The Pearl Saga - Mistress of the Pearl Part 38

How dare you?" Leyytey was furious. "How dare you speak to my father behind my back!"

"I have a concern," Sornnn said.

"Then bring it to me."

Sornnn closed the door behind them. Echoes of their voices bounced off the shanstone-and-porphyry walls. The Forum for Adjudication was huge, cold, imposing, not at all like other Kundalan temple complexes. It was difficult to understand what had gone on inside the building before the V'ornn had occupied it. For once, they did not find the need to transform the interior of a major Kundalan structure to suit their needs. The towering, portentous s.p.a.ces were totally in sync with the V'ornn psyche.

"I thought it would be a mistake, and your intrusion here is proof enough."

Even this small chamber off the busy main hall-one of many of unknown purpose-had an impossibly high ceiling. It was coffered, the ma.s.sive wooden beams clad with incised bronze. The square table and chairs were stolid, masculine, slightly ominous. To Sornnn it looked like a war room.

"I considered this too important to wait on a time of your pleasure."

He said nothing.

"Whether or not you feel this visit is inappropriate-"

"You know I do."

"Be that as it may," she continued gamely, "I am here now."

"The adjudication process does not allow for long breaks."

"All the more reason to cut to the heart of the matter."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "As you will. My concern is that you are in no emotional state to make an objective judgment about your behavior."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," she said archly, "but you came to me."

"Possibly that was a mistake."

She shook her head, as if his words were raindrops. "To make matters worse, you are now of the opinion that I could betray my father and you."

"You said 'my father.' "

"To N'Luuura with your condescension!"

"Stop acting like a child with a temper tantrum, and I will be happy to-"

She hit him then, and it rocked him because despite her pet.i.te size she knew how to land a blow, putting all of herself into it from her hips upward.

Sornnn, off-balance, sat down hard on a chair and rubbed his jaw. It was numb, but that would not last. It was already on its way to swelling. "Well," he said.

At that moment, the door opened inward.

"Prime Factor?"

Raan Tallus appeared, his smooth skull dark as a Teyj egg. His quick, clever eyes took in the scenewith a surface amus.e.m.e.nt that did not quite disguise his avidity.

"Pardon me, have I intruded on a private moment?" He made no move to leave, but rather shut the door behind him and stood watching them with the antic.i.p.ation of a spectator at the Kalllistotos. At length, he turned to Sornnn. "If you are in the middle of an altercation, Prime Factor, perhaps you will allow me to mediate a satisfactory resolution."

Leyytey made a little sound. The way he spoke set her teeth on edge.

Sornnn rose. "Merely a difference of opinion, solicitor-general." He saw immediately that refuting the obvious would only make matters worse. "Nothing that Leyytey and I cannot resolve on our own."

Raan Tallus shrugged. He was tall and as powerfully built as a Kha-gggun. He was dressed in an alloy-mesh waistcoat over a s.h.i.+rt without a single wrinkle. His mimetic-fabric breeches clung to his legs like a second skin. As Sornnn well knew, it was unwise to judge him solely on his attention to appearance. He was possessed of both an alloy-trap mind and a very long memory.

"If you say so, Prime Factor. Please remember that I am always here to help." His smile when it came was like the quick slash of a knife, shocking and unpleasant. "I would be remiss if I failed to remind you of the old saying: 'Don't negotiate where you sleep.' "

The outburst from Leyytey Sornnn was expecting did not come. Instead, she seemed to have lapsed into a glum silence. In fact, Sornnn noticed that she had trouble looking the solicitor-general in the eye.

"I think you have misunderstood the situation," Sornnn said. "Leyytey and I are not sleeping together."

"Really"-Raan Tallus spread his hands-"who could blame you if you were?"

"But we are not."

Into the deep silence that ensued, Raan Tallus interjected like a well-struck dart, "So you have said."

"I will be along presently." Sornnn gestured at the door. "Until then . . ."

"You have only to wish a.s.sistance, Prime Factor."

The solicitor-general gave what amounted to a stiff-backed bow before he turned on his heel and left.

An uncomfortable silence descended like a curtain. Here was the other side of the quicksilver mind, the amusingly barbed tongue, returning Sornnn to a certain incident six months before his father's death.

Raan Tallus, seeking to expand the Ashera empire, had wanted to buy into the spice trade. Hadinnn SaTrryn had not been interested, and neither was Sornnn when his father apprised him of the offer. Keep your attention where it belongs, Hadinnn had said to Raan Tallus. You have a grave responsibility running the Ashera empire.

Leyytey finally broke the heavy silence. "I suppose now you're sorry you got me involved."

"We'll get into this some other time. Right now I have work to do."

"You can't just dismiss me like this!"

