Sword and Verse (8 page)

Gyotia built a house of stone on the mountain high above the Olsunal, the sea-without-memory, and brought Lanea there to tend to him. The other gods and goddesses settled nearby. For a time, they lived in peace—or at least, not in open conflict.

WHEN MATI AND
his father returned six days later, the royal household assembled to greet them. It was all I could do not to run down the steps and throw my arms around Mati's neck as he and his father climbed down from the carriage. I saved my welcome for when he came to my room that night.

We were both giddy, and once we'd had our fill of kissing, we talked too loudly and had to keep shushing each other so Laiyonea wouldn't hear. Mati sobered as he told me about the maimed slaves at the mines who had been allowed to live, as an example to the others of what happened when they rebelled.

See, Jonis?
I thought.
See what your Resistance does?

“It was horrible,” Mati said, his hands clenching into fists. “I can't believe my father let that happen.”

I touched his shoulder. “When . . . when you're king, things will be different.”

Mati blinked. We never spoke of the future—it was too full of unknowns—but I was sure of his goodness. He gave me a
grateful half smile and pulled me into his arms, and I let his kiss drive every worry from my mind.

On the Festival of Lanea, Laiyonea and I rode to the temple hill in an open carriage, seated behind the king and prince. It was a great honor for us to be there, but I saw now that, like many of the privileges granted to the Tutors, it was also the king's way of keeping us close. Laiyonea had told me that a slave trader had been found outside the city gates the day before, his throat cut. The council blamed the Resistance.

Mati smiled and waved to the people lining the streets, a perfect contrast to the way his father sat sternly surveying his subjects as though they were all slaves at a market. When the carriage approached the temples, King Tyno leaned over and spoke to Mati, low and sharp. The tips of Mati's ears reddened as he lowered his hand and faced forward.

At the Temple of Lanea, Obal Tishe led the invocations in a gentle voice, befitting the high priest of the goddess of the hearth. Then the banquet began. Though it was my first outside the palace, the faces around me were familiar—council members, high-ranking Scholars, here and there a wealthy merchant. The tables formed a horseshoe shape, with the high priests lined up in order of rank along one side. Even here in his own temple, Obal Tishe sat at the end of the line, with Penta Rale seated next to the king and Mati at the center of the arc.

To keep my eyes from lingering too much on Mati, I studied the temple alcoves with their friezes, automatically evaluating the difficulty of cleaning each one. Outside the temple, music started
up. The fluting of a tin horn brought back a childhood memory—a young man in our village, with a red beard and merry face, who'd played for festivals. We'd seen his bloodied body slumped on the side of the road on the march to the raider ship.

I forced my mind to the present as the servants passed out packages. Gifts were traditional at this festival, because so many stories told of Lanea conveying anger, appreciation, or even desire through subtly given gifts. She was even said to send gifts to mortals occasionally; the previous High Priest of Lanea had made himself wealthy charging for his services interpreting “gifts of the goddess,” ranging from birthmarks to oddly shaped yams to piles of stones.

The gifts given during the festival sometimes bore special significance too, as when the farmers in the Valley of Qora had presented the king with a fountain for the palace garden last year, to remind him of his promise to repair the aqueducts.

I started as a servant placed a long, shallow box on the table in front of me. Who would give me a gift?

“Who would give you a gift?” hissed Laiyonea.

“I don't know,” I said, but my eyes darted to Mati. He was unwrapping a wooden box and laughing at something that the Trade Minister had said.

“Who sent it?” Laiyonea demanded of the Qilarite servant.

“A messenger delivered it this morning, Tutor,” said the man around the stack of boxes in his arms. “Many council members also received anonymous gifts.” He indicated the War Minister a few seats down, who was opening a tall bottle of oil.

“It must be for you,” I said, pushing the box at Laiyonea.

“No, the messenger stated that it was for Raisa ke Margara,” said the servant as he moved off to drop a package in front of the High Priest of Qora.

