Taleg had a lurch in his step as he ascended the stairs. Three weeks had passed since he’d awoken, and any danger to his life was long gone, but still he paused once to put his hand over the stitches in his side.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Mandhi asked.
He grinned at her. “Are you serious? I’ve waited too long to get a decent meal and a chance to touch you in public. A knife in my side isn’t going to keep me down any longer.”
Mandhi rested her hand in the crook of his elbow and laid her head against his shoulder. A moment later he started forward, and they ascended the rest of the stairs. At the top the maid and manservant who were waiting rushed forward, bowed deeply, and pushed open the doors. They entered the hall for the wedding banquet.
“Behold, the sun and the moon!” cried Sadja as soon as they entered the room. Mandhi saw a welter of servants and silver chains and gold lamps, then Sadja prostrated, and everyone else in the room did likewise. Mandhi felt her face grow hot and couldn’t refrain from grinning sheepishly. All present rose and chanted the sun and the moon, while the servants led her and Taleg to the raised dais at the head of the table. When Mandhi and Taleg sat, a pair of saghada approached and washed their hands and feet, anointed their heads with myrrh, and began to loudly proclaim the wedding blessing.
Taleg leaned over and whispered to Mandhi, “I didn’t expect Sadja-dar to find saghada to do this in the Uluriya style.”
She shrugged. “I’m not so surprised anymore. He’s pretty anxious to get on our good side.”
The blessing droned on for several minutes, until at last the saghada bowed and retreated. Sadja clapped, and the food began to appear. Mandhi soon lost count of the dishes: rice, pigeons, fish, figs, mangoes, melons, cheeses, and chutneys. Sadja sat across from Mandhi and Taleg, too far to talk, but no one was talking much during the meal anyway. The other guests were a handful of local nobles and merchants who came at Sadja’s request, as well as a few of the notable Uluriya from the district. Mandhi barely knew any of them, but they still brought gifts, so she considered this an acceptable compromise.
Her mind wandered once to think of Srithi, Veshta, and her father, unaware of the feast and unable to join them. She looked out at the room full of strangers, and she bowed her head for a moment and put her hands over her eyes. Taleg put his hand on her shoulders and bent over to whisper to her.
“What’s the matter, my bride?”
“I’m thinking of Virnas,” she said. “Thinking of what we’ve done.”
Taleg said nothing but kept his hand on her shoulder.
A moment later she straightened, wiped the trickle of tears from her eyes, and said, “I don’t regret anything. But sometimes I wish….”
He squeezed her hand.
That was the only time during the night that Mandhi felt sorrow. When the meal finally ended, the wedding guests exited into the garden where music was playing. Mandhi and Taleg accepted Sadja’s invitation to complete the first dance, sprinkling salt and rice in the four directions then bowing to the guests. The first dance was slow, performed by the bride and groom alone, their palms touching, making careful syncopated steps in each of the cardinal directions. Then the players picked up, and the other invitees began to mingle and dance in the stone-paved courtyard.
At the second or third song, Sadja came up behind Taleg and tapped him on the shoulder. “Forgive me,” he said with a playful bow, “but may I have a dance with the bride?”
“Just one,” Taleg said. “I should take a little time to rest due to my injury, or else I wouldn’t let you have even that.” He grinned at both of them and took a seat at the edge of the courtyard.
When Sadja took Mandhi’s hand, she was surprised to feel a tiny scroll slip between her fingers. “What’s this?”
“A wedding gift. It has the names of several allies of mine in Majasravi, as well as a seal that will identify you to them. Carry it discreetly.”
“I’m not sure if that’s as valuable as the gold rings and sachets of incense that the other guests brought me.”
“It might fetch less coin, but it’s more costly. Especially if the wrong people know of it.”
For a moment the steps of the dance required them to withdraw to arms length, slipping past each other with hands extended. When they drew together again, Mandhi said, “I appreciate your gift. If we recover Navran, and if the rest goes as you suggested, then I’ll uphold my end of the bargain. Unfortunately I have nothing to offer until then.”
“In the meantime, do you plan on bringing your wedding gifts with you? It would be dangerous to travel to Majasravi carrying so much gold. Brigands are everywhere on the roads, I’m told.”
“Send them to my father, if you can. Call them a gift from yourself.”
“Unusual gifts from a king.”
Mandhi laughed. “I’ll explain when I get back to Virnas.”
Sadja glanced over her shoulder to where Taleg waited. “Will you really?”
“I’ll have to. He’s arranging my marriage right now.”
“You’re remarkably nonplussed by that prospect.”
