Three Princes (19 page)

“YOU BRING
alien demons into my house and you expect me to greet them!” The Queen Mother hurled these words at Viracocha as soon as he entered her room.

“They are not demons, Mama,” the prince said patiently. “They are sons of kings.”

She waved away the maids who were rubbing oil onto her bare skin, sending them scurrying off.

“Demons have kings.” She spat the words out, rage clear in her aged face.

The Queen Mother had been beautiful once, an Andean beauty of the first order, with broad hips for childbearing and large, full breasts to nourish them. Twelve pregnancies and the ravages of time had not been kind to her. Her gray hair was braided with gold thread and coiled to cover the thinning spots. The lines and folds of her face exaggerated her every expression, turning her into a final caricature of herself. Thick gold necklaces covered her neck, forearms, and ankles, with skin bulging out around them.

Viracocha loved her with proper devotion, even now. Her disapproval hurt him. It did not, however, alter his belief that Tawantinsuyu was of the world, neither apart from nor above it. His birthright was the freedom to explore and to learn. He knew, also, that she had seen too many of her children slain in the name of the civilization that had made heran empress. Clinging to the glorious past was the only solace she had.

“My friends are not demons, Mama.They are good men. We will not disturb you.”

“They are here,” she said, her anger hot. The Queen Mother was known to maintain a rage for days and days without relenting. “That disturbs me.”

“I had to bring them here, Mama. They are here under the protection of Tawantinsuyu, and twice now attempts have been made on their lives.”

Through hooded eyes, she glared at him.

“They will be safe here,” Viracocha continued despite the churning he felt inside at the rage radiating from his mother. “When I find who is behind this, I will come back and take them away from here.”

“Hurry,” she said sharply.

“The second attempt would have destroyed Mixcomitl and me along with them, Mama!” He fought the urge to shout at her. “Would you have me dead just to be rid of strangers?”

She had no answer, but turned her heated gaze from him. “Do what you must. They will be safe here in my house.”

“Thank you, Mama.” He bent and kissed her forehead, then turned and marched himself out. He wanted to smash something, but he just walked fast and hard through the echoing stone corridors to his private office. He thrust the beaded curtain aside so violently that it smashed against the doorframe with an outraged noise of breaking crystals.

OKEN AND
Mabruke were just emerging from their rooms when Viracocha returned. His manner was intense, and dismay made his lips tight. “I will have to leave you here for a few days, my friends. I hope that is not inconvenient.”

Oken looked over at Mabruke. Mabruke shrugged. “We should be quite comfortable here. What is the problem?”

“I have to find out who was in that Quetzal, and why they were preparing to fire on us. I have to find out who sent that assassin to Zulia. I have to go to the palace to do this, so I cannot take you with me. You will be safer here, anyway. The security that guards the Queen Mother will protect you well. Runa will stay close and see that you are cared for.”

“I am sure Ma demoi selle Runa will be a most charming hostess in your absence,” Mabruke said, his voice serious. “You are on an important mission, but watch your back, my friend. These people have proved that they will kill you as well if you get in their way.”

“Then they have taken on one enemy too many,” Viracocha said. “When I find them, they will learn that.”

He turned and strode away, his private guard hurrying to keep up.

“Sirs, if you would care to come with me?” A soft voice behind them made both men start and turn around.

An elderly Andean stood there, having appeared as if from the air. He was graying at the temples, and slightly stooped. The imperial seal tattooed on his forehead had begun to run at the edges, and his face was lined. He stood with simple dignity, clad only in the household kilt and sandals. “I am Qusmi, madam’s household manager. I am instructed to make you as comfortable as possible.” The lines of his face showed that he had smiled often in his life, and that he laughed easily.

“A pleasure, Mr. Qusmi,” Mabruke said. “Just being here is comfortable. We put ourselves happily in your charge.”

Qusmi bowed. “It is easy to become lost here. There are many doors and many rooms. May I show you the way to the dining hall?”

“Indeed, Mr. Qusmi!” Mabruke said. “You have quite read my mind!”

“That is my job, sir,” Qusmi said.. “I am very good at my job, sir, if I may be permitted to say so.”

“Indeed, sir. Indeed,” Mabruke said. “Lead on, my good man. Lead on!”

Qusmi bowed, and turned to lead them down the corridor.

“Qusmi means ‘smoke,’ ” Oken said quietly to Mabruke.

“I should have been able to guess that one.”

OKEN PUSHED
his chair back from the desk and turned in his seat to survey the library. The windows looked out at blue mountains kissing the blue sky. His glance through the open window caught Runa entering the courtyard garden, heading toward the kitchens. Her paint was different today, a spray of Incan Venus- hieroglyphs over bare skin.

