what of it? How does it explain him?”
Herran spared a quick glance to the blank heart of the desert as if it worried him. “Meere robbed the servant on his return. He had toys for a child, not toys for a grown prince. Jomla has many wives but no children. And his tastes do not run to them. If he is keeping a child in his secret town house then the reason should concern us.”
“Everything about that man should concern us,” Grada said.
“The child could be an heir to the Petal Throne, some lost shoot like the Pattern Master was, a branch that should have been pruned by a Knife of yesteryear. Why else would Jomla hide a child so well? None of the lesser servants know the boy is there. It must be a boy. I’ve had agents follow every member of that household, try all their tricks to get a placement, to befriend even the lowest scullion… nothing. It took crude robbery to get even a hint.”
“If he has an heir then why set his spies to murdering envoys? Kill Sarmin, kill Daveed, kill Pelar, and the throne can be claimed for any petitioner whose blood will satisfy the Tower. One snake is all they have sent against them.”
Herran shook his head. “The royal babies are very well guarded; the emperor’s brother has as many or more guards than even his own son! And harem girls have no contact with them. As for the emperor himself, well, he doesn’t visit his harem.”
Grada knew better, but perhaps Sarmin’s visits to Jenni had been few, or even singular. Perhaps he had visited only her, only once. Perhaps. She found her hand on the hilt of the Knife, wanting the edge to sharpen away such foolishness.
“So what then?” she asked.
“Spying. Secrets are more valuable than diamonds. Jomla must have thought that one of his beauties would catch Sarmin’s eye in time. And if none of them did… well, that in itself would be a secret worth having. And to stir up trouble between Daveed’s mother and Pelar’s…
“In any event, before this business of the envoy a clever man might have thought to play Settu with these pretty pieces, to turn one of them perhaps, or if a piece could not be turned-feed it lies, the kind that might choke Jomla and teach a subtle lesson to those who watch him.”
“Jomla knows a secret.” Grada set her fingers to the dark stone in the Knife’s pommel, its surface cold with whispers.
Herran tilted his head. “What kind?”
“The worst.” The killing kind. “Meere should take the Grey Service and see that it never spreads.” She had known when she took the Knife that throats would have to be cut, all the voices between Jenni and her unknown master silenced. Now though a hollow nausea grew in her stomach.
For a long time Herran said nothing. He stared at the map of empire, tracing a fingertip along the course of The Blessing.
“Meere believes Jomla keeps an heir to the throne in that house. Someone in the line of succession who could be placed on the throne should a sickly young man die, a couple of babies cease to breathe.” He tapped a nail on the legend, Nooria, set in stone. “Jomla is no fool. If he has a candidate for the Petal Throne he will have evidence, genealogy. He will have strong reason to expect this person’s blood to prove royal under the Tower’s inspection.”
“Meere could-”
“Only the Knife-Sworn may take a royal life, Grada. If he has an heir then only the Knife can cut a path to peace.”
“Bring Jomla and whoever is with him to the palace. Put them in the dungeons. Have the high-mage test these claims and theories.” Don’t send me. Don’t let me find that this house in the Holies lies on a street of palms between the shrines of Herzu and Mirra.
“Would Sarmin have you cut the child’s throat if you asked him?”
Grada didn’t answer. To put words around that question would be dangerous. Whether it came to her as a stain left by the assassins who used her body to kill, or was simply a lesson from the streets of the Maze, Grada knew better than to seal away options before she absolutely had to. Choices were the key to survival, even if all of them were bad.
“Would he have the child taken to the dungeons and thrown into an oubliette?” Herran asked.
Grada said nothing. Sarmin had all but emptied the dungeons, and set free any man whose crime could no longer be recalled.
“Perhaps our emperor is more kind and would set the child in more salubrious surroundings, secure, secret but dressed in silk, maybe with some books for company?” Herran proved relentless. Sarmin would never subject a child to the fate he had suffered alone in his tower.
“He would have the child as an honoured guest, free to roam, guarded for his own security.” Grada nodded as she said it. “He would defy his council and each day some new plot would grow from the mere fact of the child’s existence. Some plan to steal him away, raise a rebellion around him.”
“Ta-Sann would never ask Sarmin permission to block a sword swinging at the royal neck. He wouldn’t canvas Sarmin’s permission before he stepped in front of a spear thrust to save him. As the emperor’s Knife you may act in his defence without seeking permission. And you may do so in the long game. Ta-Sann acts in the split second. The years are given to you. That privilege is given to no other. If the emperor orders against a course of action, however, you will of course obey.”
“You’re sending me to Jomla’s manse.” Grada bit her lip, tasting the blood.
“You are not mine to send or to tell, Knife.” And Herran bowed to her. Nothing this day had scared her more, except perhaps the pity in his eyes before the bow took them from view.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sarmin sat back upon the frame of his old bed. Grada’s footsteps on the stairs had passed beyond hearing, and Ta-Sann and the sword-sons kept their silence behind the door. Only the distant wail of a tower-wizard could be heard beneath the muted hubbub of Nooria rising over palace walls. Even the Many within him held their peace. He had taken them in, refugees from the Master’s pattern, hundreds without bodies to return to, and it had cost him, but dozens had flowed into the nothingness in Beyon’s tomb like water through a crack in the world. After that a voice left him each day, fading into whatever the future held. Soon the Many would be the Few, and perhaps in a year Sarmin would be alone in his thoughts once more. Trapped in the bony prison of his skull.
He thought of the oubliettes deep in the dungeon, of the skull he’d found there, picked clean by rats, and the stone hidden in a crevice between the great blocks of the wall. Would he taste the loneliness of that cell when the Many left him? He would miss them, even though they plagued him, used his body, spread his secrets. In the streets of Nooria those who had been patterned and then set free fought the Longing and Sarmin would join them in that battle. Set adrift without the sickness of the Many they felt lost, like men from whom a hand has been taken, reaching out to touch with missing fingers. Azeem told him many such sought new comfort in the secret churches where men praised Mogyrk, perhaps believing that the faith of the Yrkman, the code preached by their austeres with stories of the one dead god, would return to them something that had been taken.
“My emperor?”
Ta-Sann’s voice at the door jerked Sarmin from his thoughts so suddenly that he nearly fell into the bed ropes.
“Yes?” More harsh than he had intended.
“A slave-girl has come with a tray of food.”
“Send her away.” His stomach contracted around the thought of eating.
A moment’s silence then voices from behind the door, Ta-Sann’s rumble and a girl’s high tones, raised but struggling against suppression as if truly she wanted to shout.
“She has brought you a stone, Excellency.” A rare note of surprise entered Ta-Sann’s voice.
