The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (32 page)

“No.” Let that torturing, hateful bastard into his dreams? Was
she
mad? “You will teach me.”

She started. “Prince, I’m only an apprentice.”

“I don’t care. Are you capable of teaching me?”

She hesitated. Not from doubt, he guessed from her face, but from a sense of propriety. “Yes, but Mni-inh has many more years of experience—”

“Then it shall be you. But tell me why.”

Now it was her turn to stare at him as if he’d gone mad. “Because you won’t let my mentor—”

“No. Tell me why you offered this in the first place. I’ve given you insult, Sharer-Apprentice Hanani. I’d do it again if it would win me the Banbarra vote, and I cannot apologize for it. Yet you’ve forgiven me. Why?”

She drew back, and abruptly all expression vanished from her face, making her as cold as a statue. He was, fleetingly, reminded of Tiaanet.

“I never said I had forgiven you,” she snapped.

“Then why help me?”

“Because, I now believe, this is why the Gatherers sent me. I was commanded to free Gujaareh. Helping you will accomplish that goal.”

“You were commanded to—” He stared at her, not knowing whether to laugh. Who in their right mind could have commanded a shy, shrinking little thing like her to free her people from their conquerors? And who in all the desert would have expected her to actually try?

And yet she was not shy or shrinking now. He would never have believed it from his first impressions of her, but there was stone in her eyes. Had the incident with Azima brought it out, or had it always been there, hidden beneath her demure Gujaareen manner? He did not know—but he knew to respect it.

“Teach me this magic,” he said at last, speaking softly because that was the only humility he would permit himself to show a priest of the Hetawa. “I’ll teach it to Tassa, so he can teach his own children. When I win back our land, I’ll teach it to all of my heirs. Gujaareh need never fear a madman on its throne again.”

She inclined her head. “We should begin at once, then. Tomorrow. I need to discuss the method with Mni-inh first.” She rose to leave.

Wanahomen stared at her back. “I leave for the heights in the morning!”

She had opened the tent-flap; here she paused and turned back. A light breeze, fragrant with the scent of late-season wildflowers, blew through the aperture, wafting her sashes and skirts around her in an earth-toned cloud. She looked cool and dreamlike and so quintessentially Gujaareen, even in Banbarra clothing, that Wanahomen felt homesick.

“You’ll camp up there?” She pointed beyond the tent, toward the nearby cliffs.

“At night, yes. By day I’ll be riding the rim with my men—”

“Then I’ll come to you at night.” She inclined her head to him and left, the tent-flap
thwap
ing shut behind her with a soft retort, like a hollow laugh.

Tiaanet realized the danger as soon as she entered the room where her father and three other nobles sat plotting the Kisuati overthrow.

The woman speaking was tall, pale, haughty, and barely older than Tiaanet, though she wore a diadem on her braided hair that marked her as head of her family. Iezanem, zhinha and daughter of the Lady Zanem, recently orphaned by her parents’ mysterious deaths in sleep. Her tone was scathing as she said to Sanfi, “What good does that do us now? With one stroke the Hetawa has won the people’s hearts back as if the last ten years never happened.”

The danger was hidden behind her father’s calm mask, Tiaanet noted, but it was there. He could not afford to antagonize Iezanem, who spoke for the handful of zhinha families that had managed to retain any real power under Kisuati rule. Still, he had never liked being spoken to in such a tone by any woman, and as Iezanem did it now, Tiaanet felt her belly clench in apprehension.

“The people’s hearts are fickle,” he replied, nodding thanks to Tiaanet as she refilled his cup with sweetwine. “They’ll hate the Hetawa again the moment the Kisuati start killing them in retaliation for the soldiers’ deaths.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” said another of Sanfi’s guests. This one was Deti-arah of the shunha and military castes, once poised to become Gujaareh’s next general. The fact that he had not already achieved the rank was the only thing that had saved him from a Kisuati execution after the conquest. “Neither that the Kisuati will retaliate, nor that the people will turn against the Hetawa. I’ve met Sunandi Jeh Kalawe and her husband Anzi Seh Ainunu. Anzi is a soldier, granted; he may want blood for the deaths of his men. But Sunandi will understand the danger in doing so. Those soldiers robbed, beat, and raped Gujaareen citizens. To retaliate against the Hetawa for killing such filth would infuriate the whole city.”

“Anzi controls the city’s military power,” Sanfi said, taking a sip of wine. “How likely is a man to listen to his wife, no matter how sensible her advice might be, when he’s angry and has the power to act on his rage?”

“Sunandi speaks for the Protectorate,” said Ghefir, another shunha who owed Sanfi for a substantial business loan. He picked at his lower lip as he spoke, his brow furrowed with unease, not looking up at Tiaanet even when she poured him more wine. “They put her in place precisely to prevent him from making such mistakes. If he ignores her and things go wrong, he must later answer to the Protectors.”

“But the damage would be done,” said Sanfi.

“That is beside the point,” snapped Iezanem in an unpeaceful tone that made Tiaanet wince. “We’re moving too slowly. Our troops have gathered at the edge of the desert; why are we waiting to attack? The longer we delay, the more power the Hetawa gains. At this rate, even if we win, the people will cheer us as their liberators, then still turn to the priests for guidance.”

“Or to whomever the Hetawa endorses,” said Deti-arah. He sighed and steepled his fingers. “Word is spreading in the city that the Banbarra are on our side now, and they’re led by a man of the Sunset Lineage. Is that your doing, Sanfi?”

