Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) (17 page)

Alyea’s skin was slick with sweat in spite of her loose, light clothing; her calves and shoulders ached from navigating steep slopes and narrow trails for most of the day. Lunch had been a handful of dried fruit and nuts, along with a thick chunk of flatbread. It might have been enough for the scrawny teyanain, but it hadn’t lasted long in Alyea’s stomach, which began grumbling complaints not long after. Deiq passed her some trail jerky from his pack without comment, and that had at least stopped her body from craving more, though her mouth still longed for something better. Trail jerky tasted uniformly horrible to her: oversalted, oily, and rank. She didn’t understand how anyone could survive on it for more than one meal.

A breeze swirled up to meet them, a salty tinge overriding the usual hot dust and rock aromas. She felt her shoulders loosen with relief at that sign: the ocean wasn’t far away. Below, carts trundled along; groups of travelers walked and rode by. Nobody looked up the slope to the small party standing in plain sight atop a ridge.

“You go road,” the teyanin guide said, pointing down. “You on road, north, you leave teyanain land. You go south, you back on our land. Lord Evkit say you go north.”

He scrambled up the rough rock to his left and perched on an outcropping, watching them with an expressionless dark stare.

“You go,” he repeated, pointing once more.

“We go,” Deiq muttered. “All right, all right, we’re going.”

The traffic on the main road seemed to simply swerve around them as they reached the bottom of the steep slope. Nobody looked up to see where they’d come from; most people snuck brief, frightened glances at the newcomers before shying as far away as possible.

To the south, a twisted, blackened tree with a stone altar at its base was just barely visible; Alyea remembered seeing it on her way south with Chac and Micru. Bright Bay was within an hour’s walk; but she didn’t recall seeing any paths leading west at this point.

Alyea turned and looked up: a broken tumble of boulders and ragged chunks of rocky scree lay across the area she was sure they had just walked down.

She found herself on the verge of making the sign against witchery; barked a bitter laugh aloud instead. Deiq and Idisio shot her duplicate inquiring looks. She shook her head in answer and said, “Let’s go.”

They walked without speaking, each lost in his or her own thoughts and weariness; at last, as the sun melted into the Great Western Ocean, the sandy beaches of Bright Bay came into view. Idisio let out a great, sobbing gasp of relief and looked ready to kiss the ground, then immediately blushed a bright crimson.

Deiq shot him a sour glare. Alyea smiled, more lighthearted than she’d been all day.

“Home at last,” she said cheerfully.

“We have to talk before you go charging in there,” Deiq said, stopping in his tracks and lowering his head bullishly. “You don’t seem to understand how much has changed.”

Her patience with his dour mood snapped. She pulled the pack pony to the side of the road, out of the way of other weary travelers headed into Bright Bay; the last group that would be allowed in, more than likely. Ahead, empty day-vendor stalls lined both sides of the road: further indication that the gates would be closing soon.

“Here’s what we have to talk about, Deiq,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking today, and I realized some important things. You have something to teach me, go ahead, but don’t think that puts you in charge. I made that mistake with Chacerly; I won’t do that twice. This is
my
city. I grew up here. I can handle myself here. I know the rules—from the inside.”

His scowl deepened, as though that barb hurt; as it had been meant to. Idisio had gone very quiet, still, and colorless, visibly trying to avoid drawing notice to himself. A small, cold part of her mind noted, for future reference, the boy’s uncanny ability to blend into the background, and calculated that it had been a major part of his survival to date.

She went on, “You were my guide in the south. Fine.
I’ll
be your guide here.”

“I’m not that damn ignorant!” he snapped.

“Really? How do you plan to explain a rich merchant being in charge of a noblewoman and new desert lord? That would put you
superior
to the king, by what you yourself explained. How’s that going to work, Deiq?”

He glared, sullen and offended. “That’s for in public—”

“There
is
no private,” she returned. “Servants gossip, which is why I won’t keep them. But you can’t very well shift between being in charge in private and being subordinate in public, Deiq. You’ll slip, or I will, or someone will overhear something at the wrong time. It’s one way or the other. And whichever way you turn, if you hover at my elbow with that ugly glare on your face, you’ll stir up more trouble than I want to think about.”

