The Beggar King (29 page)

Jordan also saw another woman, Lucinda, with flowing hair and gentle eyes that were the blue of the sea. Light shone through her as if she were a prism, scattering colour everywhere.

Arrabel appeared at his side.

“I've seen the sister moons,” Jordan said, his eyes wide.

Arrabel nodded. “You've been touched by both light and darkness.” She offered him her hand and helped him up.

“Come, let's leave this place and reclaim our Holy City.”

Twenty-Nine
G
OAT
S
TEW

J
ORDAN AND
A
RRABEL PULLED THE BRASS
door open, staggering into the dim light of the palace hallway. Arrabel slammed the door and bent to trace her finger around its edges, murmuring something under her breath. Wherever she touched, a fringe of frost formed. Jordan became aware of the clipped sound of someone pacing, and then the footsteps came to an abrupt halt.

“Sweet sasapher, you're back! Is it done, then? Is he dead? I thought you'd never show up. Could you hear me shouting? I came as quickly as I could. Oh blast it anyway, I — ”

Jordan clamped Sarmillion in a hug. “It's done,” he said. “And I did hear you, and thank goodness because I couldn't have done it without you.”

Sarmillion's chest puffed out and his eyes were shiny. “You realize they'll write songs about us, don't you? You realize we'll be famous. Glory, groder and Grizelda,” he exulted.

Jordan's face darkened, but Sarmillion seemed oblivious.

“Very well,” the undercat clapped. “I'm off to meet Master Balbadoris in his study. Time to tidy up, and then it's back to work. We're going to reassemble the Book of What Is
,
see if we can't create a little magic
.
” He set off down the hall at a good pace, talking to himself about his apartment in Omar and how he had no intention of giving that up no matter what Balbadoris might say about it.

Jordan regarded the sealed brass door as if it were a python. Arrabel was watching him.

“It will get easier with time,” she said.

They set off down the long dark halls of the palace. Jordan was still wearing his Uttic robes, but somewhere along the way they had dried out. Arrabel now bore the bright blue garb of the high priestess, with beads and buttons and many-coloured feathers — and it was pressed and shining, not the shabby mess she'd worn in her prison cell. She walked down the halls like someone who has just arrived home after a long journey, running her hands along the walls, reveling in the familiar.

They arrived at the Meditary. As they were taking off their sandals to pass beneath the archway, a Brinnian Landguard called out, “You there!”

Jordan faced him. “Put down your dagger, feirhart,” he said. “It's over.”

When the guard saw Arrabel's robes, his face paled and he hastened away. Arrabel stood before the Meditary's central font and placed her hands upon the orange stone that had for an entire year given off nothing more than a dull glimmer. Beneath her touch it blazed back to its customary glow.

Outside, the palace grounds were littered with bodies. All of Rabellus's raised platforms had been flattened or burned. Against the far wall of the courtyard stood a long line of Brinnian Landguards, hands tied behind their backs. There was Mars helping the healer, Malthazar, tend to the wounded, feeling for broken bones and bandaging gashes. Some Cirran citizens were already busy white-washing the stone buildings that had borne Rabellus's portrait.

Near one of the fountains Jordan made out the tall stoop-shouldered form of Elliott T. Elliott. Next to him stood Tanny, her Uttic headdress removed, her round tanned face angled towards her husband. Jordan ran to them and as Elliott caught sight of him he gasped his name and they came together in a tangle.

Jordan held his father by the arms. “When I'd heard they had taken you away . . . it was my fault. I'm so sorry. And then this afternoon when I saw those guards, I thought . . . ”

“Shh,” said his father. “I'm fine now.”

“May I take him from you?” Arrabel asked when she joined them. Then to Jordan she said, “Come, we have something important to do.”

She led him towards the holy tree. Wherever they passed, the grass became green again. As they stepped onto the mosaic stone pathway closer to the tree, Jordan heard the sound of wings. His heart rose into his throat, but he forced it down. A finch lit in one of the branches.

Someone had already taken down the bodies that had hung from the tree's twisted limbs. When Arrabel bent towards a thorn bush, it transformed into pink flowers. She returned with two bouquets and handed one to Jordan.

