CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

MESEMA

Mesema woke to sunlight streaming through the windowscreen and stretched. She had not slept so well since the day Pelar left. She smiled, but rolling to her side she saw his cradle was gone—given to Nessaket for the child—and the emptiness of the room filled her mind. She sat up, rubbing tears from her eyes, and called for Tarub and Willa. Sarmin had already risen and returned to his own apartments, preparing to receive the duke and Arigu in the throne room.

Tarub entered first and brought her hands to her face. “Your hair, Majesty!”

“Quickly,” said Mesema, swinging her legs to the floor. “Get me ready for court.”

Willa put a plate of food beside her. “First you will need to eat, Majesty, and to bathe, so that we may pull those tangles from your curls.”

Mesema turned to look at herself in the silver mirror. Hair rose in a stiff point from the right side of her head. She reached out to touch it. “Why are reflections always backwards?”

“To remind ourselves,” said Nessaket from the doorway, “that we do not see the truth.” Tarub and Willa threw themselves upon the floor and she waved a dismissive hand as she entered. “Get up and attend to the empress.”

“Where is … Daveed?” asked Mesema, taking a morsel of cheese from the plate. Sarmin was certain the boy was not his brother, but she did not think it possible for a mother to confuse another boy with her own son. Pelar would continue to grow and change in the southern province—but his eyes, his hair, the shape of his nose were imprinted on Mesema’s memory for ever. She wondered how much time Sarmin had spent with his brother, whether he truly knew the curve of his cheeks and the line of his forehead as well as Nessaket, who had borne him and birthed him. Perhaps his loss of the patternsight affected the way he saw the boy. She had also noticed that he could not understand music since closing the wound in Beyon’s tomb.

“Daveed is with his nurses. I spent the morning questioning Rushes about Austere Adam, but she knows very little. He kept her in an attic room and she could not see.” Nessaket wrapped a hand around the bedpost, looking at the state of the silks. “My other son has returned to your bed. That is well. Another few weeks and he might have started looking at the concubines.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“He has before.” Nessaket’s voice brooked no argument. “You must keep him satisfied and diverted from conceiving more boys with his concubines. That is far more important than messing in politics.”

“But you have messed in politics,” Mesema argued. Willa entered carrying a heavy bucket of water and poured it into a wide copper bowl at her feet. Into this she threw rose-petals, soap, and a handful of salt.

“The Felt are your people and the traitor is their chief,” Nessaket said firmly. “You must maintain a distance from him and his dealings, lest you be tarnished. I have warned you: this Fryth duke is part of Chief Banreh’s story, for good or ill, but you must step away from it.” Nessaket watched Willa working the sponge over Mesema’s face and hair. “During Tahal’s time, my own father was involved in a scandal. Over too much drink he was heard criticising the emperor’s favourite general, and he was later implicated in a coup. I tried to defend him, and I nearly lost my place. Had I persisted, Beyon and Sarmin would never have been emperors. But I did not. I remained silent, as much as it hurt me, when my father was exiled from court.”

Mesema kept a short silence out of respect for the story, then said, “But Empire Mother, no general of Cerana took your people as slaves.” At this Willa started, and her elbow knocked Mesema’s book of poetry from the side table. It landed upside down and Mesema looked at the words, unrecognisable to her in reverse. As it had been with Banafrit, they appeared as nothing more than a jumble.

As she studied the letters, an idea taking form in her, Nessaket answered. “You do not know that your people were taken slaves, either. You have found no evidence for it.”

“I haven’t spoken to all of the scribes yet.” Tarub began working a comb through Mesema’s hair and she winced. “Nessaket, Mother. Listen—I do hear you, but Sarmin would never displace me, or Pelar.” She closed her eyes, remembering how Sarmin had kissed her the night before. “I think he loves me.” No man, not Beyon, not Banreh, had ever been so open with her.

“You had better hope he does not love you,” Nessaket said. “An emperor grants or withdraws his favour. He does not love, for that is a path to disaster.” With that she stood, preparing to take her leave. “But since you have his favour at the moment, I have a request.”

