Page 15 of Queen Demon
Two
Kai retrieved some cushions from the chests and slumped comfortably in the Hierarch’s carved chair on the dais in the retiring room, eating palm fruit and reading.
The Cloister Witches returned to carry in some rolled-up mattresses. Then Sanja took charge and unpacked all the chests, and with the Witches’ help seemed to be setting up the rooms to her satisfaction. She went in and out wearing various combinations of the stored jewelry, sweeping, rolling out rugs in the retiring room, finding charcoal for the braisers, unwrapping the drinking set. Then two Witches moved a carved wooden divan to the retiring room from the back of the suite, and Sanja directed them where to put it. It appeared she had learned enough Witchspeak to give people orders. Kai told her, “You know they aren’t servants, they just live here.”
“I know,” Sanja said as the Witches stuffed the frame with cushions and another pair carried in a second divan. “I tried to give them some of our money, but they wouldn’t take it.”
Kai gave up and went back to his reading. Dahin’s package had turned out to be a sheaf of pages stitched together with heavy thread. At first Kai thought it was the beginning of another history, like the ones Dahin had written years ago, but more personal; it started with a recollection of Dahin’s time in the hostage courts of the Summer Halls. But it was more than that; it was an explanation of his theories about the Hierarchs’ homeland, which had always been thought to be somewhere in the Capstone of the World near Sun-Ar. Dahin had said his thoughts were unformed; this manuscript, written in neat Old Imperial with a lotof crossouts, was where he had evidently been trying to organize them.
The theories Dahin had outlined to Kai didn’t seem unformed; they built toward a conclusion that just needed a little more proof to seem inevitable.
Sanja reappeared wearing a silk wrap-tunic with beaded hems and a pair of cotton pants only a little too big. Someone had helped her fix her hair back into twists and she wore a figured gold head band set with tiger eye and carnelian which Kai had last seen on the dead body of the Hierarch servant-noble in charge of destroying the contents of Benais-arik’s scholars guild libraries. He hoped whoever had cleaned the gore off it had done a good job.
Sanja carefully set a cup of saffron milk on the arm of the throne. It was from the drinking set, a very fine one of clear glass veined with brilliant red pigment with polished copper holders. Odd how Kai remembered that hair band, seen for only one fraught moment, but not this drinking set. Was it his or Ziede’s, had it been a gift? Had he ever actually seen it before it had been packed away or had he used it every day and just forgotten it, along with everything else he had tried to forget?
Shaking him out of his thoughts, Sanja said, “Do you know when the others are going to be back? Satli said they want to make fried cakes.”
Kai reached for Ziede again, felt a sense of disgruntled relief that wasn’t his own. “I think they’re on the way.”
When Kai heard the others come up the steps into the audience room, late afternoon had just touched the edge of evening and the hooting of tree frogs had joined the cicada chorus. Ziede had used her pearl to tell him that all was well, but it was still a relief.
Ziede swept in and through the anteroom, waving a hand. “Is the bath working? Good.” She vanished through the archway into the back of the suite, Tenes in her wake. Tahren followed ata more sedate pace and dropped down onto the divan near the windows, letting out her breath in a long sigh.
Kai closed Dahin’s book, marking his place with a finger. “How was the council?”
She frowned, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Kai had seen Tahren in various states of exhaustion, repressed fury, and frustration, and this was definitely a combination of all of those. She said, “The effect of the failed Imperial Renewal was obvious. The council hall had been rearranged, to remove Benais-arik’s seat from the center of the circle and return it to its old place among the rest of the speakers. Bashat was very good at pretending nothing particularly unusual had happened, and all the other speakers seemed very polite about it. If a throne had made an appearance at any point, it had been discreetly removed.”
Though Kai had the Enalin ambassador’s word that Bashat’s bid for Imperial control had failed, it was unexpectedly reassuring to have this confirmation, seen with Tahren’s eyes if not his own. “Good. And Bashat must have been delighted to see you back so soon.” They knew Bashat had revealed the Nient-arik faction’s conspiracy with Immortal Blessed Faharin and his people just before the failed Imperial renewal vote. Bashat would have expected Tahren to return with Ramad, who had been tasked with locating her. Bashat was a strategist who kept his head; he might not have anticipated that the conspirators would panic and make their situation worse when they realized they had been discovered. And Ramad had had no opportunity to send a message until Kai left him at the river trading post yesterday.
