Shadowkill sq-3, page 12
part #3 of Shadith's quest Series
She kicked her slippers off, threw the robe around her shoulders, and went running out.
3
Kizra leaned over the gallery rail, peering down at the Great Hall. Shadows and emptiness. No movement. Nothing. She read the runner again.
The garden, that was it, Kulyari was coming down into the Family Garden. She stopped, then she was moving again. She stopped again, stayed still. Doing something. Very busy. Sense of vindictive satisfaction. She was talking to someone. Talking? Who?
Using her reach as a dowsing rod, Kizra ran down the stairs and through the smudgy darkness, until she was touching the south wall of the Great Hall. One hand on the wall, her bare feet silent on the elaborate parquet, she ghosted along, getting closer and closer to the girl-until she was standing outside a massive door.
She leaned against the door and tried to hear what Kulyari was saying. The wood was too thick. She chewed at her lip, nodded, eased the latch up, and opened the door a crack. She saw a bluish-white light flickering, a ghost light hardly brighter than the shadows.
Com. Must be battery powered. I didn’t think… Don’t be stupider than you have to, Kiz, this far out, of course they had to have a com.
“… before dawn, I told you, less than thirty minutes ago.” Kulyari stopped talking, listened to a muted mutter. Kizra thought it was a man’s voice, but she couldn’t be sure, and she hadn’t a clue what the words were.
“No. No one saw me. They’re all asleep.”
Mutter mutter.
“Two of them. On the Blacks, with a pack mule.” Mutter mutter.
“P’murr.”
Mutter mutter.
“Northeast. Toward Patja Mount.”
Kizra didn’t have to hear any more. Aghilo, she thought. And right now.
Kizra tapped at Aghilo’s door, tapped again, swore under her breath. Come on, woman. Come on!
Aghilo opened the door. “Chapa! What are you doing down here? And dressed like that?”
“Let me in,” Kizra whispered. “She’s coming up the stairs, I can hear her feet.”
“Who?”
“Kulyari.”
“All right.” Aghilo stepped back so Kizra could come in. “What are you talking about?”
Kizra stood by the door listening. “On second thought, you’d better go see that it’s her out there. I’ve a feeling my word isn’t worth much when it comes to the Irrkuyon.”
Aghilo pressed her mouth shut. She nodded. “True. Wait here. Leave the door open if you wish.” She snatched up a robe, flung it around her shoulders, and went out.
5
“Visiting a lover?” Aghilo’s voice was peppered with scorn. “Shameless one, out of your bedroom this late.”
“Get lost, old woman. Keep your mouth shut or I’ll have you whipped for impertinence. And don’t think I can’t do it.” Kulyari laughed. “I don’t have to explain anything to Garaddy’s bastard.” She swept off, laughing again.
Aghilo came back. She pulled the door shut, sighed. “You have your witness.”
“She’s putting it on. Under that arrogance, she’s scared.”
“Oh, really. What IS this about?”
“I woke up a little while ago, nightmare I think, but I don’t remember. Anyway, I was looking out the window and saw Arring Pirs crossing on the ferry. Someone else was watching; once Pirs and P’murr were across, she took off. It was Kulyari. She came down in the Family Garden and got into a room there, I don’t know what the room was, but there’s a com in it. I cracked the door and heard her talking to someone on the com. She was telling him, I think it was a man, about Pirs, where he looked to be going, who was with him, you know, everything he didn’t want to get out.”
“Ah.” Aghilo stripped the tie off her long plait, began pulling the strands apart.
“Is there any way we can make her tell who it was she was talking to?”
Aghilo moved to her dressing table, began brushing her hair, her strokes full of nervous energy. “No,” she said. “The only one who could touch her is Pirs.”
“Matja Allina?”
“No. No. You don’t understand the way things are here. She dropped the brush and twisted her long hair into a knot atop her head, began shoving in hairpins, each darting movement of her hand emphasizing a phrase of what she was saying. “She’s the heir’s daughter. Utilas. He sent her here for fostering-once he saw what Pirs and Allina were making of this place. For fostering and to make trouble. Get rid of Mina. Be there to marry Pirs.”
