The Quartered Sea (29 page)

"So…" The cool, almost liquid tones confirmed that it had been the xaan's voice he'd heard while lying semiconscious. "
Are
you a warrior of Tulpayotee come to prevent the change?"

There didn't seem to be much point in keeping up the pretense when even the xaan's bath attendants didn't believe in it. "No, peerless one."

"Then who
are
you, Benedikt?"

He wondered what he should tell her. Given what the bath girl knew, he suspected his time with the tul had been thoroughly analyzed by the everyone in this room.

Now, he was a man without a country, or a position, or even the dubious comfort of an uncomfortable situation he'd begun to understand.

He'd heard someone shifting around beside him, but the open-handed blow took him completely by surprise. His head snapped back, and he tasted blood.

Pushing his hair back off his face, Benedikt turned to glare up at the man who'd hit him but instead found his attention caught by the smallest dog he'd ever seen. Mostly white with black marking around eyes and ears, it had a rounded head, bulbous dark eyes, a sharp little muzzle, and legs no longer and much thinner than his fingers. Standing on the edge of the dais, front paws braced, it continued to yap at him until the xaan called it back to her lap. When it turned, Benedikt saw that it was very obviously male and seemed to be making up in some areas what it lacked in overall size.

As the dog settled, the xaan glanced back down at the papers she still held, then fixed him with an impatient frown. "My time is valuable, Benedikt."

"I'm a man, peerless one, from far across the sea." Benedikt forced his voice into a storytelling cadence, using it to distance himself from what had happened. "We had traveled many days from land with nothing but the sea and sky for company when a great storm swept down upon us. The ship was destroyed, and everyone on it drowned except for me. I washed ashore in Petayn. The people of the Kohunlich-tul found me, lying on the sand where the waves had thrown me, and they took me to his compound."

"You speak the language well, considering your short time among us. Better even than some of my own." She smiled toward her cousin.

"I serve my xaan in other ways." Benedikt could hear an answering smile in the cousin's reply and, from the corner of an eye, Benedikt saw him bow. Although of average height, he was so heavily muscled, so broad through the chest and arms, that he seemed short.

"Why do you speak our language so well, Benedikt?"

"I have a gift for languages, peerless one."

"Really? What other
gifts
do you have?"

A woman's voice made a quiet observation, and Benedikt felt his face burn.

"Clearly you have excellent hearing," the xaan declared dryly, then added, "when I want your opinion, Hilieja, I'll ask for it." She swept a serene gaze over the room. "The next person who deliberately embarrasses my young guest loses their tongue." The gaze returned to Benedikt. "I apologize for my cousin's lack of manners. You were about to say?"

Confused by the realization that both statements had been equally true—the Kohunlich-xaan had sincerely apologized and just as sincerely threatened to remove the tongue of a relative—Benedikt stammered, "I Sing, gracious one." He realized what he'd done a heartbeat too late as another backhand, less casual than the first, flung him to the carpets.

"I suppose we should have expected as much," the xaan murmured as he dragged himself back onto one knee. "I'll excuse your error; this time. Don't make it again. Now then, the singing. You sang at sunrise in my brother's house."

"Yes, peerless one." Wiping blood from the corner of his mouth, he wondered how much she'd heard. About the first song? Definitely. The courtyard had been full when he'd finished, there was no chance her spy—spies—could have missed it. Had she heard about the second song, when the god had manifested?

"Worship?" Even to his own ears that protest sounded a little shrill. "I don't worship Tulpayotee, peerless one."

"No, of course not. Or you wouldn't have been willing to pretend to be one of his warriors. That's sacrilege, you know."

Benedikt could hear people moving about, but with his back to the greater part of the room, he couldn't see who. The sound might have been coming from the corner where he'd seen the clump of white robes.

"Not now, Yayan," the xaan sighed. "I'll let you know."

She couldn't have found out about the invocation, Benedikt decided, relief making him feel nauseous again, or she'd have surely said.

"I hear also that the waves obey you."

He had to clench his teeth and swallow bile. Fortunately, his stomach had been empty. She was watching him with nothing more than mild curiosity, but he couldn't shake the feeling she knew exactly how he'd reacted. "Yes, peerless one."

"Obviously not very well, considering what happened to your ship."

As his head jerked up, a large hand came down on his shoulder and closed in a painful warning.
She's right
, Benedikt reminded himself, memory banishing the anger. He watched the xaan watch him, ignoring the response to her jest. When the laughter died, he said, "Obviously not, peerless one."

