Authors: Vera Nazarian
“
But now,” he said, “will you, freewoman, swear fealty to my cause, so that we can proceed inside from this heat? For I refuse to take this conversation inside.”
“
I don’t swear,” she said with a glint in her eyes. “You must simply take my word. Or else, I’ll turn around and leave.”
He watched her intensely, evaluating her, it seemed. “Give me but your word, then.”
“
You have it. I give you my word to serve you honestly until the culmination of my employment.” And suddenly she grinned. It seemed, at last no longer capable of controlling it, she was laughing at him. Yet he knew that was but her mutable way, her odd set of reactions, even now. He knew it, just as he was sure completely that she’d meant what she said.
“
Excellent!” He smiled back at her, trying to match her volatile manner. “Now—”
“
Another thing, my lord.”
“
Well?”
“
I’d prefer you call me simply by my name, Ranhé.”
“
Fine. From now on, Ranhé, you’ll be on my lips, unless the New Rainbow dawns.” A smile quivered about his mouth.
“
And yet another thing. You think I’m a saint, not caring to be paid? Wrong. I would like the seventy-five
dahr
now, the ones you owe me.” And then she added. “Really, it’s but my purse crying out for them.”
He laughed softly. “That, as soon as we’re inside. But first, escort my kinswomen within.”
Ranhé inclined her head, turned to obey, then again paused. “Is it wise, m’lord, that I leave you alone? What if there’s someone else out here who wants you dead?”
“
No doubt there might be. However, I am sufficiently alert now, so that I can defend myself. I
can
defend myself. Really. Despite what you might think at this point.”
“
Of course,” she hurried to say. “Only, wouldn’t it make sense that you yourself escort your kinswomen? They are surely tired of being ignored.”
“
Yes, Elas,” suddenly came from the carriage. “Won’t you help us out of here now? Really, cousin, Mother is quite ill, no thanks to you, and I am ill with impatience. What is with you?”
Curtain aside, Lixa’s pretty oval face watched her cousin with odd intensity. She turned to glance at Ranhé then, with a curious look. “Woman,” she said, “I barely know you, but I love when people tell Elas what to do. He deserves it.” And she threw him a coquette glance.
“
Thank you, my lady.” Ranhé inclined her head slightly, more to cover an amusement in her eyes. “I admit to not knowing you at all, yet I am at your service.”
She is right
, Elas thought,
I’ve been inexcusably absentminded for these last two days. For the past couple of months in fact, ever since
—
He opened the door of the carriage, and saw at once, from the wan looks of Molhveth Beis, how careless he’d been indeed.
“
Madam. . . .”
“
Oh, my boy,” began the dame. “It has been a nightmare, this trip of ours. I am so frightened for you! Knowing now in what constant danger you live! I never knew—”
You don’t suspect even half of it,
he thought.
And neither does my new right hand. For now
. . . .
“
Let me help you inside, so the two of you can rest,” said Elas gently. “This City House is not half bad. I’ll find a professional driver in no time, while you will have a chance to stretch, before we continue to
Dirvan
. We are almost there, Aunt.”
“
Oh-h-h,” the elderly one moaned in response, as she was helped, amid the swish of her skirts, to step out of the carriage.
“
I suppose,” said Ranhé, “I should stand out here and guard this vehicle against thieves.”
And then she was unable to hold her tongue any longer. “My lord, really, how
can
someone of your station travel in this way, without extra servants or guards, or anything? Forgive me, but now that I really work for you, I have to say it! You’re acting like one living in a dream, oblivious of the surroundings! No wonder you were almost killed! A holy miracle that you’re still unharmed!”
“
Yes, Elas, I’ve noticed that also . . .” muttered Molhveth Beis, nodding (without it occurring to her that maybe for once this guardswoman spoke beyond her limits). “Truly unlike you . . . Why didn’t you agree to those three servants I wanted to take along? Or the extra carriage for some of Lixa’s belongings? Whatever the bridal custom might be, she must have them. Do you realize that now I’ll just have to send for them, to have my men make an extra trip—
Really!
