The Spirit Gate (27 page)

Kassia was fascinated by them all, curious about where they
had come from, and what native tongue they spoke that caused their Polian to be
so variously and charmingly accented.

Surrounded as she was by important men and magnificent
women, Kassia had thought she surely would be left out of all but the most
perfunctory conversation, but Zelimir would not let her be left out. As they
sat in a ring of colorful pillows and bolsters to be served from great silver
trays, he told stories about the founding of Tabor, talked of the building of
the grand cesia where they had shared morning devotions, asked about her
studies in magic. She eagerly absorbed the history and tried to answer his
questions about her research without betraying her Master’s trust.

When the meal was done and musicians arrived to entertain
them, Zelimir found a moment to lean close to Kassia’s ear to thank her for the webbed bracelet.
Already, he told her, it had helped him see what before he had only suspected.
Then he told her, with eyes shining, how glorious she looked in the azure gown.

“Glorious” was the exact word he used, before he echoed Zakarij: “How exotic you are, Kassia.
Like a flower that blooms only in moonlight. A white orchid—that’s what you are.”

Kassia accepted the praise stoically, with flushed cheeks
and bowed head. Only one other man had ever spoken to her so, and then only in
the privacy of bed or bower. She glanced down the table to see if anyone had
noticed the exchange and blanched.
Everyone
had noticed.
Assailed by that sudden attention, she immediately knew her friends from her
enemies and vowed that she would give those splendid ladies a wide berth for
the remainder of her stay.

All too soon, it seemed, the evening was over and the king
was excusing them to return to their quarters. Kassia rose reluctantly and
shook out her skirts. Once again, she caught several of the other women
assessing her, their eyes hooded. Their regard was more than casual and, since
they made no attempt to shield their thoughts and feelings, Kassia knew it was
hardly kind. She could only suppose that they were not generously disposed
toward having to share their table and their king with such an unsophisticated
woman as Kassia Telek. She drew herself up a little taller and turned to bid
Michal Zelimir good evening.

He took her hand in both of his and raised it to his lips,
pressing them firmly against the soft flesh at the wrist. “Thank you, Kassia, for
granting me the pleasure of your company and the bounty of your arcane gifts.
May Mat and Itugen visit you with delightful dreams.”

She bowed to him, a little embarrassed at the gracious
words. She felt the women’s
eyes pressing her—questioning,
hostile, curious.

“Who
are they?” she asked Zakarij as they left the room together.

“Who
are who?”

“Those
women. Are they the wives of the darughachi?”

Zakarij shot her an odd, half-humorous glance. “They’re no one’s wives. They’re royal concubines.”

Kassia stopped in the middle of the corridor that led to
their chambers. “Royal . . .?”

“They
serve the king . . . and his guests if he so orders. I think
darughachi Batu has an eye for the fair-haired one.”

Kassia felt suddenly and deeply embarrassed . . .
and naive. She hated feeling naive, especially here. “I’ve
never much understood the idea of concubinage. Are they slaves?”

Zakarij had to consider that for a moment. “In a sense, I suppose
they are. They could leave the service of Michal Zelimir, but if they did,
wherever would they go that could offer what they have here? Certainly, they
could find husbands, but which of them would choose to live in a merchant’s townhouse or a
farmer’s cottage
after . . .?” He made a sweeping gesture around them. “They most likely have no skills except those of
courtly protocol and artfulness. I suppose they might learn a trade, but why on
earth should they wish to?”

“Won’t he dismiss them when
he marries?”

Zakarij’s
mouth twitched at the corners, a gesture Kassia found maddening since she knew
it meant he was laughing at her silently. “I shouldn’t
think so. He won’t
be marrying for love, after all. And even if he were . . . He is
not a common man, Kassia. He may behave in ways you or I would find . . .
indefensible. Anyway, I shouldn’t
worry about the King’s
ladies. They have a good life here.”

“I
wasn’t worried
about them. I was only wondering why they seemed to dislike me so intensely.” She put a hand to her hair. “It’s this, I suppose. The
shai have no better reputation here than they have in Dalibor.”

