The feelings of nausea in Nikandr’s stomach advanced. He swallowed several times without meaning to.
Ashan seemed to notice, for his expression turned to one of confusion, of concern.
Nikandr stood, knocking his chair back in his haste. “Did Nasim summon the hezhan?”
“I told you he could not have.”
“We could hang you, Ashan-you and Nasim both.”
Ashan seemed unfazed. “Of that I have no doubt.”
His stomach was growing worse. “You would do well to consider your answers more carefully the next time we meet.”
He left, locking the door with the gaoler’s keys, and rushed up the hall. Then he bent over and vomited, the contents of his stomach pattering against the stone. He heaved again and again-more and more sour liquid coming up. He knew Ashan could hear him, and the knowledge burned, but what was worse was the fear that was starting to well up inside him. The symptoms were growing stronger. Soon, everyone would know; it would be plain as day. And then, the long march toward death would be all that lay before him.
He stood, clearing his mouth of spittle.
Nasim’s door lay just ahead. He moved to it, listening for any signs of movement within. For no reason apparent to him, he was afraid.
Softly, he placed the key into the lock and turned it. It opened with a soft click. He found Nasim kneeling in the center of the room, holding his gut and rocking back and forth, a look of profound misery on his face.
Nikandr stepped inside. “Nasim?”
The boy didn’t respond.
“Nasim, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
Nikandr crouched down, hoping the boy would acknowledge him in some way. But Nasim only rocked, his breath coming in short gasps through flared nostrils.
“Nasim, please, speak to me.”
Father was going to demand answers, and soon. The life of the Grand Duke had been taken. The lives of everyone on the island-the gathered aristocracy included-were threatened, and they would all be looking toward these two to provide answers.
But Nasim appeared unready to grant this request, so Nikandr eventually left.
CHAPTER 20
Rehada often took walks around Volgorod. She told herself it was to steep herself in the ebbs and flows of the city, and that was true, but she knew deep in her heart that it was also because she was lonely. She catered to the richest of the Landed, pleasing them in the ways of the flesh, but none of them other than Nikandr had ever given her pause. She was shunned in Iramanshah for her refusal to cross the fires, to forgive those who had taken the life of her daughter, Ahya. Soroush, Ahya’s father, had told her many times to do so. What was one more lie in the stack you’ve created, he used to ask. There were many things she would do to make her life among the Landed appear innocent, but forgiving the murderous souls who’d taken Ahya from her wasn’t one of them. She would never forgive them. Never.
So she lived half a life-always on the periphery of Royalty, of the Aramahn, of the people of Volgorod. She traveled not only through the city, but all around the island and the others in the archipelago. She attended festivals, celebrations, even funerals, where the Landed would bury their dead in the ground instead of setting them onto skiffs and letting the wind take them where it would.
She approached the line where peasants stood in line for their dole. Today it was four blocks long, people waiting with barrows or straps to take home the grain they would be allotted. There were many of them-more than normal, it seemed-and they looked haggard, gray, as if they were slowly but surely becoming part of the stone of the city around them.
“Rehada,” a woman called, beckoning Rehada closer.
Her name was Gierten, and she was a woman Rehada had met several times at the summer festival in Izhny. She was holding the reins of a sickly donkey saddled with two baskets-one empty, the other with a nest of faded brown blankets.
She approached, trying to appear pleasant. Gierten had been heavy with child the last time she’d seen her nearly a year ago. Rehada had no real desire to see the child, nor talk to Gierten, but impressions must be maintained.
“How old now?” Rehada asked as she approached the basket.
“Praise to the ancients, she nears her ninth month, and she is healthy as can be.”
Rehada pulled the blanket back to reveal the red face of a babe. Gierten was thin, with a wiry strength to her, but this baby was round in the cheeks with strong color to her skin. She looked nothing at all like Ahya, but still it drove a knife through Rehada’s chest merely to look upon this child, this Landed child, while hers was gone, ripped from her when she had only begun to blossom.
“She is hale, indeed,” Rehada said to prevent herself from crying. She looked along the line, to those that seemed like it was a struggle just to remain standing. “I wonder, then, why you’ve come here.”
“We need grain as much as the next family.”
“Last year your husband’s nets were full.”
Gierten shook her head. “The fish have all gone. Even two months ago we could find enough to live on if not sell at market, but now we can’t even do that.” She smiled as she reached down and pulled the blanket over to protect her child from the breeze. “And my Evina needs all the food she can get.”
It was then that Rehada noticed something from the corner of her eye. Beyond the line, nestled between several tall stone buildings, was a patch of snow-covered ground with three white fir trees standing over it. On the far side, near the mouth of an alley that led up toward the Boyar’s mansion, stood a man. He was in the shade of the trees-with the clouds in the sky and his dark clothes it was difficult at first to pick him out. It was Soroush, still wearing his double robes, his ragged turban, daring anyone to notice him and call attention to it.
She pulled her eyes back to Gierten, for she couldn’t let on what she’d seen, but as they continued to talk- Gierten regaling her with all manner of meaningless stories about the baby’s first months of life-Rehada caught several more glimpses of Soroush. Clearly he had been following her, or had been waiting, knowing somehow she would walk this way.
She bid Gierten dasvidaniya and began heading along the line, hoping to cut across and speak with Soroush, but when she looked for him again, he wasn’t there. She rushed across the street to the trees, looking up along the alley, but she did not find him.
She shivered, and not from the wind tugging at her robes. For some reason she felt more alone than she ever had since coming to Khalakovo.
Rehada woke to a soft knock at the rear of her home. She stood, wiped the crust of dried tears from her cheeks, and pulled her robe over her naked form. Another knock came-more insistent-as she took a small lamp from the mantel and limped along the creaking hallway to the rear of the house.
A third knock came as she opened it.
Standing there was Soroush, lit in golden relief by the light of her lamp. She had known he would eventually come, but she still felt watched from the scene in the city earlier that day.
She bowed her head, stepping aside to allow him entrance. It was not lost on her the parallel this made to Nikandr’s visit only three days before, the only difference being that Nikandr had used the front door while one of her own was forced to use the rear. She was ashamed, though she had to admit she wasn’t sure whether it stemmed from the fact that Nikandr had become so familiar with her or that Soroush, even after all they’d been through, still was.
Doing her best to disguise the pain she felt in her feet and shins as she walked, she led him into her sitting room and offered him vodka. He turned his nose up at that, clearly expecting araq or the sour citrus wines from the south of Yrstanla.
“It has fallen out of favor.”