She nodded once, satisfied, but with what, he had no idea. Under more-or-less-similar circumstances, Tul Altun had said that water was of no use to him. With no knowledge of the kigh, how would the xaan interpret…

The last thing he wanted to do was to sing, here and now, in front of these people and this woman. "I know only simple songs in your language, peerless one."

Running his tongue around the inside of his mouth to gather moisture, Benedikt swallowed and stood. His throat burned from the vomiting, his head ached, and the second blow had left his right cheek swollen and hot. If the xaan wanted him to sing, he'd give her the only song that seemed to fit the circumstances. Fortunately, he'd sung it so many times as he'd traveled toward Elbasan, he could sing it in his sleep.

Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and remembered what Tadeus had told him.

"Keep singing 'The Dark Sailor' if you want to, but remember that when you do you're invoking a desperate desire for home, not a sense of adventure."

A desperate desire for home sounded about right to him.

When he finished, the silence was so complete he could hear the soft whisper of the fans moving through the air. He could feel the connection he'd made with the kigh all around him, could feel tears on his own cheeks that he didn't remember crying.

He opened his eyes to see the xaan staring up at him. The song had touched her, too, but not in the way he'd intended. Power recognized power.

Then, to Benedikt's surprise, she dropped her gaze and absently stroked the small dog on her lap. "You were a performer back in your distant home?"

"Yes, peerless one." He felt calmer than he had in a long time. "Although performing was only part of what we did."

"You can tell me the rest later." This time, when the xaan glanced up at him, Benedikt saw only honest amusement. "I'm not at all surprised my brother planned on using you to better his position. Only a complete idiot would have ignored the opportunity. Who knows, it might have worked. You would have spent the rest of your life living a lie—but he cares little for that.

"Personally, I have no need to better my position, but I could use someone who can occasionally make me forget there are several dozen problems constantly requiring my attention." Her smile suggested weariness although nothing else agreed with the smile. "Will you become a member of my household, Benedikt? Unlike my brother, I can't offer you a large role to play, but I would like it if you sang for me now and then."

Briefly, Benedikt wondered what would happen if he declined the invitation. But only briefly. He wasn't fooling himself that the xaan offered any more choices than the tul did. The only difference he could see, was that the tul had assumed compliance and the xaan had asked for it.

Does that count when the question only has one answer?

Feeling as though he'd been pulled from a rushing tide only to be sucked down by the undertow, Benedikt bowed as gracefully as he was able to in the short sawrap.

"I would be honored, peerless one."

And if it sounded more as if he'd said,
Why fight the inevitable
, no one commented.

"Good. I'll see to it that you're taught some new songs."

* * *

"You'll have to ride covered, Benedikt, I'd rather not have every peasant we pass screaming Tulpayotee and rushing the caravan. You'll have more freedom after the change, of course."

"I understand, peerless one." His hair, divided into six feather entwined braids felt strange and tight, but it was the best indication that he was a part of Xaan Mijandra's household rather than a curiosity to be confined and exhibited.
Xhojee had six braids when he got back from that first meeting with the tul
. He found it difficult to maintain a fatalistic attitude against the xaan's acceptance of him.

Whether he liked it or not, he was starting over.

"Yayan Quanez doesn't approve of how I've dressed you."

The hooded robe he wore was white and identical to that worn by the priests of Xaantalicta only much, much larger. The xaan's tailors had made it while the xaan's barber had been braiding his hair.

The high priest snorted, her breath pushing out the gauze that filled the opening of her hood and masked her face—gauze left off Benedikt's robe. "While I understand the necessity, peerless one, he is not a priest. He violates the symbolism."

The fourth passenger on the platform, the muscle-bound cousin of the xaan, echoed the snort. "How could he be a priest? He's a man."

Benedikt hid a smile. Even the shadowy outlines of Yayan Quanez's face were enough to interpret her expression.

"I know he's a man," she snapped. "That is not the point. When people look at me, they see a representative of Xaantalicta. When they look at him, they see a lie."

"But his face isn't covered."

"That's not the point, Hueru." The crescent moon tattoos on the backs of her hands stretched as she clutched a double handful of white fabric and thrust it toward him. "People see what the robe symbolizes and not what it covers."

"Which is why he wears the robe, Yayan. The symbolism will survive. Yayan Quanez is my mother's sister," the xaan explained, turning to Benedikt. "She's been anticipating the change her whole life, waiting for her god to take ultimate power—it makes her… cranky."

Xaan Mijandra had a very different relationship with her priests than the tul had, Benedikt realized as the high priest muttered behind her gauze. But then the oomans were about all the companionship the tul had.