Toads and Diamonds (14 page)

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Even Diribani smiled at the accurate imitation of Lady Yisha's scandalized tones. The older woman might have thought it, but she would certainly never say anything so vulgar out loud. "I'm not as good as my sister, Tana, but I learned the basic steps."

"Will you show us?" Ruqayya asked.

"Dance for you? Here?" Diribani looked around the tent. "I suppose. A drum would help. As I said, I'm not an expert."

"Oh, yes."

"My maid drums."

"Mine, too."

Chattering like nesting birds, the young women summoned servants to fetch the instruments and clear the serving dishes. The two guards who followed Diribani everywhere picked up flowers and gems, recording the latter and securing them in a locked box. Then, with professional interest, they smoothed the carpets over the ground in the center of the large tent, leaving no uneven ridge or pocket to trip her.

Diribani knotted her long hair at the nape of her neck and asked Nissa to retrieve the mended pink dress wrap; all the clothes Ruqayya had provided were too grand to risk tearing. In preparation for dancing, Diribani rearranged the fabric so it resembled a pair of baggy trousers rather than the usual draped skirt. She shortened it, too, to just above the ankles, and dispensed with the shoulder drape. After conferring briefly with Ruqayya and then the two drummers, she was ready.

The other young women had gathered in a circle at the edges of the tent. Their maids packed in behind them, faces alight with the prospect of entertainment after the day's ride. When the princess had taken her seat among them, Diribani stood in the middle of the

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empty space, folded her hands, and prayed silently. Now was not the time to speak, scattering tiny hazards for her bare feet to find.
Manali-ji, Naghali-ji, sister goddesses of love and wisdom, guide my steps.
She nodded to the first drummer.

The heart drum sounded. Diribani relaxed; the woman had understood her instructions. Slowly, Diribani bent into the dance's opening movements, designed to warm muscles, focus the mind, and stretch the limbs for the faster sequences to follow. When she'd finished a complete repetition and saluted each of the twelve sacred points of the compass, she signaled to the second musician.

The spirit drum had a higher, thinner tone, but this woman, too, proved an artist. Her capable fingers made the rhythm skitter like gazelles leaping.

Diribani inclined her head to Ruqayya. As they had arranged, the princess tossed a wooden practice knife to the girl who had sneered at Diribani earlier.

"Attack her, Ladli," the princess said.

Ladli had caught the dagger, but at the command, her fingers fumbled it. "What, my lady?"

"You wanted to see her defend herself," Ruqayya said. "Go on. We're waiting."

"Yes, my lady." The young woman jumped to her feet and stabbed the wooden weapon at Diribani.

But Diribani had entered the discipline of the dance. The heart drum steadied her; the spirit drum lightened her step. Centering herself, she extended her awareness within the boundaries of the tent. With ridiculous ease, she evaded the dagger.

Her opponent overbalanced and almost fell. A couple of onlookers jeered, but Ruqayya shushed them, as Diribani had asked.

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No matter where one performed it, ritual dance was a sacred undertaking, not like the white-coats' armed contests, where the object was to draw blood. A petitioner worshiping the twelve in any form--prayer or music or dance--sought to invoke their harmony.

Ladli feinted, then stabbed again, harder. The thrust would have bruised Diribani's ribs if she had been there to absorb the blow.

She wasn't.

The other girl hissed with surprise. She tried again. Missed. Each failed attempt made her angrier and more determined. But not successful. Like water, Diribani flowed around her.

When Ladli was wiping away tears of rage with her fist, her body stiff with frustration and shame, Diribani moved to the next stage. As she had been taught, she began to teach. Lightly, she tapped Ladli's elbow, back, thigh, shoulder, showing her where she was out of balance.

The moment Ladli stopped trying to strike Diribani and started imitating her steps, Diribani slowed deliberately, to show her. She started with a simple foot-pattern and danced away to let the other girl complete a rotation once by herself. Legs, heart, spirit, all leaping like a running deer.

Ladli had stopped crying. Her expression resigned, she finished her circle and raised the dagger in salute. To her surprise, Diribani's empty palm was already there to meet it.

Diribani smiled encouragement, her feet still moving in slow, rhythmic steps.