“Open it,” Laiyonea said sharply.

I lifted the lid. Inside lay the most beautiful quill I'd ever seen—pure white, with just the barest touch of green at the core, and curled at the edges. The end had already been shaped to a fine point.

I had seen this kind of feather before, back on the Nath Tarin. My father had used one; he might even have written my heart-verse with it. Lifting the quill from the box, I trailed a finger over its impossibly soft edge.

“What kind of feather is that?” said Laiyonea.

I shook my head. “I don't know what it's called. . . .” I looked over at Mati again. He had noticed my gift now, and was wearing a puzzled frown.

So he hadn't sent it.

Suddenly Laiyonea touched my arm. “Put it away,” she said. I followed her gaze and saw two council members with their heads close together, watching us. I dropped the quill into my lap.

One of the men tapped his neighbor on the arm and leaned over to say something to him, but before he got the chance, Penta Rale rose at his place beside the king.

“Your Majesty, the high priests wish to present a gift to you. With your leave?” The king nodded, and Rale clapped his hands. From the back of the temple came three men in green carrying a huge carving of a ship. The ship was four feet tall, and every bit of it, from deck to sails, had been hewn from glossy black stone.

“On this Festival Day,” Rale said, “we honor our king with this token, to celebrate the good fortune of our nation under King Tyno's leadership.” As the men heaved the ship past us, I saw how the carver had gotten every detail right, from the high prow to the chains across the hatches. It wasn't just any ship. It was a raider ship—a slave ship.

My stomach turned. I rubbed my wrists where the ropes and chains of the raiders had bitten into them so many years ago. Why would the priests give King Tyno something like that?

I looked away from the hideous thing, and my eyes fell on two temple slaves, an older man and a young woman, half hidden behind a pillar. Watching me.

All at once I knew who had sent the quill: the Resistance, reminding me of what they wanted me to do. And telling me that they would not leave me alone.

But I wouldn't help them.
It doesn't matter if they think I'm selfish,
I told myself uncomfortably. What choice did I have if I wanted to stay alive? And besides, one day Mati would be king and things would be better.

In the bustle of dinner, I shoved the quill back into its box and kicked the box under my chair. Afterward, I left it behind as I followed Laiyonea to the exit. The Temple of Lanea was celebrated for its delicious feasts, but even though I had secreted several small cakes in my pocket for Linti, I had hardly tasted a bite and was eager to return to the palace.

I was relieved to see two guards waiting for us at the door; the Resistance wouldn't be able to get anywhere near me. Four more guards hovered near Mati and his father as they came down the
center aisle. The guards pushed the door open, and one of them preceded us through.

Though the sun was setting, the music was still going on outside. About twenty Arnathim in green, slaves attending those inside, had gathered next to the temple. Some were playing pipes and makeshift drums; others were dancing and laughing. Soldiers stood at intervals around the courtyard, but their stance was watchful, not ominous.

Laiyonea was climbing into the carriage, with me close behind, when it happened—the laughter turned to shouts and the music cut off. I turned and caught a glimpse of a familiar head of curly hair—Jonis, stepping between a little girl and a soldier. I saw the soldier's fist connect with his face, saw another punch him in the stomach even as he fell. Then there were soldiers everywhere.

As Lanea swept the hearth one fine morning, ashes swirled into the air and mixed with the goddess's breath, forming the first bird. Delighted, Lanea molded the ashes into birds of various shapes and presented them to the other gods. To Gyotia she gave the majestic golden eagle; to Lila the fierce falcon; to Aqil the shrieking crow; to Qora and Suna the gentle pheasant and swan. To Sotia she presented the first bird, gray as ash, and named it asoti in her honor. Gyotia laughed cruelly when he saw the small asoti beside his enormous eagle, but Sotia embraced Lanea, for she saw the value of this gift. Ever after, the gods wrote with fine quills of asoti feathers.

