The Braided World (37 page)

Anton nodded.

Nick looked around. “But we'll need to go up on the roof. That OK?”

He took Anton by the arm and started pushing him down the bridge ramp onto a path that cut over toward the king's river room.

“Where are you going, Nick?”

He waved the question away. “I've been gathering evidence.”

They were on the roof, having taken the same route that Shim and Anton had just a couple of hours ago. A thin layer of clouds had netted over the night sky, and must have driven the astronomers from the roof, along with Vidori, because the observing platform was empty.

They approached the instruments. Nick whispered, “I've been here before, some nights. Did you know the king had telescopes?”

“Yes.”

“Have you looked through them?” Nick ran his hand along the ceramic tube of one of them.

“I've seen him tracking the ship, Nick. He's just curious. It's no threat to us.”

Nick snorted. “No threat to us. Not as such.” He uncapped the lens of the nearest scope and swirled it around to aim away from the sky. Into the king's compound. Kneeling down, Nick unscrewed something from the base of the instrument, holding it up. Anton couldn't see what it was, but Nick announced: “Erecting eyepiece. For terrestrial viewing. So the view isn't upside down. The view is better when it's right side up.”

Nick screwed the eyepiece in, his hand shaking, and almost dropped it. “Oops,” he said. “Don't want to break it. Crack it like an egg …”

A breeze from the river carried the fetid smell of rot as the heat evaporated the water and left ooze on the banks to ferment. Anton was getting impatient with Nick; he'd let him go too far. It was part of the problem, indulging the man all this time.

“Look, Anton.” Nick had stepped away from the scope.

Anton sighed. He stepped forward, bending down to the eyepiece. “So you've been spying, then.”

“Yeah. Somebody had to.”

The lens showed nothing but a garden, lit now from the compound lights that had brightened since the king left the roof. There was a large pond, a bridge in the distance. All empty.

Anton said, “Well, what now?”

“We wait.”

Anton stood up impatiently. “Nick, what have you seen? You can tell me.”

“Oh, I don't think so. Nothing like the real thing.” He fixed Anton with an odd little stare. “Not in a hurry, are you?”

He wasn't. So they waited, silently. There was nothing left to say. Nick felt no sense of shame. It was all justified. By the variums. And by the garden, and what it contained.

Nick kept ducking over to the scope and checking out the view.

After some time, his frantic checkups paid off. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Now here we go.”

He practically pushed Anton down to look.

A man was standing by the pond, alone. He wore black and silver, and stood gazing out with a composed manner. He looked up into the scope's lens… no, up into the sky.

Stargazing again.

After a time, a figure approached from the back of the garden. Someone dressed in dark clothing. Well, dressed in blue, with a silver inset at the neck. Her ear ornaments glinted in the light from the lantern near the pond.

He heard Nick's voice behind him. ‘Adjust the focus, Captain.”

The focus, though, was perfect. Perfect enough to see that Joon was now dispensing with her tight jacket and underblouse. Her dark skin took on a bronze luster in the light that fell on the pond water and bounced back on her. Her movements were all silent, as though this was some netherworld that had never had sound, only calm, deliberate action.

Then, perhaps not wanting to soil her narrow skirt, she stepped out of it, and cast it onto the lawn.

Anton started to withdraw, to stand up, but Nick's hand was on his head, pushing him down again, to the eyepiece.
We knew
, Anton told himself.
We knew. Everybody knows, everybody does it…

Nick's voice was in his ear, whispering, as though their voices might disturb the scene before them, right within arm's reach, though hundreds of meters away. “This is your high king and his fine daughter. The one you fucked. They do this right in the open. The garden can be viewed from lots of porches. No reason to hide …”

Vidori was still gazing into the sky, as though his interest were really there and not in the little garden. It was a lovely little garden, with tended plants and a perfect, oval pond. His beloved daughter was sharing the fine evening with him. And was about to share more.

