She scowled at the white cottages, the pampered trees, and even at the welcome little lake. Some long-forgotten sorcerer had dammed an intermittent stream to make this settlement possible. If the stories were true, he had thereby created a longlived aristocracy of highwaymen and caused the deaths of untold innocent travelers.
But not Elkarath.
She stared thoughtfully at her aunt, now busily hammering in a tent peg. Kade did not normally discuss the sheik, even in such oblique hints. Nor did Azak, or Inos herself. But she could recall a couple of times on the journey when the conversation had come close to the subject of magic—and both times had been late in the day, as now.
Her eyes went again to the forbidding barrier of mountains. Beyond them lay Thume, the Accursed Place. No one ever went there.
Did they? And so . . .
The temptation was irresistible. What did she have to lose? She drew a deep breath, ignoring the sudden thumping of her heart while cautiously glancing around to confirm that there was no one within earshot. In these trailing Zarkian costumes with their floppy hoods a woman never knew who might be creeping up on her, but the nearest tent on the right was already standing and obviously empty, its sides folded up to let the evening breeze sift through. The one on the left was being erected by a jabbering band of youngsters, the daughters of Sixth Lionslayer.
“A favor, Aunt?”
Kade looked up and nodded, her jotunnish blue eyes puzzled, and the rest of her invisible below yashmak and draperies.
“Tonight take your cue from me? No arguments?”
The blue eyes widened, then quickly narrowed in a frown. “You aren’t planning something impulsive, are you, dear?”
“Impulsive? Me? Of course not! But, please, Aunt? Trust me?”
“I always do, dear,” Kade said suspiciously.
Nevertheless, Inos knew she would cooperate. “Well, if you can spare me for a moment . . . I need a quick word with Jarthia.” She turned and trudged off between the trees.
She thought she almost approved of Tall Cranes, despite the sinister reputation of its inhabitants. Yet not long ago an isolated hamlet like this would have seemed squalid and pathetic to her. How fast one’s standards could change! Probably the Ullacarn place would feel like a grand city when she reached it, after so many lonely little desert settlements, most much smaller and more poverty-stricken than this. She did not yearn for grand cities. She would cheerfully have turned down a visit to Hub itself in place of a quiet afternoon in Krasnegar—dull, scruffy old Krasnegar!
Cheerfully she returned the greetings of familiar fellow travelers as she passed their tents, women and children with whom she had shared the ordeals of the Central Desert: thirst and killer heat and the terrors of a sandstorm. She should have brought a water jug as an excuse for this excursion. Kade was much better at carrying water on her head than she was. Patience had never been her strong suit.
Then she reached the tent of Fourth Lionslayer. Fourth would be engaged elsewhere, helping Azak oversee the unloading. His wife, Jarthia, was about the same age as Inos and admittedly striking, in a voluptuous djinnish way, with hair of deep chestnut and eyes as red as any Inos had ever seen. Shortly after the caravan had left Arakkaran, Jarthia had given birth to a large and healthy son. Now that her belly had flattened again and her breasts were still large with milk, her figure was even more lush than usual. None of that was visible at the moment, of course, or ever would be visible to any man except Fourth himself. He was elderly and utterly enslaved by his beautiful son-bearing wife, whose predecessors had produced only a double handful of daughters. All these factors found their place in Inos’s devious inspiration.
Kneeling on the rugs spread before her tent, Jarthia was lighting the brazier. Just another anonymously shrouded female, she looked up in wonder at the visitor, for this was the time of day when the women must rush to prepare the day’s meal for their hungry, hot, and hot-tempered menfolk.
“Mistress Harthak?” Jarthia murmured respectfully, and inscrutably. That was Inos’s current name, Azak’s choice. It was certainly better than the name he had bestowed upon Kade, which had unfortunate implications—at times the young sultan’s ferocious mien concealed a wicked sense of humor.
