She stopped at a familiar name: Toshtolin.
“A fine bloodline,” she muttered. And if she correctly recalled, it was an ancient offshoot of Hosmyr on both sides, matron and consort. “How did this happen?”
Sinnin stepped closer. “That one did not go as planned, high matron,” he said. “If you recall, the intended consort took the diviner’s oath. The young matron chose the second son. A tender.”
Gishna let out a held breath and coughed. Her frame rattled. In her mind she traveled the genealogical diagrams, from tree to tree, branch to branch, binding and mating across the centuries to that one house. Toshtolin was born of a second daughter’s second daughter. Those had been trying times when the third accord instituted the rules about priestesses and knights, and the temple and Isilayne founded.
“I purposely sent the elder Nevtar boy to bind the taint in that line,” she said. “I need that house!”
Sinnin shrugged. “The Son of Nevtar decided otherwise, and the young matron made her choice before we could propose a better one. Apparently, there was an attraction between her and the second son.”
Gishna turned her head more, cracking her shoulders and neck and suffering the shooting pain. She needed to see the name. Her gauzy vision cleared for a moment and focused long enough to read the name Taul. Marks, dots, and lines followed the name, a shorthand code of the scriptorium. The match still could have been a success if her memory was correct. She strained to remember.
The couple had tried for a child far too early. That was the only explanation. Gishna knew the signs and the pains well enough. She had not listened to her own mother. She had done the opposite of what her own matron mother recommended. It was only with the goddess’s opportune favor that she had birthed Julissa.
Her finger skipped across the page to the Toshtolin matron’s entry, calculating her age.
“So young, that matron,” she said. “A sad business.”
Gishna gripped the ledger. What were these matrons thinking? And what hope did she have of healing her people of this taint with such foolish members?
Time crowded her, pressed on her, demanded so much now when she had little time. The pieces of the mosaic were all out there, but would she have the time to gather them, to arrange them? And then there was plain old luck. The goddess was fickle. Nature was fickle.
Sinnin placed another list in front of her. The proposed pairings, the proposed fixes. So many of them, women and men, girls and boys, not all within her domain. The Zauhune champion’s victories at the next court—sure to be bloody—would bring her victory as well, filling her house with fresh blood. If Zauhune won lands in the south, she might dare pluck from them. Nature had determined Hosmyr’s destiny cycles ago, destruction in its very blood. But the name would endure. And her heiress. And, if all went well, her granddaughter would see the cycles. Gishna could die satisfied then.
She tapped the ledger. Maybe not satisfied, but close enough. She pushed aside the new report and looked down the list of failures. Only two bore the single tick of ink above the name signifying what she thought meant they had tender blood in them. She’d raised the question before, but they assured her it was not important. Something niggled her mind, though. Doubts about the seer. And yet she must trust him. His knowledge was beyond her, beyond anything the Mornae knew.
“Send word to my sons,” she said. “They are to attend the spring court.” She held up a finger as Sinnin’s assistant turned to leave. “And I want to know every detail of what happens there. Make that clear. Send a scribe with them as well. I expect a detailed report.”
“Should they aid the Zauhune champion if possible?” Nathin asked.
She nodded once.
Nathin bowed deeply and left them.
Estates were at stake. Lands from which she had not plucked. Lands ripe with new bloodlines. She would never trespass directly on Zauhune, but in the south valley, she might dare.
“I’ll see my consort as soon as he returns from his work,” she said.
Sinnin placed the harvest ledger before her. The land would yield eventually, as it had for thirteen cycles. There were always dips. Nature didn’t write in a straight line. That comforted her. She pushed it aside. This other matter, the great matter, weighed on her.
A servant brought a plate of thinly sliced cheese and pears, a cluster of berries to the side. She dropped a berry in her mouth, crushing it, savoring it. They tasted the same as ever, and behind the tang, the taste only a Mornae could perceive. She closed her eyes and let it work its way through her.
“Hesvin,” she said. “The girl. Let’s start with her. Make the preparations to confine her. Decide who among the Toshtolin is a good match. I will not let that house fall even if its current matron must.”
“Do you mean to form a new house?”
She shook her head. “No, the name must endure. The orchard is bound to it. I’ll not have a war over it. Just find a suitable replacement. Preferably a matron who's wise enough to think of her house first.”
“As you say, high matron,” Thensil said. “I will consult with the seer myself.”
Good, she thought. I don’t think I can bear listening to him. The goddess is fickle, he’ll say, and I’ll want to gouge out his eyes with my claws.
“Thank you, Thensil. Inform my consort. Let him give the work to whomever he thinks fit enough. It must happen before the winter gong. I’ll tolerate no delay. It must happen before Hesvin decides something inopportune during the winter.”
She stared at the ledgers sprawled out on the table.
“One more thing,” she said. “Send word to this tender. Let him know we expect Toshtolin to remedy this problem within a year’s time starting today. A little pressure may cause unfortunate events that can aid the transition to a more worthy pair.”
They bowed and left her, as she picked at the food.
Despite the gloomy reports, there was still hope.
12
Crags of black stone loomed overhead, jutting up straight and high into a white sky. The crater’s stern facade judged him, and Ren shrank away from it, huddled against a merchant’s stall. Did it know he’d arrived late and probably missed his chance for an easy entry into the mark’s estate? If it didn’t happen today, he’d have to break in at night or wait until spring. Both options were no good. His master expected the task’s completion by the winter gong and this estate was no pushover, even if it was in the Outers. It was a proper house with guards, dozens of servants, and a maze of rooms and halls. He’d need time to case it. Today gave him a straightforward way in, just as his handler had explained it. The crone had ordered it ring-to-chest. It was today or never.
He’d wanted more important work… now it just needed doing. This was his chance to show his betters what he was worth to them.
The principal market of outer Halkamas—or Lowkamas, as the commoners called it—was an acre of paved stone with stalls for houses that could afford the rent. Those that couldn’t set up makeshift stalls along the streets feeding into it. Black stone towers rose from clusters of white-walled square buildings on the north side: ancient vaults, magistrate’s offices for tax collection, and the warehouses used to store the goods represented by the chits in their pockets. His own wealth sat in a Hosmyr vault, piling up so high he could barely remember it all. Despite his riches, today he played the role of a common laborer, men who had only three or four wood chits at any time. He’d tucked six pairs of them throughout his person just in case.
From beneath a worker’s wool cap, he squinted up at the carved frame of the massive arched tunnel that led into the crater. Glyphs and symbols adorned it, no doubt harboring enormous magic and power unlike anything he could ever produce. Black as night, it swallowed the sunlight. He stared at it a moment, but the glyphs were too large and shadowed to read. No matter how hard he tried, he never heard a sound come from inside the tunnel or the crater.
That’s how they wanted it, the high-born. Keeping the low even lower. Those glyphs and stones must have a special sorcery to keep the good in and the bad out.
His nose twitched. The smell had a way of wafting out and slapping your face. It was dry and sharp. He knew it to be sorcery, not unlike the kind that danced along his fingers, but so far beyond his meager power. As a boy, he’d thought that if he could decipher the glyphs, they’d let him in. Now, older and wiser, he’d walk the outer ring of Vaidolin, a hundred miles out of the way, before cutting through the crater. He’d never been inside. The tunnels didn’t count.
The crater must be silent, eerie, and oppressive as the smell coming out of it, but in the Outers there was a different oppression: the sweating bodies and strange faces of new peoples crowding as close as they could to the source of power, close to the seat of the goddess, but mostly the power that they could touch and feel. Chits. He preferred this oppression. It was something he knew and understood. Something at which he was good. And out here, he was a great sorcerer, a god.