Her concession to leaving the privacy of the prince’s aeroship was a simple wraparound skirt of purple, belted with a chain of reddish gold links. Tiny bells announced her every move with a pleasing sound. It was a lovely ornament, yet Oken felt a twinge of annoyance. It was gold. It was also a chain around her. She was a princess, belled like a prowling cat, controlled, restrained—chained. It rankled his Egyptian sensibilities. It was more than the immorality of slavery. He had been raised in a world where women were sacred, valued as more than just vessels of pleasure and of life.

Oken stood, returning his pen to his jacket pocket. He left his letter to Yadir on the table. The ever-efficient Mr. Qusmi would see to its delivery to the embassy. Oken went over to the window and rested one hip on the ledge. He leaned out and called, “Mademoiselle! A lovely new flower blooms in the library garden.”

Runa gave him the same startled look she always did when he broke her concentration. She went about the estate with an expression of deep thought concerning her destination.

Oken thought it charming. “Where might you be headed, ma demoiselle?”

“I must tell Mama Kusay that the Queen Mother has changed her mind yet again about her sunset meal.”

“May I accompany you? I could do with a nosh.”

She smiled and bowed slightly to him. Oken noted, with some pleasure, that she no longer bowed quite so deeply before him as she had when they first met. He hoped perhaps that meant she was relaxing around him.

Trusting him.

She said, “I would be glad of your company, sir. This is the third time today the Queen Mother has changed her mind. Mama Kusay will not be happy.”

Oken swung his legs around and leaped off the window ledge, neatly clearing the stone-lined ditch around the base of the building. Regularly spaced holes in the bottom let the rain seep through to underground cisterns. Snails crawled along the inner edges, clearing algae as they made their slow way. Oken stepped carefully over the border of ancient moss and joined her on the path, bowing to her.

“I shall be your steadfast defender against Mama Kusay and all her minions, my lady—especially if there is a bit of a nosh in it!”

Runa laughed merrily, and continued on. “Yes, sir. I will surely find you a bit of a nosh.”

They walked through a gate into a busy servants’ garden between the kitchens and the stables. Several dozen children of various ages were playing in groups in a side yard, with the littlest ones tended by older girls. The pavement was strewn with straw padding, and leather hoops stuck out along the walls. The children were bronzed and fit looking, laughing and tumbling about in happy abandon, tossing balls of woven grass at the hoops and at each other. Their voices were a chorus of Quechua birdsong.

Oken stopped at the gate to watch the ball game. The professional version of the sport, Tlachtli, was terribly popular throughout this hemisphere, and played a major role in maintaining peace between Tawantinsuyu and Maya Land. National pride and national aggression were ritually activated and appeased by the violence on the field. European enthusiasts were creating their own variations, with their own rituals. Oken was not a student of the sport, preferring games that involved cards and dice and pleasant drawing rooms. Mabruke had shown interest, however, so Oken made a mental note to mention the children’s games to him. Seeing innocents at play while learning the rules themselves, he thought, would help to put the spiritual metaphor into perspective. Their gods played the game with the heads of heroes as their toys. This substitute of woven grass that the children thrashed about in their play had a story of its own.

“That one is mine,” Runa said, pointing to a slender, handsome boy of about six, perhaps a little older, playing close by the gate. He was taller than his playmates, and had a sharp, intelligent look to him, alert. Oken told her he was a fine- looking lad. “You must be proud of him.”

Runa shrugged. “His father is the Inheritor.”

The boy saw his mother, and left the ball game to come over to her. The others played on without him.

They bowed to each other politely. “Rimaykullayki, Mama,” the boy said. His speech was clear and confident.

“Rimaykullayki, Wawa.” Runa gestured to Oken and said to the boy, “Warmi Irqi, this is my friend, Lord Oken. He is a friend of Uncle.”

“Rimaykullayki,” the boy said, bowing to Oken as he had to his mother.

She smiled at Oken. “Lord Oken, this is Warmi Irqi, my firstborn.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Warmi Irqi, firstborn of Lady Runa.” Oken bowed to the boy. “Your mother has been of great help to us in our travels here.”

The boy bowed to him again. Oken could see he was trying to hide his smile.

“Ripuy, Wawa!” Runa said to him sternly. The boy turned away and ran back to his companions.

She looked up at Oken, her face serene once more. “He has been instructed not to use foreign languages in the presence of others.”

She continued walking toward the kitchen.

Just as Oken was considering the safest way to phrase the question, Runa answered, speaking softly enough that only he could hear her. “The Queen Mother has many spies, even among the children. She does not approve of alien languages.”

“She seems to tolerate you well enough.”

“Father needs a spy who can understand Trade Speak.”

Mabruke had once said something very similar, on the other side of the world and years ago, about his own childhood and the course his father decided for him.

“Does the Queen Mother speak often with Warmi Irqi?”

Runa stopped to look up at his face, perhaps to determine if he jested in kindness or in ignorance. She blinked solemnly, then said, “Why would she? He has never misbehaved.”