"Leyytey, I told you at the outset that this was the wrong time to-"

"I hate you!" she shouted. "You and all the males who want to use me, then dismiss me, who think they know what's best for me!"

He sighed. "What happens to all of us when the love you are still clinging to causes you to make a mistake?"

"You have it backwards." She stalked toward him, her face pale and pinched. "What happened to you? What sin did you commit in the name of love? How long will you keep running from whatever happened, SaTrryn?"

For a moment he was struck dumb. "I have to get back to the adjudication."

"Keep lying to yourself!" she yelled after him. "Self-delusion is such a comforting state of mind!"

Konara Inggres found the village of Stone Border quiet and serene. The many-tiered town with its tumbledown buildings and narrow, crooked streets of endless flights of stairs spread out just below the Abbey of Floating White. Ever since she had been thrust into the leaders.h.i.+p role at the abbey it had been her habit periodically to take a meal at a local tavern and listen to the chatter of gossip. She was acutely aware of how isolating life was behind the thick, cold walls of the abbey, and she felt it important that shestay on top of current events, even if they were partially-or sometimes wholly-speculation. In the old days before the coming of the V'ornn, the Ramahan had been the shepherds of the people, keeping them safe and productive, ensuring that the wheel of life kept turning. The old days were long gone, of course, but she did not want to let one of the Ramahan prime objectives lapse.

The tavern she chose, the Blackcrow, was ancient, its stone walls cracked, blackened with decades of smoke and soot from its brawny fireplace. The ma.s.sive beams of its ceiling were so dark they could have been mistaken for t.i.tanic slabs of charcoal, and the heavy scent of charred meats hung in the air, the smoke dimming the illumination from the hanging tallow lanterns.

She left the moons-spangled night, plunging headlong into the raucous, alcohol-soaked atmosphere. A regular in her own way, she caused barely a ripple in the ongoing roar. The nightly tournament of darts, played seriously for serious coins, engendered great gouts of noise from partic.i.p.ants and spectators alike, periodically making all other talk, no matter how drunken or high-spirited, inaudible. Many patrons nodded to her and out of deference murmured her honorific. She smiled at them all and bade them good evening as the tavern keeper showed her to a choice seat near the fire, away from the dartboard, which was being repeatedly and ferociously struck like a misbehaving boy's cheek. He hurriedly wiped the rings of cloudy rakkis off the tabletop, brought her a metal goblet of steamed ludd-wine, and took her dinner order, which, in the throaty furor, she had to repeat twice. He hurried off, not to inform the cook, but to break up a nasty-looking fight between putative first- and second-place finishers. Big-shouldered, foul-mouthed, these dart-throwers were no longer able to hold at bay the dread that haunted them day and night, so they beat a heavy tattoo on the face and back they pretended was V'ornn.

For a time, she listened to the conversations around her, lively and sullen, inhaling the life, bursting at the seams, in the short time allotted her. Not far from her a young couple grappled and fondled each other in a public display of pa.s.sion. Another male, not quite so young, piped up, "Better get yer licks in now, Tern, before yer wife finds out." The male grappler blushed amid a forest of lewd guffaws, took the girl's hand, and rushed with her into the shadows of the tavern's rear. No one noticed that Konara Inggres' face was burning. Why should they? Only she knew that the hot, humiliating flush of infidelity was what had driven her out of the abbey that night.

Ordinarily, she was not much of a drinker, but tonight she felt as if she deserved a couple. Needed them, was more like it. She wrapped her hands around the warm goblet and took a long draught. She wanted time alone with her thoughts, needed to get away from the Nawatir. When she was with him her skin tingled, her heart raced, and her knees grew weak.

Ever since he had come into her room, ever since he had held her, she had known she was lost. Fight against her feelings all she might, the truth was she loved him, loved a male who belonged to another.

And not just anyone! First Mother herself!

How could it have happened? How could her emotions so betray her? She had prayed long and hard to Miina, begging for an answer, but none had come. She was faced with only silence. And in that silence she saw him, coming toward her bed in the semidarkened room, saw the concern in his eyes, felt his strong arms holding her, and she breathed in his scent as a blind one takes in the attar of star-roses and orangesweet, recognizes subtleties within them beyond the abilities of others. She wept now, as she had wept in her room after he had left her, after his warmth had vanished, after her chance to hold him as he had held her had slipped away.

She shook her head angrily. How foolish she was, acting like a teenager with a crus.h.!.+ How futile her feelings, for they would never be reciprocated, and even if they were, she would never betray First Mother by acting on them.

With a convulsive gesture, she drained her goblet, swallowing so quickly she almost choked. But the fiery liquid failed to detach her from her ardor. On the contrary, it made it more intense, more immediate, more real. He could have been sitting beside her in the glow of the tallow lanterns, his muscled thigh pressed against hers, his warmth seeping through her slow as melted wax.

