Land of Night (3 page)

"Thank you,” Scarlet breathed, glad that they were all gone. “I feel like a plucked chicken."

Nenos nodded, getting the gist if not the exact words. Chos came in a few moments later and asked, through motions and signs, if Scarlet wanted another bath.

"Later,” he said.
"Shey."
Which meant,
some other time
, or
when I'm ready
, but there was one thing he did want. Scarlet ate another dumpling and wiped his fingers on the napkin before he gripped a lock of his black hair and made scissoring motions next to it, miming a haircut. The men were shocked.

Nenos rattled off a spate of Sinha and Scarlet didn't catch a word of it, though the meaning was clear enough.

"What do you mean, I can't cut my hair? It's my hair. Why not?"

Nenos answered him patiently, bowing, and Scarlet heard the name
Nazheradei
several times. Chos just looked frightened.

So, he was not to cut his hair for fear of angering Liall? What was he, a doll? Scarlet folded his hands on the table and regarded Nenos with a steady eye. “I just want a pair of scissors,” he said. “Surely you can do that."

But Nenos shook his head, the matter patently settled in his mind. Scarlet stared him down for a moment, and then shrugged. “Fine.” He reached down and slid a sharp little dagger out of his boot, testing its edge with his thumb. “I've made do with worse than this."

From their mutual expressions, Scarlet realized that it never occurred to them that he might be armed. Nenos muttered an order aside to Chos, and the young servant exited quickly. The old man held his hand out.

"Edas,"
he said. Please.

"I don't think so."

Nenos sighed heavily, sat down beside Scarlet at the table and began to speak at length, slowly and with great patience. Scarlet only caught a stray word here and there, completely meaningless, but Nenos was obviously saying, plainly; “I need you to give me that dagger” and hinting at consequences if Scarlet did not comply.

Bugger that.

"I'll make you a trade.” Scarlet again made cutting motions with his fingers. “The dagger for scissors."

Nenos shook his head tiredly. There was a noise at the door, and Liall—tall and white-haired and imposing—entered the room, followed closely by a fretting Chos. Liall gave Scarlet a flat smile. Nenos rose and bowed to Liall.

"You're awake. And dressed,” Liall said, ignoring Nenos.

Liall wore a dark gray virca with his white hair neatly brushed, all of his clothing new and the leather of his boots polished. We're both looking rather fancy lately. Scarlet thought, and could not help making comparison in his mind between the prince before him and the bandit Kasiri atya who had stopped him on a mountain road and demanded a kiss.

"And eating.” Scarlet toed one of the chairs away from the table with his boot. Liall hesitated and then sank down.

"Chos says you waved a dagger around."

Scarlet laughed. “I did not!"

"I said Chos said that. I do not believe it happened precisely that way. You have a temper, but you would not pull a weapon just because you did not get your wants satisfied.” Liall waved the servants off imperiously and they went without a backward look.

"You have to show me how to do that,” Scarlet said, miming the wave. He slid the dagger back into his boot. “I just wanted a pair of scissors, for Deva's sake. I don't know why you were disturbed for that."

"It is complicated.” Liall eyed Scarlet's plate, distracted. “You like the dumplings?"

Scarlet wanted to ask if Liall had made any progress in his mission, but if Liall was not volunteering, he was not asking. “Very much."

Nenos came and set a pottery cup of green che in front of Liall before vanishing again. The scent of roses wafted up. Liall lifted the cup, cradling it in his hands for the warmth, and suppressed a yawn.

"One would think you hadn't slept at all,” Scarlet said meaningfully. He only meant to tease Liall, but Liall set the cup down quickly, his spine stiff.

"I know...” Liall began. He seemed to think better of what he was about to say, and started over. “Last night ... if only..."

Scarlet nearly laughed again. “What are you on about?"

Liall raked his fingers through his white hair. “I am not doing this correctly, am I? Very well, I want you to know something. If you were one of my people and what happened last night ... if it were our first time..."

"It was our first time."

"I am well aware of that,” Liall snapped. He lapsed into brooding silence and stared at the fireplace, his jaw tight.

Scarlet stared for a moment, and then reasoned that it must have been a trying day already for Liall. “I'm listening."