“Phinius,” he said. He inhaled their powerful scent, thinking of Sarmillion. “It's the flower of the sages.”

“Flower of insight. I thought it might be fitting,” said Arrabel. “Now, do you remember the words we'll need?”

He grinned. “I said them only a few weeks ago.”

“Blessed is the Great Light, light of all lands of Katir-Cir, light of our path,” they recited together, placing their bouquets beneath the tree. Cirrans who had been bustling around them sensed what was happening and stood still. Before long there was silence across the grand expanse of the palace grounds.

Then Arrabel said, “Get ready now,” and she pulled Jordan back.

The entire tree burst into flames. There was a collective gasp, and then applause. The fire lasted a full minute. Jordan had never stood this close to the burning tree before. The intensity of the heat made his whole body glow with warmth. He watched the flames shift from orange to red to blue, and then abruptly go out. People were hugging each other and offering the Cirran greeting with a bow and three fingers pressed to their forehead.

“Now,” Arrabel whispered to him, “I believe something weighs heavily upon you. You have served well today. Go to her. Give her my fondest regards and tell her I will be down to see her later.”

Jordan gave a solemn bow, and stumbled away from the now blackened tree and down the steep road towards the Alley of Seers, his heart pounding.

When he burst through Mama Petsane's blue door Mama Appollonia nearly shot out of her rocker and through the ceiling.

“Blasted billy grain, Jordan, why you always be waking old ladies?”

Mama Petsane was at the woodstove, stirring a cauldron of goat-meat stew. “You ever hear of knocking, boy?” she said without turning around.

“Where is she?” he panted, and in the same moment he saw Ophira stretched upon the divan. Her skin was almost translucent, but her eyes were open, and she managed a small smile.

“Jordan,” she said weakly.

He came over and knelt beside her. “You're all right.” He stroked the hair away from her face. Her cheek was cool. “I was so worried.”

“Her fever broke a few hours ago,” said Grandma Mopu as she came down the stairs carrying a fragrant basket of dried sage. “It was the strangest thing.” She regarded Jordan. “There she was thrashing about as if she were possessed by the darkest curse, and shouting your name. And then — it just stopped.”

“We be thinking the dear girl's dead.” Petsane held up her stew spoon. “I would've come after you, ye rapscallion, I tell ye that.”

Ophira's eyes were on Jordan. “Is he gone? For good?”

“He's gone.”

Jordan looked at his hands. They were covered in scratches and one of his fingers was swollen and blue. Mopu patted him on the shoulder and handed him a bundle of dried sage. She distributed the other bunches to Petsane and Appollonia.

“We have to smoke the sickness out of this place,” explained Mopu. She opened the front door and all of the window shutters, then lit each of the sage bundles on fire. The women made their way around the room, waving the aromatic sage smoke into every corner, but Jordan wouldn't budge from Ophira's side.

“Give me that, then,” and Mopu took the sage from him, bumping him playfully with her elbow.

“While I was there, at the River of . . . ” he struggled, “I heard — ”

“What did ye hear?” interrupted Petsane. She glared at him.

“Nothing,” mumbled Jordan. “I guess it was a desperate situation.”

“So it was,” said Appollonia, fixing him with her good eye. “So it was.” Her glass eye seemed to be pointed at his shoes. “I reckon you've grown into ‘em now.”

Mama Cantare came through the front door calling, “Praise freedom. Praise the blue sky.” Behind her came Bintou and Willa leading Mama Manjuza each by one arm.

“I told you she was making a goat stew,” said Manjuza. “Didn't I say that's what was cooking?”

“Take off those damn boots, Sister,” said Petsane when she saw Willa. But Willa didn't take them off, and Petsane finished smudging the room with sage smoke. Willa looked over at Jordan and gave him a satisfied nod.

“I already told your parents you'd be here,” Mama Bintou said to Jordan. “I invited them for supper. They'll arrive in nine and a half minutes, unless they stop to pick some eucalyptus which . . . they are doing right now. Twelve minutes, then.”

Jordan went into the kitchen to fetch a glass of cold water and brought it to Ophira, helping her to sit up and bringing the glass to her mouth. She took small bird-like sips.

