31

The weeks in Dorinah passed slowly, coldly, for Zezili’s husband, Anavha. He spent most of those autumn days sleeping. He slept because he could dream when he slept – dream he was a pirate like the ones that pillaged slaves from the Dhai coast, or the man in one of the romance novels Zezili’s sister Taodalain bought for him, saved from assassins and kidnappers by a handsome legion commander like Zezili. With so much time spent sleeping, he kept himself out of trouble. The dajians avoided him. Daolyn sat up and read him Zezili’s letters when they came. It was his quiet, stifling life. Every day the same, waiting for Zezili’s return, waiting for news of the outside.

Low autumn lengthened to high autumn, then low winter. One cool evening, he passed time with Daolyn in the sitting room. A squat stove brought in from storage warmed them, but Anavha still wore a coat over his under-tunic and girdle. He was preparing to pull out yet another crooked seam in his embroidery when a heavy knock sounded on the front door.

Daolyn set aside the garments she was mending and stood. Anavha followed her. He paused in the doorway of the sitting room and watched her cross the yard to the main gate.

“Who’s there?” Daolyn called.

“Tanasai Laosina!”

“Syre Zezili isn’t here,” Daolyn called. “I’ve told you, she no longer permits you within her house.”

More voices filtered in from outside. Anavha heard the sound of dogs barking, the jingle of tack. Tanasai had not come alone.

“Open this fucking door, you fucking dajian, or I’ll fucking burn it down, you hear me? You think I won’t fucking burn it down and cut you open from slit to tit?”

Daolyn hesitated another moment, then pulled back the iron latch.

Anavha thought she was mad until he saw Tanasai enter, and behind her, half a dozen women in chain mail wearing infused weapons and helmets. If Daolyn had not opened the door, they would indeed have forced it open.

“Where’s my bloody cousin?” Tanasai said. Her voice was slurred. The others were snickering and stumbling over one another.

Anavha stepped out of the sitting room and hurried across the courtyard toward his room, trying to stay in the shadows.

But Tanasai saw him.

“There’s my cousin’s bauble! Come here, boy!”

Anavha ran into his room and shoved his weight against the door, but Tanasai wedged herself in the doorway. Three more women tried to squirm in behind her. They stank, not just of alcohol, but of themselves. They must not have washed for weeks.

“Come here, pretty,” Tanasai said. Her damp hair clung to her flushed face, the skin so dark her freckles were no longer visible. She grunted and pushed at the door. Anavha stumbled back, fell. His head hit his mattress. Tanasai stepped inside. Her women slunk in behind her.

Tanasai reached for him. The other women laughed.

Daolyn pushed inside. She grabbed at the last of the women entering the room and said, “The Empress herself will punish you! This boy was her gift to Zezili. She will punish you if harm comes to him!”

The woman took Daolyn by the hair and slammed her head into the doorframe twice. Daolyn’s body made a dull thumping sound as she hit the floor.

“Let me see you,” Tanasai said, leering at Anavha. “Let’s see what my near-cousin thinks she’s keeping from me.”

They stripped him naked and pushed him onto his belly. Tanasai grabbed hold of his hair, jerked his head back, hissed in his ear, “This is what you’re made for? You forget that?”

She reached beneath him and tugged at his flaccid penis. “What do you think, my women? Think he needs this?”

“No!” one of the women yelled. “Take it off! Leave Zezili with a proper girl!”

“Looks like he doesn’t know what to do with it!” another said, and the others cackled.

Tanasai pressed her big body onto his. She sucked at her thumb and parted the cheeks of his ass. Shoved her thumb inside him.

He cried out.

“No virgin here,” Tanasai said into his ear. Her spittle flecked his face. “Let’s see what else we can get up in there.”

Tanasai let go of him. She reached for the dagger at her hip.

Anavha clawed at the floor. He twisted upright and grabbed at the ring of his dressing table drawer. Tanasai laughed and moved closer.

Anavha jerked open the drawer. It pulled free of its runner. The force of his own momentum and the quick release of the drawer sent the contents clattering to the floor. His container of powder thumped his chest, sent a burst of gold dust into the air. He sneezed. Kerchiefs scattered.

And there was the kitchen knife on the floor beside him; his cutting knife. He took it without being sure what he was going to do with it.

Then Tanasai threw herself on top of him.

Her bulky body pinned him to the floor. She let out a huff of breath, like the wind had been knocked from her. The sordid stink of her breath roiled over him.

Anavha felt wet on his fingers.

“Huh?” Tanasai mumbled.

Anavha kept hold of the knife. Tanasai pulled herself off him. She stood, tottering.

When she was clear of him, a thread of blood spurted from her wound, spraying Anavha’s face. He held up his bloody hands. Dropped the blade.

She dabbed her fingers in the wound, into the gush of blood.

“Oh,” she said. Her face grew pale.

The women behind her fell back, skittish.

Tanasai fell to her knees. The wound continued to gush dark blood. Tanasai toppled against the chair in front of the dressing table.

“Fools,” Tanasai muttered. Her eyes rolled back in her head. “Fools. Get me something.”