Then Vidori turned to her. All in silent, slow motion, she went to her knees in front of him. She parted the brocade that hung from his waist.

Anton pulled back from the telescope, sickened. Then Nick was grappling with him, trying to force him back.

He laughed at the expression on Anton's face. “They won't mind if you watch, Anton … It's all in a day's work. I've watched lots of times. Which way are they doing it this time?” His voice was high-pitched, too loud. He grabbed Anton's shoulder, swirling him to face him. “Human, you think? Is this what you want with
your
daughter, if you and

Maypong have one? Or just imagine if you have a
son
—him and Maypong …”

“Stop it!” Anton growled. “Be quiet.” He lurched away, stalking off, toward the ladder.

Nick's voice followed him. “Oh,
quiet.
Of course. I forgot, we're supposed to pretend. The captain of pretending …”

Anton was fleeing the roof, the garden scene, Nick's voice.

Nick called to him, “How do you like your King Vidori now?”

Anton hurried on, his stomach knotted, his mind roiling. He despised Vidori. Oh yes, they'd known, they'd all known about this. But they hadn't seen it. He never wanted to see it.

And maybe that was the problem, just like Nick said.

Mim found Gilar in the langva fields in back of the pavilion. Maypong swims,< she signed.

Gilar nodded, thanking her. It was impossible to get near Maypong's cell now, with her uldia guards strengthened against some action of the king's. And Gilar did want to see Maypong. To tell her,
I would not wish the crowning on you.
And then, the thing she'd never thought she would say:
It was never your fault.

She followed Mim out of the field as the sun rose in full force. The weather-mancers said this would be the hottest day of the year. Her skull still not hardened against the sun, Gilar unconsciously covered the back of her head with her hand.

With Maypong in the varium, they would have privacy to talk. Here was proof that Oleel knew Maypong wasn't a hoda. Hoda didn't swim. But there would be no witnesses, other than uldia. Oleel would make sure the varium was far removed from the usual sites, so that no viven saw Maypong accorded the rights of a proper Dassa.

Gilar and Mim carried stacks of brocaded towels into
the forest, to justify their presence. As they passed other hoda, eyes met, and songs conveyed needful information. Oleel swims in the upper variums. She has just entered the pool.

The stone woman was always the most watchful, following Gilar especially. But lately, with Maypong, she had another creature to torture. And today she swam in distant parts.

Mim led Gilar down a narrow path into the river-side variums, which were less used. Then they departed from the path, slipping through dense undergrowth, in absolute quiet. Water trickled and splashed as, nearby, Dassa swam.

Mim pointed to one side and waited behind as Gilar slunk forward on hands and knees, parting the foliage.

At the edge of the varium, Maypong sat in her dirty tunic and leggings. One leg was bent under her, the other outstretched in a graceful pose, as though she were attending on the king.

Gilar tossed a small stone into the pond.

Maypong turned in surprise, seeing her. Shadows deepened her eyes, as though she hadn't slept. “It is dangerous for you to be here, my daughter.”

Hearing herself called
daughter
, Gilar let her mouth soften into a smile. Everything is dangerous in the stone pavilion. <

Maypong's face bore a line of perspiration on her upper lip, though it was cool in this shady place. She looked out into the shallow pond, but made no move to undress. “I will have no more children,” she said.

Well, if Oleel said for her to swim, she must swim. There would be no choices about that, didn't Maypong know?

Maypong went on, her voice small and lost. “I'm sorry that I couldn't save you.”

Since Maypong was facing away from her, Gilar maneuvered around to the side, where her hand sign could be seen.

I will save myself, Mother. < There. She had said the word.

But Maypong was strangely preoccupied. “Oh yes, Gilar, please do so. You have been my favorite, always. Your siblings are dear to me, but you are my best child, my beloved daughter.” The rising sun slashed into the pond through changing pathways, hitting the surface like the flash of fish gills. Maypong went on, as though speaking to the water, not to Gilar. “The hoda have a long river journey, I believe. I would not have you throw away your life for the sake of despair. If you sacrifice your life, it must only be for love. When there is something you love above all else.”

