Servants of the Sands, page 30
“Dear gods, you think that little of me?” Cafad said, honestly shocked.
“I think even less of you,” she retorted without hesitation.
Her spirit certainly hadn’t gone the least bit soft. He rubbed one hand over his face and sighed, then stood up. That aspect of her distress, at least, he could solve easily enough.
“Come with me.”
He went to the door without waiting for her agreement, went through without looking back, and passed Seg without a word.
Where was Azni? Nowhere in sight. He couldn’t ask after her—couldn’t voice words aloud right now, not without shouting or saying something venomous as a way of venting his frustration. It hurt, though. She’d promised not to abandon Nissa. Cafad had expected her to linger outside the room with Seg.
He glanced back at Seg. The tall man paced a few steps behind Nissa. Nissa, of course, lagged well out of arm’s reach, as though afraid Cafad would spin and grab her at any moment.
He didn’t particularly blame her. It was excruciatingly tempting to do exactly that. Even with the aid of the tincture, it was taking a great deal of concentration to remain calm.
He wasn’t even entirely sure what he would do if he allowed himself to lay hands on Nissa. Probably best not to find out. So he walked, gaze narrowly focused, trusting Seg to wave any interference aside. Nissa followed, mute and unsteady, in his wake.
Where is Azni? He couldn’t spare the energy to look. Dread sent an ache along his nerves. Had Azni decided, finally, that she’d endured enough of Cafad’s sour moods and tempers, and retreated to start packing? Please, gods, don’t let me have driven her away.
He kept walking, not looking back at Nissa, trying not to think about anything in particular. After what seemed an eternity, they reached the grieving-room.
Desert Family Fortresses did not build graveyards, as northerns did. They rarely had the room to spare or even the solid ground to dig into. Grave-pyres required more wood than the desert generally provided. Crypts required more rock and labor than was deemed worthwhile.
What desert Families did have, in abundance, were hith: tiny red carrion beetles. Quite possibly one of the most revolting gifts received from the visiting desert lords during Conclave, but still one of the most valuable, had been several jars of hith to restart Scratha Fortress’s supply, carried by servants experienced in handling the dangerous beetles safely. The hith had finished their work on Pieas Sessin some days ago, and the Callen who’d taken up residence in the early days of the Open Conclave tended to matters from there.
Nissa stood at the doorway to the grieving room, staring in at the long, narrow box resting on the silk-draped plinth. Cafad stood several steps back from her, in the considerably larger waiting room. Under southern custom, grief was a personal matter. Each mourner stood alone with their loss. Noble or servant or slave, in death all received the courtesy of at least a short time of resting in the opoi—the grieving room—in a kop, or bone-box, built according to their status.
Pieas Sessin’s bones rested in a deceptively simple kop of mountain red ashwood, the lid delicately painted and etched with the symbols of Sessin Family and sigils of all three gods. Along the edges ran the symbols of every other desert Family, marking the loss as one that impacted all—a signal honor, and not one Pieas would likely have earned with any other death.
Three small braziers burned to the right, left, and back of the kop. Hanging overhead, three green-oil lamps sent their nearly smokeless light across the room. Tall, broad-bottomed jars of sand rested beside each brazier, along with similarly shaped jars of water.
Nissa wobbled slightly, her hand catching at the edge of the door. Cafad stayed still, his teeth holding his tongue quiet. After a moment, Nissa reached almost blindly for a long-handled stick of incense from the jar by the doorway to the opoi. She held the tip of the incense in one of the braziers until bitter smoke curled up in heavy sheaves, slid the stem into a sand jug, then repeated the process for the other sides of the kop.
Cafad blinked, squinting a bit, as acrid smoke wafted out into the waiting room. Grieving incense smelled like an odd combination of ginger, black pepper, and old parchment. It went right up his nose and tweaked the nerves behind his eyes, making them water instantly and copiously.
Which was exactly the point, of course. Most people lit one stick of grieving incense as a matter of form; two, if they needed to break open their resistance to mourning properly.