“Anything, Empire Mother.”

“Will you help convince him that his brother has truly returned?”

“Of course.” In her mind she resolved not to convince him, but to prove it—though she did not yet know how to do that. Govan’s word and Nessaket’s certainty had so far counted for nothing.

“Thank you, my Empress.” Nessaket gave a formal bow and left the room. Distracted by her preparations, Mesema only watched the Empire Mother leave in the mirror.

Tarub stuck a pin into Mesema’s hair. “I do not think you will be able to see the arrival of the duke, Your Majesty. Already the emperor has closed the doors and the first gong has sounded.”

“Mm,” said Mesema, “but I will try.” Several minutes more, and her hair was finished, coiled around her head in an elaborate network of braids. Her face was carefully painted, and her skin carried the scent of jasmine. Willa slipped pretty sandals on her feet and at last she was released from the room. Sendhil and her other guards trailed after her.

“Come, Sendhil.” Mesema hurried to the doors and out into the palace, taking the shortest path to the throne room, through the servants’ halls and back stairways. At last she came to the landing overlooking the Great Hall and stopped, surprised to see so many gathered there. So recently the room had contained nothing but broken mosaics—the ceiling above her still showed unfinished timber joists and jagged bits of plaster—but the debris had been cleared away and the floor beneath the boots of the Blue Shields positioned below gleamed in the sunlight.

An old captain stood, with a dozen of his soldiers in formation behind him. Around them swarmed a few men of the court, the priests, generals and satraps who circled the throne like bees around honey. But one man stood out, taller even than Notheen, with skin as pale as the winter sky and a coat too heavy for Nooria’s climate. The man bent his head towards a Tower mage Mesema did not recognise. So this could be no other than the Fryth duke, Didryk, Banreh’s friend. As she stared down at him he looked up, and recognition flashed in his eyes. He gave a bow so slight that nobody in his vicinity noticed it, so engrossed were they in their own business.

She inclined her head in the way of her people and he returned the gesture as the crowd began to move, sweeping the Fryth, the Blue Shield captain and all the soldiers towards the throne room.

So that was Banreh’s ally. Mesema was relieved the chief had been set free. She turned towards the servants’ stair, but motion caught her eye and she looked back over the railing. In the corridor she saw a woman with long black hair walking towards the temple wing. “Your Majesty!” she called, thinking it was Nessaket, but the woman did not acknowledge her.

She hurried down the stairs and followed the black-haired woman into the corridor, but saw no one.

Sendhil asked, “You are not slipping away again, Your Majesty?” Always he worried. Her own father had never been so protective.

“Not at all. I hope to join my husband the emperor in the throne room,” she said, re-entering the Great Hall, but right away she saw Grada.

“Mirra help us!” one of her guards said in a fearful voice. Those of the palace viewed the grey-robed, silent assassins as wraiths or demons, not men or women, and Mesema understood that. Once she had feared Eyul, but she had come to understand him. The Grey Service carried out their work with efficiency when called upon, but they were not ruthless killers. Eyul had borne the weight of his own deeds until his death.

Now his heir approached, her dark eyes taking in the men behind her, the broken stair and all corners of the room. She stopped a child’s length away and looked her empress up and down, measuring. Though Mesema knew Grada intended her no harm, she felt spiders crawl over her skin. Nobody could—nobody would—stop the Knife if she decided to make a cut. “I came too late to meet with the emperor,” Grada said at last.

“The Fryth duke has arrived to discuss an alliance,” said Mesema. “You may speak to the emperor afterwards, heaven bless him, if you wait.”

“I must go and watch Lord Nessen’s manse.” Grada’s face betrayed that she thought herself of better use elsewhere. She held up a scroll, capped at both ends with shining brass. “This letter was taken from one of the lord’s staff as he entered the city.”

“Lord Nessen? So is he in Nooria, then?” She was pleased to know there was news about the Mogyrk sympathiser at last.

