The Quartered Sea (55 page)

"What about his voice?" Ooman Xhai leaned past his tul and clutched at the physician's robe. "Can he still sing?"

"He hasn't done any singing since he arrived last night so I couldn't say, although his speaking voice seems much as I remember it."

The priest clasped his hands together and sighed. "Tulpayotee is merciful to his warrior."

"Not that
I've
noticed," Imixara observed with thinly veiled contempt.

Imixara's lips thinned and she spent a moment deliberately provoking the tul with her silence. She hadn't approved of the way he'd exposed himself by coming to Atixlan and she used every opportunity to remind him of that. Finally she said, "Bent, gracious one, but not broken, or he would have never made it back to you. Go carefully if you want to make use of him."

"The rest?" An edged gesture moving Xhojee aside, Tul Altun walked to the head of the bed and frowned at Benedikt. "The rest I could work around, but not this! This ruins everything." Drawing in a deep breath, the tul closed his eyes for a moment and visibly forced himself calm. "You owe me, Benedikt. I, the Kohunlich-tul, had to go to the tuls of two lesser houses and convince them to keep quiet about a plan
I
had approached them to support. Fortunately, they had no wish to come to the attention of the Kohunlich-xaan." He glanced up, toward the window and his sister's half of the house, then back down at the karjo she'd sent him. "What am I supposed to do with you?"

"Gracious one…"

"Quiet. The physician said I was to be careful." Almost to himself, he added, "I wonder what
she
thought I was going to do." Reaching down, he stroked his palm lightly over the golden stubble.

Staring up at the ceiling, Benedikt tried not to tremble. He had no defenses left against gentleness, not even gentleness intended to provoke.

Fingers cradling the soft, round curve of the other man's skull, Tul Altun turned Benedikt to face him, catching his gaze and holding it. "You can't be my warrior of Tulpayotee, you're just not golden anymore. The tulparax would never believe in you."

"But he can call up the god, gracious one!" Ooman Xhai shifted his weight from foot to foot on the other side of the bed. "He can sing in the temple and call up the god."

Ignoring his high priest, the tul continued speaking quietly to Benedikt. "Even if you could sing Tulpayotee right into the bed of the tulparax, you wouldn't get the chance because, more importantly, the people around the tulparax wouldn't believe in you. And looking like you do now, if we smuggled you into the temple, you wouldn't sing out two notes before you were brutally silenced."

"Your priests could protect him, gracious one."

This time, the tul looked up. "The four I brought to Atixlan against the priests of the Great Temple? Do you have some
connection
with Grand Ooman Cuauhtemoc you haven't mentioned?"

Maintaining his grip on Benedikt's head, Tul Altun waited until he heard the bell before continuing. "In spite of what Ooman Xhai seems to think, you're of no use to me. My sister, however, clearly wants you." There was a hint of desperation in the tul's dark gaze. "What would she give me to get you back?"

Benedikt swallowed and didn't answer.

"Wouldn't it be worth keeping him just to annoy her, gracious one?"

"Would it?" Smiling tightly at Xhojee, Tul Altun straightened and flicked the sleeve of his robe back into place. They all knew that if the xaan decided to move against him, the tul wouldn't have the resources to stop her. "If she wants him badly enough, she might be grateful."

"He brought you the tunnels, gracious one."

"Yes, the tunnels. How interesting that no one in my household seemed to know they were there. Now they're found, do I fill them in, so preventing my sister from using them against me, or do I clear them out, so I can use them against her. Your return…" Sarcasm weighted the words. "… as welcome as it may be to Xhojee and Ooman Xhai, is not without problems, Benedikt."

As the dark gaze settled on his face, Benedikt had the strangest impression he was looking into a pool of still water and seeing a reflection of a familiar despair, of a man very near the end of his resources. With the death of the tulparax, the Kohunlich-xaan would move quickly to replace her brother with her son, and in Tul Altun's eyes was the certain knowledge there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Benedikt felt as though he'd been struggling in high seas and had unexpectedly discovered he could touch bottom. "If you return me to your sister, she'll see it as a sign of weakness," he said softly.

He wondered if the tul even noticed they were speaking as equals. "I can give you the power you need to survive the change."

The tul stiffened. "Xhojee, out." When they were alone, he turned the full force of his attention on Benedikt. "You can give me my sister?"

"No, gracious one." No longer weighted by intimidation, Benedikt pulled himself up to a sitting position and drew in a deep breath, tasting the cinnamon scent that had come into the room with the tul. "I can give you Balankanche."