Three sticks of incense produced an overwhelming effect in such a small space. Nissa choked, coughed, and went to her knees before the plinth. Cafad took a step forward, then caught himself and stayed put, his hands clenched. One did not invade the opoi when a mourner was grieving. It was rude of him even to be watching her.
Seg’s hand landed on Cafad’s shoulder. “Lord,” he said, “If I may, I will watch over s’a Sessin as she grieves. I think perhaps she would prefer the time alone to reflect.”
Nissa coughed again—a tearing, horrible sound that wrenched Cafad’s heart sideways—and hunched over, her hands splayed against the stone floor.
“She will be well,” Seg said, his grip tightening just a touch. “I will watch over her. You should go, Lord Scratha. Please. Your kathain will be waiting for you.”
“Where is Azni? Why did she leave? She said she wouldn’t leave Nissa.” Cafad’s voice tore at his throat, and his eyes swam from the harsh smoke.
“Allow your kathain to help you tonight, lord,” Seg said, bending to drop his words into Cafad’s ear. “Allow them to do their jobs, lord.”
Cafad shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “I want to talk to Azni,” he said stubbornly. Azni could always sort out Cafad’s black, bleak anger with a few sharp words and a stare that could drill through the toughest denial. He still trusted her, above and beyond anyone else. That detached, hardened wisdom was what he wanted, not... not Lichni’s softness and laughter.
He couldn’t listen to laughter, or lose himself in the arms of a new lover, not while Nissa cried for her rot-hearted brother. No matter where he went in the Fortress, no matter what he did to distract himself, he suspected he’d be able to hear that ragged grief, remember his part in causing it, and question whether he’d done the wrong thing after all. He wouldn’t be able to hold his composure, once those thoughts began to spiral.
“I asked Lord Darden to trust me with handling this matter, lord,” Seg said. “I believe she has gone to get some sleep. She was very tired, lord.”
Sleep. Just hearing that one word reminded Cafad of how long of a day it had been. But Azni hadn’t abandoned him, after all. She didn’t hate him. She was merely tired. That was reassuringly ordinary. With that worry released, most of his remaining energy drained away, leaving him blinking stupidly and struggling to form words.
“Sleep. Good idea. Have to be up to more bloody godsforsaken Open Conclave tomorrow,” Cafad muttered. “Fine. Take care of Nissa, Seg. Whatever she needs. Keep her away from me. Don’t talk to me about her. I need to stay clear. Have to get through Conclave. Send Ishru with one of those sleeping draughts. I want to make certain that I stay asleep.”
Seg let out a dry grunt of agreement. “Yes, lord. Thank you for trusting me to watch over s’a Nissa.”
“It’s more that I don’t trust myself to do it,” Cafad said bleakly. He jerked his shoulder out from under Seg’s hand, turned, and left the room.
Chapter 38
The second day of Open Conclave dragged by, filled with tedious, mundane matters: Greetings and welcome to the new Lord Scratha and numaina, gifts, people seeking sponsorship, newcomers asking the same questions that had been handled the previous day. One particularly enterprising group asked permission to survey and map Scratha land. Cafad asked several sharp questions before granting that request. By the time the doors closed at nightfall, Azni was having tremendous difficulty stifling her yawns, and Cafad’s face was dull with fatigue.
“You didn’t sleep well last night,” Azni observed as Cafad stood, stretching with his hands in the small of his back.
“No,” he said. “Even with a sleeping draught, I was restless. I had rather a lot on my mind.” He rolled his head, stretching his neck, then sighed and sat down again. “Seg, please have my meal brought in here. I need to talk to Lord Azni, and there’s no point risking more distractions between here and my rooms.”
Seg nodded and crossed to the small servant’s door. Opening it, he stepped out, closing it quietly behind him.
