Lord of the White Hell book Two lotwh-2 (11 page)

Kiram nodded, though he wasn't really sure which of his weaknesses he should be concerned about. He knew he was demanding and suspected that he was a little spoiled and maybe that he had a tendency to discredit opinions that he did not hold. To that end, he added, "Javier doesn't think Holy Father Habalan controls the curse."

"I suppose he thinks the curse is divine retribution for his terrible sin," Rafie murmured.

"No, he just doesn't think Habalan has the intelligence or cunning to kill the entire Tornesal family without being caught," Kiram said hotly, instantly ready to defend Javier. "I just thought I should tell you what he thinks. Javier has done enough penance to know the holy father well and he's been living with this curse his entire life."

"Who does Javier think is controlling the shadow curse?" Alizadeh asked.

"He doesn't know." Kiram hung his head.

"Well, really, it could be anyone," Rafie said. "Even someone you've never seen. Some groom at the academy with a secret lineage and a claim to the Tornesal line. We've seen it happen before."

Alizadeh cocked his head thoughtfully. "True, but a shadow curse requires very exact knowledge and spiritual training. I still favor the holy father."

Kiram nodded his agreement.

A brassy bell chimed and Kiram realized that someone had come to the door. Rafie rose to see who had come calling and a moment later he returned with Kiram's brother Majdi. He held a small oil lamp and waved Kiram over to him. One look at Majdi told Kiram that he was here to escort him home.

Kiram quickly wished Alizadeh and Rafie a good evening. Out on the street Majdi handed the lamp to Kiram.

"Do you think we could stop by the quill shop? I want to buy some papers for letters."

"Not tonight. Mum needs your wisdom back at home." Majdi smirked. "Apparently she's arranged for several esteemed, business colleagues to meet you and discuss Cadeleonian tastes."

"What am I supposed to know about it?" Kiram complained, still feeling the emotion of his conversation with Rafie and Alizadeh.

"Nothing," Majdi assured him. "She just wants them all to see that her son has attended the Sagrada Academy and knows all the most important Cadeleonian nobles. She used to have a little dog she showed off the same way."

"By sending it to the Sagrada Academy?"

Majdi laughed out loud at this. "It was a little runty thing, sort of ugly, but she loved it and it was pretty clever. So she was always having the dog perform tricks and the like. You know, so that other people could see why she loved it so much."

Kiram wasn't sure if he should be touched or insulted at being compared to a clever, ugly and beloved dog. The two of them walked along the dusky streets.

"Kiram!" A man called from the shadows of a nearby house. The man held up a lamp and Kiram recognized him at once.

"Musni!" Kiram smiled at the sight of him, though an instant later he thought he probably shouldn't have, judging from Majdi's frown.

Musni bounded across the street, his lamp swinging wildly and scattering shadows as if they were startled birds.

"Kiram! Well met." Musni threw an arm around Kiram, embracing him. Kiram returned the hug, but it was awkward, with both of them holding burning lamps. Drops of flaming oil fell and sizzled at their feet.

"You look good," Kiram said and it was the truth. Even in the dim lamp light, Kiram could see that the last few months had only added to the muscular swell of Musni's chest and deepened his complexion to healthy bronze. The pale ringlets of his hair flashed like gold as the flames of the lamps flickered. His smile was so inviting and his touch so welcome that Kiram could almost ignore the broad band of gold on Musni's right forefinger. But the bracelet adorning his wrist was another matter.

The sight-what it meant-made Kiram's chest ache. He tried to keep smiling but he felt suddenly cold.

"I should congratulate you." Kiram indicated the bracelet. "A father already?"

Musni seemed to blanch. "We should go somewhere and… talk."

"He's needed at home." Majdi shouldered his way between the two of them.

"My mother," Kiram said by way of explanation. "You know how she is."

Musni nodded.

"There's going to be a party for my return," Kiram added quickly as Majdi took the lamp from him and began to walk away. "The day after tomorrow. Come, will you?"

"I'll try to make it," Musni replied.

Kiram turned and ran to catch up with his brother.

"Welcome back!" Musni shouted after him.

Kiram watched over his shoulder as Musni and his lamp fell back into the darkness of the narrow streets and walled houses.

