The Soldier's Lotus (20 page)

They approached the edge of the balcony.

“
No, no one is here.
The boy must be with his nurse. Back inside!”

The voice was
Sunjaa
, and
Saerileth knew she could not go back into the palace. Once the footsteps of the
men had faded, she swung herself back up onto the balcony. She still had not
spoken, and she still did not allow herself to think beyond her immediate
escape. The silk draperies of the room would serve her turn, and she tied one
to the balcony’s edge. Hand over hand she lowered herself down. There was no
uproar, no outcry. So far no one must know the Princess Royal had been
murdered.

Then cries and shouts
did
reach her ears, but they
did not come from the palace. They came from the streets.

“
The king is dead!”

Saerileth’s heart lurched, but she forced herself to
breathe evenly, to maintain her facade of calm. She walked away from the
dangling silken drapery. She walked deeper into the garden. She knew that the
garden connected with the great library, and from there she slipped out and among
the crowds. The cries in the street were becoming riots, and Saerileth knew she
would not be able to return to her litter.

“
Abrexa
and
Melara
be
my guides.” She breathed the prayer and made for Darien’s
house.

****

Saerileth saw the smoke before she reached the street. Her
heart seemed to die in her chest, but she did not yet despair. She threw
caution to the winds, however, and ran the rest of the way. The weight of the
Crown Prince on her back was as nothing.
The weariness of her
legs, the aching of her feet – nothing.

“
Darien!” Saerileth
screamed his name. “Darien! Darien!” She rounded the last corner, and there she
saw Darien’s stately house with its wide halls, its spacious corridors,
burning.

Burning.

Burning.

Darien.

He was to have waited in the house for her. He was to have
been there. He would have been resting. After such a night of passion as they
had shared, he would have been resting.
Asleep.
Asleep
in his bed, the bed where he had loved her.

“
Darien.” Sobs shook
her.

“
Where am I?” The
Crown Prince stirred in her
pallav
. Clearly he had
passed from unconsciousness to slumber, for he awoke easily. “Where is Mamma?”

“
Darien.” Saerileth
had intended to answer the boy, but no words would leave her lips but Darien’s
name.

Crown Prince
Jahen
peered out of
the folds of silk.
“The sea!”

“
Lotus?”

Saerileth whirled around. “Darien?” She had recognized the
voice. She knew it was Kamen who addressed her, but still her mouth could speak
no other words.

“
It is Kamen
Itenu
.” Clearly Kamen thought she had gone mad.

Perhaps she had. Madness would be better than life without
Darien in it.

“
Darien.” Saerileth
began to unwind her
pallav
. She thrust it, and the
boy inside it, out to Kamen. “Darien.”

“
Wait!” Kamen must
have seen her purpose in her eyes. “He wouldn’t have wanted that for you!”

Saerileth shook off Kamen’s arm and started toward Darien’s
burning house. If he were still alive in there, she would find him and rescue
him. If he were not, she would at least die in his arms.

“
Saerileth!”

She stopped. “Darien!” Whirling around
she
ran toward him. She threw herself in his arms, sobbing. “Darien, Darien!”

“
Hush, my love.” He
cradled her, kissing her hair, murmuring words of love in her ear.

“
Where were you?”

“
I was at the great
library,” said Darien, and she saw his relief that her eyes had at last
cleared. “I had thought to meet you as you left, but you never came out. Then
came
the riots.”

“
Where’s Mamma?” The
Crown Prince struggled in Kamen’s arms.

“
You have the Prince?”
Darien pulled back from Saerileth.

“
I was there when the
assassins came for his mother.” Saerileth, now that she saw Darien alive, began
to think quickly. “And we must get him out of the city.” She took the boy from
Kamen and began murmuring quiet words in
Vadal
.

“
But why did I get
here before you, my love?” asked Saerileth.

“
Someone asked me for
help, and I had to hide him on my way.” Darien’s voice was almost diffident.

“
Abrexa’s
chain, but I love you!” Saerileth, her arms
still full of the Crown Prince, leaned up to kiss Darien. “Only you would save
someone and consider it a thing to hide. Whom did you save?”

“
The
Vadal
ambassador, cousin to the Princess Royal.”
Darien looked around quickly. “And we can’t
stay here. We should meet with him and fly the city.”

“
Yes.”

“
I’m going with you.”
Kamen raised his hands to halt any protest.

“
But you’re not a
known supporter of the king.” Darien gestured to his house. “Obviously that’s
why they targeted me.”

“
We can think of the
whys later.” Saerileth tied the boy back onto her back. “We are going to visit
your Mamma’s people, Your Grace.”

The boy nodded. “Mamma told me that someday we would visit
my
grandpappa
.”

“
He’s a precocious
child,” said Kamen.

“
He is the king,” said
Saerileth.

“
Run!” Darien swept
Saerileth up into his arms, and she leaned against him, trying only to keep
hold of the child. The sound of soldiers’ feet filled the street behind them.

As they hid in another alley, Darien whispered to Kamen.
“You aren’t known as an ardent supporter of the king. You’ve not made any
particular move in politics, and you’ve talked with Ulen
Ahnok
recently.”

“
Yes, but Darien, I
had nothing to do with this!” Kamen laid his hand on Darien’s arm, and
Saerileth wanted to slap the
Itenu
lord.