Azni moved to stand in front of Cafad, mildly amused that she was in a petitioner’s position, looking up at the Lord of Scratha Fortress, knowing herself less than equal. She’d never noticed how ornate the lord’s chair was before. Intricate carvings of vines and animals covered every inch of the broad, dark wood. The seat was a rich red, fringed with golden tassels, and the back curved and splayed out into a series of gracefully fluted branches, their edges lightly gilded.
“This is a mess,” Cafad said. She blinked and refocused her attention, annoyed at herself for being distracted by a chair.
“What’s happened? Something to do with Ishru, I take it?”
“Yes. Apparently, he’s become intimate with one of my kathain. Retiae, the youngest girl. Did you direct him to do that?” His face went still as he spoke, eyes half-shut; he was focusing to watch for lies.
She sat up straighter, frowning. “No, of course not. That’s absurd.”
His expression relaxed into a moment of clear relief, then took on an impassive cast. “According to Seg and Gano, their involvement is an unacceptable scandal.”
“Is it?” Azni said, surprised, then reconsidered, remembering long-ago lessons. Cafad was the bound lord of an active Fortress: that put restrictions on his kathain that ordinary servants didn’t have to concern themselves over. “Yes, I suppose it would be. I’m sorry, Cafad, I saw them flirting and didn’t even think twice. Who initiated the intimacy?”
“I didn’t ask,” he admitted. “It doesn’t matter, though. I want you to take Retiae on.”
It mattered a great deal, but explaining that would mean explaining the distinction in Ishru’s training. The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that this had merely been a case of overriding lust. Not if Ishru were involved.
“What in the world would I do with two kathain?” she said, in part to shift her thoughts away from dangerous directions. “I barely have enough tasks to keep one from becoming bored!”
“She can continue serving Riss,” Cafad pointed out. “You can loan her out to Riss.”
“Then what’s the point of me taking her on?” Azni demanded.
“You’re already known as eccentric. Taking on a new kathain that your current kathain fancies is a small matter, compared to my allowing her to stay in my service after a betrayal of her oaths.”
He was an idiot if he was seeing the situation in such a shallow light, and she still couldn’t explain without making matters even worse. “So you’re going to put it about that I asked you for this transfer, because Ishru asked me?”
He spread his hands out on the desk, drumming his fingers briefly before flattening them back down. She knew that tic: he wasn’t nearly as sure of himself as he was trying to appear. “That’s the best way to handle this situation.”
“For you,” she said. “I’d be taking on an oath-breaker. If that becomes known, it’s not going to do me much good with the servants here. Most of them are very prickly about matters of honor. I’ll quite possibly lose their respect and with it their trust, which will make my job a thousand times harder.”
He regarded her without expression, every inch the Lord of Scratha Family. “You aren’t my daimaina, Azni,” he said, all trace of uncertainty gone, his emotions as hard and opaque as polished stone. “You don’t have a formal job here. You’ve chosen to do certain tasks, and I’m grateful for that—but you are a guest. If the servants have started seeing you as anything else, that’s a grave mistake which will be corrected.”
She turned her back on him, breathless with sharp, shocked fury, took several steps across the room just to feel the empty space around her, then whirled to face him again. “How dare you?”
“I’m doing what I have to do,” he said, voice utterly flat. It was the tone he’d used when calling for the whip, when pronouncing sentence on the false desert lord, and when announcing that he would withdraw while the blood was cleaned from the floor. “Take her, or I banish them both, and then you’ll be without any kathain at all.”
“Fine,” she said, throat taut with the desire to shout at him. “Send her to me tomorrow night—no. Send her to me after Open Conclave ends. I need to talk to Ishru first, to decide how to handle this. Keep them apart in the meanwhile.”
Cafad’s tone took on the slightest tinge of acid as he said, “That’s not my responsibility. I’ve warned them of consequences. I’m not wasting further time on this matter. The dawn after the end of Open Conclave, she’s either in your service or walking out the front gates without a recommendation.”
“Without a—” She stared at him. “Have you told her those are the options? Wait. Of course you have. Holy gods—she’ll never find another position of any merit if you do that, Cafad! That’s heartless!”
He shrugged and spread his hands as if to say So what?
