The Silences of Home (37 page)

Leish’s chain stretched almost to the water. He had walked until it was taut, but only once, and only because the Queen had prodded him with the end of her bow. She had laughed as he stood two paces away from the pool. “There,” she had said in the sharp voice she that had been hers back then, “your comfort and death lie there, close enough to taste—but only with your eyes, hmm?”

And with my ears
, he had thought,
but this is one thing you do not know
. He heard the water, above and beneath, as he had heard it the first time he had come to this shining chamber. And the second time, when he had swum; he remembered the water against his skin and beneath it, and Ladhra’s mouth on his. These memories—and the water that was so near him, every moment of the day and night—did not hurt him. Nothing had hurt him in a very long time. Even the chain around his left ankle did not pain him, though it was too tight and he could see that the flesh beneath it was bloody. He was apart, away from this place and its Queen. At first this had enraged her, and she had beaten him and dribbled water down his chest and back. When these punishments provoked no response, she had stopped paying attention to him at all. She came every few days to sit on the throne to which he was shackled, but she rarely looked at him. And although he hardly noticed his own numbness, any more, he did notice hers.

“Let them in, one by one.” Malhan’s voice. Leish had become accustomed to it these past few months, though last time he had been in the palace it had shocked him to hear Malhan speak. He spoke now because Galha did not. He stood beside her throne and murmured to the people who came to see their Queen, as the Queen herself nodded vaguely at them, and smiled, and maybe raised her hands to make the arrow-sign. At night, palace servants came with nets and bags to sweep dead things out of the pool and its channels, and Leish sometimes heard their words. They said Galha’s mind was still burdened by its own strength; they said she was growing frail and stooped.
I am also thin and bent
, Leish had thought, staring down at his body in the starlit dimness.
But still, they will need a very big net to remove
me
from this place
. He had no desire to laugh or cry at the thought, and was very nearly curious about this.

“All of you, now: form a semicircle here, and approach the Queen one at a time, from this end. . . .”

Leish occasionally watched and listened to the Queensfolk who came. “My Queen, I journeyed with you to the Raiders’ Land and fought bravely, but now I cannot sleep and my head aches so that I can hardly see. . . .” “My Queen, I have only two children, and my elder, a boy, was a guard of yours—he died in the battle in our city, and now there is just my daughter and me, both of us untrained in any trade. . . .” “I am blind, my Queen. If you would touch me on the eyes, perhaps your mindpowers would restore. . . .” Young, old, mad, clear-eyed—the Queen nodded and Malhan murmured and they shuffled past and out again. Some of them spat at Leish; one struck him in the stomach and he doubled over, his body reacting to a pain he did not feel. Once, a child picked up his chain and tugged on it—but she was just a child, and she smiled at him after, as her father carried her away.

“Very well. You, step forward.” This one was carrying a basket of fruit that glistened, red and blue, yellow, all beaded with water, and Leish’s mouth filled with saliva. His body again, saying,
So thirsty
, and,
Imagine licking the water off before biting
—but his mind did not hear, or understand. The night servants brought him fruit, though not much—mostly bread and dried fish and meats, which he ate and did not taste. One of the servants liked to throw the food so that it scattered around Leish, mostly out of his reach. One of the others always gathered it up and placed it closer, neatly, even though his companions jeered at him.

Just as the basket of fruit was being set down at the Queen’s feet, there was a shout from the door beyond the central fountain. Leish looked away from the fruit, toward the woman who was approaching, running over the bridges and across the sparkling stones.

Galha rose from her throne. Leish had not seen her stand up so quickly in weeks. She swayed a bit, and the neat semicircle of Queensfolk broke apart with some gasps and mutterings. He had not heard her speak loudly or clearly recently, either, but she did so now, though she was crying as well.

“Nara! Nara, dearest child, I knew you’d come—” And Lanara was before her, reaching and gathering, talking low and breathlessly.

“Guards!” Malhan cried, and three appeared, to lead the Queensfolk out of the chamber. By the time they had gone, Galha was seated again, with Lanara on her knees in front of her, holding her hands.

“You see?” Galha said, and Leish saw that Lanara too was weeping. “This is your only home. You had to return—it called to you.” She bowed her head over their clasped hands.