Why didn’t I insist?!” she ended in a rising voice.
“
Come inside now,” spoke Elasand, his tone revealing nothing, his eyes away from them, glancing at the busy traffic all about, the mist-gray sunlit place. The wind—smelling faintly of cooking smoke and the perfume of backyard roses—touched tendrils of his black hair and seemed to sweep him away also, into a different place.
Ranhé watched him.
I am in a dream, and they don’t even know it
, he thought, suddenly from far away.
I’ve been this way for so long now. So long. . . . I’ve forgotten peace, I have not been myself. Ever since, all these months ago, I have seen, for the first time,
violet.
Ranhéas. There’s something about her that’s of the same quality, vaguely familiar, as
that
which obsesses me. Maybe it is why I’d insisted upon her remaining with me. Because she exudes this sense . . . Her eccentricity is stained with an otherworldliness, and we share something in common. What is it?
He never allowed himself to finish the thought, but followed Lixa and Dame Beis through the simple great wooden door of the City House, to a cool interior and the business at hand.
Ranhé, alone at last, allowed herself a tiny brief smile, the kind no one ever saw but herself. She then closed and locked securely the doors of the empty carriage, took the reins in her hands, while making soothing sounds to the horses, and then deftly scrambled up to the driver’s seat.
She thought she had done, as usual, well, engaging her imperceptible and always impeccable mix of real honesty and masterful guile. For the last half-hour, only she herself knew how much of what she had “confessed” to her prospective employer was truth.
Elasand-re,
she thought,
only one thing I regret. That you must now waste more of your time and generous money by hiring some driver when—if you’d but asked—I could’ve performed this job equally well, if not better than a professional
.
But you didn’t ask. That’s the point. And anyway it’s best that you know less about me, if possible. About what I can do
.
And thinking, she watched Tronaelend-Lis, metallic-bright under the sun, swarming wonderfully all around her. And she waited.
CHAPTER 8
D
irvan
is a golden whore.
I say this as I help you rip the veils, like spider silk, from the spectral obstacle before you, flimsy endless veils of deception.
Look closely, and trust nothing, not even me, as for the first time you clearly behold
Dirvan
.
It is the bright center of the busily dreaming City, wherein blossoms that which is called luxury, or as others know it, excess. Here, all is pleasing to the aesthetic sense. Here, beauty, elegance, light, all things sensual, and the spiritually sublime, had once intermixed, and their final product is the aristocracy, the elite, heir to the wonder that exists here. As always, things are circular; one is wrought by the other, which in turn gives birth to the first. Such is the nature of the place.
Dirvan
was an island. It was surrounded by the Arata, and yet again surrounded by the rest of the City, and hence, the world.
Dirvan
was thus said to be at the core of all things.
The City was built on flat land, and
Dirvan
never towered over its surroundings, as did some other great city acropoli. The large circular island was a flat place, with cultivated lawns of sweet aromatic grass, shaded alleys and groves, summerhouses of pale gleaming marble amid gardens, everywhere growing things lush and dark, creepers and vines scaling elegant walls of occasional great Villas, all growth straining toward the light.
Here, all the Great Families held Villas, their necessary places of residence at the Court. These were in addition to the real great holdings of land elsewhere in the West Lands that all aristocrats owned. Some of them chose to live at
Dirvan
permanently, while others—like Beis and Vaeste—disdained the life of the Court, and resided in the country, heedless of any Regental displeasure.
The Villas, lawns, and groves, constituted the Outer Gardens, all accessible to the public (except for the mysteriously luxurious private gardens and insides of the residences). Such had been the law of Kings, since ages past, that the ordinary folk could always have a chance to see the better life, even if they could never attain it.
