Bells of the Kingdom (Children of the Desert Book 3) (9 page)

“That is from a life past, and not important,” she said. “You need not concern yourself with that question,
ha’inn.
You need not be polite with me.”

He twitched a shoulder in a shrug and let out a long sigh, surprised at his own relief.

“You may speak of anything you choose, or not,” she said. “We are bound to silence, always. Ask what you will, I must answer.”

He cracked an eye and regarded her thoughtfully, wondering what she would do this time if he asked about the whistle-language. But she’d given him a clear enough warning, and he understood it too well to press the matter.

“What’s your name?” he said instead.

“Anada,
ha’inn.”

“Call me Idisio.”

She dipped her head in a slight nod. “If I may, I will.”

“Please. This is all—really new to me.”

She stood, leaning to reach the tray; water streamed down high, firm breasts and a solid torso, far from skinny but nowhere near overly-plump, either.

“If you would like,” she said as she selected a cake of soap, “I will bathe you now.”

Idisio shut his eyes and let out a slight whimper.

“I really wish you wouldn’t,” he said. “I have—I’m with—there’s a girl.” He winced at his own idiotic stammering.

There came a long silence; at last he opened his eyes a slit and found Anada holding the bar of soap out to him, her expression patient.

“Others would be offended,” she said when she saw him looking at her. “This is why I elected myself the most suitable. I understand.”

He gulped, relieved, and tried not to actually
grab
the soap from her hand.

Anada settled back against the other side of the tub and watched him, not even pretending to avert her gaze, as he began scrubbing himself.

“This girl,” she said after a moment. “She is staying here, I understand? And you are departing.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t look at her.

“This girl,” she said, with the same lack of inflection as before, “is pregnant. Is this your child she carries?”

He snapped a quick glance at her face, startled.

“No,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “I see. Did you kill the father of her child?”

He stared, his mouth open in stunned protest of that assumption.

“Again, no,” she said before he could answer, and nodded slowly. “With a prayer that you find no offense in the words: It’s best you’re leaving,
ha’inn.
The north has formed you, body and soul. It would be many years before you understood the first tenth of our ways, and they would be hard years, without peace.”

“Why aren’t you
afraid?”
he blurted, unable to come up with any other coherent response. “You all—you’re
servants,
to
desert lords—
and, and—” He made a vague gesture with the hand not holding the soap; water sprayed across her face, but the closest she came to flinching was to shut her eyes. “You’re not even the least bit nervous about saying
—anything.
You act like—like you’re equal, if not superior, to everyone here. How can you not be
scared?”

He stopped, breathing hard and feeling more than a little foolish. Anada waited a moment, as though to see if he had anything else to say, then said,
“Ha’inn—
Idisio—in the southlands—” She paused, frowning a little, then went on, more carefully, “Scratha Family, and most other desert Families, believe that even the lowest servant enters into a sacred covenant with their chosen master. And I am not a kitchen sweeper; I am
kathain.
I have considerable status of my own. Within the bounds of this sacred moment, in this place, I
am
your equal. This service cannot properly work any other way: would become nothing more than dishonorable slavery and whoring.”

Movement at the entrance to the baths drew Idisio’s attention away from trying to figure that one out. Lord Ondio of F’Heing strode into the room. He nodded briefly, seeing Idisio, then turned his attention to the young man approaching him.

“Two,” Ondio said curtly, “one at a time. Female. I’ll have company later; they’ll want their own. I don’t share.”

The young man nodded and led the desert lord to one of the larger tubs.

Idisio choked back his initial outrage and looked at Anada. Her placid expression was unruffled. “He is bound by the customs of his host to be rather more restrained than he would be with his own kathain,” she murmured. “He will do no lasting harm.”

Idisio’s jaw dropped. “You’re
serious?”

“Yes.”

“He’s going to—just
—here?
In front of—dear
gods.
I can’t—” Idisio started to stand, then glanced down and hastily sank under the concealing line of soap film once more.

Anada’s mouth twitched. “I
could
help with that,
ha’inn,”
she said. “Idisio. If you wish.”

Idisio let out a vaguely strangled sound. A woman emerged from a side room, carrying a wooden tray of bathing supplies. Her dark hair was shorn back as tightly as Anada’s, her naked body rather leaner and less rounded. She walked steadily, gaze unwavering, towards the tub Lord Ondio had climbed into.

Idisio shut his eyes. He couldn’t help wondering if Deiq had known this would happen; it seemed entirely likely.
Manipulative bastard.

“Are my clothes clean yet?” he said through his teeth.

“That will take some considerable time,” Anada said. He could
hear
the laughter in her voice. “We can offer you a robe, of course, or a waist-wrap—but neither of those do a very good job of, ah,
concealment
for certain matters. And they are very undignified garb for a long walk across the fortress.”

“You’re
enjoying
this,” he accused, keeping his eyes firmly shut.

“Idisio,” she said, her tone turning serious, “it is a signal honor to be your kathain, however briefly. I do not wish you any distress; that is no part of my job. I do wish you would relax and trust me.”

“It’s not
you,”
he said. Somewhere to his right, a woman cried out softly—he couldn’t tell whether in pain or pleasure.

She sighed. “I understand,” she said. “Believe me, I understand. But to leave now—I’m truly sorry,
ha’inn.
Southern status is a very complicated thing. You must not appear to be fleeing something so simple.”

“Simple?”

The woman cried out again—definitely pained this time. Idisio ground his teeth together, flickers of silver turning over behind his closed eyelids, a rank smell coating his nostrils; he inhaled deeply, focusing on the smell of apples and ginger, and made himself relax again.