Azni turned away with a barely sketched farewell before she could say anything irredeemable. “I’ll take her,” she said over her shoulder, and left Cafad to his inevitable brooding.
When she arrived at her rooms, Ishru already had hot water ready and her favorite chair positioned at an angle that allowed her to see everything happening in the room. She took that as a tacit admission that she wouldn’t be trusting him to protect her during this conversation. He gently pointed her to sit, brought her a cup of tea, then lowered himself to the floor before her chair, cross-legged, head bowed, not a word spoken.
Azni inhaled, exhaled, took a slow sip of tea, tasting oranges and fennel. She recognized the blend as one designed to ease difficult emotional moments without reducing mental capacity. Ishru’s selection of this particular tea for this particular conversation said quite a bit all on its own.
“Whose idea was it?” she said after a second sip.
“Idea, lord?” He didn’t look up.
“Did you seduce the girl or did she jump in your lap? And skip the games, Ishru. I haven’t the patience for it.”
His head moved slightly, as though in negation. Then he sighed and sat up, meeting her gaze directly. “I seduced her, lord. As, you may have guessed, I was directed to do.”
“Yes. By whom?” She pointed at him warningly as he began to answer. “No games. Do not make me drag this out of you piece by piece.”
He nodded, expression resigned. “Yes, lord. I will do my best. Toscin Family has been searching for Tehay survivors for many years. We were—informed—that there would be a viable female descendant in the F’Heing party. I was considered the most likely to succeed in persuading her to defect from F’Heing service. I did not expect that she would be taken into Lord Scratha’s employ. I was informed that she would not be released from the F’Heing party. That information was, obviously, incorrect.”
He dipped his head in apology, then went on, “I also did not expect you to choose me, lord. I was told you would not be willing to accept a kathain. That was also, apparently, a wrong assumption.”
“Rather a lot of broken expectations in that explanation,” Azni observed dryly.
“Yes. I am aware of my failures.”
“Who informed you that Retiae would be traveling with the F’Heing group? Who, exactly, directed you to seduce the girl?” Ishru lowered his gaze to the floor and sat silent. So that line of questioning led too far into Toscin secrets to be allowed. Not surprising.
“Viable,” Azni said instead. “So you’re hoping to get her with child?”
His head dipped a bit more, then he straightened. “Yes, lord,” he said. “That would be a strong incentive for her to switch allegiances. It has not yet come to that point. She does take her oath of service seriously.”
“What? Then what is this entire mess about, if you haven’t—” She stopped and put a hand over her eyes for a moment. “Loopholes.”
Ishru’s expression went studiously blank. “Yes, lord. There are... alternative methods that do not raise the risk of childbearing. I managed to persuade her that such methods did not technically break her oath, and I was hopeful that given time, I could... extend that persuasion.”
Azni set her tea down and regarded her kathain with a sharp frown. “You are definitely Darden-trained, Ishru.”
He shrugged, his mouth pulling to one side. “I am Toscin, lord,” he said. “I do the work I’m given. This is as much a part of my job as rubbing warm oil into your feet. Whether it’s a kind or a harsh thing I’m assigned, it still must be done.”
“Did you intend for the girl to be forced over into my service alongside you?”
He hesitated, then shrugged again. “I had very little to do with arranging this outcome,” he said, “but I won’t say none at all. It does make matters simpler for me. I regret the damage it causes you, lord. I would have avoided that if I could.”
“I should dismiss you both,” she said.
He lowered his gaze and his voice. “You have that right.”
She leaned forward, tapping the top of his head to make him look up. “I should send you both back to your separate Families, under guard.”
He met her stare equably, not the least bit concerned by that threat. “I would prefer you not choose that option, lord.”
“Meaning you already have plans to escape in place.”
His eyes slid half-shut. He said nothing aloud; he didn’t have to.
“Godsdamnit.” She picked up the tea cup. Breathe, breathe, sip tea, breathe, be calm. “Do you intend to leave my service without warning, Ishru?”
