Sword of the Deceiver (29 page)

Ekkadi froze, her face showing nothing for the moment but utter surprise. Prishi felt herself smile, and a small laugh turned into a painful cough.

“But …” stammered the maid. Her mind was so well tuned for deception, she did not know what to do with the truth.

“But what?” snapped Prishi. She was tired. She wanted to sleep, to remember her husband instead of thinking on what she did now. “You do not have that much time. If the priest wants to catch Natharie in the fullness of her violation, he should be quick.”

But still the maid hesitated. Her eyes narrowed to slits. For a moment she forgot rank, place, and courtesy and saw only another conspirator before her. “Why are you doing this?”

“That, little maid, is my own business.”

Ekkadi frowned, but she accepted the answer. Perhaps she even remembered who and where she was. She made obeisance and turned, but Prishi snatched her wrist with one crabbed hand, holding her tightly. “Understand this, however, little maid,” she said in a low and reasonable voice. “If you tell anyone of my part in this, now or ever, you had best be able to live on air and in the air, for you will never know when the poison, the needle, or the dagger will find you. Not even Divakesh will be able to save you from the ones who are still loyal to me. Do you understand?”

Prishi saw the fear in Ekkadi’s eyes and knew that Ekkadi understood very well.

Prishi let her hand fall. “Go then.”

The maid snatched up her skirts and ran, and Prishi closed her eyes, profoundly weary.
So, Rajan. The ending begins. May you and our sons one day forgive me for it
.

When Samudra saw the cruelty that Chandra and Bandhura would level against his love in partnership with Divakesh, his resistance would finally break and he would do what he must to take away the throne. It was thus Sindhu would be saved, and Hastinapura, and possibly even Natharie.

But it was a vile thing to set one brother against another. Justice would be meted out for that too. Prishi had accepted that when she set out on this course.

Queen Prishi turned to her woman. “It is time, Damman.”

Damman’s round, old face wrinkled in on itself as she struggled so hard to hold back her tears. Prishi took her hands. Damman had kept her roundness, but all the work she had done had given her thick calluses.
I
would have given you ease if I could, my friend
. “You may go. I will not ask you to do this.”

“And where would I go?” Damman shot back. “What would I do? Besides, if we are discovered, it will look very strange to see you preparing your own cup.”

Prishi wanted to argue, but found she did not have the strength. “Very well. We do this together.”

So Prishi sat on her pillows and watched. Damman knelt among the boxes and bottles, and lifted this powder and that syrup, and held the cup over the lamp, warming it, swirling the liquid that smelled richly of cardamom and ginger, and something else, something elusive and not unpleasant.

She had watched Damman do something very similar on her wedding night, while she was waiting for her imperial husband to come and make her his own. It would relax her, she had said, and warm her toward what was to come. Damman had prepared her cups to ward off the sickness that came with each of her children, the boys who survived and the girls who did not. Her cups had numbed Prishi when her husband, with his laughing eyes and warm hands, died, and she had considered the ways in which she might die too.

Damman’s hands were shaking as she knelt and held out the gilded cup to Prishi.

Prishi took it. Her own hands were steady, if a little cold. “This releases you, Damman. You are free. Leave as quickly as you can, and go to the house of Lord Basdev. I’ve left some jewels there for you. You will want for nothing.”

Damman nodded, her eyes brimming with tears.

Prishi looked into the depths of the last cup.
Forgive me. Natharie, Samudra, Mothers all. Forgive me
.

She drank. It was sweet and it was bitter, and she felt fear and freedom.

Before she had drained the dregs, her hand went numb. Prishi fell back, her eyes blind with the final darkness, so she did not see Damman raise the second cup to her own lips and drink it down to join her at the very last.

Natharie ran down the narrow servants’ stair. The oil lamp she carried flickered violently with each step. In her other hand she clutched her hems up near her knees to keep them out of the way. Her mouth moved constantly, repeating Ekkadi’s directions to the Audience Court, counting stairs and turnings, praying she did not get lost, praying she was not seen.

She emerged from the palace. The fresh night air was a balm after the closeness, heat, and dust. Her eyes, already used to the dark, took in the crowded yard spreading out before her, and she knew she had followed Ekkadi’s directions correctly.

