Robert Redick - The River of Shadows

“No less than our own,” came ritual response from every mouth. Ensyl spoke too, though the Dawn Soldiers shot her hateful looks. To those fanatics she was as much a traitor as her former mistress. Diadrelu had trusted the giants, and taken one as a lover. Ensyl’s sin was loving Diadrelu-adoring her, believing in her to the point of rebellion. She had defied Taliktrum, taken Dri’s body from him, delivered it to Hercol. Yes, she was a hypocrite to speak those words. She had broken the clan-bond in favor of her mistress. But Ludunte had also sworn service to Dri for the entire length of his training, and yet he had led her into the trap in which she died. Wasn’t that the greater crime? Not by ixchel law, of course. Yet somewhere, surely, there was a law of the heart?

“There are three possibilities,” said Taliktrum. “One, you confused the pills, mistaking the permanent antidote for the temporary.”

“Never,” said Ludunte.

“Two, you deliberately brought the wrong pills to the forecastle house, because you wished, for some reason, for the giants to be free.”

“My lord-nonsense!”

“Three, you told someone of the location of the pills, and they-or someone they told in turn-tampered with the vials themselves.”

“I told no one!” cried Ludunte, with rising desperation. “Lord Taliktrum, why don’t you trust me? Have I not been your faithful servant in all things?”

Taliktrum looked at him piercingly. “Leave us,” he said. “I will speak with my private council, of your faith and other matters.”

He turned, dismissing Ludunte with an imperious toss of his hand. Ludunte’s eyes swept the room in great distress, settling at last on Ensyl. She returned him all the sympathy she could manage, which was next to none. Stiffly, Ludunte walked to the door. Taliktrum’s Dawn Soldiers hissed and spat at him as he departed.

Taliktrum’s gaze fell on Ensyl. “You” was all he said.

She rose and followed him past the file of soldiers. They were silenced by the nearness of Taliktrum, but their eyes told her what they would do if given the chance. Some studied her body, others fingered their spears. He’s destroying them, destroying their minds, Ensyl thought. They’re cut off from every tradition of the clan save obedience and bloodshed. Dri had always warned her that courage without reason was worse than no courage at all. Skies above, he’s a greater threat to us than Rose.

They entered what Taliktrum called his “meditation chamber,” where a single lamp burned upon a table fashioned from the lid of a pickle barrel. Myett was there, of course, watching Ensyl like a nervous cat. So was Saturyk: tight-mouthed, quick-fingered, Taliktrum’s all-purpose spy. More startling was the presence of the Pachet Ghali, Myett’s stern, silver-haired grandfather. The title Pachet was given to few: it was the highest state of learning to which an ixchel could aspire. Ghali was a master musician: so great a master that the old, lost lore of ixchel-magic was said to live on in the song of his flute. Diadrelu had seen the proof. The man’s playing had called swallows from their nests on a cliff near Bramian, and Taliktrum, wearing one of the clan’s two priceless swallow-suits, had been able to command them like a small winged army.

“Close the door behind you, girl.”

Ensyl obeyed, masking her feelings with effort. I’m the same age as you.

“A look passed between you and Ludunte just now, did it not?” began Taliktrum, pouring himself a goblet of wine.

“He looked at me,” said Ensyl, “and I looked back.”

“You will address our leader by his title,” growled Saturyk.

“Which one?” said Ensyl.

“Ludunte was Dri’s other sophister,” cut in Taliktrum. “The two of you were closest to her of all the clan. Do you remain close now, you and he?”

“We never were especially close, Lord Taliktrum.”

“How is that possible? She chose the two of you out of many hundreds who wished to study at her knee. You trained together in Etherhorde. You were partners in the Nine Trials, the Midwinter March. You were in the same watch for three years.”

“One can share many things, Lord, and not grow close.”

“Very true,” said Myett in her satiny voice. “Ixchel blood, for example.”

The two women locked eyes for a moment. Ensyl fought down her anger. Nothing to be gained by sparring with his mistress.

“You truly suspect Ludunte of switching the pills?” she said.

“Hold your tongue until His Lordship addresses you!” said Saturyk.

Ensyl bristled. “Are we slaves, now, to grovel before him? Or am I expelled from Ixphir House? Even then I am no chattel. He has the right as clan leader to call for my silence. You, Saturyk, have no right at all.”

“Careless,” hissed Myett, “so like another woman who thought herself clever. What became of her, Ensyl of Sorrophran? Tell us that. As you say, you’ve every right to speak.”

“And I have the right to scold you, daughter’s daughter, though it pains my heart,” said the Pachet Ghali. “Where did you learn such spite?”

“You should be proud of her, Pachet,” said Taliktrum absently. Myett looked at him as though hoping he had more to say. But Taliktrum’s thoughts were elsewhere. “All of you, be still. Ensyl, I do not ask you if Ludunte is innocent or guilty. I merely ask if you think him capable of treason.”

A black irony entered Ensyl’s voice. “Of course, my lord. I have seen treason done by his hand. The day he helped you murder Lady Diadrelu.”

She had gone too far. Myett’s eyes blazed with outrage; even the Pachet Ghali looked shocked. But Ensyl felt no remorse, only the wound, the outrageous loss, as sharp now as on that horrific night on the Ruling Sea. Taliktrum had killed her mistress, even if another hand had delivered the blow.

Saturyk moved forward, as though to eject her from the room by force, but Taliktrum waved him off. He looked a long time at the slender woman before him.

“I am sorry for you,” he said at last. “However poorly you were schooled in Sorrophran, there are some childhood maxims you cannot have avoided. We are the rose that prunes itself, remember? A clan of ixchel must know when a limb is diseased. And my aunt was diseased, Ensyl. Also gifted, certainly; no one would deny that she was gifted. But her vision was unsound. She loved giants. As a pathology it’s nothing new-men and women both have suffered from it, though most grow out of the delusion. Not Dri. She grew worse, and finally obscene.”

“We watched them,” said Myett, as though the memory turned her stomach.

“And saw nothing,” said Ensyl, blinking fast. “Nothing of the truth, that is. Nothing that mattered.”

Taliktrum’s face was carefully blank. “You revered her, but that does not oblige you to defend what is unnatural. Dri herself would not have done so, before her sickness advanced.”

“She had no sickness!”

Taliktrum dropped his eyes, as though pondering an unwelcome thought. “I recall a dinner conversation,” he said at last, “shortly after you arrived in the capital. She hadn’t yet decided to take you on. I argued that she should-argued against my father, I’ll have you know.” He smiled strangely. “My aunt called you the gentlest flower in the field.” He paused, weighing his words. “Nytikyn spoke of it too: your gentleness. When the others asked him about you, in the barracks, and on patrol.”

Ensyl’s breath grew short. Nytikyn, her fiance, had been killed a few days before the voyage began.

“The women were fond of him,” said Saturyk. “He was a handsome lad. He could have had his pick of half a dozen, but he was after you. I gather you took some convincing. You had other things on your mind.”