"In another time, I would have woken you with gifts befitting a prince. Now ... I have nothing to give you that comes from myself alone, and so I have nothing. I just wanted you to know that I meant you no dishonor, that I would never willingly deceive you or slight you."

"Are you done?” Scarlet waited as Liall sat with his face closed and set. “I don't need gifts, Liall, and I'm more than a little grateful you feel you can't give me any."

Liall seemed puzzled, but not terribly. “Oh?"

"I'm not a prize that you've won, or a thing that crawled to you because you were a prince and could give me jewels and pretties. You're not Prince Nazheradei to me; you're Liall, the bastard bandit Kasiri. I expect no more than
he
can give.”
And I hope you expect no more of me than plain Scarlet of Lysia could give,
he prayed silently.

Liall was quiet for a moment, and Scarlet thought he was angered again.

"You shame me."

"Oh, enough of your foreign nonsense,” Scarlet said in disgust. He shoved the plate of dumplings in front of Liall. “Have something to eat, you look awful."

Scarlet half-expected Liall to explode, but he took up a fork and picked at the dumplings. “You are the foreign one here, you know."

"Doesn't feel that way to me. No matter how far I go, I'm still myself."

Liall snorted, but his heavy mood lifted and he began to eat a little.

"Bad morning?"

Liall nodded around a mouthful. “No worse than I expected, but bad enough. They have not forgotten me, which is not altogether good for my purpose here. I do not have many happy memories of Rshan."

"Are you making progress in ... whatever it is you came for?"

The fey look in his pale eyes boded ill for someone. “Not yet.” Liall finally seemed to notice that Scarlet was not wearing his usual clothing. “Why, you are done up like a proper princeling! Is this Nenos's doing?” His fingers plucked the bright row of stitching near Scarlet's collar and he whistled lowly. “The color suits you,” he judged. “But gray is too serious. I like red better."

"I noticed that not many of your people wear it."

He shrugged. “The color red has fallen out of favor since Ramung's time. It is the color of his House."

"Who was Ramung?"

"A very ruthless Baron who created a great deal of strife inside Rshan. Now it has become almost tradition to reserve that color for his House, except for things like hats and scarves and gloves. I pay no attention to such customs, and now red reminds me only of you. But if you wish, you are entitled to wear the royal blue and silver of my House."

Scarlet was certain there was more to that than Liall was telling him. He made an indifferent motion with his hand. “I don't think so."

Liall did not press the point, perhaps because they were very good at misunderstanding one another. “One day,” Liall said, noncommittal. He ate the last of the dumplings and wiped his mouth with a starched linen napkin so white it hurt the eyes. “And now, I must abandon you again.” Liall stood up.

That amused Scarlet. “Is that how you see me: a lost little waif in your giant country with your giant folk?"

"Well ... I am a little concerned for you."

Obviously, since he came running when Chos called. “Liall, I'm a journeyer. Meeting new people is what I do. I'm not going to pine away like a caged bird just because you're not in my line of sight. Besides, if you ignore me too much, I have my own ways of making you regret it."

Liall laughed. A little too loudly, Scarlet thought, but Liall's hand on the back of his neck was warm, as were the lips pressed to the spot under his ear.

"I will heed your warning, and not ignore you too much when I return,” Liall murmured.

Liall made to leave, and then Scarlet remembered. “Liall ... why don't they want me to cut my hair?"

"Oh, that.” He seemed embarrassed. “Pay it no mind. I will straighten it out. Nenos believed my permission was needed first."

"Per...” Scarlet was speechless. So they did think he was Liall's property. “And the dagger?"

"Unless you are a bodyguard, it is not usual for anyone, even a lover, to be armed in the presence of a prince when they are closeted alone together. I will explain your status to the servants and you will not be bothered again about it."

"What exactly is my status?"

Liall grinned suddenly and the years fell away from him. He didn't look much older than Shansi then, with the firelight from the hearth and the blue glow from the lamps. “You are my t'aishka. And why not let your hair grow longer? It would please me."

When he had gone, Scarlet wondered again what t'aishka actually meant, and resolved to ask Liall about it later. He did, however, decide not to cut his hair.