“RAISA, GET IN
the carriage!” shouted Laiyonea.

Only then did I realize that the guards were moving in closer to me. More were racing up the steps to protect Mati and his father.

Mati had stopped dead. “What are they doing? Stop them!” he cried. “That old woman didn't do anything!”

“Mati, hush!” hissed Laiyonea.

King Tyno grabbed Mati's arm. “Get into the carriage,” he said in a low voice that nonetheless carried to where I stood, three steps down.

“But, Father, they—”

“Shut your mouth and get into the carriage,” the king growled. Mati tried to pull away, but his father dragged him down the steps and practically threw him into his seat.

I clambered into the carriage next to Laiyonea. She exchanged a grim look with the king before they both turned to face forward, but Mati and I craned our necks to see the courtyard. Obal Tishe was making his way through the crowd, speaking to the soldiers. I watched, confused, as he helped an old woman in green to her feet.

Then the carriage started moving, and my gaze slid over the knot of priests standing on the temple steps. They looked relieved that the High Priest of Lanea was dealing with the mob—all save Penta Rale, who watched Tishe with a look that suggested he had just smelled something foul.

No one spoke on the trip back to the palace. The fighting had been all the more frightening for its suddenness. I hadn't seen how it started, but Mati had. He told me that night when he came to my room, still seething.

“Two soldiers just plowed into an old woman and hit her,” he said. “At least, that's what it looked like. She must have done something before that, though. . . .” He trailed off uncertainly. “And he's not even looking into what happened!”

I didn't respond. If the people who'd been hurt were all slaves, it didn't surprise me that the king wouldn't pursue the matter. But I didn't like to say so to Mati. I took his hand, and he sat down on the bed beside me.

“He's more upset about that stupid carved ship the high priests
gave him,” Mati went on. “He thinks they're taunting him.”

“Why . . . why did they give it to him?”

Mati paused, and I realized that I was rubbing my wrists again. I stilled my hands in my lap.

“They . . . want him to send raiders to the Nath Tarin,” said Mati. “They think it'll be a message to the Resistance.”

I stared at him in horror. Did Jonis have any idea what he and his people had done?

Mati swallowed. “He won't do it, though. He says it's . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Wasteful. That there are . . . plenty of slaves here, and cheaper too. That breeding slaves here is more . . . economical. And he can't spare the men, with things so tense on the Emtirian border.”

He looked so miserable that I took his hand. “But he's not sending them,” I whispered. “That's the important thing.”

He sighed, and we sat there in thoughtful silence until he said soberly, “Who gave you the quill?”

I tensed at his tone—did he suspect something? “I don't know. Laiyonea thinks it was Rale or one of the priests, playing some kind of joke.” She'd said so when we'd gotten back to our sitting room, right after she'd said how stupid Mati had been to criticize the soldiers in front of his father.

Mati was silent. My stomach dropped a little—and then I realized what my own paranoia had been keeping me from seeing. “Mati,” I said slowly, “are you . . . jealous?”

“No!” said Mati at once. But he looked away awkwardly and leaned back on the bed. I stared at him until he finally sighed. “Yes,” he said. “
I
want to be able to give you gifts.”

“But I can't give you anything either.” I leaned over to kiss him. “Besides, you already gave me you.” I nestled beside him, resting my head on his arm.

He winced. Remembering how his father had gripped him, I lifted his sleeve. Bruises blossomed on his upper arm—one ugly purplish-black mark for each finger. I kissed each one, thinking how different he and his father were, and how much better a king Mati would be because of that.

The next morning, Laiyonea told me that Mati was sitting in on an important negotiation with his father, and went to join them. She had me working on the
life
symbol with all its variants again; I was still struggling with it. Mati arrived in the Adytum an hour later, grinning giddily.

“Are the negotiations going well?” I asked as he put his arms around me. I didn't really care. I just wanted to hear his voice.

