The Second God (2 page)

The Southern Plains of Kallanash:

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Ly looked up at me, his hands still working the pastry. “May I ask a favour of you, Drina?” he said, then ducked his head down again. Still diffident, even after five years of marriage. But then he was still my prisoner, officially.

“You may ask,” I said, as I always did.

He shot me a shy smile, the amber pendant at his throat shimmering. We were sitting in the kitchen of his suite of rooms within my apartment, me at the high table with a glass of wine, Ly sitting on the floor, one leg folded under him, the other knee bent up. His face was intent, as he concentrated on heaping fruit into the pastry circles and folding them. I loved to watch his slender fingers chopping and mixing and shaping. He was an excellent cook and he still liked to prepare food crouching on the floor like that, in the traditional way of his people. The servants had been horrified, and insisted on providing him with a table. It was only a square of slate with legs just a handspan long, but still sufficiently like a table to satisfy their sensibilities.

Eventually the tray of pastries was filled and he jumped up and slid it into the oven at the far end of the room. “There!” he said, joining me at the regular table and topping up my wineglass. “We have a little time before we eat.”

“So ask your favour.”

“I should like to go to the Challenge this year, if you permit.”

“The Challenge – that’s when the Blood Clans send candidates try to open the door to the scribery, yes?”

“It is not a scribery to us, but yes, that is about it. This is the first time since the troubles that all the clans will send candidates to the sacred island.”

The troubles. A slippery euphemism for a war that nearly destroyed us all, Bennamore and Blood Clans alike. Ly was still steeped in guilt over his part in it, but the truth was, Bennamore had started things, and Ly had only retaliated to keep his people safe. It was not his fault that his magic had taken over and turned a minor squabble into something much worse.

“What about the Blood Ceremony itself? Don’t you want to go to that, too?” I said.

“No, no. That is very private. Only the candidates and the Blood Elders attend that. But the Challenge is a celebration, open to anyone. It is important for me to be there, I think, to remind them that I am
byan shar
. To demonstrate my power.”

“Which means you need to
have
your power.”

“Yes.” He spoke in a low tone, watching me anxiously. “But only if you permit, Drina.”

I understood him. The war had ended because I had found Ly in his hiding place and taken away the magic that allowed him to control his warriors. Although I wasn’t a mage, and had no magical power of my own, I was unique in having a void inside me, a need for magic, that enabled me to reach out to those with innate power and take their magic from them. I had used it to tame Ly and end the war. For five years I had kept Ly powerless by taking his magic from him every few suns. Now he wanted that magic back again.

“How long would it take, do you think?” I said. “To build up enough power to open the door, I mean.”

“A moon is enough. That is how it usually works. There is the Blood Ceremony, and then, a moon later, the Challenge.”

“And you were able to open the door after one moon?”

He nodded. “Yes. That is the only way to be acknowledged as
byan shar
. There is only one Challenge. But every year after I succeeded, I went to the Challenge again to prove myself. After the candidates had all failed, then I opened the door.”

I took a sip of wine, then set down my glass. “To show that you could. Of course. A demonstration of power, to show that
you
are the chosen one of the gods. We do something similar, when the army marches through Kingswell with the Drashona at its head – a reminder that she is in charge.”

He smiled, rather sadly. “A little different, I think. The Drashona’s power is obvious to everyone. Look at the scale of this Keep and her grand apartments, all her elaborate gowns and jewels, the number of servants and guards. But
my
power is invisible. My people already see me as your slave, kept in subjection. They believe I have abandoned them. It is time to remind them that I am still
byan shar
.” His smile broadened. “I think it is also time to eat – the fish is ready, and by the time we have finished that, the pastries will be cooked.”

“Excellent. And tomorrow we will talk to Yanassia about the Challenge.”