“He’s her uncle, almost like seducing her father. I…”
“No, I told you, you don’t understand.” Aghilo slapped in the last pin, got to her feet. “It’s done here often enough. Usually the second wife, if the first dies or has to be put aside.” She took off her robe, threw it on the bed, moved about, collecting underclothing, a skirt and shirt, talking as she moved. “The Families don’t want conflicting alliances and it conserves the wealth. She’s here to marry him if she can manage it. Viper. Him or his successor if she gets him killed.”
“Since her father’s the heir…”
Aghilo pulled a folding screen out from the wall, went behind it and began dressing. “No. He’s got enough on his hands with the old property. It’ll be Mingas or Rintirry gets this if Pirs is killed.”
“The baby doesn’t count?”
“Who’s to speak for him? Matja Allina? Don’t be silly. If Pirs is killed, the baby’s nothing. Boy babies die so easily on this world.” She came from behind the screen looking quietly neat and lowered herself to a stool at the foot of the bed. “Go get dressed, chapa. You shouldn’t be down here like that.” She thrust her feet into her sandals, bent, and began working on the buckles. “Meet me. Ten minutes. You hear?” She gave a soft little grunt as she switched feet. “When I tell you to speak, you say just what you told me. And nothing,” she looked up, “nothing about what’s to do. The Matja will say. She knows the situation. Don’t even hint what you’re thinking. You don’t understand. She has enough trouble without having to deal with you. Go on. Get.”
6
Matja Allina was tired and red-eyed. She sat in the only armchair in her bedroom, wrapped in a fleecy white robe with a blue-green silk lining. Tinoopa knelt at her feet, massaging them with a scented cream, working the toes, the muscles of her calves, humming a placid soothing three-note tune. The smell of the cream was strong in the room, a sweetness with an acrid underbite.
“After Aghilo challenged her,” Kizra finished, “Kulyari went sweeping off in a snit.”
“So,” the Matja said. “Our precautions were useless. Hmm. Aghilo, I saw Wuraj in the infirmary yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Yes. He’d tangled with a young l’borrgha and had claw-marks here and there. Bone-deep some of them. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to come in.”
Matja Allina closed her eyes, rubbed at the vertical lines between her brows. “He didn’t look bad…”
“Well, he should probably rest at least a week.”
“Bring him to me. If he can’t go, he’ll know who’s best to send.
“Matja…” Aghilo said tentatively, raising her hands in protest.
“I know, I know. I don’t mean here.” She dragged her hand across her mouth. “I wish… no… impossible… everyone knows everything that happens. Bring him to the entrance hall. I’ll be down immediately.” She cut off Aghilo’s protest. “It has to be me, my friend. You know that. Get Gilli chal and Ghineeli chal, they’re loyal, I’m sure of it. Put them to watching Kulyari and Polyapo. I wish… no.” Once again she closed her eyes. “Tinoopa, thank you, that was lovely. I want you to help me dress and get downstairs as quickly as we can manage. The sooner it’s done…” she pushed at her hair, “the sooner I can rest.”
7
Wuraj was a small wiry man with coarse gray hair in a braid that reached past his belt. He braided his beard to match; it hung in two tails down his front. His eyes were a light yellow-brown, narrow, set in a weave of wrinkles. One arm was heavily bandaged. Three ragged scabs raked down the side of his face.
Matja Allina frowned. “I’m sorry, Wuraj, I hadn’t realized how bad it was.”
He looked scorn and didn’t bother answering.
“You’re sure?” Matja Allina said.
“Ya.”
“What will you need?”
“Name a the Mirp they headin for. The roans Arring keeps in south paddock, rifles, ammo packs. For me ’n them. They wouldna take any but sidearms they goin to meet Brushies. Bag a taffys for the Brushies. Might need sweet’nin up. Red cloth fer presents. Ah… and I want the Jinasu, you don’t mind. Nut’n else I can think of right now.”
“You’ll have it.” Matja Allina put her hand in her sleeve, brought out a small white card with a seal on it in red wax. She held it out to him. “If anyone questions you, show this.”
