The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (50 page)

She frowned. “A Sharer is supposed to be easy to find,” she said. “The red drapes—every Gujaareen knows what those mean. In the midst of battle that could help me reach the wounded—”

“I don’t
want
you easy to find,” he said, scowling; she drew back in surprise. “I don’t trust my allies from the city, Hanani. They may hope to damage my alliance with the Hetawa by harming you.”

“No one would—” But she stopped, not finishing the sentence. She had seen enough now to know better.

He reached up to massage her neck and shoulders, not liking that she had grown tense. “During the battle, I’ll have the wounded brought to wherever we set up field camp. You may heal them there. Once we’ve breached the city walls, I’ll take you back to the Hetawa. Until then you are
my
healer, and you serve only my men. Is that understood?”

Hanani looked at him for a long moment, and belatedly he wondered what he could do if she said no.

“I’ll wait until you deem it safe before I assist any beyond the Banbarra,” she said at last. “But only because doing otherwise might cause more harm.”

Wanahomen exhaled and nodded. They sat that way for a long while, until the blood-red uppermost curve of the Dreaming Moon began to fill the sky above the canyon. “Are you hurt?” he asked, when sufficient time had passed that they could discuss something more intimate.

“Some soreness. Not enough to bother healing.” She shrugged. “You were very careful. Thank you.”

It bothered him that she seemed surprised by his care. It bothered him more that she seemed completely unaffected by what had happened between them; it might have been just another dreaming lesson, for all the warming of her manner. Because of this, he blurted, “
Do
you have regrets, Hanani? Now that the light of day has cleared your thoughts?”

She sighed, but to his relief shook her head. “Do you?”

He felt the slight tension in her body and was surprised by how much it pleased him. She liked him enough to care what he thought of her, at least. “Only that you must return to your Hetawa.”

That seemed to bring back some of her sadness, and it sobered him as well.

“What will happen to you?” he asked. “At the Hetawa?”

She sighed. “I’ll tell the Superior all I’ve done. He will decide my penance, though the elders of my path will have a say as well—and the Gatherers, given that I’ve taken a life. Word will spread, either way, and my reputation will suffer more. There are those who have always said that a woman lacks the discipline to serve Her properly, and now I’ve proven them right in so many ways.”

He did not like that the Gatherers would be involved in deciding her fate. Not one bit.

“More foolishness,” he said, with a dismissiveness that he did not truly feel. “You couldn’t have become a Sharer in the first place without discipline.”

“But I’m not a Sharer, not yet. And now, I may never become
one. Mni-inh… He was my champion in the Hetawa. He—” She shuddered and faltered silent; he felt her tremble.

“Your mentor and I, we were not friends,” Wanahomen said, awkwardly. But he felt her listening. “Perhaps he saw my father in me. I certainly saw the Hetawa in him—and in you, at first. But he was strong and fierce in his convictions; even I must admit that I admired him for that. I cannot imagine such a man endorsing you if he did not believe you worthy to serve Hananja.”

“What good does that do if no one else believes it?” There was no strength in Hanani’s voice, only resignation, and finally Wanahomen realized that what she had been suppressing was
not
regret, but a despair so heavy that it was like stones on her soul. She was still a woman in mourning, however unorthodox a method she had chosen to take her mind off the pain. It took so little to aggravate her wounds.

“Then they don’t deserve to have you among them,” he snapped, angry on her behalf. “But think now: the Gatherers tapped you to carry out a mission of great importance, isn’t that true? Your mentor deemed you worthy of your red drapes; that much was obvious to me. Unte and the Banbarra respect you; even my mother does—and
that’s
no easy thing to earn, believe me.”

Hanani said nothing, but he felt some of the tension ease in her back. Pleased, Wanahomen shifted position and laid a hand on her belly. “And—the Banbarra don’t understand this, but I won’t lie with just any woman. You may become mother to Gujaareh’s next king, after all.”

Wanahomen could not see the nuances of her face in the dark, but he thought she looked away. “There won’t be a child,” she said. “It isn’t the right time.”

He blinked in surprise, but of course she was a healer; she would know. For a breath he was disappointed, before sense reasserted itself. “Nevertheless,” he said. He stroked her thigh through her
skirts, then reached up to cup her cheek. “Lovely as you are, delicious as you were last night, I would never have consented to your request had I not seen your strength and wit, and desired them for my heirs.”

She gave him an odd smile, but there was genuine amusement in it. “I’m not certain what to say to that.”

“Say, ‘Thank you,’ ” he said, with mock hauteur. “And I would also appreciate praise for my skill, impeccable taste, and good judgment.”

He was gratified to see her utter a soft laugh, but even more pleased when she put her arms around his neck.

“Thank you for being kind, for me,” she whispered in his ear. And then she pulled back and kissed him.

Surprised, Wanahomen held her and returned the kiss, marveling yet again at the way she put her whole self into the moment. Perhaps that was because it was a betrayal of her oath for her to be with him: if he had been in her shoes, he would’ve wanted to savor every moment too. To make the betrayal worthwhile.

So he sighed and pushed her back gently, and pulled Charris’s parcel from his robes. “The thanks is mine,” he said, opening the folded cloth. She caught her breath as he took out the anklet; even in the faint Dreamer’s light she could see the gleam of its dangling pendants. He fastened it ’round her ankle, and had to admit that it looked finer than he’d expected against her pale skin.

“But why?” she asked, finally sounding moved by something he’d done. That satisfied his pride, at last.