Ladli's face tensed with concentration. Like Diribani, she kept dancing. With a sudden motion, the dagger sliced sideways. Again, Diribani's hand touched it. Ladli's expression became even more focused. Inward, Diribani was glad to see--where her attention

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belonged. While the girl's feet carried her in a tight circle, the dagger flashed out unpredictably. Always, Diribani anticipated it.

Sweat beaded on their faces as they circled. Diribani knew her muscles would be complaining later, but this was so much fun! The musicians were as talented as temple players, which helped. The spirit drum sped up. Ladli's dagger followed; Diribani extended her senses and matched it. Up, down, sideways. Over her head, behind her knees. The sides of the tent seemed to pulse with the beat of the drums, the rhythm of women breathing in unison.

And one man.

At some point, Prince Zahid had stepped inside the tent. His privilege, as Ruqayya's brother, but one he had seldom exercised. He stood, unnoticed as a shadow in the corner. Until Diribani caught his eye.

Their glances locked for the tiniest instant. The admiration she read in his face jolted her out of step.

Slap! The dagger missed Diribani's hand and tapped her on the elbow. Startled, she lost her place in the rhythm. She tripped, then tumbled--slowly, gracefully, inevitably--over Ladli's hip and landed in a tangle of pink fabric at Ruqayya's feet. Smiling through her panting breath, Diribani sat up and folded her hands to her opponent.

No, her partner. Ladli bowed and handed Diribani the dagger hilt-first, to signal surrender. The drummers ended in a flourish. Diribani turned to include them, too, in her appreciation, as the other women clapped their hands. Laughing and exclaiming, they crowded around the dancers.

Ladli bent over at the waist, breathing in gulps as if she had just run a race. She shook her head. "I couldn't touch her, until she let me."

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Diribani peeked at the corner of the tent, but Zahid had gone. "As I said, I'm not very good. Tana can keep up for hours."

"If you're not forbidden to teach us
flesh-eaters"
--Ruqayya used the rude word deliberately--"I would be honored to learn from you."

"And I," Ladli said.

"I would be happy to teach anyone who likes," Diribani said. Carnations fell into her lap. She handed one to Ladli. "You did very well for your first practice." Her legs unfolded. "Oof. I'll pay for this tomorrow. It's better to stretch first."

"It looks like fun," a girl said.

"Hard work," another demurred.

"Both," Diribani answered them truthfully.

"Tomorrow." Ruqayya directed a servant to begin extinguishing the lamps. At the signal, the other women put on their coats and head scarves. Like giant moths, they drifted off to their sleeping tents.

Diribani paused to refold her dress wrap into the usual skirt-and-shawl drape. Nissa brought her slippers.

When they were alone except for the maids, Ruqayya spoke. "You were distracted at the end."

"Yes," Diribani admitted. The warrior princess missed nothing.

"Be careful," Ruqayya said.

Of her brother, did she mean? Or of Diribani's own wandering attention? She stepped into her slippers, thinking about how a spark of intention could leap the greatest distance. About distraction, and danger. Fierce Ruqayya wouldn't warn her of shadows.

"Good night." Diribani folded her hands to the princess and followed Nissa's lamp into the darkness.

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***

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tana

THE
metal blade slid over Tana's scalp. She knelt on the bamboo mat, her hands clasped in her lap. Long black locks slithered over her shoulders to land, limp and lifeless, on the ground. Coolness followed, the wind's playful touch tracing naked skin. Though she had agonized over the decision, the sensation itself was pleasant. Tana peeked at her reflection in the basin of water. Her neck seemed longer, her ears more delicate, without hair to hide them. She looked smaller. Older, or younger? She couldn't tell what others would make of her appearance. Her mother, she meant. Her sister.
Kalyan.

Unvarnished honesty, that was her new plan. She had forged it in weeks of temple service and nights of dancing. With the gift of snakes and toads, Naghali-ji had separated Tana from her family, her home, and any possibility of a normal life. In return, the goddess offered her devotees three choices. Tana had escaped death; good fortune eluded her. So she had decided to go in search of wisdom.

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Diribani's gift had taken her far from Gurath, though never far from Tana's thoughts. Perhaps Tana's fate, too, lay elsewhere.

