“I suggest you take a command from the Grey Service.” Rorrin stepped forwards, a hand on his dagger. “Let her go.”
Lord Zell looked from Grada to Rorrin and grinned. “Grey Service? Grey hair—now that I believe.” He gave the woman a kick and she crumpled to the floor, curled around her pain. “I like my odds against an old man and a woman.”
Grada tensed her muscles, testing the pain of her wound. “You won’t.” The blade that Meere had left for her hung over her ribs, over the spot his knife punctured her. The beaten slave drew in a shuddering breath and crept closer to the wall.
“We have no time for this.” Rorrin sounded impatient. Grada thought perhaps he should sound worried. What did it take to stand before a naked blade and not feel terror she wondered. Rorrin must know the butchery a knife slash will do, open flesh gaping down through muscle and fat to the bone, blood splattering out in a hot spurting rush. And yet it was the delay that bothered the master of assassins, not the threat, not the gleam of steel. Her gaze flickered to the woman, head bowed, crimson fingers staunching a bleeding nose, flickered back to Zell and the tight cruelty of the smile twitching below his neat moustache.
Without words Grada marched towards the bodyguard. As she entered his range he delayed, confused, then lunged, dacarba angled towards her heart. She lunged too, her right hand closing over his wrist, pushing the trajectory of his blade wide as she twisted from its path, turning, presenting her back to him as she controlled his knife hand. She pulled her own blade clear with her left while she twisted into him, arched her neck, crunching the back of her skull into his face. With precision she stabbed beneath her own armpit into the guard’s chest. The steel sunk home and he cried out, letting his blade clatter to the floor. She stepped away and let him fall.
The man lay clutching his chest, the hilt of Meere’s dagger jutting from it. Scarlet bubbles sprung up around it as the guard fought for breath. Zell’s amazement wiped all other expression from his face. He stared for one moment then took to his heels, running for the exit. Rorrin let him pass.
“This was not well done, Grada.” The old assassin looked from slave to guard and shook his head. Our lives are the emperor’s and we’re not free to spend them on such… domestic matters. He could have got lucky and then you’d be the one dying on the floor. How would that help the emperor?”
“Dying?” The heat of the fight ran from Grada quicker than it came. “He’s not going to die?” She looked down at the man. “I’ll get help.” His face had gone deathly pale and his blood spread around him on the tiles.
“And that lord will make trouble. Whispers against the throne. Change is the last thing anyone of the peacocks want.”
“Help him!” Grada pointed at the man. She didn’t want his death on her hands, didn’t want to see his face when she closed her eyes to sleep.
“I will send word for Mirra’s temple to send someone,” said Rorrin. “Come. We have not the time.” He turned without another glance and left.
Grada squeezed the woman’s arm, stood and followed him from the room. “You
will
send someone from the temple.”
“I will.”
As they walked Grada collected herself. “It is dangerous for the silk-clad to abuse the slaves. Nobody notices the slaves, but they are there. They surround you.” She spoke also of herself, of the Untouchables.
“They surround
us
,” corrected Herran. “You are one of us, now. And if the Knife finds one such as Zell a threat, the Knife can eliminate him. I would advise against it though. Change must be a slow process. Cerana can only be turned by degrees. Some problems are like the hydra. Slice off a head and two grow in its place.”
To that she did not reply. Herran could not give her the Knife; only Sarmin could lay that burden upon her. But would he? The envoy had been murdered, and she knew how much he had wanted the peace. What she did not know was how much such a failure might change a man. As they continued towards the centre of the palace Herran began to speak of schemes, snakes, concubines, war and children. This time Grada listened.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
And that was not the only thing. Rushes had thought the stone would be a comfort, but instead it frightened her. Sometimes she thought it twisted in her pocket, trying to find its way out. Many times during the day she caught it with one hand, as one catches a falling sash or pendant. She imagined the stone was angry she had disobeyed the emperor. She should have thrown it in the Ways as he asked, and now perhaps it would start giving bad luck instead of good.
Rushes put the stone from her mind and prepared for the morning. She checked that Daveed had a tall stack of clean blankets, the brush and comb were side-by-side to the left of the mirror, and the empire mother’s sandals were just where a person would not trip on them but that, when getting out of bed, they were easy to slip onto the feet. That done, she walked to the great room to make sure the shelves had been lowered to the kitchen, so that Hagga and the others could place the breakfast inside them.
When Rushes was passing a mosaic of Pomegra, done in jade and amber, the lantern light flickered up and down the long corridor as if buffeted by a strong wind she could not feel. The guards outside Nessaket’s room murmured to one another, hands on their weapons, eyes sharp. Rushes didn’t like to be near the guards when they were tense—it was then that they reminded her of Gorgen—so instead of trying to move past them she turned in a slow circle, looking up and down the corridor lined with bright paintings and sparkling tiles. She thought she saw someone fair and slim stepping back into a shadowed niche, so she called out, “Hello?” No answer came; one of the guards, a grey-haired, burly man, leaned that way and said, “Hey, there!”
Still there was no answer. Rushes took one step, then another, towards the niche, cautious of the guards, cautious of whoever was hiding there. But the niche lay empty. She looked from the pointed arch to the carpeted floor. Nobody was there.