Thankfully, Ekkadi had warned her what to expect, or Natharie’s heart might have sunk at the sight of the enormous number of people. The yard was filled with little improvised camps complete with fires burning in clay stoves. The best off had pillows and blankets. Most people had lay down, and the sounds of snoring and heavy breathing rose on all sides. A few people were still upright, hunched near their lamps or their stoves, waiting for day, waiting to be noticed.

Natharie pushed back her veil. Holding her lamp high, she circled the yard, stepping over the sleeping bodies, which earned her a few curses and more than one kick to her ankle. She had only one real plan for her search. If the woman had arrived recently, she was probably in some spot closer to the gates than the stairs.

The gates were better guarded than the doors. These men were sharp-eyed and straight-backed, watching the yard. Watching her.

Already seen, stealth would do her no good, so Natharie pushed aside her fear and walked up to the three guards at the left-hand side of the gate, making the salute of trust with her free hand.

“Please, masters,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I am sent from the small domain. Has anyone today come from Sindhu?”

The shortest and broadest of the three had a thin mustache on his lip. He blew out a great sigh. “What in the name of all the Mothers could the domain want to know for?”

Natharie risked a tiny smile. “Is it for any of us to question?”

That earned a chuckle from the guard on the mustached man’s left. “As you say, sister.” He dug his finger behind his ear, scratching and thinking. “I was coming on shift, and I heard something, over that way …” He pointed to the left. “Woman I think.”

“She was talking with one of the rice sellers,” volunteered the mustached man. “Pretty too. All in pinks. Silk, yet. Thought of offering her a better bed for the night.” He leered companionably at the others, forgetting Natharie for a moment’s fantasy.

“You may be glad you didn’t if she’s wanted inside,” answered the other. “Try over there,” he said to Natharie and pointed again. “We don’t want to start waking people if we don’t have to.”

Natharie made the salute again and picked her way across to the yard holding her lamp over her head, craning her neck, praying that the woman was not one of the anonymous forms under thin blankets.

There. The flickering light touched a flash of deep rose pink. Natharie stepped closer. There on her back, one hand resting on her belly, her hair spread out beneath her, lay her “Auntie” Radana.

Natharie stuffed her hand into her mouth to stifle her gasp. Kneeling at once, she shook the courtesan’s shoulder.

“Radana. Radana.”

Slowly, the woman stirred, blinked, and came awake. She saw Natharie and sat up at once.

“Princess Natharie. Thank all the blessed. Princess, I am come to warn …”

Natharie began to gesture her to silence, but even as she did, a hand touched her shoulder. She jumped, nearly out of her own skin and turned, and looked into Hamsa’s wide eyes.

He knows
, she thought, despairing that Samudra had found her, but relieved it was no one else.

“Who is this?” Radana demanded in a whisper.

“Hamsa. She serves the first prince.”

Radana did not waste another heartbeat but threw herself at Hamsa’s feet. “Great Lady, I am come with a warning to the Pearl Throne! I beg you hear me!”

Natharie stared, stunned. Hamsa recovered before Natharie did. “Quick.” The sorceress forgot all rank and propriety and grabbed Natharie’s hand. Natharie did not resist. If Hamsa was already here, who knew who else might be coming to find them? The sorceress dragged her up to the gate with Radana following so closely behind she stepped on Natharie’s heels. The soldiers all shifted their grips on their spears as they approached, ready to bar their way.

Hamsa stopped in front of the mustached guard and pushed the veil back from her face.

“
Agnidh?
What …?”

She did not let him finish. “I’m on the prince’s errand, Chintan. Let us through.”

Chintan laid his free hand over his heart and then touched his forehead. “At once,
Agnidh
.”

The guards parted, but instead of opening the gate, Chintan stomped his foot down on what Natharie now saw was a wooden platform. A trapdoor lifted in it, and an angry eye glared in the lamplight. “
Agnidh
Hamsa on the prince’s errand,” said Chintan, and the anger turned to surprise. The eye and its owner disappeared, leaving the ladder leading down into the tunnels clear for Hamsa, then Natharie, and, more slowly, Radana.

