The Lady (23 page)

Now both men were shouting at once. Chieh took Deyandara's reins and said something urgent to Lug, who nodded and forced his way ahead of them. Deyandara was glad enough to have the mercenaries guarding her; there was a lot of jeering at her and jostling of her horse, as if she were somehow an agent of all this. The man from the temple guard gave her an intense look. Scuffling fights broke out, but more closed up with Chieh and Lug, though Praitan voices among even those said things like “That's one in the eye for old Yvarr, thought he'd snagged her for his dog-loving son, didn't he?”

That snapped her out of her witless morass. She looked for those faces, committing them to memory, and she let them see her doing so. Traitors.

“Down,” Chieh ordered, and Lug was there to grab her, bustle her up the steps with Chieh at her back, the horses left to others. Ketsim put out a hard arm and crushed her to his side, fingers digging in. He looked down at her, flushed and sweating, now she saw him close to, and grinned, saying something.

“Welcome to Dinaz Catairna, princess,” said Chieh. She gave her lord a nod, stared, and her face seemed to lose its colour.

Camels cried, horses whinnied, men and women shouted, but it didn't turn into war then and there; they sorted into a rough order behind the orange banners and poured away through the lanes towards the gate, mocked and jeered at by others just as much as Deyandara had been. Ketsim's loyalists came swarming back then, cheering, brandishing spears, wheeling horses and camels as if they'd won some victory, driven the rebels away, though the son—sons—had taken the banners and by far the great numbers with them.

“That,” said Chieh, her voice unsteady, “was Ketsim being deposed as warlord of the orange banners, and it's a title his fool sons are going to find he lost his claim to long ago, for all his bragging otherwise, if they ever make it past Marakand alive and ride beneath those rags on the Grass.” Ketsim raised his voice again, a hand in the air, speaking. More cheering. “He says, what's a chieftain of the Grass compared to the king of a land rich in grazing and the tolls of the great trade roads, and brother by marriage to the high king Over-Malagru. He says, Durandau is marching to your wedding and this new captain it's said has come from Marakand is nothing but a soft-handed priest, and Durandau will bring you his head as a wedding gift.” Then she laughed, a bit wildly. “How long till you're a widow, my lady? You remember I've stood your friend in this, when you take back your land.”

Deyandara swallowed hard and licked dry lips, still looking up into Ketsim's fevered face, with the first signs of the rash already burning in his skin. In a day or two he would be covered in stinking, pus-filled boils, if he were blessed by the Old Great Gods. He might live, if he survived for a fortnight, long enough for the scabs to come. If not, it would be the blood breaking free and weeping under his skin, flushing him black, with no blisters oozing to expel the poisons, and he would be dead within a week.

“A friend?” she said. “Maybe. See that you remember to be one, then.” She tried to smile as the Leopard might have.

There was a strange, nightmare quality to the wedding feast, if that was what Ketsim thought it. Two long tables were arrayed down either side of the ground floor of the tower, with a third across the wall opposite the door, the high table for Ketsim, his bride, and the favoured lords of his tent guard, which included Chieh and Lug. Others of that guard, not feasting, stood armed behind him, and held once again the gates of the
dinaz
, but Chieh and Lug had served well and the celebration was in part theirs. They were chiefs of the queen's tent guard now, her bench-companions, she was given to understand. Queen, as Ketsim used it, did not mean ruler, but merely the king's lady. A new banner to replace his orange rags.

Deyandara, bathed under Chieh's watchful eye, her armour laid aside and fresh clothes found for her somewhere, strange loose embroidered shirt and baggy black trousers, her left arm in a clean linen sling bound across her ribs, ate bread and sipped water they brought from Catairanach's spring, offering it as though they thought it had some significance to do so, although the mercenaries and their Praitan traitors drank wine. The neck of her shirt was unlaced, the blue plaid shawl Chieh had brought her pinned low on her breast with an admittedly fine brooch of gold and turquoise, Ketsim's orders again, to show the golden torc. Her hair was combed and her braids coiled around her head, like a married woman's, not a bride's loose cascade, and there were no flowers woven into it, but she didn't argue. The Praitans snickered at that. A widow might wear her hair so at a second marriage; it implied she was no maiden bride, and she blushed for that, ashamed that she could care, with what was to come. Chieh drank far too much. There was an empty place left between Ketsim and Deyandara at the high table, for the goddess, who did not, despite Deyandara's stilted praying at Ketsim's order, appear to bless them. Or to save her.

