Dune 02 the prophet of d.., p.22
Martha Wells - Ile-Rien 02, page 22
They sat in silence until finally Khat asked, “Was she angry or not?”
“My wife is a very passionate woman,” Sagai explained. “But she doesn’t often tell people what she thinks of them, even people she cares for. It made courting her a great trial.”
Chapter Ten
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In the hour before dawn Khat walked Elen back up the tiers to Riathen’s house.
He had meant to leave her at the Third Tier, but after they had passed the bored gate vigils, he saw how dark and quiet the streets up there were, and thought of Constans, and decided it couldn’t hurt to stay with her.
On the Second Tier they were stopped three times by patrolling vigils, who were much inclined to throw Khat off the tier wall, but finally passed them both on after examining Elen’s token. Finally they reached the small garden, which was strange with shadow shapes under the darkened sky, lit only by the lamps hanging on the walls of the nearby houses. Khat stopped at the gate, and Elen asked, “Aren’t you coming up with me? Riathen could have questions for you. What if there’s a delay, because you’re not there?”
Khat leaned against the garden wall. “Elen, no offense, but I don’t like it up there.”
“It’s early, and there won’t be anyone about but Warders,” she pointed out. He was sure it sounded reasonable to her. She gestured down the street, where the swing of a ghostlamp marked another patrolling vigil. “The lictor is posted at the top of the wall during the night, and you can’t stay down here alone. They could take you into custody.”
He felt trapped, and he didn’t like that, and she was right, and he didn’t like that either.
They went up the alcove’s rock-cut steps; past the lictor at the top, who recognized Elen and let them by without comment; through the empty court and up the wide stair, which was lit by wax candles and lamps burning lightly scented oil. There were few people about, though Khat heard voices off the first landing. Then on the second landing they met a brown-robed servant woman, who got a good look at Elen’s companion and almost dropped a tray of dirty crockery.
After she beat a hasty retreat, Khat said, “That’s it, Elen. I’m not going any further.”
“All right. Hmm. This way.” She led him through an archway and a little maze of connecting courts, each with a bubbling fountain and plants stirred by the warm night breeze, and out onto a broad open terrace. Beyond it was a great empty space, and past that an occasional lighted window showed that it was surrounded by other expansive houses. The top few levels of the Elector’s palace were visible above the dark shapes of the surrounding buildings, and they were lit like the Odeon on a festival night, with flaring torches and mirror-backed lamps on open balconies reflecting off the limestone walls.
Elen said, “You can’t see it now, but there’s a garden out there, and the homes of some of the high officials in the court have their back terraces giving on to it.” She hesitated, then added, “There’s a little pavilion out there too, where the embassies from the other Fringe Cities are quartered sometimes. The embassy from the krismen Enclave is there now. They’re here for another day at least.”
Khat looked down at her sharply, but her expression was bland. Still he dropped down onto the nearest stone bench and looked up at her expectantly, not betraying any interest in what the view would be in daylight.
Elen, who didn’t betray any interest in his lack of reaction, said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” and went away.
Khat settled in to wait, not happily.
Elen went up the main stair toward Riathen’s rooms. After the lower tiers in general and the ghostcallers’ quarter in particular, the slow waking quiet of the Master Warder’s house was like another world. Polished stone under her battered sandals instead of crumbling mud brick, the scent of sandalwood and cool water instead of sweat and sewer stink. She supposed that you became accustomed to such things, after a time. She supposed that Khat and Sagai and the others had become accustomed to it. She couldn’t imagine how. But she remembered the first time she had brought Khat up here and the way he had completely ignored the passersby who were all but spitting on the dirt at his feet. And at her, because she was with him. She supposed it was possible to become accustomed to anything.
When Elen was a child she had thought the lower tiers were all filth and degradation; living on the First Tier had given her no experience with hardworking poverty, and no idea that there were noncitizens and outsiders who were not criminals. Without the benefit of a Warder’s experience and senses, most Patricians undoubtedly still thought that.
On the third landing Seul stepped in front of her suddenly, almost startling her off the top step. His voice low, he said, “You didn’t come back last night.”
Elen blinked up at him, astonished. “I know.” She was still not really fully awake, though sleeping on the roof of Netta’s house on scraps of matting judged too old and ragged for the rooms below had not been as uncomfortable as she would have thought. She had been bone-weary, and perhaps the encounter with the ghost had taken more out of her than she knew. Both her power and her ability to Look Within were weak, but even she had felt the pull the thing had exerted on her soul. It was something Warders should know of. Maybe, when this was over, she would give a lesson for the apprentices about her experience.
None of this was an answer for Seul, who was still staring down at her, his expression growing even more stony. “Where were you?” he demanded.
This time she understood him, and felt her face go hot.
