Of Absence, Darkness, page 13
Daniel crooked a finger across his mouth, trying not to smile, and let her decide how to handle this situation. Now that it had happened, he thought it was a good thing that the king had been put at a disadvantage by his bodyguard: if Mitereh was moved to lay down the law to his men regarding his young female guest, that was fine.
At last, Jenna turned back to the king and said, “I don’t know your customs. I’m not offended. That was hardly an insult! What should I say?”
The king’s glance at the young man was severe. “Nola Jenna, it was indeed an insult for any man to speak so freely in your hearing and in mine. If you were a Talasayan lady of rank, you would certainly dismiss so impudent a young man from your presence. You are not of Talasayan, but you are a lady of rank, and a lady of my own household. If you wish me to dismiss Ranakai, I grant you leave to make the demand. If you are indeed so kind as to forgive the impudence, he must count himself fortunate beyond his deserving. And I as well, as his behavior reflects upon me.”
“Oh!” said Jenna. She paused for a moment.
Ranakai bowed his head a little lower and murmured, “Be gracious, Nola, I beg you.”
“I forgive you,” Jenna said after a moment. “You don’t need to leave on my account.” She added, with what Daniel thought was an admirably severe tone considering she had probably loved being called a golden lioness, “Don’t do it again.”
“Indeed, no, Nola,” the young man said, with an earnest bow. Rising, he looked at the king.
Mitereh made a small, curt gesture, and Ranakai, clearly distressed, bowed once more, turned, and left the tent. The other young man, expressionless, gazed straight ahead.
Jenna frowned at the king. “I said I forgave him,” she pointed out. “I said he didn’t need to leave! That wasn’t fair.”
Daniel felt strange addressing kings and nobles, but he suspected his daughter didn’t really believe in them. Or at least not in their rank. He leaned back in his chair and waited to see what the king would say to this.
Mitereh regarded Jenna with evident approval. “You are generous, Nola Jenna. But even an ordinary soldier would be held to a higher standard, and the men of my own guard are not ordinary soldiers. It is my honor they uphold. You are a lady of my household, and you are a friend of Tenai Nolas-Kuomon. For both reasons, you are due courtesy and respect. If you are over-kind, I will punish insolence on your behalf. However, as you have chosen to be generous, I will not dismiss Ranakai from his post, merely set him at a distance for a little while.”
The other young man’s expression didn’t change, but Daniel saw him let out a long breath. The whole thing must have been more serious than he’d thought. What he thought was important was the king’s evident determination to treat both his guests with serious, careful courtesy. That was definitely reassuring.
Mitereh turned back to Daniel. He said, “Before she was your friend, Tenai Nolas-Kuomon was your patient, Nola Danyel, or so I have understood. If I may inquire, as you treat the mad, what did you find in Nolas-Kuomon?”
Daniel answered, “A physician of the mind, in my land, takes an oath before God to protect his patients' privacy. I can’t discuss anything about that.” Then he waited to see what the king, balked, might do or say.
“Ah.” Mitereh made a little gesture that stopped Mikanan Chauk-sa’s swift and probably heated answer before the man could quite begin it. The king himself merely regarded Daniel for a thoughtful moment. “Then I shall not ask; or if I do, I shall not press you. Nola Danyel, you are quite safe in my hand. I tell you so, as you may not know. Permit me to ask a different question. Has Nolas-Kuomon given you her name to use?” The king paused then, waiting for an answer.
After a second, Daniel nodded. Then he said, “But of course, we won't need to use it, will we? Since we belong to your household.” He felt he should say sir, or maybe your majesty, but no words of that kind presented themselves. He hoped the king wasn’t a stickler for formal courtesy.
The king leaned back in his chair, smiling, with no evidence of offense. He lifted his cup toward Daniel in a kind of salute. “Indeed, you will not, Nola Danyel. Very well. I shall not press you for that answer. Nor your daughter—” with a glance at Jenna. “I shall not press you at all. Certainly not until you have become more confident that you may answer as you wish, without hazard. I am aware you do not know me; I am aware you have heard tales of my father from Chaisa-e. Are you able to trust me when I tell you that you are safe?”
