Hardened Liver was occupied now in supervising a pedicure being administered by one of her granddaughters. Bloody Phlegm had drifted off to sleep in the middle of her complaints about insomnia. Kade struggled to her feet; she donned her sandals and wrapped herself in her chaddar. Then she wandered across to join the younger group.
Inosolan glanced up and smiled rather tightly.
As Kade sat down, she was startled by the first thunderous bang on the door.
Inosolan yawned.
One of the girls went to open the peephole flap, and then turned to call out names. The women indicated either hurried away at once, or jumped up and started pulling on their robes. They were all locals. The visitors began preparing themselves also, for if the village men were coming to take their wives home, then the merchants, camel drivers, and guards would be arriving shortly. Kade herself suppressed an enormous yawn as she saw Inosolan turn to catch the expectant eye of Jarthia, Fourth’s young wife. So here it came, whatever it was.
Jarthia emptied a bag of thali tokens onto the floor. “Anyone care for a quick game before bedtime?”
Some of the villagers paused in their dressing, tempted.
“I should love a throw or two,” Inosolan trilled. Kade stiffened in astonishment, having warned her niece months ago that Jarthia used marked tiles.
“Me, too,” Kade said loyally. “But I forgot to—”
“I can lend you some, dear,” Inosolan said, and produced a clinking bag, which for a moment bewildered Kade totally. Then she recalled Inosolan taking Azak aside after the evening meal. What possible reason could Inosolan have given for needing money in a place like this? But Azak likely would not have argued. He was infatuated by Inosolan. Dangerously infatuated. By the sound of it, that bag contained a small fortune.
In moments play had started. The game was childishly easy, the only skill required being a good memory, to recall tokens’ values while they were turned facedown. Jarthia’s set was very old, scratched and stained by long use, and much craft.
Kade stifled another yawn. The hour was late, and she was very tired. Desert air seemed to have that effect on her. Plus old age, of course.
She yawned again.
At first she managed to hold her own in the game, struggling to note and remember the illicit markings on the tiles. But the light was dim, her eyes were not what they had been, and oh, but she was sleepy! She had never enjoyed gambling, an entirely stupid pastime. Soon she was losing disastrously. Inosolan was doing even worse.
So was Jarthia—and the more she lost, the higher she raised the stakes.
Fuzzily Kade tried to work out the plot, for obviously there must be a plot. Azak’s gold was disappearing at a scandalous rate. Of course the village women could not stop the game while they were ahead and doing so well—that was mere good manners. Soon the girl posted by the door was calling more names, and the players were excusing themselves to go and whisper urgently to their husbands outside, and then return to the circle. Kade and Inosolan yawned and fought their weariness, and watched the small fortune grow steadily smaller.
“Mistress Jarthia?”
Jarthia rose and went to the door. Predictably, Fourth would refuse nothing to his delectable, son-bearing young wife. After a brief muttering, Jarthia hurried back to rejoin the play.
Kade yawned again, then snapped awake . . . So that was it! “Mistress Hathark?”
Inosolan shot a guilty glance at her aunt from under sleepsoaked eyelids, then heaved herself to her feet. She was visibly dragging as she went to the door. But certainly Azak would cooperate also, because he had duties to perform while the encampment bedded down, with no marital joys to look forward to.
In a moment Inosolan came stumbling back, yawning. “He says we may stay while Jarthia does,” she told Kade seriously, “and Fourth will escort us.”
The game continued; the stakes increased. Kade squirmed as she saw how much this escapade was costing. What on earth was Inosolan hoping to accomplish? As the room emptied it seemed to grow larger, and eerie echoes developed in the shadowed corners. Soon only half a dozen players remained, the three locals all twittering excitedly over their astonishing good fortune. Inosolan passed her aunt more “loans.” Kade yawned shamelessly, and struggled to stay awake, and fought against logical inner voices that told her not to be silly, she was too old for this and she certainly ought to insist on going off to bed, and they had a long way to go the next day . . .
But another, very tiny, inner voice was whispering that she surely wasn’t as old as that, and the hour was far from late by Kinvale standards, and Inosolan must surely have something serious in mind if she was throwing away money like this. Somehow Kade battled on, against brain-numbing exhaustion, losing ridiculously and watching Inosolan doing little better. The dim room swayed; her head lolled; her eyes blurred. She did not see a signal pass, but there must have been one, for Jarthia suddenly went on the offensive. The money began to move inexorably in her direction, and the chuckling and joking of the locals became rarer, then stopped altogether, as their gains dwindled.
Soon it would be over, Kade thought with relief. Soon Jarthia would have all the coins in the room, and then the gamblers must call it a night.
And suddenly the pressure eased . . . returned . . . faded altogether. The world came back into terrifying focus.
Kade glanced up in horror and saw triumph blaze up on Inosolan’s face.
4
Hospitality was a duty to the God of Travelers. Violence within Tall Cranes itself was extremely unlikely—Azak had said so at supper. He had then ruined the reassurance by pointing out how few men were present in the village. The rest, he had suggested cheerfully, might well be preparing an ambush for the morrow, at some respectable distance.
Nevertheless, Fourth Lionslayer escorted the ladies back to the encampment grounds. It was a distance of a few hundred paces only, and the worst dangers it offered were barking curs, but the way wound along between the tiny settlement’s squat stone cottages, and therefore was not a journey women should make without a man to guard them. There was also the matter of passwords when the duty lionslayer challenged—passwords were men’s business. This attitude riled Inos to frenzy, but Kade rather enjoyed being treated as a fragile halfwit, having cultivated the role for years at Kinvale.
The air was cool already, because of the altitude; the desert sky was a fiery tessellation of stars so low that they seemed to peer over people’s shoulders. A few clouds sailed in dark majesty on that sparkling sea.
Fourth delivered his charges to their tent and went off with his arm tight around his beloved Jarthia, who had already told him about her night’s winnings, understating them by four-fifths. Inos made no move to enter the tent. She leaned back against a palm tree and folded her arms and said, “Ha!” in a gloating manner.
Kade no longer felt sleepy at all. She felt very apprehensive. And rather foolish.
“Can I have an explanation now, dear?” she asked, annoyed that she could not keep her annoyance out of her voice. There was enough wind to muffle quiet conversation, and the rest of the encampment seemed to be asleep.
“I’ll try,” Inosolan said grimly. “But it’s not easy to talk about—is it?”
No, it wasn’t. But Kadolan had thought it often enough. Sheik Elkarath had gained Azak’s trust, and Azak normally trusted nobody. Sheik Elkarath had persuaded Inosolan to embark on the mad flight from Arakkaran into the desert—and although she was often impulsive, that had been an absurd venture even for her. And finally, Sheik Elkarath had apparently succeeded in eluding any pursuit by Rasha. Who but a sorcerer could outwit another?
So Elkarath must have occult power. Either he had stolen Inosolan away from the sultana to play the same sort of political game she had been playing, or he was her minion, her votary, and Rasha had used him to hide the merchandise in the desert until her bargaining with the wardens could be completed.
Of course the sheik might be a votary of someone else—one of the wardens, probably, and most likely Olybino, warlock of the east. But in that case, why had Inosolan been allowed to continue her journey unmolested? If she had political value, it was as queen of Krasnegar, not as a pretend wife to a pretend lionslayer in the middle of a desert. Weeks had gone by while the caravan traversed the desert.
All of which was ominously difficult to put into words. “I think I know what you mean, dear.”
Inos chuckled. “He must have seen where we were, but thali would seem innocent enough, and it’s not something you can just walk out on as soon as you start feeling sleepy. Then he dozed off himself—he’s had a hard day, and he’s old.”