Mistress Harthak had not thought to prepare what she wanted to say. She mumbled some sort of greeting, then decided to sit down. She settled stiffly on the rug.
Jarthia’s surprise increased to became distrust. She muttered the customary welcome from, “My husband’s house is honored,” to the final offer of water.
Inos declined the water. “I was wondering,” she began, remembering to harden the Hubban accent she had cultivated so painstakingly at Kinvale, ”whether you were planning to visit the bathhouse this evening.”
Jarthia sat back and studied her visitor with unblinking red eyes. “The lionslayer insists. He is a very demanding husband.”
Inos doubted that. “Oh, that’s good . . . but not quite what I meant. Actually, I was more concerned about thali . . . if you had thought of playing thali this evening?”
Thali was a popular women’s game. Inos had played it at Kinvale a few times.
Jarthia was the caravan’s lady champion. Her hot gaze flashed briefly over the buildings on the far side of the pond and then returned to Inos. ”Possibly.” The women of Tall Cranes would certainly have more valuables to lose than those of more honest settlements.
“Oh, good. My aunt and I might like to join in, for a change.”
“Mistress Phattas and yourself are always welcome. “ Jarthia’s voice was becoming quite sinister with suspicion.
“Yes. Well . . . what I had in mind . . . actually . . .”
Inos really ought to have planned how best to say this. “What I had in mind actually was . . . was gambling, and . . . er, cheating?”
Favor the deceit:
When I consider life, ‘tis all a cheat;
Yet, fool with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay:
Tomorrow’s falser than the former day.
— Dryden, Aureng-Zebe
TWO
Piety nor wit
1
Away from the fire there was moonlight, and even a few stars. There were many other fires twinkling around Durthing, their smoke drifting up vaguely in the moonlight. Moonlight was gleaming also on some very brawny clouds banked up in the west, but if there was wind, it did not penetrate the little valley.
And there was no sound! That was the eeriest thing of all. Ogi could hear nothing but the irregular slither of his own boots on the slope and his own panting. If Kani had not been imagining things, then every throat in the settlement should be in full chorus, every cook pot clamoring the alarm.
He had thought briefly of going for Uala and the kids, but either he didn’t think he could move them out fast enough, or else his damnable impish curiosity had gotten the better of him. He was following Rap to the moot-stow.
If there was going to be a massacre, it would start there. The moot-stow was where the men met to talk and drink and fight. If the Rap-Grindrog match occurred, it would be held at the moot-stow. Homing Durthing vessels always docked first in Finrain to unload cargo or passengers, and they always loaded beer. So the night after a ship returned was always rowdy. The crew itself would be in a mood for blood after weeks at sea. So would everyone else when the beer ran out. The moot-stow was an open square of packed clay by the shore with a raised bank around three sides; on that grew the only large trees left in the valley, giving shade and rain cover, serving when necessary as grandstands.
On nights when no ship had docked, there was music and dancing there, with lanterns hung in the trees. When there was beer, then a bonfire blazed in the middle, so a man could see what he was doing. Those nights the women stayed home. Sea Eagle and Petrel had both beached that day.
Soon Ogi saw the flicker of the bonfire and the shapes of men standing on the nearer bank under the trees. He sensed other men running in from other directions. But still he heard no sound.
There was no law in Durthing—except maybe one. If it had ever been passed by the Senate and the People’s Assembly in Hub, or signed by some long-dead imperor, then no copy of the original survived. The jotnar would not have accepted a written law anyway, but there was an unwritten law, and the Imperial army had standing orders.
The only jotunn settlements tolerated within the Impire were unarmed jotunn settlements. The lictor at Finrain kept spies in Durthing, and any attempt to collect weapons would have brought the entire XXIIIrd Legion marching in, five thousand strong. The jotnar pretended not to know that. They themselves outlawed weapons, they said, so that quarrels would be settled by more manly means—with fists and boots. And teeth. Or rocks and tree branches. Daggers were permissible sometimes, but swords were for cowards.