Sword and Verse (17 page)

“Yes, master,” said a meek voice. It took me a moment to realize that Jonis had spoken, so different was it from any tone I'd ever heard from him. His arms hung at his sides, and he seemed to have shrunk a few inches.

Most disturbing of all, I doubted it was an act. Jonis truly feared his master; it was easy to see why he also hated him, and all Qilarites, so much.

Of course he did. Hadn't I felt that same helpless fury, whenever the guards shook the Library platforms or Emilana Kret locked me into the Stander?

I forced my fingers to unclench, then casually touched a length of silk. The old Qilarite smiled sympathetically, as if to remind me that they weren't all like Stit.

“I can send one of mine over to help this afternoon,” offered Stit's companion.

Stit laughed nastily. “Oh, no, this one's got to learn his lesson. If he dawdles, he stays up all night finishing it. Simple as that. Don't worry, we'll have that wood before we sail, one way or another. Come on.” I watched out of the corner of my eye as Stit shoved Jonis aside.

The other man laughed as they walked away. “Don't you ever worry, leaving him here with Kelia when we're at sea?”

“Oh, no. He knows what would happen to him if he acts up. And it's not a whipping, I tell you.”

The two men passed behind me and down toward the
fountain square. The instant Stit disappeared through the gate, Jonis's expression switched from battered subservience to vicious hatred. It made the fiercest glares he'd ever given me look like warm greetings to a friend.

Jonis's gaze shifted to me, and his face went blank. He looked away and marched past. “Wait by the fountain,” came his crisp whisper.

I turned back to the silks and forced myself to wait for a count of one hundred before I thanked the old man and walked back to the guards.

When I reached them, I shrugged. “The woman in the weaver's stall told me there are at least fifty urchins running around here most days.” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Maybe I ought to see if they'll come to me. If I sit near the fountain, can you stay nearby without being obvious?”

“Of course, Tutor,” said the nearest guard, and the unconcerned way he said it told me they suspected nothing.

I sank onto a stone bench beside the fountain. The guards fulfilled my request well; I saw none of them, but I didn't allow myself to think that they weren't watching.

After about ten minutes, two children emerged timidly from between the stalls across the fountain. One was Jera, though I hardly recognized her. Dirt stained her face, her bare feet, and her now-ripped tunic. She clutched the hand of another little girl who was perhaps a year older, and the two of them came to sit on the ground by me. I don't know what made me do it, but I started singing softly, my mother's old nonsense song from the Nath Tarin. More little girls came and joined the group at my
feet. When the group numbered fifteen, rounded out by a chubby little thing who wobbled on her feet, I stood.

Immediately the guards appeared in the fountain square.

“It's all right,” I told the girls with a smile, feeling like an evil spirit in a children's tale. “Would you like to visit the palace?”

After she gave the tablet to Belic, Sotia returned to her home under the willows and found Lanea waiting for her.

“It was a good compromise,” said Lanea.

“You did not speak in my defense,” said Sotia disdainfully. “Why are you here now?”

Lanea stuttered out an apology, for she had never had Sotia's grace with words. But Sotia cut her off with a cold gesture.

“See that your husband goes wandering tonight,” Sotia demanded, not caring how the reminder of Gyotia's indiscretions would wound his wife. “For I also have visits to pay.”

“FIFTEEN AT ONCE!”
said Laiyonea. “Well done.”

I blushed and toyed with my quill. I'd been so relieved to return to the palace and turn the children over to the elderly servants who would look after them until tomorrow's ceremony that I hadn't thought about how it would look, the children having come to me so easily. When I confessed that I'd done it by singing a tune from the islands, Laiyonea's mouth became a thin line, and she told me not to mention that part to anyone else.

As if I didn't already know that. “Is it really necessary to keep them from eating?” I said, to distract her. “Most are already half starved.”

Laiyonea nodded. “I know. Likely Arlin and Mala will slip them some food before sunset. The potion they drink before the ceremony will keep hunger pangs away.”

Well did I remember that haze-inducing potion. My own Selection had been a blur because of it—a whirl of symbols and ink, in which we were to copy whatever Laiyonea wrote, though none of us knew how, and Laiyonea kept sending girls out until only three of us remained. I wrinkled my nose at the thought of those tiny children drinking that clear, deceptive liquid.

Laiyonea seemed to have read my thoughts. “They'll only have a little. It will help them relax and focus.”

I nodded, thinking through the steps about which Laiyonea had been drilling me. Once I selected the three most promising girls based on the writing tasks, I'd have to ask the gods to make the final choice. I had clearer memories of that part—Laiyonea, her face lit from below as she stood over a firepit, holding a bone to the flames, the eyes of the silent council upon her. At last she'd looked at the bone, then at us. “The choice is made,” she'd said quietly to the king, her words a question, which he'd answered with a nod.

Then someone had pulled me to my feet and Laiyonea had tied the green sash around my waist.

“I understand the ceremony,” I said slowly. “But how exactly does the oracle work?” My heart fluttered. Jera might do well enough on the writing tasks to justify my leaving her in until the end, but the oracle was another matter.