Deiq stared at her, the blackness gone from his expression. He looked as though he were sharply reevaluating his opinion of her. Idisio, in the gathering twilight, was almost not-there in his utter stillness.

“Understood,” Deiq said at last. “No more brooding. You’re right. But we still need to—”

“Anything you want to talk about can wait until we clear Bright Bay,” she said. “I want to get through and back on the road as fast as—”

“But that’s part of what—”

The group passing by had thinned to a handful of stragglers. She shook her head.

“The southern city gates close at night, Deiq. We don’t have
time
right now. We go in now, or we’re stuck at an outside inn for the night.” She turned and urged the pony back onto the road. “Talk as we go or leave it until later.”

He grunted in distinct annoyance, but offered no argument. “I heard that Oruen was going to lift the curfew on the southern gates,” he said instead.

“Talk to Oruen,” she said, blackly amused by echoing their teyanain guide. “I wasn’t involved in that.”

He made a growling noise; she laughed, unable to help it. Whatever else happened, she was
home
. She could handle anything thrown at her now.

Anything at all.

Aerthraim lanterns had replaced the tall torches at the southern gates. The eerie, ultra-white flame hurt Deiq’s eyes, and he kept his gaze away from them as much as possible. The guards, dressed in white, now displayed crimson and black sashes; given that Oruen understood the southern color scheme, that had to be intended as a warning.

The guards themselves were hard-faced men and women whose sharp gazes picked over the incoming crowd and settled on Deiq with awakening interest.

He kept his expression neutral and his hands visible as they approached the gate, but wasn’t at all surprised when two of the guards moved to block his path.

“
S’e
,” one of them said. “Your business in Bright Bay, if you please?”

“He’s with me,” Alyea said, every inch the arrogant northern; an effect rather spoiled by her travel-stained southern garb of loose leggings and pale, long-sleeved shirt, both made from the almost translucently thin, layered material peculiar to the deep south. In addition, her newly southern-dark skin made her look as though she’d never set foot in Bright Bay before.

The guards studied her with dubious caution.

“And you are,
s’a
?”

“Lady Alyea Peysimun,” she said. “Returning from a mission as King’s ambassador to Scratha Fortress. This is merchant Deiq, and Idisio is bearing messages from Scratha Fortress to King Oruen.”

Deiq shot her a sideways glance, surprised she’d used the northern title rather than her true status; but then, the gate guards really didn’t need to know about that. It would only complicate and delay matters. Still, he’d expected her to trumpet her title to the heavens. Every other new desert lord he’d known had bragged on it endlessly.

The guards hesitated; then one, who had been staring at Idisio, said, “I remember that one! Lord Scratha called justice-right on him. Said he was a pick-thief.”

Frowns gathered on all the guard’s faces, and they regarded the group with even more suspicion than before. Alyea’s forehead wrinkled.

“Lord Scratha decided to take me on as a servant,” Idisio said, voice and gaze steady; but Deiq saw the tension ridging his thin shoulders. “Would he have done that for a thief?”

“You might have run off,” the guard who’d recognized him said skeptically.

“Have you ever
met
Lord Scratha?” Idisio said, winning a grin from one guard. “Trust me, running wasn’t an option. And he has no tolerance for thieves at all; I wouldn’t be standing here today if he’d truly caught me with his money in my hand.”

Alyea’s face cleared, and she said, “I’ll speak for him,
s’es
. He’s no thief.”

Idisio’s shoulders relaxed, and Deiq hid a smile; apparently Alyea hadn’t yet learned to pick out spoken lies from truth. Then again, Idisio showed a real talent for deceit; if Deiq hadn’t known the true story, he might have doubted his own instincts.

“Still,” said the first guard, his frown unwavering. “I think we should send a runner for the captain, let him decide this one. Or have them wait at one of the outside inns until morning.”