“Ah, not tonight. Ask me again in the morning. Or on the day we return to Virnas.”
The song ended. Mandhi took Sadja’s leave and moved to sit next to Taleg on the stone bench, tucking the little scroll into the pocket of her sari. Their hands clasped, and Mandhi leaned into Taleg’s shoulder.
“I feel better,” Taleg said. “I could probably dance again, if you’re ready.”
“Let’s wait another song. Do you feel well enough to set out for Majasravi?”
Taleg took a moment to answer. “I could.”
“Maybe we should wait. Sadja-dar isn’t kicking us out yet, and I’d rather let you rest for another week.”
“Yes, but I hate lying around in bed. Makes me feel like a dead fish.”
“In that case, tonight I’ll make sure you get no rest. You certainly won’t feel like a dead fish.”
Taleg bit his lip and suppressed a laugh. They shared the bench until the song finished then Mandhi pulled Taleg to his feet and into the center of the dance square. When the music began again, Mandhi slid closer to Taleg until her breasts brushed against his stomach.
“I have something to tell you,” she said.
“A surprise? I’ve had so many of those lately. Some of them have been rather unpleasant.”
“Only the one, really.”
Taleg’s eyes brightened. “Yes, and it had an upside. I’m now impervious to stabbing.”
Mandhi stifled a laugh. “What?”
“Oh, yes, the doctor told me about it,” he said with dead seriousness. “As with plagues, those who have suffered and survived are thereafter immune.”
“Well, that’ll be useful when we go to pluck Navran out of Majasravi. And about Navran….”
Taleg raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“I don’t want him to be the next Heir.”
Taleg let out a groan. “He hasn’t shown much promise so far, but your father still has hope for him.”
“Let my father hope. But soon enough, I’ll have a son. We’ll have a son.”
Taleg was quiet for a moment. “What are you implying?”
“That when the time comes, it should not be hard to convince Navran to give Manjur’s ring to me. Our son will be three times the Heir of your brother-in-law.”
They stepped away then rejoined. When they drew together again, Taleg had a close, pensive expression. “I never really thought about it, Mandhi. I want to be with you. Manjur’s ring was never a consideration.”
“And if I just wanted Manjur’s ring, I would have married a nice, native Uluriya boy and not a foreign convert. It would be so much easier to convince my father and the other saghada to let the Heir come through me if that were the case. But things have changed. Navran doesn’t deserve the ring.”
Taleg made a face. “Sadja-dar did say that Amur turns on him.”
“Maybe it does. But that doesn’t mean he holds the ring when things stop turning.”
The steps of the dance quickened, and Taleg’s breath came heavy. Mandhi noted it with concern. He should have been able to keep up without any trouble; his wound was not yet healed. He took a breath and asked, “So when do you tell your father?”
“When we return to Virnas. If he’s finding a husband for me….”
“Delightful. And when will we have this child?”
“That could be sooner rather than later. Depends on how much rest I let you get tonight.”
“Oh, that’s terribly dangerous. If you exercise me too much, we might have to extend our stay in the king’s castle for weeks.”
“At the end of that, you might be a dead fish after all.”
Taleg laughed. The dance ended, and he bent to give Mandhi a quick kiss. “When do we get to leave the banquet, again?”
They left Davrakhanda at dawn on a cool morning a month after they had arrived. The air stirred with the morning’s sea breeze and carried the smell of kelp and frying fish. Their packs were stuffed full of roti, rice balls, and figs, and their pouches were full of money. At the gate of the castle, Sadja kissed Mandhi’s hand and bowed deeply to Taleg, ensured that they were provisioned with all they could need and more, and saw them off.
The road to Majasravi was long and arduous. Had Mandhi and Taleg both been healthy, Mandhi guessed they might have made the journey in fifteen days, but the stars were not upon their road. By day they plodded past dry, empty rice paddies and fields of dry-season maize rattling in the cool wind. But Taleg tired quickly. They rested often and stopped early in the evening when the sun was still a palm above the western horizon. Small, simple guest-houses provided lodging whenever they could find them. And after darkness fell Mandhi would sidle next to Taleg and put her mouth over his and bury herself in him until morning.
More than a month passed before Majasravi appeared on the horizon, a gray smudge in the floor of the river valley, surrounded by flaking yellow fields. The road sulked beneath a series of stone towers manned by red-clad men. The roads grew crowded and began to stink of sheep manure and the carcasses of dead fish. When they reached the gate itself, they found a queue of people waiting to be examined by a troop of imperial guards. A red banner with the imperial seal drooped over the city gate.
Mandhi pursed her lips as she and Taleg settled into their place at the back of the queue.