Laiyonea smiled. “Sometimes it is clear, sometimes not.
When it is not, you must use your discretion.”

I absorbed that. No one but Laiyonea had examined the oracle bone at my Selection, I realized. Perhaps I could keep my word to Jonis after all.

“With you, for example, it was quite clear.” Laiyonea pulled a sheet of paper to her and wrote something. “You must carve the lines of the question carefully at the top. Once the fire cracks the bone, the lines will extend into the answer.” She pushed the paper toward me.

It held two exquisitely written characters. The top one, with
quill
above and
slave
in the subordinate position, was the symbol
Tutor
—the question I would scratch into the bone. The lines of the quill extended down the paper, curling into four small spirals. I turned the paper sideways and saw the symbol they formed.
Library
.

Laiyonea smiled. “Given how you came to my attention, the meaning seemed clear.”

“What about . . . your other Selection? Was that also clear?”

Laiyonea's smile evaporated. “No. As I said, sometimes you must use your best judgment.”

I nodded thoughtfully. Laiyonea obviously blamed herself for Tyasha's fate. It was an uncomfortable thought, especially when I considered that the futures of fifteen little girls hung on my own actions. At least, I told myself, the girls who weren't chosen wouldn't be going to the platforms, but instead to the olive farms in the Valley of Qora. It had been my suggestion; Laiyonea had taken it to the king herself.

The next day I nervously entered the council chamber at midday bells. The council was already assembled. Soraya Gamo sat in the back row, next to the Justice Minister, projecting an air of deliberate boredom that didn't fool me. She was probably just waiting to laugh when I made a mistake. All the high priests were there too, lined up in order of rank along the front row, with Penta Rale beside Mati, and Obal Tishe, the High Priest of Lanea, at the far end.

That didn't help my nerves any more than the scribes seated by the door, scratching notes. Even the slightest misstep on my part would be noticed and recorded.

Laiyonea sat off to one side; I was grateful for her quiet support. I threaded my way through the rows of goblets set at intervals along the tiles, to the king's raised seat at the center of the semicircle of councilors.

I curtseyed, then had to begin twice before my voice was loud enough. “The girls are assembled, Your Majesty.”

“Bring them in,” said Mati, his voice carrying easily to every corner of the room. I took the stool below Mati's chair, smoothing my skirts unnecessarily. The doors opened, and the children filed in.

When each girl was kneeling before a goblet, I stood and told them to drink. They did, most greedily, and it was clear when the quick-acting potion made its way into their blood; they looked around in confusion. One girl examined her hands as though she'd never seen them before.

I passed out paper and quills and ink bottles, the only sound the click of my heels on the tiles. A few of the girls held up the paper curiously, or played with the quills, but most—including
Jera—waited solemnly to be told what to do.

I explained the tasks, then scrawled the first symbol. I held it up and the girls copied it, half clutching the quills with chunky fists, only one or two holding them anywhere near the correct way. But I wasn't to instruct them in the details—that was part of the test.

I continued, making the symbols more complicated. Jera and a few others shifted their grips. I smiled.

After twenty symbols I walked around the room, examining their work and touching some girls on the shoulder. Silent servants came and led these away—or carried, in the case of the tiniest girl, who'd given up the exercise halfway through, curled up on the floor, and begun snoring gently. I happened to glance up at Mati as I came to her. I bit back my own grin as I saw him trying to suppress a smile.

With nine girls left, I began the second set of symbols, more complicated now, with connecting lines. Four girls were cut easily, their symbols degenerating into meaningless scrawls.

I maneuvered the remaining five into a line and began on the last set. Fortunately Jera had kept up. I realized, in the midst of laying out the complicated symbol
family
, that she'd probably already been taught some writing, just as I had. I thought, with a pang, of my heart-verse, and wondered if Jonis or his mother had slipped her some similar keepsake before sending her out to me. If so, I hoped she had the sense never to show it to me.

Fifteen symbols later, I was left with Jera just in front of me, a girl with vibrant red hair on one side, and a skinny blonde on the other.

I cleared my throat. “Three remain, Your Majesty,” I said, striving to keep the right cadence to the ceremonial words. “The gods shall decide it now.”

Penta Rale rose from his seat at Mati's right and held out the ox bone, taken from last night's sacrifice to Gyotia, for Mati's inspection. Mati nodded. Rale handed the bone to me.

I went to the firepit and used the knife waiting there to carve the question, mindful of Laiyonea's admonitions about care and straight lines. It took longer than it should have; the councilors stirred impatiently before I finally laid down the knife.

Rale stepped forward and moved the striker in the firepit, murmuring an invocation to Aqil as flames shot up inside it. He seized the stack of papers, both mine and the children's, and fed them to the fire. Smoke tickled my nose so that I had to step back to prevent an undignified sneeze. The three girls watched all this with somber interest.