Zakarij grimaced. “I
doubt your being shai has very much to do with it. You won the eye of the king,
and his smile. They may be afraid that in due time, you’ll have his heart as well. Then they might not be
as favored as they are now.”

Damek’s
words, spoken a week ago, came back to her with ferocious clarity. “Zakarij, will you
speak to me in all honesty?”

“Always.”

“Damek
put the idea into my head that Master Lukasha brought me to Tabor because he . . .
he hoped the king would be interested in me. As . . . as a
concubine. Do you think that could be true?”

There was nothing at all opaque about Zakarij at that
moment. His thoughts were written in detail on his face. “Kassia, that is the
most outrageous thing I’ve
ever heard! What would possess Damek to fabricate such a . . . a
detestable story?”

“I
suppose he was only trying to goad me,” she answered. “It’s not important,
really. Though I suppose it means I can’t
call him ‘Damek
the Unimaginative’ any more.”

Her attempt at levity fell flat. Zakarij grasped her arm
gently. “Kassia,
how could you entertain, even for a moment, the possibility that Master Lukasha
would do such a thing? You’re
one of the most important things that’s
ever happened to Lorant. The Master loves you as he would love his own
daughter. What father would contemplate giving his daughter into concubinage?”

Kassia managed a weak smile. “Some fathers obviously would give their daughters,
or the king would have no concubines. You make it sound like slavery.
Someone
just told me it’s
not like that.”

“Forget
that. That was about someone else; this is about you. Master Lukasha wouldn’t do something like
that and you can’t
imagine that he would.”

“You’re right,” she answered him. “I
can’t imagine it.” She slipped his grasp then, and returned to her chambers.

oOo

Lukasha rose to follow the others from the salon, but his
King’s voice
halted him. “Master
Lukasha, please—a
moment of your time.”

He turned. Zelimir had remained seated; Chancellor Bogorja
at his side. Clearly, the king was in a mood for confidences. Lukasha happily
conceded and moved to join the other two men.

When he was certain they were alone, Zelimir said, “Bishop Benedict
engaged me in private conversation after the council meeting this afternoon. He
put it to me that the Mongols are a greater threat to Polia than I am willing
to admit. In his estimation, Polian forces are not enough to protect us from
the Khan. He believes that were the Gherai to attack our southeastern borders,
we would be unable to stop their advance without an unacceptable expenditure of
Polian territory and lives. He suggests that the Frankish Empire would be
willing to lend us the forces necessary to the protection of the realm.”

“And
the price of this protection?” Bogorja asked, suspicion clotting in his voice.

Lukasha answered in Zelimir’s stead. “Marriage
to the Lombard . . . and conversion to her religion.”

Zelimir smiled wryly. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know that.”

Lukasha did not return the smile. “I also know that your conversion would not be the
end of it. They will insist on the conversion of your people as well, and the
Zelimirid realm would be absorbed into the Frankish Empire. Utterly absorbed.
Body and soul, land and spirit. We have seen it happen to others.”

Michal Zelimir’s
face was pale above his emerald robes. “How
can even a king demand the conversion of an entire people? How can he assure
it?”

“We
know how the Tamalids assured obedience,” murmured Lukasha.

Michal shook his head as if to free it from a snare. “I have thought that
perhaps the better path would be to make a pact with the Gherai kagan now,
before it’s too
late. To take him as an ally against the threat from Avignon.”

“That
would almost certainly make the Franks our enemies,” observed Bogorja. “They might even view
it as an invitation to war.”

“I
had not thought it the policy of the Church to be quite so militant.”

“They
are an imperial force, Majesty. Empires, as you well know, do not spread without
some militancy. Your father overthrew the Tamalids in a military action.”

“That
is not the same thing. My father rescued his people from a house of demons. He
liberated these lands, he did not enslave them.”

“The
Bishop of Tabor,” observed Lukasha, “would
most certainly see our absorption into his Empire as liberation. In his eyes we
are slaves to ignorant paganism. He would liberate our souls. The ends justify
the means. It is a matter of viewpoint.”

“I
need your advice, gentlemen.” Zelimir looked from one to the other. “I am asked to choose the lesser of several evils.
My impulse is to marry whom I choose and make allies where I will for the good
of my people. I despise the thought of alliances made from fear, be they
political or marital.”