"You told me you sang water." The tul stared down at the bowl where only moments before the contents had divided themselves into four equal parts. His mouth thinned as he transferred his gaze to Benedikt's face. "You should have told me what it meant."

"You stopped me from doing so, gracious one."

"So?"

Even given their new relationship, there really wasn't a safe answer to that. "It didn't mean anything until I learned the Song of Sorquizic."

"But you would have learned it for
me
, had I known."

The protest had an edge Benedikt hastened to dull.

"You wanted a warrior of Tulpayotee, gracious one, not a bard of Shkoder."

"I did, didn't I." The tul's lip curled. "I should have let the Ooman stay, he'd have named you a warrior of Sorquizic instead." Without looking down, he pushed at the bowl with his foot. "You can do this to the barrier?"

"Yes."

"It makes no difference," he snarled as the water spilled and spread over the tile floor. "Unlike my sister, I have no fleet."

"You don't
need
a fleet, gracious one." Benedikt wondered if assuming conquest was a family trait or a national one. "I'll take us through the barrier on the single ship. You'll negotiate a treaty with the islanders and then return to the Tulparax with a way for him to get his hands on the gold of Balankanche."

"But not all of it," Tul Altun protested.

"More than he has now."

The tul nodded reluctantly, alternately crushing a feather and fluffing it out again. "True enough. But what makes you think the islanders won't kill me on sight?"

"Gracious one, they're as locked on that island as you are locked away from it. I guarantee there will be those open to trade. The rich and powerful are always open to more wealth and power, and you'll be the way they'll get it. You'll be the way the Tulparax gets it. And you'll get a good bit yourself."

Brows drawn in, the tul studied Benedikt for a long moment. "And what's in it for you?"

"When you return to Atixlan, you'll leave me on the island."

"Do I look like a fool!" Throwing the feather aside, Tul Altun got to his feet in a billowing cloud of multicolored silk and glared down at the younger man. "I leave you on that island, and I'll never get through the barrier again."

"I think the islanders would have something to say about that, gracious one, after having promised them the riches of trade."

"No. I want you with me. You're too valuable to let out of my sight."

"I'm too valuable to risk losing." He had to stop his hand from rising to touch the new bandage over his eye. "Balankanche is the one place where your sister can't get to me."

And they both knew she'd try.

"Suppose she gets to me?"

For all the careless way the tul tossed off the question, Benedikt realized he actually needed an answer. "You need to get to the island and back before the tulparax dies. The balance of power will shift in your favor."

"The Tulparax could die any time. What if it doesn't shift quickly enough?"

"Then ask yourself what would the Xaantalax rather have, the goodwill of the Kohunlich-xaan or the gold you'll bring into her treasury? I'll open the barrier for you alone." When the tul hesitated, Benedikt added, "You might also point out to her how very powerful the Kohunlich-xaan has gotten and how it isn't unheard of
for houses to rise and for other houses to fall
."

Tul Altun's eyes widened. "That could have been my sister's voice."

"That
was
your sister's voice."

"She said as much to you?"

"She didn't expect me to leave."

For the first time since he'd entered the room, the tul smiled. "No. She didn't. But how to make the xaantalax believe…"

"It shouldn't take much." Benedikt found himself returning the smile just because it had been so long since someone had smiled at him. His cheeks felt stiff. "You people are always trying to kill each other; that's got to make her just a little paranoid. The prospect of all that gold should get you an audience at least."

"It should," the tul agreed. Then his smile slipped into something more speculative. "You've changed."

Benedikt shrugged and tried to keep any real emotion from showing in his voice. "I had to rebuild what I thought of as myself after your sister took my eye. If I wanted to hold together, I didn't have time to use anything but the strongest pieces."

"And now you offer this new, more definitive, you to me. Why?"

The question burned. Tul Altun was both intrigued and flattered, and Benedikt felt the muscles across his back relax. "You're the only chance I have," he said simply. "Just as I'm the only chance you have."

"I'd kill or maim you just as easily as she would if it suited me."

"But not as coldly."

After a long moment the tul nodded and wrapped warm fingers around Benedikt's wrist. "No. Not coldly." It was an acknowledgment, if only a momentary one, to an equal. "We have to move quickly before my sister does. She knows you're here."

"She has a
spy
..." Unable to think of the Petayn word, he used the Shkoden. "… one of her people in your house."

"I know. So much easier to keep the old eyes and ears than remove him and have to go looking for his replacement." He shot Benedikt a disdainful glance as he moved away from the bed. "Try and remember that I have survived this long without you."