“Maybe,” Jenna murmured in English. “Soon.”
Those were actually good answers. Or at least, accurate answers. At least, Daniel hoped so. He said in the language of Talasayan, “Tenai said we should trust you. I trust her. So ...” He opened a hand.”
“A wonder of the world,” murmured the king. “But, indeed, that will do. I ask you, be comfortable in my house. Such as I may offer, while we travel in this manner, but I ask you to tolerate these rough conditions. Allow my servants to prepare places for you to sleep.”
“Yes, of course. It’s a beautiful tent. We’re honored to be permitted to share it.” Daniel was quite clear about that and thought it better to make it clear they understood it.
“Good.” The king lifted a hand, gesturing to servants who came forward to clear the table and carry it out of the tent. Thin mattresses were laid out along the sides of the tent, screened from one another by sheer curtains hung from the sides and roof of the tent. The king rose and offered a small bow, first to Daniel and then to Jenna, who blushed in confusion and returned the bow.
“We shall be on the road at dawn,” the king said, speaking now in a more formal tone. “Rest, I do suggest it. No one will trouble your night. I shall hope God will send you both pleasant sleep.”
“Thank you,” said Daniel, and thought, wistfully, of Tenai's house. And his own.
The mattresses were thin, but they were more comfortable than they looked and, Daniel realized after a moment, perfumed with some subtle musky fragrance like incense. Jenna gave hers an experimental bounce and said, in a low tone because the tent was not that big, “Smells nice. I wonder what they stuff them with.”
Daniel shrugged. He and Jenna shared a corner of the tent with those sheer curtains separating them from the main part of the tent and more curtains that could be pulled down between their mattresses. The king had a sleeping area that was close by, though screened by extra layers of curtains. Guards stood outside the tent; one of his young men—not Ranakai—sat on a mat inside the tent. The chairs were gone. The lanterns remained; they had all been put out except one, a small white lantern that was evidently going to serve as a nightlight.
“I'm never going to be able to sleep,” Jenna said in English, with assumed, dramatic gloominess. She touched the wall of the tent with the tips of two fingers, glancing sidelong at Daniel. The creamy canvas dimpled under the pressure.
Daniel had to concentrate to make sure he answered in the same language. “I think you did very well tonight.”
Jenna gave him an ironic look. “I don't want to make a lousy first impression. But, damn. Yes, right, I know this isn’t twentieth-century America. Kings and queens, lords and ladies, soldiers and guards, servants to help you dress, my God! It’s all fine when you’re reading history, but I’m not going to put up with medieval nonsense about protecting the little ladies if I don’t have to.”
“You aren’t likely to change this society all by yourself, Jen.”
“Hah. Watch me. No, I know. But if Tenai gets to be an exception, then so do I.” She sounded quite fierce.
“I think you’ve got a good start on that,” Daniel agreed, not quite smiling.
“Damn right. Though men could say lots worse things than golden lioness.”
“I knew you’d like that.”
“Anyone would like that! Only now I’d like to get to know Ranakai, only he’s going to be afraid to say word one to me. They’re all going to be afraid to talk to me. You’re laughing.”
“A little, yes. Sorry.”
“Sure, sorry! Like I believe that,” Jenna took off her boots—low boots, a little over ankle high, travel wear for women; men's boots were higher—and her vest. Then she reached up and pulled down the curtain, letting the sheer cloth fall between them. “You just wait,” she added, now mostly hidden. “I’ll get those guys chatting in twenty-four hours. Even Ranakai. Forty-eight at the outside. I’ll get them to tell me all about the king and what he’s really like.”
Daniel cautioned her. “Don’t push them against their loyalty to the king. They won’t like that—and they’ll probably lose respect for you if you try.”
“I know that!” Jenna answered, her tone scornful. “Anybody could see that. That’s not how I’ll do it. I’ll ask them about themselves—about growing up here. That’ll do the trick. They’ll like that—and I’ll learn a lot about them, and about Talasayan, and about the king. I bet you.”
Daniel couldn’t help but smile. That would absolutely work. “No bet.”