Ketsim told his people that Deyandara had come with her brother's blessing, that they were now allied with the high king of all Praitan against Marakand, that come morning Durandau would be marching from his camp a mere twenty miles to the southeast to join them; they would quash the rebel lords and drive his traitor sons from the land, with the blessing of Catairanach to strengthen them.

But his sons had ridden out to join some Marakander force in fighting her brother. Durandau wouldn't be coming, even if Ketsim, trusting in Chieh's and Lug's success, had sent some message announcing her capture and this mockery of a wedding. There were Red Masks, real ones, out there. Durandau, and Elissa and Lord Launval the Younger, any of her other brothers who had ridden with the high king, all would be killed by them. Deyandara blinked rapidly and swallowed to stop the tears spilling from her eyes. She wouldn't let Ketsim think she was weeping for fear of him. He brushed the back of his hand over his moustaches and looked over at her assessingly. The cheering seemed more due to the wine and a desire to believe than to any confidence in him. The Praitan lords murmured together, their eyes on Deyandara as well. A prize for the snatching, the moment the warlord's grasp faltered. They'd seen the fever and the rash on him as clearly as she had. Lug watched them, narrow-eyed, but staggered out from the hall halfway through the meal, greasy and sweating in the face. He had eaten little and drunk less. As Chieh's gaze followed him anxiously and Ketsim turned to make what was probably some coarse Grasslander joke about men who couldn't hold their wine, Deyandara leaned to watch him as well and slid the knife from Catairanach's place into her sling.

The pox, regardless of whether it would take the mild eastern or the dangerous southern course, began with an aching back and queasy stomach, Deyandara remembered that much, and then the swelling pimples in the mouth. Chieh watched Lug when he returned with a face like death but said nothing, refilling her cup and holding his hand under the table. Deyandara counted a dozen Grasslanders who seemed to be having trouble eating, choosing only the softest foods, picking at them, trying to hide the pain of chewing and swallowing. Others, like Ketsim, already showed a rash.

She was dining with the dead, she thought.

The drinking seemed set to go on and on. Ketsim's bench-companions, tent guard, or whatever they were called and the Catairnans seemed set on trying to outdo one another. Lug sat slumped on the bench with his eyes shut, not making even a pretence of drinking any longer. Chieh slipped away at some point, leaving Deyandara feeling naked and small. She was gone a long time, came back looking grim and sickened to slide in between Lug and Deyandara again, taking up her earthenware cup and draining it.

“What?” Deyandara was emboldened to ask.

The Five Cities woman turned bleak eyes on her. “The houses,” she said. “They're full of the dying and the dead. Those damnable traitor sons of his rode off and left them lying.” She murmured in Lug's ear; he shook his head, looked at Deyandara, shrugged, and left again, came back carrying another jug of wine, which he poured for the warlord with some jest and a desperate grin. Ketsim drained his cup, refilled it, and waved for the jug to be passed on. Servants, a couple of young Praitans who weren't folk of Dinaz Catairanach that Deyandara recognized, hurried to do so. When they tried to pour for Deyandara, who had long ago emptied her cup of water, Chieh put a hand over it and shook her head. “The lady's had enough, I think. She has a long night ahead of her and she doesn't want to sleep through it.” Deyandara cringed under her wink at her lord.

Ketsim rose not long after that, which seemed a sign for all to rise, most stumbling out the door, some helping the servants drag the benches to the walls, where they seemed prepared to sleep, as the boards of the tables and the trestles were carried out of the tower. He took her by the hand and kissed it, then hauled her close and kissed her, while the hall whooped and cheered. He smelt of wine, but he didn't linger over the kiss, didn't open his mouth on hers. She had a hard job not to recoil anyhow, thinking of the blisters within his mouth bursting, oozing . . . she managed only to stand unbowed and wooden. He didn't seem to notice, took her hand again and tugged her away up the stairs. They were followed by raucous, singing Grasslanders, waving torches.

