The Seven-Petaled Shield (26 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said, for naming the owl and the bread would be impertinent at best, “I don’t recognize any of this.” She touched a fingertip to the center of the table and held it up, smeared with grime. “Except the dust.”

Jaxar shrugged. “Ah, it was too much to hope for. At least, you can help me keep the place a bit cleaner. I have always wondered where the dust comes from…. Do you know?” He paused, as if hoping for an answer, then shrugged again. “It is said the Meklavarans teach their women to read. Is that true?”

“Yes, of course.” Tsorreh frowned, a little taken aback that there should even be a question. Certainly, there were uneducated people in every land, including her own.

“Excellent!” Jaxar brightened. “Then you can help me with note-keeping and those infernal letters. How about translation?” He settled himself on a bench. “There’s a stack of books on the shelf behind you. Read a little of each
one aloud to me. In the original and then translate into Gelone, if you can.”

Tsorreh picked up the topmost volume and turned it over, feeling the weight of it, noticing the water-stained leather covers. Opening it to a random page, she recognized the angular Denariyan script, and sighed, for although she could understand it well enough, her pronunciation was terrible. Still, she took a breath and, as Eavonen had repeatedly urged her, tried to think of her voice coming out the top of her head. It was a treatise on the magical properties of crystals. Jaxar stopped her after half a page.

The second volume, to her relief, was in Gelone, and described the proper methods for training onagers for various uses. The language was simple enough for even a soldier, and she found herself interested in the description of the beasts best suited to riding, pulling a cart, or even warfare. Jaxar let her read on for a few pages.

She could make nothing of the next book, save for a few phrases in Gelone. It was so old, the ink had faded to illegibility in places. She made out numbers and strange symbols, like those on the papers on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t know what these mean.”

Jaxar sighed. “Alas, neither do I. That is a copy of an even older text, Isarran from the shape of the numerals.”

“I can read Isarran and write it as well.”

“Let us hope another version shows up, one you can make sense of.”

She reached for the next book, the last but one, a slender volume bound in what had once been beautiful cream-colored leather. It bore the same traces of water damage as the others, but, unlike them, had seen harsh handling. The covers opened easily, the pages separating as if they had been recently read.

Tsorreh’s breath froze in her throat. She could not speak. She would have known the phrases of the
Shirah Kohav
anywhere.

“Where—where did you get this?” she whispered, hardly able to hear her own words above the sound of her heart. Of course, she thought haltingly, Jaxar had recited one of these very same verses at the audience before Cinath, and she had completed it. He must have learned it from this very same volume, for how many more could there be so far from home?

Through tear-blurred eyes, she saw him bend over her, his movement unexpectedly graceful, the bulk of his ungainly body comforting. Gentle hands lifted the book from her. “Of course you can read this. It’s your own language.”

She felt rather than saw him straighten up. He read,

Something gave way within her. The tears spilled over her cheeks. Her breath stuttered and great shuddering sobs came boiling up from the very core of her. She covered her face with both hands, as if her fingers could contain all the nameless emotions within her. It had been so long since she’d wept. All she was, all she felt, was pain too great to be contained within. It split her open in a thousand jagged cuts, grief pouring out.

“Come this way.”

She took a few shambling steps and allowed herself to be lowered onto a bench and pulled close. Jaxar wrapped her in his arms. Her body felt all bones and eggshells. She rocked with weeping.

“You’ve had a hard time of it, child. I can’t imagine how difficult it’s been, losing your family and your home, fleeing all the way to Gatacinne. And then to be captured and
brought here, and that dreadful scene with my brother. Any man would be broken, who had to bear half so much.”

Isolated words echoed through her, sparking memory:
Your family, your home.
Zevaron
…

“You are safe with me,” Jaxar murmured. “No harm will come to you if I can prevent it.”

Safe.
Where was there safety in all this blood-drenched world?

As if in response, she felt a kernel of warmth deep within her chest, a beacon through the swirling loss and pain. With it came a shimmer of astonishing tranquility, like clear, cool water in the desert.