“I am sure he is most well behaved. He is the son of a prince and a princess. I merely wondered if his grandmother were fond of him.” He saw something raw and unhappy flash for an instant in her eyes, then she turned and continued walking.

When he had caught up with her again, she said, “The Queen Mother does not know, sir. Father wishes it.”

Oken reviewed his lexicon of Quechua, coming up with the dismaying realization that Warmi Irqi meant simply: “Boy Child.” He kept his dark thoughts to himself, but could not help doing the math. Runa was perhaps nineteen. Oken knew he was not going to like the Inheritor if he ever met him. He walked in silence for a time, letting the beauty of the gardens calm him; then he said to Runa, as casually as he could, “Will Warmi Irqi join you on Mixcomitl someday?”

“It is my hope.”

“What does your uncle say about that?”

“It is my father’s choice to make.”

Oken saw her shoulders tense, ever so slightly, in defiance. “Any father would be proud of such a fine son,” he said to her quietly.

Runa continued walking.

“He must miss you when you are away flying with your uncle.”

“He misses me, but he knows I am safe there.”

“Then he is a son to be proud of.”

Oken refrained from asking Runa if she missed her son. He could see that in the set of her shoulders as she walked.

The estate kitchens were separate from the main house, with a long, covered walkway between the kitchen and the serving hall. It was built of the same interlocking stonework as the main house, with broader windows and more chimneys. The windows were open. Rows of ovens heated the kitchens during the cool eve ning and in daytime steady breezes cooled them. Mama Kusay was in charge of more than just the Queen Mother’s fickle appetite. The entire estate was fed from her domain.

Women with woven baskets balanced on their heads were tossing handfuls of kernels to a noisy flock of black and brown chickens, turkeys, and small, fat geese. Workmen unloaded baskets from patient donkeys. The men had handsome mustaches, and hair tied back by red bands of cloth embroidered with the imperial seal, matching their loose clothes. They called and joked to one another merrily, elaborating their stories with flourishes of hands and feet. Younger boys scurried back and forth, holding bins open and leading the donkeys away.

Once Runa and Lord Oken were sighted approaching, the men fell quiet and hurried about their work. Runa did not look at them as she walked past. Oken nodded and smiled at them.

Runa did not lead him into the kitchens. She stopped outside one of the waist-high thresholds of the windows. She stopped to shoo away the many brown-and-white guinea pigs wheeking and hopping about. They were scrambling after the food scraps tossed out the window by a large, impressive woman working at a cutting table. She scraped and diced vegetables with alarming speed, chanting as she worked, chopped syllables barked out in time to her blade. She had a gold hoop dangling from her left ear and the imperial seal tattooed in red on her forehead and woven into her apron.

“Mama Kusay!” Runa put one hand on the window frame and leaned in so that she could be heard. “Mama Kusay!”

The woman stoppedher work and her chanting long enough to glare at Runa; then she went back to chopping with renewed vigor.

“Mama Kusay!”

Oken waded through the little animals hopping and leaping about his feet, to the other corner of the window and pulled himself up onto the window ledge. Mama Kusay stopped her blade and glared at him. He smiled at her, then put his hands together before his forehead and bowed to her as he had seen embassy servants do when requesting attention. She stared at him with calm astonishment, then at Runa, expecting her to explain.

Runa covered her laughter by putting her hand to her mouth; then she leaned forward into the window, whispering to Mama Kusay. Mama Kusay, in turn, lay down her blade and came around the table to lean closer to Runa in the window.

Oken made himself look away, pretending to turn his attention to the furry little guinea pigs, who were overcoming their fear of him and returning to root about for the expected dinner scraps. He folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes, focusing his full attention on what he could hear. Runa and Mama Kusay continued their whispered exchange.

The endless song of the ovens was the backdrop. Voices of the many servants, assistant cooks, fire-stokers, and sculleries rippled through the flames. The breezes tantalized with the mingled scents of roasting meats and peppers, and the ancient essence of fresh bread baking. After a few minutes, the conversation between Runa and Mama Kusay had become the rapid back- and-forth of intimate exchange. Oken raised one eyelid enough to see the kitchen rooms behind Mama Kusay.

Cooks wearing only grease- stained aprons with scorched hems hurried back and forth over the straw-covered floor. Boys of twelve or so brought baskets of vegetables, leafy herbs and fruit, and stacks of bowls and plates on trays and carried out covered dishes. A far corner was cordoned off with a waist-high net, where four infants slept peacefully on piled straw. A little brown hound slept with them, puppies in a tangle around her.

The scene brought to mind Oken’s many happy childhood hours spent in the castle kitchens, sitting on a side shelf out of the way and chatting with the cooks and scullery maids and porters as they worked, all the while being handed an endless round of delightful snacks and tastes of this and that. He had learned a great deal about his father’s kingdom and the world in general while sitting on that shelf. Of course, Oken reminded himself, those women did not work in the nude. That might have enhanced the experience. “Lord Oken?”