The Quartered Sea (44 page)

Xaan Mijandra explained the supplies when she sent for him that night. "You mentioned once, at a meal, that you could read and write."

So he wasn't the only one who recalled the conversations she might have missed. "Only in my own language, peerless one."

He knew that but he'd been hoping he could, if not change the subject, move it sideways. Wishing he could risk using Voice, he spread his hands and said as calmly as he was able, "Peerless one, I swore an oath not to use my abilities to harm others."

"Fortunately," she continued, "you won't be harming others. You'll just be moving a bit of water out of the way." Her mouth curved up into something that roughly resembled a smile. "Where's the harm in that?"

"It's the intent, peerless one."

Her expression no longer resembled a smile in any way. "My intentions are none of your concern. Your job is to provide me with access to Balankanche before the end of the rainy season."

And if he didn't do what she wanted, what happened then? Did he lose everything? If, when he moved the flood from the causeway, someone had shoved an enemy into the wall of water and drowned them, was that his responsibility? If all he did was move a bit of water out of the way… "It would help if I had an instrument, peerless one."

"I'll send an instrument maker to you tomorrow."

Xhojee didn't come to the window at sunrise although Benedikt waited on his balcony until he was almost late for the morning meal.

Talk around his table centered on one of the junior priests who'd gone into convulsions the night before after eating from a bowl of deep-fried duck intestines.

"You know how the gauze kind of dangles while they eat?" one of the guard Seconds asked as she passed Benedikt a bowl of steamed egg and beans. "She ripped it right off her face."

"Wonder what they used for a marinade," the senior record keeper snickered.

"We're not entirely sure," the junior physician answered seriously. "Physician Otypez is still running tests."

"Why would someone want to poison a junior priest?" Benedikt wondered, appalled.

The others at the table turned as one, and stared.

The Second recovered first. "They weren't trying to poison the priest, you hairy moron, they were trying to poison the xaan."

"The dish was intended for the xaan's table, but she decided she didn't want it," the record keeper explained. "So she sent it to the priests."

"The strange thing is," the physician said, leaning forward slightly, "the karjen who tastes the xaan's food had no reaction."

"Didn't taste
that
," snorted the Second.

"Did," the physician corrected. "And the xaan made him finish the whole bowl. Nothing. Otypez thinks it was a poison targeted specifically to the xaan, and the priest just happened to be sensitive to the same thing."

The Second looked as though she didn't believe a word of it. "Question is, how'd it get into the food? The peerless one should've had more than one of the kitchen staff punished."

"Punished?" Benedikt repeated.

"Yeah." The record keeper sighed. "And with the change so close and both halves of all the great houses full, do you have any idea how hard it's going to be to replace that man with someone reliable?"

"Bet the priest'll be replacing the taster," the guard offered.

The junior physician looked doubtful. "
If
she regains consciousness."

"But she's a priest," Benedikt protested.

Everyone seemed to think that was very funny and he realized that although these were the people in the household he knew the best—there weren't many six to eight braids, it was too many for servants and too few for family, and they not only shared a table but a bath—he didn't know them at all. He felt a little like the priest must have, choking on something everyone else could eat with pleasure.

Glancing the length of the room, he saw the xaan nod as she sipped her tea, a minimal, businesslike gesture in response to whatever Hueru was telling her.

She'd put the survivors of Balankanche in the mines and Hueru in charge of the survivors. He'd enjoy that.

"I spent the day in the herbarium," the physician noted, spreading honey thickly on a small, round biscuit. "Who do they think is responsible for the poisoning?"

The Second shrugged, reaching across the table for the last piece of baked banana. "It was probably the tul, but there's only one way for most us to know for certain." The others waited while she chewed and swallowed. "Just keep an eye on the other houses until someone dies."

"
That
could just as easily be a family quarrel as retaliation," the record keeper stopped eating long enough to point out. "I wonder if it was Hilieja. She is the Xaan's heir, and she just had her tongue notched."

"So what
were
you doing in the herbarium?" The senior record keeper leaned over and pointedly poked the junior physician in the shoulder. "Looking for a
seasoning
the tul's people couldn't trace?"

Everyone thought that was pretty funny, too.

Benedikt thought that no one in the household of the Kohunlich-xaan would have any trouble with any part of the invasion of Balankanche.

Was he or was he not a member of the household? And if he wasn't, what was he?

* * *

The instrument maker had a set of multi-reed pipes essentially identical to the set Benedikt had lost with the sinking of the
Starfarer
and, after a spirited discussion over the many possible types of stringed instruments, seemed determined to attempt a quintara.