“What I want,” Jenna added, her tone now resigned, “is a bath. Camping, ugh. Oh, well. Good night, Daddy.”
Silence fell across the tent. Daniel heard his daughter’s breathing deepen and smooth out almost at once. It left him on his own, lying on his back and looking into the dimly-lit half-hidden darkness. A soft breeze stirred the curtains, bringing in a scent of pine and woodsmoke to mingle with the faint incense fragrance.
What a long and strange road they had come. And a longer road still lay before them: in a few days, they’d be at the capital. Nerinesir. The seat of the royal court. What would that be like? Jenna would love it, Daniel decided as he drifted slowly downward toward sleep himself. She’d carve out a place for herself that was exactly the shape she wanted: he bet she could do it. He slipped into dreams of his daughter, in a black karate gi, with white flowers in her hair, a lioness at her side, walking amid the spun glass towers of a fairy-tale city, and smiled in his sleep.
-8-
They passed through Goshui-sa-e four days after leaving Chaisa. This was one of the larger cities between Chaisa and Nerinesir. A city of white houses with elaborately carved doors, set in a country of a thousand rivers: that was how Tenai had described Goshui-sa-e to Daniel, back when he had thought her description symbolic, or displaced from the real world to an imagined world. It had been a city where, in her youth, people had loved poetry and birds, so she’d said, and he’d wondered what the birds had symbolized.
A city destroyed by Encormio. He’d thought he’d understood the symbolism behind that memory: a life ruined by something unknown, a past ruined by unbearable memories.
No. It had in fact been Encormio to blame. The countryside still showed the scars of that war: many of the thousand little rivers that wended through the salt marshes had bridges that showed signs of having been torn down and then re-built. Many of the houses and barns they passed had been burned long ago and had still, sixteen years later, never been rebuilt. The remnants of a defensive wall still stood around the city itself, Daniel saw, though many of the stones had obviously been carried away to build newer structures and those that remained were tumbled and broken.
The marshes stretched off beyond the town, away toward the sea, and Daniel could see that several rivers, contained behind broad levees, ran through the town itself. A crop—rice, possibly, or something less familiar—grew in terraces between the rivers.
The houses and buildings strung out away from the town were a warm creamy white. Plaster, maybe. The roofs were thatched or, closer to the center of town, made of gray wooden shingles.
Tenai rode through the town with a blank, inward-turned expression that did not invite comment. Daniel watched her, wishing for a chance to speak privately with her, but there were always too many other people about. Besides, usually he and Jenna rode toward the front of the column, and Tenai toward the rear. It was hard enough even to catch a glimpse of her as they traveled. Daniel had to take it on faith that she was all right. He didn’t like this, but there seemed no good way to change the situation, yet.
They stayed for one night in the house of Nolas-e Tantana Sintai, lord of Goshui-sa-e. Daniel noted the family name. Tenai’s family had once ruled Goshui-sa-e. Not a single member of the Ponanon family remained in the province, one of Mitereh’s men explained later.
The man, Apana Pelat, was captain of the king’s personal guard. He was older than the young men the king kept about him. No doubt he was meant to leaven their youth and high spirits. Daniel understood better, after these days of travel, how Ranakai could have made his mistake with Jenna—the young men were at least as much companions as guards, and most of the time their manner with the king was easy and familiar. But whatever their ordinary manners, they were all now extremely formal and polite in their manners with Jenna and her father. Ranakai hadn’t yet been re-admitted to Mitereh’s presence. Jenna hadn’t yet gotten any of them to relax enough to chat with her, though she refused to admit she’d lost her bet, pretending that the few words she’d pried out of one and another of the young men counted.
Apana Pelat was a different sort of man altogether. His black hair, clipped back at the nape of his neck, was streaked with gray. His short beard contained a good deal more gray than his hair. He had a strong, angular face; a steady, calm disposition; and a contained, formal manner. But he was not afraid to speak to Daniel or his daughter, even after the younger men had become almost painfully cautious.