Deiq stifled a sigh; this was going nowhere fast. He said, lacing the words with a subtle push, “
S’es
, we’re very tired. If you could please simply let us pass?”

The guards blinked, glanced around at one another, and slowly stepped aside; much more slowly than they should have, and with clear reluctance. Deiq tried not to frown, knowing that would break the effect, and wondered if a bribe would be required.

“Thank you,
s’es
,” Idisio chimed in. “We appreciate your courtesy in letting us pass; Syrta bless your boots.”

The words seemed completely innocent and contained no ha’ra’hain persuasion at all, but the frowns lifted into a much more normal indifference.

“Go on already, then,” the leader said, and waved them through, already looking back to the southern road for any last stragglers approaching.

Deiq shot Idisio a hard sideways glance as they cleared the gates. “Syrta bless your
boots
?” he muttered.

“Not something you want to know about,” Idisio said, looking straight ahead. “I’ve met more than one of those guards before, and they just needed reminded of that. Leave it there.”

Deiq checked, his mind connecting implications rapidly, and half-turned. Idisio’s hand latched onto his arm a moment later, fingers digging in hard.

“I said
leave it be
,” Idisio snapped, and they locked glares.

Alyea hadn’t stopped. Her voice floated back through the darkening air over the steady clop of hooves: “Can you have this argument later? I want to go home.”

Idisio dug his fingers in a fraction more, with surprising strength, then let go and turned away to follow her. Deiq hesitated a moment, looking back towards the gates, which the guards were tugging closed for the night. They wouldn’t even see him coming.

I was a street rat.
Idisio’s voice cut into his mind.
If I don’t care, what in the hells are you fussing about? Forget it. Come on already, I want a bath.

It’s—
Deiq didn’t have a word that Idisio would understand. He needed one that would convey
dishonor, insult, outrage, offensive
, and
treachery
all at once.
Our children should never be used as kathain!

I wasn’t kathain
, Idisio said tartly.
I was a whore. It was a living for a while. I decided I didn’t like it, and put my attention to stealing instead. Which I’m rather better at, thank you. And I didn’t know I was ha’ra’hain at the time, so quit frothing over it.

Did any of those men ever hurt you?

No answer; and Idisio’s mind went sharply opaque, which was answer enough.

Alyea had all but disappeared ahead. Only the few torches lining the road showed her, leading the pony at a steady pace, Idisio beside her.

Deiq took a last glance back at the gates, then let out a hard, irritated breath, shook his head, and jogged to catch up.

Their sunset arrival threw the Peysimun household into a frenzy of confusion. Within the first hour, Alyea wished she’d gone with instinct and booked rooms at one of the inns near the Gates, or even gone to her apartments at the Palace, instead of Peysimun Mansion.

Her mother stared at Deiq, and he at her, with instant and mutual antagonism during the initial introductions. After so much time surrounded by southerners, Alyea found Lady Peysimun’s pale, plump skin and mouse-brown hair a strange sight; she had trouble believing they could possibly be related. The clothes didn’t help; Lady Peysimun, as always, wore a severely styled, long-sleeved and floor-length dress. It reminded Alyea of Sela, only with more glittering jewelry at ears, neck and wrist. She wore a small firetail bird feather dipped in silver as a brooch; Alyea remembered coveting that brooch before leaving Bright Bay. Now it seemed a pointless and even gaudy decoration.

“
S’e
,” Lady Peysimun said, ice in her voice; “
S’a
,” Deiq returned, his face as bland as Alyea had ever seen it. Lady Peysimun granted Idisio a brief, assessing stare, taking in his drab, dusty trail clothes, then visibly categorized him as a servant. Alyea let the assumption rest for the moment, as one less battle to fight on the front steps.

“Deiq and Idisio are my guests,” Alyea said, putting a chill in her voice equal to her mother’s, “and will be staying for a time.”

Lady Peysimun nodded stiffly and motioned to a maid waiting nearby. “Make a room ready for
s’e
Deiq and his servant,” she ordered.