“Thank you, Drina.”

~~~~~

Those evenings with Ly-haam were a precious treat, something I looked forward to immensely. The first year we were married, I had dealt with him very much as the prisoner he was. Although he shared my apartment, he had his own suite of rooms and was guarded every hour. I was never alone with him. He’d never complained about it, but I knew he wanted more from me, and he was my husband, after all. Eventually, I had gone to his bed, but only occasionally, as an obligation. After all, I already had the man I loved, my drusse, Arran. The law gave Ly-haam greater importance as my husband, but my heart would always belong to Arran.

But gradually those nights with Ly-haam had turned into something special for me. He usually cooked a meal, something traditional to his people, and I liked those simple dishes of baked fish or tender slow-roasted meat better than the elaborate concoctions at the Drashona’s table. In the bedroom, he’d turned out to be a gentle and thoughtful lover, bringing me an intense kind of pleasure that I’d never experienced before without the added stimulus of magic. Sometimes I wished I could blend my two men into one lover, with Arran’s handsome charm and manly body merged with Ly’s skills in bed.

That night I fell asleep with Ly curled around my back, one arm round my waist, his face buried in my hair as he murmured in his own language. The words were always the same:
“Goodnight, sweet Princess. Thank you for saving me.”
I wasn’t a princess at all, but he had always called me that and I’d long since given up trying to change the habit.

When I woke, he was gone. That was usual, too. He slept less than I did, and he was always up with the first bell. I stretched, rolled over, closed my eyes again. Perhaps I could get another hour’s sleep…

“Drina! Wake up!”

I kept my eyes shut. Maybe he’d go away again.

But no. A soft ripple of laughter. “I know you are awake. Here – your morning herbs. It is past second bell already, and you have the Trade Council meeting this morning.”

Groaning, I rolled over, and hauled myself upright. “Thank you, Ly. Is Arran up and about yet?”

Even in my half-awake state, I noticed the little flash of alarm that crossed his face. He was no diplomat, Ly, and could never hide his feelings. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to.

“Oh. So… still asleep? Or bed not slept in?” A little needle-prick of anxiety.

“The steward told me Arran did not come back here last night. I expect he slept at the barracks.”

“Yes. That must be it. Thank you for the herbs.”

He turned to go, but his eyes were dark with concern.

“Ly…” He stopped, spinning to face me. “Do you know something? About Arran? Should I be worried?”

A hesitation. “I do not
know
anything,” he said, head down.

“But you suspect? I’d much rather hear it from you, than find out from one of those gossiping waiting women.” But my heart sank, all the same. Surely this couldn’t be happening, not again?

Ly perched on the edge of the bed, his thin fingers playing with the cover. “He asked me…” he began, then sighed. “Drina, I do not know what it means, and maybe it means nothing at all, but he asked me if I thought…”

“If you thought what, exactly?” I tried to keep my voice soft, when all I wanted to do was scream. And cry. I was very close to crying.

“If I thought you would want to know if he was doing something he should not. Or whether it was better to say nothing. But Drina, I am sure it is not what it sounds like. He said he would never do anything of that sort again.”

So he had. He’d wept all over me, and begged my forgiveness, and sworn never to look at another woman. And I, loving him, had kissed him and forgiven him. But not forgotten. Once a man has drifted, there is always that curl of doubt at the back of your mind. Every time he’s late, or seems distracted, or is quieter than usual.

We were at morning board when Arran crept in, and even if I’d not had suspicions in my mind already, I could hardly miss the guilt written all over his face. I dropped the piece of fruit I’d been pretending to eat.

“By all the gods, what have you
done
?”

He slid into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. “I am such a fool,” he said, his voice anguished.

“Who is she?” Distress made my voice shrill.

His head shot up. “She? Oh – no, no! Not that. No, I swore I would never—” His hand reached for mine, sticky with juice, but he didn’t notice. “It is nothing like that, I promise!”

I breathed again. But what else? “Tell me,” I said softly. “Tell me everything.”

“It is the Gurshmontas,” he said simply, and, in truth, that told me just about the whole story in itself. Shallack Gurshmonta was a powerful man, the head of a wealthy trading family, constantly whispering in corners and forging shifting alliances to improve his position. It didn’t surprise me that he’d tried to recruit Arran.

“They want you to influence me, I expect, with the new round of trade agreements coming up. I am in sole charge of the Trade Council now, and I’ll be head of the Fiscal Determination Table next year, too.”

“No…” A flash of bewilderment crossed his handsome face, so that for a moment he looked very young. “No, I think they wanted information. They have been so friendly for moons now, inviting me to their apartments for private meals, very quiet, nothing… I
thought
nothing suspicious. Just so interested in me, and the children, and… and you, of course. No pretty young women at all, I swear, just a few of the older ones. But then I began to realise that they were very interested in the southern plains, so last night I went there with my mind fully alert, and I am sure of it. They have trade links there, so I suppose it mattered to them what is going on in that region. And… and I may have told them what you said about Greenstone Ford. And the Vahsi.”

“Ah.”

“It is very difficult to remember what is secret and what may be talked about, and… and the Gurshmontas keep an excellent table, very generous.”

“And plenty of wine, too, as I recall.”

He nodded miserably. “I am so sorry, Drina. You must think me such a fool.”

“I think you might have been more on your guard,” I said. “I have had several brushes with Shallack Gurshmonta in the past, so we know he’s as slippery as a snake.”

But I couldn’t help squeezing his hand and smiling as I spoke. He
was
a fool, of course, and he’d been my drusse long enough to be aware of the pitfalls around the Drashona’s court, but I was too relieved to care. At least he hadn’t been in the arms of another woman. And that made
me
the fool, because my heart was insignificant to the future wellbeing of Bennamore, but the information, so hard-won, from Kallanash was a different matter.

~~~~~

I went to see Yannassia that afternoon in her apartment, even grander than mine. Her official chambers glittered with gold and sparkling gems and the lush colours of Vilkorani rugs, but her private rooms were sparsely furnished, with her youngest’s abandoned toys on every surface.

She was in bed. Ever since her last difficult pregnancy, she’d taken to having a rest after the noon board, an hour when she read a book, or played dragon stones with her husband, Torthran. No one else was allowed to disturb that precious hour, but the steward admitted me without question.

“Drina! Come in, come in,” Yannassia said with a smile, laying aside her book. “How did the Trade Council go this morning?”

Yannassia could look formidably regal when she dressed in the stiff robes and jewels that went with her role as Drashona, and a word or a look could quell even high-ranking nobles full of their own importance. But here, with her hair loose about her face and a smile softening her lips, she looked very motherly. The golden hair had faded to silver, and her features were more rounded than before, but I thought she looked much prettier this way, despite being more than fifty now. She was not my birth mother, but circumstance had made me her heir and I had grown fond of her over the twelve years I’d known her.

“Quite well, for a Trade Council. The sticking points were as we suspected. You will have my full report at the Inner Circle meeting tomorrow.”

“So that is not what brings you here. Very well.” She turned to Torthran. “Dearest, a chair for Drina, if you would be so good. And some wine, perhaps.”

He was already lifting an ornate armchair of heavy wood across to the bed for me, and then went willingly to fetch wine. I liked Torthran very much. He was ten years younger than Yannassia, but I think that helped her from falling into stodgy middle-age too soon. Like me, Yannassia had found the love of her life in her bodyguard.