As soon as the door clicked shut, Matja Allina brought her hands up, clutched at the table’s edge. “Pirs? There’s word?”
“No, Allina, it’s early yet. This is almost as bad.” She looked down at her hands, touched the ring of keys at her belt. “I was in the Family Garden, setting up the screens for your tea. I heard glass breaking. It was Kulyari, she was trying to get into the study. I had her taken back to her room, there was a cut on her wrist, I used that as an excuse. Loujary was with me, you know, to shift the screens. He had to be rough with her.”
“I understand. If she complains, I’ll back you. Go on.”
“Yes. Well. I saw the summons light blinking on the com;
I expect Kulyari did, too, and that’s why she tried to break in. Anyway, I thought it was someone calling her and it might help if I saw who it was. But it wasn’t for her, it was Tribbi. You remember my half sister, the one who keeps Aynti Tingger? Yes, well, she kept trying to get us, but with the door locked there was no one to answer the com. She wanted to warn us. Your father-by-law, the Artwa Arring Cagharadad flew in yesterday with his bodyguards and bedwarmer and Rintirry. He stayed there overnight, left this morning. He’ll be here sometime before sundown.”
Matja Allina looked down at her hands. They were shaking. She flattened them on the table. There was no color at all in her face. “How very convenient,” she said. “That Rintirry’s here when the news comes about Pirs. How very, very convenient.”
She sat silent a moment, staring at nothing.
“Before sundown. Well.” She forced herself upright. “I doubt there’s a chance Pirs will be back tonight, even if Wuraj comes up with him and nothing’s happened.” She lifted a hand, let it fall, a curious halfhearted gesture as if she were too weary to finish what she’d started. “Aghilo, find Tinoopa quickly; warn her about this descent on us. As soon as you’ve done that, go see Cook, you know what we’ll want. We’re not supposed to know he’s coming, but we’d better cater to his tastes as closely as we can. The supplicants. It’s nearly teatime, anyway. Tell Polyapo to send them away as soon as the list is finished. Um… you know which servants to put with the Artwa. No maids. He’ll have to make do with the bedwarmer he’ll bring with him. Um. As soon as the skimmer’s down, send word round to the women that Rintirry’s come. No girl between eight and fourteen is to show her face or anything else as long as he’s here. They know him, but I want to make sure. Warn Tinoopa about him, tell her if Polyapo tries to send a girl to serve any of that party, she should take care it doesn’t happen; she can use any means she needs to, I’ll back her. Warn her to stay as inconspicuous as possible. For her own sake. Let Polyapo do the greeting and appear to give the orders. Tell her my father-by-law can’t abide dark faces. He’d have her whipped on the slightest suspicion of insolence. That she’s breathing and on her feet would be enough. Be as frank with her as you think useful, I won’t ask what you say to her. So. Anything more? Good. Go, luv, quickly.
She watched Aghilo scurry out, then she scrubbed her hand across her mouth. “Kizra, come here.”
Kizra brought the arranga with her, lifted it to play, but let it fall when Matja Allina shook her head.
“I have to say to you what I told Aghilo to say to Tinoopa. Stay in the background as much as you can. I won’t be able to hide you, not with Kulyari making mischief. She knows the Artwa’s…” She twisted her face in a brief fastidious grimace. “I said he can’t abide dark faces. That’s not the whole truth, child. He won’t have them around him-except in his bed. And the more reluctant they are, the better. In his eyes, this isn’t rape because they are beasts and beasts are put on this world to use as one pleases. But don’t worry, child, you’ll be safe enough.” She rested her hand on the bulge of her son. “Pregnant women are indulged, especially when they carry sons; if I have a fancy to keep you with me, he can’t demand you. And Rintirry has to keep his hands to himself, be thankful for that. Unless he can catch you alone somewhere. After they’re settled in, I want you to sleep in my sitting room. Never leave me when you’re out of it. I don’t want trouble, not now. Ay-Amurra if only Pirs were here…”
She sighed, shifted among the pillows, then grunted as pain seized hold of her.
Kizra hurried around the table, set her hands on Mina’s neck and, did again what she’d done before, transferred calm and relaxation so that the tension in the woman untied itself and flowed away and took with it the pain. She stepped back. “Do you want me to call the men to take you upstairs? You know you’ll need all the strength you have once the Artwa comes.”
“No. I’m not going upstairs, not yet. It’s lovely outside. We’ll have tea in the garden as I planned.” Matja Allina touched her face, looked at the damp on her fingertips from the sweat that was beading her brow. “Yes. Get the lists from Polyapo as soon as they’re finished, you can read them to me later.”
14
It was warm in the garden; the high mud walls kept the worst of the wind off, the late afternoon sun was still high and bright enough to flush the perfume from the flowers and draw shimmers of heat off the pond; the fountains glittered and murmured, jiltis and flying jejantis hummed and skritched, the new green leaves on the trees whispered together, the flowering plums shed pale pink and white petals that landed on the grass and stirred again as Ingva and Yla played with their cats and chased each other in endless games of tag and catch.
Matja Allina was stretched in a lounge chair, sipping at a cup of broth when she remembered to, drowsing in the sun, listening to her children play and to the flowing music of the arranga. A maid was massaging her feet, the screens Aghilo had set about her captured the sunlight and the warmth while the sorrowing willow beside her provided enough shade to ease her eyes. Tinoopa was handling the House, there was nothing she could do to avert the trouble coming at them, so she set aside her troubles and let herself enjoy the afternoon.
Kizra was bored.
She hated that nothing music she was tinkling from the arranga, she hated the bugs crawling on her arms, miggas and tarynas and a dozen other kinds of pest, she hated the willow pollen getting in her eyes and up her nose, not quite making her sneeze. And she was cold. She was in deep shadow, close beside the trunk of the willow. No sun for her. And if she stopped playing to slap at the bugs or scratch, she got a fratchetty complaint from the Matja. There was one blessing in all this, she didn’t have to think… she was getting tired of questions and ghosts and wondering…
A small gray-green lizard ran up the trunk; she caught the movement from the corner of her eye, but didn’t really see what it was until he was almost nose to nose with her. She stared at him and he stared back, loose gray-green skin, tiny orange eyes…
Shock jolted through her. She dropped the arranga, cried out.
The lizard ran away and she fainted.
##
She was out only a moment, opened her eyes to find the girls bending anxiously over her.
“What is it? What happened?” Ingva clutched at her arm, shook it. “Why did you do that?”
Kizra blinked, winced at the pain in her head. She’d hit a knotty root when she went down. Moving stiffly, she sat up. “A lizard,” she said. Her voice was hoarse; saying the word sent more shocks through her. “It scared me.”
“Lizard.” Ingva got to her feet. “Lizard won’t hurt you,” she flung over her shoulder, “Ylie, come on, let the ol’ fraidycat lay there, I got the mocsoc, come see come see…”
Stomach cramping, black spots with tailed halos swimming dizzily in front of her, Kizra pushed up onto her knees. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, she could feel the Matja’s anger, the children’s scorn, the indifference of the housemaids standing like plants in the background-she could feel out beyond them the life in the compound, busy busy life… Everything enormously brighter, stronger, hammering at her… As if some sort of filter had been peeled from her brain…