Tiaanet went to a serving table at the edge of the room to refill her flask. In the long silence before Sanfi’s answer, the sound of the pouring wine seemed very loud.

“No,” Sanfi said at last, and there was thunder in his voice now, dark and gathering. “That was information we had agreed to withhold until the time of the final assault. Someone among us has been talking.”

Deti-arah was shaking his head when Tiaanet turned back to face the room. “I heard this from the Hetawa,” he said. “I went with my son to tithe some dreams two days ago. The priest who took my donation told me that the Goddess would soon answer my prayers for peace, because Her Avatar would be returning to restore the city’s freedom. The fellow seemed almost gleeful about it; most unlike a templeman.”

Silence fell. Tiaanet saw Sanfi’s hand tighten on his cup.

“But… they would only know that, and be happy about it, if the Prince’s return served their purposes,” said Ghefir, picking even harder at his lip now. “Wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” Sanfi said quietly. “It would seem the Hetawa and the Prince have forged an alliance of their own. That is… unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate?” Iezanem stood; she was shaking with rage. “
That’s
what you call it? Who in the city will want a Gujaareen Protectorate now, when the Hetawa is making Wanahomen’s return sound like some sort of much-heralded prophecy? This is what comes of your delays, Sanfi. We have no choice but to act—”

“
No.
” Sanfi glared at her, no longer bothering to be polite. “The Kisuati in the city are on alert, fearful of an uprising at any moment. We must wait until they’re off guard.”

“That could take months!”

“It will not. It will take only days.”

Ghefir rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Sanfi, old friend, what are you talking about?”

Deti-arah was more direct as he leaned forward. “What are you hiding?”

Sanfi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers as if weary. Tiaanet knew better. He was furious, but he needed to sound calm, look confident.

“A four of Protectors is coming to Gujaareh,” he said at last. The others in the room reacted with murmured alarm; he waited until they subsided. “One of my merchant contacts there sent word, though they travel in secrecy for the sake of security; he handles barge traffic on that part of the river, and was contracted to bring them here. They should be here by the end of the solstice eightday. And they are coming, at the very least, to evaluate Sunandi Jeh Kalawe and determine whether she should remain in control of the city. Their arrival can work to our advantage. Any transition of power is a time of confusion.

“And there is a plague loose in the city.” He paused and inclined his head gravely to Iezanem, who tightened her jaw. She did not wear mourning colors because zhinha did not bother with tradition, but her grief was still plain. “Again a contact of mine has told me a secret: the Hetawa has some two or three dozen layfolk sequestered in the inner Hetawa, sleeping their lives away. The priests say they’re studying the sickness, seeking some cure for it. But what if there is no cure?”

Iezanem went very still. Deti-arah frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“A Gatherer died several days ago. Sonta-i.”

“Yes,” said Deti-arah with an air of impatience. “What do you imply? Sonta-i was old as Gatherers go. There’s nothing untoward about his giving the Final Tithe now.”

“What if he didn’t give the Final Tithe?” asked Sanfi. “What if he too died of this sickness? What if word spread that the Hetawa, with all its magic, can neither control nor stop the spread of this sickness? What would happen then?”

Deti-arah’s eyes widened. Iezanem shook her head in confusion, setting her dangling lapis-and-gold earrings a-rattle. “The city would be rife with fear and unrest,” she said, “and the Protectors would likely turn on the Hetawa once they can no longer perform their basic function of keeping the city healthy and content. But none of those things has happened, Sanfi.”

Sanfi shrugged, though Tiaanet could see the tension in his shoulders. “What if they could?”

“You,” Deti-arah said, his voice shaking and horrified. “
You
have caused this sickness?”

Iezanem whirled on Sanfi, her body going rigid.

“No,” Sanfi said firmly, looking at Iezanem as he spoke. “The sickness is magic. Who controls magic in Gujaareh? The Hetawa. Perhaps they even caused the sickness themselves, somehow. I merely suggest that we find some way to remind the people, and the Protectors, of this.”

Iezanem caught her breath; beneath her scowl, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Ghefir stopped picking at his lip. Only Deti-arah continued to gaze at Sanfi with something close to suspicion, but he did not voice his concerns aloud, whatever they were.

There was little more to be said after that. Iezanem and Ghefir agreed to spread the rumor via their connections. Sanfi, as one of the most prominent nobles in the city, offered to arrange a meeting with the visiting Protectors, once they arrived, in order to express his concerns regarding the Hetawa. Then Tiaanet offered their guests a tray of small edibles to refresh them, and they made their farewells for the evening, leaving Tiaanet alone with her father.

Sanfi remained in the greeting-room where he’d sat throughout the meeting, gazing at his folded hands while Tiaanet cleaned up. He was silent for so long that it startled her when he said, “Has Tantufi been settled?”

Tiaanet had almost knocked over a vase at his sudden words. She
righted it quickly, concentrating on it so that she would not frown. He was too used to seeing empty serenity on her face; the change would’ve been too noticeable. “Yes, Father. I have her in the storage cellar.”

“Take me to her.” His voice was very soft.

Tiaanet turned to face him with the vase in her hands, tense. He glanced at her; a muscle in his jaw tightened.

“Don’t defy me, Tiaanet,” he said. “Not tonight.”

Setting the vase down, Tiaanet stayed where she was a moment longer to fuss with the arrangement of flowers in it. All the while her mind was racing, trying to find some way to appease the wrath that she could feel radiating from him like a fire’s warmth. But the longer she delayed, the hotter that wrath would grow. Finally she turned to him, bowed, and walked toward the cellar room.