Encormio, he explained, had hundreds of years ago given every member of the Ponanon family he could find to the fire and the sword. Only a few were left, and those scattered everywhere but Goshui-sa-e. But the Sintai family had also stood with Tenai at the end. Or almost to the end.
Jenna, sitting between her father and the captain, shivered. She said, not a question, “You mean, until Antiatan.”
“Where did you hear about Antiatan?” Daniel asked her, but then waved a hand, resigned. It was a grim story, but anybody might have told it to her. No doubt a dozen people had. His daughter always made friends easily. Who knew with whom she might have struck up a friendship, or what tales they might have told her?
“Yes,” Apana said quietly, answering Jenna. “I was at Antiatan myself. It was a terrible day.” Then he was silent.
Daniel frowned. “But Tenai told me she barely fought at Antiatan. That she had no heart for fighting, and that was why she fled to my world.”
Apana glanced at him, quite clearly startled. “It was from Nolas-Kuomon herself you had that tale?” He shook his head at Daniel’s nod, not in disbelief, Daniel thought. In something like awe. “I would not have thought that she would speak of Antiatan. You are right that the fighting there did not last long. But it was not the battle itself that made Antiatan terrible. It was at Antiatan that Sandakan Gutai-e came face to face with Tenai Nolas-Kuomon and lifted his sword against her. At the end of that battle, Nolas-Kuomon laid open the veil and rode out of the world, and we thought ... we thought it was over.”
“Somebody beat Tenai?” Jenna asked, her tone expressing open disbelief.
Apana looked at the young woman, but Daniel thought he didn’t see her. His eyes were dark with memory. “Oh, no,” he said, very softly. “No one mortal ever defeated Lord Death’s own lady in direct combat. Not even Sandakan Gutai-e.”
Not even Jenna found anything to say after that.
It was a hundred miles or so from Goshui-sa-e to Nerinesir, much of the journey through the mountains.
“Eight days more, nine days,” Apana Pelat said, when Daniel asked him. “We will come to the mountains soon. Then it will only be six days more. It is not so far.”
Daniel groaned, and Captain Pelat grinned, a brief flash of white teeth in his dark elegant face, and rode away up the column.
Jenna gazed after him wistfully. “He looks sort of like Sean Connery, doesn’t he?”
That took Daniel aback. “No?”
“Well, not really,” Jenna conceded. “But he’s got that same sort of extra-sexy older guy thing going.” She gave her father a teasing sidelong look. “If you don’t see it, you can trust me on this one.”
“The extra-sexy older guy thing, right.”
Jenna grinned. She wasn’t serious. Probably. Daniel was almost certain. She was teasing. Of course she was. He decided nevertheless that they couldn’t arrive in Nerinesir too soon.
It took two more days for the mountains to come in sight, and another day after that for them to reach the rolling foothills where the road divided. They were not tall mountains, though Daniel supposed that, compared with the flat lands they were leaving, these hills were mountainous enough. The roads became broader and better-trafficked than the ones further down toward the coast. Other travelers always made way for the king’s party. And they always stared at Tenai’s banner, set under the king’s, and then at Tenai herself, and whispered. By this time, Mitereh had brought her up to ride near him, often directly at his side. She rode by the king with a closed, still face, turning her most opaque gaze back on those that stared at her. Daniel could just imagine the rumors that must be spreading.
They passed villages from time to time. The king sometimes stopped in one or another, if there was a village handy as dusk was falling. His people always put their own tents up to stay in, but they accepted food the villagers brought and once a man from one of the villages joined the king’s table for supper.
Jenna and her father always stayed in the king’s tent. Tenai did not, though now a tent of her own was always pitched near his. The king went out of his way to speak to her from time to time. As far as Daniel could see, her manner was always civil. She did not have that look of a barely contained conflagration which Daniel remembered from her early days with him. But her manner was certainly contained. It had to be tough, being a person everyone else tiptoed around all the time.
It took nine days from Goshui-sa-e to reach the walls of Nerinesir. But they came around a long slow curve and into sight of the city late in the afternoon of the ninth day. And they found waiting for them, drawn up before Nerinesir in endless ranks, thousands and thousands of men.