Her heart beat steadily, like the slow inexorable movement of a tide. The ordinary sounds of the day swirled around her, distant voices, birds singing in the garden, the clank and clatter of housekeeping tasks. She raised her head. The moment of clarity fell away, leaving an awkward, almost embarrassing awareness that she had been embraced, as a child is embraced, by a man she barely knew—her jailor, her guardian, perhaps someday her friend?

“Father, please come,” came a voice from across the room, a boy’s clear voice. “Mother’s all in a dither over some slave and demands to see her immediately, if not sooner.”

Tsorreh lifted her head, sweeping away tears with the back of one hand, and saw the speaker. Not a child, but a boy on the brink of manhood, he could not have been more than a year from Zevaron’s age. The light from the corridor behind him cast his features into shadow, so that all she saw was a slender, well-formed body, knee-length belted tunic, and a shock of curls.

“Oh!” the boy said. “Please excuse me.”

“It’s all right,” Jaxar said. “Come in and meet my new assistant.”

The boy stepped into the room, and the light shifted, revealing a pleasant, open face framed by red-gold hair.

“This is my son, Danar.”

Tsorreh did not know what form of greeting might be appropriate. She inclined her head, as if she were being introduced
to a noble youth of her own class. Danar bowed deeply in return.

“And this is Tsorreh,” Jaxar continued. “She’s from Meklavar, where she was once a queen. She’s better educated than ten of you put together, so you’d best show proper respect for her. And she is most definitely not a slave.”

“Please forgive me, I meant no offense,” Danar said to Tsorreh. He looked at her with disarming curiosity.

“Then I will take none,” Tsorreh said.

Reaching for his crutch, Jaxar heaved himself to his feet. “You can rehearse better manners while I’m gone. I’ll see what I can do to settle Lycian. Once Tsorreh has regained her composure, bring her along to the garden.”

Tsorreh stood silently while Jaxar hobbled from the room. She could not think what to say to this young man, who reminded her so poignantly of her own son.

Danar bent toward her and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Mother’s not allowed in here, which is why she sent me. When she and Father were first married, she insisted on helping him, or so Issios—he’s our household steward—tells me, and, well…there was a big explosion.
Really
big. It took the servants
weeks
to clean it up. Now Father won’t even let her through the door.”

A bubble of something like laughter rose up behind Tsorreh’s throat.

“Is it true you can read five different languages? That’s what the servants are saying.” Danar picked up an empty flask and ran his fingers over the smoothly rounded glass. “You don’t look old enough to be a scholar. Is it a secret of the mountain folk, some magic in the water?”

Tsorreh managed to keep a straight face. “In my country, every well-born child learns to read and write both modern Meklavaran and the holy languages. We are such a small land and we depend on trade, so everyone must study at least some Gelone and Denariyan, and trade-dialect Azkhantian, if they can.” Seeing the boy’s astonishment, she subsided. “Besides, I am not all that young. I have a son,” her tongue stumbled on the word, “of your years.”

“That cannot be possible!” Danar said, wide-eyed.

“Oh, indeed. You are what, fourteen? I had already borne Zevaron when I was your age.” The syllables of his name echoed through her, and her heart resonated with aching.

“Was he—” Danar said, his young features suddenly solemn, “was he slain when Meklavar fell?”

Tsorreh shook her head. “No, we fled the city together, and he was well when I last saw him. We were separated during the battle at Gatacinne. I hold in my heart the hope that he escaped, although I do not know where he might have gone. I miss him, I…pray for his safety.”

“You pray? To which god?”

“Why, to the only one: the Most Holy, the Source of Blessings.”

Danar set down the round-bellied flask and shrugged. “I think there are as many gods in Gelon as there are donkeys. Forgive me if I’m blasphemous, but Father says it’s all nonsense. He believes in only what he can see and measure.”

He strode over to Tsorreh’s bench and sat beside her, even as Zevaron might have. “He’s always scandalizing Mother with such talk, and
she’s
always looking for a new shrine. I think if a talking water-pig would give her a son, she’d worship it.”

“Danar, is it wise to speak so frankly of your parents, and to someone you barely know?”

