Sword and Verse (5 page)

I didn't say anything, and he turned away. He scribbled another symbol, then pushed it toward me almost defiantly. “Here, this one means
traitor
.”

I registered his words, but did not grasp their meaning. Instead I stared at the symbol, a symbol I knew—the only symbol, in fact, that I'd really known before I had come to the Adytum. The symbol that began my name in the Arnath writing, the one I'd seen branded on Sotia's cheek on the statue on the Library. The symbol that stood for the first sound in my name:
rai
.

At last I found my voice. “What . . . what did you say it means?”

“Traitor,” said the prince. “What's the matter?”

To him it stood for a concept, not a sound. The idea of a symbol representing the sound
rai
would be preposterous to him. I curled my fingers around my quill in sudden dread—what if this writing was too different from my father's, and I never learned to read my heart-verse?

“Raisa?” said the prince. “What is it?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.” I bent over my paper, and for the first time since I'd begun my training, I got it exactly right on the first try.

Gyotia, well-pleased with his own handling of his wives, nearly missed seeing Suna emerge from the mountains of fire, and Sotia got there first. Sotia diluted the poison of the lantana plant with her own tears and fed the mixture to her new sister. By the time Gyotia arrived, the lantana had scarred Suna's face so that Gyotia, repelled, would not touch her, and she remains the virgin goddess. So it shall be until the gods read out the scrolls.

That was the first time Sotia defied the king of the gods, but it was not to be the last.

ON THE DAY
of the pantomime, we performed on a stage outside the Temple of Aqil, with a raised portion at one end where all the scenes featuring the gods took place. Whenever the gods visited the earth, we rode across the stage to the lower end on a wheeled platform pushed by temple slaves—among them, my old friend Kiti, who had recently come to serve at the temple, having grown too heavy for palace cleaning work. I'd been delighted to see Kiti, but hadn't dared to speak to him. Laiyonea had warned me to be quiet and careful, especially around Penta Rale, the High Priest of Aqil and chief of all the priests. After the things Tyasha had done, every move I made outside the palace would be scrutinized, and Rale especially disliked the Tutors.

In rehearsals, I had surprised everyone with my ease on the rolling contraption; having spent most of my childhood atop cleaning platforms, I barely had to lift my arms to keep my balance. Still, when I stepped onto it at the performance and saw the crowd for the first time, I almost fell over. Everyone in the City of Kings must have turned out to see the prince play Aqil.

I had only one line, in the scene where Sotia questioned the two ancient chieftains, and then presented the tablet of language to the one who vowed to share it with all people. Then I escaped behind the partition to wait, nervous and sweaty; I knew that my true humiliation was yet to come. I began to wonder if my bargain with the prince had been worth it.

I traced my favorite of the symbols Prince Mati had shown me the day before—
dream
—into my left palm. It had been worth it.

The prince was on stage now with Annis Rale, the high priest's son, who was playing Gyotia. Annis seemed to think that good acting meant shouting as loudly as possible, but Mati's approach was subtler. He even managed to infuse sadness into the speech where Aqil vowed to capture his mother and give the language of the gods its rightful place of nobility.

Mati came behind the partition to await his next scene. We were alone in the cramped, dark space.

“Well done,” I breathed. I realized he couldn't hear me, so I slid closer and repeated myself.

“You too,” he whispered hoarsely.

I had nothing else to say, but I didn't step away, even as I flushed at his nearness. Annis Rale was delivering a long speech
as Gyotia on the other side of the partition, but my ears weren't working right—instead of his strident voice, all I could hear was the prince's uneven breathing.

And then Prince Mati touched my arm. My skin went hot all over as his warm fingers moved hesitantly up to my neck and then to my cheek, and I was paralyzed, horrified only at how much I hoped he wouldn't move away. He shifted closer in the darkness.

“Raisa,” he whispered.

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't happen.

“My costume,” I whispered frantically.

