Neveryona (19 page)

‘You have?’ Pryn asked, impressed. She thought to recount her own adventures with the Liberator. But a second thought decided her to remain as ordinary seeming as possible in the eyes of this most extraordinary young
woman. ‘You’re very brave,’ Pryn said, recalling how quickly they’d fled the gardener.

‘Yes,’ Ini said. ‘I’m not afraid of anything. Especially the Liberator. Or whatever’s over there. In his garden. I just go over there and walk around in it! All the time. Just like I lived there! And nobody does a thing to me – they wouldn’t
dare!’

Which was when Pryn realized the little murderess’s face practically glittered with fear – and that she was obviously and luminously lying!

‘Where are you from?’ Pryn asked.

‘What do you want to know for?’

Pryn shrugged. ‘Because you’re interesting. And I like you.’

‘You do?’ Ini grinned at her. (Pryn immediately wondered if, indeed, she did. But she smiled back.) ‘I came from a little farming province. But I got taken by slavers and sold in the desert – do you know what they do with slaves in the desert?’

‘No,’ Pryn said to Ini’s eager grin. ‘What?’

Pryn thought Ini was about to tell her.

But something happened in the Ini’s face – as though the mind behind it had moved on to some memory that turned the features bitter, then angry. ‘What a stupid question!’ Ini looked away, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Pryn thought for a moment. ‘Did you escape?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you kill a lot of people when you escaped?’

Ini looked at her feet as they walked. ‘No. Not when I escaped.’

‘
After
you escaped?’

‘No.’ Ini still looked down. ‘Before.’

‘You killed people when you were still a slave?’ Pryn was confused. ‘Who did you kill?’

‘Other slaves.’ Ini looked up at Pryn with the same
startled expression as when she’d first looked up from the pool, ‘It was my job! That’s why I did it! Otherwise they would have killed me – why did you
think
I did it!’ She turned away sharply and stepped ahead of Pryn. Once she glanced back. ‘You think this garden is like the forest? It is no more like the forests outside it than that – ‘ She stopped, suddenly, to point to a green leaf caught on the rough bark of a tree-trunk beside the path – ‘is like that!’ Her finger moved to indicate another green leaf, among a cluster of leaves, at the tip of a low twig.

‘But …’ Stepping up to the trunk, Pryn frowned. ‘But those two leaves are as alike as leaves can be, aren’t they?’

‘You think so?’ Ini grinned, suddenly and hugely.

Pryn bent closer, wondering if this were a joke, or perhaps more of the strange perception that allowed someone to
be
an Ini. The single leaf stuck to the trunk and the riot of leaves on the branches about them seemed, in themselves, a fine map of the relation between the garden and the greater wilderness around.

Then, though there was no breeze, the leaf on the bark fluttered. It split down its central vein, revealing an insect body.

Beating green wings, the moth fluttered from the trunk a few inches, then landed again to compose itself once more into a ‘leaf.’

Pryn looked at Ini, who now seemed again as angry as she’d ever been.

‘You see? They’re not the same at all! And I thought you said they were! The similarity is all illusion, a bit of chance – oh, yes, all very well for the moth. But all the illusion does is distract
us
from the difference! And once you
see
the differences between them … ?’ Ini’s hand, still wet from the pool and dirty, smacked the trunk over the moth as hard as she had struck the wall. ‘Then you
can control them – ‘ She ground her palm, first one way, then back, while, with her other hand, she plucked the leaf from the twig, crushing it – ‘both.’

Her hands fell from the tree.

The twig was bare.

On the trunk were a few green bits over a spot slightly darker than the bark around it.

Ini turned away, grinning again, and started down the red brick steps.

Pryn hurried behind her.

The path took them around and down, till they came out between high hedges. Ahead was the little bridge with the four fountains at its corners.

Madame Keyne walked across it toward them.

Ini slowed. Pryn caught up with her, slowing too. She wondered what she or Ini would say. Madame Keyne smiled.

Then they heard the trundling barrow.

The gardener rolled his tools from another small path. ‘Morning, ma’am.’ He nodded toward Madame Keyne, set his barrow down, and stood.

