This surprise summons had her fully alert, given all that had passed only hours ago. Her left knee was smarting, bruised by a stone when Xanir had rolled her impatiently onto all fours after their second swift discussion last night. The whole night had been sleepless; long, lazy conversation, both serious and irreverent, punctuated by what Xanir had called comfort breaks. A delicious night with Xanir, talking, touching, playing with him both verbally and physically — not the Tahl, the emperor, but the man who had been a small boy fighting to grow surrounded by danger, to find some peace. She had given him peace, comfort. He had trusted her.
No comfort now; here in front of the queen she felt as though she were on trial for a crime of which she was as yet unaware. Besides keeping silent about his visit, Xanir was also trusting her to keep watch for him here in the palace and his mother was not on the very short list of people she could confide in. A magnificent, regal figure seated on a divan in her main reception chamber, fingers tapping on the armrest as she silently assessed every aspect of her younger son’s bride.
“The Zalmat tell me that Xanir granted you night access to my garden.” the older woman’s voice was soft, but clipped. “And you spend a lot of time there.”
The words were not a question. Alanna sat back onto her heels, her mind racing through what she knew of this shadowy figure — which was frustratingly little; they had passed each other in the star chamber various times since the wedding, but only exchanged bows and polite greetings. Her father had provided only the bare bones of Tahl-Mat Panya’s background: offspring of a powerful lord from the western province of Mharim, where Haman now lived and governed; three children presented to the former Tahl — Haman, Xanir, and her first-born, a sister who was wed to a king to the south of the empire. That was all she knew.
Their eyes met, and she realised that the regal woman before her was furious. Alanna bowed again, murmuring, “Yes, my lady,” as non-confrontationally as possible. “I miss the green of my homeland.”
Whatever Rihanne might think, this lady was the most powerful in the city, especially with Xanir absent.
The fingers were tapping faster. “My garden is only permitted to members of the imperial family.”
A bride was still on probation until the production of offspring, and as such not of imperial status. Xanir had side-stepped having anyone bring up this convention by only giving her access secretly at night.
Alanna bowed again. “I have no wish to offend, my lady.” Her mind was racing. Did the dowager queen know what her attendant had been doing in the garden last night? She held back nausea. Did Queen Panyat know what had happened to that attendant?
According to Xanir, the only way Rebeqa could have gotten into the well-guarded retreat was by accompanying the Tahl-Mat earlier in the day. When the dowager had eventually left with her entourage, it was not impossible that one servant had not been missed.
But the queen was not among Xanir’s trusted. Maybe the dowager had ordered her attendant to send messages from that impossibly tall tree for her? To whom? Why? The hiding-place, underneath a stiff cloth mesh woven with plants, had been established long enough to have remnants of growth from previous years. Alanna had checked it out just before leaving but wanted to investigate further.
“Then you will not go there again,” the dowager stated clearly.
Damn.
“Yes, my lady.” Another bow.
Alanna was dismissed with a wave of a braceleted wrist. She was rising when a further snapped question almost took her off guard: “Why did you scream his name out there last night?”
Images flooded her mind and Alanna flushed to the roots of her hair. Blinked. But she hadn’t screamed, he’d gagged her. Hands, clothing — all muffling her screams of pleasure.
Oh. Earlier, from the tree.
At least she could use this embarrassing blush.
“I fell asleep and had a dream — uh – nightmare — my lady,” she stuttered, scarlet-faced as fleetingly she managed to meet the sarcastic expression on her hostess’s face.
The Tahl-mat snorted, lips twisting as she just looked at the bride’s bright red cheeks. After an excruciating moment, she waved the young woman away.
Alanna’s heart was still pounding when she reached her rooms, eyes narrowed in thought. She made her way slowly over to Helene, ignoring the eager questions of her other ladies over her unprecedented audience with the queen, and murmured, “Yoga?”
Her friend raised her eyebrows but went and got the mats. “You’ve thought of a new series?”
“Yes,” replied Alanna, still frowning. “Let’s practise in here, until evening.”
Most of her attendants sighed and cleared space in her main room, used to the Tahl-maia’s foreign form of exercise — approved by Bethesda as it kept her supple. Two came eagerly forward to join the northerners and were welcomed.