“Yes,” Lanara said, and looked up, past the Queen, past Leish, at Malhan. “Of course I did”—her eyes wide with fear or questions.

They left soon after that, the Queen walking between Malhan and Lanara. The door behind the thrones closed with sound Leish also recalled from the time before the ship and the river and the sea. He lay down and gazed at the basket of fruit until all the colours blurred, as if they had turned to water. He stirred only when the servants came, with their laughter and their quick words, which were harder to understand than those of other Queensfolk. They took away the basket, though the kind servant set two mang on the stone beside Leish. His chain clanked a bit, as he reached for the fruit. After he had eaten, he lay down again, looking up at the tower whose glass was invisible at night. The sky seemed open and close. He tried to imagine wind on his face, or the scent of night blossoms, but could not.

He heard footsteps. Quiet footsteps, not like the servants’ careless ones. Leish’s chain clanked again as he rolled onto his side to peer into the gloom beyond the fountain. The kind servant, perhaps, with another piece of fruit, or the one who laughed at Leish, returning to paddle in the pool and drink in long, noisy gulps—but no, Leish saw, it was neither of these.

Ladhra’s bed was wide and firm, its blue and green coverlet smooth except for where Lanara was sitting. She had run up to this tower chamber countless times since she was a girl, and lain in this bed, whispering and giggling until dawn, and sleep. She had never been alone here. She looked at the tapestry, the window, the sunlight on the familiar flagstones—and she felt absence there with her, so large that there was hardly space for anything else.

“You must stay in Ladhra’s room,” Galha had said as they left the Throne Chamber. “It is clean and ready for you. Go there now, and rest, and we will have food brought up to you. When my own rest is over I shall send for you.” But when the food came—trays of it, piled precariously high—one of the Queensmen who had helped to bring it told Lanara that the Queen would be receiving no more visitors that day. Tomorrow, most certainly—for both the Queen and her consort-scribe were eager to see Lanara after such a long time apart.

She stared at the trays, spread out on the floor and the desk and even on the broad windowsill. She could not remember eating much on the journey here. She had ridden—no ships going upriver from Fane, or none soon enough—and had hardly paused, it seemed, except sometimes for water. She had felt no hunger. Emptiness, yes, spreading into her body from somewhere else—her mind or her heart, she was not sure. She had tried to ride hard and long, so that she would not sleep, but sleep had found her anyway, sent her tumbling from her horse or spinning into darkness when she had just intended to lie down for a moment.

“Aldron’s Telling power. . . .”
She heard Nellyn’s voice so clearly in her sleep, though she could not bring it back to her when she was awake. And Alea’s:
“You’re a fool, Lanara, you and all your people.”
Their words tangled with images, bright and scattered, except for one that always came clearly whether she slept or woke: Aldron dying behind the tall white stone with a bloodied spear beside him.

“Your friend.” Galha had clutched Lanara’s wrist as she said this at the door to Ladhra’s tower. “The Alilan man.”

“Aldron,” Lanara had said, motionless, her ears humming.

“Yes—Aldron. Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

“No.” She had wanted to twist away from the Queen’s grip—and this frightened her as much as everything else did. “No—he’s gone, just as he said he would be.” She watched Malhan place his fingers over Galha’s and pry them gently open. He had looked at Lanara, as if something were clear and acknowledged between them. She had shaken her head slightly:
No, I don’t understand. I have more questions now than I had before I came. . . .

When she had seen the first glint of Luhr against the sky, Lanara had thought that her questions had vanished. She had reined in her horse and gazed at the towers and arches, the banners, the long, gleaming road across the sand. And then the Queensguards at the front gate had called out to her, saluting as if she were a returning hero, and she had known the ones in the marketplace too, who had hugged her and welcomed her home. She had sunk into the scents and colours and noises.
Yes, I am home
—except that Ladhra was dead and the Queen changed almost beyond recognition. All Lanara’s questions had returned and multiplied as she knelt covering Galha’s hands to stop their shaking. And now it was worse, for she was alone in Ladhra’s tower, with silence and absence and piles of food she could not eat.