‘Good morning, Clyton,’ Madame Keyne said. ‘You’ve done a fine job with the irises, I see. Such things don’t go unnoticed. Gya has a new assistant waiting for you down at the kitchen. His name is Samo. Things should be back to normal for you –
and
the rest of us! – once he learns his chores.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ Bending to rummage through his tools. Clyton pulled loose some piece of wet, wadded, and torn material and turned to the Ini. ‘This yours?’

‘That?’ asked the pale-haired young woman.

Pryn looked from Ini to Clyton to Madame Keyne. The older woman’s brows were raised in the shadow of a question, with, about them as well, the shadow of amusement.

The gardener held out the ruined, red scarf.

Ini’s pale eyes were wide, her lips tight. Suddenly she announced: ‘Yes! I think it
is
mine!’ She stepped forward and took the dripping cloth from the hairy fingers. ‘It must have fallen off into the water when I was exploring the upper stream this morning!’

The waterfall plashed and cascaded over the stone beasts.

At either side of the bridge, the four fountains sprayed their even and orderly waters.

Ini took the ends of the scarf and stretched it out. Wrinkled and ripped, it was still spotted with bits of gravel and leaf from where it had been wadded into the conduit. She raised it, put it behind her neck, brought the ends before her, and knotted it about her throat – as Clyton wore his.

Then she let her unsettling laugh.

‘Well,’ said Madame Keyne. ‘A bit the worse for wear. Still, I’m glad to see you’ve decided to join us. But Pryn – ‘ (Pryn wondered if Ini were what Clyton had meant by a new breed of servant.) ‘ – I was actually looking for you. I’m going into town, down to the New Market. I’d like you to accompany me, if you would … ?’

‘Yes, Madame.’ Pryn glanced at Ini, who simply stood, watching Clyton pick up the handles of his barrow, to trundle off on another path.

Madame Keyne turned back across the bridge. Pryn left Ini to hurry after; she caught up with her at the bridge’s far end.

As they walked along the shrub- and flower-banked path, Pryn imagined Ini following, no more than six steps back – possibly with knife out …

Pryn looked sharply around.

The path behind was empty.

Sighing, Pryn turned back – to see that Madame Keyne was watching her with that same expression of curiosity and amusement. Pryn felt her own face move toward an uncomfortable frown. ‘Madame Keyne, don’t you think that young woman is … strange?’

‘Strange?’ Madame Keyne answered, ‘I think she’s quite mad.’

‘And do you believe she just – dropped her scarf? In the water, I mean. By accident?’

‘Of course she didn’t!’ Madame Keyne chuckled. ‘But then, I wouldn’t want to wear it either.’ She chuckled again, more softly. ‘When I was a girl, a young noblewoman came to stay with my family, here at the house – this was before the Child Empress began her joyous and generous reign, so you know how long ago
that
must have been. The High Court was still under the rule of the Dragon, and the Child Empress herself was still incarcerated somewhere off in the south; and all Kolhari was supposed to be called Neveryóna – though no one ever did. The young noblewoman was ever so much more highly born than we were – once or twice removed, she was a second or third cousin to the Empress herself. She had suffered some terrible ordeal in the south that I didn’t understand and nobody was supposed to mention, and she was being returned to her uncle in the east. While she was passsing through Kolhari, we were honored with her presence – because whatever had happened to her meant she couldn’t stay with her relatives over
there
, on the other side of the wall. At any rate, all her servants – and she came with ever so many – wore red scarfs. I thought it was very elegant, and I resolved that when I grew up and had servants of my own, I would have them wear the same.’ A third time she chuckled, though now there was no voice to it at all. ‘And I have!’ Madame Keyne took
Pryn’s arm. ‘The young noblewoman later became the Empress’s vizerine. And of course, at this point she is no more a young woman than I – though when she was our houseguest, the six or seven years that she had on me seemed like all the time in the world. Still, can you imagine a spirited child like our Ini submitting to such a silly, jealousy-founded, and capricious whim from someone like me? Really, I’d think much less of her if she
didn’t
balk a bit. She has spirit. And I like that.’