“Well enough,” he said absently. “I have something for you.” He blushed as he held up a small, flat beige stone, irregularly shaped, with a leather thong threaded through a hole at one end. “It isn't much, but I thought it was pretty. I found it this morning on the beach and I decided to make a necklace for you.” He laid it in my hand, and I saw faint lines etched into one of the flat surfaces, lines that might have been deeper once, but had long since been made smooth by the ocean current. Mati ran one finger over the rock, then took my hand and sketched a shape into my palm. “It almost looks like a symbol. It's nonsense though. I don't know why, but it made me think of you.”

I had to hold the stone right up to my eye to see the lines. I
almost dropped it when I made out the shape—three wavy lines joined by a straight one.
Sa.
The first symbol of my heart-verse, which I had yet to find in the language of the gods. The second part of my name, as my father taught me to write it so long ago. It was a sound, but also a word unto itself:
light of wisdom.

Mati didn't recognize the symbol—had said it was nonsense. It didn't mean
sa
to him; it didn't mean anything to him. Which meant that it couldn't be a higher order symbol.

It had to be part of the Arnath writing, because it appeared in my heart-verse. If it didn't appear in the Qilarite writing system, did that mean that learning the higher order symbols wouldn't help me read my heart-verse after all?

“Don't you like it?” Mati asked. “I know it isn't anything special—”

“I love it,” I whispered quickly. I came so close to telling him about my father then, but I was afraid to—or maybe I didn't want to remind him how different we were.

Mati drew me closer and kissed my neck. “Tell Laiyonea you found it on the beach,” he said, his words buzzing against my skin. “No one will know what it really is but us.”

“What
is
it really?” I asked carefully. My skin seemed to dance up away from my bones, awaiting his answer.

He looked right into my eyes. I very nearly melted away into nothing. “It means you're mine, and I'm yours, Raisa. It means I love you.”

I whispered it back, and smiled as he tugged my hair free of its braid and ran his fingers through it, his mouth bending to cover mine.

Mati had been coming to my room nearly every night during the dark Veilings. But after he gave me the stone, we were both eager for more time together, and so he risked the climb at the beginning of the next Shining too, when Gyotia's Lamp was not yet fully uncovered. That was probably why, five nights after Mati's seventeenth birthday celebration, one of the guards saw a figure creeping along the wall and launched an arrow at him. The arrow missed, but Mati had to explain away the sprained wrist he got on his hurried climb to a hall window.

The next afternoon, Mati couldn't write because of his injury, so he hovered and distracted me by clicking his tongue at my sloppy strokes and generally making a nuisance of himself. I wished he would stop; I didn't like the suspicious looks Laiyonea kept shooting at his bandaged hand. Clearly she didn't believe his claim that he'd injured it during a sword-fighting lesson.

“Enough, Mati,” Laiyonea snapped, after he started flicking leaves at the asotis, causing them to gabble and shriek. “You might behave a little more seriously, with an intruder on the palace walls last night.”

I dropped a splotch of ink on my list of the eighty-seven uses of the sunamara plant. “Intruder?” I squeaked. I had an image of Jonis on the outer walls with a knife in his teeth, before I remembered that it had been Mati climbing to my room.

Mati laughed. “Father's just worked up over nothing. The palace has been searched top to bottom. That guard was seeing things. Maybe it was a salamander.”

Laiyonea frowned. “You know very well that your father
didn't imagine those attacks at the docks, or . . .” She pursed her lips. The fighting at the Temple of Lanea flashed through my mind.

Mati nodded, sobering. “I know, I know.” He sighed. “Well, once the western vizier fills up Father's coffers with gold, he can hire all the mercenaries on the peninsula to clear them out.” His tone was bitter.

I frowned. Mati had made it sound like King Tyno needed Del Gamo's money, but that couldn't be. After all, he was the king.

Laiyonea looked back and forth between us, her expression a mixture of pity and something else I couldn't name—anger, maybe? But she didn't leave us alone in the Adytum that day.