Deiq’s mouth twitched in faint amusement; Idisio lifted one shoulder with a tiny, resigned sigh. Neither protested, so Alyea again let the matter rest. She’d correct her mother in private later on. For the moment, she was just grateful that Deiq raised no fuss over being roomed away from her.

“We’ve already had dinner, I’m afraid,” Lady Peysimun said, her back stiff and her gaze aimed somewhere over Alyea’s shoulder.

“I’m sure the kitchens can put together a cold tray,” Alyea returned, secretly relieved. Her mother’s preferred dinner tended towards the light and fluffy foods Alyea hated, and right now a servant’s meal of black bread, cold meats, bean salad, and hard cheese sounded much more appetizing.

Her mother cast a hard stare at her. “I’m sure,” she said, and motioned to another servant hovering anxiously nearby. “A tray for our visitors, please. Bring it to their room. I’m sure they’d prefer to retire for the evening. And do bring them a bathing tub and water. They look to need refreshment after their long journey.”

The words, delivered with impeccable precision, managed to stop just short of insulting. The implication underneath was clear:
You’re dirty, you smell, and you’re not welcome here.

Alyea resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Mother,” she said flatly. “Thank you for your courtesy to my guests.” She turned her head and looked Deiq full in the face, seeing the lines of amusement at the corners of his eyes and mouth. “Please consider this household at your disposal,” she told him.

Her mother made an aggrieved, protesting sound. Alyea looked back and met her mother’s pale eyes with a hard stare of her own; after a moment, Lady Peysimun dropped her gaze.

In a much more subdued tone, Lady Peysimun said, “Welcome to my home,
s’e
Deiq.”

“Thank you,” Deiq said, tone solemn, eyes lit with a deep amusement. “I’m graced by your honor.” Idisio muttered something similar, barely audible, and Lady Peysimun’s expression regained some condescension as she glanced at him.

“Well,” she said then, “Alyea, my dear. If you’ll be
kind
enough to join me for evening tea while your guests settle down for the night, we can catch up on what you’ve been doing while you were gone.” She pressed her lips together hard, then looked at Deiq and added, “Breakfast is an hour past dawn,
s’e
, if you’d grace us with your presence.”

“I would be honored,” Deiq said gravely, and after a deep bow, steered Idisio after the servant detailed to lead them to a guest room.

Lady Peysimun drew in a long breath, watching them go, then let it out in a hard sigh. “Let’s go have some tea,” she said, and taking Alyea by the elbow steered her in the other direction.

Alyea’s mother poured tea with a shaking hand, the distress she hadn’t shown in front of outsiders emerging at last. “You look so . . . so
gaunt
, child. And so . . .
dark
. I almost didn’t recognize you!”

Alyea accepted the cup, sat back in the heavily padded chair, and looked around without answering right away, feeling as though she’d never seen this room before. The heavy white drapes, which allowed light but cut down on heat, had always seemed plain, almost ugly. Now she noticed the lace trimmings and pale beads sewn onto the cloth; appreciated the way the folds fell and the feathery shadow-patterns the outside trees and bushes, backlit by evening lanterns, cast against the screen of curtain.

The walls held numerous paintings and portraits: she’d never really looked at them. They’d always just . . . been there, throughout her childhood. Studying them now, she found an oddly patternless mix: light-hearted flower sketches and heavy busts of famous figures flanked portraits of stern-faced, elderly ancestors. Amid the chaos stood enormous indoor pots brimming with long-stemmed, wide-leaved plants.

A floral scent drifted by as a breeze stirred the curtains, and a faint patter of rain began.

Her mother shifted in her own chair, a worried expression fixed on her broad, pale face. Lack of outdoor activity and heredity had mixed to provide a far more “northern” appearance than Alyea herself possessed. Alyea’s father, one of the first casualties of the Purge, had been the one holding the stronger southern bloodline, and that had passed to Alyea. No doubt after all the time in the south, she looked even more like her father than usual. Her mother had always tried to make Alyea stay indoors, claiming that dark skin was unattractive on women.