“
I know. But you won’t
be followed, not yet. Go to your house and collect money and supplies. Meet us
outside the North Gate when the sun has set. We must not let these rebels
succeed in their attack on the
Sunjaa
nation!”

“
It was Ulen
Ahnok
,” said Saerileth. She had seen it, clear as glass.
“He is the leader of the primary opposition to the king, the one who most
opposed the Princess Royal.”

“
Kanfiran
eat his eyes!” Darien smashed his fist into his
open palm.

“
I will do everything
you ask, Darien.” Kamen leaned his forehead against Darien’s, and Saerileth
wanted to kill Kamen.
“At evening, outside the North Gate.”
Then he slipped away into the maze of
Arinport’s
streets.

“
Now come,
Saeri
.” Darien helped her to her feet and took the heavy
child from her. “And you, little king.”

“
I’m not the king.
Pappa
is the king.”
Jahen
fidgeted in Darien’s grasp, and, perforce, Darien surrendered the boy back to
Saerileth.

“
We can’t get him out
of the city this way.” Darien stroked Saerileth’s hair. “And what were you
doing with Kamen?”

“
I?
Oh,
Darien!”
Saerileth shifted the boy to her hip and put one arm as far
around Darien as she could reach. “He was there when I got there. He must have
seen the smoke and been afraid for you.”

“
If I see him looking
at you, I’ll strangle him.” Darien kissed Saerileth again.

“
I want to see His
Grace!” the boy said.

“
You
are the Grace now.” And Saerileth, with a heavy
heart, rendered the boy-king unconscious again.

“
We can collect the
ambassador along the way.”

“
I will keep His Grace
bundled on my back,” said Saerileth. “We should be able to get out of the city
without trouble.”

“
Saeri
, if you want to go back to the guild—”

“
Darien!” Saerileth
stopped still and stared at him.

“
The rebels won’t go
after you, and you have no vested interest in this war. With Ulen in charge,
not only have I lost my house, I won’t be able to access any of my wealth from
the temples. He’ll make sure I’m barred. I … I lost everything, Saerileth.”

“
You haven’t lost me.”
She kissed his lips. “I would not care if you were a beggar, Darien. I love
you, and I would – I was going into the house after you.”

Darien’s eyes grew soft, and she knew he understood her
full meaning.

“
I love you.” He took
her hand, and they made their way through the riots and the smoke and the
crowds.

And Saerileth was not afraid.

Chapter Twelve

Darien sat by the fire and wiped away his eyeliner with a
damp towel. He had smeared kohl beneath his eyes to shield his vision from the
glaring desert sun. He could still feel the heat of the day on his skin.
Through the flickering of the campfire’s flames, the
Vadal
ambassador seemed to Darien smaller than he had appeared in Arinport when he
would stride about the palace grounds in his rich northern fashions – billowing
white shirts with long sleeves that tied at the wrist and long breeches.
Perhaps it was the way the ambassador sat huddled up in his cloak, his cowl
pulled up around his ears, as he stared into the dancing fire.

“
You all right,
Excellency?” Darien asked, pulling a spit of fish-meat from the fire.

The ambassador looked up with a start. “I’m fine. It’s just
that I’m not sure if this is going to work. Smuggle
Jahen
out of the desert? Assassins will be looking for him everywhere.”

“
I know the sands.”
Darien peered off into the night, letting his gaze fall on the purple slopes of
moonlit dunes. Not long did he ponder the wastes, instead turning his attention
to Saerileth. She sat bouncing
Jahen
on her knees
with the lad facing her. She covered his tiny hands in her own, clapping them
together as she sang to him a catchy Zenji tune.

They were far from not only Arinport but the river as well.
Darien had decided it best to follow the course of the river only long enough
to catch some fish, gather enough water for their trek, and collect vegetables
by raiding nearby farms. They had spent the rest of the day in the blistering heat,
trudging across the trackless, burning sands. Darien had kept the sun on his
left, ensuring that they were heading north. But he could handle it; he knew he
could. He had marched with his regiment across these dunes during the last war.
Now that night had fallen, he
unwrapped
his head and
laid his long linen scarf out on the sand.

Darien glanced over at Saerileth again. Her skin was pink.
“Make sure you keep yourself shielded from the sun tomorrow, too,
Saeri
.” He worried for her; people of her complexion could
not take too much of the sun.

Saerileth nodded. “I will.” She paused in her play with the
child long enough for Darien to see the love shining in her eyes.

The ambassador, however, was worse off. He had had no
pallav
like Saerileth had, and though Darien had helped him
wrap his face in a long scarf, the ambassador had not been vigilant in keeping
his skin covered. His cheeks were flaming red with small blisters clustered on
the skin.

“
Excellency,” Darien
said, “I need you to be very careful tomorrow. Wrap your head up as if you were
being mummified. It’ll be hot, but it’ll protect your skin.”

The ambassador
nodded,
his mouth a
grim line. Darien wished he had some lotion or ointment to offer him, but he
had fled Arinport with little more than the clothes on his back.

“
How long will it
take?” The ambassador tore the cooked perch from the stick with his teeth.

Darien looked up, and his thoughts raced to the future,
over the next week. He nodded toward the darkness ahead of him. “About a week,
I estimate. We’ll have to be careful. Water and sunburn – those are our biggest
dangers.” Had he been alone, Darien would not have even considered sunburn an
issue, what with his dark skin and all.