“What do you suppose they’re checking for?”
“Uluriya women with iron rings,” Taleg said.
“That’s not funny.”
“Oh, dear. If I can’t charm you with my jokes, then I’ll be hopeless against the guards. I suppose that means I’ll just have to fight.”
“No fighting. The last time you took on the imperial guards you almost went down with a knife in your gut.”
“Yes, but don’t forget I’m now impervious to knives.”
Mandhi stifled a laugh. “We’ll do this the usual way.”
She opened her pack and found the hidden purse in the bottom with the jewelry borrowed from Srithi. She removed a half-dozen golden hoops for her nose and ears, a chain for her neck, and a set of ruby-set rings for her fingers. She tightened the knot of her hair at the base of her neck and turned to Taleg. “So. Do I look like Veshtaparna’s daughter now?”
“Yes, but you still look Uluriya.”
“So do you, but there’s no fixing that. Hopefully they’ll think we’re rich and leave us alone.”
Taleg shrugged. “It’s worked before… but not in Majasravi.”
They reached the front of the line. The soldier looked up at them and took in Mandhi’s knotted hair, Taleg’s shaved lips and topknot, and the ostentatious gold of Mandhi’s rings. His eyes narrowed.
“Names?” he grunted.
“Mandhi, daughter of Veshtaparna in Gumadha, and her escort Taleg of Kalignas.”
“What is your business in the city?”
“I am visiting my sister-in-law.”
The soldier glanced from Mandhi to Taleg and drew a hissing breath through his teeth. “You are Uluriya.”
“Is that a problem?”
The soldier tapped the haft of his spear. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Mandhi put her hand on the table and leaned forward to touch the man’s spear. “I don’t think it should be a problem.”
The man grabbed Mandhi’s wrist. “What are you doing?”
Mandhi raised her hands and stepped back. “My apologies, sir.”
The man glanced down and saw the coins she had left on the table then quickly covered them with his own hand. He jerked his head to the side to indicate they should enter. “If I were you, I’d stay inside once I reached my sister-in-law,” he whispered as they passed.
The crowd inside the gate was thin. Mandhi remembered the gates being crowded with merchants selling wares, but now there were none, and the people who saw them hurried past with their heads down. Just as well. She would prefer that no one remembered them.
“Do you remember how to get to the saghada’s house?” Taleg asked. “We’ve only been here once, and that was years ago.”
Mandhi pointed to the right. “My father reminded me. I’ll find it.”
They eventually reached a street that smelled of glue and boiling dyes, where Mandhi found a house of gray stone and mud mortar, with a small pentacle covertly etched beneath the beams of the roof. Mandhi knocked on the door.
A small, fat woman with a scowl answered the door. “What do you want?” she spat, before even glancing at Mandhi and Taleg. When she saw their hairstyles her face grew white. “The stars upon you. What are you doing here? Come in, come in!”
She scolded them into her antechamber and shut the door behind them. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“I’m Mandhi, Cauratha’s daughter, from Virnas. I was here years ago, you may not remember—”
“Oh.” The woman sagged against the door in an expression of relief. “I didn’t recognize you and thought it was something else. But we heard that Cauratha’s daughter was coming. A letter came from Virnas.”
“I sent another from Davrakhanda,” Mandhi ventured.
“We got that one, too. But you must not have heard.”
“Heard what?”
The woman looked around the little antechamber with a nervous glance. “No, not here at the door. Are you clean? Have you eaten?”
“No, and no.”
“I’ll bring a laver and make food. I have forgotten the name of your Kaleksha escort, I’m afraid.”
“Taleg,” he said.
“And I’m Rikshi. Sekhan, my husband, hasn’t left yet, but he’ll meet you at the door. You’ll want to go with him.” She bowed to Taleg and left. From deeper in the house her muffled voice sounded.
Taleg glanced at Mandhi with a raised eyebrow. Mandhi shrugged. She didn’t know any better than Taleg what had disturbed the woman so.
A moment later Rikshi returned with a large clay pot, filled with water, and set it in the middle of the chamber. She drew a pentacle over it, spitting out a prayer too quickly to be understood then said, “Sekhan will be leaving in a few minutes. Habda, the other saghada for this neighborhood, should already be there.”
She shuddered and turned away from Mandhi and Taleg for a moment, and when she turned back her eyes were red. “They’re performing the burial rites for Phauram, the stars upon his memory. I would have liked it if you could have brought Cauratha’s greetings to the burial. But I suppose we’ll see you in Virnas soon enough.”
