and cheers from the audience. Only the man seated to the left of the throne, the one who so strongly resembled the Ar-King, made no response.

“Cut off her feet,” another of the court suggested. “What a fine jest, to see her crawl about like one of those monkeys!”

“Aye! Being from the Fever Lands herself, she’s little better than one of
them
!”

One of the courtiers from the audience stepped forward. “Your Majesty, worthy nobles, they say the women of the Fever Lands fight as well as the men. Why not test this one against the brother-regiment of the men she has killed?”

Cinath lifted one finger to his temple. The room fell silent. “Send her to the barracks.”

“An excellent plan, Your Majesty!”

The guards to either side of the woman exchanged a glance, fierce and lascivious. Tsorreh had no doubt how they would pass the evening. An outright execution would be far more merciful.

The woman herself stood unmoving, but a new tension came into her muscles. The air around her seemed to quiver.
One of the guards nudged her in the back with the tip of his sword.

“Let’s go. We look forward to offering you our hospitality.”

In a movement as quick and heartless as a striking serpent, the black-skinned woman darted forward, only a step or two, but close enough to spit at the Ar-King. The gobbet of slime struck him full in the face. A gasp shook the assembly.

Shouting a curse in Gelone, the guard lunged at her, slashing with his sword. One of the ladies shrieked.