Alyea had long since figured out that it was more a case of her mother not wanting to be reminded of her dead husband. The less her daughter resembled the southern side of her heritage, the calmer Lady Peysimun became.

Well, that game is out the window
, Alyea thought. Studying her mother, she wondered if Lady Peysimun even consciously considered the difference between their appearances, much less the physical luxury of their surroundings anymore; or if, like Alyea, she had begun taking luxury, status, and safety all for granted.

It hadn’t been so long since their assumptions of safety had been badly shaken. During the last months of Ninnic’s reign, fear had kept them all within the grounds, indoors more often than not. The stomp of guard boots passing along the street outside had drawn a tightness over every adult face and a breathless silence to the few occupied rooms. Nobody had been safe towards the end; certainly not the Peysimun household, after Alyea’s public disgrace and Ethu’s death.

And now, because of me, more people are going to die . . . might already be dead. Just like Ethu, the Qisani tried to help me, and they’re paying for it.
And once again, she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Alyea looked down at her teacup reflexively, ready to blink back tears; but her eyes remained dry. Outside, the pattering rain increased to a steady drumming, and thunder rumbled briefly somewhere far away.

Her mother said, “We’ll have a feast tomorrow night, to welcome you home. And . . . and to welcome your . . . your companions, of course. Although I must say you came home with some
strange
company.”

Alyea lifted her cup to her lips, despair over the past lifting into amusement. Her mother had no idea. . . .

The tea tasted of mint and oranges; one of her mother’s herbal blends, then, not a true tea. Alyea kept her face still against a grimace of distaste, thinking longingly of the tins of thopuh even now being loaded from the pack pony into the Peysimun storage rooms. She should have dug one out and given it to her mother as a homecoming gift; too late now.

“Deiq is a powerful merchant,” she said. “And a friend. Idisio is . . . an emissary of sorts.”

“I know who
s’e
Deiq is,” her mother said, her mouth thinning in clear disapproval. “He’s got a name, that one. Just how did you come to meet him?”

“Apparently, he’s a friend of Lord Eredion Sessin,” Alyea said. “Lord Eredion asked Deiq to guide me through the southlands, as a personal favor. And he’s not quite as bad as his reputation would say.”

Her mother raised her eyebrows in a skeptical expression. “Hmph. So he’ll be leaving, now that you’re home safely.” She looked distinctly relieved at the prospect. “And this . . . this boy, Idisio? He looks northern. How did he come to be traveling with you?”

“He’s more traveling with Deiq,” Alyea said, hoping to avoid dangerous explanations, and saw her mother’s eyes narrow sharply.

“I
see
.”

Alyea exhaled hard, annoyed at the obvious assumption. “No, mother, they’re not lovers.”

“If you say so.” Before she could protest further, her mother switched topics. “And what have you been doing? We’ve been terribly worried. Couldn’t you have sent word when you reached Scratha Fortress? I told Oruen if he’d sent you to any harm I’d never forgive him.”

Alyea raised an eyebrow, startled at the familiarity. Her mother always insisted on proper formality when discussing any royalty higher than themselves. To leave out Oruen’s title was severely out of character.

“Oh, well,” her mother said, catching Alyea’s surprise, “he did choose my daughter as an important emissary, after all.” She smiled. “We’ve been invited to quite a few dinners at the palace since you left.”

Alyea kept her expression neutral with an effort and sipped tea without comment. Of course. Her mother would have leapt on the implied status and grabbed hold with both hands. She restrained a sigh, wondering if she could gather Deiq and Idisio and simply slip out of Bright Bay in the middle of the night.

“But tell me of your journey,” her mother pressed. “We didn’t think you’d return so soon. Holding a desert fortress is a big job. Did you leave someone competent in charge?”

Alyea studied the strain in her mother’s face and understood: the woman was afraid her daughter had failed, had run away from the task. Afraid the new, cherished status would disintegrate like sand blown by the wind.

“I left Lord Scratha in charge,” Alyea said bluntly. “I believe he’s competent.”

Her mother’s hands began to shake again. She looked tremendously distressed. “He returned? But—wasn’t he banished, sent off to the Stone Islands? How in the world—?”

