The Quartered Sea (37 page)

The karjen seemed subdued, Benedikt noticed although they hurried off to their evening tasks too quickly for him to get more than a vague impression of mood.

Only Hueru noticed him, standing motionless in the rain.

When Benedikt had chosen to sail on the
Starfarer
, he had believed Kovar hated him for it. If that had been hate, it was a weak, lukewarm response compared to the emotion that burned in Hueru's eyes.

Benedikt stopped himself from taking an involuntary step back and his hands formed fists within the masking folds of his robe. If it came to a fight, he'd bring Hueru down in the biggest puddle he could find. He doubted he'd even have to Sing anything.

Hueru's lip curled, and already impressive muscles seemed to swell. Then Javez, one of the other cousins—a term the xaan applied to most of the relatives traveling with her regardless of actual connection—draped an arm over his shoulders and tugged him away, talking urgently in the big man's ear the whole time.

One breath. Two. Benedikt's heart began to slow. Was this how Bannon felt when a challenger thought better of it and backed away? Somehow Benedikt doubted Bannon felt vaguely nauseous, but the memory of the ex-assassin—even a memory brought on by the threat of violence—was surprisingly comforting.
I know you didn't think much of me
, he told it.
But considering how I washed up on shore, naked and alone, I haven't done so bad
. If anyone could appreciate survival, it would be Bannon.

The last of the karjen left the tent, and the camp came to life around him.

Why had Xaan Mijandra deliberately excluded him from whatever it was the rest of the caravan had been involved in? As a punishment? In spite of his failure with the guard, she'd seemed pleased with him when she'd sent him to his tent.

They had to have been talking about him.

He smiled as he realized there could be only one explanation for Hueru's reaction. Xaan Mijandra had told them about his rise in status. The xaan's attention was moving elsewhere, and Hueru was jealous.

A line of karjen carrying low tables and dishes went into the household tent while another group began rolling up the outer canvas walls exposing the gauze inner walls. Barely managing to keep the rolled canvas from slipping, they scrambled out of the way as an elderly man emerged. A fast recall identified him as Otypez, the best dressed and most highly braided of the xaan's physicians.

As he cleared the awning, he staggered slightly and stared in surprise up at the rain. Before Benedikt could move forward to help, he drew a bottle wrapped in woven straw from under his robe and took a long swallow. Not sick, the younger man realized, drunk.

Otypez had barely moved out of Benedikt's line of sight before the xaan came out of the tent. Two guards moved into position before her, two fell into place behind, and a pair of karjen, their hair still too short to braid, flanked her holding a piece of waxed canvas stretched between painted poles. Protected from both the elements and more mundane dangers, the xaan made her way to her personal tent.

Queen Jelena, Benedikt remembered suddenly, had arrived at Fort Kazpar on horseback. Accompanied by guards, yes, but if it rained, she got wet. Her Majesty traveled considerably lighter than the xaan, not only in personal effects but in sense of importance as well.

Somehow, Benedikt couldn't see Xaan Mijandra allowing the Bardic Captain to maintain a public disagreement. She'd use his guts to tie her braids.

His movement hidden by her guards, Benedikt backed up until his heels hit the rug. While he had no intention of going inside his tent, like a small boy sent away while the adults talked, neither did he intended to jeopardize what status he might have gained by appearing to blatantly disregard the xaan's wishes.

At the exact point on her path where the guards had moved far enough forward but the karjen holding the canvas weren't yet between them, she glanced over and smiled approvingly at him.

Heart pounding, Benedikt felt as if he'd just won some rare and wonderful prize. Next time he got the chance, he definitely would have the kigh rise and acknowledge her.

"What happened to the woman who usually lights my lamp?" Benedikt asked, watching a harried young man touch his lit taper to the wick.

"She's senior lamplighter now, and I got the whole shittin' camp to light on my own." His eyes widened as he turned and realized who he was talking to. "I shouldn't have said that. You took me by surprise, askin. No one with more'n two braids ever asked me nothing before. Please, I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's okay." Stepping forward, Benedikt used enough Voice to sooth. "This is a big camp, you've got a right to complain."

The lamplighter flashed him a grateful smile, admitted he didn't know no songs, dropped the burned end of the taper into his bucket of hot coals, and ran off.

"I guess I'll have to wait to find out what happened to the old senior lamplighter," Benedikt remarked philosophically to the night. The xaan would send for him shortly, but until then he wanted nothing more than a chance to lie down and digest an indigestible meal. If he lived in Petayn another hundred years, he'd never get used to baked grubs, four inches long, as part of the main course. It wasn't that he disliked the taste, it was more that they were, well, baked grubs.

Arms folded behind his head, he stretched out and stared up at the lamp, watching the shadows flicker as the night air danced around the flame. For some reason the patterns they made reminded him of the terrified cry he'd heard earlier in the evening.

The strangely familiar cry.