The prince went still, then his hand left my cheek. Disappointment lanced through me, but I handed him the bindings and he wrapped them around my upraised hands—more loosely than he had in rehearsal, I noted distantly.

If only I could see his expression.

Did I imagine his hands lingering at my face as he tied the gag over my mouth? I was hyperaware of where he stood, a point of heat close by. I was so dazed he practically had to push me through the curtain when our cue came. I kept my head down so I wouldn't have to see the crowd.

He pushed me to the ground, where I lay, more or less helpless, and he rested his foot lightly on my back. This was the part I hated most, but there was no getting around it. The image was central to the festival and the pantomime. I tried to push the roil of emotions out of my mind and focus on the scene.

The others stood grouped around Annis Rale's makeshift throne. Every one of them was tall, even the girls, with olive skin and glossy black hair. And there I lay, small and pale and Arnath
and humiliated, on the ground.

Annis Rale looked fierce in a golden cape as Gyotia. “This treachery, sister, is unacceptable,” he said, his voice ringing out across the crowd.

I glared back at him in what I hoped was a credible imitation of Sotia in the statues. Somehow it was easy to channel my confusion into anger.

“Goddess of wisdom though you may be,” Annis went on, “your store of it has run out. Did you think that you could spread the language of the gods to all mortals without our knowledge? The ones you have corrupted will trouble us no longer. I have banished them from this land.” He lifted a hand, and the temple slaves behind the stage turned the cranks to make the wooden cutouts of ships at the lower end of the stage heave up and down, imitating the perilous journey across the sea toward the Nath Tarin.

Annis turned to Mati. “Well done, Aqil. Where are her tablet and quill?”

The prince slung the pack from his shoulder and held it out. “I took them at once, mighty father,” he said. Did his tone seem more flat than it had in rehearsal?

Annis-as-Gyotia nodded gravely. He pulled a quill from the pack and broke it into pieces, launching into a long diatribe. Halfway through, he turned and lifted the round stone tablet that had been hidden behind him; to the audience it seemed to appear magically, and they gasped in appreciation. “Aqil,” he bellowed. “I name you god of sacred learning, in place of Sotia the traitorous.”

Prince Mati stepped forward. The instant he removed his
foot from my back, I scrambled up and lunged at Annis, knocking the tablet from his hands.

It hit the stage with a crash—out of the corner of my eye I saw many in the crowd jump. I hobbled after it, until Prince Mati touched my arm and I fell again. To the audience it would seem he had thrown me to the ground, but we had practiced so that he wouldn't hurt me.

I rolled onto my side, panting. Aliana Gamo, perfectly cast as Gyotia's timid wife Lanea, lifted the tablet from the ground. Aliana had to turn the tablet as she lifted it, so that the side with the missing piece, previously hidden, faced out. She heaved it into Annis's arms, and he let out a convincing howl of rage.

I looked out over the crowd as he and Mati exchanged several lines about the missing piece. King Tyno sat in the middle of the front row with his arms crossed, showing no hint of pride in his son's performance. The other Scholars on the benches wore expressions ranging from polite indifference to outright boredom, as did the rows of city dwellers and servants standing on the slope behind them. Emilana Kret and the palace slave children stood near the back. The white-blond puff of Linti's hair was intermittently visible as she craned her neck to see over the people in front of her, but her blocked view seemed a blessing. I hated the idea of her witnessing me like this.

A clump of green-clad Arnathim stood at the back corner of the crowd, where a stand of palms obscured the view; a few even perched in the trees. Lying on the raised stage, I was level with them, and a familiar face caught my eye—a young man with sand-colored curls whom I'd seen often at the market, back in my
days of running errands for Emilana Kret. My cheeks flushed at his disgusted scowl.

“What have you done with it?” Annis bellowed, grabbing my hair and turning me to face him. I stared back at him defiantly, conscious of the Arnath gazes in the crowd. He pushed me away. “No matter,” he said, but his voice seemed to have lost some of its certainty—probably because I wasn't behaving as meekly as I had in rehearsals. “One symbol will not save you.”