“Or
religious?” asked Lukasha.

“I
believe it is the Arabian Prophet who said that there is no compulsion in
religion. I whole-heartedly agree.”

Lukasha smiled. Dear Zelimir, ever the stubborn
individualist—in
word if not in deed. “Your
impulses are not unwise. It is too early to decide on either wives or allies.
Bide your time, Mishka. But keep your eye on the Khan.”

Chancellor Bogorja nodded. “And on the bishop. You may consider finding out if
the Gherai Khan has any marriageable daughters.”

Michal laughed. “I’ve heard he has
hundreds.” He shook his head. “I
have too many choices, gentlemen. Perhaps I should convert to the Arabian’s faith. Then I shall
have encompassed all of the Prophets and Messengers. At the very least, I would
be allowed more than one wife. I could maintain several alliances that way, and
please more people.”

Lukasha smiled. “An
interesting idea, Mishka, but a chimera. A Turk may have four wives, it’s true, but only if he
can treat them with absolute equality. In your case, this equality would have
to extend to the allies bound to you by those wives.”

“A
chimera, indeed.” The king sighed dramatically. “One
has only to ask my concubines.”

The conference concluded on that light note, but Lukasha was
not comfortable with the levity. Too much depended on the instincts and
decisions of one man. It was wrong. It was entirely wrong. The fate of nations
and peoples should not be so. Polia was more than a bit of cloth painted with
lines that were rivers and roads, and circles that were cities and villages. There
were lives contained in those cities, held together by those roads and rivers.
Yet, to men such as Jagiello Starza, Bishop of Tabor, the Zelimirid realm was
merely a living map, and maps could be divided with ease. It took only a moment
with a sharp knife or a crofter’s
shears; a slice here, a slash there, and the Tamalids or the Khans or the
Franks could have the land or the lives or the souls they desired.

No. Not this time. He, Lukasha Dalibori, would not allow it
to happen. Zelimir might marry a Lombard or even a Mongol, but neither would
possess his heart or his ear.

In his chambers, Lukasha moved to his mirror and called back
to it the Squared spell he had used earlier that day to eavesdrop on his king.
This time, however, the mirror showed him a spell-lit room wherein a young
woman sat propped up among the pillows on her bed, a thick little book in her
hands. Her eyelids were beginning to droop, and as he watched, she passed from
the waking world into slumber.

He began a second spell—a Duet of dual purpose. As he worked, he prayed
that the God of all would forgive him if, in doing this thing, he overstepped
his bounds.

oOo

Decembris 12:
I think I am in love, Little Book. I haven’t told you this
before? No wonder. I didn’t
want to jinx it with mention. I don’t
think I even mentioned it to myself. His name is Leliwa and he has hair almost
as pale as my own. In the marketplace, I mistook him for shai, embarrassing
myself terribly. He is the son of an owner of many orchards, so his exposure to
either shai or Mateu has been minimal. He made me so angry at first, staring at
me as if I was some sort of two headed fish. I trust I’ve made him understand that we are neither freaks
nor angels—either
of which is an aberration of human nature.

I spent an entire month hating him. I don’t understand how it can come to this end, that we
love each other. I shall very likely bore you, Little Book, for in future I
shall write of nothing but Leliwa of Dalibor.

Kassia yawned and shifted her position in the huge bed. In the
midst of reading about Marija’s
second year as an Apprentice, she fought sleep as if it were a demon sent to
cut her soul loose from her body. Marija’s life fascinated her in both its parallels to and
differences from her own. Here, at the point of reading about the other woman’s love, she absolutely
did not want to fall asleep. It was like listening to the voice of a friend or
a sister, sharing confidences across a candle-lit room—except this room was lit by sorcery and the sister
was long dead, living only through the words in an aged book. The confidences
could flow only one way across the decades.

Kassia lay back against her pillows and reflected on how
different her experience of the saintly Marija was than anyone else’s, and all because of
this tiny, thick volume. She treasured the secret intimacy. Treasured it so
much, she had still not told Master Lukasha she had found it.