He nodded, tucked the card in a belt pouch.
“Bring the roans to the Kitchen Gate and wait there for the Jinasu and the rest of it.” She held out her hand. “Bring him back whole, Wuraj mi-chal. For all our sakes.”
She watched him out, then turned to the others. “Tinoopa, go wake Cook, get a bag of taffys from her and trek supplies. Do you know anything about packsaddles?”
“No, Matja Allina. I’ve lived in cities all my life.”
“Cook will show you. Go quickly. Everything I’ve promised you depends on him, do you understand?”
“Oh, yes, I do surely understand, oh, Matja.” Tinoopa dipped a curtsy and went out, moving at a fast trot.
“Aghilo, more running about for you. Wake Ingalina chal Beastmistress, have her send the Jinasu to the kitchen equipped for a trek. Do that first,, then send someone for a bolt of cloth, red cloth, make sure they know it has to be red, doesn’t matter who you send, just someone who’ll do it fast. Who you can trust to do it fast. Here.” She twisted a key off the ring at her belt. “Take this. When you get back, lock up the Arring’s study. I wish I’d thought of it before, that’s the one key Polyapo doesn’t have, Amurra be blessed. Or Kulyari. Then go wake Loujary chal and Wayak chal, I need them to carry me up to the armory, I don’t want to have to climb those stairs. And fetch Kulas chal, good old Kulas, if there’s any chalman I can trust, it’s him. I want him standing guard while I open the armory, I need him to take charge of the ammunition packs and the rifles and bring them down to Wuraj… “ She grunted, crossed her arms and bent over them. “No… ah! no, Hilo, don’t worry,” she gasped. “It’s not labor, just…”
Kizra dropped to her knees, pressed her hands against the active bulge of the baby, sent calm, ease, reassurance, felt the spasms relax under her palms.
Matja Allina straightened. Absently, she patted Kizra’s shoulder as she turned to Aghilo. “Go,” she said impatiently. “The sooner Wuraj is on his way, the sooner Pirs will be safe.”
8
Kizra leaned out her window, watched Wuraj on the ferry, riding one horse, leading another with a small pack on its back. The four tiny Jinasu were there with him, brown ghosts nearly impossible to pick out of the dark.
So many things she didn’t understand about this place. A man could send his daughter to his brother’s house and expect her to… well… seduce his brother.
That same daughter could plot her uncle’s murder and rejoice in what she considered her cleverness.
I thought it was craziness when Allina fussed about the danger to her baby and herself. Now…
When Wuraj was across, she turned away, pulled on her boots, and went down to breakfast.
9
After lunch Matja Allina went to bed and stayed there, leaving Tinoopa and Aghilo to keep order and continue the work of the Kuysstead.
Kizra was forced to sit with her in the darkened bedroom, playing the arranga for her, singing now and then the songs she’d picked up yesterday and on the trip here. She was pleased that her memory was so good despite what someone had done to her head. It was reassuring.
The day crept along.
Now and then, when Matja Allina let her stop playing for a while, she pushed the drapes back and looked out one of the sitting room windows, watching the chal and chapa move about the court below, chattering knots of girls, gossiping older women, busy, laughing, serious, none of them stuck away in a suffering eddy like this one where she was. She envied them. She was bored. More than anything she was bored.
Tinoopa crossed the court, heading for the storage yard, a covey of chattering maids trailing behind her. She looked vigorous and contented; even this far off, Kizra read a bursting energy; the woman was enjoying her fight for authority, using her cleverness and experience to get what she wanted.
Some time later Tamburra the Kiv’kerrinite walked from the herb drying rooms and headed for the entrance to the women’s living quarters. She glanced up at the flee of the House as she walked by, saw Kizra watching her, and then looked quickly away. Kizra scratched the inside of her elbow and wondered again what it was brought that woman to this place.
Matja Allina called her back into the bedroom. “Play that thing you did for dinner last night.” Her voice was fretful, her face was flushed, there was a shallow vertical pain-line between her brows.