A generously cruel law. Yet it inspired some to strive for improvement in their lot, by way of example. They who had succeeded in such striving, were the ones who had later founded Guilds, the enterprises of the ordinary, with their own claim to elitist power, if not to fine blood.
And thus they came, people of the West Lands, to gawk in wonder at the gleaming elegance, the refinement, at the finely polished surfaces of marble and metal catching the light, the contrasts of darkness and pallor that ingenious architectural contrivances exhibited, stressing deep relief and carvings. They observed the pale buildings against ebony vegetation, and the beating fountains of structured water ranging from fine mist-like spray and tiny dew drops, to powerful waterfall-streams glittering like liquid metal in the sun—fountains miraculously built to defy with seeming effortlessness the flatness of the land and the pull of gravity, with their distant source water towers hidden cleverly out of sight amid thick foliage.
All these forms and others hypnotized with their constant fluidity of real and abstract motion, the stationary objects with their surfaces which were made to specially play with light—finely grained, minutely striped, looping, spherical carvings, exquisite statuary everywhere. Solid form ruled the Outer
Dirvan
.
The Outer Gardens were maintained and lightly policed by servants native to
Dirvan
. They were also the ones who cared for the contrasting black and pale swans in the pools, all varieties of garden and exotic birds, and beasts that were tame and were kept as pets of the Regents.
Fearlessly the creatures came to walk the Gardens, came into the alleys where humans walked, allowed themselves to be touched. They also were under the protection of the old Kings’ law, so that none could harm them here.
Many came to
Dirvan
to see the wonder upon wonder. There was no toll to cross the Arata along one of its numerous bridges, from the Markets of one of the Quarters. Visitors crossed the Canal, wondering even at that premature point, at the elegance of the bridge they trod, light and well-paved, and the relative narrowness of the rapid Arata, spanning no more than a hundred feet in width, its waters fed by a complex subterranean system of pipes. They came to the grassy bank of
Dirvan
, where the pale marble and cultured gardens met their eyes, and took one of the many gravel paths to penetrate farther into the haven of the Regents. Their passage was ultimately blocked, however, deep within the island, by tall ornate walls of pale stone, forming—as expected—a perfect circle around the very center of
Dirvan
. These were the Palace Walls, elegant and forbidden, for beyond them none but the nobles could set foot.
And so, the disappointed visitors to
Dirvan
, originally expecting to be allowed everywhere, would pause maybe, in consternation, look the walls up and down, noticing the relentless Regents’ Guards posted at both of the only two Gates that led inside this core within a core, and would finally turn around in disappointment to look at other things on this island.
They might want, as consolation, to see the great gleaming Fountain on the eastern side, called the Vein, because of the deeply pulsing manner with which the water sprang forth from its dark sculpted-blossom source. Or else, northward there was the magically eerie alley of weeping willows. Trees grew there with branches so fine, leaves so tiny and delicate, like tufts of down, or cascading lace, that people called it the Walk of Northern Falls. There, willows moved in the wind, like down-streaming water, and their whispering was the breath of gods.
If the visitors, by any chance, had little children with them, then the little ones would, after running around the grass and fountains and statuary, clamor to see one more thing, one more wonder that
Dirvan
contained. “The Tomb, the Tomb!” they’d cry. “Let’s see the Tomb of the King!”
And the older ones would relent, and allow themselves to be led by their awed children, to a place northeast of the Palace Walls. There, right near the Arata’s bank, cedar and cypress—one spanning great width, the other, like a painted obelisk, narrow and straining to the sky—the rich black trees sprouted in a grove to conceal a peculiar solemn structure.
Carved of intensely pale stone, polished to a mirror gleam, it was of no more than fifty square feet. Its base was formed like an odd four-point star or a square with cut-away parabolic curves instead of sides, upraised the height of a man from ground level by stairs that curved along with the base exactly. From each of the four “star-point” corners, a circular column rose for more than fifty feet upward, smooth, stoic and unadorned, but for its mirror-polish.