“I don’t know,” Alyea interrupted, “and it’s really not my concern. He showed up, I bowed out and came home.”

Her mother studied the cup in her hands, turning it slowly, her whole face puckered into a worried frown. “So what are you going to do now?”

Alyea leaned back in her chair, cradling the fragile teacup in both hands. Her stomach rumbled quietly, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten dinner yet. After this obligatory conversation, she’d slip off to the kitchens for something more solid than tea and sliced fruit.

“I need an audience with Oruen,” she said, deliberately leaving off any honorific. She felt
she’d
damn well earned that right.

“Of course,” her mother said, not looking up. “I’ve already sent. . . .” A dark flush spread across her pale skin. “I’ve already sent word,” she finished.

“Inviting him to the feast tomorrow?”

Her mother’s head moved in a bare nod.

Alyea rolled her eyes and said, “Yes, wouldn’t that be something, to have the king himself attend a dinner in your home. I bet you’ve been trying to work that in since I left.”

“You needn’t sound so sour over it,” her mother said, glancing up with a flash of temper. “How was I to know you’d give the fortress back to Lord Scratha?”

Alyea sat up, astonished. “Did anyone really think I’d fight the rightful lord over the holding?” she demanded. “Were you all that mad?”

Her mother shrugged. “We didn’t think he’d return so soon,” she said thinly, her color still high. “And as I understand it, once you’d settled in, a case could have been made that you had rightful possession under desert law.”

Alyea played out Bright Bay politics in her mind. Yes, that would have made sense to them. To people that had never traveled past the Horn, never looked a teyanin lord in the face, never heard a ha’rethe speak, never seen the rock and sand that surrounded Scratha Fortress; never seen how complex desert politics could quickly become.

Her mother, especially, wouldn’t understand any of that.

“It wouldn’t have been that simple,” Alyea said at last. “Even if he hadn’t returned, it wouldn’t have been that simple.”

“I don’t see why not,” her mother bristled. “You had the king’s backing, didn’t you? He was getting ready to send people to support your holding, as soon as we heard that you’d taken proper possession of Scratha Fortress. We’ve all been waiting on word from you!”

Alyea stared at her mother, astonished all over again. “He was going to send
troops
?”

“Well, that was certainly suggested,” her mother said, looking away. The inflection was unmistakable: smug pride at having been so smart.

“By you, of course.” Alyea watched her mother preen a little, then said, much more harshly, “I hope Oruen wasn’t
listening
?”

The smile left her mother’s broad face, replaced by stiff resentment. “You needed protection from all those warring barbarian factions. Why was that such a bad idea?”

Alyea shook her head. “You have no idea,” she said, despairing. “I can’t even begin to explain.”

“Well, never mind,” her mother said sourly. “It’s over and done with. You’re home, and the matter’s between Oruen and Scratha now. We’ll have the welcoming feast tomorrow, and host your companions for one more night, if they
want
to stay—” Her tone suggested a strong hope otherwise. “And then they’ll return to their lives and you’ll return to your place here. Perhaps Oruen will find other assignments for you.” She didn’t sound very hopeful over that part.

“Um,” Alyea said carefully, “it’s not actually quite that simple.”

“Of course it is,” her mother said. “I won’t allow you to complicate things past all reason this time, Alyea.”

“This time?” Alyea sat forward, anger flushing through her. “
This time?
What was the first time? When have I
complicated
things? When I was almost
beaten
to death? Is that what you’re—”

Her mother’s expression turned severe. “Don’t you bark at me, Alyea Peysimun,” she said sharply. “Not in my own household. At the end of the day, you’re still an unmarried young woman and I’m still, as your mother, in charge of you. Don’t you forget that!”

Alyea stared, speechless; caught between the urge to shriek with rage and collapse in laughter at the vast misunderstanding that lay between them. She’d hoped to rest first, but clearly she would have to tell her mother the full news tonight after all. How to present it, how to get through her mother’s willful ignorance, utterly escaped her.