The first step was admitting how little she possessed. The shaved head, the orange renunciate's robe, the small bag and wooden begging bowl were just the outward signs of a truth she had accepted in her heart. It had pleased the goddess to strip Tana of everything she valued. So she would search until she discovered what Naghali-ji wanted her to have, or learn, or do.

"Wash, please," the priestess said.

Tana bent over the basin, bracing her elbows to face her reflection full-on. Two determined dark eyes stared back. At their fierce expression, she almost jerked away. Deliberately, she closed her eyes and splashed the water over her bald head. Her hair would grow back. Until it did, she would have to get used to this hot-eyed, egg-headed girl.

The priestess handed her a drying cloth and small clay pot. "The skin will be tender. You don't want to burn, the first few days." She rubbed her own bronze scalp. "Try and keep to the shade."

"Yes, Ma-ji." Tana spread the salve on her skin. It smelled like coconut. She stowed the jar in her bag. "I'm ready."

The priestess accompanied her to the temple gate. Tana took a last look at the bustling complex. She had enjoyed caring for the injured animals and learning more about snakes from the priests. She had served meals to the pilgrims, and, in the evening, danced under the stars to the heart drum and spirit drum. Every word she spoke, each toad and snake, reminded her that she had unfinished business with Naghali-ji.

Tana's mother had visited the temple and begged her to reconsider. But Tana knew that every day she delayed meant another

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chance the governor's spies might find her. The sooner she left, the sooner the priestess could tell Alwar that Tana had become someone else's problem. The thought made her smile, a bit grimly.

"Peace, Tana," the priestess said. "May the twelve guide your steps."

"Peace, Ma-ji," Tana replied. A lucky frog leaped onto the priestess's bare foot. It rested for a moment, then hopped across the courtyard, delighting several children who were waiting for their father to finish praying at Brother Vilokan's shrine. Tana hitched her bag over her shoulder and stepped into the street. Instead of walking through the city, she circled the walls. A network of footpaths bordered the cultivated fields and jungle thickets around Gurath. Eventually, she found her way to the royal road.

While she was dancing one night, the question of where to go had answered itself. As Tana had saluted each of the twelve directions, she had almost laughed out loud when her feet turned east-of-north, the point of the compass dedicated to Naghali-ji. What could be more obvious? She even had a guide. Tana could follow the river San to its source.

Her pilgrimage had begun with auspicious weather. Washed by the rains, the sky was as yet unclouded by the dust that hotter months would bring. Sunlight poured down on groves of mango and pinkfruit, palm and nut trees. The hemp blossoms glowed golden. Wheat and barley ripened in shades of delirious green. Until the emperor's road turned due north to Lomkha, it ran by the San. Tana walked along the shady bank, enjoying the breeze on her scalp.

Birds who had spent the rainy season elsewhere were returning to Tenth Province. Near the river, Tana heard the whistling of

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duck wings, the cries of curlews and pipers, and, once, the squawk of a disgruntled night heron. Great flocks passed overhead, flycatchers, finches, swallows, and starlings. Where the smaller birds flew, others followed: eagles and falcons, buzzards and kites. In the shadow of the hunters' wide wings, doves ceased their cooing, quail their chuckling, green parrots their screaming, and mynahs their chattering. Only the frogs in the ditches and the insects in the fields continued shrilling and buzzing, unconcerned.

People, too, were taking advantage of the fine weather and improved roads. Farmers harvested the rice, millet, and sugarcane sown before the rains. Trade caravans set out from Gurath for the empire's most distant corners. Before Tana left the temple, couriers had begun to come from Prince Zahid, laden with jewels for the governor, and, more precious to Tana, letters from her sister. Ma Hiral had brought them to share with her.

Together they had read of Diribani's travels, and how she was teaching the white-coat girls to dance. But a whiff of sadness hung between the cheerful lines. Surrounded by the Believers' different customs, attitudes, clothes, and even food, Diribani clearly missed her family and home.

Tana thought that loneliness made another bond between them. Naghali-ji's gifts, though so different, had parted them with equal swiftness from the lives they knew. Tana wondered whether her journey would take her as far as her sister's. The manner of it was certainly more modest. On foot rather than elephant-back, she shared the road with long lines of camels and oxcarts. Later in the year, the tramping of so many hooves would raise clouds of choking dust. For now, they packed the dirt into a hard, flat surface.

Outside artisan and farming villages, gangs of children waved