But the women were retreating. One or two, then the rest. Their bootsteps sounded in the courtyard. Whispered voices. The dull hiss of leather and armor, the clink of chain mail.

An affront to Zezili’s possessions was an affront to Zezili. They no longer had a near-cousin to stand behind.

Anavha watched the blood leave Tanasai’s body. It pooled about his naked feet.

He pulled himself away from her. She spat blood at him.

“They’ll kill you… for this. You’re… Rhea’s now,” Tanasai said. She made a hissing, gurgling sound, like a cough or a sigh.

Then she was still.

It took Anavha some time to move. He crawled toward Daolyn’s crumpled body. She was breathing but not conscious. An ugly black bruise was forming on the right side of her face. He went to Zezili’s room where the big tub was and ran some water. He washed his hands and face. His hands were trembling.

He had done violence. He had done violence against a woman. She had died. Would those women call the enforcers? Or the priests? Karosia Soafin had already been called in once because of something he might have done. This… this was much worse. Zezili was away. She could not protect him from Karosia, or the enforcers.

But he could go to her.

Once he made the decision, it seemed so easy, so obvious. He would go to her. She wasn’t far, if her letter to Daolyn about visiting Lake Morta was true. The lake was just a three- or four-day journey away, southeast. He had been there before during high summer with Zezili. The dog Zezili let him use was still in the kennels. The dajians would put on the tack. He would pack food. He would… But he would be a man traveling alone. Someone would stop him, ask for his papers, his chaperone. He might be able to pass as a woman, though, if he wore a coat and hood, left the girdle behind…

Zezili would understand.

He walked to Zezili’s wardrobe. Her clothes were too big for him, but he managed to tie on women’s straight-legged trousers and an under-tunic. He found a dark coat with a hood. He would have to wear his own boots. Bring gloves. It would be cold at the lake. Daolyn kept a little petty money in a box in the high cupboard in the kitchen for everyday things. He retrieved this, pocketed it, and went back to where Daolyn lay. He put a pillow from his bed beneath her head and draped her with his own quilt. The dajians had gathered in the doorway to the kitchen and stared at him as he moved about. He did not speak to them until he was dressed and walking to the door.

“Care for Daolyn,” he said. “Tell her I’m coming back with Syre Zezili.”

He shut the gate behind him. One of the dajians saddled his dog, silent and obedient as the mount. As the dajian handed over the reins, Anavha saw her brand in the light of the kennel lanterns. A raised scar of tawny flesh, Zezili’s initials branded onto the back of her hand.

He remembered his own mark, Zezili cutting her initials into him. You are mine. I own you.

He got up onto the dog and whistled him forward.

 

Zezili arrived at her estate four days later, well after dark. She let Dakar’s reins fall. The dajians weren’t expecting her. She pounded on the gate and called for Daolyn.

The door opened. Pale light spilled onto the walk. Daolyn held a lantern. She had a yellowish bruise along one side of her face.

Zezili pulled off her helm and pushed past her. “What’s happened?” she said.

“Your near-cousin ordered entrance,” Daolyn said. She called for dajians to tend to Dakar and shut the gate after them. “Half a dozen women arrived with her. They asked to see you. When I said you were not home, they turned on Anavha.”

“Where is he?”

“I do not know,” Daolyn said, and Zezili saw her flinch. “The women assaulted me. When I woke, your husband and the women had gone. Tanasai was dead in your husband’s room.”

“Did the other women take him? I will have them hunted down for thieves! If they’ve so much as touched–”

“No, I spoke with the dajians. They said your husband went alone.”

“Alone?”

“Took one of the dogs.”

Zezili let out her breath in one long puff. “Did you alert the priests, the enforcers, any of the others?”

Daolyn shook her head.

“Good girl. And the body?”

“Outside, in the barn,” Daolyn said.

“I must think,” Zezili said. She walked to her room, unshuttered the lanterns. She paced. Daolyn hovered in the doorway.

“He read your last letter,” Daolyn said. “He may have gone to Lake Morta to find you.”

“Why’d you let him read that?”

“I read him your letters,” Daolyn said. “You did not say to keep correspondence from him.”

Zezili swore. The journey had been wearying, and what she found here at the end of it only deepened her exhaustion. Her near-cousin had come here with the intent to use or perhaps harm one of Zezili’s possessions. If it had been Dakar, and Dakar bit Tanasai, killed her even, could the dog be faulted? No, that argument would not hold, not if the priests were called into the matter. No priest would speak of mercy for an act of violence, committed by a dumb beast or no. Would he be foolish enough to travel all the way to Lake Morta?

“Did he take money?” Zezili asked.

“A bit from the petty jar,” Daolyn said. “Not enough for a sea passage.”

“The roads are not safe for an unescorted man. He will not have gotten far.”

“Should I alert a hunter? Someone to track a missing man?”

“No. His disappearance coincides with Tanasai’s. A hunter would figure that out. She might ask questions.” Zezili stopped pacing and stared at her shuttered window. “He would not leave me,” she murmured. “Get me pen and paper. He may have gone to my sisters, seeking assistance. I’ll have Taodalain and her wife make discreet inquiries at the mardanas. Quickly, go!”