Mandhi’s thoughts spun with the barrage of unexpected news. She knew nothing of Phauram, the dead man, but perhaps she had forgotten him. But she asked the question that was foremost on her mind. “You’re coming to Virnas?”
“Ulaur remember to bring all of us to make it to Virnas,” making the pentacle over her breast with a pained expression. “But we should wash and eat first.”
Taleg stepped outside while Rikshi undressed Mandhi and performed the ritual cleansing from head to toe. After they finished Taleg entered to cleanse himself, and the women moved into the house.
Sekhan was waiting for them inside the door of the antechamber. His expression was grave and etched with distress—far more, Mandhi thought, than would be typical if he were merely preparing to bury a neighbor. “Is Taleg ready?” he asked in a hushed, hurried voice.
“In a moment,” Rikshi answered. “You can enter and help him.” She pulled Mandhi onward into the kitchen.
The kitchen was a small, smoky alcove, with light filtering through the slats of the roof. The room smelled of boiled rice and mustard. Mandhi sat at a low table and accepted a melon from Rikshi’s hand.
The woman began boiling rice and said, “You should not have come.”
“If we are a hardship on your house, we can leave, Rikshi. But we also have money. If you’re in distress—”
“Money isn’t our distress, Mandhi. You shouldn’t have come to Majasravi at all.”
“Why?”
Rikshi shook her head. “The imperial guard has been harassing us in public places. Driving us out of markets, defacing our shops. Sekhan and I have been spared until now. And two days ago… how long were you in Davrakhanda?”
Mandhi drummed her fingers nervously on top of the table. “A month. And we were with Sadja of Davrakhanda. I have no idea what rumors ran among the Uluriya during that time. Unfortunately, it seems like bad news follows us.”
“No, it preceded you.” Rikshi drew a pentacle over her breast again and hung her head. She spoke in a barely audible whisper. “Ruyam is in Majasravi.”
Mandhi spit the chunk of melon out of her mouth. “What?”
“The rumor began a few weeks ago, and the guards have ceased denying it. The Emperor is dead. The imperial guard answers to Ruyam. The whole city is in his hands.”
“But isn’t Ruyam dead?” But as she asked the question, she remembered: Ruyam fled Virnas after the battle and went into exile. Which was not quite the same thing as being dead, alas.
Behind her, she heard the outer door open and close as Taleg and Sekhan left for the burial, like a grim echo of what Rikshi had said. The reality of it escaped her grasp. Ruyam’s purge had happened years before she was born, and she had listened as a child to stories of the violence and fear of that time. But that’s all they were: stories of an evil man who had lived before her time. She no more expected to face Ruyam in her life than she thought to see the ancient serpent rise out of the rocks.
“He lives,” Rikshi said. “Yesterday they killed the first of us. A young man named Phauram, arrested for no reason, then forced to make an offering to Am. When he refused, Ruyam accused him of sedition and sentenced him to death. He died this morning.” She shuddered and put her hands over her eyes. Mandhi reached across the table and touched her elbow.
“So we’re leaving,” Rikshi said. “I was a girl in the first purge, and I remember when they came to burn our house. I won’t stay for that to happen again. My sons have left already, taking their wives and families to Jaitha. Sekhan and I have stayed to help the rest of the Uluriya in the city get out. So far, the guard has not obstructed anyone from leaving.” She took a heavy breath. “So far.”
“Ruyam,” Mandhi whispered. And then it struck her: “Navran is with Ruyam.”
“Navran is your brother?” Rikshi asked.
“Yes. He was supposed to come with us, but he was kidnapped in Jaitha.” And he knew the Heir, and he was in Ruyam’s power.
An expression of weary resignation crumpled Rikshi’s face. “Someone else to save. Ruyam has kept him for some reason, then?”
“I assume so. We thought the Emperor had him, but if Ruyam has returned….”
“I don’t know what we can do,” Rikshi said. “Sekhan and the remaining saghada of Majasravi are deciding how best to help everyone who can flee the city. When the men return, maybe they’ll have an idea. Rice is ready.”
She spooned several large scoops of rice into clay bowls and garnished them with peppers and flakes of dried fish. “Sorry. This is all I have,” she said, collapsing onto the bench at the table and leaning back against the wall. She closed her eyes and sighed.
Mandhi ate in silence for a few moments. “We have plenty of money,” Mandhi said when her bowl was half-empty. “Enough to ensure that everyone who wants to flee can.”
Rikshi nodded.
“But we will probably need help recovering Navran first.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Rikshi said resignedly.
“You won’t have to do it all,” Mandhi said softly, laying her hand on Rikshi’s knee. “I have help from outside. I just have to find them.”