Andara help her, Andara save her, they didn't—they weren't—there were stories that the kings of Tiypur long ago had taken new-wed brides to their beds with witnesses, all the night, so that no one could deny the marriage had been consummated. Tiypur was in the west and so was the Great Grass. . . . She should have kicked her horse around and tried to flee so soon as Chieh cut her hand free. Her god Andara was far away, Ketsim beyond any justice of his, and Catairanach wouldn't care; Catairanach had rejected her, Lin abandoned her, her brother would—her brother would use Ketsim as her husband, if it suited him, and it might, to have a strong king in the west, bound to him, except that Ketsim would die, Ketsim was dying. She knew she couldn't take the pox again, no one had it more than once. . . . Her breath came in frantic pants and her ears rang; she was going to faint again.

They continued up the stairs through the second storey's single room, an armoury and dormitory, with pallets and rugs and quilts scattered among baskets of arrows and bundled spears. Lug dodged ahead of them, to push open a trapdoor. They climbed through it and up to the upper floor under the eaves, shedding most of their escort behind them. It still smelt of clean straw from the new thatch. Here the only light was a candle, carried by Chieh. Even Grasslanders wouldn't be such fools as to bring torches beneath thatch, she thought a bit drunkenly, and when Ketsim released her arm she huddled away to the nearest window and the cool night air. South. It looked south, where the waxing moon silvered the hills. Light bloomed around the room behind her, Chieh lighting more candles.

Ketsim spoke, sounding irritated. Chieh made some soothing reply and asked, “Do you want some help with your shirt, my lady? Your arm—”

“No,” she snapped.

“You could find a good many worse husbands in the hall down below,” Chieh retorted. “Or suffer your sister's fate, which is what Marakand wanted for you. Be grateful to him.”

“Cattiga was my aunt,” she muttered under her breath, but Lug spoke, Chieh answered, and the trapdoor dropped behind the two tent guard with a slam, leaving her alone with the warlord.

“Deyandara.”

She had to look at him then. The bed was only a pallet on the floor with a strawtick on it, no grander than what his tent guard slept on below. He undid his belt, set boots and sabre aside, and sat, slowly and carefully, patting the blankets beside him.

“Come,” Ketsim said. “Sit. Talk.”

She shook her head. His brows lowered, lips turning down. A powerful man, a lord of a tribe, and he had this day lost that rule, seen his sons turn their backs on him. She shouldn't be a fool. If she had been going to die in a grand gesture of defiance, she should have done it while there was someone to see. She crossed the room to the bed, shaking a little, and sat where he indicated, shoulders hunched.

“Catairanach,” he said. She waited. He waved a hand in what she realized was frustration. Almost she hoped he would shout for Chieh to come translate again. “Nabbani,” he said.

Catairanach was Nabbani? He wanted her to call Chieh, his Nabbani bench-companion? Foolish. He wanted to know if she spoke Nabbani.

“Colony-Nabbani, yes. A little,” she made haste to add, in case it would be useful not to understand, at some point.

He sighed. “Good, good.” Smiled, carefully and deliberately. “How old?”

“How old—how old am I? Seventeen winters.”

“Ah. Old enough.”

She scowled. “How old are you?”

He laughed then and slapped her back. “Old enough, little girl. Don't worry. Deyandara is my fourth wife. They all happy till they die. Good husband, I.”

“How did they die?”

He frowned. “Maca, first wife, she die . . .” He frowned. “Baby. Long time since. Both we very young. Better that baby die then, I think, than grow to be this son. I not so—so tired, I kill him, now, ride after. Too much trouble. Sons always trouble. Better to be king of quiet land with good daughters, I think. Lysen had sickness, very long, very bad. I cry long time, brother take clan, I go with warlord, leave sadness behind, great lord. Governor of Serakallash, I was. Serakallashi wife, Adva, died in fighting, little daughter killed too, rebels kill her. She only five, very little, very sweet. Very sad. Not there, I with my lord in mountains. He dies too.”

“I'm not sorry for you,” she muttered in Praitan. “They're all dead and it won't do you any good, marrying me. Catairanach says I'll never be queen.”

“Yes, queen for Catairanach,” he agreed, catching those few words. “We talk of Catairanach. She not come to bless. You call her and she refuse. You true Deyandara, not other girl?”