to do with her. She ordered the guards to set watch over Daveed and headed into the corridor.
Nessaket was exhausted. It was not the kind of tiredness that led to deep and restful sleep, but the kind that tore at her, pulled her down. The last time Nessaket had felt happy was with Arigu, and before that, when Siri was alive, when they spent long days on that roof garden, Sarmin running, little Amile laughing, every one of them trying to keep up with their beloved brother Beyon.
Half of Nessaket’s men rushed to make a circle around her as she walked to Mesema’s Tree Room. The other half stayed with Daveed. Once there she pushed past Pelar’s dozen guards to where Mesema sat with her books at a new, shining table. Sarmin had taught her to read after they were married; Nessaket thought it a mistake. “You should not read, my empress,” she said, “You’ll ruin your eyes and get ugly creases on your forehead.” Was it because her son was the true emperor that she did not care how she looked?
The empress shut her book and put it aside with a smile. “There are worlds in books, whole nations beyond our reach, with new gods and songs and stories. The only way to know them is to read of them, for we can never get there if it takes us our entire lives. I always wondered why Banreh loved his scratchings so. Now I understand.” Banreh was the new Windreader Chief. She spoke as if she were fond of him, and yet she pushed for peace-surely against his wishes. The girl was made of contradictions.
Nessaket motioned to the door. “Come.” They made a parade through the women’s wing, Nessaket and her half-dozen well-armed men, followed by Mesema, Pelar, and their own guards. They passed slaves and concubines, a confusion of faces to which she could give no names. Which one? Which one of you?
The only way to the garden was through the room of Old Wife Farra, a corner room, large and well- appointed, if in an older style. The door stood ajar, ready for visitors, though it was akin to putting bowls of bitter nut on the dinner table; nobody was interested. Most of those who had known and loved Farra were dead or gone. Her sons had fought Tahal for the throne, and lost; her daughters had married away. Most days she sat in her gilded rocking chair, lost in memories, rising only for meals. Dread turned Nessaket’s stomach. Here was a woman whose life had shrunk to almost nothing. How long before my life is the same? Ten years? Twenty?
Farra sat up in her chair and squinted about the room when all of them entered, a confusion of men inside the soft room and then Nessaket and Mesema, in the middle. “Who is there?” she called out in a quavering voice. Her body slave, nearly as old as Farra herself, had been dozing on a long couch, but soon fell to the floor and made a clumsy obeisance.
“It is I, Nessaket, with your empress.” She walked forwards to where the woman could at least see the outline of her form. Looking down she saw withered scalp, whisks of white hair.
“Nessaket, Majesty.” Farra lifted her eyebrows. “What brings you?” The Old Wife did not so much as look at Mesema.
“Blessings of the day,” Nessaket said. “Farra, has anyone been up to the garden recently?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see… can’t see much these days.” Farra sighed again, her thin shoulders drawing up like the wings of a bird.
“Where is the key?”
“Yes,” said Farra, folding one shaking hand over the other, “you need the key.”
Nessaket sighed in frustration and looked to the slave. “Where is the key?”
The slave stood, and with slow, shuffling steps she moved to a mahogany dresser with brass pulls. Mesema cast a questioning look at Nessaket. Of course she had not known about the roof. At last the old woman opened a drawer and pulled out a long and rusted key. “It is here, Your Majesty.”
“Has anyone else asked you for it?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Bring it,” said Nessaket, feeling a buzzing along her skin that overwhelmed even her annoyance. She was about to climb those stairs again, see the old garden. The last time she stood there, it was to look down upon Siri’s broken body in the courtyard. The day before that Siri had wrapped Kashim in his burial linens, and Beyon was given his crown. They had loved one another, she and Siri, but not after that. And then Siri had jumped. Nessaket allowed herself to feel the emotion, just for a moment, and realized it was no longer anger.
The woman handed her the key and she turned it in her hand, feeling the old weight of it. Already she was lost in memories, like Farra. She opened the door for herself, the first time she had done so in years. The key made a grinding sound in the lock. She heard the mechanism tumble and turned the knob. She turned to the men who crowded the entryway. “Wait here.”
The stairs rose up, into the night. Nessaket climbed them, breathing in the open air, Mesema and Pelar close behind. Pelar made a sound of joy when he saw the starry sky above him. The stone lay cool beneath Nessaket’s sandals. Statues of Mirra and Pomegra bracketed long, flat flowerbeds set in a square around benches and a dried- up pool. The beds no longer contained flowers, not even dead ones. Nessaket poked at the cracked dirt. Siri used to carry up the water by the basin-full, never asking the slaves to do it for her. She had always said that watering the flowers made her feel at peace. That peace had been broken long ago, but the attack on Daveed was nevertheless an attack on its memory.
A guard lifted his lantern and as the light ran across the roof-stone Nessaket caught a gleam of metal along the low wall. She pushed aside stacked clay pots and lifted a long-handled snake hook. It had been put out of sight, but not hidden. She would give it to Govnan, see if the spirits of stone and fire could tell who had held it. It was something, but she had hoped for more. She called for more light and searched for a lost earring, a scrap of silk, a hair-tie-but she found nothing. In sudden anger she threw a pot against the bench. It shattered, making a sudden, sharp noise in the gloom.
Nessaket said what she had come to say. “There is a concubine working against us. She has pika seeds and means to use them, to kill one of us and blame the other.” She did not say who was to die and who was to be blamed.
Mesema frowned. “And the snake?”
“Her work.”
“Hm,” Mesema said, looking more thoughtful than frightened, “Which one?” Perhaps fighting the Pattern Master had left her so brave that the threat of assassination did not alarm her. Or perhaps she had already known.
“If I knew who they were, I would have told you.” Nessaket turned back to the pots, turning them upside down and shaking them.
But Mesema moaned and stumbled forwards, her free hand extended over the low wall as she sought for balance. Nessaket jumped up and grabbed Pelar just in time to keep him from going over the edge. Perhaps the news had been too much for her, after all. Putting a hand on Mesema’s elbow she said, “It’s too soon since the birth. You should not have climbed-”
The empress waved a hand. “The Hidden God has shown me something… no. Nothing. He has shown me nothing. And such nothing…” She straightened, but she remained shaken. “I am well. But what I saw… such a thing that is impossible to see. I do not understand it.”
Nessaket frowned. If the girl had seen nothing, how did it count as a vision? “A deception,” she offered. “Prophecy is unreliable.”
“Yes, that must be it,” Mesema agreed, putting a comforting hand on Nessaket’s arm. The kindness of the gesture made Nessaket uncomfortable, as if Mesema knew some truth, and pitied her for it. She looked to the statue of Mirra, where the moon reflected off the marble with a soft glow, and felt there was something she had missed. She sat on the wall of a flowerbed and her guards took their places around her, silent, faithful.
Pelar lay quiet in her arms, another child for another garden. She should have honoured Siri by keeping it alive. She had been away from it too long, forgotten its purpose. Mirra honoured the children, the flowers and everything soft and dying in the palace. Siri had known it. It had not saved her, but she had found comfort here. Priest Dinar had always said a person must save herself and it was true; but maybe Mirra could give one the strength to do it. She thought once more of Marke Kavic.
Could I kill again?
A cloud slid past the moon, casting shadows across the face of the goddess, and looking at those carved features for a moment Nessaket felt that Mirra’s eyes moved in the darkness to settle upon her. She had never put much faith in Her, had seen her prayers go unanswered time and time again, but this once she felt she had received an answer.
No.