"He's married, now," Majdi said.

"And a father, I know," Kiram replied. "But he's also my friend."

Majdi sighed heavily. "Sometimes you're so smart that it makes you stupid."

"What's that supposed, to mean?"

"Just what I said," Majdi replied. "You're so smart and so used to being right that you can't recognize when you're wrong about something."

"But you can?" Kiram asked.

"About this? Yes. I've been around a lot longer than you and I've seen this kind of thing before. I know about men like Musni."

Kiram frowned at his brother. His expression was hard and closed, almost Cadeleonian in its control. The two of them passed the empty square of the flower market and then began up Gold Street. Above them the slim crescent of the moon looked faint and fragile.

"So what do you know that I don't?" Kiram asked at last. Majdi stopped beside one of the flowering almond trees. He reached up and picked a cluster of the white blossoms.

"It's not his wife or even his child that worries me, though I'll deny it if you tell Mum as much. I know plenty of sailors who have an abundance of both and still take men as their lovers." Majdi rolled the flowers between his fingers, then tossed them into the gutter. "Musni's not like them. He's angry about the choice he's made and he won't take responsibility for it. So now he's rebelling, keeping company with street snakes in smoke alleys and getting into fights. He's made some poor decisions and I just wouldn't want to see you mixed up in his mistakes. That's all."

"I won't get mixed up," Kiram assured his brother, but Majdi still didn't look happy.

"I'm not a fool, Kiram. Musni's handsome enough to make me prick up and notice him and you two were lovers. You aren't likely to keep away from him."

"Would it make you feel any better to know that I've been seeing someone else?"

"Who? You've only been back a day." Majdi frowned at Kiram. "Not Vashir?"

"No, not anyone here." Kiram said.

"Who then? Not one of those Cadeleonians?"

Kiram simply took the lamp back from his brother and led on to their house.

"Not the plump one you wrote about, is it?" Majdi guessed. "Or the one with a child's mind? You haven't taken up with a simpleton, have you?"

Kiram laughed but refused to confirm or deny anything.

The rest of the evening passed pleasantly enough. Kiram described the clothes he'd seen Cadeleonian nobles wearing and admired samples of beautifully dyed silks. Later he drank a little mulled wine with his father while the two of them tinkered with the pump his father was building.

When he retired to his bed, he slept heavily. He dreamed of dark troubling forms and then of a warm, strong body lying beside his own. He woke in the pale chill of dawn with an intense awareness of Javier's absence.

Fortunately, he was not given time or freedom to brood on his loneliness. His father claimed him most of the day to assist in grinding down the gears for a clockwork fountain that had been commissioned by a Cadeleonian spice merchant. The work absorbed Kiram and soothed his restless thoughts. By the time he took his lunch, his muscles were loose and tired from lifting and filing metal and his mind bristled with dozens of minute measurements he'd taken with his father's fine steel calipers.

He joined Dauhd, shopping in the markets after lunch. Once he thought he glimpsed Musni, his trousers slung low and his muscular chest bare, grappling with another man in the shadows of a doorway. Dauhd quickly called Kiram's attention to the newly printed broadsheet containing the announcement of Nestor's imminent wedding. Kiram entertained her, and later his mother, by explaining the circumstances of the marriage. By the end his mother seemed to have taken a liking to Nestor for his loyalty.

Garlands of flowers arrived and the entire family and house staff worked through the evening, hanging them in the ballroom and hallways in preparation for the following night's dance.

The next day distant relatives arrived early. As a dutiful, youngest son, Kiram greeted them and thanked them for the gifts they brought. He found himself answering the same questions again and again, describing the rigors of Cadeleonian battle training as well as the horrors of their dismal winter meals. His aunts laughed while his cousins looked on with expressions ranging from amusement to jealousy.

Then merchants and council women arrived with their eligible nephews and sons in tow. Kiram's throat began to feel dry and he grew tired of repeating Javier's name when asked who he had roomed with.

More than once Kiram slipped away to the courtyard gardens to escape the attention, but as evening approached, the sky darkened and a downpour of rain drove him back inside.