“Oh, none of this is secret, and I think it’s best to be prepared. Before you meet Mother, that is. She’s my stepmother, you know, not my real mother. I only call her that so she doesn’t get mad.”

Tsorreh looked away. It was not easy to be a second wife, to stand in the shadow of another woman. What if she, like Lycian, had been childless? How much of Maharrad’s love arose from the son she had given him? But no, he had cared for her, she was sure of that.

Even though Jaxar seemed a kind and decent man, Lycian’s plight might be very different. Or she might be well-treated but tormented by her failure. Either way, the woman
deserved compassion, not scorn. She said, “I hope you try to be a loving son to her.”

Danar shrugged, an adolescent’s careless dismissal. “I like you already, and I know Father does. I can tell you now that Mother won’t approve of you.”

“Why not?”

Danar blushed and stammered something about her being much too young and pretty. “Even if all you do is dust this place and help me with my history lessons, you’ll be more fun than my stepmother.”

“Then it is best to get the ordeal over with. I cannot believe any woman who would marry your father could be dull, but I am forewarned.”

*   *   *

From Danar’s description, Tsorreh expected Lycian to be an older woman with hard, assessing eyes and a pinched mouth, one whose fear of losing her attractiveness colored her every interaction. She had seen the wives of the noble houses behave in that manner, even if she did not understand it. To her, beauty was a thing to be put on like a garment, and sometimes better discarded.

Lycian, standing in the inner garden in the dappled shade, was no fading blossom, but a confection of crystal and silver. Glistening wires, formed into shapes like fantastical flowers, twined through her ash-gold hair, and jewels winked from the folds of her gown. Huge gray eyes outlined in kohl regarded Tsorreh from a face as faultless as alabaster.

A fluffy white creature, no bigger than Tsorreh’s cat, sat at Lycian’s feet. Button eyes lit upon Tsorreh, and the dog scrambled to its feet, yapping wildly.

“Hush, Precious Snow!” Lycian lifted her chin and turned back to her husband. “So
this
is your new assistant.” Her tone was impeccably polite, and yet she managed to convey the impression that no better use could be found for such a disgusting wretch.

None of the ladies of Maharrad’s court had ever dared
treat Tsorreh with such rudeness, but she had seen these games played out before. She bowed. “I am happy that I can be of some small use in this great house.”

“Since,” Jaxar said heavily, “it is the command of the Ar-King himself, may-his-wisdom-never-fail, that we extend our protection to her.”

“Yes, my dear,” Lycian said, her tone poisonously sweet. Her gaze flickered from Jaxar to Tsorreh, and beneath the glittering beauty, Tsorreh sensed a jealous mind, fueled by thwarted ambition. Such a woman would make a dangerous enemy, against whom Tsorreh had little power.

Tsorreh did not think Lycian would make any overt move against her, not with Cinath’s command so fresh in memory, but there were always accidents, a bit of meat gone bad in the heat, a slip on a stone stair, a hundred ways she might come to harm and no one would know.

Danar would suspect,
came to her mind. Tsorreh quickly suppressed a shiver as she realized that if Lycian should bear Jaxar a son and the son survived his infancy, Danar’s own days would be short in number.

“We must find her a place to sleep where she will not be in the way,” Lycian said.

“Yes, yes,” Jaxar said soothingly. “You need not trouble yourself, my wife.”

Lycian sniffed elegantly and was about to say something more, when Danar touched Tsorreh’s arm and drew her away. Once out of the courtyard, she heard him exhale, as if he’d been holding his breath through the interview.

“Would it,” she asked hesitantly, “would it be possible to make up a pallet for me in the laboratory? So that I could watch over—whatever needs watching over?”

And where I will not find Lycian bending over my bed with a dagger?

“It’s up to Father,” Danar said. “Just tell him you’re fascinated by his astronomy studies, and he’ll keep you up all night, taking notes while he peers through his telescope.”

“His what?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” As Danar led the way back to
the laboratory, he explained. “It’s another of Father’s devices, and ever since he met this Denariyan trader—they’re marvelous at polishing lenses of quartz and glass—he’s been using them—the telescopes, not the traders—to look at almost everything.”