The ladder ended in a square-cut tunnel of stone and earth. Lamps hung from chains and flickered in niches. Natharie could hear men’s voices laughing or quarreling mildly, along with the rattle of dice and the tread of sandals. A pair of soldiers shouldered passed, stopping only momentarily when they saw Hamsa.

“Great Lady …” said Radana anxiously as her delicate sandals touched the earthen floor.

“Not here.” Hamsa turned north and strode ahead, with the confidence of one who knew the dim route well. Of course she would. This was clearly a place of soldiers, and as such it would be Samudra’s place.

Natharie found herself wondering how far the tunnels stretched. They passed ladders that led even farther down, and branch corridor marked with neatly etched plaques to keep new arrivals from becoming hopelessly lost.

Hamsa did not stop to consult these markings. She took the Sindishi women around a right-hand turning, and then another. Natharie thought she could sense the weight of the palace over them and the idea drained the blood from her cheeks. Did Hamsa mean to lead them straight into the heart of the mountain?

No. They came to another ladder, leading upward. Hamsa climbed this quickly. She unlatched the trapdoor overhead and paused a moment to watch. Then, she pushed it open and beckoned Natharie and Radana to follow her.

They emerged into a small, plain room. Its walls, where they could be seen, were adorned with friezes of the Mother of Increase with her sickle and round belly. But mostly, the room was taken up by shelves which were crammed with scrolls and tablets and sheafs of papers. Natharie realized it must be a records store, probably only one of many in this ancient palace.

The only furniture was a writing desk with an abacus and a lamp. Hamsa took Natharie’s lamp from her hand, checked the other for oil and then lit the wick, setting the two lights side by side.

“Now.” Hamsa turned fully to Radana, who immediately and humbly bowed.

“Forgive me, Great Lady,” she said in her slow and clumsy Hastinapuran. “I see now that you are the sorceress who follows the Prince Samudra. I did not know you before. I …”

At this little speech, Natharie’s frayed nerves gave way entirely. “Radana!” she shouted in Sindishi. “What is it? Why are you here?”
And
why aren’t you talking to me?

Radana flicked her a glance full of scorn. “The news I have is for the Pearl Throne, not the child of traitors.”

Natharie gaped. Hamsa had gone pale. “Who is this woman?” she asked Natharie.

“She is my father’s chief concubine. Radana, you will tell me what is going on immediately.”

But Radana just shrugged and turned again to Hamsa. “Take me to the Pearl Throne and I will tell all I know. You will be rewarded, I promise you, for I speak of grave treachery.”

Natharie’s hands curled into fists and she was a hairsbreadth from snatching Radana’s shoulders and slapping her until her ears rang and the words tumbled freely from her, but Hamsa held up her hand.

“I cannot take you to the emperor until I know you have some truth to tell him. You will have to let me make a working upon you.”

That, at last, made Radana hesitate and look toward Natharie. It was Natharie’s turn to shrug. Impatience and anger boiled within her. Radana had never been at complete peace with her rank and all the world knew it. This could be some great lie. This could be … it could be true. Mother could have done something in her anger. It would be Mother. Father would not, could not break a treaty he had made, but Mother, Mother could.

Hamsa bit her lip. She snatched an ancient scroll off the nearest shelf and unrolled it. “Stand there,” she ordered. Radana, clearly gathering her nerve, lifted her hems fussily and stepped onto the crackling parchment. Hamsa nodded and began to circle her, her staff tracing symbols in the dust of the floor. At the same time, Hamsa began to sing in a low, deep voice. Natharie could not understand a single word, but the relentless rhythm of the words made her shiver.

Nine times Hamsa circled Radana, drawing her signs over and again and singing her song without pause or hesitation. For a moment, Natharie had to admire Radana’s courage. The concubine stood-stock still in the center of the faint circle, her hands folded together, never once flinching or betraying any emotion. Natharie found herself gritting her teeth against her impatience. Her thoughts darted between Sindhu and the palace above, where Ekkadi waited in her flimsy disguise beside a weak old woman. She had been gone too long already. Surely someone had noticed their ruse by now. She was a fool, a fool, a fool …

Hamsa let the last note of her song die away as she came once more to stand in front of Radana. She touched her palm briefly to the concubine’s forehead and Natharie saw a single bead of perspiration trickle down Radana’s temple. So. She was afraid after all.