“You gave me pleasure,” he said. He caressed her calf; it was the only part of her he dared touch, lest he be tempted further. One night was all he could expect from her, and that was done. He found himself wishing there could be more. “And you gave me the honor of being your first lover. Even aside from your oath to the Hetawa, that’s a powerful and special thing.”

She shook her head. “That was a mutual gift, Prince. Wanahomen. You gave me pleasure as well.”

“True. But among the Banbarra, nothing is free—” She put her fingers to his mouth, much to his surprise.

“You’re not Banbarra,” she said. She got to her feet and stood over him, looking wild and barbarian, though her calm determination was all Gujaareen. “The Sisters say pleasure honors Hananja because it brings peace. Tonight I mean to pray for a quick end to this war. If you wish—” She ducked her head, her shyness returning for just a moment, but then she looked up at him through her lashes in a way that made all his regrets vanish. “P-perhaps we can pray together.”

She whirled and headed down the path at a not-quite-peaceful pace, and was halfway to camp before Wanahomen’s mind registered that he had just been seduced.

Then, as quickly as he could without endangering his life, he scrambled down the steep slope after her.

Tiaanet and her father had not been back at their greenlands estate for half a day when servants came to inform her that visitors were approaching the house. “An eight of soldiers, lady, and a man with a spear,” said the wide-eyed girl. “All Kisuati.”

Tiaanet’s father had been preparing to travel to the foothills, where the nobles’ armies were assembling for their bid to retake Gujaareh. There was no time to hide the saddlebags or stacked supplies in the house’s courtyard; she would have to think of a suitable excuse to explain them. “Invite them in when they arrive,” she told the girl. “Treat them as guests, but if they ask questions, simply tell them you know nothing.” The girl nodded and ran off; another servant hovered nearby, looking equally anxious. “Inform my father,” she told him, and he hastened away at once.

It was improper for a woman of the shunha to greet guests when servants were available to manage that menial task. Arranging herself opposite the entrance of the greeting room, Tiaanet composed herself to wait and wondered what she would do if the Kisuati had discovered her father’s schemes. They would kill him in that event—probably in public, and slowly, in typically brutal Kisuati
justice. The lineage would be hers to rule, then, and her mother and Tantufi would fall into her care. But that would happen only if the Kisuati did not judge her guilty along with her father, which they would do unless she pleaded ignorance well enough to convince them. If they had caught any other conspirators, such as the other lords and ladies who had discussed the plot in front of her, they would surely name Tiaanet along with her father. She would not plead ignorance then, but her father’s control. And if they pressed, she would show them Tantufi, and all the secrets would come out.

If Tiaanet had still been able to feel, she might have felt something very like anticipation.

But there was a commotion at the front of the house as the soldiers entered. She heard a servant’s voice rise in protest, followed by the sound of flesh striking flesh—she knew that sound well—and a surprised grunt of pain. Then the soldiers appeared in the greeting room, flanking their leader, and suddenly Tiaanet began to suspect that they had not come for her father after all.

The leader indeed carried a short-handled spear strapped across his back, as the servant girl had reported, in addition to the traditional curved sword at his hip. But the girl was servant-caste and ignorant; of course the spear was all she had noticed. Tiaanet noted entirely different things: like the fact that the man was shorter than most Kisuati, though lean and well-muscled, and there was more than a hint of westerner in his rounded features. He wore his hair loose, unlike most people of either Gujaareh or Kisua—slicked down into a neat oiled cap and cut blunt to the length of his ears. And in place of the loose cloth drape that most Kisuati captains wore about their shoulders, this man wore a thick black-furred pelt, held in place with an elaborate ivory clasp. The originator of that pelt had perhaps also been the former owner of the teeth that adorned the man’s necklace.

A hunter: a member of one of Kisua’s oldest and most honored
castes, though their glory and numbers had dwindled in the past few centuries.

“You are the Lady Insurret, of shunha caste, out of the lineage of Insawe?” the man asked, then checked himself. His Sua accent was strong; even knowing the tongue herself, it took Tiaanet a breath to adjust to his choppy, oddly-inflected Gujaareen. “No, you are too young. You would be Lady Tiaanet, her daughter.”

“I am,” Tiaanet said, with a careful bow that acknowledged the man’s rank, and nothing more. “And you are?”

“Bibiki Seh Jofur,” he said. “A captain of Kisua, lately attached to the Protectorate in Gujaareh. Where is Insurret?”

“She is indisposed,” Tiaanet said. She had told that lie so often that it came easily to her lips, and it seemed safer than asking what had happened to her door-servant. “I’ve managed her affairs for some while now, with her and my father’s permission. May I convey a message to her on your behalf?”

“You may escort my men to her quarters,” he replied, “and then you may come along with us yourself.”

For a moment, Tiaanet was certain she had misheard him. “My mother is—”

“Now, please.” Bibiki smiled, all politeness. “We have far to go, and I would like to be back in the city by nightfall.”

“What is this?” Sanfi came into the room, indoor-shirted and still dabbing at his forehead with a cloth to wipe away the moisture from his bath. He looked frightened to Tiaanet’s experienced eyes, which meant that he acted belligerent and angry as he spoke to Bibiki. “Who are you? The servants tell me—”

“Ah, Lord Sanfi,” said Bibiki. “I’m pleased to meet you at last. I have heard a great deal about you.” With a flick of one hand he signaled the two soldiers on his right. They immediately crossed the room and passed Sanfi, heading into the house. Sanfi caught his breath and turned to protest, but they ignored him.