‘You’re not afraid of her?’

‘Afraid?’ Madame Keyne frowned. ‘Of Ini? No, I’m not afraid of her. Part of me is rather fond of her. Part of me is rather sorry for her. But you see, the Ini is fascinated by power. She wants to see how it works, wants to stand as close as she can to it, to stare down into it and watch it moving, pulsing, actually becoming – right before her! Currently, I have more of it than anyone else she knows. If she hurt me, or even displeased me in any way too severe, she knows she would be denied her favorite pastime: observing me. I don’t believe she’s ready to risk that.’ (Pryn recalled the little murderess’s own assertion of her favorite pastime, and marveled at this woman’s self-confidence – which seemed, somehow, quite as out of touch, in its way, as the behavior of Ini herself lurking somewhere behind them in the garden.) ‘Now if she ever met anyone with more power than I,’ Madame Keyne went on, ‘then I might have reason to fear. Blessedly rare as her sort is, she’s not the first I’ve met. Reading such signs is among the things civilized life teaches. But until she meets such a person – or should I say “personage” – I feel rather secure.’ Madame Keyne pressed Pryn’s arm. ‘Now if I were Radiant Jade, indeed I
would
fear her. But then, I suppose, precisely
that
danger is half the fascination, don’t you think?’

‘Radiant Jade is fascinated by her?’

‘Well – ‘ Madame Keyne mused – ‘one might say that my secretary …’

‘ – has taken an interest in her?’ Pryn suggested.

Madame Keyne laughed again. ‘You might say that. Yes, that’s a very good way to put it.’

Pryn said: ‘Your secretary told me that you hated her.’

‘That I hated my secretary?’ Madame Keyne frowned. ‘Or that I hated the Ini?’

‘Ini.’

Again Madame Keyne sighed. ‘The truth is, girl, I love Jade; and for her sake I put up with the little monster – of whom, finally, I do think I have the greater understanding. Though I like to fancy I’m not as mad as Ini, in many ways we’re astonishingly, if not distressingly, alike. If we weren’t, I tell myself, why would Jade be able to move her own – ‘ Madame Keyne glanced at Pryn – ‘interests from one of us to the other so easily?’

The path, taking them toward the great house, now swung them away toward an outbuilding, in front of which, among some fruit trees, stood a cart – the one Pryn had arrived in last night. It was hitched to the same horse. The hangings, however, had been roped back to the frame so that the inner space, save for the overhead awning, was free.

Madame Keyne walked up to it. ‘There’s room for two on the driver’s seat. Sit here – ‘ She patted the board – ‘and we can talk.’ She helped Pryn up. Then, pulling in skirts and pushing up bangles, she climbed to the seat, as the black-eyed young man whom Pryn had seen earlier among the new servants came running out of the shed.

‘Madame, if you would
like
me to drive, I’d be happy to – ‘ he wore a red scarf around his waist.

‘Samo,’ Madame Keyne said, ‘I told you before,
I
am going to drive. If we are all to be happy here, you must learn that this is not like the other houses you have
worked in. I
shall
drive today. Now you run ahead and open the gate. That, today, is
your
job.’ Madame Keyne picked up the reins and flicked them.

Nodding, bowing, Samo dashed off down the driveway.

As Pryn settled on the seat beside Madame Keyne, the horse’s haunches began to move. The cart lurched beneath them. They rolled forward. The trees scattered handfuls of light and shadow in their faces, over their laps.

Ahead, Samo tugged at the heavy planks in the high wall’s entrance. Pryn felt a surge of comfort to be riding with, and indeed to be sitting so near, Madame Keyne, who, for all her dubiously placed certainty, seemed the most normal person in the household. Summer warmth had worked its way into the morning chill. Pryn looked about at the lawns, the outbuildings, the hedges, now at where some statue poked above a grove of shrubs, now back to the main house – where she saw Radiant Jade.

The secretary stood just at the house’s corner, one clay-stained hand raised – to wave? No, she had simply raised it to touch the wall. Jade watched them.