“I'm feeling a little hungry,” she said faintly.

“Then we'll set a place for you,” said Mopu. She was practically dancing as she placed wooden bowls around the battered kitchen table.

That evening the conversations started and ended in mid-stream. Everyone had too much to say. In the distance came the shouts of celebration and the music of flutes and lyres.

Jordan ate his fill of goat stew, keeping close to Ophira and basking in the sound of her gentle voice.

And yet, something hummed beneath the surface of the evening, beneath Jordan's thoughts, under his skin. It was the memory of those vultures, thousands of them, each with a lit candle, retreating single file into darkness.

He dropped his napkin and as he bent to pick it up, he tested the air, pulling with just one finger — and it gave way. He could still do it. It was like learning how to nock an arrow. You didn't forget.

On the walk home, Elliott smoked a pipe filled with dried sasapher while Jordan chewed on a long stalk of mellowreed. Tanny was strolling with her hands in the pockets of her yellow baker's robes, breathing deeply of the night air.

“You've become a young man,” she said to Jordan. “Hard to believe you'll be taking your robes next week.”

Robes.
Jordan sighed. He still didn't know which ones he would take. Arrabel had told him not to worry, that she had given it great consideration.

Elliott observed him with a furrowed brow. “You're pale.”

“I'll be okay,” said Jordan. He gazed up at the twin half-moons, shut like two eyelids. You couldn't really look at the light one without seeing her darker sister.

Thirty
R
OBES

O
NE WEEK LATER
, J
ORDAN STOOD BEFORE
Mama Petsane's blue door wearing his short pants for the very last time. From behind the closed door she yelled, “Ach, Jordan, it's open.”

He entered the kitchen. All seven old women were seated around the table, and Mama Bintou was knitting.

“Big day,” said Mopu the Monkey-Maker. “Any guesses?”

“Potato peeler,” said Jordan. “Pipe carver. Chicken butcher.”

“Praise the chicken butchers,” said Cantare.

“At least we know he won't be wearing saffron,” said Ophira from the divan.

Jordan was still. Only his eyes moved towards where she sat. When he realized she was wearing the dark green robes of a potion-maker, his jaw dropped. “But I thought . . . where are your prophet's robes?”

“There's only seven seers in this family, boy,” said Willa.

“No need for another,” said Mopu, and she flashed a smile at Ophira. “Girl's gotta get a real vocation, now.”

Ophira's face was still ghostly pale but the colour had returned to her lips.

She stood and asked her grandmas, “Can I go up to the holy tree with Jordan?”

“Off ye be, then,” said Petsane. “We ain't ready to leave yet. Don't steal nothing along the way, Jordan. Those days be over now. And mind ye walk slowly. ‘Phira ain't strong enough for cantering up the city streets quite yet.”

There was a gleam in Mopu's eye.

“Give me a hint,” Jordan whispered as he passed her. “What colour will they be?”

But she shook her head and said nothing.

Outside the sky was a clear bright blue. Not a single crow, as far as the eye could see. Gone were the poisonous mushrooms and thorn bushes. Instead flowers bloomed in every pot and along every alley and from every rooftop. They even sprouted between some of the cobblestones.

All the portraits of Rabellus had been painted over, and the Brinnian flags taken down. In their place flew the Cirran doves. Some Cirrans had called for Arrabel to hang the Brinnian prisoners. Others felt they should languish in prison until they died. But after much deliberation, Arrabel decided to send the remaining soldiers home, led by a contingent of Cirran Landguards all the way to the mountain pass.

“They'll just turn around and come back,” some folks said.

But Arrabel promised that was the one thing they would not do. A strong weave of spells would guarantee it.

Jordan took Ophira's hand as they wound their way uphill. He welcomed the slower pace. At least he wasn't the only one taking robes today. Some of his school friends would be alongside him, in front of the crowd. And Sarmillion would be there.

He paused near the Cirran Common and stood before Ophira. A chicken stopped its pecking at the cobblestones and squawked at him.

“When you got sick,” he began, and then thrust his hands into his pockets.