But what can that be?<

“I hope you never find such a terrible thing.” Her eyes met Gilar's, a gaze so open that Gilar thought she could see straight into her.

“I will swim now,” Maypong said.

It was proper for Gilar to leave. She backed up. But then she caught sight of a different sort of light, something Maypong had in her hand.

Gilar crawled back to the water's edge. Mother, what do you have?<

Maypong looked over at her as she stepped out of her tunic. “Oh, it is only a small blade.”

A blade?
You shouldn't swim with a knife, Mother.< Something was wrong, strangely wrong …

Maypong said, walking into the pond, “Somehow my ul-dia has given me one, though.”

Her uldia.
By the braid, Maypong's own uldia had given her a knife.

“She thinks to save me from public disgrace, but I would be honored to join you, Gilar. Never think otherwise. But this is for Anton. For love, you understand.”

Gilar spoke. She did the thing no hoda ever did, forcing words up, words that came out misshapen and awful. “No, Mother, no,” she garbled out, unable to articulate the real word, except with the back of her tongue. Gilar rose to her feet, stumbling forward, splashing into the varium, trying to stop what was coming.

But Maypong lay forward, on the water, as though beginning her swim. Her arms, however, were under the water, and they jerked toward her stomach, and then Gilar knew that her mother had slashed herself. Maypong curled in on herself as blood welled up to surround her. Gilar splashed forward, too late. Moans came from her throat, but it was too late. Maypong jerked again, and the knife must have drawn sideways, as she did the unthinkable damage.

Mim was at Gilar's side, as Gilar groaned, “No, no, no.” Mim's hand came up over Gilar's mouth, dragging her out of the varium, onto the bank. Gilar fought her off and turned back to the water.

The pond was still again. Maypong lay facedown, floating quietly. At the pond's edge, her yellow skirt draped into the water, ballooning in the wind, sparkling in the morning light.

As Gilar moaned, Mim shushed her. There, there, my sister, she sang. Let her swim now, in peace.

Swimming in blood.
Mother …

Mim led Gilar away as the sun turned brittle on the forest leaves, hurting Gilar's eyes. Tears came. Mim held her, crying too.

Behind them, a shout went up. They had discovered Maypong and her desecration of the varium. Everything was twisted here, in the stone woman's pavilion. Twisted and ruined.

A boat, Gilar sang.

Uldia were running up the paths, some armed.

Gilar stared at the jungle floor, not seeing the tangled roots. Her mother was dead. And why? So that Oleel couldn't force the human captain to leave—for Maypong's sake. Maypong had struck against Oleel. So brave, so cruel.

Find me a boat, Mim, Gilar sang.

At Mim's alarmed look, Gilar sang, I am leaving.

The warm trickle down his throat was blood. Weak
gums. Nick's whole body felt like a sack of wounded flesh. Even so, Anton had judged it necessary to shackle him to the room's main timber, where he could go no farther than the makeshift latrine. The Dassa were so fastidious. Didn't Anton know how it made humans look, to piss into ajar?

With the dawn firing up the woven screens, it was already hellishly hot, cooking the slime in the river and in the latrine to a poisonous stench. From time to time a hoda came in and tried to get him to drink. Once, Bailey looked in on him, shaking her head.
Made a mess, haven't you
, she said.

As the sun brightened the hut, the shimmering form came back, the one in the corner. Captain Darrow The old man, in full insignia. By his expression, he was distressed at what they'd done to Nick.

“We'll get you out of this, Lieutenant,” he said. “Hold tight, now.”

“All those notes on Zhen's wall…,” Nick began. Zhen had tacked sections of tronic printout on the walls. He'd scanned them late last night, before his run-in with Anton.