Daolyn moved into the dark courtyard.

Zezili crossed to her window, opened the shutters. The room was cold, but the outside air was colder and spilled onto her face like a slap.

She could send letters to her sisters and go to Lake Morta herself. It was on the way back east to the coast. She owed an explanation to Monshara, though, and perhaps the Empress.

Daolyn returned. Zezili penned the letters to her sisters and Monshara. But as she began the letter to the Empress, she could think of no words to justify her actions. She had deserted her post to run after her absent husband, a man who had committed violence against a woman. If she did not get to him first, he could be killed or sold into slavery. If the Empress never knew, if Monshara kept the confidence… a few days more. Monshara could slaughter that camp without her, and Zezili could join them at the next. It’s what she wrote in her letter to Monshara.

As she handed off the letters to Daolyn to post, she was suddenly drenched in a sheen of cold sweat. If she did not get to Anavha before the local enforcers… if the Empress found out… but those were a fool’s fears. She would sort this out the way she always had.

Zezili went to her desk and opened a handful of correspondence Daolyn had yet to forward to her, many of them addressed from Daorian. Three were letters from her sisters, likely relating gossip or asking for more money, and another was from Syre Kakolyn.

Zezili broke the seal on Syre Kakolyn’s letter. There was a signature at the bottom that was not Kakolyn’s. Kakolyn had her second pen all of her correspondence, as she herself could not pen a word much beyond her own name.

 

Syre Zezili,

 

I heard about your campaign to purge the camps, which is not unlike my own enigmatic campaign. I was just dispatched to the S. Sanctuary by the Empress to eliminate the Seekers.

I thought it a strange order. How were we going to kill our own satellite-wielding assassins? But she sent a bunch of foreign magic-users with us. I wanted to relay this to you because when we got to the Sanctuary, the Seekers were gone.

That means we have magic-wielding seers the Empress wants dead running around, led by your old friend Tulana. Keep a watchful eye. Send word if you have it.

 

I remain,

 

Syre Kakolyn Kotaria

 

Zezili set the letter aside. Killing Seekers? How much more madness could the country take? Zezili’s legion would be worthless against the Tai Mora without the aid of Tulana’s Seekers. Zezili opened one of the missives from her sister Taodalain and read about the news from Daorian. She skimmed most of it until she came to a particular passage:

 

Already, Daorian has seen increasing violence against both private and publicly owned dajians. The Empress has denounced them as having caused a wave of infertility in Castaolain, and linked their indulgences to increasing food prices. I have enclosed some papers from Daorian, sheets circulating to this effect, blaming dajians for numerous ills, including an outbreak of yellow pox in eastern Kidolynai. I heard news of your legion purging the dajian camps. Does this mean the reports of the dajians’ role in these matters are true?

 

Zezili pondered both reports and looked through the papers Taodalain had sent. They were poorly printed, sloppy, on low-quality paper, and full of propagandist ranting. Monshara had told Zezili to stay out of things. Told her she knew nothing and understood less. But even Zezili could see that eradicating the entire country’s labor would result in famine and strife. The Tai Mora would coax them into destroying themselves.

And no one stood in their way.

Zezili moved, of habit, toward Anavha’s room. She stopped halfway across the courtyard, realized her error, and turned back to her own room. No, she could not summon him from sleep. Tanasai had stolen him from her.

She got into bed, alone. Daolyn had turned down the sheets, but not warmed the bed; an understandable oversight, considering the circumstances. Zezili lay awake, staring at the canopy hanging from the posts of her bed, listening to the stillness of the house. The fountain had been turned off for the winter. She heard laughter somewhere. The dajians’ quarters, likely. She closed her eyes and saw a tide of blood, a field littered in dajian bodies.

She pushed back her blankets and walked across the courtyard. She pushed open the door to Anavha’s room and unshuttered one of the lanterns by the door. Whatever mess had been done by Tanasai, there was no immediate trace of it. Anavha’s bed was made, his dressing table in order. His dog-eared copy of The Book of Rhea lay at his bedside table. Zezili walked to the book, pressed a finger to the hard leather cover, and moved away, to the dressing table.

She leaned over and looked at the bottles of scent, the containers of gold powder, rouge, and kohl. She opened the big standing wardrobe and gazed into the interior. It smelled heavily of everpine and the musky scent of Anavha, mixed with saffron and lemon grass. She tugged at the white sleeve of one of his coats. She had the ridiculous urge to press it to her nose and inhale the scent of him lingering on the clothing.

Zezili curled her lip, disgusted at her own sentiment. She left the room, closed the door. She would have Daolyn lock it until Anavha’s return.

She walked back to her room, went to the window, and stood leaning out into the air, inhaling cold like a drowning woman first tasting air, her head thrown back, fingers gripping the sill.

She wanted her husband. She wanted the world back the way it was. She wanted the Tai Mora dead and their mirror smashed to dust.