By that time, musicians had set up in the ballroom and the guests seemed happy to eat from the banquet tables and mix with one another. They were all well dressed but not in Cade- leonian fashion. None of them powdered their hair black, nor did they sprinkle their bodies with gold dust. Both men and women wore strings of beads in their braided hair and most of the children sported crowns of brilliant paper flowers. Many of the younger men, Kiram included, wore short, ornate vests which left their arms and a slim line of their abdomens bare. Most women wore longer vests over their full trousers and sported large earrings.

Kiram noted that more than a few eligible sons were already enjoying each other's company despite their parents' frowns. Among them Kiram caught sight of Vashir, flirting with the Lif- Zibhan twins. Hashiem Kir-Naham smiled at Kiram from across the room and though Kiram returned his smile, he did not make his way closer to the man.

As the first strains of a familiar song sounded Kiram hurried to the polished dance floor. He linked his little fingers with dancers on either side of him. In moments two long lines were formed and then the music roared out.

Kiram rushed and skipped through the quick steps as the lines crossed and circled. He turned, clapped hands, turned again and almost clapped his palms into his little nephew's forehead. The boy hopped up to slap Kiram's palms and the both laughed and rushed on to the next steps. The musicians doubled the tempo. Kiram and his fellow dancers rushed to keep up, nearly tripping over each other's feet and missing half the claps. Older men and women looking on laughed, as did most of the dancers.

By the time the first dance ended Kiram and his nephew were giggling at each other's harried performances. In the line across from them Dauhd and a young man in a Civic Guard uniform slapped each other on the back in congratulation, both of them having kept perfect time.

Several dancers left the floor to find food and drinks at one of the long banquet tables or to lounge in the comfort of the Cadeleonian-style couches and chairs, but Kiram danced on. He loved the speed and rhythm, the heat and excitement. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed it until now. As the tunes changed Kiram reeled and spun through familiar steps. To his joy someone brought out a set of six red twig brooms. While elderly couples and groups of children held the brooms, Kiram and his fellow dancers leaped over them and wriggled under them. As often as not they got swatted across their butts.

Majdi howled and played up the indignity as did Siamak. Kiram however remained intent upon passing through the brooms unscathed. His fellow dancers bowed out after a few whacks but Kiram leaped and dodged the brooms. Soon his giggling nieces chased him with wooden spoons and Majdi yelled encouragements. He managed three passes perfectly unscathed before his sister Dauhd lunged in and smacked a broom into his buttocks. Kiram did her the compliment of yelping and falling to the floor. His nieces and nephew threw themselves on top of him, attempting to pin him with their tiny hands. Kiram feigned resistance until Dauhd placed her broom on his chest and proclaimed her triumph.

By the time Kiram got to his feet everyone in the ballroom was laughing, even the musicians. Hashiem Kir-Naham stepped to Kiram's side and offered him a glass of mulled honey wine.

"You're quite quick," Hashiem commented.

"Thankyou," Kiram replied. He didn't know what else to say to the other man. He sipped his wine.

"Have you ever danced Cadeleonian style?"

"No, I've seen it done but never had the chance myself."

"I'll speak to the musicians." Hashiem touched his hand as if reassuring him. "Cadeleonian pair dancing has been quite popular lately, so I'm sure they'll know a few songs."

"There's no need to do that," Kiram said but Hashiem just smiled at him in an indulgent manner and then strode across the room to where the brilliantly-dressed musicians stood.

Just past the musicians Kiram caught sight of the young boy who kept watch at the front gate in the evening. Rainwater dribbled off his oiled hood and his expression was one of anxiety.

"Master Kiram!" the boy shouted and the entire ballroom went suddenly quiet. "There's a man at the gate and he's demanding to see you and he doesn't have an invitation and he won't go away!"

Kiram heard more than one voice hiss Musni's name. Kiram glanced to his mother and noted her scowl as well as his father's deep frown. Majdi just shook his head at Kiram.

"I'll take care of this," Kiram said, hoping that somehow everyone would return to the festivities and ignore him while he talked to Musni.

As Kiram strode out of the ballroom he heard footsteps behind him and knew that members of his family as well as curious guests followed him. He refused to look back. He borrowed the boy's lamp and rain cloak, then rushed out into the downpour, leaving a pack of witnesses peering after him from the doorway.