Chapter Eleven

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BENEDIKT woke early the next morning after a restless night, his sleep plagued by a kaleidoscope of images. Most, he couldn't remember, but two, repeated over and over, he carried with him into the day. In the first, his mother held him by the shoulders, screaming at him that his brothers had drowned. "
You knew they were dead, you just weren't paying attention! You never pay attention to anything but yourself! "
In the second, Bannon stood beside him as the waters over the causeway parted and asked, more seriously than he had on the beach at the Broken Islands, "
No second thoughts?"

Lying in a puddle of his own sweat, he stared up at the lamp. His mother and Bannon. "I'd love to know what Magda would make of that combination," he muttered. Magda had believed that dreams could be the kigh's way of talking to the conscious mind. Benedikt had believed that was a load of fish shit and had told her so. This morning, he'd have given almost anything to have heard her say it again.

"Great, a dream of my mother calling me selfish makes me homesick. My childhood must've been more pathetic than I thought." Sighing, he sat up and reached for his sawrap, his mother's accusation chasing Bannon's question around and around in his head. He'd dreamed of Bannon a lot right after leaving the Broken Islands, but this was the first one in a while, and he had to admit that the other dreams had been considerably more enjoyable.

As his body reacted to the memory, he reminded himself that he'd be in Atixlan by noon and in a bath as soon as possible after that.

It had stopped raining during the night. A pale yellow sun sat on the horizon, and the camp gleamed in the near luminescent light of early morning. Standing outside his tent, Benedikt had the strangest feeling that he was seeing clearly for the first time since he'd come to Petayn. Everything he looked at—the tents, the wagons, the coloas in their corral, even the guards—all seemed defined by the shadows stretching out behind them. The largest, darkest shadow stretched out behind the xaan's tent, and he stared at it for a long moment, holding his breath so as not to disturb the perfect quiet.

Then a bird shrieked in the surrounding bajos, half a dozen more answered it, two servers walked over toward the cooking area carrying strings of fish, and something took a chunk out of the side of Benedikt's neck.

"Center it!" His fingers came away bloody, the body of a small insect crushed in the gore. Flicking his hood up, Benedikt hurried toward the bathing rooms. Six braids entitled him to a gentler version of the wash he'd had his first day in camp.

Eight braids didn't seem to change the service any.

Sluiced down and dripping wet, he scooped out a handful of the soft soap and, after banishing his two bath attendants to the side of the tent, lathered. He'd come to the point where he could cope with them being there, but he still drew the line at having them help.

As the girl limped over to the reservoir with her bucket, he realized it was the same pair who'd cleaned him up for his interview with the xaan. Usually embarrassment added to the pressure of others waiting moved him in and out as quickly as possible, but this morning, with dreams lingering, he found he wanted to talk.

"So where have you two been for the last six days?"

The boy looked startled. "We didn't go anywhere, karjet."

It wasn't the first time he'd been called karjet, but having awakened already susceptible to emotional overreaction, he missed Xhojee so badly he ached with it.

"
You don't go out of your way to make friends
."

And now he'd lost another one.

Stop it. He's with the tul, you're with the xaan, and they're not exactly a close family.

"You don't have to call me that," he said, pushing Xhojee out of his mind. "I'm no different than I was." He added enough Voice to the protest to set them at ease. It didn't take much. He was so different from everyone else they obviously had trouble thinking he could then be different from himself. "I just wondered why I hadn't seen you…" A self-conscious wave took in the small canvas room. "… here."

"It's 'cause you've never been up this early," the girl told him, setting her filled bucket on the grass. "We're most junior, so we're here first—and that's why we washed the puke off you. Most days, by the time you're up, we're off gettin' more water, and the older ones are in here. We seen you, though. And we hear you sing. I was gonna sing you the three monkeys song, but…" Her shrug eloquently told how another had beaten her to it. "You're still awfully hairy."

"You're never gonna get two braids," the boy hissed, handing over the first bucket of rinse water. "You don't learn to shut up, you might not even get one."

Although she gave a defiant sniff as she switched her full bucket for his empty one, Benedikt thought she looked a little worried.

"It's okay," he said. "I don't mind."

"Others do," the boy muttered darkly.

"His hair's growing faster, so he'll get his braid first," the girl told Benedikt as he poured one last bucket of water down his back. "So he thinks he's the boss of me. But I'm not gonna be a junior bath attendant forever. When I get to Atixlan, I'm gonna learn about pipes and cisterns and stuff, and I'm gonna get my second braid makin' sure he's got enough water to clean up with."

"You like water?" Benedikt asked her, wrapping a towel around his waist and sitting on the low leather stool to be shaved.

"I like pipes."

He'd have preferred to shave himself as he had with the tul, but he had no blade of his own and those provided were slightly curved. The one time he'd tried to use the unfamiliar shape, he'd made such a mess that the xaan had laughed and told him to not do it again.

"
I don't want people thinking you've been ineptly tortured
."

Lifting his chin, he wondered a little nervously just how much experience these two children had had. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy smile for the first time.

"S'okay," he said, moving around so that his lean stomach pressed against the back of Benedikt's head. "They wouldn't let us do this to a karjet if we didn't know how."