Annis produced a branding rod, which he handed to Prince Mati. “Mark this traitor, and we shall have done with her.”

Mati pressed the cold rod to my cheek, but my face burned as if it had been red-hot. The fact that it was the prince holding the rod seemed far worse now than it had in rehearsal.

The curly-haired slave jumped down from the tree and I lost sight of him as he pushed his way through the crowd.

It was time for my grand exit. Penta Rale had developed a new trick this year; the crowd seemed suitably impressed when I was lowered through a hole in the floor of the stage, while the others chanted, “Imprisoned in walls of stone forever. Behold the cost of betraying Gyotia.”

As soon as my head was below the stage, I jumped down from the moving platform so that the high priest himself could take my place. I landed sideways on my ankle, but scrambled back up in time to see Rale slipping onto the platform. He held a long metal tube up to the level of the stage; when he did something to one end of it, flames shot out of the other. Heat rushed down into the close space under the stage, and I heard screams and gasps from the audience.

I pulled the gag down so it hung around my neck, but decided to wait until I got back into the light to deal with my bindings. I slipped into the cool, quiet temple, which was empty but for a few slaves preparing for the offerings. I forced myself to walk a measured pace to the steps, not allowing myself to think, or to wonder.

Or to wish.

I hurried to the basement to change, glad of a few minutes alone to process what had happened with Prince Mati. But when I opened the door to the dressing room, someone was already there.

Lanea saw her husband's fury that Sotia had gotten to Suna first, and she offered herself to distract him. She could not bear to see proud Sotia suffer at Gyotia's hands again. The others, she knew, would assume that she acted out of weakness, for they did not understand her kind of strength.

THE CURLY-HAIRED SLAVE
sat at the dressing table, tapping his fingers as if I were late for an appointment. I considered shouting for help, but before I could even open my mouth, he had lunged at me and clapped one hand over it.

I wasn't really frightened until he did that. I struggled, but he tightened his hand and grabbed my wrist.

“I only want to talk to you,” he said. “But I can't have you calling the guards. If I let go, will you listen to me?” He smelled of sweat and wine, and something else, a bitter scent that I vaguely recognized.

He wasn't much older than I was. He didn't
seem
dangerous, but still . . .

Curiosity won over prudence. I nodded, though my heart thumped.

He released me and took a step backward. “You know what Tyasha ke Demit did?”

My mouth went dry.

“Well, do you?” he asked.

I nodded slowly.

“Then you realize you have an opportunity to serve your people as she did.”

I gaped at him. “Serve . . . my people?”

He glowered as though he thought I was being stupid on purpose. “Of course. You can give back the knowledge that the Qilarites have taken from us. Do you really think those idiots were the first group that Tyasha taught? She went years without being caught.”

Abruptly I realized what the bitter scent was: ink. I swallowed hard. “And you want me to . . .” He couldn't know what he was asking. I hardly knew myself.

He took a step forward. “I want you to help your people.”

“You want me to become a traitor.”

He snorted. “If not, you betray the Arnathim instead.”

I shook my head. Realizing that I was pressed defensively against the door, I forced myself to relax.

“Need help with those?” he said, indicating the ropes at my wrists.

“No,” I snapped. “I can do it myself.” I looped the bindings off my hands and threw them onto the dressing table, then started on the knot of the gag that hung around my neck.

“Here, let me,” he said. He picked at the knot with surprisingly nimble fingers. My mind raced—I had to get rid of him before the Gamo girls came down to change.

The gag came apart and I turned to face him. “I won't help
you,” I told him, “so you might as well leave now. The less I know about you, the better.”

He raised his eyebrows. His eyes were green, the exact color of the fog-jade vase in the palace entryway. I used to hate cleaning that vase—it always seemed ready to tip over at the slightest provocation.

“Interesting,” he said smugly. “You're not planning to tell anyone about me being here. Not what I expected from a qodder willing to humiliate herself in a Qilarite pantomime.”