Rale bowed to me—too deeply to be anything but insulting, I realized as he sat back down. I glanced at Laiyonea. Her pursed lips told me to keep going, so I stepped forward and held the bone over the flame.

Fire licked the bone, and it seemed ages that I stood there, waiting. At last a gentle pop broke the silence. I watched the cracks of the symbol widen and lengthen, and two side-facing triangles appeared, one lower than the other.
Red
.

The girl on the left had copper curls.
Red.
The oracle had been more than clear this time.

I looked back down at the bone, not considering what to do,
but steeling myself to do it. If the oracle was truly the word of the gods, then how would they react if I ignored their word?

At last I spoke. “The choice is made,” I said, turning my head nominally toward Mati. I caught his nod out of the corner of my eye, and I dropped the bone into the fire and swept up the green sash from the table as I stepped in front of Jera.

The roof did not fall in. Lightning did not strike.

But a mild voice to my right said, “If I may speak, Your Majesty?”

I turned to see Penta Rale standing at his place.

“Go on,” said Mati warily.

The priest spread his arms and addressed the council, his voice a monotone, but loud enough to carry. “This Tutor has trained for merely three years. How are we to trust that she is proficient enough to read the oracle?”

A few of the Scholars stirred, and I sensed that they agreed with him. I longed to look to Laiyonea, but knew this would be considered a sign of incompetence. So instead I faced Rale and weighed my words carefully. “I have been taught everything I need to know”—
more than you,
I tried to imply with my tone— “and by an excellent teacher.”

“Nonetheless,” Rale said, in a tone of elegant doubt, “I call upon the king to verify the Selection.” He turned to Mati, who narrowed his eyes. I recognized that look; Mati was trying to figure out Rale's motives.

“Certainly,” said Mati pleasantly. He paused, then stood and went to the basin. I realized belatedly that I ought to have taken the bone to him, and flushed. But Mati gave no sign of my lapse,
only took up the tongs from the table and lifted the bone from the flames.

I held my breath as he looked down at it. His eyes flicked to the three girls, then to my face, his expression inscrutable. I lifted my chin and looked right back at him, my fingers tightening around the sash.

“The choice is made,” said Mati, inclining his head toward me. He dropped the bone face down in the basin.

The crackle of rising flames met my ears as I turned back to Jera. The servants at the back of the room came forward and helped the girls up, and I knelt and tied the sash around Jera's waist. Then I curtseyed to Mati and the council and led Jera away to our rooms.

I helped her into my bed and pulled the blanket over her. Within three breaths she was asleep. She would sleep off the effects of the potion for the rest of the day, and part of the next. When she woke she would be ravenously hungry.

I went into the adjoining room and lay on the bed, exhausted. Laiyonea had removed to a room at the other end of the palace that morning, leaving the Tutor's suite for me and Jera, so this would be my room from now on. Laiyonea would continue to work with me in the mornings, advising me how best to teach Jera.

When a tap on the door awakened me, the indigo light of evening shone through my windows. It took me a moment to orient myself—my new room faced the front of the palace, instead of the gardens. The door opened, and Laiyonea's head appeared. “Dinner is laid out in the sitting room,” she said.

I stood and straightened my gown. I was glad Laiyonea would
continue to join me for meals—it lessened the unreality of the day somewhat.

Laiyonea was quiet, though, as I buttered my bread and started on my soup. I swallowed a mouthful of wine and looked at her, waiting.

“You did fine, Raisa.”

“So why did—”

“Penta Rale make an ass of himself?” said Laiyonea drily. “I suspect that had more to do with me than you.”

I frowned. “Because he doesn't like Tutors?”

Laiyonea clicked her tongue. “Perhaps. Rale and I have never gotten along, and he's gotten worse these last few years.”

Since Tyasha. That was what she meant. Surely Rale had tried to discredit Laiyonea after Tyasha's betrayal, but King Tyno, and now King Mati, regarded her too highly. So he had gone after the weaker Tutor—me.

Laiyonea waved a hand. “He's harmless enough, I suppose. Let him hold his grudges. You were able to read the oracle easily?”

I nodded. “It was very clear.
Black
,” I lied. “And only one girl had black hair.” As I met her eyes, I sketched the rounded symbol in my mind, as though by doing so I could make the lie true.

Laiyonea nodded and chewed her bread thoughtfully. “You won't work with Jera in earnest until after the wedding, of course,” she said. “But start familiarizing her with the Adytum and the tools. Begin the first tenset, perhaps.”

I nodded. Jera's training would follow the usual slower course for young Tutors; mine had been accelerated because of the need to catch up to where Tyasha had been. I was actually looking
forward to putting to use the skills Laiyonea had taught me—seeing Jera learn would be a nice change from burning all my work. But the thought of what was to come before that—presenting Jera at Mati's wedding—made my stomach swoop. Against my will I remembered the way Mati and I had laughingly shared a look when the littlest girl had fallen asleep, and the way he had backed up my lie. And then I remembered his distant, kingly manner yesterday, when he'd spoken to me like I was—I forced myself to finish the thought. Like I was a slave.