A scream rang out from the other end of the hall, causing the guards to curse under their breath and draw their weapons at last, but they would not leave Nessaket’s door. Their job was to guard little Daveed, not protect the other women. There were others, stationed outside the heavy gilded entrance, for that. Just as they took defensive stances the concubine named Banafrit came running down the long red carpet. “It’s Irisa!” she cried, “Her colour…”
In moments the corridor filled with a dozen or more women, all of them perfumed, bangled, their lips every shade from pink to blood-red, all moving towards where Irisa lay near a gurgling fountain, and Rushes was pulled along with them, stumbling, her shoulders knocked by their elbows. Irisa was shown to her in parts, through the bend of an arm or the narrow space between two concubines—an arm, a hint of a cheek, the end of her flowing hair. And all of her was white, faded, the colour of a pretty dress left out in the sun too long.
Sickness
. Rushes backed away, the stone turning in her pocket. The pattern had begun with just one person and spread, until they all became the tools of its Master. She would not fall victim to another plague. She put in her hand to keep it the stone from falling and it was so hot that it burned her fingers; it had turned against her, just as she feared. She backed away, into the soft silks of one of the concubines.
“Watch where you’re going!” the woman snapped, pushing her away by the shoulder, speaking with the tones of the north, like Marke Kavic or his priest.
“I…” Rushes turned and looked at her, at her pale skin and hair, at the turquoise silk draped from her shoulder. Three other women stood by her, each one just as beautiful, and indignant on her behalf. But Rushes’ eyes were drawn back to the woman who had pushed her, for she was the woman from the Ways, and Rushes knew her name. She was the one who everyone whispered about, who had made love with Emperor Sarmin. Jenni.
Turn away. Turn away
. The Many would have told her how to protect herself, to pretend. But instead she stood and stared, and understanding dawned in Jenni’s eyes. She had not heard Rushes behind her in the Ways— that was impossible. She would have given some sign. And yet she
knew.
Rushes ran, dodging between the fine ladies and past the paintings and fountains to Nessaket’s room. But there the guards stopped her.
“If there’s disease, we can’t let you in,” said the older one, holding his hachirah across the entryway, the wide steel of his blade catching the light of a thousand gems and gleaming tiles. Brighter than all of them blazed the outline of a person, but it was not Jenni who stood behind her. White and indistinct, the reflection showed no eyes or mouth. It was not part of any painting or tapestry, and not a man but a thing—formed from imagination more than flesh, with arms, legs and a head shaped to trick the eye. As she watched it opened its arms and moved towards her.
She dodged behind the guard.
“Hey, now!” he said, pulling her up by the shoulder of her livery. He had not seen. The ghost had been visible only in the reflection.
“Tell Nessaket,” she said, letting him push her away, “tell Nessaket it was Jenni.” She felt something cold against her legs, something like the feel of snow or cold water, and she readied her feet, obeying that ancient edict, the primary rule of survival.
Run.
“Tell her!” she repeated, and then she ran.
“Wait,” the old guard called after her, understanding something of her urgency at last, but she only ran faster.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Getting into the Ways had become more difficult. Since the snake incident most of the exits had been sealed, but she knew of another, forgotten, in an unused corridor. Once inside hurried along the familiar dark paths, making her way to the secret platform where she liked to hide. It was a long way from that platform to the bottom, where rats ran among bones and coins. The stone could go missing there for centuries. She climbed the final stairs and pressed her back against the damp wall, her fingers clenched around it. She should throw it. Now. Maybe if she did as the emperor asked, Irisa wouldn’t be sick and the ghost she had seen would disappear. But it pricked along her fingers like needles, telling her it didn’t want to be lost in the Ways.
She sat on the cold rock, brought her knees up to her chin and held the stone to her forehead. She needed to throw it; she had to throw it. Emperor Beyon had commanded it. And yet her arm would not move. Her fingers wrapped protectively around the smooth edges. Only the emperor’s stone could save itself thus. She remembered the way Beyon had looked from Sarmin’s eyes into hers that night in the dungeon. It was not for her to ask how he could return from the dead, or how he could know so much just from looking. The emperors were near to gods; if nothing else proved it, this did. Surely heaven’s light fell upon them and granted powers a mere slave could not understand.
She held the stone, Beyon’s stone, a thing of power and intelligence. A longing to return to the oubliettes, where she had first seen it, filled her mind. Those night-filled corridors called to her the same way as her memories of the plains, heart to heart. They called her home.
A trick; it was not safe there. It could not be safe.
But no place is safe.
She stood, tucked the stone into her pocket and moved down, tracking a path to the halls behind the Little Kitchen. Nobody moved through the Ways this night. Ever since Helmar these passages had become a shortcut for those who lived in the palace, even with many exits blocked. No matter where Rushes stood, she could always hear someone else moving, even if it were far in the distance. Guards patrolled, servants carried messages and nobles sneaked to one anothers’ rooms. But on this night the dark stairs and bridges lay forgotten. She hurried her steps.
She took a breath of relief once she exited into the bright corridor and began the short walk to the dungeon stairs, slowing her steps. If the guards heard running they might come to see what was the matter, and then there would be questions. The stone felt warm in her pocket, pleased that she had chosen the dungeon. But it would not be easy. Nothing was ever easy. A man approached from the other end of the corridor, moving fast. He would meet her before she could dash down the steps, and so she slowed, hiding her destination. As he drew closer she recognised Mylo. She felt no pleasure in seeing his handsome face, his easy smile. She did not want to be alone with any man, in a pantry, a hallway or anywhere else.
“Our little Rushes,” he said, “Where have you been?”
“I work for the empire mother, now,” she said, looking around. Mylo had a gentle manner, but she was frightened nevertheless.
“Really? And the little prince?”
Not wanting to talk about Daveed she asked a question. “When is your next meeting?”
“It’s…” A noble wrapped in a dark cloak approached, and they bowed until he had passed. “…tomorrow night, if you can make it. After lanterns’ turning.”