“No, he never arrived.”

Mesema frowned. “And yet it appeared they were preparing for his arrival. You said great amounts of food had been carried inside.”

“Just so.” Grada tapped the scroll-end thoughtfully, and Mesema could not help but look at it, fingers itching.

“What does it say, Grada?”

Grada shrugged. “I cannot read it.”

“I can read it for you.” Mesema reached out for it, but Grada held up a hand. “No. This is for the emperor, heaven bless him.”

“Well then, give it to me and I will make sure he receives it.”

Grada hesitated, and Mesema sighed and added, “Unopened.”

“Very well.” Grada dropped it into her waiting palms.

A young Cerani man wearing white mages’ robes stepped through the doorway. He blinked at the height of the Great Hall, then stopped in alarm at the sight of so many guards. He looked from Grada to Mesema as he spoke, his voice uncertain. “Has anybody seen the high mage?”

“I have not.” The Knife assessed the man. “Perhaps he is in the Tower?”

“Of course!” His eyes went round when they fell on Mesema and her silks, and she smiled to herself, because he did not know her for the empress.

“I am very happy to see a new mage in the Tower,” she said. “We have great need of you.”

“Thank you, miss,” he said with a bow. Over his head she and Grada shared a secret smile.

“I will walk with you,” said Grada to the mage, “for the Tower is on my way to the Holies.”

“The Holies! I never …”

As Knife and mage passed through the doorway to the temple wing, Mesema looked at the missive in her hand. She could not carry a secret letter into the full court; she would have to take it to Sarmin’s apartments. Back up the stairs she went, Sendhil and the other men behind her, down one hall and then another, until Sarmin’s guards bowed and opened his doors. She went through to the desk and set down the scroll, feeling relieved now it was out of her hands and the temptation to open it had passed.

She looked out of Sarmin’s window. He had a better view than she, for his room faced the Blessing and beyond it, the plateau of the Holies, which was high enough to obscure her view of the Storm Gate and its path into the western desert. Directly below lay the courtyard where nobles and generals often arrived in their coaches, and as she looked down she saw the dark-haired woman again, walking towards the gate. Mesema gripped the window-screen. The woman would never hear her if she called out from up here. Instead she stared, trying to determine whether it was truly Nessaket. This woman had the same long hair and the same golden skin, but the white covering wrapped around her did not look like anything Nessaket owned. “What—?”

Mesema turned to Sarmin’s desk and found the spyglass he had lent her the other day. Stretching it to its full extent she focused on the dark-haired woman and gasped. She was wearing her own white cloak, the one her mother had embroidered with red and blue flowers—the one she had thrown to the floor when Nessaket visited her room the other day.

The guards did not attempt to stop Nessaket as she passed through the gate—they did not appear to see her, and neither did Nessaket take any notice of them as she walked in a straight line, each movement measured and even. Outside the gate she turned and vanished from Mesema’s view.

“No—!” Mesema folded the spyglass and ran to the corridor, pushing past Sarmin’s guards, and for once Sendhil asked nothing; he only ran after her as she hurried to the old women’s wing. Without a word he helped her to pull open the heavy doors, and once inside, she ran through the old bedrooms to the garden stairs. On the roof at last she put the spyglass to her eye and searched for the Empire Mother, but though she peered at one street after another, examining every person she saw, Nessaket was nowhere to be seen.

“No!” She sat on the bench and twisted the brass spyglass in her hands, wondering how long it would be before Sarmin was finished with court.

At last she gathered herself together and stood, looking out once again over the city, Sarmin’s city, glinting in the full sun. The Blessing caught her eye, sparkling as it did at this time of day, and she followed it south, towards where Pelar had gone. And then she followed it north, to the Worship Gate and beyond, where the Great Storm threatened. Sarmin had told her that by staring at the emptiness too long she too would be emptied, but she could see nothing to the north but the gate and the wall.

She sat among Nessaket’s flowers and looked at the statue of Mirra. “Where has she gone?” she asked the stone, but the stone did not answer.