“Yes. Simple. The kathain you hear is trained to handle such as Lord Ondio. She will not truly be harmed.” Anada paused, sighed, then went on. “I take no joy from your distress over this, ha’inn. I understand you see this differently than we do. When I saw you arrive, I had hoped the gathered lords would wait rather longer before availing themselves of this room after Conclave, and that a gentler one would be first in. F’Heing lords are always a little—energetic. Their tastes and customs differ from Scratha—rather widely.”

The sharp slap of a hand against wet skin echoed through the thick air. Idisio shivered, his stomach turning over. Deiq’s dry parting comment came to mind:
Between you and Alyea...
Idisio had a feeling that Deiq wouldn’t have any trouble with this situation at all. But Deiq didn’t
know...
and had probably better never find out, either.

“What happened to that sacred bit you mentioned, that equality you told me about?” he demanded, pushing distress into anger to keep unpleasant memories from surfacing. “How does that allow for
—this?”

“Customs differ,” she said, no less serene. “If you will trust me, Idisio—there is already a screen set between; that is from Lord Ondio’s own preference. You will see nothing, which may help, and if you will speak with me, the noises will soon be irrelevant.”

Idisio swallowed hard and risked a glance; a simple folding screen of wooden panels blocked off the view, as promised. He couldn’t help muttering, “She’s
trained?”

A faint smile flitted over Anada’s face. “Tell me,” she said gravely, “what the great city of Bright Bay is like. I am told you lived there for a time, and I suspect most of what I have heard is rather exaggerated or distorted. Is there truly a gate cast all about with gold and diamonds?”

“Yeah,” Idisio said. “The gold, anyway. I didn’t ever see any diamonds.” He began to relax.

“What wastefulness,” Anada said, a little wistfully. “There are more of these gates, is this true? I was told of one used only by the dead, which I do not understand.”

“Oh, yeah, the Black Gate,” Idisio said readily. “That one’s not really a gate, I don’t think. I mean, it
used
to always be open... .”

The sounds beyond the screen eased from pained yelps to more guttural growls of mutual pleasure; Idisio found his breath coming more easily, and Anada’s smile brightened in response. She
was
very attractive, and her laugh was more — more
graceful,
somehow, than Riss’s usual coarse guffaw. Idisio blinked hard and told raucous jokes to distract himself from thinking about the differences between Anada and Riss. She promptly matched him, bawdy for bawdy. His chest began to hurt from laughing, and the nearby noises altogether faded from his notice.

By the time the water cooled and Idisio stepped out for a towel-down, Lord Ondio—and his companions—had long since left.

Idisio scarcely remembered they’d been there at all.

Rain pounded down as though Ishrai had decided to drown the world. The purpose of Bright Bay’s high sidewalks became apparent as the streets steadily filled with water. Horses slogged through an ankle-deep slurry of liquefied street trash, their riders hidden under thick cloaks and hoods, while pedestrians kept their feet relatively dry on the walkways to either side.

Tank found himself welcoming the deluge. While thunder and lightning did make him markedly nervous, a simple downpour like this felt deeply cleansing. His childhood in a coastal village hadn’t exactly lent itself to a day spent playing in the rain.

Coastal village.
He considered the words, nodding to himself. That was a safe description. Far better than the only real translation for
katha village;
and the words were close enough that he could always stutter over to the better term during a careless moment.

Northerns wouldn’t know the difference, anyway.

He lifted his face to the rain for a moment, as though that might wash away the grey stain that came across his vision every time he thought about his childhood.
Avin. Tan. Damn it, damn you, damn them—
but it was over, and didn’t matter now.
Mercenary. Mercenary. Ordinary, normal life.

Water streaked across his face, stinging his eyes and blurring his vision. He blinked his sight back to relatively clear and went on, tugging his hood lower on his forehead.

The water level in the street dropped as he crossed from the dock section of Bright Bay into the more affluent merchant and residential areas. He paused, squinting through the rain, and discovered a series of long, narrow drain slits along the lower edges of the high sidewalks, and a higher elevation in the center of the street than at the edges.

Tilting his head to listen more carefully, he could hear that part of the thundering roar around him came from beneath his feet, as water cascaded through the drains down into the catacombs and, presumably, out into the bay.

The skin on the back of his neck tightened. Someone was watching him.

He lifted his gaze from the street and saw someone, heavily cloaked and hooded against the rain, standing not far away. Something in the breadth of the shoulders and the stance indicated a man; the sense of intent regard and the man’s stillness implied recognition.

He couldn’t possibly see my face in this muck, and I’m not wearing anything with a mark on it. So what is he recognizing me by?

Desert lord. Has to be. Damnit, I didn’t even get to the Hall—

Tank stood still, gathering every muscle into readiness, keeping his mind ferociously blank, and waited. The figure shifted back a half-step, then paused and came forward with slow, measured steps. He stopped just out of arm’s reach and studied Tank without speaking. Just visible under the hood, southern features came clear, and black eyes; the rain obscured expression, but there probably wasn’t much to begin with.

“You’re Tanavin Aerthraim,” the man said without any doubt in his voice.

Tank’s heart thudded up into a higher rhythm for a panicked moment.

“No,” he said. “I’m Tank, and I’ve never seen you before. Now piss off.”

The man regarded Tank for another moment, inscrutable; then his head dipped in a faint nod and he turned away without another word.

Tank stood, breathing hard, his throat thick with things he wished he could have said, questions he dearly wanted to demand answers to:
How do you know who I am? Who the hells are you? How
much
do you know about me?

Were you here when it happened?

Better not to ask. Better not to know.

Mercenary. Ordinary.

The stranger turned a corner out of sight. Tank looked around to get his bearings: two streets over from the Hall. Unwilling to risk slipping on the low pillars that allowed foot traffic to cross while allowing horses and wagons to pass, he splashed down into the street itself, hoisted himself up to the other sidewalk a few steps later, and ran.