“This one, Matja Allina?” She let the easy undemanding song drip from her fingers. Boring. Boring. All of it. Stifling. Gods, I want to… I want… She didn’t know what she wanted, except it wasn’t this.
“You’re frowning. What are you thinking?” Matja Allina’s eyes caught what little light there was, seemed to glow. “Kizra Shaman, do you know something about Pirs? What is it? Tell me. You have to tell me.”
“No, Matja Allina. Of course not, how could I? I was just… just thinking.”
“About what? What worries you?”
Kizra blinked at her. Not even my own mind belongs to me, she thought mutinously. What to say… what? Ah. “Kulyari,” she said. “I was thinking about how disappointed she’s going to be when the Arring walks in. What a snit she’s going to throw.” She moved her shoulders. “That wasn’t what bothered me, it’s what she’s going to do next. After the Arring walks in.”
“Walks in. Yes. So we must hope.” Allina closed her eyes, the brief spurt of energy draining from her.
“Matja, ah…”
“What is it?”
“Aghilo didn’t want me to bother you, but… Is there ANY way you can find out who Kulyari was talking to?”
“Little chapa, it’s all right.” The Matja’s feverish intensity faded to a drowsy musing. “It’s no bother because I don’t need to ask. I know who she was calling. Rintirry. My loving brother-by-law. Dear Rintirry who is so very fond of his brother he tried to rape me as soon as he saw Pirs wanted me.” She clicked her tongue. “Hai, Kizra, you listen so deeply it’s easy to say far too much. Pirs doesn’t know about that. No one knows. I broke the bastard’s nose for him and he went away. Please. If you say anything it will make more trouble than you can possibly understand.”
“All right.”
Matja Allina closed her eyes. “Go find Gilli chal, will you, please. Then come back and tell me what Kulyari’s doing.”
10
Kizra knelt beside the bed, her hands folded in her lap. “Kulyari slept until just after the noon gong. She went into the garden and pulled heads off flowers there until Polyapo looked out, saw what she was doing, and scolded her back inside. Then Kulyari hung around the Great Hall. When she thought no one was around, she tried to get into the Arring’s study. Gilli chal says she had a screaming snit when she found out it was locked. She’s back in her room now, trying on clothes, changing her hair, driving the maids till they’re ready to bang her on the head and stand the consequences. That’s it.”
“Polyapo. Do you think she’s involved in this?”
“If I had to guess, no. There’s no tension in her. And she’s not… um…” Kizra sneaked a glance at Allina to see how far she dared go.
Matja Allina narrowed her eyes to slits, her mouth twitched. “And she’s not intelligent enough to hide it.”
“Well, yes.” Kizra got to her feet. “It’s time you should eat something, Matja Allina. You know what Tinoopa said, small meals but frequent. Do you want me to ring the kitchen?”
“No. I don’t want much. A cup of broth and a roll will do.”
“Just a minute, then.” Kizra crossed to the fireplace, took the lid off the brazier, and set on the covered pot of broth. She put a fresh roll in a small dutch oven, then leaned against the bricks of the chimney while she waited for the food to heat.
“Chapa Kizra, come here, help me to sit up. Bring the extra pillows, will you?”
11
Time passed.
Matja Mina drowsed.
Kizra went back to watching what was happening in the court below. To wondering what her dreams meant. To speculating if she and Tinoopa would get what Allina promised them. To yearning for release from this tedium. It always came back to that. She loathed being shut away from what was happening. It was as bad as being in jail, at least according to Bertem’s tales. Or Tinoopa’s. Boredom and being jerked about by anyone that had the power to jerk.
And even if I ran, where do I run to? I don’t know who I am or where I belong. I don’t KNOW anything. How can I DO anything…
12
The day ended finally.
That night Kizra sweated through more nightmares, worse than any night before this. She remembered bits each time she woke:
giant spiders with intelligent eyes and orange pompoms where their ears would be if spiders had ears, relentless, implacable, she shuddered with horror when she saw them…
crashing in a small fast ship, going down and down and nothing she could do about it, dying, all the pain and emptiness of dying…