2.

A Dangerous Game

Liall left early the next morning, gone before Scarlet had woken. Several hours into the day—telling time here was an impossibility—Scarlet was seated in the smaller room adjoining the common room. Liall called the room a
den
, like it was a warren for some animal. The term amused Scarlet and he used it now when he referred to the smaller, cozier room with its big couch and shelves of books and the huge, stone casement with the tinted panes of glass. He was seated on the couch once more, watching the people come and go in the torchlight on the snowy walkway far below. A book was open on his lap, though he couldn't read it at all. The book was interesting enough that he didn't mind, with colored pictures of beasts and strange buildings, and script that looked like branching vines across the pages, curiously beautiful, but foreign. Everything here was foreign.

He had other books strewn about the table. These were ones without words, just pictures of men and women, but drawn with an eye so delicate to detail that it made him flush with pleasure just to look at them. Scarlet glanced at the window again, looking down, and saw what he thought was a bare, snow-trimmed tree suddenly bend and move out of the way of a lady in a sapphire robe trimmed with white fur. Scarlet gaped and rose up to his knees on the couch, his book sliding to the floor. Clumps of snow slid off the tree and its trunk suddenly parted to reveal thick, dark-skinned legs that carried it swiftly away from the walkway. Scarlet's heart began to beat faster. That was no tree, but a man, yet a man far larger even than the Rshani, with a round, bald head and arms that swung like saplings at his sides. He was about to call out for Nenos when he realized yet again that he had no way to tell the old man what he had seen, or ask him for an explanation.

Scarlet sank back onto the couch slowly, his heartbeat gradually returning to normal. What was that thing? Was it a real man, or something else? No one on the walkway had paid the creature any attention, and there was no way they could have missed him. The dark giant must be something new, something he had not seen before.

He realized with a start that he
had
seen something like it before: the wooden statue of the Shining One in the Fate Dealer's tent in Ankar. The statue had frightened him then, and he was no less shaken now. It was impossible, wasn't it? The Shining Ones had been dead for thousands of years. What, then, had he just seen?

A few hours passed and Scarlet was finishing up one of the thicker volumes when a soft knock echoed in the quiet room. Nenos answered it, and a young man with a most gentle expression stood there, his thin hands folded in front of him. He wore a plain, ankle-length virca of blue wool and his hair was long and straight like an icefall or a fold of white silk. His eyes were not pale blue, like Liall's, but a deep gold, most unusual. He bowed his head to Scarlet and smiled, and then spoke to Nenos, who bowed in turn.

"I am Jochi,” the man said in accented but perfect Bizye, still smiling, and finally Scarlet recognized him.

"You were at the port."

Jochi smiled, as if happy to be recalled. “I was, yes. I had been waiting for many weeks. It is kind of you to remember.” Jochi was handsome without being pretty, and his manners were fine as a king's but somehow comforting, as if his whole purpose was to make Scarlet feel at ease. “The queen has asked me to bring you to the hall to join us for dinner."

Scarlet felt a flash of relief at understanding and being able to make himself understood, right before it vanished and he realized what Jochi had said. “Dinner? You mean with the queen?"

"And several hundred courtiers and servants. Have no fear, ser, this is very normal.” His voice was uncommonly gentle.

"Now?"

"Of course, now, ser."

Scarlet rose. “Thank you,” he said, casting a nervous glance aside to Nenos, who nodded. He put the book down and started toward Jochi, but stopped suddenly and looked down at his clothing.

"You look very well,” Jochi assured. “Fear not on that account."

"Thank you. I haven't spent much time in castles."

"It is only larger than most places,” Jochi said, smiling a little. “Come, ser."

As Jochi guided him through the corridors, he explained in his soft voice the shape of the palace and pointed out things to remember as guiding landmarks. He was dressed in plain wool but his manner was too studied for him to be a commoner, yet Scarlet was not sure he was a courtier or nobleman, either.

"There are one thousand and twenty-two rooms in the Nauhinir, ser,” he said, pretending not to notice Scarlet's shock. “One thousand, eight hundred and four windows, one thousand seven hundred and six doors and ninety-four staircases."