Talk droned; insects hummed.
“But how on earth could even a mage have tracked them down in such a wilderness?”
“Ah!” said Skarash, being mysterious. He really ought to call for some food, to mop up all this liquor slopping around in his insides. Djinns were notoriously susceptible to alcohol and tended to shun it for that reason. He never normally indulged in it himself. “Well, the sorceress had given Grandsire a device to trace the use of magic, you see . . .”
4
“Aunt?”
Kadolan blinked her eyes open. The room was dark. Her head felt thick and a nasty taste in her mouth told her she must have been asleep. Then she made out the shrouded figure standing in the moonlight.
“Inos!”
“Don’t get up . . .”
But Kadolan struggled to her feet and reached out, and they came together and hugged.
“Oh, Inos, my dear! I have been so . . . er . . . concerned! Are you all right?”
“All right? Of course, Aunt!” Inosolan broke away and turned toward the window. “Of course I am all right. I am the most cherished, tightly guarded woman in Arakkaran. Perhaps in all of Zark. How could I not be all right?”
Kadolan’s heart shattered at the tone. She moved forward, but her touch caused Inosolan to edge away.
“What are you doing all alone, sleeping in a chair, Aunt? Have you dined yet this evening?”
“Tell me, dear!”
“Tell you what?”
“Everything!”
“Really! You want the details of my wedding night?”
Kadolan gulped and said, “Yes, I think maybe I do.”
Slowly Inosolan turned to face her. She was swathed from head to floor in some sweeping white stuff. Only her eyes showed. “Why, Aunt! That is not a very ladylike question.”
“Don’t joke, Inos. There is something wrong.”
“Intruders have been breaking into the palace and killing guards.”
“Inos, please!”
“There is Rap. He is in prison.”
“Yes.”
“Because of me. That is wrong—that a faithful friend should suffer for trying to aid me.”
“In a few days, when the sultan has had time to repent of his anger . . .”
Inosolan wrung her hands. “Do we have a few days?” Her voice quavered, then steadied. “What are they doing to him, Aunt? Do you know?”
“No, dear. I have asked.”
“I dare not. Azak promised no more bloodshed, but he is insanely jealous. I never knew what that phrase meant before. It’s a cliché, isn’t it, insanely jealous? But in this case it’s exact. He forbids me even to think of another man. To plead for Rap again would doom him instantly. And what he did in the Great Hall. . .”
“We shall do what we can, dear.”
“Little enough, I fear.”
Silence fell, and the two stared at each other in the diffuse glow of the moon beyond the windows while Kadolan heard the pounding of her heart. ”There is more, isn’t there?” she said.
Inosolan nodded. “I never could deceive you, could I?” Then she raised a hand and removed her veil.
Oh, Gods! Kadolan closed her eyes. Not Not “Rasha died too soon,” Inosolan said.
“She had not removed the curse!”
“No, she hadn’t. She’d said she would, but she hadn’t got around to it. He was going to kiss me.” Even in that spectral glow, the marks were plain. Two fingers on one cheek . . . the print of thumb on the other. And the chin! Burned into the flesh.
How frail was beauty! How fleeting!
Gone now. Gone! Hideous, scabbing wounds! Shocked, stunned, Kade staggered back and tumbled into her chair. She stared up at Inosolan in shivering, impotent horror.
“The pain is bearable,” Inosolan said. “I can live with that.”
But the marriage . . . Oh, Gods! The marriage?
“He still cannot touch a woman,” Inosolan said bitterly. “Not even his wife.”
The room seemed to blur, and Kade wasn’t sure if that meant she was about to faint or if her eyes were just flooded with tears. “What can we do?” She had not dreamed that things could get worse, but they had—Inosolan condemned to a chaste marriage, doomed to lose even Azak’s one-sided love, for he would surely turn against a woman he craved and could never possess.
“There is only one thing we can do,” Inosolan said in a futile attempt to sound calm. “What we tried to do before—we must go and seek occult aid.”
“Master Rap?”
“No, not He is only an adept. It will take a full sorcerer to cancel a spell.”
“Sorcerer?” Kade was too horrified to think properly.
“The Four, the wardens. A curse set upon a monarch is political sorcery, so they should be willing to remove it. And heal my face, I hope.”
Kade took a few deep breaths, but her brain was dead as flagstones. ”Well, I have always enjoyed sailing, and a visit to Hub at last—”
“No.”
“No?”
“You are not coming. He will not allow it. I have come to say farewell, Aunt. And Gods bless.” The usually musical voice was flat and cold as a winter pond. “And . . . and thank you for everything.”
“But when?”
Somewhere a door creaked, and boots clacked slowly on the tiles in the corridor. Kade struggled to rise and failed.
Inosolan came and bent to kiss her cheek. “It will be days before the court realizes he is gone,” she whispered quickly. “Officially we shall be touring the countryside. That will hold for a week or two. After that . . . well, the Gods will provide. And Prince Kar, of course, will be in charge here.”
Hub? “You can’t go veiled in Hub!”
“I can’t not!”
Oh, Holy Balance! May the Good preserve us—Inosolan had lost everything now, even her beauty. The boots were almost at the door. Only one man had unimpeded access to any room in the palace. “Remember Rap,” Inosolan breathed. ”Do what you can. He’ll be safe with Azak gone, I’m sure. There is a fast ship,” she added, a little louder, “headed west, and a carriage waits. He thinks we can just reach Qoble before the passes close. Wish me luck, Aunt. Wish us luck?”
“But the war?” Kadolan cried. “Isn’t the Impire massing troops in Ullacarn?” Zark was about to be invaded. A djinn sultan journeying to the enemy’s capital . . .
“Just one more risk to take,” Inosolan said brightly. “It will be a most interesting journey. Gods be with you, Aunt. We’ll be all right. We’ll be back by spring—my husband and I . . . look after yourself.”
The door swung open, and a tall shadow stood there, its jewels faintly shining.
“Gods be with you both,” Kade said, and watched Inosolan glide silently away, like a wraith, following Azak into the darkness.
5
However much Andor might be enjoying himself out in the sheik’s pleasance, back in the dingy kitchen quarters of the rambling mansion, the chairs were hard and the hot air rancid with scents of long-dead cooking. Gnats and moths twirled around the smelly lamps and held races on the low ceiling. Gathmor crossed his ankles the other way and eased his back. The bulky djinn on the other side of the table scowled at him briefly and went back to scratching his armpits. He had not spoken a word to Gathmor all evening, which was fine by Gathmor; from the smell of him the oaf was a camel driver by trade, now being used as watchdog to make sure the jotunn behaved himself. Gathmor would like very much to see him try. He’d observed many others wander through the scullery during his long wait; he’d take on any two of them cheerfully.
The women, on the other hand . . . Even wrapped like corpses, they moved like elves, and there was something challenging in all that concealment and the swirl of cloth as they hurried past on their master’s business. It really caught a man’s imagination; made him watch the folds shift for a hint of how much lay beneath, and where. The flame-red eyes . . . After all, Wanmie must have died in Kalkor’s massacre, and in some ways that was beginning to feel like a long time ago. In some ways. Not that she’d have grudged him a nibble or two at another table, once in a while, had he ever wanted that. He was very tempted to try speaking to the next shrouded maiden who came through—and not just to rouse the camel driver, either.
He’d had as much boredom as he could stand. He’d been in this squalid pesthole for four or five hours, capping two days of useless talk and argument and mostly waiting around. Waiting for Thinal, or Darad. And now Andor. Or being a common porter—sometimes a man would do for a shipmate what he wouldn’t dream of doing for himself.
A large youth stuck his head round the door. “You! Your master wants you.”