The Quartered Sea (36 page)

"No. It is not. Again, Benedikt."

Ears red, Benedikt shifted position until he regained the guard's gaze.
"Bend over and touch your toes!"
He heard embarrassment force his voice up on the last word and fought unsuccessfully to keep it down.

The guard's answering snort held all he would have said had his xaan not been able to hear.

The failure, although bad enough, was not the worst, Benedikt reflected as the guard slipped back through the canvas. The worst was that the xaan had expected him to fail.

"There are those born to command and those who take command." The xaan stood, rising gracefully out of her cushions. "You are neither. I am both. I am obeyed because my people recognize the benefits of doing what I ask far outweigh the consequences of refusing."

The top of her head barely reached the middle of Benedikt's chest. When she moved, her breasts swayed under a thin covering of brilliantly died silk. He thanked all the gods in the Circle that she hadn't told him to kneel again because that would have put his eyes and her breasts at roughly the same level. "I understand, peerless one."

"No, peerless one. Only a few are born with the ability." Fewer still without the ability to Sing air, but she didn't need to hear that.

Unfortunately, she heard something. "What are you hiding from me, Benedikt?"

What—if not the other kigh…

"We, that is, I, have a very good memory." In this, at least, he knew he could make up for his inability to Command the guard. "I can recall every word you have ever said to me, peerless one."

She listened to him repeat their first conversation and nodded. "That might be useful, but remember what I have said to you is not as important as what I am saying to you."

Do not forget that your position is only as secure as I say it is at this moment.

Her actual meaning was so obvious it hardly qualified as subtext. She had moved very close to him. Close enough that he could feel the air warming between them. She smelled wonderful, like sun-warmed limes. His mouth began to water.

"Tell me how your abilities can be of use to House Kohunlich."

It wasn't what he expected her to say. Although he didn't know exactly what he had expected. She was so close he found it hard to think. "You, uh, you sleep better when I sing to you, peerless one," he stammered.

"I… I know, peerless one." He had to move away. Or he had to touch her. It didn't really matter which. His body argued for the latter, his mind for the former. Caught between them, he could only stay where he was, hoping she didn't look down.

Relief mixed with embarrassment rushed the blood to his face so quickly it made him lightheaded. He couldn't bow, there wasn't enough room, so he backed up, one hand groping behind him for the opening in the wall. His fingers had just closed on the edge, when the xaan stopped him.

"One more thing, Benedikt. Did my brother know about this?"

This? It took him a moment to bring his mind back to what
this
meant. "I told him I could Sing water, peerless one. He said water was of no use to him."

She nodded thoughtfully, a fringe of blue-and-black-banded feathers brushing against her cheeks. "My brother is an idiot."

As he doubted she wanted agreement, Benedikt bowed then and backed out under the overlap. He didn't, couldn't, draw in a full breath until he was safely in the next room where the air still carried her scent but not as strongly. He was useful to her. It was a start.

"How about
you
bendin' down and touchin' your toes, singer?"

The softly growled question lifted all the hair on the back of Benedikt's neck. Distracted by his reaction to the xaan, he hadn't noticed the guards standing with their backs to either side of the slit in the canvas wall. The guard he'd failed to command was now inches behind his left shoulder.

"I got a song I wanna make you sing…"

Pulling himself back together, Benedikt turned and, using his height to its best advantage, dragged a disinterested stare over the guard's body. "I doubt it," he snorted as the man glowered. "You can't sing along with a
zados
."

The zados was a very small horn that children hummed into, creating a noise that resembled a swarm of angry wasps. A young karjen had shown him one.

The other guard snickered. "He's got your number, Cazzes."

"Shut up."

"You don't think a
zados
might be a bit generous?"

"I said, shut up."

Benedikt left the tent, moving quickly to avoid his sawrap settling in any one place. After that interview with the xaan, he'd have accepted an honest invitation from just about anyone.
I wonder if she knows she has that effect on people
?

* * *

"Has he relieved himself?"

"Yes, peerless one."

"Good." The xaan took her dog from the hands of his senior attendant and indicated that the guard should fold open the door to her large assembly room.

The old man raised hopeful eyes to the xaan's face while all around, her attendants, her priests, and those karjen who could leave their tasks without inconveniencing her looked impressed. She knew they were wondering how she managed to remember not only the name but the position of such a lowly member of the household, and—given that she knew such a thing—they also wondered what else she might know. Which was exactly what was intended.

She noted those who looked particularly nervous before turning her attention back to the senior lamplighter. "You're here because this afternoon you refused a direct order from your xaan."

Porez shuffled forward on his knees, hands uplifted in supplication. "I was afraid, peerless one."