“Bashat was expert at concealing his consternation.” Tahren’s expression turned sardonic. “Vanguarders had been sent to search for me throughout the coalition, and the speakers were expecting reports of their progress, not for Saadrin and me to walk in with the warden of Nibet House and one of the conspirators’ minions as a prisoner.”
Kai almost wished he had seen it. “It caused a sensation.”
“It did. Saadrin took the speaker’s circle at the Enalin ambassador’s invitation and told the story as she knew it. Then she vowed to find every member of the Blessed who had participated in the treachery and bring them to justice before all the Rising World.” Tahren grimaced. Like Kai, she had worn out much of her interest in vengeance over the years. “It will keep her busy, at least. Setar-en said the speakers for Nient-arik had already offered formal apologies and reparations on behalf of their erring countrymen. Setar-en thought they were sincere; two are from the artisan and farmer guilds, only one is a Prince-heir.”
“That’s interesting.” If the old Prince-heir families were losing ground in Nient-arik, that would explain why a faction had split off and made this bid for power. Besides the fact that Bashat’s own bid for power had stirred up old feuds and given hope to greedy fools like the Immortal Blessed Faharin. “They must be scrambling to clean their house.”
“One would hope.” Tahren continued, “The Immortal Blessed speakers maintained deeply embarrassed stoic silence, for the most part. They were horrified to see Saadrin. One of them is Garoden, a distant relation. He tried to take the speakers’ circle at one point and a speaker for the Cahar Mountain Alliance suggested that he not ‘make it any worse.’ Amazingly, he heeded their words.”
That would have been a joy to see. In this new body, if Kai had found a way to disguise his eyes, it would have been easy. Vrenren’s eyes had been available, but their temporary truce with Saadrin probably didn’t go that far. “Did Saadrin explain how Faharin died?”
“She said he was killed by a companion who was defending her person.” That was an Immortal Blessed code that meant revealing the name would cause an internecine war, so it was better not to. It was unexpectedly generous of Saadrin; Dahin didn’t need any more attention from the Immortal Patriarchs. The Rising World council wouldn’t care, as they would have turned Faharin over to the Blessed for justice anyway, if he had been brought inas a prisoner. As Vrenren would be, once he testified. Tahren added pensively, “They will assume it was me, which is well enough. Saadrin also did not accuse you and Ziede of stealing that Blessed ship, which frankly surprised me.”
“We did steal it,” Kai said, but they had stolen it from the expositor Aclines, who had received it from an Immortal Patriarch for the purpose of helping destroy the treaty between the Blessed Lands and the Rising World, so Saadrin had possibly not wanted to dwell on that any more than she already had.
“She did tell them you and Ziede freed both of us from the conspirators, though not how. She can’t, without telling them that a finding stone still exists.” Tahren’s expression tightened. “Many suggestions had been made as to why you and Ziede had disappeared before the Imperial Renewal. That you were searching for me, that you were in league with the conspiracy, that you were pretending to be in league with them in order to destroy them.”
There were days when Kai missed his fangs. “That sounds like Bashat’s work.”
“Indeed.” Tahren’s voice was hard as steel. “I clarified that you and Ziede had also been imprisoned, and that you had taken a new form because your former host had been destroyed.” There had been no reason to withhold that information, since Ramad and Cohort Leader Ashem knew and would report to Bashat soon enough. Tahren looked away, pressing her lips together at an unpleasant memory. “I made sure I was meeting Bashat’s gaze. He knows I know.”
Maybe it was better that Kai hadn’t been there after all. Watching Immortal Blessed squirm wasn’t quite worth it. “Bashat must have been relieved when you didn’t denounce him.” Only partly joking, he eyed Tahren. “You didn’t, did you?”
Tahren’s mouth did not quirk even briefly. “I did not. He can stew in uncertainty until his spy Ramad arrives and tells him the rest of the story. Then he can stew in uncertainty forever,knowing that you can destroy him with a few words. Or he’ll try to have you killed.”
Kai shook his head, dismissing it. “He’s not that unwise.”
Tahren didn’t comment on that. “As we were leaving, the Enalin envoy indicated that there was not as much support for Benais-arik’s Imperial ambitions as Bashat might have hoped. Once the Enalin’s opposition was announced, most of the other speakers followed their lead.”
