That was just the beginning.
FROM MEMORIES BY JEVAN LOR’VAKAYNE, SON OF SAVRA.
25
“This is unacceptable!” Gishna blurted, choking on her own voice.
Her servants hadn't prepared her chair and the ironwood's sharp edges pressed cruelly into her frail skin. Her old bones stiffened, refusing to budge. It was worse than a Daushalan dungeon, or so she imagined. She'd never been in those dark cells. Her frame rattled and her vision darkened for a moment.
Not yet, she thought. Goddess above, give me one more season! Just one more! I can do it all in one more season!
“The news of this… this kidnapping,” she said grimly, “has reached the middling houses. Rumors are becoming gossip. They say the house was proper Mornae even if it was a Zauhune vassal, supporters of the goddess-champion no less, and so the perpetrators could not be Naukvyrae. Didn't your man leave the markings? Is he an idiot?”
Maunyn stood across from her at the entrance to her private audience chamber.
“We can't be called to court!” she said. “I can't risk losing anyone of quality.”
“Or land in the east valley,” he said.
“No! No!” she said, her neck straining and shooting pain through her. “Never,” she said with a whimper.
“It was a simple mistake,” Maunyn said. “With your approval, we can press the matron. With appropriate pressure, I'm certain she will offer the girl.”
Gishna scoffed at the offer. “I can't waste my influence on such meager efforts. This is for you to handle. I let you keep that border rat, don't I? His head should be on a spike, but you are too soft. Imagine that, master of Isilmyr.”
He offered no retort, so she asked, “Where will it stop? I worry night and day about the scriptorium with all those scribes and diviners, proliferating like festival puppets. Who can tell who is who? I surely cannot. No one can find out! My diviners act against me, I know it.”
She should stop haranguing, but everything she said was true. Yet another underling who could not fulfill his duty. This was on Maunyn. She'd not let anyone convince her otherwise.
“Your man, your problem,” she said. “Clean this mess before it spreads.”
She heaved, overcome by the fear that her misdeeds, her offenses against the goddess, her abuse of the goddess's promise to them, became known.
Maunyn pressed a warm cup to her hand, but she refused it. She wouldn't let him win back her attention so easily.
“Valley folk have no need of matrons, anyway,” she said. “They have children like rabbits. They've no need to strive for the heights and can afford to be empty vessels. No one expects blue fire or calls to the Dark from them.”
She sounded like her mother, and her mother before her. Desperate! This way of thinking was foreign… the goddess could favor any living thing, but they had locked up the crater, caged it in rules and traditions no one could live up to anymore. And look what that had done! Rot! Nothing but rot within. Clutching and grasping at the goddess like sand through their fingers.
She covered Maunyn's form in white, preferring to look at a tiny plant the seer had gifted her. If she mastered its secrets, its dark, wide leaves offered a new opportunity to prolong her waning life.
“If we continue this way,” Maunyn said, “we'll have no vassals left. The lowborn expect to suffer, but the middle ranks see the heights and crave them. They see themselves in that unfortunate house. They suffer with it even though it's a Zauhune vassal. That discontent will spread to the crater, and not just because of this one case. Then what?”
“Our house will be solidly ensconced at third,” she said. “None can dislodge us unless there is another civil war. Goddess, preserve us from such a calamity. No, the vassals can wait. Once we are at our strength, we can reseed the garden.” She twisted in her seat. “I forget you're not of the valley. You don't understand what it means to start over from a mere seedling. They will change their minds once they know what I have done for them.”
He remained stone-faced, unwilling to allow her a victory.
She sighed. How sad it was to not have a proper consort, to spar endlessly with this grim knight. It wasn't even amusing banter.
“Kill that boy,” she said. “I cannot have this mishap finding its way back to my throne. Not now when we are so close. Once the valmasin arrive, our allies will come begging. Don't let your Naukvyrae friends fool you— oh yes, I know about them.” She didn't, but his face remained impassive. “They'll all come to us wanting to test their house member, wanting to mark their power by the single word they only whisper in shadows: voravin.”
The word had many meanings: true, worthy, capable… pure.
“You think Vakayne will come begging?” he asked.
Gishna propped herself up. “Vakayne more than any of them. It will bring me the hairs of its bloodhouses and candidates. It may be a lion, but it is cornered and growing thin. Mark my words, etch them in stone: it may be the last to go, but it will go. The path we are on leads nowhere but the pyre. Soon only the pears and vines and wooly yaks will remain, and they will reclaim the crater until it is their time as well.”
“I didn't know you were a prophet,” Maunyn said. His lips turned down, disfiguring his handsome face.
“When you've no eyes, you see more than you should,” she retorted.
He seemed unimpressed. He'd heard all her sayings before. None of her sufferings made her wise.
“And if I send this boy to the border?” he asked.
Gishna wagged a crooked finger at him. “He's seen you, heard you. A child can remember many things, especially if an adept gets hold of him. No, make it look like the Naukvyrae, or better yet, a nomad sacrifice. Throw some ram heads in there for good measure. They'll blame Roturra even more than they do now.”
She chuckled at her own creativity. That was a fire she didn't mind stoking.
Maunyn looked down. Amazing how so powerful a man softened at the most unlikely things.
“It's just a boy!” she screeched. She regained her composure. “They can have more,” she whispered. “Our plans must not unravel, consort. We must contain this rot until the valmasin arrive and we can finally link all the trees, grafting in the required houses, and heal. It is not enough to bed every matron in the valley. We must seek candidates inside the crater, and for that, we need these green-eyed monsters. We need volunteers. Now is the time for bold action!”
“The risk is considerable,” he said. “If the rumors of valley folk concern you, think about what would happen if those rumors flowed into Isilmyr… and beyond.”
She nodded. He was right, of course, but goddess above, it must be done. Her ministers were prattling on about Alcar globes in the south, peoples in ancient lands rising against their rulers, and unholy magic twisting creatures into monsters. Alcar globes signaled not only that there were survivors, but they'd harnessed their power once more, and they were prepared to expand their influence again. They had time, of course. They planned not just for the cycles. Theirs were eons. Her house was not ready for any of it. Her lush, enchanted east valley stood defenseless. Of course, whatever came would strike Roturra first in the south valley. That gave her time, but how much?
“My minions are doing their part,” she said. “Let us hope yours are as useful. How many have we gotten this year from our Zauhune mouse?”