In growing anger, she considered the indignity of explaining to Seul, who was glaring at her with a wrath more suitable for a father or a betrayed husband, that while she had spent the night in Khat’s company, they had been more than adequately chaperoned, that Sagai was a fatherly sort of person, that Miram and Netta were perfectly respectable women, that their children had been everywhere, that she didn’t see how intimacy was possible at all in the crowded warren of their court. That in the predawn stillness she had woken with someone’s small child sleeping under her arm. That the thought of any impropriety had never occurred to her. Until now, and that impropriety concerned telling Seul to perform an unnatural act on himself.
Her voice shaking, she began, “You have no right—”
He wasn’t even attempting to soul-read her, and mistook the quiver in her voice for embarrassment. “I know you went back to the lower tiers last night. Gandin told me. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into with this krismen. If you’ve already gone that far …” He shook his head regretfully. “I know you’re young, and you must be curious. But you can’t trust him, and it’s dangerous to associate yourself too closely with—”
Elen was too angry to think. “We’ve almost found one of the relics!” she shouted, not caring if she brought everyone in the house running. “Everyone said it was impossible, and now we’ve almost found one! Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Evidently it did not, but at least this time he heard the rage in her voice. “Elen, you have to put your feelings aside and listen to me…” he began.
She was in no mood to hear out any speech that didn’t start with “I apologize.” She stepped around him. He grabbed her arm, and she shook him off with such violence that he drew back and let her pass.
Elen went up the stairs in a blind fury. When she reached the top floor, one of the apprentices told her Riathen had only just returned from the palace, and she had to cool her heels in his anteroom, muttering angrily to herself while the shadows gave way to pearly dawn light. Finally the door servant held the curtain aside for her, and Elen entered the quiet room and saw with relief that Riathen was alone, seated at the low table, the Ancient Survivor book unfolded before him. He looked up and smiled at her approach. “You have news.”
“Yes, there’s been progress.” Firmly putting Seul out of her mind, she took a seat on a stool and began to tell him what they had discovered. She reached the part about Radu’s death, and Khat’s conclusion about the Academia, and Riathen stopped her and called for one of his archivists.
When the man had taken down his instructions on a wax tablet and hurried away, the Master Warder said, “It will take them a short time to persuade the record keepers at the Academia to open their books so early, and some time for them to go through the lists, but he should have news for you this morning.”
“Good.”
Riathen’s eyes lifted to meet hers then, opaque and difficult to read. “And did you discover anything about our mysterious relic dealer?”
This wasn’t a question Elen was quite prepared for. She thought of what Sagai had told her, but that seemed more his story than it was Khat’s, and she couldn’t see how Riathen would be interested in the fact that Khat was single-mindedly bent on killing pirates. The other things that she had learned about him seemed too commonplace for the Master Warder’s interest. She said, “Nothing, really. He’s been in the city for some time.” She gestured helplessly. “He’s exactly what he appears to be.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Riathen began to fold up the book, using exquisite care with its fragile creases. “The krismen embassy has made inquiries about the possibility of any of their kind living in Charisat. It is thought by some in the court they are searching for one person in particular. And I have yet to hear of any other krismen in Charisat at this time except Khat.” His eyes rested on her thoughtfully. “Bear this in mind.”
She felt a qualm, wondering if he was seeing past the guards she had carefully set about her soul. She had pointed out the embassy pavilion to Khat, and thought herself idly casting out a lure for information. “What do you mean?”
“They are leaving the city tomorrow. I have been given to understand that the Elector was not entirely satisfied with the progress of his meetings with them. He has no hold over them, you see, and they virtually control the Waste trade roads. He, or the Heir, could greatly benefit from having something they wanted, as a bargaining point.” He tucked the book carefully back into its case, and got to his feet, shaking out his mantle. “If you could find out if Khat is the man they are looking for, it might further our cause.”
“I see,” she said, carefully neutral.
He smiled down at her, suddenly warm. “I know you do. You are the best of my students, Elen.”
If only your power was stronger, he might have added, she thought. But he would never say that.
Elen took her leave and started down the stairs, feeling her anger building again. It was unfair of Riathen to ask her to betray someone who had saved her life twice, who had so casually become her friend, just as it was unfair of Seul to take such a proprietary interest in where she spent her nights.
She would have to be careful now about what questions she asked. She would have to be careful not to ask the right one, because as cautious as Khat was, he might answer her. Despite this resolution, she felt like a traitor anyway.
Night gave way to false dawn, and the garden became a large rambling oasis filled with artfully arranged stands of acacia, tamarisk, persea, and fig. Khat watched a gardener lift a shadoof from a pool thick with lotus, and pour the water into the stone gutters that irrigated the greenery. The houses surrounding it were small palaces themselves.
The “little” pavilion Elen had spoken of was a good three stories high, round with columned terraces on each level, faced with a white marble that caught the early light.
Khat heard people approaching, and a group of twenty or so young men dressed for some athletic pursuit in loose trousers and singlets swarmed onto the far end of the terrace. An older man in formal white Warder robes formed them into lines and started them off on one of the beginning defensive exercises of infighting. Khat debated retreating back into the house or one of the sheltered courts off the terrace, then decided it was safe to stay where he was, as long as he didn’t draw any attention to himself.