A number of those listening reacted to the old man's declaration with surprise—he hadn't been expected to offer a defense.

"Your fear is no concern of mine," Xaan Mijandra reminded him wearily. "You can be afraid of whatever you want. You can be afraid or in love or just generally pissed off—that's your life and it does not involve me. But, you are of House Kohunlich and I am the Kohunlich-xaan. I gave the order to move forward, and you did not move."

"Peerless one, the water, the stranger, the flood…"

"I gave the order to advance
my
wagon through that flood. By refusing, you showed the world you doubted my decision."

"Peerless one…" His whole body shaking, he collapsed facedown on the carpet.

The xaan stared at him for a moment, her left hand rhythmically stroking the dog. "Since he didn't want to walk, take his legs."

Wailing inarticulately, Porez scrabbled toward her on hi; belly, clawing at the carpet with fingers and toes.

"And his tongue, too if he can't learn when to be silent."

The wailing became a low, continuous moan as two guards hauled the old man to his feet, dragging him from the audience chamber and out the back of the tent. His leg; dangled, unused, as though they were already no longer a part of him.

The xaan sighed and glanced around at the silent faces of her household. "I'm sure I don't have to tell any of you that Benedikt's solution to our flooding problem is not to be discussed." She smiled at the low murmur of agreement, agreement reinforced by the fate of the old man. "Now then you'll all want to get cleaned up before the evening meal Not you, Otypez," she added as they began to disperse. An inarguable gesture indicated that the eldest of her physicians should approach the dais.

When they were alone, except for the servants raising the outer walls and setting out low tables for food at the other end of the room, she murmured. "You've been drinking."

Otypez bowed, a bit unsteadily, the movement causing the fine silk of his robe to whisper secrets to itself. "From the moment the lamplighter refused to move forward, peerless one."

Rubbing at the physician's tattoo on his cheek with one shaking hand, Otypez nodded, brilliant green feathers flash ing in amongst the gray of his many braids. "It will be as you command, peerless one."

"I know." She watched him leave, noted how he took a serpentine path to the exit, and shook her head. He had beer her father's physician, so she granted him a great deal of license. There were, however, limits.

Still, as long as he's useful
… Pleased with the way the day had turned out, the xaan set Shecquai on the ground and made her way to the exit, the dog dancing at her heels.

Porez had no children back in the children's compound, he had no life partner, and both of his parents were dead. The trick in applying an object lesson was not to create a martyr. It was the first lesson her aunt, the last Kohunlich-xaan, had taught her.

Just wet enough to be miserable by the time he crossed from the xaan's tent to his own, Benedikt dropped cross-legged onto the dead center of his pallet and the last, small island of dry, any and all physical urges discouraged by the clammy slap of damp cotton sawrap against skin. Rubbing at the moisture trickling down his face, he glared out at the rain. While the canvas above was essentially waterproof, the rug on the ground was not, and the whole camp smelled of damp wool and mold. Fortunately, there was water enough for frequent washing—Benedikt had been trying very hard to not overhear what people were growing in personal crevices.

"There's got to be some way water can be of use to House Kohunlich," he muttered, scraping mud off his sandals with the edge of his thumb nail. "Because there's certainly enough of it around. I've never seen so much unenclosed ra—"

A muffled wail cut across his complaint and brought him to his feet. He could hear no words, only an inarticulate terror so strangely familiar that it lifted every hair on his body.

He took a step out into the rain, back toward the xaan's household tent, and stopped as the sound did. It wasn't repeated. Whatever had happened was over.

In Shkoder, he'd have investigated and not been satisfied until he knew who had cried out and why. In Shkoder he'd been a bard with all the rights and responsibilities that entailed, but here he was still trying to make a place for himself, and that place didn't yet include the right to go charging into a situation he knew nothing about.

The rain began to soak through the shoulders of his robe.

The camp was strangely empty. Benedikt could hear karjen working over in the kitchen area, could smell the evening meal cooking but could only see the guards standing outside both of the xaan's tents. There should be more people moving about, talking, laughing, snarling about the weather, making plans for later in the evening should the xaan not need them. There should be
someone
trying to teach him the inane words to a tuneless song. This was the longest he'd been totally alone and awake since joining the caravan.

So what do I do?

A quiet murmur of voices, like the sudden sound of distant waves answered his question. The voices grew louder as the flaps of the household tent were folded back and Benedikt watched in amazement as everyone in the caravan seemed to come boiling out. First the members of the xaan's family in varying degrees of silks and feathers, then a white clump of priests, then the caravan master talking to someone Benedikt thought was one of the junior barbers—where junior clearly referred to rank, not age. The number of braids per head grew less until only a steady stream of single braids were exiting the tent.