“If there were lies about the Raiders’ Land battle,” she said, so that the words would seem reasonable and real, no longer wraiths she could slip away from, “then there may have been other lies.” She remembered the prisoner in Galha’s cabin on the ship, hissing,
“Ladhra friend Lanara—Ladhra friend Leish.”
His bound arms and chest had oozed as he strained toward her.
He was mad then,
she thought
. He will be worse now. And why would I ever trust his word above my Queen’s? I will wait. Surely things will be better tomorrow, with food and sleep. . . . 
She lowered her head into her hands.

The chamber was firelit when she opened her eyes. She was on her side in Ladhra’s bed. She did not remember lying down or sleeping, but her mind and all her limbs felt light and rested. Someone had lit a fire in the hearth and all the trays but one had been removed. She ate a globe of bread and some berries and drank a flagon of water. Then she lit the lantern that stood by the bed and left the tower.

She could not ask Malhan for the truth—she was certain of this as she walked through the quiet corridors. He was never apart from Galha. She nodded at the Queensguards she passed, and attempted to look confident, unhurried: just a palace-dweller who could not sleep, on her way to the kitchens or a terrace garden. Only when she reached the last corridor did she stop and draw a trembling breath.

Gellior was on guard tonight. She felt dizzy with relief, then shame, as he cried out her name and reached for her hands. “I heard you’d come back. Thought I’d have to wait for my next day duty to see you—but here you are, and at such an hour. . . .”

“Yes,” she said, squeezing his hands and slipping hers free. “I know it’s strange—but I can’t sleep. You know I haven’t been back here since . . . well, since before the attack and Ladhra’s death. Now that I’m here, I find I can’t stop thinking about her.” True enough, so far—but she looked at his chest, not his face, as she continued more slowly. “I think my mind would be easier if I could see him. The . . . thing that killed her. I saw him on the voyage to the Raiders’ Land, of course, but I was so occupied with other things. Now that I’m not, I must speak to him.”

“I understand,” Gellior said, and she heard his frown. “But now, child? Could you not wait for morning? I’ll let you in when—”

“No,” she said, and now she looked up into his eyes. “Please, Gellior. I feel like I’ll never rest again if I don’t do this tonight.”

He smiled, though he was still frowning too. “Very well. The night servants have already been in to do their work—you won’t be disturbed. You won’t. . . .” He bit the inside of his cheek, glanced over her shoulder. “You’ll be sure not to harm him? For if I do this for you and—”

She kissed him on his grizzled left cheek. “No, I won’t harm him.” He nodded and turned the key. She held her lantern high as she walked into the darkness, where there would be sleeping birds, and fish bound by glass, and Leish, chained beside Sarhenna’s pool.

Leish sat up so slowly that the links of his chain made no noise, either against each other or against the stone. The light in Lanara’s hand trembled, and she set it down. Her face was mostly in shadow when she straightened again. She was many paces away from him, and she did not move at all for a long time after she had put the lantern down—but Leish felt his muscles clench in a way that reminded him of fear or expectation.

“Speak,” she said at last, and the word rang, though it was only a whisper. “Tell me everything,” she went on more loudly, just as he prepared to say, “Why should I speak, when all you want is to hurt me?”

“Tell you. . . .” he said instead. He saw her flinch at his voice, but she took two steps toward him and the shadows fled her skin.

“I’ve read the account of what took place here, when your people attacked. A battle before the gates—I read about this. About how you pulled Ladhra from her horse and killed her as your people were fleeing the city.” She ran her tongue over her lips. “But you said her name to me, on the ship. You said you’d been her . . . friend.”

He was sure now that he felt fear. It was warm where for so long there had been only numbness. It was not fear of her; he knew this after he had named the feeling and felt it grow. He feared no man or woman, no pain, not even thirst or death. But when she fell to her knees before him and said, “Tell me what happened in the city on the night of the attack,” he felt himself grow small and crumpled, and he wanted to moan with the ache of it.

“No one asks about this before,” he said when he could speak. The Queensfolk words were sharp in his mouth, but they emerged quite smoothly, after all his listening, all the learning he had not realized he was doing. “No Queensperson will believe my truth, if I tell it.”