She barely noticed that her plate of food had been served so deeply sunk in her shamefully amorous reverie was she. But a growing hue and cry from just outside the tavern brought her around. As others rose and hurried out into the night she was compelled to do likewise. What her eyes fell upon in the streetturned her blood cold.

She shouldered her way through the gathering throng and knelt beside the young male carried at great expenditure of energy by two of his mates. Low clouds obscured much of the sky, and it had grown colder.

"Give her room," someone called softly. "It is Konara Inggres."

"A lantern, please," she called, and someone stepped forward, holding one aloft so that she could see more clearly the damage done.

She was only dimly aware of a rustling as the citizenry stumbled a pace or two backward, but she was equally sensitive to the fact that the intensity of their stares had heightened. Quickly, as her hand ran over the young male, she cast Earth Granary, blanketing him with its healing. But she did not like what she saw. She was all too familiar with the devastation an ion cannon could produce. This young male had been shot by Khagggun. A stab of sadness and frustration went through her. She could no longer protect her flock. Well, then, she would do what little she could. She intensified Earth Granary and dug in her pouch for a selection of herbs. The wound was grievous. She did not know whether he could be saved.

"Who saw what happened?" she asked.

"We did." His two companions stepped forward.

"A marauding pack?" she asked.

"No, Konara." One of the young males got down on one knee.

"Will he live?" asked the other, his face a ma.s.s of worry.

"Run and fetch me a goblet of boiled water," she told the second companion, "fast as you can."

She turned to the other. He had unruly hair and dark eyes. "If not a pack, what?"

"More than a pack, Konara." His voice was trembling. "Many, many Khagggun on the march."

Fear clutched at her throat. If for some reason the Khagggun had targeted Stone Border, she would be helpless to stop the slaughter of innocents.

The other companion returned with the hot water, and she filtered in the herbs, rubbing them between her fingers to bring out the oils. She fed a few drops of the decoction to the wounded male, forcing it down his throat. Then she poured half the contents on the wound.

"Where are Wing-Adjutant Wiiin and his detachment headed?" she asked the companion with the unruly hair. "Did you hear?"

"Yes, Konara." His head was lowered, and his voice was barely a whisper.

"Tell me then," she said sharply.

He s.h.i.+vered, and lifted his head so that she could see the abject terror in his eyes. "Floating White, Konara. They mean to storm the abbey and kill everyone in it."

In a remote corner of the SaTrryn compound was a garden. It was tucked away where no business a.s.sociate, no casual visitor-no intimate, even-would ever find it unless guided to it by one who knew of its existence.

It was an ancient plaza, lush, exquisite, predating even the oldest of the villas, so that it was possible to believe that the entire compound had come into being solely for the purpose of protecting it from inquiring eyes.

It had been constructed around a tortuosa tree, the ma.s.sive trunk and gnarled branches listing as if grasping for sunlight. Its broad-leafed canopy provided delicious shade on long, scorching summer afternoons and shelter from sudden autumnal squalls. Its pale new leaves fluttered in spring breezes and in the winter its fingerlike branches caught the snow and held it in squiggly lines like the uncertain writing of a small child.

The tortuosa tree imbued the garden with a certain gravitas, a fulcrum, so Kundalan lore had it, toward which family artists looked for inspiration and upon which scholars leaned for balance. Life played out within its web, no less complex and mystifying than that which occurred beyond the compound's stone walls.Two figures sat beneath the tortuosa, playing out the next act in the skein of their lives.

"I did not think you would come," Sornnn said. "Not after our last meeting."

"And if I hadn't," Leyytey inquired, "what would you have thought of me then?"

They lapsed into a small silence while insects whirred and danced in the brilliant light of four pale green moons.

"It's not going to work," she said.

He stirred. "What isn't?"

"Your plan."

Sornnn leaned over and poured iced quilllon juice from a crystal pitcher. He handed her a translucent tumbler.

"How do you know?"

"I can read him."

"Don't be so certain." He put down his tumbler. "He has to take the coins, Leyytey," Sornnn said with great intensity. "For the plan to work, he must take the coins and invest them as it is now strictly forbidden for members of his caste to do."

"He won't."

"Yes, he will. His greed will win out."

"We sit here, waiting, waiting . . ." She shook her head again. "This is taking too long."

"Leyytey you must be patient."

Slowly, she unb.u.t.toned her mesh vest, peeled back her blouse, revealing the inside of the two perfect hemispheres of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Between them was a vertical welt, dark, raised, angry.

"You do not want to see the others," she said.

For a long moment Sornnn stared in shock, then he took his chilled tumbler and gently placed it against the welt.

"Leyytey, I... I am sorry about all of this."