"It's only a bigger
okalie
, yes?"

"You have your instrument, Benedikt." The xaan cast a dubious look at the pipes. "Now get to work. I expect a return on my investment."

With a Song of Sorquizic caroling in his head, Benedikt went back to the fountain. He needed a friend. He needed someone to tell him what they thought he should do.

What would Bannon do
? he asked, watching the kigh dance down from the uppermost basin.

Survive.

But the survivors would go to the mines.

He turned the pipes over in his hands, passing them back and forth, learning their weight and feel so that he could better find their song. For the first time since he'd washed ashore, he missed his old pipes, but the differences between the old and new were barely noticeable—more in decoration than construction. Each reed had been stained a different color and even the leather bindings were dyed.

Finally raising the pipes to his mouth, he blew a tentative scale. They had a good sound. A bit breathy, but he was willing to allow that might be a weakness in technique. It had
been
a while.

He let the music wander where it would, noting, out of habit, some bit of melody he might make use of later, but mostly just playing what he felt. It wasn't a very happy tune.

Even the fountain seemed to have slowed in response.

When he looked up a short time later, he realized he had an audience. Showing off a little, he added a chorus of "Three Dancing Pigs," then lowering the pipes, smiled. "Hello, Herexi."

"That's 'cause the peerless one gave you eight of them," Herexi snorted. "I'm not sayin' it wasn't pretty, though. Just sad. Those yours?" She jerked a pointed chin toward his lap.

He grinned, remembering their last conversation.

"Yeah, these are
my
pipes. Have you found yours?"

The girl drew herself up to her full height. This put them pretty much eye to eye, although Benedikt had remained sitting. "I," she said proudly, "am a training pipe attendant. When I get my braid, I'll be a junior pipe attendant."

"Congratulations."

"The pipes in this place are so great," she confided. "I thought the country house had pipes but not like here. Pipes all over. Like for this fountain, they go right down under the garden. There's these old tunnels under the house where you go to fix them. Tunnels even older than the house—from the olden days. One of the junior pipe attendants, he told me that they go out under the square and to all the great houses 'cause there used to be a temple to Peta where the square is now and the olden days people used to use the tunnels to get there. I get to go in them a lot 'cause some of them are small and I'm smallest."

"Olden-days tunnels must be dark and scary."

She glanced around, as if making sure Benedikt would be the only one to hear such a confession. "A little." Then she shrugged and the grin returned. "But it's part of doin' the pipes. So, if you don't mind…"

When Benedikt indicated she should go ahead, Herexi balanced one-legged on the lowest basin, her bad foot dangling down as a counterweight, and jabbed her fingers into the fountain's source between the two stone hands. Her brow furrowed, and she jabbed again.

The water began falling faster and Benedikt realized the slowing had been a mechanical problem—a pipe problem—and nothing to do with his song.

She paused and looked back at him. His ears started to burn as he realized she was looking back in sympathy. He didn't need her sympathy, the xaan had given him eight braids.

That wasn't the kind of friends he needed. He needed someone who could give him advice, not a half grown ex-bath attendant with a plumbing fixation.

The xaan went to the palace that afternoon, so Benedikt ate his evening meal in his room, then blew out his lamp and went to sit on the tiny balcony, staring at the tul's half of the house. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could make out the dark gray-on-gray rectangle of Xhojee's window—not that it did him any good, the two halves of House Kohunlich were no closer in the dark than in the daylight.

"I don't want to do it," he admitted and could almost hear Xhojee answer,
So? What you want has nothing to do with what the xaan commands. Wouldn't you obey the commands of your, what was that word, queen?

"No. Not a command like that, not one that would result in the slaughter of a whole people. The bards of Shkoder take oaths."

First, you're not in Shkoder. Second, you're not a bard, you're the xaan's
—
well, I don't know what she calls you, but you're hers. The xaan's reaction is likely to be a whole lot different than your queen's
.

Benedikt sighed and sagged back against the cool stone of the wall. "You're a lot of help."

His choices were simple. He could do what the xaan wanted, help her conquer another people, and secure his place high in House Kohunlich. Or he could refuse.

He could hear singing, very faintly, from the kitchens—probably the cook who'd found the time to give him three songs while they were on the road. For all his size, he sang a pure, light tenor that reminded Benedikt of Tadeus. Back in Shkoder, he'd have taken his pipes down to the kitchens and the two of them would have made music long into the night. In Petayn, karjet didn't socialize with karjen.