“But not any more.” He laid a hand on her arm.
Hagga sighed behind them. “Leave her be, Gorgen.”
“No. I didn’t like the way she talked to me just then.” His grip tightened as he pulled her towards the rice pantry. “Come on.”
“No… please. I need to put… need to put the glasses away.” Her protests were futile. Before they had left her lips, he had pulled her halfway across the room.
As they passed Hagga, the old woman put down her dough and frowned at them. “Why can’t you beat her right here in the kitchen like anybody else, Gorgen?”
Gorgen and Hagga stared at one another. Hagga’s eyes spoke of accusation and disgust. Rushes blushed with shame.
Gorgen raised a fist. “Be careful, old bat. I’m not afraid of hitting you, too.” But then he dropped Rushes’ arm and slouched into the corridor.
Hagga picked up her dough and kneaded it with white-crusted hands. Even as one of the Many she had stayed in the kitchen, baking her bread and tending the fire. If the Many was a river, Hagga had been a stone at the bottom, solid, unmoving, something you could step on without ever falling. I was a cook.
“Thank you.”
“Watch out for that one, child.”
“Why is he like that?” The Many had never hurt one another. Rushes turned to the tub and lifted the delicate glasses she had washed. She would bring them to Naveen, who would lock them away until the next time the empire mother must eat. Their curves shone purple, then gold, as she turned towards Hagga.
“He’s got the Longing. Without the Many he doesn’t know one end of things from the other.”
Rushes doubted that. The Longing made people sad, not mean. Rushes remembered Sahree asked, “Hagga, have you ever heard of a special stone? A magic stone?”
Hagga put her bread on a long trowel and slid it into the oven. Wiping her hands on her apron, she said, “I may have heard of something like that. A luck stone.”
“How does it work?”
“Well,” she said, already punching another round of dough, “some say you hold onto it, and bad things won’t happen to you. Others say you only have to sleep with it. Or if you plant it in your garden, you won’t get any weeds, and if you put it in your fireplace then your fire won’t smoke. Things like that.”
Rushes looked down at the glasses she held. “Bad things won’t happen?” She wished that people could still understand each other without speaking.
Hagga sighed. “Well, girl, a luck stone just might protect you from beatings, or worse, if you can find one.”
Or worse. Rushes nodded and moved towards the corridor, looking for Naveen.
“But sometimes they don’t work,” Hagga said from behind her. “And everything just gets worse.”
Rushes wished Hagga hadn’t said that, wished she had kept her silence, hands on the bread, still as a stone. I was a cook. But it was too late. Something had happened; it was too quiet and at the same time loud, as if the voiceless Many were screaming. Naveen came running around the corner and hurried past Rushes, his robes flapping against her knees, a quick butterfly kiss that brought back her morning’s dream. No. Don’t touch it. Too delicate. At the door Naveen shouldered past Gorgen, who dropped his pipe, scattering bits of weed across the tile like tiny feathers, and ran on, into the courtyard, beyond where Rushes could see him.
Back-door Arvind stood on the sun-baked stones, more statue than man, arms raised, hands turned up, palms empty.
Demah.
“She jumped,” Arvind said, “from the burned tower.”
Gorgen stumbled forward, into the sunlight, one hand shading his eyes. “Who?” he asked, “Who jumped?”
“Your girl from the Little Kitchen,” said Arvind.
Rushes clutched the glasses so hard she snapped one of the stems. The jagged edges cut against her palm as she watched Gorgen turn back to her, his eyes not angry but frightened, searching. She knew that look; she’d seen it in Demah. He was looking for comfort, for family. For the Many. Too late. It’s too late now. She let the broken glass go, let them all go, and they fell in a sparkling cascade against the tiles. Too late.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mesema waited on cushions of silk and samite in shades from snow to cream and from faintest blush to crimson. A single slave stood at hand to fan her. She lay amid the heap, encircled by silver tables each piled with delicacies, her body wrapped in wisps and jewels as if she herself were a confection. Beneath the delicate fabrics white linens held her, binding tired flesh. She held one breast bare, and kept it to the small bundle she cradled in one arm. Paint had been applied to her lips, to the dark circles around her eyes, but exhaustion showed through. She smiled, tired and triumphant.
“I want to call him Jakar, after my brother,” she said.
“And I would call him Pelar after mine.” Courtiers followed into the chamber as Sarmin approached the tables. “But we have spoken of this.”
The boy would wear a Cerani name to rule the empire. For countless thousands this child, like Sarmin, would never be more than a name, spoken with awe perhaps, mentioned with the gods, a face on coinage they were too poor to own. The power he would wield might be as tenuous as his own name, thus it had best be a name would echo back along the years, reminding all who spoke it of past glories, of Pelar the First, of Pelar Sand sword, of wise Pelar from the story of the camel and the crane. Servants swung the side doors wide as Sarmin approached his wife.
Courtiers entered from all sides. A tide of them, their finery making a dour crow of their emperor, in black amid birds of paradise. They spread to all corners, scores of lords, of lesser princes from nations lost beneath Cerana’s expansion, of satraps, clerics, even hereditary generals with swords so ceremonial they resembled gaudy toys. The ruling of Sarmin’s empire rested on the goodwill of such men. A life of luxurious seclusion, of hunting and feasting, could be lived whilst ignoring any wider duties-Beyon’s life. But to rule in more than name, to make things happen, that required the subtle manipulation of this crowd of peacocks and tigers, the delicate balancing of needs and wants, egos and prejudices.
Sarmin walked between two silver tables, the scrollwork along their edges catching at him. “You look tired, Mesema. Is our son well?”
She smiled up at him, sweat beading on her brow despite the wafting fan, ostrich plumes set into a staff of turned ebony.
“I am tired. I think one child should be enough for any emperor?” She shifted the baby’s position, his mouth tugging at her breast. “And yes, he seems well. Certainly he is hungry.”
Behind Sarmin the courtiers moved about the perimeter of tables, picking at blue quails’ eggs, at pickled squid from the ice of Sheltren waters, at peacock breast braised with honey, at a dozen more wonders, each unseen.
Fingers did the choosing as the emperor, the empress, and the new heir held all eyes, some curious, some thoughtful, some angry. Priest Assar watched Pelar with a smile, a finger on the pendant of Mirra he wore about his neck, while Lord Zell bit into a sesamed lotus as if it had offended him. None of these men had been at the palace during Helmar’s time; untouched by the Longing, their minds narrowed to a few simple ambitions.
Sarmin squatted beside Mesema to better see his son, Beyon’s son. His knees ached at once — but better to squat than to kneel, and the cushions did not invite. He’d spent too long in his small room, grown in the dark, and been left weak in a world that praised strength. No wonder the men around him watched this infant with such interest. How many years would their pale emperor last in his new throne? Was the child sickly too, or would he grow to lead them into glory?