In the cool of the evening, a Kjell merchant squatting at the far side of Mikla square was playing his habitual game of shah with one of the local wine merchants. The foreigner was noted for his poetry, and seemed especially abstracted from the game tonight, staring into the distance before scribbling short bursts of inspiration on a pad kept by his hand. His friend was used to it.
At one point the wine merchant glanced over his shoulder at the palace terraces. “They move like flowers in the breeze,” he agreed gruffly, watching the distant silhouettes swaying gracefully between the different poses they held. “I would write of their beauty myself if I were not a plain man who wields words like an ox.” A short pause. “You can’t really tell one from another at this distance –is one your princess?”
The Kjell smiled. “She is the most graceful.”
His friend snorted, leaning forward to refill their glasses. “Then let us drink to the grace of the Tahl-maia.”
***
A week later, Alanna was sitting on the Maian terrace, watching the light carried by a lantern-bearer dip as he crossed the vast square beyond the outer wall, showing a client safely home in the deepening dusk. She let out a long breath and glanced over to where Limaq and Zander were sharpening their swords in the lamplight shining from her rooms.
She padded over to Xanir’s sword-brothers, smiling at the fierce concentration as they squinted along their blades, night noises from the birds settling in the trees punctuated by the rhythmic zing of the whetstone. “Seriously?” she said. “There is an award for the Zalmat whose blade is sharpest?”
“Half a day’s leave,” grunted Limaq, glancing up briefly; the taciturn Zander narrowed his eyes as he twisted the light along his blade, not saying anything. “Goshta Tahl instigated the competition, and it has been held at the dark of the moon ever since. And I always win.”
Alanna laughed at the look Zander cast his sword-brother, then dropped her voice to a casual ripple that the maids chatting on the terrace steps would not be able to hear. “The lantern-bearer crossing in front of the Temple of Mikla is an agent of my father’s. He has just signalled to me that two figures are skulking in the vines wreathing the Tahl-leias’ balustrade, one below, one above, close enough to whisper.”
Although both warriors continued to stare at their blades, she could sense the alert jolt that ran through them.
“I am wearing red — impossible to see in the dark. I will climb around there under the balustrade and listen in.” Her blood was exulting. Something to do. Secretly she prayed that the one whispering from above was Rihanne — which was likely, given her rival’s treasonous tendencies, and the fact that that was the concubines’ terrace.
“No,” Limaq stated unequivocally.
Alanna drew breath to argue.
“Touch my blade and cut yourself,” Zander instructed gruffly. “Wail accusations. Limaq will dismiss me at your behest. I will go and listen.”
Alanna stared at him. Zander rivalled his Tahl in his level of verboseness. “How?” Her Zalmat were not allowed into the concubines’ wing. “And what if they are speaking Sianese?”
“Now,” insisted Zander, throwing a glance at his sword-brother. “Be careful, though. My blade is sharper than Limaq’s.”
The snort from her chief bodyguard drew another gurgle of laughter from her, and Alanna used her mirth, learning forwards, ‘accidentally’ catching her finger against the gleaming metal edge and rearing back on a true gasp.
“Ow!” It was sharp.
A minute later, one of her attendants was bandaging the shallow cut on her finger and Limaq was waiting in the doorway to her chambers, looking out for her replacement guard to arrive.
Alanna was trembling. “Out,” she ordered her hovering ladies on a hiss, flapping a dismissal that rivalled the Tahl-Mat’s for rudeness.
After one glance at her face, most of them scrabbled for their belongings and scurried to the door.
The buxom and interfering matron who had just tied up her finger sniffed and stated condescendingly, “I will remain until your relief guard arrives, lady.”
A resounding slap brought Limaq’s head around sharply. His lips twitched at the outraged expression on the Lady Dohmat’s face. Her condescension to the Tahl-maia had been getting more and more overbearing since the Tahl had left. Officially left.
“My guard’s place is in that doorway until that relief joins him,” hissed the Kjell princess, magnificent eyes aflame as she stalked the wobbling lady around a divan, hands up in strike position. “I think you need a reminder of yours.”
The slender figure feinted forwards and the buxom matron turned and fled, clutching her burning cheek and huffing indignantly.
The princess came to stand at Limaq’s shoulder, peering past him down the corridor. “What now?” she murmured.
A sound behind her and Alanna spun, just biting back a gasp as Zander stepped, stooping, out of the widening crack of the secret door at the foot of her dais. He beckoned urgently, a finger to his lips.