That stung, though I didn't know what a qodder was, or why I should care what he thought. “What does it matter? In case you haven't noticed, the Qilarites are in charge.”

“It matters,” he said coldly, “because the rest of us don't have a choice about being humiliated for the pleasure of Qilarites.
You
do.”

Suddenly I was irrationally angry. Who was he to judge me? “Get out,” I spat. “I'll scream for the guards.”

“No, you won't,” he said, his lip curling, though his eyes darted to the door. “You'd have to explain why you were talking to me. I'll swear to Gyotia that you've been helping us.”

“No one will believe that.”

“Doesn't matter. It'd still be the end of your cozy life in the palace. Do you think the king doubts you'd betray him? You're Arnath, whether you like it or not.”

I gritted my teeth. “I know what I am.”

He leaned right into my face. I backed up until my hip banged painfully into the dressing table. “So you don't
care
about anyone but yourself. You don't mind if Arnath children are worked to
death or Arnath women are raped by their masters or Arnath men die in the quarries, as long as
you're
comfortable in the palace. You don't care if the rest of your people die in ignorance. And you, born on the Nath Tarin.” He shook his head. “The Learned Ones would be ashamed.”

His words hit me like a slap across the face. Was he right? Would my father be ashamed if he saw me today? But my parents had sacrificed so much to keep me safe.

I planted my palms on his chest and pushed with all my might. He crashed backward onto the floor.

I forced myself to breathe normally, trying to regain control.

Someone knocked sharply on the door; we both froze. “Jonis?” said a voice.

“What is it?” said the young man quickly, planting himself behind the door as if ready to leap at anyone coming through.

The door cracked open and Kiti poked his head in. “Rale's on his last speech. You'd better get out of here.” Kiti shot a shy smile at me. “Shinings, Raisa.”

“Shinings, Kiti,” I responded automatically, my mind reeling. Was Kiti helping the Resistance? Of course the other man—Jonis, Kiti had called him—couldn't have gotten past the guards without help.

Jonis nodded at Kiti, who withdrew his head and shut the door. Jonis grabbed my arm. I flinched. “You think the knowledge you have is a gift,” he said. “But you wear shackles too, even if they're silk instead of iron.”

He took my hand and traced something into it. As if his finger were a quill, I almost saw the symbol written there, a circle
with two lines flying up on either side.
Freedom
. “We haven't forgotten what it means,” he said in a low voice. “A messenger will come to you, and will say these words: ‘The rains are coming off the ocean.' If you will help us, answer, ‘Yes, from the islands.' If not . . . the gods help you.”

He went to the door and knocked. When two knocks came from the other side, he dashed out. I caught a glimpse of Kiti's face before the door swung shut.

I grabbed my gown and slipped behind the changing screen in a daze. I could not afford to dwell on what had just happened or give any indication that anything strange had gone on.

The Gamo sisters spilled into the room as I was sitting down to brush my hair. Soraya dropped a condescending glance at me as she passed. “Well played, Tutor,” she said, her tone balanced between respectful and sarcastic. I met her eyes in the mirror, pretending I had only heard the former.

“And you,” I said, which was two words more than I'd ever said to her before. It was true; she'd played Lila, goddess of war, with haughty poise.

Caught off guard by my response, Soraya seized her gown and disappeared behind the screen. She clearly hated sharing a dressing room with an Arnath; Rale wasn't the only Qilarite who had a problem with the privileges granted to Tutors.

Alshara hurried away to change, but Aliana hesitantly returned my smile. I wanted to tell Aliana that she'd done well as Lanea, but for some reason I didn't want her sisters to overhear.

“Did you see the way Annis leered at me?” Soraya said to Alshara. “I can't believe he'd be so impertinent in front of the prince.”

Alshara laughed. “Have you ever seen anything stop him being impertinent?”

“He'll never earn a seat on the council like that. And the way he shouted in the final scene! Even the king jumped!”

They went on, analyzing every detail of the performance. I quickly fixed my hair and escaped into the hallway.