After a while, the older Warder left, and Khat studied the practicing infighters critically. Their motions were smooth and fluid, though maybe too fluid, too much like dance and not enough like combat. The result of much practice and little real experience. Their style was different from the one he had learned in the kris Enclave, but then it had to be. The center of body on a kris male was a little lower than the center of body of a Survivor-descended male, either city dweller or pirate, which changed everything about the way you balanced. Oddly enough, the center of body was the same for kris women and Survivor-descended women. The city dwellers, even those who studied infighting, probably didn’t know these interesting facts, but then so few exchanges took place between the Enclave and the cities.
Except for the kris embassy, here for another day at least by Elen’s reckoning.
Khat shook that uncomfortable thought away. He hoped Riathen could be persuaded to hurry; someone in the Academia needed to be warned. If Khat hadn’t been barred from the inner courts after Robelin died, he could have found the scholar in question simply by going in and asking. It was mildly ironic. The Academia had made it more than clear that it wanted nothing to do with him except through the trade entrance, and he was risking all to protect one of its members from a visit from Constans. But I’ve always been an idiot that way, he thought.
“What are you doing here?”
Startled, Khat dug his fingers into the rough stone at the edge of the bench and just managed not to jump. He had forgotten how good Warders could be at sneaking up on people. He looked up at Kythen Seul. “I came with Elen.”
Seul had put his veil aside. His expression was all cool contempt, though his eyes were angry.
There were two other men with him, both young Warders, one blond and so fair-skinned he was reddening under the morning sun, the other dark. Both were dressed in the fine, formal overmantles and robes of the court, their veils pulled aside. The dark one was smiling. He said, “So this is Elen’s pet kris?”
Khat waited for Seul to answer, since the question had apparently been addressed to him. Instead, his voice soft and dangerous, Seul said, “Don’t you know to stand for your betters?”
Khat looked down at the scuffed pavement, then back up at Seul. You asked for this, he told himself. You came here. He said, “Probably not.”
The blond one frowned. His long features were classically Patrician, though the lightness of his skin and hair indicated a lower family. “You heard him. Stand.”
Khat ignored him, keeping his eyes on Seul, who was smiling now. The scene had caught the interest of the other young Warders out on the terrace, and some had stopped their practice, stumbling awkwardly to a halt in the midst of the exercise.
The dark one glanced at Seul. “It’s true, isn’t it? They don’t have souls. I can’t read him at all.”
“Can’t do what?” Khat said, startled into an honest question.
Seul said, mildly, “Of course it’s true. They aren’t any more human than rock demons.”
The blond one was tiresomely persistent. “I said stand up.”
This time Khat did, almost in the young Warder’s face.
Seul didn’t react, but the other two had been expecting him to be about the height of a lower-tier city dweller, and were startled to suddenly be eye-to-eye with him.
Recovering, the blond one said, “It’s none of our business if Elen wants to keep pets, but she shouldn’t bring them up here.”
The other young Warders were drawing up to watch and listen, and it was already too late to retreat. Khat said, “Why don’t you tell Elen that?”
Seul stepped back, still smiling, and turned away. Permission for the other Warders to do whatever they wanted was implicit. Khat felt he could hardly claim to be surprised. He had known Seul was a bastard before this. He was trapped against the wall, any retreat into the house blocked and not a friendly face in sight.
Someone in the group was saying, “Gandin said he’s supposed to be some kind of an infighter. He started a fight with a couple of our lictors, but they didn’t have much trouble with him.”
“Oh, a fighter,” the dark one said with a grin, glancing back at the speaker. “That’s not what I thought they were known for.”
The blond one had to elaborate on this theme. “Maybe he showed the lictors how well he did that, too.”
The humor was about the same level as that demonstrated by lower-tier thugs who roamed the streets looking for people to harass. Too bad Khat couldn’t handle this group in the same fashion, and simply put a knife in the leader’s guts and leave. He said, “Maybe so. Why, is it usually your job?”
More laughter greeted this, but this time at the blond one’s expense. Even his companion grinned derisively, saying “Is it, Therat?”
Therat ignored him, and with an edge in his voice said, “I think we should teach him a lesson.”
“I think we should throw him off the tier,” someone else suggested helpfully.
A few of the apprentice Warders were drifting back to their practice, out of boredom or an excess of common sense. Still, there was a murmur of agreement, uncomfortably loud despite the defections, and Khat felt a prickle of unease go down his spine. He had his knife, but he might as well use it to cut his own throat, because that would certainly be the long-term outcome anyway. Even striking a Patrician could earn him a messy public execution, if Riathen for his own reasons chose not to intervene. And they were only upper-tier bravos; it wasn’t as if they could do anything to him that somebody else hadn’t already done.
